Polynesian. [volume], August 03, 1844, Image 1

About Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY, AT HONOLULU, OAklU, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.
J. J. JARVES, Editor.
SATURDAY, AUGUST tf, 1811.
NEW SERIES, Vol. 1. No. .
Por the Pohjncnian.
TO A LADY.
O let not joy and hope combine,
To weave a chaplct for my brow;
'T would be as when white ivies twine
Around the cypress or the yew.
Let no enraptured peraph's lyre
Its thrilling symphonies impart.
Or strive to light a kindred tire,
Or wake to joy my bursting heart !
Nor friendship' soothing accents roll
In filtering sighs upon my car;
In vain to calm my troubled soul,
Or dry the grief-engendcred tear !
But let aflection's downy hand,
Fair lady, weave a faded wreath,
And gently bind the withered band
Around my sadden'd brow of grief !
I'm sure 'twould add a transient gleam
To weeping sorrow's fading eye;
I'm sure 'twould cheer life's parting beam,
In chaste aflection's arms to dio !
COMMUNICATED.
MEXICO.
Report on its Finances under the Spanish
Government, since its independence, and
prospects of their improvement under the
Presidency of His Excellency Don Antonio
Lopez dc Santa Anna; with calculations
of the Public Debt Foreign and Domestic
Average of Estimates, Revenue and Expen
diture', to which are added Tables illustra
tive of its Commercial, Manufacturing, and
prohibitive policy, und Remarks on Coloni
zation; the whole intouled for the infor
mation of Merchants, Emigrants, and the
holders of Mexican Bonds.
Br Robert Crichtow Wyllie.
As in Spain itself, Contraband is the bane
both of trade and revenue. Baron Hum
boldt remarked that under the Spanish gov
ernment, in spite of night-patrols, and nu
merous Custom house guards, supported at
great expense, and in spite of severe penal
laws, Contraband will necessarily continue,
until the incentive of profit be diminished
by a total change in the custom house laws.
He says, the duties were then so enormous
that they added from 35 to 40 per cent on
the price of foreign goods imported in Span
ish vessels. What would he have said now
of the different Tariffs which have been in
force since 182G, imposing duties of 100,
150, and 200 and upwards, per cent, on the
price of foreign goods most used by the low
er classes ?
By looking over the "Mcmorias of the
different Ministers of Finance, from 1822
downwards, I find them all bewailing the
enormous contraband that prevailed every
where, and the almost universal corruption
of their own functionaries; but at the same
time promising a better state of things,
through the active and efficient measures
contemplated by the Executive, and Legis
lature of the time. Yet, the monster evil,
seems to have grown from year to year,
drawing fresh life and vigor, from the very
measures adopted by the government for its
annihilation. Proofs of what I say are to be
found in every " Memoria, and in the ad
missions ot all the ministers, (many ot whom
wave been men of knowledge, talent, and
probity) who havo successively administered
the financial affairs of the Republic.
u would occupy too much of my time and
space to cive quotations from them all. But
the following remarks by Don Antonio Garay,
in his " Memoria' of 183 1, are apposite,
that I cannot resist the temptation of trans
lating them. Speaking of the revenue ari
sing from maritime Custom houses, he says,
"But in tho stato in which it now exists,
it wounds the sensibility of tho man who tru
ly love9 his country, to reflect that what is
collected of maritime duties, without risk of
mistake, may be pronounced to be not one
half of what they ought, legally, to produce;
and, although a great part of the excess, at
first view, ought to afford a tolerable fortune
1,1 those who absorb it, it is not so, m reality,
for the very facility with which thev acauire
it, and their dependence upon the incxhaust
ablc resources of their appointments, makes
them to be careless of its preservation, and
leads them to squander it, by means as ille
gal as those by which they acquired it, and
all this without encouragement in any sense
or way to those branches of industry which
constitute public wealth." "The Govern
ment believes, in good faith," speaking of
a remedy " that it would be fully obtained,
by only diminishing the rates of the duties;
regulating the laws which apply to the con
fiscation of smuggled goods, so as to leave
no loophole for their evasion, and to appro
priate the whole value of the goods confisca
ted to those who seize or denounce them, as
the most effectual stimulus to the faithful dis
charge of their duties, and by enacting clear,
positive, and even very severe laws, against
all the " Employes," be they of what class
they may, who directly, or indirectly, pro
tect, foment or conceal Contraband, clearly
designating every class of crimes and faults,
and appointing Employes of probity and in
telligence, with good salaries, punctually
paui; uccause u is abundantly evident, that
in this way all the great merchants belong
ing to the nations which trade with Mexico,
whenever they observe a diminution of du
ties, leaving on their speculations a sure,
though small profit, will make their remittan
ces ot goods, in good faith, and will not expose
them to the risk of being confiscated for a
trifling saving of duty; that they will enlarge
the scaled their operations, that tho public
will buy the goods they want at a price lower
in proportion to me amount ot duty taken on,
and that the " employes," secure in a decent
subsistence, seeing that the bribe for their
seduction cannot be so large as at present,
and fearing the weight of a law condemning
them to the contempt and execration of their
fellow-citizens, would not so easily sell them
selves, but would fulfil their duties with fidel
ity; and finally that public morality, in this
respect, would improve, in place of being as
at present, in a state of total decline."
