Foreigners have continued to be a prominent factor in the commercial life of the republic and each group has shown a tendency to control certain lines of business. At the end of the Diaz régime the French continued to be prominent in the dry goods and clothing trade and had "practically monopolized" the sale of notions. Better class bakeries, fine jewelry stores, tailoring establishments and a part of the grocery stores were owned by them. The employees of these establishments were also largely French.[1] Americans came to control the trade in machinery and machinery supplies. Germans were prominent in the hardware business—much more prominent in disposing of the goods than the proportion of German manufactured hardware imported indicates. British commerce showed less tendency to confine itself to special lines.
It is easy to overemphasize the degree to which industry and modern commercial methods have found their way into Mexico and this is often done by those who know only the Mexico of the large towns and of the strips of territory that are within range of the whistle of the railway locomotive. Outside of these areas the Mexico of to-day retains, to a degree hard for the American or European to realize, the conditions of a generation ago and in many districts almost the conditions of the time of the conquest.[2]
A prominent characteristic of Mexican commerce
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