Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/93

Rh 000,000 pesos interest due. Luis Cabrera, Secretary of the Treasury in President Carranza's Cabinet, reported the total national debt as about 1,000,000,000 pesos, or $500,000,000 United States gold. This estimate did not include a number of important items said to be claimed by several foreign governments. The secretary of Hacienda announced that the total debt as of December 31, 1920, including foreign, internal, and state delegations, amounted to $426,791,555 Mexican. Accrued interest and Tehuantepec Railroad bonds amounted to $197,707,142 Mexican. The total of these items is $624,498,697 Mexican.

These estimates by employees of the Carranza and Obregón governments are much smaller than those of some of the best informed Mexicans outside governmental circles. A calculation published under the direction of a group of Mexican economists places the interior and exterior debt in August, 1920, at $1,200,000,000 Mexican. The obligations that the country has incurred through damages to banking, railway, and other interests belonging to nationals and foreigners is referred to as an additional large but unnamed sum. The cash

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