Nobody could have more clearly exposed
the monster evil of this Republic, in all its
hideous deformity, than Senor Garay, nor
could any one have recommended means
more effectual for its destruction. But,
alas ! the only efficient one of those means,
an adequate reduction of the Import, and
other duties, was neglected, and without it
all the others were of no use. Thus we
find Don Joaqiiin Lebrija, the able minister
of Finance, in 1837, in his " memoria of
that year, speaking of the financial system
which still prevailed, as one that only tend
ed to the absorption of the fortunes of indi
viduals as, " the only problem solved by Mexi
can sequestralion;ma as one practically lea
ving the road of fraud open to all who tried
to commit it. We find Don Francisco Lorn
bardo, the enlightened minister of Finance,
in 1839, in his "memoria, of that year,
saying: "Even without taking into consid
eration the species of necessity which oflen
leads to contraband, arising from the very
impossibility of avoiding it, in every case,
from the great inequality in the value of
goods which regularly pay the duties, and
those which escape the vigilance of the cus
tom houses, there will always exist an incen
tive to it, more powerful than all laws, which
is personal interest, encouraged by avarice,
which resorts almost uniformly to the cor
rupt means of bribery to nullify the opposi
tion of the Custom house officers, and often
even the zeal of pure employes, who under
other circumstances would remain faithful
to the nation, and to their own consciences.
The simple necessity of committing fraud, is
an inexhaustible source of immorality, which
ramifying itself in every direction, vitiates
all classes, and throws insuperable obstacles
in tho way of all branches of the public ad
ministration." We find Don Javier Echc
verria, minister of Finance, in 1840, in his
"memoria' of that year, estimating the
yearly product of tho Custom houses at 6,
sSA t i if it. i? i.
uuu,uuu ot aonars, supposing me cxcnion oi
"tho greatest vigilance upon the public
employes," and further remarking " unless
the laws be properly applied the excess of
. 1 A I . A J
mo passions cannoi no restrained, nor can
the abuses and irregularities which arc com
mitted, to the defraudmcnt of the sacred in
terests of the public Treasury be corrected.
The means of the government are not suffi
cient to restrain this tremendous evil which
destroy public morality, and attacks the
basis of the social edifice. The Judicial au
thority ban a direct influence upon the wel
fare of the nation, when it proceeds honest
ly, awarding condign punishment to delin
quents, and thereby preventing the efforts
and endeavors of the speculator, in league
with the employe, faithless to the govern
ment and the nation. Let the Judges pro
ceed with impartiality, let the law be applied
with severity, and only so will be arrested
the progress of a cancer which, under the
shield of the impunity of crimes, is already
eating into the very entrails of society."
After these admissions on the part of five
of the most talented, honest, and experi
enced of Mexican financiers, I will not be
considered hasty, rash or uncharitable, if I
pronounce Contraband to be an evil, which
did exist, it is true, under the Spanish Gov
ernment, but which acquired ten-fold vigor
under the Independent Government, and
which, for '23 years, has resisted all attempts
that have been made to cure it.
Now, whence derives its existence, this
monster evil, this reproach of the Mexican
name, this foul blot on Republicanism, this
devourer of the vitals of the country, this
cause oi us uanKiupicy ana uiscreuit, oi un
paid soldiers, civil servants and creditors.
This curse, or cancer, spreading every
where, vitiating all ranks and classes of citi
zens, corrupting their morality, eating into
the very entrails of society, and sapping the
groundwork itself on which the social edifice
stands, in proud defiance of all fiscal and
penal laws, and confessedly beyond the
means of Government to control it ?
I answer unhesitatingly, and without fear
of contradiction, founded upon the nature
of men and things, as tried and proved by
23 years' experience in the fiscal system
which has been adopted, and pertinaciously
clung to, ever since Mexico became inde
pendent. In confirmation of this opinion, I refer the
reader to the table marked No. 2, in the
Appendix, prepared at my request, by one
of the best informed and most respectable
merchants of this city. It shews, in one
connected and comparative point of view,
the prime cost of six principal articles
of consumption, and a calculation of the
duties leviable thereon, under the different
Tariffs that have been in force, since 1826,
and that will be levied in 1844, under the
new Tariff lately decreed. Let any mer
chant, any statesman, or any political econ
omist examine that statement, and the sys
tem of exorbitant duties which it unfolds,
and then say, if a system more favorable to
the Contrabandist, more ruinous to the Im
porter, more prejudicial to the Consumer,
and more detrimental to the public revenue,
could have been invented.
