The Railway Revolution in Mexico

AN adequate explanation of the fact that Mexico's latest period of prosperity falls in the years of the commercial depression of certain other nations, involves the consideration of a number of contributing forces; but it is possible to describe one or two of these without thereby intimating that the others do not exist This is what is done when some of the more general results of the introduction of railways are pointed out. One of the most striking things in the economic history of Mexico is the completeness and persistence of her isolation. By destroying this isolation, she has suddenly been brought under the influences that make for social changes, and we discover here an excellent example of the transition from a stagnant to a progressive society. In order to determine to what extent the building of railways has been influential in effecting these changes, we have to take account of the fact that the Spaniards acquired from the Moors, during their long association with them in the Peninsula, an indifference to roads suited to vehicles with wheels, and that the colonists who went out from Spain in the sixteenth century carried this indifference to the New World. Settlements were made and cities grew to importance, with no other means of communicating with the world at large than that offered by the Indian trail or the mule path. This was not a matter of great moment so long as Spain's colonial restrictions on trade were maintained. A few Indians or a few donkeys would carry at a single trip all that any town received from Spain in the course of a year; and the colonists were thus thrown back upon their immediate efforts for the satisfaction of their wants; and the king, by prohibiting trade between the colonies, emphasized their isolation, and indicated the uselessness of means of communication. This restrictive policy of Spain with regard to her colonies tended to place the European settlers on the economic basis of the Indians. A short period of the kind of life to which they were reduced made them forget most of the wants that had belonged to their previous station, and made it comparatively easy to provide what seemed to be an adequate satisfaction of those remaining.