Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/39

Rh does not indicate a healthy growth in commerce and industry, but quite the reverse. The national revenues are raised chiefly by confiscation rather than by a just tax on prosperous business. Furthermore, it must be noted that the national expenditures do not include a cent for the payment of interest or principal of the national debt. They could not have included any considerable sum for the maintenance of the railways for the reason that since the Carranza administration began operating them there has been a constant deterioration of rolling stock and permanent way until to-day there are barely enough engines and cars remaining in use to operate intermittently the most important two lines. Large mining and commercial interests are compelled to furnish their own rolling stock in order to secure service.

It will be noted in the following table that 120,755,631 pesos, or nearly two-thirds of the budget, is assigned to the Department of War and Marine, which, of course, means almost entirely to the army. There is no provision made for the payment of interest on the public debt and nothing for education beyond an item assigned to the "Bureau of University and Fine Arts"; nothing for the education of the common people who had been promised such liberal educational advantages by the Carranza party before it came into power.