Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/51

Rh The first functions of the government in the opinion of those who supported the new régime were the establishment of order and the collection of funds by which the foreign obligations could be met and property protected at home. Policing and taxing were the most important, and, at first, the only important services rendered. Government as an expression of general public opinion, as a factor in the citizen's life because it was a part of him and he of it, that sort of government did not exist. It was not a spontaneous outgrowth of the national character but something imposed from above by a group, whose control was justified by the acquiescence of a people that had no public opinion organized for determining upon whose shoulders the responsibility of governing should rest. A true republican government could not come into existence, it was argued, by the fiat of a constitution. It could not become an actuality until there was born a public opinion resting on education and common ideals. It could not rise until the diverse elements of which the nation was composed developed a solidarity of interest founded on a better basis than common oppositions and the accidents of history.

The degree to which the policing function demanded and received the attention of the government is reflected in the appropriations for military expenditures throughout the Diaz regime. This was a period after the two invasions by foreign troops that the republic has suffered. It was one in which the military problems were