Yet it is not to be suspected that the Mex
ican Lcgislatarc wished to check the pro
gress of the extensive, and naturally rich
country, for which they make laws. Bred
up in the Spanish school of Political Econo
my, and inheriting all the prejudices of their
fore-fathers, their legislation takes its char
acter from that of the mother country. Hence
arises the anomaly, that tho' the most enlight
ened of their ministers of Finance, have pub
lished calculations of the loss to the Treasu
ry by the prohibition of foreign Cottons, and
recommended a reduction of duties as the
only effectual remedy for contraband, all
such arguments have been lost upon those
who frame the laws, who, like those of Spain,
in the face of the lessons derived from other
nations, and from their own experience,
have piously stuck to tho maxim that two
and two make four; in other words, that if
the treasury be in want, and if an existing
duty of fifty per cent yield five millions of
dollars, by putting on another fifty, they will
get ten millions.
That this maxim is not to be relied on, in
matters of revenue, ha9 been proved over
and over again in other countries, and has
recently been proved in this, in the case of
the la per cent consumption duty. Upon
the effect of that duty, the Ex. minister, Don
Javier Echeverria, thus expresses himself:
"Jo the (acuity which exists in our coun
try for contraband, is added the stimulus
given to it by the surcharge now of 10 per
cent to the 5 per cent consumption hitherto
levied on foreign goods; because there exists
no doubt that to increase the contribu
tions, is to diminish their products, es
pecially where their collection rests upon
guuu mini oi inoso who owe me amies,
and of the employe's who receive them. And,
will there ever bo good faith on the part of
William Drusinn, K.
the former, when he who religiously pays
the Custom house dues, is well awaro that
he cannot compete in the market with those
who avoid them by fraud, who arc the great
est number ? These arc not considerations
of a merely speculative order; they are the
result of experience, and the data which the
ministry already possesses, prove that ex
cepting in Mexico, and one other Custom
house, the 15 per cent consumption duty is
producing only the same or as much as the
5 per cent; and if that duty continues, as at
present, it may be predicted that the reve
nue from the maritime and internal Custom
houses will decrease; for the fact is, he who
conveys from one market to another, domes
tic goods with foreign goods, to hide the lat
ter, conceals also the former, and in the
sea-board and frontier custom houses, either
there will bo a falling off in the importations
from the diminished profits, or the consump
tion will be less, or the smuggler will in
crease his efforts to evade that internal bur
den on his goods."
Furthermore, the late minister of Finance,
Cansero in his memoria of 1841, in a rote
on the 2d page of his Table No. 3, with ref
erence to the 15 per cent Consumption duty
says: "the great contraband in tho inte
rior may be inferred from this, that the 5
per cent levied on 'intcrnaHcn1 in the ports.
yielded $82 1, 522-4-9 J grains, and the 10 per
cent on liquors $77,527-i-3 f rs. (both seem
ing included in the sum of 2.:5C8t4fJ8-l-3j
referred to,) the 15 per HM in the inter
nal custom nouses only produced j ,109,383-
l-iik, m place ot $2,400,000, which was what
corresponded, in proportion."
Alter these illustrations, not by any for
eigner interested in deceiving them, as they
are too apt to suspect, but from two of their
own ministers of Finance, if the Mexican
congress men will not give up the point.
that in matters of revenue, two and two do
not always make four, thev must admit that,
occasionally, 5 multiplied by 3, docs not
make 15, in what concerns the products of
the duties they establish.
But those who pretend to lead public
opinion in this country, and really mislead
it, meet all such demonstrations with the
argument if such it can be called that the
rules of political economy applicable to other
countries, are actually inapplicable to this.
A principle of this kind once established, and
carried out to its fullest extent, would not
only effectually bar all social and political
improvement, but throw the Mexican popu
lation into a retrograde course, as compared
with all other people. But this is not the
principle they act upon, in matters vitally
affecting their prosperity. Thus, because
cotton and other manufactures have con
tributed greatly to the wealth of England.
they who are in circumstances quite oppo-
i 1- . I" l I.I
sue, seen to esiaDiisn inexr weaun, Dy di
recting their capital and industry to the same
pursuits. And because the native manufac
tories cannot exist under a system of free
trade, they eagerly search after the examples
of other nations to sanction the prohibitions
they have decreed, forgetting previously to
ascertain how far prohibitions in those coun
tries promoted or retarded their prosperity;
and if the former, how far, the example,
from a parity or disparity of circumstances,
is applicable to themselves. While they
would thus copy the example of England, in
her manufactures, which I conscientiously
believe it is not their interest to attempt, in
1824, they rashly copied from the United
States their Federal Constitution, wholly
inapplicable to the former unity of their own
body-politic, and neglected those means
of augmenting their population and the pro
ductions of their soil,' to which, and not to
their manufactures nor their federal institu
tions, do the United States owe their gigantic
growth as a nation.
At the opposite extremity of this continent
exists a people similar to the Mexicans in all
respects, of the same origin, and who have
passed through nearly the same phase
of revolution. The people I refer to are the
Chilians. All who knew them between 1817
and 1830, will remember that they too had
the notion that gold and silver constituted
the only real wealth, that high duties were
the best means to keep that wealth in the
country, and to fill the treasury, and that
while such opinions prevailed, the people
were poor and disturbed, the treasury empty,
the troops badly clothed and paid, public
credit gone, the country swarming with hun
gry discontented military officers, and the
roriMt with fraudulent and corrupt employers.