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viii conditions still characteristic of the national life. Such a judgment was mistaken and unfair to Mexico. The republic was not yet to be measured by the standards of Western Europe.

Nor is it fair to expect that the internal problems that confront the governments that follow the revolution can be solved in a period of a few years no matter how favorable the auspices under which the reforms are undertaken. It is too easy to be encouraged by a temporary or local improvement in conditions. There will be many surprising advances and disappointing backslidings before Mexico is surely on the road to becoming a modern state.

It is because he overlooks these facts that the judgment of the average man in Europe and the United States upon conditions in Mexico and the policy that should be adopted toward the republic is of such little weight. He measures Mexico by the standards to which he himself is accustomed, and what information he possesses is usually derived from the accounts of current events in periodical publications. As a matter of fact, what happens to-day or to-morrow in Mexico, whether this leader or that is in control, defeated, exiled, or killed, is probably of little importance. Such items are worthy of study only as they indicate a general tendency of development in domestic affairs or possible complications with foreign powers. Unfortunately it must be admitted that current events for the past decade in Mexico have too often been so confused that no constructive development could be discerned.

To understand Mexico and the Mexican problem it is necessary to study more than current political happenings and trade exchange. It is necessary to know, among other elements, the racial endowment of the people, the character of the governments under which they have lived, the obligations the government has assumed toward other nations and their citizens, the social and economic organization of Mexican society, the character of internal and foreign commerce, the development of transportation facilities, the position of those of other than Mexican nationality who have made the republic their home,