BOOKS.

MEXICO, ANCIENT AND MODERN.*

• Merieo, Ancient and Modern. By Michel Chevalier. Translated by T. Mims. London ; J. Alazwell and Co.

THERE are not, perhaps, many among us who care to under- stand thoroughly the policy of Napoleon in North America ; but to those who do it is difficult to over-estimate the value of M. Chevalier's Mexico. It is not a book so much as a pamphlet in two volumes, intended to justify by an exhaustive resume of the past the policy which his sovereign his resolved to inaugurate for the future. Throughout it is full of Napoleonic ideas, of chapters which do but expand imperial letters, of paragraphs which read to us as if the Emperor had dictated their form as well as substance. Ideas which in the official despatches seem to the last degree misty or transcendental are here traced to their origin, the suggestions put forward by the imperial advocates in the Legislature are linked with their source in the past history of Mexico, the hints contained in General Forey's pro- clamations or General Bazaine's orders of the day are explained by the light of a coherent and exhaustive plan, matured by the Emperor years before events gave him the opportunity of making his dreams realities. M. Chevalier has obviously been set to perform a task, and he has performed it with consum- mate skill. He does not argue, he only relates with purpose, and under his artistic manipulation every innovation introduced int% Mexico is made to spring naturally out of the circumstances of the country. Thus he shows that the monarchical idea is not by any means one foisted into the country by foreign bayonets.

There always has been a monarchical party struggling for the ascendant, a party which so early as 1820 supported Iturbide in his endeavour to organize an empire, first for a Spanish Prince, then for himself; and after Iturbide had been deposed by a military revolt Congress still assigned him a pension of 5,000/. a year, and his son Felix had, says M. Chevalier, partisans as long as he lived. Santa Anna ttgain—who, whatever his faults, knew his countrymen thoroughly,—in 1853 tried to induce some European Prince to consent to assume the Crown, and still holds that a monarchy is indispensable to the well-being of Mexico. The country is now, it is true, a federation and not a unity, but that, says M. Chevalier, is a thing of yesterday. The Federal constitution was only adopted after the fall of Iturbide, in imitation of the American Union—fell in 1835, revived in 1856, and has never obtained any real hold on the habits or affections of the people. Unity and monarchy being thus desired, it remained to select a Prince, and the candidates were speedily reduced to a very few persons. He must be a Prince of a reigning House,— that Iturbide and Santa Anna alike admitted ; he must be a Catholic ; he could not be a Spaniard, because Mexicans hate Spaniards ; he could not be a Frenchman, because conquest leaves heartburnings ; and the Emperor therefore bethought him of the great Austrian House, and his reflections ended, as we all know, in the selection of the Archduke Maximilian, who had governed well in Italy.

But why should France have interfered at all in the interest of either monarchy or republic ? First, to arrest " that spirit of encroachment which for a series of years the Anglo-American slave proprietors of the South showed themselves to be possessed with," and which impelled them to destroy by a falsification of the Monroe doctrine the natural influence of Europe upon every section of the world. The balance of power, in short, was one reason, and another was contained in the well-known phrase, the welfare of the Latin race. This dreamy idea becomes in M. Chevalier's hands a policy.

"Among the ramifications of which Western or Christian civi- lization is composed, there is one very distinct branch desig- nated by the denomination of the Latin races. It has its seat in France, in Italy, in the Hispano-Portugnese peninsula, and in the countries peopled by offshoots from the French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese nations. It is characterized by the numerical pre- ponderance or even by the exclusive domination, of the Catholic creed. It is not all Catholicism, but it more particularly furnishes the pith and vigour of Catholicism. Without derogating from any person or thing, it may be said that France is the soul of this group—and not only the soul, but the arm. Without France without her energetic initiative, and without the respect commanded by her intelligence, her elevated sentiments, and her military power, the group of Latin nations would be reduced to make but a very humble figure in the world, and would long since have been even completely eclipsed. For the nations

just mentioned she is an elder sister, whose authority is their safeguard She forms not only the top of the Latin group, but is its sole protectress, since Spain has suffered herself to fall so low Prance possesses great resources. She has a powerful genius; generous principles are inscribed on her flag ; she has noble traditions, to which she loves to remain faithful, and which are a strength to her as well as an obligation. She excels in letters, in sciences, and in the arts. Her industry is more and more productive, and her agri- culture has a field of inexhaustible riches. Her arms are formidable and dreaded afar. But if the Latin nations were effaced from the scene of the world, France would find herself in that irremediable weakness that is brought on by isolation. She would be like a general without an army, almost like a head without a body."

