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MEXICO AND ITS RECONSTRUCTION

which has so long made difficult a political understanding in spite of unity of economic interests. The intense nationalism of the local leaders has misled them. They have been drawn into an anti-foreign campaign, which can not be for the best interests of their country. They have set up the theory that the republic shall keep for itself entire freedom of action in matters political and economic. They seek to put the foreign resident and his property outside the protection of his home government. Those, whether Mexicans or not, who helped to foster this anti-foreign policy were no friends of Mexico.

Financially, whether we consider government obligations or private development enterprises, Mexico cannot be independent in the way some of her recent leaders have desired. The country she has called upon the most heavily for capital in the past has been the United States. The revolution has increased the necessity of that dependence. Mexico must borrow to repair the destruction of the revolution; she must seek an intensive development of her national resources in order to secure means for paying off her increased obligations and for improving the social and industrial life of her people. The World War has made it impossible for her to secure capital on the other side of the Atlantic under any conditions. However much she may desire to spread her borrowings, public and private, among a number of nations, she will find that standard impossible.

Little need be said to show that politically as well as economically Mexico should seek the friendship of the United States. If the principle that non-American