almost exclusively domestic yet the army continued to figure largely in the national budget.
In the late '70s the federal government maintained an army of 30,000 men whose demands required two-fifths of the entire revenue. Notwithstanding this the chief item of expenditures of the states was also for military purposes. These forces, usually called state guards, might be expected to be necessary in the outlying regions where the arm of the national government could not be relied upon. In fact even populous states near the capital maintained them. The State of Mexico itself spent about 30 per cent of its revenues on its soldiers. Puebla, Jalisco, and others among the more advanced of the Mexican units did the same.[1] Doubtless these local forces were at times needed for policing purposes, but their existence made the raising of a revolution against the national government easier. It was the natural impulse of the central government to bring them under its own control as far as possible in order to minimize the chance that its own power might be questioned.
Commenting on a report made to the federal Congress by one of its members a Mexican editor analyzes governmental conditions in 1879 as follows: [2]
