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The Fall of Silver in Mexico, 1870–1910, and Its Effect on American Investments*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

David M. Pletcher
David M. Pletcher
Affiliation:
Hamline University
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Extract

Since the end of World War II Americans interested in international economic affairs have faced a painful dilemma. Almost every set of international policies advanced during this period has called for the widespread use of American capital to assist in the development of underdeveloped areas in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United States government has furnished much of this capital during the last decade, but private capital has borne a share of the effort in the past and may well be called upon for a larger share in the future. Unfortunately, in a period of frequent small wars, revolutions, and expropriations, American investors naturally hesitate to send their capital abroad if they can invest it profitably at home. One of the most vexing problems in modern international economic relations is that of predicting or assuring regular returns from American investments abroad.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 1958 , pp. 33 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1958

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References

1 Lewis, Cleona, America's Stake in International Investments (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1938), pp. 613–14.Google Scholar

2 One of the few works in English to consider this factor is Kemmerer, Edwin W., Modern Currency Reforms (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1916), pp. 465–552.Google Scholar Kemmerer's principal interest is the currency reform law of 1905 rather than the effects of the preceding inflation.

3 Julius Skilton to Thomas H. Nelson, Mexico City, August 9, 1869. United States Department of State, Dispatches, Mexico, XXXVI; Edward Lee Plumb to William H. Seward, Mexico City, June 24, 1868, No. 149, ibid., XXXIII; Plumb to Seward, August 4, 1868, No. 167, ibid., XXXIV.

4 Eduardo Martínez Baca, Historical Review of Mining Legislation in Mexico, translated by J. L. Harrison (no publication data), pp. 48–52; Bernstein, Marvin D., “The History and Economic Organization of the Mexican Mining Industry, 1890–1940” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, 2 vols., University of Texas, 1951), I, 307–9.Google Scholar

5 The Chinese also used the pesos for ornaments and sometimes paid a premium of 50 per cent for them. Viollet, Eugène, Le problème de l'argent et l'étalon d'or au Mexique (Paris, 1907), pp. 44–45, 48–49Google Scholar; Hegemann, Werner, Mexikos Übergang zur Goldwährung. Münchener Volkswirtschaftliche Studien, No. 86 (Stuttgart and Berlin: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1908), chap. ii.Google ScholarSobral, Enrique Martínez, La reforma monetaria. La sociedad anónima: Memorias presentadas al IV Congreso científico (México: Tip de la Oficina impresora de estampillas, 1909), pp. 43–44Google Scholar; Leavens, Dickson H., Silver Money, Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, Monograph No. 4 (Bloomington, Indiana: Principia Press, 1939), pp. 95–97.Google Scholar

6 Pradeau, Alberto F., The Mexican Mints of Alamos and Hermosillo. Numismatic Notes and Monographs, No. 63 (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1934), pp. 54–61.Google Scholar This abuse ended in the 1890's. Dufoo, Carlos Díaz, Les finances du Mexique, 1892–1911; Limantour, l'homme et l'oeuvre (Paris: F. Alcan, 1926), pp. 70–71.Google Scholar

7 Viollet, Le probléme de l'argent, pp. 49–50; Plumb to Seward, Mexico City, August 4, 1868, No. 167, State Department, Dispatches, Mexico, XXXIV; Hegemann, Mexikos Übergang, p. 4.

8 The Mineral Industry, Its Statistics, Technology and Trade (New York: The Scientific Publishing Co., 1893– ), XLIII (1934), 189.Google Scholar

9 Bulletin of the Pan-American Union, XXVIII (Feb. 1909), 345.Google Scholar

10 Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 6–10; Quintana, Miguel A., Los ensayos monetarios como consecuencia de la baja de la plata (México: Imp. Galas, 1931), pp. 30–43.Google Scholar

11 Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 50–54; The Mexican Financier, June 15, 1889, pp. 268–69; Lawson, W. R., “Is the Mexican Dollar Played Out?” Bankers' Magazine, LXVI (1903), 15–23.Google Scholar

12 Index of Silver and Peso, 1873–1902

13 Urgell, Oswaldo Gurria, Consideraciones acerca de los males que ha tenido el abandono de la plata en sus usos monetarios (México: Impr. de la Secretaría de relaciones exteriores, 1934), anexo num. 3, pp. 18–21Google Scholar; Martínez Sobral, La reforma monetaria, pp. 52–53; Hegemann, Mexikos Übergang, pp. 10–12. Kemmerer calculates that in 1903 between 100,000,000 and 120,000,000 pesos of silver money and about 86,000,000 pesos of bank notes were circulating in Mexico. Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, pp. 472–73. For the development of the Mexican banking system see United States, 61st Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document 493: Conant, Charles A., The Banking System of Mexico (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910).Google Scholar

14 Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 52, 91–92. In one month, June 1893, the fluctuation was actually 21.3 per cent. Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, p. 479.

