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ROBBERY UNDER LA\{:
THE MEXICAN OBJECT-LESSON
ROBBERY UNDER LAW:
THE MEXICAN OBJECT.LESSON

BY

EVELYN WAUGH

rfl
\u
A CouruoN RBenBn EorrroN
THr AreorNp Pnnss
Robbery Under Law: the Mexican Object-l,esson

A CouuoN Reenpn Eorrroru published 1999

by Thc Akadine Press, Inc., by arrangemenr with The Estare of Evelyn Waugh.

Copyright @ 1939 by Evelyn Waugh.

All righa reserved. No part of this publicarion may be reproduced or

transmiccd in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any orher information rcrrieval
system, without permission in writing from The Akadine Press, Inc.,
l4l Tompkins Avenue, Pleasanwille, New York 10570.
Telephone I -800-832-7 323.

A CouuoN RreoBR EotrloN and founrain colophon are uademarks

of Thc Akadine Press, Inc.

ISBN l-888r73-69-9

10987654321
 CONTENTS
Fonrwono
t*n"'I.
IxrnooucrroN I
II. Tounrsr Mrxco r9
III. A CouNrRy wHERE THERE ARE NO
CorsrnverrvEs 5o
IV. Orr. 7B

V. TnB Gooo Nnrcnnoun r2t

VI. Pr"eu Srxnwer r66
VII. Tnr Srneronr Frcnr 206

VIII. INoEpnxoBxcn 257

Posrscnrpr: TnB On;rcr AND THE

LpssoN 273
Ir.ipnx zBr
 FOREWORD
AM indebted to many friends-old and new
British, American and l\fexican-for their abun-
dant kindness to me in London, New York,
Washington and Mexico. They provided me with a
sequence of delightful introductions, entertained me
in their homes, helped plan my journeys, talked to
me very lreely of their particular problems ; but this
is an occasion, I believe, whcre gratitude is best
expressed by silence. The appearance oftheir names
here could only be an embarrassment to them. I
formed my opinions in their company, but none
of them will agree with all I have written, some of
them with none of it. It r.r,ould be idle to pretend
that a visit to Mexico, at the present moment,
can be wholly agreeable ; the pervading atmo-
sphere ranges from vexation to despair, and only
the most obtuse travcller could escape infection.
That, in spite of the present gloomy spectacle and
the still gloomier prospect of the future, there were
rnore good hours than bad for me in Mexico, is
entirely due to these friends. If they come to read
this I should like them to know that I am sincerely
grateful ; in particular to two, an Englishman and
a Mexican, one of rvhom, harassed by personal
worries, took all mine into his charge ; the other
nho was my constant companion in all my move-
ments. I remember with delight the days at Orizaba
and Cuernavaca, a bottle of magnificent claret in
Mexico City, the trip down the railway, arvay from
vll
 FOREWORD
newspape$ and wireless, during the European
September crisis, the good company in the Ritz
bar, the trust with which members of the Catholic
laity accepted me. I am sorry that these h"ppy
episodes shall have so little reflection in the fol-
lowing pages, but, as my friends know better than
I, there is at the moment no opportunity for solid
happiness in Mexico.
E. W.
Stinchcombc, rggg.

ullt
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
I
HIS is a political book ; the sketch of a
foreign country where I spent a day or so
under two months I of a country which
has already provoked a huge number of books,
many of them by residents of life-long experience.
I do not see how-it is possible to escape the imputa- x
tion of presumption. ' The fellow mugs up a few
facts in the London Library, comes out here for a
week or two with a bare smattering of the language,
hangs about bothering us all with a lot of ques-
tions, and then proceeds to make money by telling
us all our own business.'
It is a charge to which professional writers are
commonly exposed and I know no answer except
the truth : that this, in fact, is our professional
habit. Superficial acquaintance is one of the
materials of our trade. Other professions are
equally culpable ; the barrister spends an evening
or two studying his brief, pleads in court as though
he had never had any other interest in life than the
welfare of the litigants, and, over his luncheon,
forgets their names, their faces and everything
 ROBBERT U},|DER LAW
about them. The medical specialist gives his
diagnosis in an hour on a patient he has never
seen in health and of whose life history he knows no
more than a fewroutine questions will elicit. Com-
pared with them a journalist is less presumptuous.
His trade is to observe, record and interpret. He
does not claim that in a month or two of sight-
seeing he has made himself an expert on local
history and archaology; still less that he has
fitted himself for the post of benevolent dictator
who can put right troubles which perplex the
statesmen. His hope is to notice things which the
better experienced accept as commonplace and
to convey to a distant public some idea of the
aspect and feel of a place which hitherto has
been merely a geographical or political term, so
that subsequent events reported thence in the
newspapers-events which in the vagaries of con-
temporary history may quite suddenly have a
rude impact on their own livelihood and lives-
may have more interest and actuality. For this
purpose even a few weeks may sometimes be too
long. How many travel books open vividly and
end in a mere catalogue of transport difficulties !
The truthful travel book rarely works to a climax;
the climax is sometimes the moment of disembarka-
tion and everything beyond it an attempt to revive
artificially, under the iron lung of rhythmic, day
to day observations, the revelation of first acquaint-
ance.
I went to Mexico in order to write a book about
it; in order to verify and reconsider impressions
formed at a distance. To have travelled a lot, to
have spent, as I had done, the first twelve years of
adult life intermittently on the move, is to this
2
 INTRODUCTION
extent a disadvantage that one's mind falls into
the habit of recognizing similarities rather than
differences. At the age of thirty-five one needs to
go to the moon, or some such place, to recapture
the excitement with which one first landed at
Calais. For many people Mexico has, in the
past, had this lunar character. Lunar it still
remains, but in no poetic sense. It is waste land,
part of a dead or, at any rate, a dying planet.
Politics, everywhere destructive, have here dried
up the place, frozen it, cracked it and powdered it
to dust. Is civilization, like a leper, beginning to
rot at its extremities ? In the sixteenth century
human life was disordered and talent stultified
by the obsession of theology ; today we are plague-
stricken by politics. It is a fact ; distressing for us,
dull for our descendents, but inescapable. This is
a political book ; its aim, roughly, is to examine
a single problem ; why it was that last summer a
small and almost friendless republic jubilantly
recalled its Minister from London, and, more
important, why people in England thought about
this event as they did ; why, for instance, patriotic
feeling burst into indignation whenever a freight
ship-British only in name, trading in defiance of
official advice-was sunk in Spanish waters, and
remained indifferent when a rich and essential
British industry was openly stolen in time of peace.
If one could understand that problem one would
come very near to understanding all the problems
that vex us today, for it has at its origin the universal,
deliberately fostered anarchy of public relations
and private opinions that is rapidly making the
world uninhabitable.
The succeeding pages are notes on anarchy.
,a
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
2

Travellers from New York to Mexico have a

choice of route ; they may take either the weekly
steamship for Vera Cruz or the faster, more costly,
daily train. The inexperienced and economical, of
whom I was one, prefer the former ; inexperienced,
for I was thinking of trains in un-American terms.
New York was in the depth of a heat-wave ; one
stepped right down into it, as into a bath, from the
gangway of the liner. Those who have been in
New York at such a time-if such a time has ever
occurred before, which the daily papers and one's
own sense of probability made one doubt-will
understand what it means ; to those who have not,
words are useless. It is enough to say that it
seemed inconceivable that anyone could hesitate
between a week at sea, w'ith fresh breezes and shady
decks, and four days cramped in a sleeper, rattling
into the tropics through the burning plains of
Texas and St. Luis Potosi. Now I know better.
There are a number of objections which the jealous
European may make to American trains-as that
they are slow, that one is knocked off one's feet
whenever they stop and start, that one has no
assurance of fermented liquor with one's food-
but, when all is said, it remains true that they are
the most comfortable means of getting across
country yet devised by man. I did not know that
at the time ; nor did I know what to exPect on
board the steamship.
Half the polite letters of the world take the form
of contrasting exPectation with realization. I
had formed an image of what the S.S. Sibonc2
would be like. I saw her-Heaven knows why,
4
 INTRODUCTION
except that the fare was cheap-as a cargo vessel
carrying a few heterogeneous passengers in rough
and homely comfort; a ship something like the
coasters of the Gulf of Corinth, full of traders and
prospectors and nondescript adventurers whose
table talk would supplement my meagre and purely
academic acquaintance with the country to which
we were travelling. But the Siboney is purely and
simply a tourist service, gallantly attempting to
reproduce a luxury cruise at cut-price rates ;
admirable for its purpose, but no manner of use
to a writer in search of local colour. The ship was
fairly full, of women, mostly, who were on their
way to Mexico to have a good time.
Mexico is a long way from England, and you do
not meet a great many Englishmen who have been
there; it is next door to the U.S.A. and holiday-
makers swarm across the border like ants. Tourist
traffic was down last year, like every Mexican
business, but it is still large and the depreciation
ofthe peso has done a good deal to counteract the-
at the moment quite groundless-apprehensions
about personal sifety. It is doubly important,
in Mexico because anything that brings foreign
currency into the republic is desperately needed ;
in U.S.A. because anything which helps to form
American public opinion about its dangerous little
neighbour, is, at the moment, of disproportionate
interest.
As far as Mexico is concerned the tourists are
not popular ; I doubt whether they are anywhere
in the world except at sea-side resorts and in
Norway. It is a long abandoned belief that
tourism, like competitive athletics, makes for inter-
national friendship. The three most hated peoples
5
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
in the world-Gernans, Americans and British-
are the keenest sight-seers. There are very few
English villagers who have seen an Eglptian;
very few Egyptian villagers who have not seen an
Englishman; the result is that the English gener-
ally are well disposed towards Egypt, while the
Eglptians detest us. Sympathy for foreigners
varies directly with their remoteness. We were
prepared to love the Abyssinians ; Italians, for
most of us, meant a customs official we had fallen
out with, or an avaricious cab-driver. Moreover
a race who stay at home and are visited extensively
from abroad fall into the error of supposing all
foreigners to be very rich and very frivolous. Few
Mexicans ever saw a poor Englishman or American;
it is not unnatural that they get an impression that
they are having the worst of the international deal
and are being mulcted. (Twenty years ago, of
course, the Monagasques had never seen a poor
Mexican, but that is distant history.) Not that
the American tourists are big spenders. Mexico
is for those who cannot afford the Grand Tour to
Europe. They buy round tickets and except for
getting a few execrable objects as presents for those
at home, they do not want to spend any more;
tips and guides are included in their fare. They
have a national abhorrence of beggars. The
profits are carefully calculated and not much
slips into general circulation. It can well be argued,
in general terms, that a country is happier without
tourists, but Mexico is in no position to be fas-
tidious about its sources of revenue. It values the
tourist trade and would feel the loss if the frontier
were closed. It has laid out a lot of money in
roads and hotels and has even, in late years, modi-
6
 INTRODUCTION
fied some ofits more conspicuous abuses in deference
to tourists' protests ; in particular the loot and
destruction of Spanish-Colonial art treasures and
the persecution ofthe clergy. Some of the Mexicans
in the government party have realized that the
tourists do not come simply to exercise their motor
cars or, now that Prohibition is more or less over,
to drink imported whiskey; that seventeenth
century silver-ware is more valuable in its existing
shape than melted into a lump ; that if you *ani
some proofed canvas to patch a roof it is cheaper
in the long run to buy a piece, than to clamLer
onto the altar of the village church and cut a
Cabrera out of the reredos ; the enlightenment
comes late but it is something gained, and some-
thing for which, indirectly, we may thank the
jolly young women of the S.S. Siboney.
Americans undoubtedly feel a sense of responsi-
bility towards Mexico. Later, on my homeward
journey, I fell into conversation with an insurance
agent returning across the border from a , con-
vention' of fellow insurance men who were having
a corporate jaunt together twenty strong. He told
me in full detail about the prosperity of his business
and the terms of affectionate subservience on which
he lived with his wife. I asked him after a time if
he knew England. No, he said, he had never been
abroad.
After two months in Mexico that came as a
surprise, for I could conceive of no two countries
more foreign to one another than his and the one
he had just been visiting. It is true, of course, that
he had travelled in an American built, air-condi-
tioned coach, that he had found ice-water and
American cereals on the breakfast table at his
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
hotel, hall porters and barmen who understood his
English, and what was in intention and origin, if
,roiin effect, American plumbing, but he could not
long have been taken in by these things. -It was
noiso much kinship as proprietorship that he felt.
His was the attitude of the nineteenth century
Englishman towards Ire1and. He saw Mexico as
bac-kward and deficient in many of the advantages
of the northern system. In particular he was
impressed by the physical dirt ; food being--exposed
foi sale without its decent wrapping of cellophane
shocked his sense of propriety ; the place needed
taking in hand; the people should be taught
indusirious and hygienic habits. Labour had got
a bit out of hand lately ; well, they had had a raw
deal before, now they were getting a bit of their
own back ; it would all even up soon and better
relations be established. The Church had had too
much money and they spent it all on extravagant-
building instead of teaching the people ; most of
those UiS buildings u)ere schools ? He hadn't
understood that from the guide-but, anyhow,
what did they teach ? Only a lot of Latin and stuff.
The landowners ill-treated the peasants and lived
in Biarritz ; pity the peasants were worse off now
than they weie before, but that would come right
when they'd been taught modern methods ; pity
the Government took away Americans' estates, too,
but they had said they would puy for them one
duy. He knew that historically and economically
thi Government was dependent on his; he thought
it a pity that the frontier should have been drawn
wheie it had been ; Mexico was a projection of
California and Texas ; it needed no violent
imperialism ; clean it up a bit and it would come
B
 INTRODUCTION
into the Federation on its own account. Like
the nineteenth century Englishman in Ireland, he
overlooked the one vital difference-that Mexico
was a foreign country. His attitude, I think, is
still in the main that of the State Department at
Washington.
In contrast to this type of transitory visitor there
are a large number of Americans who find, or
profess to find in Mexico a spiritual home. These
ire the painters and writers who make such a large
and chirming section of the English speaking
colony. Here in the hills they find an antidote for
all the ills of their native civilization. Although,
almost all of them, dependent on invested capital
for their livelihood, they express generous sympathy
with General Cardenas's socialist rdgime. They
see Mexico as they were first taught to see it by the
travel-agencies' folders, as a country of sunny,
indolent peasantry, ancient domes and patios,
local feasts that are spontaneous and traditional-
a happy change from the more organized junketings
of Elks and Shriners in their own home towns;
they see a land where ambition, and particularly
financial ambition, is not the dominant passion.
Though they would vehemently disclaim it, the
truth is that they are in love with Europe ; they
are nostalgic for the Classical-Christian culture
from which they remotely spring, which they can
find transplanted, transformed in part, but still
recognizable in Mexico. They see it, as Dr.
Munlhe saw San Michele, and it is largely due to
their sentimental vision, that the legend has spread
and earned credence, of the parasitic white tyrant
and the patient savage. The new mood in the
Mexican governing clique is destructive of all they
9
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
value but few of them seem to recognise this ;
quite soon they may have a rude shoclibut at the
mo-ment they are huppy with their tropical plants,
collections of bric-a-brac, and albums of-Diego
Rivera. Their books are published in large qra.rii-
ties in the United StateJ; in England ieeiers of
the picturesque have a wider scopi and the writer
who has given most people their idias about Mexico
is D. H. Lawrence; and he hated it. He was
taken in by a great many things, but never by the
San Michele view of Mexico. He came ih...
hoping for an antidote to the poison of industrialism
and h-e left in disgust ; he never forgot it. Every
traveller to Mexico must read the Plumed Serpent-;
at any rate the opening chapters. The early,
ytirical passages about Mexico City-the bull
fight, the tea party . . . ' all jade is bright green ,
. .-are superb. Then his loneliness and lack
of humour and his restless, neurotic imagination
combine to make one of the silliest stories in recent
literature. I defy anyone who has not been
hypnotised by Lawrence's reputation to read the
account of Kate's marriage-the corpulent, middle-
aged Irish woman waddling out into the rain in
her homespun shift ; the swarthy little bridegroom
trotting beside her in his bedraggled white pants ;
the words of the ceremony, ' This man is my rain
from heaven ', the rubbing of the roots of her hair
and the soles of her feet with salad oil-without
being inevitably reminded of 'Beachcomber,s,
column in the Daily Exprus,. and the account of
the bogus paganism is sillier, if less funny ; when
Lawrence describes the secession to it of many of
the local glergy-who have been unjustly accused
of many defects but never of lack of tenacity in their
IO
 INTRODUCTION
faith-he passes beyond Mexico into a world of
stark nonsense.
Nevertheless, for all its folly, the Plumed Serpent
is a better guide to Mexico than Mr. Philip Terry.
His is the standard work ; it was on sale on board
the Siboruy and in every bookshop in Mexico City.
In appearance it has some superficial likenesses to
the works of Baedeker I could write at
length on my horror of Terry's Guide ; enough
to say that it says nothing that could offend any
local sentiment, nor could interest any serious
traveller, but is well suited to the requirements of
most of the S.S. Sibone2 round-tour passengers,
who like their accommodation the better for
seeing it extravagantly praised in print and
have too much on their hands, anyway, to
mind missing the more unobtrusive sights which
it is the primary duty of a guide book to
mention.
Besides the holidaymakers and the sentimen-
talists there is a third rapidly increasing group of
foreign visitors to Mexico. These are the ideo-
logues ; first in Moscow, then in Barcelona, now
in Mexico these credulous pilgrims pursue their
quest for the promised land ; constantly disap-
pointed, never disillusioned, ever thirsty for the
phrases in which they find refreshment. They
have flocked to Mexico in the last few months for
the present rulers have picked up a Marxist
vocabulary so that, from being proverbial for
misgovernment, the republic, now at its nadir of
internal happiness and external importance, greatly
to the surprise of its citizens, has achieved the oddest
of reputations-that of 'contemporary signi-
ficance'. But there were no recognizable ideo-
IT
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
logues on board the Siborryt-and they are usually
recognizable.

