Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/188

162 for the white natives who now speak Spanish will of course form, for many years, the bulk of the population, and when they die, their offspring and the offspring of the emigrants will know but one tongue. There will thus be no violent extirpation of races; but a slow and genial modification. Modern inventions, arts, tastes, science, emulation, new forms of thought, new modes of development, will be introduced and implanted by these emigrants. The million of white men, and the two millions of mestizos, will become more prosperous under the increased trade and industry of the nation. A good government will be ensured, for the hardy emigrants fly from the political oppression and poverty of the old world to enjoy peaceful liberty in this.

There is nothing in this scheme of progress to which a good man or a republican can object, and if Mexico is sincere in her professions of democracy, and not merely anxious to preserve intact the fragments of a ruined Spanish colony, without a people and without nationality, she will imitate the example of the United States and welcome to her vallies and mountains all who are willing to approach her in the name of order, labor, and liberty. But if she stubbornly adheres to her stupid self-seclusion, and bars the portals of her splendid empire with the revolutionary impediments that are annually scattered over the republic, she will break the beautiful promise given to humanity in the success of her revolution;