4. COMMERCE. The efforts of the vari ous governments of Mexico since 1876 have been steadily directed toward the encourage ment and extension of the commerce and in dustries of the country, external and internal. This has been done in the face of many and great difficulties. At the beginning of the Diaz regime Mexico was overburdened with debt, torn and wasted by revolution and party dis sensions. Railway and other communications were lacking; and ports, harbors and regular coast and ocean routes, both passenger and traffic, in the modern sense of the term, were non-existent. Therefore steady and profitable international relationship had not yet been es tablished. Mexico also lacked the educational knowledge and experience necessary for the building up of these. The third of a century spanning the beginning and the end of the Diaz regime witnessed a complete change in the commercial conditions existing in the republic During this period harbors were constructed to accommodate great ocean-going vessels; inter national relations were extended and broad ened; and the industrial, educational and com mercial life of the nation quickened into nota ble activity. But the revolution of 1910 and the fratricidal strife that accompanied it set hack the progress of the republic. Mexican commerce is peculiarly dependent upon the in dustrial and agricultural life of the nation be cause this alone makes possible the purchase of a vast number of foreign products. The dis ruption of the national life through the revo lution vastly decreased the purchasing power of the Mexican people, and this, in its turn, very deeply affected its commercial activity. The almost complete destruction of the cattle business helped to still further intensify this arrested development. Along the old lines of its national life the income of the government declined in sympathy with the anarchical con ditions existing throughout the country, to such an alarming extent that the most primary needs of the nation would have been lacking were it not for the fact that a new and important fac tor made itself felt strongly in the national life and largely supplied the lack in the national income by filling in the gaps caused by the lack of commercial activity throughout the nation. This was the rise to sudden importance of the mineral oil industry during the war years of 1914-18. But the storm and stress period through which the country passed from 1910 to 1919 is significantly reflected in the almost total lack of industrial and commercial statistics relative to the activities of the national life since the fiscal year 1912-13, when the last official census was issued. This latter census represents the
more or less normal life of the nation, which has been gradually returning to its pre-revolu tionary condition throughout the whole extent of its territory.
From 1874 to 1904 the exports of merchan dise from Mexico to the United States in creased from $4,346,334 to $43,633,275; and the imports from the United States increased from $5,946,839 to $45,844,720. In the fiscal year 1912-13 the imports from all countries amounted to $195,772,000. Of this sum $16, 466,000 consisted of animal substances; $31,285 000 of vegetable substances; $46,711,978 of mineral substances; $21,281,571 of dry goods; $12,074,088 of chemical and pharmaceutical products; $6,744,083 of spirituous liquors and other beverages; $5,120,770 of paper and its applications; $23,383,811 of machinery and its parts; $4,600,890 of vehicles; $5,388,344 of arms and explosives, and $9,604,897 of miscellaneous articles. In the same year the exportation totaled $300,405,000, the principal articles being: gold in various forms, $39,591,000• silver in various forms, $91,293,000; copper, S56,522,000; vegetable products, $85,963,000; animal prod ucts, $29,838,000; manufactured products, $3, 549,000; • miscellaneous, $2,917,410. Increase over the previous year, $2,416,000. Of the total importations $97,287,000 were from the United States; $25,220,000 from Germany; $25,900,000 from Great Britain; $18,338,000 from France; and $10,530,000 from Spain. The henequen ex ports, in the same period, were $30,134,000; uncured hides, $11,170,000; vanilla. $3,315,000; beans, $1,160,000; cattle, $7,552,000; leaf to bacco, $1,003,000; chicle (chewing gum), $4, 342,000; fresh fruits, $1,019,000; zacate, $1, 960,000; woods, $3,365,000; sugar, $860,562; Panama hats, $557,423; miscellaneous, $2,471, 000. Of the total exportations $232,350,000 were to the United States; $31,147,000 to Great Britain;$16,438,000 to Germany; $7,151,000 to France; $2,182,000 to Spain. In the previous fiscal year the importations were $182,866,000, and the exportations $297,989,000. In the fiscal year 1894-95 the imports were only $66,200,000 and the exports $95,000,000, a remarkable rec ord of progress in the brief period of 18 years.