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 Rh exclusiveness in trade and an intolerance of foreigners and foreign ideas.

"The preservation to a greater or less extent of these characteristics upon the establishment of the Mexican Republic served to hinder immigration and the proper investment of capital. These very necessary processes of national development were further retarded by the unstable conditions resulting from the political anarchy, which ruled for nearly half a century after independence. An outcome of this unsettled period was the introduction of the idea of Government concessions to foreign capitalists to take the place of national investment.

"The greatest responsibility for the present condition in Mexico must be laid to the Diaz régime. Porfirio Diaz was a benevolent despot who ruled Mexico with an iron hand. His three decades of peaceful rule brought many benefits to the country. Finances were placed on a firm basis, railways were extended, the material wealth of the country was developed, and the most friendly relations were established with foreign nations. Despite these positive achievements, three fundamental errors were made by the Diaz administration—

"First, the development of the cientifico principles, based on the idea of government by an oligarchy, was out of harmony with the growing democracy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Politics were controlled by a small group of professional politicians, who maintained their position by the support of the army. The carrying of these ideals to their logical conclusion could do no less than bring on a period of reaction.

"Second, the abuses in the granting of concessions, which created a monopoly of the land and wealth in the hands of a small group of individuals, served to make the already hard lot of the peons more oppressive still. The process of concentration of the land, which carried with it the dispossessing of small land-holders, who thought their title