Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/78

62 conditions prevailing in the Republic. Nor has American opinion on Mexican questions of State been much more enlightened. The American people, oblivious of their own stormy past, pretend to regard Mexico as peopled by a race dangerous and irreconcilable. They cannot advance the plea that they are so far distant from this folk that they may have misunderstood it for lack of facilities for closer study. One must remember, too, that the United States has shorn Mexico of some of her richest territories; and those in the Northern Republic who decry their neighbours should recall the outrageous story of the Conquest of Texas, stigmatised by a great American, General Grant, as the most unjust and unholy war ever waged by a great nation against a weaker one. They cannot be surprised if Mexico dreads that the lust of conquest and wealth known to exist in some quarters in the United States may overflow and swamp her completely. She has already ceded to America nearly 1,000,000 square miles of territory, or more than one-half her original area. Her mineral wealth has always been coveted by North American capitalists, who lose no opportunity for furthering their aims in the rich mining districts of the northern and central provinces.

As regards other countries, Mexico has been studiously friendly, yet cautious. British people were in the old days unfortunately confounded by the Mexicans with their North American relatives, much to their detriment, as the Yankees who frequented Mexican soil in these times were by no means of the haut temps; but when the distinction became clear, the Mexican began to appreciate the sterling qualities of the British race, who have ever since been popular and welcome within his borders.

The political power in Mexico was, prior to the revolution, disputed by two great parties, the Liberal and Conservative. It will seem strange to British ears to be told that the first embraces the intellectual and cultured classes and the thinking part of the