Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/187

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THE POLICY OF CONQUEST
183

creditors, precisely as the crops and money of Ireland are carried from her to replenish the purses of her landlords. The native manufactures of Mexico, slight as they were, were discouraged by the Spanish administration, for the same reason that England destroyed the more vigorous industries of Ireland as rapidly as they appeared. Mexico was to buy only from the manufacturers and merchants of Spain; gold and silver, woods, and a few products of soil and labor combined, she was required to give in exchange for what Spain had to sell. Ireland and India have been required to give products of labor and soil combined in exchange for English manufactures. Religion in each case was degraded into the uses of the conqueror. Human greed was the passion in both cases. The sleep of Mexico, disturbed at intervals by hideous convulsions, was the result on this continent. A more muscular race made a more persistent resistance to England, and Ireland has begun the recovery of her complete rights. India's day is not yet at hand.

It is a droll satire upon political economy, that Spain accomplished her purpose by protection in Mexico, and England by free trade in Ireland and