The Mexican Year - Book. (McCorquodale and Co. 21s. net.)— This handsome
volume of more than a thousand pages is a visible proof of the remarkable progress which the Republic of Mexico has made during the last thirty years. This progress is naturally associated with the name of Porfirio Diaz, who, after doing good service in the troublous days which followed the French inter- vention, became President in 1877. He was re-elected in 1884, after an interval in which General Gonzalez held office, and has remained at the head of affairs ever since, his seventh term being now in progress. (It has been lengthened, it seems, from four to six years, and expires in 1910.) A few details from the mass of information supplied in the year-book may be given. The public debt on June 30th, 1907, was $444,530,711, showing a small diminu- tion on the total of the previous year; the estimated income for 1908-9 is $103,385,000, and the expenditure $187,175 less. This, we are told, is the summary of "a complete review of the economic outlook of the country," so that we have not, we conclude, to take into account "extraordinary budgets." If this be so, the financial condition of Mexico is satisfactory. The States which can show a surplus are not numerous. The imports were $233,363,388, the exports $248,018,010, of which, we observe, gold and silver made together about one half. Among the other items were rubber, cattle, hides, and sugar. The railway returns show an increase, but they are not complete. The money market, as in the rest of the world, was affected unfavourably by the American crisis. Of the imports, the proportion coming from the United States was nearly two-thirds of the whole, Germany and Groat Britain following with about a tenth each. The national drink is pulque, made from the Agave americana (century plant). More than four million hectolitres were produced in 1905. This amounts to a total of more than a hundred million gallons.
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