Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/462

446 time, therefore, that some steps should be taken to induce a different and a better state of feeling?

But, apart from any moral or ethical view of the situation, an exceptional, kindly treatment of Mexico ought to be a permanent national policy on the part of the United States, for reasons purely of self-interest, apart from any other motives. What Mexico most needs and what she has never had, unless the present Administration be an exception, is a stable, good government. Without such a government the large interests which citizens of the United States are acquiring in Mexico are sure to be imperiled. Some eighty million dollars of American capital are understood to be already represented in Mexican railway constructions; and other large investments have undoubtedly been made in mining and "ranching" in the country. Now, if history is to repeat itself, and there are to be further domestic revolutions and intestine strife in Mexico, and these American property interests or their owners are, as a consequence, to be arbitrarily or unjustly treated—i. e., in the way of confiscations, or forced contributions—resistance will follow; claims for damages will be created and pressed; national intervention will be sought for, and, in the present temper of the American people, will probably be granted—with a possible sequence of war and annexation. Certainly the last thing which the United States would be likely to tolerate, would be political chaos, with involved American interests, across its southern border. If it be said that there is no danger of this, it should be remembered that the present President of Mexico came to his office for the first time in 1876, through successful rebellion against the regularly elected authorities; during which period the Vera Cruz Railroad was destroyed at different points by the revolutionists, and all travel throughout the country greatly interrupted and made dangerous; and also that during the last twelve months there have been incipient rebellions against the central authorities.

But good government in Mexico is a matter not easy of attainment. There can be no good government in any country without good finance, and the finances of Mexico are always in an embarrassed condition; and this almost necessarily for a variety of reasons. In the first place, as already pointed out, the extreme poverty of the masses, the absence of accumulated wealth, the sluggishness of all societary movements, the practical exemption of land from taxation, and the adoption of a method of taxation that blights the harvest that it is desired to gather, all render the collection of an adequate annual revenue very difficult. Owing to the semi-civilized condition of its people, Mexico is necessarily obliged to support an army nearly double that of the United States (45,323 rank and file in 1883), to maintain anything like a permanent government; and the expenditure which this military establishment entails absorbs about one third part of the total revenue of the state, as compared with a present direct military