As a detailed and well-documented history of the Mexican foreign debt, this work is properly and precisely titled. The focus is patently narrow; the topic is clearly specialized; and the author indulges in few digressions. Yet it is also true that the study has interest and appeal going well beyond its apparent limits, for in thoughtfully analyzing this facet of Mexican economic history it necessarily discusses land policy, the Church question, railroad building, and diplomatic relations with the United States and other countries. Thus it provides incidental insight into many key developments of Mexico’s national life.
The work is organized into eleven chapters. Three chapters cover the period from Independence to 1844 and deal with the origin of the foreign debt in the Goldschmidt and Barclay loans of 1824 and the troubled course of fiscal policy in the years immediately following, as Mexico sought to bring order into its public finances. Two chapters are devoted to the period from 1845 to 1875 and trace the impact of the War with the United States, the uncertainties of the Reform, and the trauma of the French Intervention. The Díaz years receive substantial emphasis with three chapters devoted to the reestablishment of Mexico’s credit, the increase in her foreign debt, the financial ramifications of the railway age, and the increasing influence of foreigners as investors and creditors. One chapter covers the period of the Mexican Revolution and the years of reconstruction to 1927, while another considers the foreign debt during the world economic crisis of the 1930s and World War II, thus carrying the account to 1945. It is anticipated that a subsequent volume will be prepared to extend the record through the next two decades to 1965.
The present study makes admitted and abundant use of several earlier works on the problem of Mexico’s foreign debt. Frequently cited are Joaquín D. Casasús, Historia de la deuda contraída en Londres (1885), Thomas R. Lili, National Debt of Mexico (1919), Edgar Turlington, Mexico and her Foreign Creditors (1930), and Oscar E. Méndez, Las deudas nacionales incluidas en los convenios de 1942 y 1946 (1957). There is, moreover, ample documentation to the appropriate official sources, particularly the Memorias de hacienda and other publications of the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público. The statistical evidence is impressive with forty-five tables, numerous other compilations, and a generous set of appendices. Numerical discrepancies and conflicts, particularly troublesome for the earlier period, are duly noted and analyzed. Documentation includes conventional footnotes, as well as special bibliographic references for most chapters. For those seeking an overview of Mexico’s tortuous foreign debt question without the supporting statistical detail, the final chapter provides a useful summary statement.
Mexico does not emerge in this study as the abused, exploited victim of the world’s economic powers. Rather, the tone throughout is judicious, balanced, and dispassionate. The book is singularly free from moralizing about the harshness of foreign lenders. Instead, the author is obviously aware of the high risks involved for potential lenders. The often-criticized original loans are shown to have been made under what were then reasonable conditions which any borrower in a position comparable to Mexico’s would have been forced to accept. It is hard to imagine, he argues, that more favorable arrangements could have been negotiated in the face of Mexico’s uncertain prospects and weak bargaining position. Similarly, given the total historical context of the Díaz years, it is unlikely that the striking material progress of that era could have been achieved by any means other than those actually employed, involving as they did the increased indebtedness of the nation and the expanding influence of foreign investors.
Overall, this study reflects sympathetic understanding for the men who sought to manage Mexico’s foreign obligations, concluding that in many instances they could hardly have done other than they did. Dealing more often from weakness than from strength, they did a reasonably good job of defending the nation’s interests under difficult, often impossible conditions.
