other foreigners after them. The stagnant Mexican life of the middle century was stimulated by their enterprise. Foreign capital entered new fields, into which the insufficient and timid local capital would not venture. The foreigner created new national wealth, which laid the foundation for greater national income and for a government that might in time have approached true republican standards.
Shrewd was the discernment of the Mexican statesmen who saw in those who came from beyond the national boundaries the salvation of their backward country. What they failed to secure by means of "colonies" they received in large degree by the coming of the fearless and enterprising individuals who entered the local life to transform it. Without the foreigner, it is safe to say, Mexico would not have reached for generations the condition of which she was justly proud in the beginning of the century. In some cases Mexico has paid heavily for his aid, but to the great mass of foreigners who made her lot their own Mexico owes a debt of gratitude that she cannot repay.
Nevertheless neither American nor any other foreign immigration has as yet helped solve the greater number of the fundamental problems that Mexico had hoped would be settled by her colonization and immigration legislation. The economic basis of the country was remade but the native population was not leavened.
If foreign laborers will not come to give impetus by their manual skill and industry to the national life, the only recourse is to try by other means to attain the same end. Of late years attention has been turning gradually