On the eve of our arrival in Mexican waters we

were summoned to the lounge to hear an address
from the purser on our behaviour in a foreign
country. Curiosity and the lack of alternative
occupation provided a large attendance. Just
outside the door was a tank of iced drinking-water
and a column of cardboard cups. As the pas-
sengers assembled they paused at this national
monument and drank; it was like a congregation
coming into church passing the stoop of holy water.
When they were all refreshed and settled the purser
entered. He was a personable, rather grim fellow
in whom the distaste for passengers, endemic in
all good seamen, seemed tempered by compassion.
His speech, presumably, was the same every
sailing; I wish I had been able to record it ver-
batim for it was a model of what such speeches
should be.
First he explained the arrangements for dis-
embarkation and the requirements of customs and
immigration officials ; he told them to us suc-
cinctly, in detail, more than once, with a tolerant
acceptance of our intellectual limitations, like a
very patient and experienced schoolmaster. One
would have thought he had made himself plain ;
one would have been wrong as was evident, at
the end, when he invited questions . . . " We
have to take charge of our own tourist cards ? " ;
" Yes " ; " You mean when we go ashore we
carry them with us ? " ; " Yes " I " Is this what
r2
 INTRODUCTION
you call a tourist card? " I " Yes" ; "We can't
leave them on the ship? " ; " No" ; "Which of
these is my tourist card ? " ; " Is this my tourist
card ? " ; " Is this m1 to:urist card ? " ; " Is this
my tourist card ? " . . . When that was over he
admonished us about our behaviour . . . " Most
of you have never been out of your own country
before," he said. " Well, you mustn't expect to
find things exactly the same as they are back
home." The Mexican, he said, was a charming
fellow if you treated him right. He was out to
give us a good time ; we must do our share too.
We wanted a good time ; the company wanted
us to have a good time ; he spoke for the officers,
the crew and the staff when he said we ought to
have a good time. Well the secret of that was to
make up our minds to have a good time. If we
didn't complain of the Mexican, he wouldn't get
sore with us and then we should not have so much
to complain of. The Mexican was very proud.
We must remember it was iis country. If we had
any criticisms we had better wait till we were back
home and make them there. We might see a lot
of things in Mexico that seemed strange to us. We
mustn't expect things to be the same as they were
back home. " Don't go taking pictures of the
poor." There were plenty of things to take pic-
tures of if we wanted to take pictures ; but not the
poor. " We've got our breadlines back home. We
shouldn't like it if anyone took pictures of them
. . Don't start any arguments about religion or
politics. The Mexicans are doing their best and
they like to think they are being appreciated,
same as we do . . ."
It was very sound advice, and it provoked
r3
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
reflection. What exactly is the proper mood in
which to approach a foreign country in these
days ? It is an important point, particularly to
Americans and English for we are the great travel-
ling race in whose interest all the tourist bureaux
of the world are organized.
It is interesting to read the travel books of fifty
years ago and notice their air of tolerant or in-
tolerant superiority. Perhaps at the time there
was some justification for it ; now there is very
little. The words progressive and backward have
become confused in their meanings. The old idea
was of universal, inevitable progress ; the nations
were like horses at 'Minaroo', moving at varying
speeds towards the same object ; sometimes one
nation would have a run of luck, sometimes another.
Britain at the moment was leading ; other races,
like us in ambition, but lacking our courage,
integrity and good sense, were just behind ;
others, such as the hottentots, had barely started ;
others, such as the Spanish and Chinese, had made
fly-away starts but failed to hold the pace. Certain
defects, in particular, held people back from success
or autocratic forms of government,
-aristocratic
the Church of Rome, etc. All that they needed
was revolution, capitalization and education. It
was the duty of the more prosperous nations to lead
and to lend Alas, recent history has made it
impossible for a thoughtful European to view the
world with the same easy assurance. We have seen
devils driven out and replaced by worse. Free
Trade and the system of mobile financial credits
scarcely exist ; representative institutions survive
precariously only in the countries of their origin.
And as for moral superiority . . . how about
t4
 INTRODUCTION
ourselves ? What were the grounds on which we
were used to censure the backward Latin-American
republics ? They neglected to pay their public
debts; what European country can afford to
be censorious about that today ? A political
career, in those dissolute communities, more often
ended in murder than in a peerage and a pension ;
Dollfuss? Sotelo? Matteotti? the Romanoffs?
Schleicher ? the early Bolshevists and the 'early
Nazis ? Did a British Prime-Minister not win an
election with the promise to hang the Kaiser ?
They neglected their legacy of art and archi-
tecture ; how about England ? Which is worse,
the destruction that comes of poverty, or of riches ?
Bandits were still at large; St. Valentine's day
in Chicago ? The people were credulous and
superstitious ; what popular English paper
can dispense with its astrological column ?
Education was a monopoly of the Church;
which is the sounder, the catechism, or the
race-mythology taught in half the schools of Europe
today ?
No, we must leave our superiority in bond when
we cross the frontier; it is no longer for importa-
tion to foreign countries.
And there is another form of priggishness, too,
with which we can dispense-the humbug of being
unbiased. No one can grow to adult agl withoui
forming a set of opinions ; heredity, environment,
education and experience all condition us ; the
happiest are those who have allowed their opinions
and beliefs to grow naturally ; the unhappy are
-with
tho.se who accept intellectually a system
which they are out of sympathy. When we go
abroad we take our opinions with us; it is usel&s
I5
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
to pretend, as many writers do, that they arrive
with minds wholly innocent of other experience ;
are born anew into each new world. Nor do
our readers desire it. There is nothing more
repugnant to the English reader than to be
oUlgla to form his own judgment afresh with
eacti book he takes up. Indeed readers, bored
with the privilege of a free press, have lately
imposed on themselves a voluntary censorship ;
they have banded themselves into Book Clubs
so that they may be perfectly confident that
whatever tirey read will be written with
the intention of confirming their existing
opinions.
Let me, then, warn the reader that I was a
Conservative when I went to Mexico and that
everything I saw there strengthened my opinions.
I beiieve ihat *an is, by nature, an exile and will
never be self-sufficient or complete on this earth ;
that his chances of happiness and virtue, here,
remain more or less constant through the centuries
and, generally speaking, are not much affected by
the pblitical and economic conditions in which
he lives ; that the balance of good and ill tends to
revert to a norm; that sudden changes ofphysical
condition are usually ill, and are advocated by the
wrong people for the wrong reasons ; that th,e
intellectual- communists of today have personal,
irrelevant grounds for their antagonism to society,
which they are trying to exploit. I believe in
government ; that men cannot live together with-
out rules but that these shoutd be kept at the bare
minimum of safety; that there is no form of
government ordained from God as being better
than any other; that the anarchic elements in
r6
 INTRODUCTION
it is a whole-time task to
society are so strong that
keep the peace. I believe that inequalities of
wealth and position are inevitable and that it is
therefore meaningless to discuss the advantages of
their elimination; that men naturally arrange
themselves in a system of classes ; that such a
system is necessary for any form of co-operative
work, more particularly the work of keeping a nation
together. I believe in nationality ; not in terms of
race or of divine commissions for world conquest,
but simply this: mankind inevitably organises
itself into communities according to its geographi-
cal distribution; these communities by sharing
a common history develop common characteristics
and inspire a local loyalty; the individual family
develops most happily and fully when it accepts
these natural limits. I do not think that British
prosperity must necessarily be inimical to any-
one else, but iq on occasions, it is, I want
Britain to prosper and not her rivals. I believe
that war and conquest are inevitable ; that is
how history has been made and that is how
it will develop. I believe that Art is a natural
function of man ; it so happens that most of the
greatest art has appeared under systems of political
tyranny, but I do not think it has a connection
with any particular system, least of all with repre-
sentative government, as nowadays in England,
America and France it seems popular to believe ;
artists have always spent some of their spare time
in flattering the governments under whom they
live, so it is natural that, at the moment, English,
American and French artists should be volubly
democratic.
read this brief summary of the political
".Lurtr* t7c
 ROBBERT UNDER I-AW
opinions I took with me to Mexico, the reader
who finds it unsympathetic may send the book
back to her library and apply for something
more soothing. Heaven knows, she will find plenty
there.

