Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/477

Rh immense expenditures incurred, both in the construction of railways and in the improvement of every branch of the public administration, naturally kept the treasury in an exhausted condition. The public revenue, far from being diminished in 1884 had become increased; but the task of introducing progress in a country, and of causing it to live according to modern ideas and ways, is bound to be a difficult and costly one, and the treasury of Mexico did not possess the means to meet at the same time the necessary expenses of the administration as well as those of material development.

Gonzalez found himself placed on the horns of a dilemma; he must either pay the public employés their salaries, neglecting to meet the obligations agreed upon by his predecessor with the companies engaged in building the railways, or solely look after the interests of the latter to the prejudice of the civil list. He hesitated not. Being convinced that the credit of the nation and her future progress were intimately connected with the payment of her debts, contracted to secure the material improvements already realized, he applied the public revenue to the payment of those debts, leaving the government officials without their pay. This policy caused an outcry against the president from that class of the community living on the public revenue, and from his enemies; and that class of politicians who entertained the belief that the best means to gain the good-will of the coming ruler lay in running down the credit of the present one, worked their points, spreading innumerable calumnies against the president, whom they represented as a monster of iniquity. Not one of those calumnies has been substantiated to such a degree as to even give it the semblance of truth. It was said that the source of his fortune, which has been grossly exaggerated, was due to peculation; when the fact is, that at a time of such material development as Mexico derived from the administration of Gonzalez, it was an easy matter for