Page:Memoir of a tour to northern Mexico.djvu/83

Rh make slow progress, is, the large haciendas. That independent class of small farmers who occupy the greatest part of the land in the United States is here but poorly represented, and the large estates cultivate generally less ground than many smaller but independent farmers.

As a grazing country, both States are unsurpassed by any in the Union. Millions of stock can be raised every year in the prairies of the high tableland and in the mountains. Cattle, horses, mules, and sheep increase very fast; and if more attention were paid to the improvement of the stock, the wool of the sheep alone could be made the exchange for the greatest part of the present importation. But to accomplish that, the wild Indians, who chiefly in the last ten years have crippled all industry in stock raising, have first to be subdued.

Mining, another main resource of the country, needs to some degree, also, protection from the Indians, because valuable mines have sometimes been given up, from their incursions; and other districts, rich in minerals, cannot be even explored, for the same reason.

The silver mines of the State of Chihuahua, though worked for centuries, seem to be inexhaustible. The discovery of new mines is but a common occurrence; and attracted by them, the mining population moves generally from one place to another without exhausting the old ones. To make the mining more effectual, onerous duties and partial restrictions ought to be abolished, and sufficient capital to work them more thoroughly and extensively would soon flow to the State. New Mexico seems to be as rich in gold ore as Chihuahua is in silver; but yet, less capital and greater insecurity have prevented their being worked to a large extent.

To develop all those resources which nature has bestowed upon these two States, another condition of things is wanted than at present prevails there: a just, stable, and strong government is, before all, needed, that can put down the hostile Indians, give security of person and property to all, allow free competition in all branches of industry, and will not tax the people higher than the absolute wants of the government require. Under such a government, the population, as well as the produce of the country, would increase at a rapid rate; new outlets would be opened to commerce, and the people would not only become richer and more comfortable, but more enlightened, too, and more liberal.

Is there at present any prospect of such a favorable change?

The Mexicans, since their declaration of independence, have been involved in an incessant series of local and general revolutions throughout the country, which prove that republican institutions have not taken root amongst them, and that, although they have thrown off the foreign yoke, they have not learned yet to govern themselves. It could hardly be expected, too, that a people composed of two different races, who have mixed but not assimilated themselves, should, after an oppression of three centuries, at once be fir for a republic. Fanaticism alone may overthrow an old government, but it wants cool and clear heads to establish a new one adapted to the people, and a certain intellect of the whole people to maintain permanently a republic. But this wide-spread intellect does not exist yet in the mass of the Mexican populace, or they would not have been duped, as they have been for twenty years past, by the long succession of egotistical leaders, whose only aim and ambition was power and plunder; and during all these disgraceful internal revolutions, neither the general nor local governments have done anything to spread more intellect