rB
 CHAPTER TWO
TOURIST MEXICO
I
HE colonial flavour that still lingers every-
where in Mexico for those who care to find
it, is nowhere more marked than in the
abrupt division between rural and urban life.
One is reminded of Africa, where village life,
unaltered in centuries, exists within a mile of the
new European cities. Mexican culture is not
homogeneous ; it exists, as it did in the fifteenth
century, in a system of towns, which lie scattered
like a constellation over the great plateau and
beyond it, varying in splendour and importance
with their distance from the capital. For the
plateau is still the centre ofwhat survives ofMexican
culture. Nearly half the whole area of the Republic,
it is true, lies North of the most southern point of
the United States ; South of the plateau are great
tracts of tropical forest, and to the East the remote,
ill-reputed peninsula of Yucatan, but in common
speech and in historical fact, Mexico zs the table-
land-the Mesa Central de Anahuac, a vast,
rocky, temperate area tilted towards the Pacific,
r,5oo miles long by 5oo or 6oo miles in width.
It is superb country, mountainous, volcanic, cracked
and pitted with green cultivable valleys and wooded
slopes rising above the snow line, into angular
shining peaks ; graced, every few miles, by the
r9 c2
 ROBBERT UJ\IDER LAW
domes and faEades of the conquerors' churches ;
when the clouds lift, everything is a shade sharper
a-nd brighter in the thin, dry air of the highlands
than seems natural to Northern eyes. Cirtainly
it is now a spectacle of decay ; the little valleyr u.L
often rank and deserted, where the peasants have
edged in towards the larger centres of population,
or have been transported hundreds of miles away
to other states to be settled on the unfamiliar,
stolen lands of the great proprietors ; the wooded
slopes have been prodigally stripped for charcoal ;
the churches and monasteries have been sacked in
turn by rebels and government and left to fall in
ruin, for the governing Mexicans are ashamed of
their Spanish past and, except in the main tourist
centres (and pretty shoddily there) do nothing for
its preservation, squandering instead the small sums
available for the Department of Arts on recon-
structing the infinitely tedious pyramids and
terraces of their Aztec and Mayan conquerors. But
even in its decay the plateau is a spectacle of
intoxicating beauty ; this is the Mexico-of history ;
of Montezuma, Cortes, Iturbide and Maximilian.
Roughly at the centre of the plateau, lies the
capital. Just as the towns have unusual import-
ance in the country, so Mexico City has a unique
position among the towns. It shelters nearly a
tenth of the whole population of the Republic.
It is the centre of government. Mexico, in this
respect, is the exact opposite of France, whose
government comes from the provinces and revolu-
tion from the capital. In Mexico the vice-regal
tradition persists ; the Federal Constitution has
never had very much significance; it was a half-
sincere compliment to the powerful neighbour in
20
 TOURIST MEXICO
the North ; the political habits of the Republic
remain consistently autocratic and centralized.
From time to time savages come from the North
and South, either in armies or single adventurers
to capture the seat of power ; from time to time
the local governors achieve a temporary inde-
pendence, but in successive revolutions the people
of Mexico City have usually declared for the
existing regime, and it is from the city that such
order as exists, emanates. It is to Mexico City
that the tourist naturally goes, and from there
that he plans his journeys.
It is a huge, crowded, cosmopolitan, infernally
noisy place where everything contrives to puzzle
and stun the stranger, so that in the first days of
his visit he lives in a kind of breathless trance-
actually breathless, for the altitude plays tricks
with even the most robust constitution, so that the
even-tempered find themselves liable to sudden,
unreasonable explosions of rage, the heartiest eaters
lose their appetite, and the most energetic are over-
come by lassitude. It is doubtful how much
humankind can become properly at ease in this
climate ; perhaps one may attribute to it a great
part of the otherwise unaccountable alternations
of listlessness and violence that have made Mexican
history.

It depends on the circumstances of his arrival

whether listlessness or violence is dominant in
the stranger's mind during his first hours in the
country. If he comes, as most seem to do, in the
charge of a tourist agency, or if, as was my own
2T
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
fortunate experience, a friend has heroically risen
at dawn to meet him, he passes through the station
in an agreeable daze, shielded from too early contact
with the inhabitants ; if,, however, he is travelling
on his own, he receives his first rude acquaint-
ance with local conditions from the railway
porters.
I remember reading in the New Statesman one of
those warm-hearted little articles which used to
appear in the early days of the Spanish civil war ;
the author-Mr. Cyril Connolly, I think-was
describing his emotions when he crossed from
capitalist France into the free, proletarian air of
Catalonia ; the particular mark, he said, of the
Workers' State, was the elimination of the out-
stretched palm. If this is so, the Mexicans, in
this matter as in much else, have got their Marxism
a little mixed, for the exactions to which the
traveller is liable have no parallel elsewhere in the
world. Mexico is the only country I know of where
one is invited to pay for carrying one's own
hand luggage.
But, as I have said, on this first grey and chilly
morning, I was relieved from all annoyance and
hospitably conducted to my quarters.
fhe principal hotel stands in the old Spanish
town, in the street now named Avenida Madero.
There are others larger, more exPensive, and more
recently built, offering an equal profusion of hot,
cold and iced water, but it is to the Ritz that people
naturally gravitate who are spending any length
of time in the city. It is the only hotel frequented
by the Mexicans themselves and it has the some-
what equivocal advantage of standing in the heart
of the busiest street.
22
 TOURIST MEXICO
Busiest street ! . . . Mexico is the most shrill
and thunderous city in the world. Noise is the
first, shattering greeting to the stranger, it is the
constant companion of all his days, the abiding
memory which he takes home with him to the
nordic stillness of London or New York. Noise
of every conceivable kind competing for pre-
dominance. Noise of traffic; the old-fashioned
courtesy for which many Mexicans are justly
famous seems to forsake them when they get
behind the wheel of a motor car. They move, as
all urban drivers must, in a series of rushes, like
infantry advancing through machine-gun fire;
when they are halted they hoot continuously to
be released ; rvhen they go, they still hoot to scare
offthe streets any aged and infirm persons who have
got caught, half way across, by the change of lights ;
embedded here and there in the turmoil, raised
sometimes on little platforms covered in advertise-
ments, stand policemen, whistling.
The sidewalks-they cannot be called pavements,
for the greater part of them are not paved but
coated with undulating asphalt-are very narrow
and full of foot passengers, but, oddly enough,
they are the main centre of social life and the noise
of human voices is louder, even, than the claxons ;
there are few cafes and little caf6 life in Mexico ;
what there is occurs at night ; during the day, at
the crowded hours, if a Mexican wants to talk with
his friends, he stands in the middle of the sidewalk
and yells-politics, politenesses, business negotia-
tions, anything that requires full verbal expression.
And above them again-for as the conversation-
alists seek to outtalk the traffic, so they must inter-
rupt the conversationalists-rise the voices of the
23
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
street sellers, calling the numbers of lottery tickets
and the headlines of the newspapers. In justice
to the beggars who throng the side streets, it should
be said that they are, when sober, a quiet lot;
they rely for their appeal on proximity, pushing
their faces very close and muttering confidentially
or, in the case of the children, merely swinging on
one's coat-tails and reciting the rosary. There are,
however, street singers with curiously penetrating
tones and I met one old Indian who was well
ahead of the traffic, playing an instrument entirely
new to me-the nose-organ.
Besides these purely communicative and repre-
sentational sounds, there is the abstract noise for
noise's sake-the bashing together of pieces of
wood or iron, preferably in the echoing light-wells
of the larger buildings, for no other purpose than
the general good ; for Mexicans feast on sound,
as the more ascetic nordics fast on stillness, and
count no man happy until his ear drums are
ringing. Thus if one arrives early at the leading
restaurant of the place, the head-waiter hospitably
puts himself out to set you at ease and relieve the
unhomely silence, by grinding the legs of the
furniture on the tiled floor till the tables round you
fill up and all is Babel again.
At night, in the shabbier parts of the city, and
in all quarters of the provincial towns, the stranger
is liable to be alarmed by what sounds like rifle
fire. Occasionally, no doubt, it is so. In the
brave days of Carranza and Calles people were
fairly free with firearms ; they used to shoot the
street lamps after a party and not infrequently
their fellow guests. But rnost of these explosions
come from fireworks and from bits of dynamite
2+
 TOURIST MEXICO
stolen from the mines. Europeans like fireworks for
their visual effect and regard the noise as an
inevitable concomitant. The Mexicans like the
noise alone and most of their fireworks provide
plain, large bangs.
But of all the noises of Mexico City the loudest
and most individual was made by the mechanical
pile-driver opposite the Opera House. Thud-
shriek, thud-shriek ; it worked day and night ;
the hammer fell, the compressed air escaped and
the great tree trunks sank foot by foot into the soft
sub-soil. While, in the general slump, other major
works were at a standstill, this infernal machine
pounded on incessantly, dominating a whole
quarter of the city. By a peculiar irony it was
constructing new vaults for the metallic reserves of
the National Bank. The national finances that
summer were a joke which was offensive to nobody.
Revenue was down, production was down, credit
was down, trade was down ; the pile-driver seemed
to thump home monotonously the simple facts of
national bankruptcy. No figures had been pub-
lished for some time but everyone, whatever his
politics, believed that the President was keeping
up the peso by buying American dollars at a rate
which would completely empty the treasury in a
few months ; after that lay a prospect of inflation,
repudiation, confiscation. Everyone, for various
reasons, wanted a crisis (with the possible exception
of the American ambassador and it did not occur
to him that a crisis was imminent) for when the
last of the metal reserves had left the country, the
Mexican government would have to readjust
itself, one way or another. And everyone had
different ideas of the readjustment that was
25
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
required. Meanwhile the pile-driver prepared the
new vaults.

