Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/99

Rh capita would be only about one-fourth as great as that which the people of the United States are now called upon to carry. But such comparisons are deceptive for they fail to take into account the economic weakness of the Mexican population even in comparatively prosperous times, a weakness now much accentuated by a decade of civil disturbance.

Mexico, in the old régime, mortgaged her future to secure economic advance. She now finds herself called upon to mortgage the future to pay the cost of the upheaval that destroyed much of the advance attained. Unfortunately the pressure to meet her obligations comes upon her at a time when she is least able to make favorable terms. The post-revolutionary governments face a world money market in which the French government has to borrow abroad at eight per cent and in which that interest rate is a fair average of the payments on the loans of the most favored of European countries. It is hardly to be expected that under such circumstances those who loan their money in Mexico will not expect an unusual return.

When the Mexican governments look to the resources upon which they can count to meet the interest on their borrowings, past and to come, the prospect is far from encouraging. In a country even now not completely at peace with itself money must be raised from agricultural interests badly disorganized, cattle resources hard hit by the drain of ten years' army requirements, mining still suffering from the results of disturbed industrial conditions, and a labor supply depleted of many of its most enterprising elements by emigration. What