It was therefore that the Emperor tried to obtain for Spain

rank. as a first class-power, and therefore that he liberated Italy from the German ; for he felt that without France this branch of the human family would soon become unimportant. The Catholic Latin nations were till 1852 "threatened with submergence under a sea that is ever rising." Prussia has taken the place of Spain, Russia is a new giant and hostile

force, America will in 1900 have a hundred millions of Pro- testants, while France will have, at the utmost, but forty millions of Catholics. "It is not at all impossible but that the American Union may, at that epoch and before, be partitioned into three or

four empires; yet the area it occupies is so great, that each might have four or five times the territory of France. There would then be a group of States strong enough to counterbalance Europe." Australia is essentially English, India obeys an English viceroy, and though the French Government has made vigorous efforts in China, "French commerce has not exhibited herself there in the track of her soldiers." It is essential, says M. Chevalier, to protect so far as is possible these races from total disalipearance under the rising Northern and Protestant tide, and therefore--the Emperor selected a German to rule Mexico !

Will the enterprise succeed ? M. Chevalier believes that it will, and in a series of paragraphs of remarkable force describes the resources of Mexico.

"If, then, Mexico had, as regards internal communication—what it is far from possessing now, but what it will necessarily have one day— something like what is to be met with in the smallest States of the North American Federation, it would require but very few hours to see all kinds of produce and the most varied climates defile before the eye. In a distance like that from Paris to Orleans, or even half of it, you would pass from wheat to the sugar-cane, from the poplar and ash to the palm-tree, from gigantic cypresses to that multitude of trees, with foliage always green, that belong to the hottest regions of the earth. Let us imagine only one railway in Mexico—a railway that will be constructed as soon as order re-appears there—that from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, through Mexico. In an hour or two's transit, going from Mexico towards Acapulco, from a vegetation tolerably analogous to that of the environs of Paris, we should reach plants that greet the eye in Cuba or San Domingo ; for from Mexico to Cuernavaca, where sugar estates are prosperous, is scarcely farther than from Paris to Fontain- bleau."

Every product of all climates can be cultivated, and the mineral . wealth of the country is scarcely even explored. Mexico is full of great veins of ore, situated almost in temperate regions,—

veins so great that Humboldt believed they might " inundate " Europe with silver. These mines have not been worked, partly

through the anarchy of the country, but chiefly for a reason which M. Chevalier explains at considerable length. Owing to the dearness of fuel, the silver from these ores must be extracted by a process known as the "cold amalgam," which consumes enormous quantities of mercury. To "produce one pound of silver a pound and a half of the other metal must be sacrificed." This is the reason why the Mexicans so incessantly petitioned for cheap quick- silver from the only great supply, the Spanish mines of Almaden, and the rise of the price consequent on independence interfered with the production of all the mines. Mercury, once only 9d., at last cost the miner 68. a pound, but the discovery of the riches of

California changed all that. "It results from an excellent memoir on the metallurgical wealth of California, by M. Laur, a mining engineer, that we may soon look to see mercury offered for expor- tation at San Francisco at a price little beyond tenpence per pound. Nothing more will be wanting to give to the working of the silver mines of Mexico, and of the New World in general, an extraordinary impulse. In fine, if Mexico would adopt a political organization that would re-establish order, security, and respect for property ; if good roads and a few railways were constructed, so as to reduce the cost of transport, which is exorbitant ; if the mining laws were to receive a certain number of improvements, that have been pointed out by competent men, the yield of silver there would soon assume the largest proportions." With silver produced to an amount rivalling the gold of California, and such products as cotton, sugar, indigo, coffee, cocoa, cochineal, and tobacco, all capable of production, Mexico will need nothing but

a labouring population to rival India. For this population M. Chevalier looks to China, "that inexhaustible storehouse of manual labour," through, he is careful to say, a free but an enor- mous immigration—an idea, so far as we know, not yet discussed in EurOpe or in Mexico, but which opens up extraordinary possi- bilities. Finally, M. Chevalier quits these vast schemes for a few practical statistics. He believes that Mexico can be made to yield at once its old revenue,—four and a half millions,—and that by honesty in the collection of customs, by the use of half the Church lands, by an excise on spirits, and by heavier imposts on tobacco, by raising the stamp duties, and by taxing heavily the gunpowder used for mining, the State may be placed in a posi- tion which will enable it to provide for its debt, to repay France, and to commence that work of material progress which is the basis of modern civilization.

We have not discussed, and do not intend to discuss, the jus- tice of the conclusions supported by M. Chevalier. All we affirm is, that no one can understand the Napoleonic views upon Mexico until he has read, and read carefully, M. Chevalier's out-spoken defence of them. It would have been easier reading had Mr. Alpass struck out one or two obvious blunders of time which arise from the gradual elaboration of the different chapters, but which, when retained in their collected form, once or twice puzzle the reader.