TRADING WITH MEXICO BY WALLACE THOMPSON AUTHOR OF “THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO” [Illustration] NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1921 COPYRIGHT 1921 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY The Quinn & Boden Company BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY TO ALBERT BACON FALL A Statesman Whose Insight and Whose Knowledge of Mexico Have Long Sustained the Faith of Those Who Love Her Best. PREFACE The book whose pages follow is the result of a conviction, firm-rooted in observation and experience, that the American business man prefers to judge for himself. He wishes the facts, and beyond all the fundamental facts, and when he has them his judgment is sure, quick and final. It is to men who think in this way that this book is addressed. It is the story, told as concisely as the facts permit, of conditions as they truly exist in the great land which, like a cornucopia, stretches to the south of us. It is written for the business man of the United States, definitely, with such limitations as exist for such a book--its value to the European may be the greater because it does not seek to straddle the national issue. I have written other books on Mexico. One has seen the light of publication before this volume was written.[1] I have sought, in these other volumes, one upon the people of Mexico and one upon the psychology which governs their actions in social and in business life, to lay a solid ground for the understanding of the country and its people. In the book which is offered here I give, freely, openly, without apology, the facts of a commercial situation which to me is the most astounding condition in the business world to-day. I picture, with the simplicity of truth, a country of vast natural mineral resources, but virtually no agricultural wealth, a country with almost no consuming population, a country of radical governments which have sought, frankly, to destroy capital and the machinery of Mexico’s own wealth. I have told but little of the famous resources of Mexico--those are described elaborately in many works. I have told little of the labor of Mexico, for this is yet to be harnessed. I have described none of the great industrial needs of Mexico, because those are obvious to all who run.