iminate manner, while on the Mexican people he levied all
sorts of cruel taxes. Thus the strength of the people was drained
and the resources of the country were exhausted, creating a position
over which he eventually had no control whatever. Ten years ago I
wrote an article in the _Hsin Min Tsung Pao_ remarking that Diaz was
a matchless fraud. I said then that a nation-wide calamity would
befall Mexico after his death and that the Mexican nation would be
reduced to a mere shadow. (My friend Mr. Tang Chio-tun also wrote an
article, before the internal strife in Mexico broke out, on the same
subject and in an even more comprehensive way.) Luckily for Diaz he
ruled under the mask of republicanism, for only by so doing did he
manage to usurp and keep the presidential chair for thirty years. He
would long ago have disappeared had he attempted to assume the role
of an emperor. This is also true of the other republics of Central
and South America. Their presidents almost without a single
exception used military force as a stepping-stone to the
presidential chair. We have yet to see the last military aspirant.
The unsuitability of the country to the republican system is of
course one of the reasons but I cannot agree with those who say that
this is the only reason.

As to Portugal it is true that the change from the monarchy to
republic has not stopped internal disturbance; but is it not a fact
that Portugal became a republic as a result of internal disturbance
and was it not during the existence of the monarch that the
disturbance started? It is ridiculous to suppose that a republic
will surely court disturbance while a monarchy will surely ensure
peace and order. Is not Persia a monarchy? Is not Turkey a monarchy?
Is not Russia a monarchy?

Read their history in recent decades and see how many years of peace
they have had. There have been no election of presidents in these
countries. Why then such unrest?

Again, why was the state of affairs during the Sixteen States of the
Five Dynasty-Period and the Ten States of the Five Successions as
deplorably miserable and disastrous as the state of affairs now
prevailing in Mexico, although there was no election of Presidents
then? In quoting objective facts as illustrations the critic should
not allow his choice to be dictated by his perso