Ah, yes. We want to trade with Mexico, but, I repeat, we have never sought Mexican trade. We have wanted to sell Mexico our surplus, to have her take our extra runs and use the goods we have made in quantities for other countries. But we have never sought to meet the exigencies of the Mexican market. We have never done (as a nation, I mean, of course) what England and Germany have done; we do not follow specifications literally and send cloth, for instance, with exactly the number of threads per inch which the Mexican must have to get his best customs classification. We do not rearrange our patterns to meet a special demand of the Mexican market, carefully described to us by our customers. It is the old story of American trade everywhere in the world--our manufacturers have heard it in a dozen ways, and they are justly tired of the sound of it. My only point is that during the period of the war, when Mexican trade had of necessity to come to us in great volume, we did not link the Mexican buyer to us, either by meeting his demands or by helping him to understand our difficulties. So it was that when the golden goose of Mexican business was surreptitiously put into our arms when we were busy with a lively war in Europe, we did not take the care of it that its parents might have expected of us. The result is that to-day we have little hold on the trade of Mexico, despite the astonishing figures of our preponderance in it. For what we ship to Mexico is largely food and what we take from Mexico is largely oil--an exchange which is more significant than columns of figures in showing the economic condition of the land we trade with. Again we swing back to the one great, significant fact, the need of an activity which transcends mere barter, which has little to do with whether we are deceived by Mexican conditions or whether we are willing to risk them now for the sake of the great possible gains of the future. This is the issue of our duty to learn how we can serve in the solution of the problem--and to devote something of our energy to that solution. CHAPTER X THE HIGHWAY TO SOLUTION The solution of the problems of Mexico’s commerce and business seems to rest in hands alien to Mexico. The destructions of the past ten years are bringing her steadily nearer to annihilation, and Mexico herself seems helpless to save herself. These make the appearance, and it is vivid indeed. But it may still be only an appearance, if the forces which are acting and must act can be brought to see that they can and must work in Mexico herself.