Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/137

Rh the securities. To-day almost every dollar of foreign capital that was invested in our railroads has been returned and the bonds and stocks which represent this capital are owned by our people. As a result, we were able to finance the billions of expenditure for the war by floating national bonds at a lower rate of interest than any other country involved was able to secure.

The controlling elements in Mexico have found what they conceive to be a much easier method of balancing their account with foreign investors by confiscating the railroads and refusing to pay a dollar upon the principal or interest of the securities issued for their construction. The result is that to-day Mexico's credit is so poor that although she has been desperately endeavouring to raise money in the markets of the world for the last three years she has been unable to secure one cent from foreign investors to meet the needs of her government. Do not these contrasting conditions suggest to those of our own citizens, among whom are some of our government officials, who have been encouraging, or at least palliating and excusing, the actions of the Carranza government that they are really doing a deadly injury to that country?

The supporters of the present order, or more correctly disorder, now existing in Mexico, in their