Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/88

70 000 bearing only four per cent and that without setting aside any specific portion of the national revenues for its service.

These were days in which Mexico did indeed seem to be coming into its own. It took up its older obligations bearing higher rates of interest, it paid off by the new loan amounts it had borrowed at six per cent to encourage building of railroads, and started public works under government support at its less favored ports on both coasts.

In 1910, another refunding operation took place. The loan of 1899 paying five per cent was changed to one bearing four per cent. The half of the new loan issued in Paris in July sold for 97.625 per cent. It was guaranteed by the 62 per cent of the import and export duties, which had protected the loan of 1899.

The cloud of revolution was already gathering but the world would not believe that its threat was serious. Progress in Mexico had been so steady for a generation that it was pointed to as the greatest of Latin American states. A country, which in 1890 saw its six per cent bonds sell at 65 per cent, now sold its four per cents at less than three points below par.

Its government, it seemed, was at last truly in a position to give protection to life and property. It could now look forward to an intensive development of its national resources sure to be as wonderful in its results as their extensive exploitation of the last quarter century had been. The government could undertake public works without having to pay high rates of interest and, most needed of all, the friends of Mexico felt that