Liberty in Mexico: Writings on Liberalism from the Early Republican Period to the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

1. The National Representation

243 Representative, open your books, And say if the patria mercantile be, Industrial or agricultural. —Agricultural Mexico is, The matter decided a long time ago; —But will urban dwellers be wise When a city so populous is, If they plant the rooftops and streets And close every one of their ports? Friend deputy do not believe it, For the good of the country I beg you, Seek industry where you see houses. —Deputy, doctor of Tampico am I. I’ve not seen the port, but from letters I’ve read From my niece I know it is not very rich. If the port had been closed, foreign hordes, Who from Paris and Europe have come with stuffed bags, Would not make us soup and a suit, And their boats would not carry our gold Nor our eyes nor our feet nor our teeth ’fore the wind. The Tampico forum is silent, their fault; And no one plants olive or wheat, Although the fertile ground is a treasure. Nor on the beach is there any maize field; But here is a part of a mule load they left, And there is a barrel, and luckily some fish. The town, very poor, scarcely a third will be ours; 1 The National Representation Original title: “La representación nacional.” Source: Don Simplicio, periódico crítico, burlesco y filosófico, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 6, 1845. 244 : iGnaCio ramírez My niece closed her shop And a new business has. Someone who customs duty can get Is the only one with daily bread guaranteed. The foreigner, I repeat, the reason for such ruin is. —All that news I had yesterday From Blas, your muleteer. And I have known From that very same Blas what I’m talking about. —What! Is a representative thus so informed About the country that he represents? —What more can I know?—Your pardon I beg. Exact account should you have Of the farms and their crops, Of the people who feed themselves there, And in the same way you should know Something of workshops, and even for sure What the poor small shops do spend. How many ships there are in the port, not only if ships there be. —Come on, do you want that a deputy be An expert in statistics of sorts? Yes, that and in other things.—I have faded away As a jurist, but as statistician I’ve not: To know all to what mortal is it given? But then if a sophistical orator A challenge to me from the rostrum should give, The syllogistic system to me matters more, The bar and the royal decrees, Than the ranches, the ships, and the shops That in my district might be. To create wise and marvelous laws, Is it not sufficient for me, and by a wide margin, the maneuver, that might get me two revered tassels? —To formulate laws platonic, more than enough do you have; But to formulate laws that produce genuine wealth, You must learn them from people, and no other work. —Responsibility for general laws lies with Congress And your theory we study in immortal works. In Tocqueville, knowledge easy and cheap we can find, the national repreSentation : 245 In Montesquieu, and in Ferrier, And followed by every person these days. —Of Solons, we thus have a bunch, But the people consumptive become Because Congress’s system so philosophical is, Studying politics as if it were physics, It learned with thermometers painted, And metaphysics without seeing any objects. What can speeches as sermons prepared generate In the rostrum? Decrees not begot but aborted. Among the people they do well, it’s true, To the extent that the people sovereign be called, They applaud and ask not if the king might be fasting. Haughty Fraud, in a salon, rises up from her knees And with poetic style maintains That man is immortal and that gold is vain; But dying she fears and gold she has, And at the end of her discourse, with “Happy they make you, Patria, your mines,” comes Don Maimed Mummy to us, Who dares not to speak, even in his defense, If he has not a text To close his most tiresome sermon: In all the sessions Don Bothersome Just one impertinence blasts, In an endless, indigestible sermon; President they make him to silence him, A post he occupies with his voice and his pen...