15 The Mexican Financier, September 27, 1890, p. 16.

16 [Carden, Lionel E. C.], Report on the Effect of Depreciation of Silver on Mexico. Great Britain, Foreign Office, Miscellaneous Series No. 302 (London, 1893), pp. 15–16, 19–20, 22.Google Scholar

17 [Granados, Alberto García], El crédito agrícola y la reforma monetaria (México: Tipografía Vázquez é hijos, 1903), p. 4Google Scholar; Gurza, Jaime, Apuntes sobre la cuestión de la plata en México (Durango: Impr. de S Dorador y hno., 1902), pp. 21, ff.Google Scholar

18 Clark, Walter, “Mexico in Midwinter,” The Arena, LXXVII (1896), 580–85.Google Scholar

19 Curtis, William E. and White, Trumbull, Free Silver in Mexico ([Chicago], 1897), pp. 127–35Google Scholar, et passim.

20 [Carden], Report on the Effect of Depreciation, pp. 19–20, Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 58–61; Casasús, La question de l'argent, pp. 58–60. Using figures for a period of seventeen years, Kemmerer has calculated a high degree of inverse correlation (—.867) between exports in general and the gold value of the peso. Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, pp. 490–91.

21 This point is well developed in Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, pp. 479–83.

22 Algunas ideas sobre la baja de la plata y su reación con el Erario mexicano, la agricultura, la industria, la minería y el comercio en México (no publication place, 1893), pp. 4–7.

23 Curtis and White, Free Silver in Mexico, pp. 73, 75–76, 82–83, 123–26. Although industry was expanding, Curtis and White concluded that the factories still produced very inferior goods: “The people of the United States would never tolerate for a moment what the people of Mexico accept with gratitude.”

24 Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 72–73. Viollet attributed the fact that the wool industry had expanded its production by 70 per cent in ten years largely to the fall of silver.

25 [Carden], Report on the Effect of Depreciation, pp. 16–17. Silver lost some of its predominance in Mexican exports during this period; in 1884/85 it accounted for 75 per cent of all exports, and in 1901/2 only 35 per cent. Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 127–28.

26 Bernstein, “Mexican Mining Industry,” I, 344–45; Curtis and White, Free Silver in Mexico, pp. 113–14. Wages are quoted in silver money.

27 [Carden], Report on the Effect of Depreciation, pp. 17–19; Gurza, Apuntes sobre la cuestión de la plata, pp. 7–8. Enrique C. Creel estimated that labor constituted fully 85 per cent of the cost of production in silver mining. Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, p. 121.

28 The term “rising exchange rate” is often used in this sense. It presumes a Mexican viewpoint rather than a foreign one and refers to the number of pesos required to purchase a given sum in pounds sterling or dollars.

29 An excellent statement on Mexican tariff conditions is found in John W. Foster to Carlisle Mason, Mexico City, October 9, 1878. United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861– ), 1877–78, pp. 641–47.Google Scholar Casasus has prepared tables of Latin American imports from Britain, France, and the United States during the decade 1881–91, in order to show the close connection between the falling peso and decreases in Latin American imports. Casasús, La question de l'argent, pp. 70–75.

30 United States Department of State, Reports from the Consuls of the United States on the Commerce, Manufactures, etc., of Their Consular Districts (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1881– ), No. 122 (November 1890), pp. 541–43.Google Scholar

31 Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 90–109; Macedo, Pablo, La evolución mercantil. Comunicaciones y obras públicas. La Hacienda pública. Tres monografías que dan idea de una parte de la evolución económica de México (México: J. Ballescá y ca. sucesores, 1905), pp. 121–24Google Scholar; [Carden], Report on the Effect of Depreciation, pp. 10–12; Curtis and White, Free Silver in Mexico, pp. 121–22. In 1894 a St. Louis merchant returned from a visit to Mexico and reported that $7,000,000 worth of orders had been canceled during the last three months because of currency fluctuations. Leavitt, Samuel, “India Silver, Wheat and Cotton,” The Arena, X (1894), 197–98.Google Scholar

32 Fernando González Roa has prepared an elaborate table of price rises between 1887 and 1911 in foods of prime importance. Roa, Fernando González, El problema ferrocarrilero y la Compañia de los Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (México: Carranza e Hijos, 1915)Google Scholar, table opposite p. 84. However, he attributed the rise primarily to the new railroads. See especially, pp. 82–88, et passim. See also Hegemann, Mexikos Übergang, pp. 65, ff. For food prices in 1896 in Mexico City and Durango see Curtis and White, Free Silver in Mexico, pp. 28–29.

