obtained either by direct concessions from the Government or by donations and foundations from private sources.

The towns still were owning their communal lands granted to them, as stated above, for the purpose of grazing, timbering, farming and watering, and which were called "egidos." The characteristic aspect of the agrarian questions in Mexico was for nearly two centuries, the obstinate defense made by the towns against the great landholders who always tried to invade the communal lands.

From 1856 to 1859 certain laws were enacted in order to do away with the mainmort. About the middle of 1859, the liberal administration of Juarez, for political reasons, was compelled to deprive the church of its properties and to begin to appropriate them to private individuals, who wished to acquire them at low prices.

Towards 1859 also, and as a consequence of the laws enacted to do away with the mainmort, the "egidos" of the towns began to be divided up and apportioned in small parcels among the inhabitants, for the purpose of creating small agricultural properties, but through ignorance and lack of means, those lands were almost immediately resold to the great landholders whose properties were adjacent to the "egidos."

About 1876, at the beginning of the "porfirista" regime, (the administration of General Porfirio Diaz) the real property of the church had already passed into the hands of private individuals, and the communal property of the towns was beginning to be divided among the masses.

There still remain, however, large estates owned by old wealthy families of Spanish origin, which could be considered as real mainmort, and which are now responsible for the present agrarian conflict.

The "porfirista" regime can be defined by saying that it consisted in putting the power in the hands of the large landholders, thus creating a feudal system.

The local governments of the different states in Mexico and nearly all the important public offices, were almost always in the hands of, or controlled by, wealthy families owning large tracts of land, which of course were inclined to

extend protection to all properties such as theirs. Torres and Izábal in Sonora, Terrazas in Chihuahua, Garza Galán in Coahuila, Redo in Sinaloa, Obregons in Guanajuato, the Escandons in Morelos, etc., are instances of great landholders who always had an absolute control over the government of their respective states.

The political, social and economic influence exerted by landholders during General Diaz's administration, was so considerable and so advantageous to them, that it hampered the development of the small agricultural property, which could have otherwise been formed from the division of ecclesiastical and communal lands.

The large estates called haciendas, pay only about 10 per cent of the taxes levied by law as result of misrepresenting the value of the property, while the small landholder is obliged to pay the whole tax imposed as he is unable to successfully misrepresent the value of his small holdings and as he lacks the political influence to obtain reductions.

The result of this system of inequitable taxation has been the gradual disappearance of small holdings which were absorbed by the large estates. This system was continued all through General Diaz's administration, thus increasing the power of the great landholders, and accentuating the contrast between the higher and the lower classes.

The commual lands or "egidos," used to be a means to ease to a certain extent the conditions in which the small agriculturalists found themselves, by affording them the opportunity of increasing their income out of what they could get from the use of the "commons."

But the condition of actual servitude in which the peon had always been, was accentuated and aggravated when the "egidos" disappeared, because, on the one hand, he was no more in a position to resort to the products of those communal lands, and on the other hand the great influence of the landholders was used as a political means to make peons work on the haciendas and keep them in an actual state of slavery.

The largest part of the inhabitants of towns where "egidos" have disappeared, being necessarily compelled to live on

the wages they get from working on the farms, and these wages being not enough to cover their expenses, it has become a common practice to advance money to the peons as a loan on account of future wages.

This system of lending the peons small amounts of money has resulted in accumulating huge debts on their shoulders. These debts were used as a pretext to keep the peons always at the service of the landowners, and the peon himself has been under the impression that he was legally bound to remain on the farm as long as he had not paid up his debts. These debts, as a rule, were transferred from father to son, thus creating in the rural population of the farm not only an actual condition of slavery, but the moral conviction among the peons themselves, that peonage was a necessary evil which the laws authorized.

This belief persisted through the ignorance of the peons themselves, and through the fact that the clergy has morally contributed to keep up the system.

During the first fifteen years of the administration of General Diaz, and when he was still strong enough to maintain his dictatorial rule, there was no apparent dissatisfaction among the rural classes, but later it became necessary to use drastic measures to keep the peons on the farms.

The large number of men who were deported from the more thickly populated regions, such as Mexico, Puebla, Toluca, etc., to the southern states, as well as the transportation by force of a large number of Yaqui Indian families from the state of Sonora to work as peons in Yucatan, are good examples of the use of public force to provide laborers for the "hacienda" and to maintain the condition of servitude of the rural classes in Mexico.

Since 1880 conditions in Mexico began to be complicated by reason of the policies of General Porfirio Diaz for the development of the country. General Diaz thought that the best way to develop the resources of Mexico was to favor the establishment of large business enterprises and the formation of large corporations to which special advantages were offered.

General Porfirio Diaz granted large concessions in lands,

mines, railroads, industrial and banking institutions to foreign investors, thus creating enormous monopolies and making more accentuated the contrast between the rich and the laboring classes of the nation. The cost of living was raised by the increasing of capital. The wages of miners, railroad men and those of the industrial classes were somewhat increased, although not in proportion to the increased high cost of living. The wages of the rural laborer did not enjoy this increase, the salary of the peon still remaining at a ridiculously low average. Notwithstanding the low rate of agricultural wages, the great land owners were still able to obtain labor thanks to their political influence which allowed them to keep the peons anyhow.

During General Diaz's administration, therefore, efforts were never made for the formation of a middle class. On the contrary, the power of the wealthy classes increased considerably, and a new privileged class arose from the great railroad, mining, banking and industrial concessionaires. The condition of the lower classes, on the other hand, was excessively precarious, and lately it became so grave, that during the last days of General Diaz's régime it is safe to say that the slavery of the peons was the principal cause of the unrest spreading throughout the country, and General Diaz had to resort very frequently to the use of force to maintain peace.

POLITICAL ASPECT

The economic unrest felt in Mexico during the last years of General Diaz's administration, had for its principal causes those which have already been enumerated, but this economic unrest was aggravated by political conditions.

The political problem is very complex, but it can be outlined or summed up as follows.

No constitutional system, properly speaking, can be said to have existed in Mexico prior to 1857. Towards 1857 the Constitution was adopted, but it was patterned largely on the French and American Constitutions, without taking into consideration the special conditions of Mexico.

The Constitution adopted in 1857 has been theoretically

in force ever since, but as a matter of fact it has never been applied on account of the Reform War, the French intervention, and the very abnormal conditions in which the country found itself during the administration of Juarez and Lerdo.

General Diaz entirely abandoned the Constitution of 1857 to follow a dictatorial regime.

In its political provisions the Constitution was never applied during General Diaz's administration. Elections of governors, local legislatures, congress, supreme court, etc., never took place, General Diaz himself making all the appointments.

Mexicans never had, therefore, the opportunity to test their Constitution, nor to see how it worked, and to find out whether it was suitable for the conditions of the country or not.

As regards justice, liberties and constitutional guarantees, the Constitution was never enforced for Mexicans, except in the cases where General Diaz thought it convenient. Only the wealthier classes could enjoy those liberties, they having sufficient influence to exact them from the President or from the supreme court.

Foreigners, also, by reason of their influence or through diplomatic pressure, have always been granted those liberties and guarantees recognized by the Constitution. These discretional and unequal applications of the Constitution as regards individual guarantees, largely contributed to accentuate the difference already existing between the privileged classes and the masses.

The Constitution of 1857 undoubtedly presents a great number of points which make it absolutely unfit for the country.

The lack of municipal government, the unreasonable and arbitrary division of the country into so many states, the system of election of judges, the universal suffrage and even the system adopted for the substitution of the chief executive, and many other inadequate provisions, lead to the necessity of a general and fundamental revision of the Mexican Constitution.