The constructive work of this really great man, indeed, is as yet difficult to appraise. It covers nearly every branch of national activity, and it is only by comparison with a past state of affairs that anything like an adequate idea of the progress effected can be formed. In 1876 the population of the Republic was 9,300,000; it is now about 19,000,000. The increase in the length of railways constructed in the same period is equally remarkable, rising from 367 miles in 1876 to 15,000 miles in 1908. The railways hitherto have been mainly built by English and United States capitalists, and are in a great measure still managed by English-speaking officers; but the important Transatlantic line, which connects the port of Coatzacoalcos on the Atlantic side with Salina Cruz on the Pacific, is a national undertaking carried out under contract by a great English contracting firm. The future of this Tehuantepec railway promises to be of the highest importance as connecting Europe and America with the Far East. The geographical situation of the line is more central than that of Panama, ensuring, for instance, a saving of nearly a thousand miles between Liverpool and Yokohama. The railway itself across the isthmus is under two hundred miles in length, and the ports on both sides are capacious enough to deal with the greatest ships afloat. The railways running from the United States into the interior of Mexico and the capital convey passengers thither in less than five days from New York. They have naturally brought much Anglo-Saxon American influence into the country, and until recent years this would have offered some danger of the nation becoming an English-speaking land, as its former States, Texas and California, have done. The new national spirit and pride of race, which now justifiably stirs Mexicans, will in future make such an eventuality improbable. It is, indeed, much more likely that in the end the boundaries of a powerful, prosperous Mexico may extend to the group of small and slowly-developing Central American Republics that join it on the south, and that a vast Spanish-speaking confederacy will under an enlightened system of government ensure for all time the domination of this axis of the world's trade to the descendants of the original Conquerors whose blood has mingled with that of the peoples they subdued. This eventuality is rendered the more probable by the advance of the Pan-American railway which is being pushed southwest from the Tehuantepec line towards Guatemala, and will when completed link North America with the southern continent, and establish a continuous system from New York to the Argentine Republic. This, however, is a dream of the future: for the present be it said that a regenerated Mexico has saved Central and South America from being finally swamped by Anglo-Saxondom, and has ensured the perpetuation in "The Land of To-morrow" of the Spanish tongue and Latin traditions. For this relief much thanks. MARTIN HUME.