power to excite animosity and a war feeling in the United States against Mexico, and revolutionary movements and disturbances in the northern States of Mexico against their central Government. These persons represent land ownership in Northern Mexico, where large tracts of Government land, it is understood, have been secured within recent years by Mexican military and political adventurers, and also by Americans, at nearly nominal prices.[1] So long as this land continues to be a part of Mexico, and subject to uncertainties in respect to government, it will command but a very low price, say from ten to fifty cents per acre. But let the southern boundary of the United States be once changed from the Rio Grande to a line from three to four hundred miles farther south, or to the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, then this cheap Mexican land will undoubtedly rapidly appreciate in price—Texas lands near the border and
- ↑ By an executive decree, in November, 1882, the prices of public lands, subject to location in the northern States of Mexico, were fixed as follows: In Chihuahua, equivalent to seven cents per acre; Coahuila, five cents; San Luis Potosi, eighteen cents; Durango, nine cents; Zacatecas, thirty-six cents; Sonora, nine cents; Tamaulipas, seven cents. In the original publication the price was stated in Mexican currency, and the unit of land measure was the hectare, 2.47 acres. Payments, it is also understood, were allowed to favored individuals to be made at these low rates, in depreciated Mexican securities. These rates were to remain in force until 1885.