No description of Mexico City should be complete

without some mention of Popocatapetl. The city
lies in its shadow and other travellers have felt, or
professed to feel, the life of the place dominated by
its vast and splendid bulk. Honesty obliges me to
confess that I never saw it, as it should be seen,
rising above the domes of the city. I saw it only
once, late in the evening, returning from the
country, before the buildings came into sight.
For the remainder of my visit it remained
hidden in cloud. Perhaps it is needed to com-
plete the composition ; every great city needs
some physical features, sea or river or palm belt
among surrounding wastes, to give it a shape and
purpose; the flatness of Mexico City with its
curtain of low cloud gives it, in the rainy season, a
ramshackle appearance which is not in its nature,
as though for all its solidity and evident age it were
a great camping ground. But it is full of splendid
sights.
The area-particularly when you look down on
it from the surrounding hills-seems enormous.
There is the old colonial town, very large indeed
for the age and circumstances in which it was
built, beyond which on three sides stretch large,
drab, proletarian quarters I on the other side is
the new, residential city which grew up in the
Diaz-Limantour era of prosperity; broad streets
named after the cities of Europe ('Liverpool' is
one of the best addresses) flanked by villas in Fitz-
john's Avenue style. Most of them have gardens
of a sort-everything grows big and flabby in
26
 TOURIST MEXICO
Mexico-and many English ladies wage a gallant
defensive action over Patches of grass. These
houses no longer suggest opulence, but there is
still a certain smugness about them ; few are, as
yet, actually in decay, though they_ keep their
gates inhospitably padlocked. Beyond, round the
palace of Chapultepec a new suburb has grown
"p ; the ring of villas is spreading everywhere on
tlie surrounding plain, for urban house property is
one of the few investments that have not yet been
attacked by the government. Railway and utility
stock and government bonds are more or less
worthless. The nearest thing to a gilt-edged
security is suburban rents and it is in these that
the bull-fighters and politicians invest their savings.
As a result most people in Mexico City u'ith any
money to spare, seem to spend most of it, and of
their time, in litigation with tenants, sub-tenants
and building contractors.
In style these new houses vary from Hollywood
Spanish (wrought iron, tiles, spindly little colon-
rrides, etc.) which-heaven knows why-is thought
to be the more aristocratic, to the Nazi-factory
manner (concrete and steel) which-heaven knows
r,r,hy-is thought to be the more Marxist. The most
painful effort of this latter kind was designed by the
painter Diego Rivera and placed, in p_oignant
contrast, next door to the San Angel Convent
(now a road-house). As modern suburbs 99, theY
are inoffensive and comPare quite favourably with
anything in France or England.
The otd town is full of entrancing buildings,
civil and ecclesiastical. They stand everywhere in
silent reproach of the surrounding chaos, and if
contempbrary habits of life look shoddier and sillier
27
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
for their presence, they offer continual compensa-
tion and encouragement to the distressed stranger.
The city has the advantage of a good, whitish
grey building stone and of a material unique to the
place-a deep red volcanic clay which rapidly
hardens after cutting, somewhat in the manner of
West of England cobb. These two are sometimes
combined with Puebla tile and majolica work;
the sculpture which is used abundantly, and, in
the best examples, with contrasting alternations of
absolutely plain masonry, is the work of Indians
copying motifs from imported engravings and
pieces of furniture, and adding to them i great
deal of their own very peculiar, far from prosaic
mentality. For the stone deaf, or for those whose
asthetic enthusiasm is.powerful enough to exclude
interruption, Mexico City is a delight, for it is not
so surveyed and catalogued that one cannot make
discoveries for oneself, nor so modernized that there
are no discoveries to make.
TheJuarez reforms destroyed some fine churches,
and spoilt others by driving streets through the
monastic gardens and crowding with commercial
erections fagades which were designed to be seen
from a distance, but enough remains to give a very
fair idea of the splendour of a century ago. Cul-
tured Mexicans complain a great deal, but they
have suffered less than we have. Their country-
men on the whole, have been rather frivolous in
their vandalism; they have stolen and neglected
and put things to unsuitable uses, but there has
been none of the systematic extermination of good
architecture the Londoners have enjoyed. When,
for instance, the Government took over the charit-
able foundation of the Vizcainas, they merely
28
 TOURIST MEXICO
bricked up the doors of the famous, rococo chapel ;
it is still there in the dark ; one day someone will
find it again with rejoicing. The iconoclasm too is
tolerably impartial ; the art of the liberators
suffers equally with the relics of the oPpressors.
At the Ministry of Education-the lodging it so
happens of the Department of Arts-an acre or
so of Diego Rivera fresco is rapidly being reduced
to bare plaster by civil seryants who beguile their
luncheon hour scratching off the paint, and the
fine crazy pictures of Orosco at the Preparatory
School have already been obliterated as high as a
man's hand can reach.
One is reminded again of the Irish who look on
the English as the Mexicans do on the Spanish,
dislike their art as evidence of their occupation,
but let it decay in its own time. " Thou shalt not
kill, yet needs not strive officiously to keep alive "
seems to be the principle of both local governments,
and we, in England, have no cause to be censorious.
I suppose Venice in the last days of the Austrian
occupation, when the palaces were turning into
tenements and warehouses, must have Iooked
rather like Mexico City. English and American
romantics did a great deal for the preservation of
Venice. It is not too late to save Mexico. Perhaps
one day we shall see it happen. Wealthy Americans
may restore and refurnish the old houses. There
may be a Mexican season. American heiresses may
start marrying Mexicans ; a College of Arms may
be set up to polish the pedigrees and titles of the
colonial families and a new society arise of elegant
international Marquesas.
Meanwhile the palaces and all the buildings of
the city suffer, however, from one danger that never
29
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
much troubled Venice ; as though in shame of
their posterity they are literally sinking into the
ground. For Mexico is built on soft mud. Even
the new Opera House has gone down a yard or two.
This process plays odd tricks in proportion ; doors
that were designed to rise on steps now stand below
street level ; plinths have disappeared totally;
columns now rise, baseless as Bayswater Doric ;
windows are at knee height. In the case of the
earliest buildings the loss is least felt ; it con-
tributes to the general picturesque ; but at the end
of the eighteenth century a first class classical
architect named Tolsa devised what should have
been the finest buildings in the New World. It is
impossible now to see anything as he drew it.
His School of Mines I has not only sunk, but sunk
irregularly so that the cornice curves like the lines
of a ship, and his severely symmetrical Church of
Our Lady of Loreto is full of all the dizzy optical
illusions of the Crooked House at Himley.
Of the destruction which comes from the con-
fidence of being able to do better, Mexico has been
laudably free since the last days of Spanish
rule when there was a craze for tearing out
Chirrugueresque reredoses and replacing them with
refined, correct and wholly alien classical structures
like Georgian chimney pieces. I only met two
examples of attempted improvement, the show
house in Puebla which has been Hollywoodized
by the Department of Arts, and a project, not yet
realized, at Santa Maria del Tule which was can-
vassed in the following English inscription.

r Mr. T. Philip Terry's popular Guide-book sap of this brilliant design,

" The average traveller will bc inclined to think that Tolsa's real genius
lay in his ability to spend so much money on so unpretcntious a structure."

3o
 TOURIST MEXICO
VISITOR !
The authoriu of this aillage, faaouring the interuting
ptan of the bepartmento Forestal y de -Caza-y
P.r.ui tending io suppress the ugQ adobe fence that
surrounds th; THEE, of worldll reputation, to be
substituted b1 an artistic iron railing that does not obstruct,
as at preseit, the integral aiew d the adrnirable GIANT,
atteniioeQ inaites yi to hetp us carr) on this noble end,
bulting the ont2 illustrated and complete monograph lhat ye
-TREE.
kiow- of the It is sold in the Suretary) ofice
of the-City Hatt that I preside, in Spanish or English,
at the tow price of one Mexican leso each..
The tree of worldly reputation was certainly vast,
but the wall of the churchyard in which it stood
was a sympathetic,.rough old thing marked with the
traditionai Stations of the Cross, so I hope that
nothing comes of the plan. Those who know the
districisay that there is no cause for apprehension'
Elsewhere in the world revolutionary regimes
have usually been manifest in a campaign ofpublic
architecture. In Mexico City there are only two
post-Diaz buildings of any real prominence. Each
of them is significant.
There is thi Monument of the Revolution through
which most of the innumerable public processions
are conducted. It is a formidable structure two
hundred feet high, consisting of a single dome sup-
ported on four irches. One need not b-e suspected
if political prejudice in condemning its startling
ugliness, fof ia was designed for qyilg another
pi.pose, to be, in f;act, the central lobby of the
i{or'rt.t of Parliament. In 1934 the present presi-
dent decided to commemorate his election and the
topical scepticism of representative institutions in
3r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
the same
-ingenious undertaking, of clothing the
metal skeleton, which had stood for years,- and
transforming it into a triumphal arch.' It is cer-
tainly o-ne of the most tediously hideous buildings
in the New World, and Mexiians of all politicil
views regard it with the kind of fascinated hor.o,
with which Romans accept the Victor Emmanuel
Memorial and which, uniil a few years ago, used
to be devoted in London to the Albert Mimorial.
It is one of the sights. Another, still more recent
'sight' is the new offices of the Mexican Eagle
Company. It is a very different structure, "of
traditional design and local material. That too
was-never put to its original purpose, for it was
confiscated at the moment of itJ completion at
the same time as the oil fields ; the co-nfiscation,
1n{eed,_ was delayed until the last plasterer had
finished work; it is in many *uy, a worthy
member of the long succession of fine buildings
ryh1ch
Mexican .governments have acquired b;,
theft. After a time, however, it became a great
bore. I soon lost count of the number of t]imes
this building was.pointed out to me. One passed
it two or three times a day, for it stands in the
main arterial boulevard of the town. Taxi drivers
would swing round in their seats and say . Aguila ,
;
passing strangers would stop one in thl stre-et with
the same word. It was repeated with every pos-
sible inflexion of tone-chagrin, derision, triuniph,
indignation, awe, venom, regret, appr.he.rsion
. . for no one in Mexico City was indifferent to
its fate. It seemed to symbolize the precarious
condition of all their lives.
Add to this architectural background a number
of squares planted with tropical vegetation and
32
 TOURIST MEXICO
ornamented with patriotic statuary, here, as every-
where else in the world, decreasing in merit as it
becomes more modern, and you have the physical
scene of Mexican life ; and yet, reconstructed, say,
in a film studio, it would lack a certain essential
quality which is hard to describe in other terms
than those of shabbiness and untidiness. It is no
dirtier than many large cities ; you do not return
covered in grime after a morning's shopping as
you do in most English towns ; you do not see more
distressing evidence of poverty than in Paris ; the
smells are no stronger than in Venice. Neverthe-
less there is a persistent and curiously depressing
air of disorder and dirt as of a seaside beach after
a Bank Holiday ; the side streets tail off into waste
land ; the sidewalks of the main streets are muddy
and littered with cigarette ends and waste paper ;
broken things never seem to get mended ; it is
partly the evidence of a race who have ceased to
keep up appearances, partly of an invading people
who do not quite know what to do with their
acquisitions. The people have a kind of listless
shabbiness that has nothing to do with poverty;
they just do not bother to shave or to wear clean
collars; they are always eating; Indian families
squat in corners preparing the national dish of
pancakes and pepper; men and women wander
aimlessly about in groups munching huge dripping
fruits ; at the government offices pedlars display
trays of delicatessen in the colonnades I police-
men and sentries have mouths covered in crumbs.
The Mexican street crowds are the most inelegant
I have ever seen.
By this I do not simply mean that they are not
rich. It is not necessary to have big motor-cars
33
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
and fashionably dressed women for a town to have
style. There are no motor-cars in the old town of
Fez and the women except for a few uniformed
slaves are invisible, but that town has incomparable
grace and dignity. There are, for that matter,
quite a number of politicians in Mexico City with
substantial American banking accounts ; there
are numberless cars as expensive as anything one
would find in Bath or Cheltenham. The sense of
shabbiness comes from something uneconomic, in
the way the people move and talk.
It has for some years now ceased to be a gay
city. The Jockey Club, which was formerly the
centre of expensive life, has been disbanded ; the
gaming houses from which former presidents derived
part of their incomes have been shut down I
gambling of every kind is illegal and there is a
strong temperance movement, which is following
the laudable programme of substituting the very
excellent national beer for the spirits which were
formerly the usual drink; on public holidays the
bars are shut. There is a large and formidably
drab quartier toleri, where the licensed prostitutes,
each in her separate cabin, stand all day at little
guich6s soliciting custom ; there is a good country
club where Mexicans and foreigners mingle on
cordial terms; the drug trade which was once
extensive and highly profitable is now being
efficiently checked. There is one more or less
respectable night-club and dancing for tourists
at some of the large hotels. There is practically
no private entertaining on any large scale. There
is an occasional concert and an occasional week or
two of opera at the great Opera l{ouse, but the
building is becoming more and more used for
34
 TOURIST MEXICO
purposes of Government propaganda. Those who
io-e to Mexico with picturesque ideas of a volup-
tuous, Latin-American night life, are usually dis-
appointed.
-
Films, of course, are rapidly driving out other
forms of entertainment. There are Cinema
Theatres doing brisk business all over the town,
showing everything from the latest American
products-the dialogue in English, roughly trans-
iated in a profusion of Spanish captions-to native
works which specialize in costumed orchestras,
funny men and a type of beauty refreshingly
unlike the established models of Hollywood. Here
too one can still find those serial thrillers which
seem unhappily to have disappeared in Europe,
which leave the hero, at the end of each instal-
ment, in positions of apparently inescapable danger
from whiih he is effortlessly relieved the following
week. Prices vary from theatre to theatre but are
uniformineach house ; aconcession totheMexican's
habit of destroying the upholstery when he is
dissatisfied with his place and to the bull-ring
tradition of climbing the barriers and invading any
more expensive seats which are empty or held by
people who look pusillanimous. But this is the
only democratic feature of the entertainment.
There seems little demand for the Russian instruc-
tional films which delight European socialists.
Indeed the Mexicans seem to have a dispropor-
tionate relish for the spectacle of the stiff shirts
and chinchilla that have disappeared from their
own country. While I was there three films on
consecutive weeks were drawing crowded houses ;
all dealt with the single theme of a girl who goes
to a fashionable hotel with borrowed clothes and
D2
35
 ROBBERT UNDER LAI,T
an assumed title and ends by marrying a real
millionaire. But, more curiously still, the film
which had the greatest popularity was Tlu Drum,
a romantic story of British Imperialism in the East.
How the crowd cheered when the good Highlanders
shot down the bad Afridis !

The great majority of tourists in Mexico have

either come on brief, round-ticket visits or they
have driven down in their own cars from the United
States ; in either case their itinerary is limited to
the motoring-roads which, in the tourist zone,
are in good condition and so decorated with hoard-
ings advertising international products that they
might be part of England or the United States.
From Mexico City one can drive in every comfort
to Orizaba, Puebla, Tehuacan, Cuernavaca,
Tarco and with mild discomfort to Acapulco,
Guadalajara and up the great north road to
Laredo. The stretch of railway from Tehuacan
to'Oaxaca is the only piece of line, excepting those
to Vera Cruz and Laredo, which is frequented by
tourists. There is an air service to Yucatan which
deposits its passengers to see the ruins at Chichen-
Itza, and whisks them away again as neat and
fresh as they started. Travel in other parts of the
country-and that is by far the larger part-is,
with the exception of the oil lands, which at the
time of my visit political events had virtually
isolated from all except government sympathizers,
as tedious and dangerous as in any inhabited part
of the world. The railway system which was one
36
 TOURIST MEXICO
of the chief achievements of the pre-revolutionary
r6gime, was practically destroyed during the civil
wars ; its return to its former owners was accom-
panied by labour conditions which made effective
reorganization impossible. Most of it was con-
fiscated by General Cardenas in rg37 and handed
over to the workmen. The railway from Mexico
to Vera Cruz is still operated by a British company
in increasingly hostile conditions. It has shown
no profit since the revolution and has had the utmost
difficulty in maintaining its service; the obliga-
tion to employ a redundant staff with wages and
benefits enormously in excess of those paid by any
native concern, make any improvement impos-
sible ; it is, however, luxurious compared with the
Puebla-Oaxaca line which embodies in their most
aggravated form all the jokes people have ever
made about railways. Others are said to be incom-
parably worse. A friend who travelled from
Guatemala to Orizaba found it hard to convince
people in Mexico City that the feat could be per-
formed at all. His account of it is, I believe,
eventually to be published, so I will not filch the
gruesome details from him. Nor will I plagiarize
from Mr. Graham Greene's harrowing description I
of his recent expedition through Tabasco and
Chiapas. My own experiences, I am afraid, were
definitely homely. Those who have borrowed this
book in anticipation of vicarious endurances, of
treacherous guides and blistered toes, pack mules,
dysentery, common or amebic, bandits, official or
outlawed, camp fires and strange encounters, must,
I fear, return it to the library unread. The worst
sufferings I can boast were from bed-bugs in two
I Tlu Lqthss Roads.

