granted special favors to those who could give it. That the foreigner was disposed to drive a hard bargain, in some cases, is true. It is not surprising if, in some cases, too much was granted. It is too much to expect that corruption in such dealings should always have been absent. Certainly the experience of other countries does not show that they have been able to escape such pitfalls.
The last quarter of the nineteenth century was one in which there was a world-wide demand for great amounts of capital to develop, among other regions, the western United States, South America, Siberia, and South Africa, as well as to carry through a remarkable industrial advance in both Europe and America. It was not to be expected that Mexico, under such circumstances, could secure capital upon as favorable terms as might have been the case otherwise. Taken all in all there seems to be little reason to believe that the country fared any worse in this matter—or any better—than it deserved or than other countries under similar circumstances have fared.
What the "concessions" involved is often less clear in the minds of critics than is the conviction that abuse has occurred. As a rule the pre-Diaz concessions have little importance, because any money that the promoters put into them they lost and the "concession" lapsed without benefit to the grantee nor harm to Mexico. There were all sorts of schemes proposed in that period. Colonization enterprises of fantastic nature often were concessions and some of the grants of doubtful character in later days have been colonization schemes.
The great majority of the concessions were simple