33 The average value of uncultivated lands rose 38 per cent from 1863 to 1893. There were similar rises in urban rentals. Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 63–64. For a discussion of the connection between railroads and land prices see González Roa, El problema ferrocarrilero, pp. 58–63, 70–78, et passim. The repressive Díaz land policy and its effects are amply described in McBride, George McCutchen, The Land Systems of Mexico (New York: American Geographical Society, 1923)Google Scholar; Phipps, Helen, Some Aspects of the Agrarian Question in Mexico: A Historical Study (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1925)Google Scholar; and Whetten, Nathan L., Rural Mexico (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).Google Scholar

34 Whetten, Rural Mexico, p. 245. As late as 1940, after three decades of revolution and agrarian reform, 65.7 per cent of small farmers in Mexico (with holdings of less than five hectares) used wooden plows.

35 Doheny Research Foundation, “Mexico, an Impartial Study,” undated typewritten manuscript, Los Angeles Public Library, II, 2–23.

36 Interview of Hubert Howe Bancroft in San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 1884; Curtis and White, Tree Silver in Mexico, pp. 6–7, 28, 35, 37, 81. These interviews also pointed out that Mexican laborers were always anxious to work for Americans or in the United States.

37 A good example of the official point of view is Romero, Matías, Mexico and the United States: A Study of Subjects Affecting Their Political, Commercial, and Social Relations, Made with a View to Their Promotion (New York: Putnam, 1898), pp. 528–31, 538–39.Google Scholar

38 Curtis and White, Free Silver in Mexico, p. 129. Many wage increases were due to a temporary rise in the demand for labor, and the average wage increase in mining, 27 per cent, was well below the rise in exchange. Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 86–87. In the end the government recognized these conditions, as is shown in the report of the monetary commission of 1903. Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, pp. 500–1.

39 Viollet, Le problème de l'argent, pp. 78–83; Gurza, Jaime, La política ferrocarrilera del gobierno (México: Tip de la Oficina impresora de estampillas, 1911), pp. 42–56Google Scholar; [Carden], Report on the Effect of Depreciation, pp. 13–16.

40 The Treasury announced the figure of 76,451,163.19 pesos in 1873, but this did not include an issue of government bonds sold in the United States. Turlington, Edgar, Mexico and Her Foreign Creditors (New York: Columbia University Press, 1930), p. 187.Google Scholar

41 Bernstein, “Mexican Mining Industry,” I, 344–49; Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, p. 474.

42 [Carden], Report on the Effect of Depreciation, pp. 4–10.

43 In the Treasury accounts the figures for “premiums and other expenses,” including foreign exchange, rose from $2,300,000 in 1890/91 to $4,500,000 in 1893/94. Hegemann, Mexikos Übergang, p. 96.

44 Díaz Dufoo, Les finances du Mexique, pp. 63–64 ff.; Hegemann, Mexikos Übergang, pp. 98–99. Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, p. 476.

45 American investments in Mexico, 1911a

a Figures do not include small additional amounts for houses, personal property, professional, insurance, and institutions. Source: William H. Seamon's estimate in Lewis, America's Stake in International Investments, p. 614.

46 Hoffmann, Fritz L., “Edward L. Doheny and the Beginnings of Petroleum Development in Mexico,” Mid-America, XXIV (new series, XIII) (Apr. 1942), 94–108.Google ScholarThe Mexican Year Book., a Financial and Commercial Handbook, Compiled from Official and Other Returns, 1912 (Mexico, 1912), p. 164.Google Scholar

47 Bernstein, “Mexican Mining Industry,” I, 389–401, 435–52. American Smelting and Refining Company, Inc., Sixteenth Annual Report (1914), p. 8.

48 Mexican Year Book., 1912, pp. 161, 165–66. Bernstein, “Mexican Mining Industry,” I, 472–79. An even greater return was that of the Compañía Minera de Peñoles, which for a time issued dividends of 100,000 pesos per month of a capital of 250,000 pesos. Eventually the capital was increased by stages to 4,000,000 pesos, but the dividends continued high until 1911. See Bernstein, I, 502–4.