37
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
luxury hotels 1 and a film producer at luncheon.
I was in Mexico both for a holiday and for work
and both kept me in soft conditions.
Soft, let it be said, in contrast with Mr. Graham
Greene's. There are more thorns than roses
everywhere in Mexico. But no one wants to hear
about my bed-bugs and my film producer when
the country all round one was full of deadly germs
and desperadoes. I can only say that the small
discomforts and inconveniences that the tourist
suffers are prodigally repaid by the beauty and
interest of the country.
Various small incidents stand out as typical, if
not of the country at least of my trip there :-
The Indian chambermaid at the simple inn at
Tenancingo who, as we left, pursued my wife into
the street with a 20 peso bill which she had found
on the floor of our room.
The little janitor at the museum in Oaxaca who
was learning English ; he had transcribed in
pencil, in an awkward hand, the verses of the hymn
'All things bright and beautiful' and asked our
Mexican companion to explain some of the words
to him in Spanish ; I see them now against the
glass cases full of Mixtec gold construing the poem
together.
A very drunk mestizo at the hotel in Oaxaca.
The dining-room was the former patio of the
house, now roofed with glass, the floor bare tiles ;
every sound swelled and echoed monstrously; he
sat with a friend shouting, spitting and singing
uproariously and glaring round the room as if
he expected someone to start a fight. He was quite
r Ncither, I hasten to say, both from fear of libel and in gratitude to a
placc whcrc I was very comfortable, the Ritz.
3B
 TOURIST MEXICO
mirthless and curiously lonely in his cups. His
sober friend sat opposite him eating impassivelv.
Presently he made the plain and slatternly waitress
sit at the table with him. She tried to make him
take her to the cinema ; instead he took her up
to his room where he sang and shouted most of
the night. I asked who he was. 'He must be a
politician,' they said. 'Otherwise he would not
behave like that.' Further enquiry discovered
that he was a commercial traveller.
A cloud of dust, a galloping horse, a swarthy
figure in a wide sombrero, attended by three or
four young men, more modestly mounted. The
peasants in the roadsides bowed low as he passed.
A brigand ? No, the parish priest coming in to
say Mass. Another priest, an Englishman who,
because he had been born in Mexico, was allowed
to remain. He lived in the corner of a deserted
cloister. The patio was waste land ; once he tried
to make a garden there and found in the rubble
an old fountain which he re-erected. Then he
went to Mexico City for a week. While he was
away the soldiers came and stole the fountain;
the people of his parish lay down in the street to
stop them rolling the stone but the soldiers
won; now his only ornament ^way;
is a brilliant and
ferocious parrot ; he has not been out of Mexico
for thirty years.
A ride into the hills above Tenancingo, through
pine woods, to a deserted monastery. An Indian
family were housed in the porter's lodging ; it
was Sunday morning and they were washing their
heads in the tiled basin of a disused fountain, the
lather startlingly white on their dead black hair.
We walked round the garden where an elaborate
39
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
system of irrigation was choked and dry and the
monks' fruit trees sprawled untended, full of dead
wood.
A burst tyre on the road to Puebla. While it
was being mended we walked round the village;
it had once been of some size but most of the houses
seemed empty now, and the garden walls were
mere heaps of stone ; from above-the place
sloped sharply up the hillside-one could see that
it had once been carefully planned with level
terraces and symmetrical, transecting streets. A
great fortressJike building stood at the further
side of the central square. It had once been an
important college, said an old Indian; he had
been to school there himself as a child. The
fathers had managed a fertile estate there where
all the villagers worked. When the fathers had
been sent away the village began to disappear.
No one looked after the gardens now. He lived
by collecting onyx on the hillside and making
souvenirs for the shops in Puebla. Tourists never
came his way directly and he did not try to sell
anything.
Cuernavaca, two hours drive over the hills from
Mexico City, where the foreign business community
go for week-ends. AII the villas have swimming
pools and frigidaires and verandahs. It is the most
uncompetitive and friendliest of communities, both
to themselves and to strangers. They have the
kind of mutual loyalty that comes of being under
siege together. They wander in and out of one
another's houses, play cards, drink cokokola and
beyond an occasional joke about 'Article 33 '
(the enactment by which the Mexican government
may expel aliens) seldom talk of their week-day
40
 TOURIST MEXICO
worries. There is a seaside atmosphere in the
foreign villas. Outside there always seems to be a
wedding in progress. The women in the piazza
are smarter than in Mexico City. The recreations
are walking round the bandstand and revolver
practice. The old shrine in the main street has
quite lately been destroyed by communists. Of
Borda's famous garden nothing remains except
some dry, cement tanks and the great mango trees.
The Cathedral and the group of buildings round it
are splendid.
Taxco, the only consciously picturesque place in
Mexico. Mr. T. Philip Terry becomes lyrical in
his descriptions of the hotels. The one where we
stayed was certainly admirable. The tow'n is full
of silversmiths' shops; every turn of the steep
cobbled streets offers a shot for the amateur
photographer. The church is one of the few
buildings in Mexico whose interior is finer than the
exterior. Its pictures and altars have been left
intact. It is the only place in Mexico where the
children have learned to be impudent. It is no
place for the kind of tourists we were. Either you
must be very simple indeed and treat the place
like Coney Island, or a resident. The residents
are said to be the last survivors of the international
Bohemianism of the 'eos-the army of semi-intel-
lectual good-timers who once overran half Europe ;
it was, by nature, a mobile force, living on the
country; they have moved from Capri, Berlin,
Villefranche, Fez, Majorca suffering mass deser-
tions in the slump, and providing material for
unnumbered light novels. At the moment they
have set up their camp in Taxco-so they say in
Mexico City.
4r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Puebla, the only town in Mexico of dignity. It
is hard to realize that it has constantly been a
centre of revolution and that Toledano is stronger
there, probably, than anywhere in the country.
Every street is beautiful ; there is a good restaurant
and antique shops where objects of real antiquity
and beauty are for sale-(normally in Mexico
' antique' and 'curiosity' are synonymous terms
referring to souvenirs, things as frightful there as
I have ever seen anywhere in the world). The San
Domingo chapel, which escapes notice in Terry's
guide, is the finest of its kind in Mexico.
Chapultepec Palace. It was supposed to be
shut for the day, but a soldier let us in. General
Cardenas does not live there ; he has a villa of
his own in a flood-lit pine grove. Chapultepec is
full of memories of his predecessors ; Maximilian's
chosen site, then outside the city, now a suburb ;
it is his view; his stained glass windows in the
best taste of his time, the worst in the world, his
trees billowing below the windows but the windows
themselves bear the mark of the Republic-M.R.
in frosted, public-house glass ; Diaz's billiard
room and brass stair rails; Rubio's swimming
bath. The terrace is curiously like a seaside pier
with glass shelters and kiosks where one expects
to find cigar sellers; Carranza and his captains
used to sprawl about herq in the happy vinous
interlude between battle field and firing squad.
A garden in the outskirts of Mexico City with
an eighteenth century grotto made of Chinese
porcelain set in cement; glimpses of crowded
patios in the poor quarters ; a morning in the
prison. Tourists are quite welcome there. There
are workshops for about a tenth of the inmates;
+2
 TOURIST MEXICO
the others lie in bed or lounge about the yards
and beg money from the visitors ; some of them
have started small retail businesses selling sweets
and tobacco. The men are allowed visits from
women once a week in cells specially set aside for
their meetings ; that and other humane privileges
are prescribed by law ; it depends on your posses-
sion of money whether the gaolers allow them ;
with money you can get most things, from cocaine
to an evening's dancing at el Retiro. There is an
English homicide there, of unsettled mentality,
who is said to be often seen treating his gaolers in
the fashionable bars. General Cardenas was a
gaoler once and stepped into history when he
liberated his only prisoner and set out in his
company to join the revolutionary army.
The September crisis ; all the Mexican papers
making the worst of it-Guerra Ineoitabile on all the
posters. As a result no one taking it seriously.
We read that children were being sent out of
London ; that they were digging trenches in
Hyde Park. We thought, 'no wonder foreigners
think us odd when they are told stories like that
about us.' A little later thousands of people in the
United States were thrown into panic by the belief
that there had been an invasion from Mars ; that
is how the September crisis looked in Mexico for
the first few days. People with wireless sets said
they had heard snatches from London ; things
looked very bad there. In the Ritz bar there was
a certain amount of discussion among men of
military age as to how they were to get home.
Then the papers came out with enormous head-
lines 'President Cardenas Appeals for Peace.'
Shortly after that peace was arranged I many of
43
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
his supporters believed it was his doing until the
American newspapers began to say it was not
such a good peace after all. The war in Spain
was very much more real to them than any other
piece of contemporary history; more real even
than Roosevelt's New Deal. They understood
the Spanish issue in Spanish terms, without any
English and French and American confusions,
and felt strongly about it one way or the other.
ft was like part of their own lives. In the vestibule
of the Public Library hung a picture called' Spain'
woman in travail among the bombs, painted
-a
with Indian ferocity ; a really frightful picture.
There was a sweet, heady cocktail on sale at the
smart bars called a ' Franco'. Even a partisan of
Franco like myself, could see something ironical in
these two different modes of expressing sympathy.
A taxi driver had the Franco flag on the front of
his car.
A week of vexations in the attempt to buy a
picture. There was a large eighteenth century,
stylized, decorative St. Michael on sale at San-
bornes for the very modest price of loo pesos.
They are building a church for my parish at home.
It seemed to be just the thing. The lady in charge,
who throughout bore my vacillations with heroic
patience, warned me that there might be difficulty
in getting it out of the country. It had clearly
come from a church and as all Church property
had been confiscated by the Government its export
was forbidden; a sensible law which has done
much to preserve what has been preserved. We
went to the Ministry of Arts for permission to take
it away. They were charming and said they would
send someone to look at it. Days passed and our
44
 TOURIST MEXICO
departure became imminent. We called and tele-
phoned; if permission was given we should have
to have it photographed and obtain a special
passport for it. At last we got someone from the
Ministry to see it. It was too big, he said, and
tried to console us by deploring our taste; an
ugly picture, he said, of no value or interest.
Then someone told us of a smuggler who could
get anything one wanted out of the country. He
was blandly reassuring; yes, nothing would be
easier ; he was sending a cargo of contraband at
the moment; if we could bring it at once he
would have it crated up and we should find it
waiting for us at San Antonio. We told him the
day of our train ; it would be there in time.
We paid for the picture and carried it through the
streets to his office ; he was quite unembarrassed
by the ostentation of its delivery. An old Indian
carpenter was summoned to make a crate for it.
I was to call next day, when it had been weighed,
and pay for transit. I called. The smuggler was
not there. His clerk said he might come that
day or might not. We called repeatedly and hung
about the door. At length we caught him. The
picture was crated up. It would be delivered in
San Antonio in a week or so. But, we protested,
he had promised it for three days' time. We were
going straight through to New York. Well, he
said, that was impossible. Why had he not told us
that before we bought the picture ? He had been
busy and forgotten the date. It was all one to him
whether he handled it or not; he was only trying
to be obliging.
Then the deal was ofl we said. The lady at
Sanbornes patiently received us. Would she take
45
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
the picture back ? Very well. We carried it
through the streets and it was re-hung in its place
in the gallery.
A lengthy dispute now began with the smuggler.
Was it fair to him, he asked, to call the deal off.
He had been to great trouble about it. We offered
to pay for the crate and the carpenter. That, he
said, was of no consequence; the carpenter was
his father. But what of the risk ?
The risk ? Did he mean the risk of the authori-
ties intervening.
No, no, the authorities were his friends. What
of the risk he had run in housing the picture all
night. Suppose his warehouse had been burned
down, he would have been liable for the picture's
value. It had been an anxious night for him,
housing our picture. Anything might have hap-
pened. He was not pressing his claim as a business
man but as one gentleman to another. He did
not profit by his smuggling; he did it simply to
oblige gentlemen. I said, as one gentleman to
another, that I
thought his anxiety exaggerated.
He began to appeal on grounds of national
honour. What about the prestige of England ?
What would people say if it became known that
an Englishman had behaved in this manner. I
asked him what price he set on his anxiety. That,
he said, was a matter for an English gentleman to
decide for himself.
At this stage the Mexican friend who had been
my support in every predicament intervened. I
was handling this affair from quite the wrong angle.
Did the smuggler realize, asked my friend, that
England was faced with war ? I was returning
to fight for my King. How could I, in the circum-
46
 TOURIST MEXICO
stances, be expected to concern myself with pic-
tures. The smuggler was moved to sudden affec-
tion. Why had I not mentioned this significant
fact instead of wrangling about risks of storage.
He perfectly understood my predicament. How
could I go into action carrying a six foot canvas
of St. Michael. Of course there could be no ques-
tion between us of payment. To clinch matters
I gave a peso to the porter who had done nothing
in the matter except wriggle his bare toes among
the shavings. This convinced the smuggler of my
inherent generosity. We parted friends.
Ironically enough, when we got to the frontier,
the Mexican customs officers never came into our
carriage. We could have carried off a hundred
pictures.
An exhilarating day in search of a fiesta. The
bulletin issued for tourists in Spanish and English,
This Week in Mexico, announced a fiesta at a village
named Chalma. ' fn part,' it said, 'it is a religious
fiesta and due to the folk lore, traditions and the
hundreds of Indian dancers that come from all
over the country it will probably outclass other
fiestas during this month.' We decided to go.
Our only concern was that we should find it
overrun with fellow tourists. We need not have
worried.
Chalma was not on any map. Enquiry at the
Tourist Bureau elicited the advice to drive in our
own car to Toluca, hire another for the bad road
to Tenancingo, from where it was two or three
hours' ride by horse. We set out the day before.
At Toluca we ate delicious little white fish cooked
in black butter ; the first good food we had met
in a restaurant (on our return the fish had doubled
47
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
in price because, they said, some foreigners had
eaten so many-ourselves). The waiter at the
restaurant said it was eight hours' ride from
Tenancingo to Chalma. We found a car with a
negro driver. He knew a man who kept a hat shop
who came from Chalma; he would be able to
direct us. The hatter said the fiesta was not at
Chalma but at another village beyond, a village
named Santiago, not through Tenancingo at all.
It would be a beautiful fiesta. We could sleep the
night at Santiago and go there next day. We
drove off over appalling roads, through lovely
country to Santiago, a decayed village where no
one knew of a fiesta. We went to see the village
priest, an old man with a full white beard who
was sitting in silence in his sacristy with a younger
man in shabby civilian clothes, another visiting
priest. There was nowhere to stay in Santiago
they said ; there uas a fiesta at Chalma but a
very small one, without dancing. The govern-
ment did not allow dancing. But at the next
village, the one we were going to, there would be a
beautiful fiesta next day. How far was it ? About
two hours.
We stopped in the piazza to ask a soldier the
way. How far was it ? Ten minutes. It was a
question I suppose of the prestige of the motor-
car. It took us about half an hour. When we
reached the village we found a statue ofJuarez, a
small church, a few houses. The Indians were
decorating the church with branches of leaves.
We asked about the fiesta. There would be High
Mass, they said, in the morning. And afterwards ?
In the evening some actors were coming from
Toluca to sing in a tent. Dances ? No, nowadays
48
 TOURIST MEXICO
the soldiers did not allow that outside the Church
and the priests would not allow it inside. We
heard afterwards that they do still dance, at these
village fiestas in the yard outside the churches, but
the_practice has come into vague discredit and they
will not talk about it to strangers. We drove on to
Tenancingo and arrived there some hours after
dark. An enjoyable day.
These were our holidays. There are few coun-
tries that still offer so many surprises to the tourist.
put there were graver interests which have no part
in this chapter.

