head of the people the most stupid and incapable men, those who submit
to everything, those who can endure all the caprices and exactions of
the curate and of the officials. With this inefficiency in the lower
spheres of power and ignorance and indifference in the upper, with the
frequent changes and the eternal apprenticeships, with great fear and
many administrative obstacles, with a voiceless people that has neither
initiative nor cohesion, with employees who nearly all strive to
amass a fortune and return home, with inhabit, ants who live in great
hardship from the instant they begin to breathe, create prosperity,
agriculture and industry, found enterprises and companies, things
that still hardly prosper in free and well-organized communities.

Yes, all attempt is useless that does not spring from a profound
study of the evil that afflicts us. To combat this indolence,
some have proposed increasing the native's needs and raising the
taxes. What has happened? Criminals have multiplied, penury has been
aggravated. Why? Because the native already has enough needs with his
functions of the Church, with his fiestas, with the public offices
forced on him, the donations and bribes that he has to make so that
he may drag out his wretched existence. The cord is already too taut.

We have heard many complaints, and every day we read in the papers
about the efforts the government is making to rescue the country
from its condition of indolence. Weighing its plans, its illusions
and its difficulties, we are reminded of the gardener who tried to
raise a tree planted in a small flower-pot. The gardener spent his
days tending and watering the handful of earth, he trimmed the plant
frequently, he pulled at it to lengthen it and hasten its growth,
he grafted on it cedars and oaks, until one day the little tree died,
leaving the man convinced that it belonged to a degenerate species,