49 Moody's Manual of Railroads and Corporate Securities, 1912 (New York: Moody Manual Co., 1912), pp. 4001–2Google Scholar; Bernstein, Marvin D., “Colonel William C. Greene and the Cananea Copper Bubble,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, XXVI (Dec. 1952), 179–98.Google Scholar

50 Other American companies, not mentioned above, which yielded considerable dividends: Guanajuato Power and Electric Company, 37.5 per cent (1909–1910); German-American Coffee Company, 10 per cent (1905); Intercontinental Rubber Company, 20.95 Per cent (1907–10); International Lumber and Development Company, 59 per cent (1905–10); Mexican Telephone and Telegraph Company, 45 per cent (1906–10); and United States and Mexican Trust Company; 36.75 per cent (1906–10). Of these only the Intercontinental Rubber Company was capitalized at more than $10,000,000. Mexican Year Book., 1912, passim. These entries cannot be relied on for complete or exact information, both because considerable American capital may have been invested in foreign-controlled companies, and because there is no way of checking the accuracy of the figures.

51 The New York. Times, January 27, 1886.

52 Powell, Fred W., The Railroads of Mexico (Boston: The Stratford Co., 1921), pp. 134–35Google Scholar; Moody's Manual, 1908, p. 512.

53 British lines did not have a much better record except for the Mexican Railway, whose history is briefly summarized in Hegemann, Mexikos Übergang, pp. 120–29.

54 Gurza, La político ferrocarrilera, pp. 42–47.

55 Gurza, La político ferrocarrilera, pp. 62–86, 115 ff., et passim; González Roa, El problema ferrocarrilero, pp. 123 ff.

56 Hardy, Osgood, “The Revolution and the Railroads of Mexico,” The Pacific Historical Review, III (Sept. 1934), pp. 258–60.Google Scholar

57 Moody's Analyses of Railroad Investments, Containing in Detailed Form an Expert Comparative Analysis of Each of the Railroad Systems of the United States, 1912 (New York: Analyses Publishing Co., 1912), p. 595Google Scholar; Bernstein, “Mexican Mining Industry,” I, 476–79.

58 Pletcher, David M., “The Development of Railroads in Sonora,” Inter-American Economic Affairs, I (Mar. 1948), 28–35, 38–39Google Scholar; Hardy, “The Revolution and the Railroads of Mexico,” pp. 254–55.

59 Zubieta, Salvador Quevedo y, Manuel González y su gobierno en México, Anticipo a la historia de un presidente mexicano (3d ed.: Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1928), pp. 231–48Google Scholar; Valadés, José C., El porfirmismo, historia de un régimen: El nacimiento, 1876–1884 (México: José Porrua e Hijos, 1941), pp. 109–15.Google Scholar

60 Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms, pp. 487–88, 495–518.

61 McCaleb, Walter Flavius, The Public Finances of Mexico (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1921), pp. 175–76Google Scholar; Díaz Dufoo, Les finances du Mexique, pp. 142–57. Martínez Sobral, La reforma monetaria, pp. 122–31; Opiniones sobre la cuestión monetaria presentadas a la junta directiva de la Sociedad agricola mexicana por algunos de sus miembros (Mexico, [1903])Google Scholar, passim. For the text of the law see Dublán, Manuel and Lozano, José María, eds., Legislatión mexicana o Colección legislativa completa de las disposiciones legislativas expedidas, desde la independencia de la República (50 vols.: México, 1876–1912), XXXVII, Part I, pp. 348–55.Google Scholar

62 Quintana, Los ensayos monetarios, pp. 93–100; México, Comisión de cambios y moneda, Memoria de la Comisión de cambios y moneda que comprende el período trascurrido de I.0; de mayo de 1905 a 30 de junio de 1909 (Mexico: Tip. de Müller hnos., 1909), pp. 9–10, 12–20Google Scholar; United States, 59th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document 246: Pepper, Charles M., Report on Trade Conditions in Mexico (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), pp. 9–12.Google Scholar

63 Martínez Sobral, La reforma monetaria, pp. 199–200; McCaleb, The Public Finances of Mexico, pp. 176–83.

64 The best account of Mexican inflation after 1911 is Kemmerer, Edwin W., Inflation and Revolution: Mexico's Experience of 1912–1917 (London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1940).Google Scholar

65 As late as the 1900's, for example, such a railroad promoter as Arthur E. Stilwell was predicting that cheap Mexican labor would make profits for his Mexican railroad, although the dividend records of the Mexican Central and Mexican National Railroads furnished clear evidence of the two-edged effects of the currency inflation.