Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/545

Rh a large and varied assortment of delicious fruits and an unlimited supply of the precious metals which regulate the commerce of nations.

But Mexico is not a manufacturing country, and, perhaps, will never be, while the United States has great need for a wider market for her manufactured goods, which Mexico can purchase of no other country to the same advantage. But as yet our trade is not one-tenth part of what it should be. Lamentable the fact, we have been the very last foreign power to place ourselves on a proper footing with our

near neighbors. A deep and subtle influence lies at the foundation. In the fullness of our well-earned greatness and self-esteem, we constitute ourselves teachers and judges of customs, business relations and social intercourse, under conditions far different from our own. We have made a high standard for ourselves, and if other people do not approximate it, they must be at fault.

But this failure to understand each other is due to several causes. In the first place, we have made no effort to understand them, and, again, unworthy representatives of our country do not hesitate to denounce, publicly upon the street, both the government and the people, and declare in boastful fashion the ability, if not the immediate