Morning journal and courier., 1880-11-13
Saturday Morning, Nov. 13, 1880.
GENERAL GRANT ON MExICo.

| GENERAL GRANT ON MEXICO. l General Grants talk about Mexico with a number of the leading railroad men of the | United States at Delmonico's, Thursday even l ing, was interesting sensible and sagacious He had two objects in visiting Mexico last I winter. One was to again see the country l where he had fought before he was famous, | and the other was to discover how relations of friendship and commerce might be estab- l lished between that country and the United
 States. He saw that we were large consumers of tropical products and that the consumption | was increasing in two ways, first by an in crease in our population and then again by an increase in the wealth of our inhabitants. l All those products we derive from countries that trade but very little with us, countries that collect their revenues to large degree by levying duties on their exports, which we have to pay, and we are forced to ship our products to a European market to get the sterling exchange with which to pay these bills. General Grant believed and was con- vinced after his visit to Mexico that that
 country was capable of producing all that we
 have to import now of this character and
 large surplus to provide for our increased
 consumption. She is a neighboring republic,
 with institutions like our own, and her wants,
 which must be supplied from abroad, are
 just such we could supply. If Mexico were
 developed, so as to have an incentive to culti-
 vate her soil, she would want agricultural i'm
 plements and many such articles. As the
 people became wealthy they would want car
 riages and wagons, all sorts of machinery, all
 LI-.-
 boots and shoes, clothing and thousand and
 one other articles we could furnish, so that
 we could pay largely for what we received in the produce of our manufactories, thereby adding to the commerce of our country and beneftting the two republics alike.
 General Grant found the people of Mexico l very much interested in the development of l their own resources, but he found some hos tiIity to a connection with the United States, 1 on account of the unfortunate occurrences many years ago, when the Americans settled l Texas, which State then seeded from the | Mexican republic and war followed, which 1 resulted in the loss of still mere territory. l There was feeling among some thatif Mexico | had much to do with the United States now she | would be in danger of constantly losing terri l tory. To this General Grant very properly | and sensibly replied that slavery being dead, we have homogeneous institutions in the | North and the South, and no one section is now dependent upon the acquisition of terri tory for the purpose of maintaining it's insti- tutions. This incentive being gone, he truly told them ninety-nine out of every hundred people in the United States who think upon the subject would be indignant at the sug- gestion of acquisition of territory from friendly power by any unfair or filibustering means. He said further that if there was any danger whatever of the United States ever wanting to take territory from our the best method in the world to secures themselves against such result would be to cultivate friendly and commercial rela- tions with and not to seek to go abroad to I establish relations with nations beyond the That might lead to hostilities and hostilities might lead to the acquisition of territory, even were the people not in favor of it at the time. These views seemed to be very favora- bly, received, as they deserved to be.
 The Mexicans very anxious to have railroads in their country to develop it, and some of the capitalists of the United States are ready to build them if they can ''see any money' in the enterprise. General Grant thinks that people who may start to build railroads there with the expectation of doing any considerable portion of the work with the subsidies they receive from Mexico will be very much disappointed. After the railroads are built and the country has had time to develop as 8 consequence of these roads, then the country will in all be rich so that she can pay But at present it would be impossible for her to pay any considerable amount in the shape of sub- sidies to be used in the building of these roads If there is anything incoming from that source it is something that will have to be waited for. The money will have to be fur nished by the builders of the roads, and they will have to wait for the development of the country for their subsequent returns. His advice would be to get a right of way with put charge, exemption from taxation and the of all material used for the con struction of the road free from duty for a eer- tain number of years, have the entire control of fixing tariffs, etc, after 1t was built, and let the government come in only when the road paid more than ten per cent. over cost. and say how the surplus over ten per cent should be divided between the government of Mexico and the owners of the road
 EDITORIAL NOTES.
 1