THE EXIT OF DIAZ.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1198, 5 August 1911, Page 15

THE EXIT OF DIAZ.

AMERICAN INTERESTS IN MEXICO. SUGGESTED DIVISION OF TERRITORY. New York, June 11. ■ As in Athens so in some of the SpanishAmerican republics, citizens who become unduly conspicuous, 110 matter though they are blameless and useful, are forced (o live away from home in exile; and such is now the fate of the venerable exPresident of Mexico, 1 Porfirio Diaz, whoso namo in history will no doubt rank with those of Bolivar and Washington. During his 30 years of power he had often sent abroad dangerous rivals—nominally as Ministers or special envoys, with handsome salaries—and now one of these, General Reyes, has come home in haste, perhaps to become President, passing on his way tho outgoing fugitive dictator, now four score years old, bound for Madrid, whence he will almost surely never return. ,

The influence o£ General Grant had much to do with giving him a first firm hold upon power, and ho speedily brought order ,out of chaos and established a Government which was'stablo and peaceful, and probably as free as was consistent with tho greatest Rood of the greatest number of Mexicans, such as he found them. At the best, however, it was merely a beueficent despotism, and now that it is overthrown its last, estate may be worse than (he first, for now there is plenty of loot to be gathered, whereas when Diaz took command the country was utterly destitute and bare.' At least a thousand millions of foreign capital are invested in Mexico to-day-most of it, of course, American—and unless order is speedily re-established, intervention by this country will become an imperative necessity, and that will lead to complications of many and embarrassing varieties. During the revolution 20,000 American troops "watched" the border; and several times a collision with one Mexican party or the other narrowly averted, American desperadoes", too, naturally enough, made the most of tho opportunity, and it will lie several years before all the' claims of the sufferers can be adjusted. One solution of the general problem is to let the republic break up into three or four separate systems of States, and to this tho topography of the country easily lends itself. For years to come, even at tho best, Mexico is going to be one of tho minor dangerous spots on tho map of tho continent.