Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/205



is the lifeblood of governments. Without it public revenues and public works are impossible. Through all of Mexico's history as a colony and through much of her independent existence this truism was not appreciated. Through practically the entire colonial period the mother country sought to stifle the economic development of the great region to which it had given its name, or at least to confine it to such narrow, prescribed channels that no commerce could develop proportionate to the great latent possibilities of the territory.

The first half-century of independence brought little improvement, for though the policy of throwing the country open to world commerce was adopted, its domestic troubles and the disasters of its foreign relations shut off the development that might have occurred. Foreign capital was unwilling to trust itself in the midst of the revolutionary storms, and domestic enterprise did not have a chance to show its abilities.

A consideration of the unfortunate commercial conditions, which prevailed before the Diaz régime, is necessary for an understanding of the present-day economic problems that confront the republic. They indicate the difficulties that faced the new government in its efforts