49
 CHAPTER THREE
A COUNTRY WHERE THERE ARE
NO CONSERVATIVES
I

JT may be useful here to give a few notes about

I Mexican political history. Various names will
Io..r. urri ...rr in thl folowing pages. It
would be tedious for the reader who is already
familiar with them, to find the argument constantly
intermpted by explanatory matter. On the other
hand it is perhaps not discourteous to assume that
some readers may be as ignorant as I was myself
when the events of last Spring first excited my
curiosity about the country. For their sake I will
suggest, with the minimum of comment, the
outlines of this historical structure of which recent
incidents are a part ; the learned are invited to
skip the next few pages.
The Spanish conquest of Mexico took place
between the years r5rg and r5zr. The land had
been the scene of previous extensive invasions, the
history of which is conjectural and based uPon
archaological inferences. The Toltec people are
believed to have conquered it from the South at
the end of the seventh century of our era; to
have lived there for three centuries and to have
disappeared again in circumstances of which
nothing is known. In the thirteenth century
savage invaders from the North West overran the
5o
 NO CONSERVATIVES
country. About a hundred years later a people
of higher culture came, also from the North,
named the Aztecs. They established themselves
mainly in the valley of the Anahuac but extended
their rule over a wider area. It was they whom
Cortes found in occupation, with their king,
Montezuma II on the throne. It has been popular
in recent years to attribute to the Aztecs a higher
culture than can be proved by evidence. They
built massively and symmetrically, with stylized
intricate ornament and statuary. Nothing that
has survived is comparable either in beauty or
technical skill with the art and craftsmanship of
mediaval Europe. (When I read accounts of the
splendour of lost civilizations, I always remember
the descriptions with which the world's press was
lately full of the Imperial court at Addis Ababa.)
They had a system of hieroglyphic record, but no
real written language ; they were ignorant of the
wheel and the plough. Their ascendancy over the
surrounding peoples seems to have been precarious.
Cortes found ready allies in the neighbouring race of
Tlaxcalans.
Cortes landed, after a preliminary brush at
Tabasco, at Vera Cruz ; his force amounted to
4oo men, r5 horses (animals never before seen in
Mexico) and 7 pieces of artillery. Before setting
out into the unknown continent he sank the fleet
that had brought him from Cuba. The stupendous
daring of the expedition needs no comment. Its
success was helped by the superstitious expecta-
tions of the people who had a tradition that an
event of the kind would occur. In r5zz Cortes
became Governor, Captain General and Chief
Justice over the Empire which Spain held for three
E2
5r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
centuries. In r5z4 the chaplains who had accom-
panied his army were reinforced by twelve Fran-
ciscan friars whose duty was to convert the natives ;
mass baptisms took place. lt r5z7 Juan de Zumar-
raga became first Archbishop of Mexico. In r53r
the work of conversion received what is held to be
miraculous sanction in the appearance of the Virgin
Muty at Guadalupe.
Notions of independence began to appear among
the governing class of the Mexicans towards the
end of the eighteenth century. The independence
of the English colonies in the North, the spread of
freemasonry in the garrisons, the revolution in
France, the weakness of Spain in Europe, all
contributed to them. The Napoleonic era in
Europe and the Peninsular War confused the issues
to such an extent that it was not always clear to a
Spanish official overseas where his true loyalty
luy. In t8to a parish priest, Hidalgo, led a
peasants' rising which was suppressed ; he was
executed. In r8r3 the army chiefs declared for
independence. The leading general, Iturbide,
became Emperor in ISzz ; General Santa Anna
at the same time proclaimed a republic. The
republicans won and Iturbide was executed.
In r8z3 the Monroe doctrine was proclaimed
by the United States; by this the continent of
America was declared closed to European irre-
dentism. In r8e5 the last loyal Spanish garrison
evacuated its post. From the death of Iturbide
until the French invasion of 186r, Mexico had no
settled government and in the confusion lost over
half her territory, permanently, to the United
States. The bankruptcy of the central govern-
ment and the peculations of successive soldiers
52
 NO CONSERVATIVES
and officials, prompted a series of inroads on
Church property which ended in the Reform
Laws of 1859, by which Juarez confiscated all that
was left. Juarez, still one of the heroes of the
governing party, was an Indian from Oaxaca, an
advanced radical in opinion and tenacious of
character. His candidature had the armed support
of the United States against the conservatives.
The French intervention of 186r-1867 had at
first been intended to have an international,
debt-collecting character. Spain and Great Britain,
however, early released themselves from their
commitments, and it became a personal adventure
of Napoleon III's. Arch-Duke Maximilian of
Austria had for some time shown ambitions towards
historical prominence that were unsuitable in a
younger son. He was induced to accept the crown
of Mexico under a false impression of the tran-
quillity of the country. He found that those who
had invited him to come represented only a fac-
tion and that the problems created by a generation
of anarchy and the Juarez Reforms were not amen-
able to the mildly liberal, constitutional monarchy
he had intended. His power and personal safety
were insured only by the French troops which, in
1867, Napoleon III withdrew. Two months
after they left General Porfirio Diaz took Puebla.
Jtrarcz, who had taken refuge in the United States
raised a rebellion in the North. A month later
Maximilian surrendered, with his loyal generals
Miramon and Mejia, and in spite of protests from
all over the world, was shot at Juarez's orders on
June r7th. The Arch-Duchess Carlotta had gone
to Europe to impress on Napoleon III the gravity
of the Mexican situation ; he was fully aware of
53
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
it and would do nothing more. She conceived the
notion that he intended to murder her, and in
Rome became finally insane, refusing to leave the
Vatican for fear of trer enemies ; she was thus the
last woman to spend a night in the papal apart-
ments.
General Diaz took Mexico City for Jtarez
and alter his death became the ruler of the country
for thirty-five years. During his reign Mexico
became the centre of enormous foreign investment ;
communications were improved and many of the
towns assumed a modern industrial character.
By 19o6 about dzoo,ooo,ooo of foreign capital
was invested in Mexico; the annual budgets
showed an excess of revenue over expenditure;
currency was steady and credit high. Limantour
was finance minister. A few years later the pro-
spective wealth of the country was enormously
increased by the discovery of petroleum in various
districts in abundant and convenient form. In
rgo8 the Mexican Eagle Company was formed by
the late Lord Cowdray. Other oil companies,
American and Mexican owned, developed valuable
properties. In rgro, Porfirio Diaz celebrated his
Both birthday and the zenith of Mexican economic
prosperity.
In the same year Francisco Madero, a wealthy
landowner of Spanish-Jewish origin, issued a book
attacking theprinciple ofre-election which, in effect,
made Mexico an autocracy and its representative in-
stitutions meaningless. Besides this purely political
consideration there was a feeling among many of
the more humane Mexicans that the distribution of
the new riches of Mexico was outstandingly inequit-
able; the foreigners had been making huge
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profits, rich Mexicans had become somewhat
richer; poor Mexicans somewhat poorer ; there
had been connivance at acts of enclosure of public
lands committed by the large landowners. Many
observers believed that Mexico was now so orderly
and prosperous that the time was suitable for
social readjustments that would improve the piti-
able condition of the poorest class. With Diaz's
increasing age the machinery of government had
fallen into disrepair; local military governors
returned 'padded' army lists ; when the revolt-
or rather the revolts, for there was little identity
of interest or aim on the part of the rebels-against
Diaz started, it was found that there was both little
will to resist and little means of resistance. Civil
riots and military mutinies occurred. Madero's
name was that generally used by the rebels. Diaz
was old and ill; he resigned on May z5 and on
the 3rst left the country for Europe, where he died
in exile ; he left the country rich and himself poor.
OnJune 7th, to the accompaniment of an unusually
destructive earthquake, Madero entered Mexico
City in triumph.
Madero's rule lasted until February r9I3 when
he was murdered by the adherents of General
Huerta. His period of authority was one of bitter
disillusionment for himself and his sympathizers.
The elements that had made the revolt successful
rendered the country ungovernable. Zapata and
Villa led bandit armies which successfully pre-
vented a1l attempts to restore order. Madero had
little administrative talent but failed largely through
his own virtues of trustfulness and moderation.
After his death authority was divided between
rival generals and brigands, among whom Presi-
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dent Wilson, vainly attempting to identifr a suitable
leader, chose Carranza. Atrocities took place
all over the country; whole States were captured
by criminals; the financial structure built up by
Limantour collapsed. Foreign investors found
their stocks depreciated or worthless while suc-
cessive governments were obliged to adopt more
and more ruthless and irregular means of raising
funds. Most of the prominent figures of this decade
rvere either assassinated or executed. In 1916
General Pershing's expeditionary force from the
United States failed to capture Villa. Generals
Calles and Obregon emerged as powerful leaders.
Carranza was murdered in rgzo u'hile trying to
escape from the country. The Calles-Obregon
group came into power with the support of the
C.R.O.I\I., a labour union organized on Marxist
principles in the industrial cities. The governing
party organized itself as the Revolutionary Party
of Mexico. Since then it has been the only political
party in the country I elections continue to be
purely formal ; candidates for office and for places
in Congress are chosen by the party chiefs ; rule
is autocratic, though the autocrat continues to be
subject to strong extra-constitutional pressure ;
some members of the Revolutionary Party belong,
and some do not, to the international communist
party ; its avowed aims are substantially com-
munist; it is strongly anti-religious. It was
powerful enough to destroy the brigand armies;
the various questions at issue with the United
States, chiefly relating to damage and confisca-
tion of foreign interests, continued to be acute.
The general trend has been a pressure from
below by organized labour for a more drastic
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policy of socialization and nationalization, resisted
by the office-holders who wish to consolidate their
personal careers by coming to terms with the
United States. In order to pacify the C.R.O.M.
(which later was eclipsed in importance by Lom-
bardo Toledano's union of syndicates, the C.T.M.)
Obregon and Calles intensified their anti-religious
policy ; in r9z5 the churches were closed through-
out the country ; countless outrages against the
religious took place during an officially supported
persecution, the most famous incident of which
was the execution of Father Pro, a Jesuit ; there
was an armed revolt by the Cristeros (followers of
El Cristo Rey-Christ the King). Obregon was
assassinated, with unsolicited help from his own
party, by a religious cartoonist named Tocal, in
1928. Calles continued the persecution of the
church, but under the influence of Dwight Morrow
became increasingly amenable to the require-
ments of foreign finance. Various party nominees
held the Presidency but Calles remained the real
ruler. In ry94 General Lazaro Cardenas was
chosen for the six years term of office under the
supposition that he would prove obedient to Calles.
He quickly disappointed these expectations. First
he made a tour of the country, endearing himself
by his simplicity and promising substantial philan-
thropic innovations ; he became a personal figure
instead of a party nominee. Finally, with the
help of General Cedillo, he expelled Calles from
the country. Cedillo retired to his property in
San Luis Potosi, where he reigned as more or less
benevolent dictator. He became, however, the
focus for the aspirations of Cardenas's opponents.
Cardenas drove him into rebellion by demanding
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his removal from his own territory, and succeeded
in hunting him down and shooting him in the
hills. Cardenas, since his accession, has fallen
under the influence of Lombardo Toledano, who
has convinced him that the various philanthropic
reforms he wishes to introduce, can only be accom-
plished by a full Marxist policy; Toledano's
natural persuasiveness has been reinforced by his
power as leader of most of the principal industrial
and agrarian organizations. The main features
of General Cardenas's policy are the nationalization
of industries, most of which are foreign owned and
managed, and the confiscation and division into
village holdings of the private landed estates. He
has encountered little resistance in the latter ; in
the former, however, he finds himself at variance
with the United States and other foreign govern-
ments. In March I93B he took the grave step of
confiscating the whole oil industry. He is, per-
sonally, a man of predominantly Indian blood and
of simple habits ; in early middle age. He was a
general at the age of 25. He has never been outside
Mexico, has no oratorical powers but a gift of
endearing himself with those he meets, particularly
the peasants; no one has seriously accused him of
venality, though his brother is universally believed
to have made a fortune by government contracts
for road building. Lombardo Toledano is a lawyer
of superior education ; he has visited Russia and
is in touch with labour leaders all over Europe
and the Americas; he is handsome, a vigorous
orator, sensitive about his personal prestige and
credited by his enemies with a substantial and
increasing private fortune deposited abroad. He
holds no position in the government and is dis-
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tmsted by the majority of the army leaders. He is
said to regard himself, with some justice, as the
real ruler of Mexico.

