MEXICO AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2250, 15 April 1897, Page 50

MEXICO AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.

Mexico is not Utopia. It is a very buman country, with very human shortcomings. The nineteenth century's end may be too early for us to allow that Providence personally created anything outside the United States ; but, at any rate, the apprentices who did some- other portions of mankind were fairly competent. Of course the Armada is much more vital to Americans than is the pioueeiiDg of America ; but, in spite of oar reasonable hostility to the Spanish biocd, we must not give our eyes the lie. The tact remains that yonder disprized country is making a development as wonderful as sudden ; that while our neighbourly baoks were turned she has stepped out from her darkness, young, vigorous, clothed upon with all that gives vigour and stability to a nation, and girded aa to her loins for the most practical of runnings. She is no longer old Mexico, the romantic hag whose wrinkles and tatters we have found so grotefque. While we have been achieving a material development, she has wrought the political and social miracle of the century. Within less time than has elapsed since our civil war invented

millionaires, Mexico has stepped across as wide a gulf. From a stato of anarchy tempered by brigandage — wherein it was ' batter to be President than to be right, and , better to be a revolutionist than either — she ' has graduated to be the most compact and I unified nation in the New World. She has I acquired not only a Government which j governß, but one which Knows how to govern, and, contemporaneously, a people which has learned how to be ruled. He should be a happy patriot to whom it is given to make his country a hundred times as good as he found it — a hundred times as contented, prosperous, and respected ; and that is what sort of fortune has befallen the creator of modern Mexico. Only those who seriously knew the country in the old days can at all conceive the change from the Mexico of a generation back to the Mexico of now. There was no touring then, and nowhere was travel more unsafe. By every country road — even into the very heart j of cities — the landido robbed and murdered. | Naturally : there was nothing else for him to do — unless to make a revolution, which requires brains and money. There were even lady Turpins, and some of them were geniuseß. Nor was there any special paucity of revolutions, and dozens of them were successful. There were no railroads, no telegraphs, practically no commerce ; at the bottom of all, no security. It would be rather picturesque than scientific to say that no man knew when he went to bed (and least of all the President) what the government would be in the morning ; but the exaggeration is not wholly ridiculous. To-day Mexico is— and I say it deliberately — the safest country in America. Life, property, human rights arc more secure than even with us. A^ for staoility, the record speaks for itself. Mexico had 62 viceroys in 286 years, which is not very tumultuous; but it also has had 52 Presidents, Emperors, and other heads in 59 year 3of this century. Now, one President for 20 years. Some will say that this is net republican. Possibly not, but it is business. Among all ths mistakes of foreigners as to Mexico, none is more gropiog than that which dis-

parages its government. One must be careless either of the facts or of the English language to call that government a despotism. It is not even — to such as are jealou3 of accurate speech — a dictatorship. It is logical paternalism—a scheme frightfully dangerous under a bad father, incalculably beneficial under a good one. Mexico ia a republic in chancery ; free as we are, but less licensed ; happy, safe, prosperous under the system whereby we administer our homes; and proud of the remarkable man who has done what no other ruler of modern times has even dreamed of being able to do, and who still keeps a quiet, steady fist in the waistband of the youngsters he has taught to walk. Within 10 yeais the brigands of Mexico have been simply wiped out. It has been — to such as know the geographical obstacles — a marvellous achievement; and the political difficulties were as great. First, whatsoever brigand was caught — and Diaz has a way of catching — stood just long enough in front of an adobe wall for the firing party to crook the right forefinger. There were no hung juries or pardon governors. Second, the same band — so firm and swift to justice — knew how to open an alternative door. Nowadays the bandit needs not. There is something else for him to do ; and he finds it not only more salubrious but more to his taste to take a part in the development of the pdfrin he was proud of even when he was her curse. He would rather upbuild than tear down iE he has a chance, even if there were no " Porfirio " and no rurales — From " The Awakening of a Nation," by Charles F. Lummis, in Harper's Magazine.