The potential wealth of Mexico is almost limitless, but the indolence of the Mexican nature is inimical to its development. Under the iron rule of Diaz the country has advanced, it is undeniable, in every direction. Railway enterprise has opened up unheard-of possibilities in outlying States; banking, though still crude (the bank rate is about 9 per cent.), is becoming a feature of Mexican commerce; municipal life is assuming that beneficent tendency which it has for years possessed in most European countries; drainage and sanitation are receiving official attention, and the welfare of the people is a plank, and a big one, in the present policy. Last but not least, the educational tonic in doses for an adult, perhaps too strong, is being given to a moribund people under the supervision of an excellent Minister of Public Instruction, Señor Justo Sierra. But bulk largely as this programme of progress does, it is due to one fact and one alone--the supreme wisdom of the President in welcoming the foreigner and his capital. Behind all the great schemes of improvement one finds the foreigner. The excellent tram service of the metropolis was until recently practically owned by the late Mr. Alfred Beit and his firm; railroads are English or American built and owned; new towns such as Coatzocoalcos are creations of such mechanical geniuses as Sir Weetman Pearson. And this brings us to Mexico's second great danger, which must inevitably shape her future. She may be said to be largely in the hands of mortgagees. Of these the chief three are England, America, and Germany; and their mutual positions are pregnant with prophecy of what must come. The Germans have wrested from their rivals much of the trade; especially have they worsted the French retailers. But Germany has probably lent Mexico the last mark she will ever get. The English are chiefly centred on the mining interests, and sporadically in land and agriculture, and though the Mexican Government would eagerly welcome large English loans, it is doubtful, very doubtful, if they will be forthcoming. But American capital is rolling in, rolling in like an inexorable tide of Fate. You have only to be in Mexico a day or two to realise how irresistibly the country is sinking into the power of the American investor, and how vain--and the more vicious because of their vanity--are the efforts of Mexicans to avoid looking upon the Gorgon head of Yankee hustle which is destined to turn their somnolent national life, such as it is, into stone. If in Mexico City you say you are an American, you soon find you represent a race which is hated as much as it is dreaded. English, French, Germans are all welcome, but Americans!... Mexico has more than a cloud on her horizon. She has Texas and Arizona to remind her perpetually of her fate. Never did spendthrift heir struggle more unavailingly in the hands of Jews than does Mexico in the hands of her great neighbour.