Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/99

Rh "orders" and houses. The national Government, however, does not appear to have derived any great fiscal advantage from the confiscation of the Church property, or to have availed itself of the resources which thus came to it for effecting any marked reduction of the national debt Good Catholics would not buy "God's property" and take titles from the state; and so large tracts of land and blocks of city buildings passed, at a very low figure, into the possession of those who were indifferent to the Church, and had command of ready money; and in this way individuals, rather than the state and the great body of the people, have been benefited.