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The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable. This year there were fifteen large praus from Macassar, and perhaps a hundred small boats from Ceram, Goram, and Ke. The Macassar cargoes are worth about £1,000. each, and the other boats take away perhaps about £3,000, worth, so that the whole exports may be estimated at £18,000. per annum.
The principal were, a land-tax amounting to one-tenth of the produce of the soil and the mines, the capitation-tax paid by the Jews and Christians, and the fifth of the spoil taken from the enemy an enormously productive item in a time of constant warfare besides a duty of two and a half per cent on all exports and imports.
The foreign trade of the Republic already exceeds $240,000,000 per annum, and of this two-thirds both of exports and imports are exchanged with the United States. Under these circumstances numerous questions necessarily arise between the two countries. These questions are always approached and disposed of in a spirit of mutual courtesy and fair dealing.
Sui-fu has a population of roughly 150,000, and the overcrowding question is not the least important. It is situated to advantage on the right bank of the Yangtze, and does an immense trade in medicines, opium, silk, furs, silverwork, and white wax, which are the chief exports. Gunboats regularly come to Sui-fu during the heavy rains.
The value of foreign merchandise imported during the last fiscal year was $207,240,101, and the value of domestic productions exported was $149,861,911, besides $17,204,026 of foreign merchandise exported, making the aggregate of the entire exports $167,065,937. Exclusive of the above, there was exported $42,507,285 in specie, and imported from foreign ports $5,262,643.
"Are there not among us vicious rich men, who would rashly vote for measures destructive of public good, if they could thereby increase their own wealth? He who exports figs to maintain personal splendour, when there is famine in Attica, has perhaps less public virtue than the beggar, who steals them to avoid starvation."
"There is still time enough," he murmured, "for he has a long road to travel." Not far from the shores of the Laguna de Bay lies the town of San Diego, surrounded by fertile fields and rice plantations. It exports sugar, rice, coffee, and fruits, or sells them at ridiculously low prices to the Chinese, who make large profits out of the credulity and vices of the laborers.
If the present promises of few of these mines are realized, by working them on a scale commensurate with their extent and richness, I have no doubt but that they will equal in production the whole silver exports of Mexico. I think an appropriation ought to be made to sink artesian wells through the Papagos country, between San Xavier and the lower Gila.
It will be remembered in this connection that for more than two centuries Mexico has furnished the world with its principal supply of silver, and that she probably exports to-day about two million dollars worth of the precious metal each month. The production of gold is only incidental, as it were, while the output of silver might be doubled.
The great principle of Free Trade is that in this, and in all similar cases, the individual shall be left to make what profit he can; that his dealings with foreigners shall be interfered with by Government in no way; that he shall not be checked in his operations by import duties, bounties on exports, staples, or any other of the numerous obsolete interferences in the statute-book.
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