Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/258

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248
A STUDY OF MEXICO.

the committee (almost unanimously) to these conclusions were mainly four: First, because Mexico is so poor; second, because "the American citizen living in Mexico, and pursuing the peaceful avocations of industry and commerce, is without adequate protection to life and property"; third, because "permanent and desirable commercial relations with a government and people so estranged from us in sentiment are without promise of substantial and successful results"; and, fourth, because the trade which the United States would offer to Mexico under the treaty would be more valuable than the corresponding trade which Mexico would offer to the United States.

The first of these reasons is economic; the second political; the third, having due regard to its meaning, may be well termed "Mongolian"; while the fourth is simply absurd. Reviewing them briefly and in order, it may be said, in respect to the first that poor countries are the very ones with which it is especially desirable that the United States should cultivate trade; for, if the volume of trade be small, the profit of such trade is large—as is always the case where the results of rude or hand labor are exchanged for machinery product. And it is in virtue of the carrying out of this policy—i. e., trading with ruder and even barbarous nations—that Great