Resurrecting Mexico

Not many moons have waxed fat and faded away since President Plutarco Elias Calles was regarded as a Radical, fit company only for Bolsheviki.

Immediately before he was elected President, the Bolshevik scare had been to some extent dissipated by Mr. Calles himself. After his inauguration (TiME, Dec. 8), he had arrested Senor Proal, Red agitator, warned other agitators; he had cut down the enormous number of holidays hitherto enjoyed by Mexican Federal officials; he had promised a 30% decrease in Government expenditure for the present year. The result of this policy was to win the wholehearted support of the Agrarians, who pledged themselves to back the Government's plan of distributing and controlling agrarian lands, of establishing agricultural schools. As an official close to the Government put it, "90% of the people are with the President, who has the good-will of capitalists and laborers alike."

The President, in a speech to the press, the first since his inauguration last month, said that foreign creditors must wait, that Mexico's first need is to balance her budget.* He was certain that all internal debts could be paid without recourse to loans, and when the Nation's house was in order, the outside debt could and would be looked after. "The principal efforts of my Government," the President said, "during the first months and possibly during the first year will be balancing the budgets. To obtain this I will follow only patriotic roads honestly and logically to reduce expenses without injuring the public services with scrupulous management of funds and the reorganization of the offices in charge of the collection of taxes.

"We have decided that the nation must live within its own resources. The Government has no intention to seek outside foreign sources for a loan. We must then see that sources of production in our country are revived; that commerce and industry reach a state of flourishing development--conditions which are necessary if we are to supply our needs by ourselves. Economic stability once established, we can apply constructive plans for social reform, which is the aim of our Government."

*A Chamber of Deputies Budget Commission has placed Mexico's external and internal debts at $808,070,015.