MEXICAN REVOLT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8357, 18 February 1913, Page 7

MEXICAN REVOLT

QUESTION OF INTERVENTION. VIEWS OP PRESIDENT TAFT. WASHINGTON, February 16. President Taft announced to Congress that only wholesale murder of American! would lead him to sanction intervention in Mexico. He hoped Congress would, not act hastily. MADERO’S RESIGNATION WITHDRAWN. PRESIDENT DEFIES CONGRESS. MEXICO CITY, February 16. President Madero withdrew his resignation, and Congress called an emergency mooting and discussed plans for ousting him. Madero defied Congress, declaring he was able to defeat General Diaz if given a chance. ' There was savage fighting in the istreets throughout the day. Shells, crashing through the roofs of hotels, killed numbers of Americans. The Government, after this, censored dispatches. General Gomez, operating in the northern districts, has proclaimed himself President, and will appoint a provisional Cabinet immediately. General Diaz has agreed to form a safety zone round the embassies, provided President Madero consents. Madero is not likely to object. Fatalities of foreigners mil therefor© probably be fewer than in the past. "We lived for many long prosperous years under the benevolent despotism of Porlirio : Diaz \vithout a trace of politics/' says a recent writer. "It was almost too good to be true. But the people got tired of it, threw him out, ana now we have politics morning, noon and night, with 'bandits thrown in; no man’s, life safe, travel by railroad hazardous, and thousands on thousands of people ruined—and all Mn the ‘sacred name of liberty!” Let us add to this picture a word taken from a recent issue of the • Herald”: “Mexico’s difficulties in establishing real democracy ' are largely due to the fact that not enough of her common people have had common school educations.” There (remarks the “Springfield Republican”) yon have the difficulties of our neighbour country, and the slow coming remedy for them. Whatever may have been the faults of President Diaz, no ruler of his time was a more earnest promoter of the education of the people. Tiro discouraging thing about existing conditions is that schools cannot flourish where public order has gone hy the board. There were evils under the Diaz regime, but Mexico made steady progress in essentials. - It is profoundly discouraging to turn from the situation in those days to the evils which now exist. Bandit sway, or rather anarchy, wherever it reaches, is the worst evil which -can beset a La.tin-American country, or any other. There is therefore profound discouragement in the consideration that if the Mexican nation does not soon arouse itself and put down present disorders, there is no reason why they should not be prolonged for years, and so come to resemble the doleful ten years’ war in Cuba. This is the problem of Mexico and not of the United States, and intervention is not to be thought of.