Questions I often asked myself during my stay

in Mexico were : if one were not looking for signs
of it, how much would one be aware of the very
singular social and political conditions surrounding
one ? How far would it be possible to lead what
in other parts of the world would be considered
a normal life ? The answer to the last question is
that for a Mexican or for anyone doing business
of any kind in Mexico, it would be quite impos-
sible. The distressed condition of the country and
its uncertain future affect every hour of his day. I
think, too, that only a very incurious visitor could
be unaware of some of the underlying confusion.
Many years ago now, there was a delicious film
in which Harold Lloyd, as a convalescent mil-
lionaire, arrived in a South American republic in
the middle of a revolution and progressed placidly
down the main street, bowing left and right, while
a battle was raging round him. A few huppy
visitors no doubt travel through the country
engrossed in the antiquities or the natural history
of the place, completely oblivious of its condition ;
but they must be very few. For it is impossible
to talk to any inhabitant for five minutes without
feeling the obsession of politics. For anyone who
troubles to enquire the oddest information is
constantly cropping up.
On the first day of my visit traffic leading to the
Cathedral square was paralysed at midday. My
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companion advised leaving our taxi and walking.
After passing an enormous block of cars, some
drivers hooting furiously, others resigned to an
indefinite wait, others causing further confusion by
attempting to back out in the side streets, we came
upon the cause of the trouble ; a huge procession
of schoolchildren, of all ages, themselves halted
and standing wistfully among their banners. Many
of the groups wore distinguishing ribbons and
uniforms ; the banners seemed merely to state the
localities from which they came. I asked, " Is it
some football match ? "
" No, it is just a demonstration of the children.
They are always having them."
" What about ? "
" I'll ask." My companion asked one or two
spectators who shrugged indifferently, saying it was
just a demonstration. Finally he obtained the
information. " It is a children's strike."
" What about ? "
" They do not like one of their teachers. They
have come to protest to the President."
" They seem very well organized."
" Yes, the children's committees do that. The
Ministry of Education teach them to organize
like the C.T.M."
" What will happen ? "
" The teacher will be dismissed. They are
always changing their teachers in that way."
Next day the newspapers had a story of a brawl
between the schoolboys and some chauffeurs from
an omnibus garage.
Strikes are a topic of general discussion, like the
weather in Eng1and, and like it, the habitual
excuse for any failure of plans. The visitor may
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wonder why the service is so bad even at the leading
restaurants ; if he enquires he will learn that it is
practically impossible for an employer to engage
temporary labour ; nothing fluctuates more sharply
and regularly than the tourist trade, but if a
restaurateur engages a waiter for the busy months
he must keep him. Under the Labour Law the
least that can happen to him for discharging a
man is the payment of a bonus of a quirtir's
wages ; it is more likely that a prolonged suit will
begin ; he will be kept from his business day after
day waiting for a hearing at the Labour Courts,
paying his own lawyer and one for the man who is
suing him, paying the man's wages while the case
is pending, and at the end be obliged to re-engage
him permanently. So employment drops, the
tourist sits hungrily at his table or rings despair-
ingly at his bedroom bell in his hotel, the servants
who are employed are worked off their feet and
everyone is the worse off. The incurious visitor
may merely assume that Mexicans are not very
good hotel keepers ; and that also is true.
Then there is the Museum. Every tourist visits
it ; how many bother to enquire how it is managed ?
Those who are told, find the story incredible.
These, as I learned them, are the facts. Until a
short time ago the staff was divided into two
groups, both directly employed by the State.
There were the specialists appointed to the various
departments-archaologists, anthropologists and
so on, who had mostly been trained in the United
States or in Europe and knew a fair amount of
their sciences ; they were very poorly paid, but it
was one of the few appointments open to Mexicans
of education who were not active politicians ; their
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work corresponded with that of similar officials
in other museums ; they were responsible for
cataloguing, labelling, arranging, advising about
new acquisitions and so forth. Below them were
the floor cleaners, janitors and officials in peaked
caps who lounged about the rooms guarding the
exhibits and ordering foreign tourists to remove
their hats. These had no pretensions to educa-
tion, though in time they picked up a little dubious
information from what they heard the guides tell-
ing the schoolchildren. These outnumbered the
specialists. When the Cardenas rdgime introduced
the classless era, instructions were sent out that all
units of workers must organize themselves into a
union, which was to be a branch of the national
' labour front ' over which Sr.
C.T.M.
Lombardo - theToledano presides. The Museum
workers accordingly formed their union. Next
they declared the Museum a closed shop and
demanded that the specialists be made to join them.
This, too, was decreed. The janitor is the boss ;
he enjoys meetings, and calls them frequently ;
he has the power to fine absentees which he uses
with relish ; the specialists have to come to his
meetings, where all points of discipline and con-
ditions of employment are debated and decided.
It has just been decided that in future all promotions
shall be by seniority alone and that all members of
the union are equally eligible for all posts. Thus
a floor cleaner may, and probably will, find himself
in charge of the Mayan antiquities.
Tales of this kind-many of them no doubt
exaggerated-form the staple conversation in
Mexico. There is the story, which I believe to be
perfectly true, of the woman who was ruined by
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her door-keeper. The door-keeper is an important
man in the Mexican family. In the old days of
large households it was keenly competed for. It
cariied no regular wages, but board, lodging, lig[1
work and a position of confidence that could be
turned to profit in many ways. In particular he
got tips foi being awakened after bed time. In a
patriarchal Mexican house the younger members
were often anxious to conceal from their Parents
the hours they kept. It was a thoroughly good job.
One old Indian had held this post contentedly for
twenty-five years when he was caught in some
unusual dishonesty and dismissed. He consulted
a lawyer about the new Labour Laws and their
interpretation in the hope of getting some damages.
The lawyer, learning that he had received no
regular wages, filed a suit against his employer
for accumulated arrears at the new rates, for
compensation for their having been withheld, for
fineJ for neglect of the labour legislation, and for
overtime for having been expected to get up and
open the door at night i.e. for having been on duty,
at work, all night, every night of his life. The
total, with legal expenses came, I was told, to
4o,ooo pesos. And he won his case.
It is unlikely that he profited much. It is usual
in such cases for lawyers to work on a commission
basis which in the case of an illiterate Indian would
absorb most of the winnings, or even to purchase
the rights in an action for a sum down. Litigation
is universal in Mexico. ' I have to see a man about
an amparo' (stay of justice) is a normal polite
excuse in refusing an invitation. European
employers who find themselves constantly involved
with the courts, get despondent about it, but I
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got the impression that Mexicans, on the whole,
rather enjoy it. What they do not like is for the
game to lose the element of chance which is so
dear to them. In the old days you never quite
knew what decision you would get ; it all depended
on the pull your adversary had, on the biibe he
had offered, and to whom. Now there is monotony
the judicial decisions. They go on purely
ilideologic2l grounds. The proletarian is ilways
right ; between proletarians the one who is nearest
to the C.T.M. boss ; between bourgeois the one
who is nearest to the governing gang. One of the
present President's first reforms was to abolish
the independence of the Supreme Court and
make its personnel a government committee.
Since then no appeal has been of any efficacy
where politics are concerned-and politics are
concerned in every branch of Mexican life. It
it "9 exaggeration to say that to be an employer
in Mexico is to outlaw oneself. It is not surprising
that business of every kind is in dissolution. There
are indications that Mexicans themselves are get-
ting uneasy about their condition.
At first many of them enjoyed the spectacle of
the discomfiture of the foreigners. They disliked
them personally ; they resented their assumption
of superiority ; they inherited a belief that their
government was under foreign influence, and was
being conducted for foreign advantage. There
was a certain tradition of misunderstanding between
foreign commerce and the Mexican educated class
which has had an important influence in Mexican
politics. There are of course countless exceptions.
There are many English and American business
men who are popular on the golf links and even
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in Mexican homes. There are some Mexicans who
have been educated in Europe and return more
pro-British than the British themselves. But,
generally speaking, there is something of the
Chinese mandarin about the Mexican aristocrat in
his attitude to the capitalists. In the days of pros-
perity when the Jockey Club was the centre of an
extravagant social life, few English or Americans
obtained admission. Now the Mexicans are ruined
and they attribute their ruin very largely (and I
think unjustly) to the foreigners. They believe
that most of the revolutionary confiscations took
place with the connivance and encouragement of
the United States, who backed Jnarcz against
Maximilian.; first made and then drove out Huerta,
and even idealized ruffians like Villa and Zapata;
who armed Calles when half the country had risen
against his religious persecution, who were natur-
ally anti-Catholic and anti-aristocratic, who took
huge profits out of the country and lectured the
Mexicans on their responsibilities if they went on a
holiday at Biarritz ; who told successive Presidents
that a redivision of land would bring national
salvation, who complacently watched the ruin of
the Church and of the white land-owning families ;
and were now getting ruined themselves. They
are too polite to put matters so bluntly but this is,
I believe, the attitude of most of the Mexican upper
class. It is only partly justified by historical facts,
but that is their belief, and that the reason why,
in the present crisis, the foreign business men found
no local party to whom they could appeal.
There is a disposition, in fact, among visiting
publicists to ignore them altogether or to treat
them as a distressed foreign minority, like White
l.u.L. 65
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Russians in Paris ; to accept the centuries of
Spanish rule as a closed incident and to look to
pre-conquest elements for the eventual salvation
of the country; to speak severely of 'Indo-
America' in place of 'Latin-America'. That is
the official attitude of the Revolutionary Party
which finds expression in the huge and clumsy
frescoes of Diego Rivera. It suits the politicians
and the archaologists, but it makes nonsense of
history. Mr. Gruening, for example, who is to
many students the standard historian, devotes rB
pages out of 664 to the 'colonial period'. But
the Spanish conquest was not a process of mere
economic exploitation. Mexico was part of New
Spain ; for three centuries of undisturbed domina-
tion Spaniards lived, married and died in Mexico ;
they mingled their blood profusely with the
various native nations ; they taught the people
their language, law, religion, crafts and social
habits. The whole country was saturated with
Spanish influence ; then the European source was
cut off; the surface became dry and dusty but
below it there was still rich, moist soil ; for another
century Mexico remained essentially Spanish. Four
hundred years of history cannot be obliterated.
The traditions of Spain are still deep in Mexican
character and I believe that it is only by developing
them that the country can ever grow huppy.
I do not mean, of course, that it is possible or
desirable to re-establish the vice-regal government,
the oidores, and the eruomiendas, although it was in
many ways a better system than Mexico has known
since. I believe, in fact, that within a hundred
years Mexico will form part of the U.S.A. But I
mean that for the understanding of its immediate
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problems fewer mistakes are made if it is remem-
bered that the Mexicans, though they may some-
times feel like Aztecs or Tlaxcalans, think like
Spaniards ; their minds have been formed on the
Aristotelean model.
The position of the Spanish-Mexican families
has no exact parallel anywhere in the world. At
the moment they exhibit many of the defects of
an aristocracy that has first been deprived of power
and privilege and then of livelihood. For genera-
tions, now, there has been little inducement to
them to attempt to retain the leadership of their
country. Under Porfirio Diaz (1876-19r r) they
filled the diplomatic posts and local governorships,
but the national system was purely autocratic
and the army a mere police force. They were
precluded by their religion from joining the Free-
masons rvho filled the bureaucracy. Moreover
they were rich. Not as rich as English or Americans
or French, but comfortably provided. Diaz ensured
them their incomes and left them to enjoy them-
selves. Diaz married into their class. It is sig-
nificant that when the revolution came it was led
by a man far nearer to them than to the peon-
Francisco Madero, a rich, rvhite,landed proprietor.
Diaz has been criticized since his fall by all
parties-by the patriots on the ground that he
parcelled up the national resources and sold them
to foreigners, by the socialists on the ground that
he introduced modern capitalism and kept the
