Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/232

222 America will be based to a great degree on apprehension rather than liking. A return of the cannon and flag captured by the armies of the United States in the War of 1847, as heretofore proposed, would undoubtedly greatly contribute to dispel this feeling; but, apart from this, would it not be well for those who are especially anxious to send the gospel to the heathen, to consider whether it conduces to a higher life and civilization, for two neighboring nations to live on a basis which, if made applicable to individual members of the same community, would be regarded as akin to barbarism?

Second. The public debt of Mexico, which is recognized as valid, has been variously estimated. According to the report of the Mexican Secretary of Finance in 1879, the foreign debt of Mexico—exclusive of the enormous liabilities (some £40,000,000) contracted under the empire of Maximilian, and which Mexico (very properly) does not recognize—amounted at that date to $81,632,560: