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98 for the development of the country extended well into the Diaz régime. When at last order was established, the group in charge of the government gradually came to realize that transportation must be improved if the country was to be put in touch with the outside world and to develop a foreign trade that could assist in putting it on an economically sound basis. The policy of encouraging railroad building was adopted and developmental projects of other kinds were also given public support.

To what extent such plans justify themselves depends on the rapidity with which the country adjusts itself to new conditions. It was far-seeing statesmanship to put off the day when a balanced budget could be secured if a rapid expansion of national economic power could be obtained thereby, but for no nation is it possible indefinitely to cover annual deficits by loans, especially when the interest on such loans is high as is regularly the case in undeveloped regions. Mexico wisely decided to take the risk of increasing for the time being the national obligations in order to increase the national wealth and through it the financial ability of the government.

By the early '90s, when a period of financial stress was affecting the whole continent, the railway mileage had been greatly increased. Subventions had pushed up the obligations of the government and those in power had to consider whether it was not time to wait before contracting further debts until the country should have responded more fully to the stimulus of its new transportation facilities and the resulting contact with the