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296 our two nations are identical, their sympathy mutual and lasting, and the world has become assured of a vast neutral zone of peace, in which the controlling aspiration of either nation is individual human happiness."

Few were they who realized upon what an insecure foundation the Diaz régime rested. Order had been so long established that even the majority of those well acquainted with local conditions had come to consider it as a matter of course and, in her foreign affairs, Mexico had come to enjoy a position of greater prestige than any other Latin-American state. Capital was flowing from abroad to develop her industries, interest on public obligations was being promptly met, there was a surplus in the public treasury that could be devoted to the improvement of the conditions of the country. There was no cloud on the international horizon. Relations with all foreign nations were friendly and with the United States, the country with which the republic is of necessity most closely associated in foreign affairs, relations were cordial. The two countries had greater confidence in each other than ever before. The wounds of the conflict of two generations before were healing, the irritations of border conflicts were at a minimum. Everything seemed to justify the hope that there had been created in North America an area within which peace internal and external was secure.