Cotton goods, woollens, and hardware are thus protected.

We may sum up the statistics of the Mexican cotton-manufacture in a rough way thus,--taking merely into question the coarse cotton cloth called _manta_, and used principally by the Indians.

We may reckon roughly that for this article alone the Mexicans have to pay a million sterling annually more than they could get it for if there were no protection-duty.

The only advantage anybody gets by this is that a certain part of the population is employed in a manufacture unsuited to the country, and is thus taken away from work that may be done profitably.

The actual amount of money paid in wages to the class of operatives thus forced into existence is much _less_ than the amount which the country forfeits for the sake of making its manta at home.
Thus a sum actually amounting to a third of the annual taxation of the country is thrown away upon this one article; and more goes the same way, to encourage similar unprofitable manufactures.
With respect to the silver-mines, it is stated, on competent authority, that the northern States of Mexico are very rich in silver; but there is scarcely any population, and that consisting mostly of Red Indians who will not work.