It remains true to-day, as it always has been true, that Mexico is a land in which Western European peoples can succeed as colonists only under the most exceptional conditions. As a French writer of the beginning of the century declares, "If you have no money, only strong arms and good habits, do not come to Mexico for you will find in competition several millions of Indian laborers who have arms and sufficiently good habits for farm work and who are satisfied with salaries which would make your condition more miserable here than at home."[1]'
After the early '80s there was a small but increasing immigration of foreigners into Mexico, not as members of organized colonies, but as individuals or members of groups who came to develop some of the latent industries. The most numerous of these immigrants were Spaniards and later Americans. Of the latter, the immigration before the railway era was negligible. Many of those who went to Mexico failed and had to ask the aid of charity to enable them to return. The people who went to Mexico from the southern states after the Civil War failed. Those who did not die, with few exceptions, came back. The attempts to colonize Lower California from the United States failed also.
Nevertheless, with the development of better economic conditions in Mexico, the number of individual Americans who suceeded in making homes in the country increased. Some were those whose presence was no longer welcomed in their home countries, but the great
- ↑ Charles H. Stephan, op cit., p. 240.
