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118 another troublesome period. Quien sabe? say the Mexicans. It is true, one never can tell.

A poor-rich nation is Mexico. Rich, because foreign intellect, foreign capital, foreign engineers and foreign business men developed her resources and made her so. Poor, because the revolutions have pestered the foreigners and Mexico in somewhat the same way that an army of Hessian flies destroys a wheat field. But to-day the revolutionists have discovered that the battle cry, Down with the foreigners who exploited us!—though it may win a revolution—does not help reconstruction. The old sign which was illuminated throughout the world under President Diaz—Welcome, foreigners!—is being put up again by timid hands; and it will not be long before it is lighted so brightly that it can be read in the darkest corners of the sceptical business world. This poor little rich nation wants to be as rich in gold as in natural wealth, and the government is beginning to realise that only the hated foreigners have the gold.

There is so much of the melodramatic in Mexican life to-day that one is apt to overlook what is going on behind the scenes. One hears about the autocratic rule of various states; one learns how governors and generals hold up foreign business interests, and about the inability of the central government to enforce its orders; one reads in the newspapers about the street fights and military duels; and one imagines that the whole community