peasants in degraded conditions, by humanitarians
because he enslaved the Yaqui Indians, by the
religious because he left the problems of the Reforms
unsolved.
The general feeling ls that he had a unique
?2
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opportunity to reconstruct the nation and that he
did nothing except maintain his own authority
and allow troubles to accumulate for his suc-
cessors. The truth was that he set himself a simpler
but no less arduous task. He should be judged
as a Mustapha Kemal, not as a Mussolini. He
found a country which, after two generations'
experiment with independence and democracy was
rapidly relapsing into savagery. For two genera-
tions the country had not known a government.
For the period immediately before Diaz's assump-
tion of power Mexico had been in the occupation
of a French Army. While everywhere else in the
world the ordinary amenities of civilized life had
been making prodigious advances, in Mexico they
had actually receded since the Spanish occupation.
In particular the United States, which at the
beginning of the century was on a lower cultural
level than her Spanish neighbour, was now a world
power of enormous wealth and potentiality. In
Mexico there was no law nor national unity; not
only had she not kept abreast of mechanical
advance ; in matters of communication and per-
sonal safety she had fallen behind her colonial
standard. For thirty-five years Diaz maintained
his personal government. He set an example,
unique among Mexican rulers, in the integrity
of his private life. He was a faithful husband ; he
left the country rich, himself poor. He opened up
the country with roads and railways, bringing law
and wealth to practically unexplored districts.
Above all he kept the country's sovereignty intact
-at athe
that
time when statesmen were openly claiming
natural boundary of the United States
was the isthmus of Panama. He was only able to
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 NO CONSERVATIVES
do this by maintaining the equilibrium of foreign
investment; by getting English and French to
fight his commercial war with the United States.
He saved his country from absorption at the very
modest price ofthe dividends that went to European
stock holders. It was a big enough achievement
for one man ; as time goes on perhaps the Mexicans
will come to appreciate it, but as there is not yet a
single memorial to Cortes, and his most lovely
relic, the old church at Tlaxcala has lately been
ruined, perhaps this is too much to hope. (Though,
come to think of it, is there anywhere in England
a memorial toJulius Casar ?) At the end of Diaz's
reign, when his powers were weakened, he began
to concern himself with the problem of a successor
and for the moment toyed with the idea (as Kemal
did with disastrous results for those who took him
seriously) of a constitutional opposition. Mexicans
of the time, who had grown up under him, and
knew the boredom and inevitable abuses that grorv
in an autocracy, who had never known the bad
days of Juarez, wished to see their country con-
forming still more closely to the contemporary
fashion ; they had seen general elections at Stony-
hurst and knew them to be lively and bonhomous
occasions. So party politics were reintroduced
with pleasant expectations of candidates competing
with benevolent projects and a party loyalty finding
expression in coloured rosettes and rotten eggs.
The result has been twenty-five years of graft,
bloodshed and bankruptcy. Hardly a single pro-
minent figure in the history of Mexico in the last
generation has escaped a violent death ; Salas,
Reyes, both Maderos, Suarez, Villa, Carranza,
Obregon, Orozco, Zapata-the catalogue is almost
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complete. Now and then a politician gets across
the border in time, either to wealthy exile like
Calles or to imprisonment and death like Huerta.
The constitutional opposition to which the op-
ponents of Diaz aspired, has never come into
existence. There is still one political party in
Mexico, now the Revolutionary Party ; seats and
offices are appointed at party headquarters as in all
totalitarian states. The only difference between
the Mexican system and the Fascist is that the
nation has sacrificed its political liberties without
getting internal security or foreign prestige in
exchange. Thus it is not surprising that a political
career has now few attractions for Mexicans of
decent principle. It is difficult to say where
the fault lies rn'hen the government of a country
gets into the hands of its worst elements ; there
is a natural trend of all political forms in this
direction. Those who have wearied of democratic
forms forget that history is full of instances of
legitimate royalty being ruled by corrupt courtiers;
English Whigs in the eighteenth century enriched
themselves from the public purse ; it is not
only in France and the United States that the
worst men may get to the top. What is certain,
however, is that there is a Gresham's Law active
in public life ; bad rulers drive out good. In
France and the United States it is unusual for
respectable citizens to go into politics. In Mexico
it is at the moment unknown.
In the United States, however, there is trade as
an honourable activity and a source of polver ;
in France there is an army. But in Mexico trade
is almost all in foreign hands and the army has a
very odd position. There is no recent military
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tradition among the Spanish Mexicans. The army
f,orms an independent estate with a relationship to
the Government and the people which it is impos-
sible for a foreigner to understand.
_
In the ordinary way it is extremely unobtrusive.
One sees far fewer soldiers about the place than
in most European countries. Every town has its
barracks-(usually a convent appropriated'for
charitable purposes' ; many churches show signs
of recent military occupation-bayonet cuts in
the pictures, the ashes of camp-firls made from
choir stalls, etc.)-on days of national importance
the streets are lined and paraded with glum, fairly
smart little figures in uniform ; there are guards
in field uniform-tin hats and bandoliers-at most
government offices ; on the main roads one passes
little pickets, quartered in peasant huts, employed
most of the day in cooking and eating ; vey,
very rarely a high officer appears at a night club
where, if sober, he sits shyly in a corner, suffering
uncertainty about his knife and fork. But one
does not get the impression of a country in which
the military are predominant. That, however,
according to everyone who ought to know, is the
case. It is in the army that revolutions start;
it is from the army that rulers rise-General
Cardenas, for example. And the army is a
very unusual force indeed. It is strongly anti-
Catholic, pro-Freemason, anti-aristocratic, anti-
foreign. Since the reforms of General Amaro it is
highly disciplined-almost ascetic. One hears of
local Generals who maintain a feudal state, rather
like Abyssinian Rases, but for the most part they
live rough. The officers are recruited from the
half-caste minor bourgeoisie; they go to military
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schools at an early age and imbibe certain Spartan
virtues and vicei. The men are pure Indian,
recruited in the villages, usually, I am told, by
forcible methods. Once enrolled they find them-
selves detached from the village, the soil, the family,
and the parish which have hitherto been the basis
of their lives ; they seem to accePt the new attach-
ment placidly enough. Their loyalty, like that of
' nativt troops' all the world over, is to their
immediate superiors. When the officers declare
against the gbvernment they march with them.
T-hey are inJpired by the commander's- prestige
and' populariiy which seem to have singularly
little dependence on his qualities of justice-.and
humanity, or even on his courage and military-
skill. If'the general is successful they get a kind of
vicarious satiifaction ; if he loses they either take
to the hills with him or wander home to their
villages. A1l the fighting they have seen or heard of
o. ,i. likely to see or hear of is against fellow
Mexicans.
The civil service, which includes the school-
teachers, is appointed purely on political grounds
and reflects ttre opinions
-
of the governing- grouP
in Mexico City. The personnel are subject to -
close scrutinyin their private lives and are liable
to expulsion iq for instance, they are seen to
practiie their religion. Most of them are mere
llerks who find it convenient to profess whatever
is the current governing philosophy. Many^ of
them are alarmed ut the direction General Car-
denas's policy is taking ; practically all, if.they could
keep thiir posts by so doing, would readily suPPort
an 6pposite policy if an opposition came into power'
The-whole-hearted doctrinaire communists seem
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mostly to be employed in the office of education,
but even here there are many courageous malcon-
tents who give secret religious instruction to their
pupils.
The lawyers are an able and influential class.
Apart from the endless litigation which is a feature
of. Mexican life, they occupy themselves pro-
minently with political controversy in the piess.
fhere are many prominent socialists among ihem.
Lombardo Toledano, the head of the C.T.M., the
federation of trades unions which is the chief
political force in the country, is a lawyer. The
judges, as has been mentioned above, are now
political nominees, but the bar is predominantly
against the Government, largely no doubt foi
professional reasons ; the presence of the foreign
business concerns in Mexico has been a source of
splendid revenue to them.
The doctors are said to be highly competent,
though the best of them still go abroad foi their
training. They have for a long time enjoyed a
privileged position under the Revolution.
Foreigners are forbidden to compete with them.
Many of them owe their places to C.T.M. appoint-
ment. Medical service is one of the directions in
which General Cardenas promises-though up to
now he has accomplished very little-unlimited
expansion. Hospitals are all in Government hands.
They may, therefore, be said to support the present
regime as a profession, although individually many
are becoming apprehensive.
The shopkeepers and small manufacturers are
uniformly allied rvith the foreign business interests.
A large number of them are themselves foreign-
German and Jewish principally, but drawn from
73
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
all races, even Chinese and Syrian. They have
suffered most from recent events. They are,
however, unorganized and, at the moment, without
influence.
The priesthood will be dealt with in a later
chapter. They have been driven into the life of
the catacombs. They are, of course, opposed to
their persecutors but it is generally believed that
their political power is completely broken.
These are, roughly, the political groupings of the
elements from which a national opposition to
General Cardenas might be expected to arise. At
present time there is no open opPosition of the
kind which flourishes in a democratic country,
and when one questions those who are most bitter
in their complaints of the regime as to how they
hope to see it altered, the answer nearly always
comes back to the Army.
Judged by recent European standards Mexico
see*r to be in the condition where a Fascist party
is due to rise and conquer. There is a historical
cycle which is now becoming familiar and seems
aimost a part of industrial development ; a cycle
in which at certain moments malignant non-
economic forces are decisive. There is the first
phase when labourers, accustomed to a low stan-
iard of living and employed in a kind of work
which makes only modest profits for their over-
Iords, are employed for the same wages on work
which provides enormous profits ; this is usually
called exploitation. Next comes the phqe *!9"
the workmen realize their importance and the dis-
proportionate nature of their rewards ; they-suc-
tty claim a larger and larger share of the
".st
profits until the employers are gaining the bare
74
 NO CONSERVATIVES
margin which gives an inducement for further
capital investment in that particular quarter;
with the share in the profits comes an iicreased
opportunity
-for the workmen to rise to higher
economic classes and to become, themselves,
;
employers the increased purchasing power of thi
new- wages and the taste for a wider ringe of com-
modities induced by the new social aipirations,
lake- the marginal profits, in gross, considerable i
that is liberal capitalism. Then the devil .o*.,
into it. As legitimate trading ceases to offer
sensational profits the taste for gambling in ficti-
tious values grows on the part of the rich with
consequent sudden fluctuations of prosperity and
employment, while at the same timi thi demands
of the workmen cease to be temperate, are political
in character 'become
instead of economic, and
frivolous and vindictive ; that is what is popularly
known as the class war. The middle cliss-suffers
from both sides and sees itself threatened by extinc-
tion while at the same time those whose interests
are not exclusively economic and class-conscious,
are ashamed at the ignominious aspect their country
has in the world at large ; theri is an ebullition
of semi-mystical feeling for race and nation com-
bined with an ascetic disgust for people who com-
-Self:preservation
pete only for physical comforts.
and patriotism combine to produce Fascism. Then
the devil comes into that, too ; cranks and criminals
get into-power in the new regime ; the patriotic
motive becomes neurotic ; i people constantly
maintained in a co_ndition of high ixcitement by
demagogy has to find some food for its nervous
appetite more tasty than draining marshland and
maintaining a punctual train service ; the nation
7s
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
embarks on a war of expansion, is ruined and reverts
to those simple standards oflife when, in due course,
it will be ready for the cycle to start again with a
fresh era of exploitation.
-is,
This cycle of course, largely conjectural'
Mexico has seemed to conform to it in recent years
but in her case there are further complications'
First, the disparity between the urban proletariat
and ihe peasant is'enormous ; industrial conditions
and coirmunist propaganda have brought the
factory workers to i condition more or less analogous
with those of pre-Fascist Italy and modern France ;
the peons on the land have no counterpart in
Europe ; they belong to another historical era'
Secondly, the larger industries are almost exclu-
sively owned and managed by foreigners, so that a
prrr.iy nationalist movement would not seek its
itti.r, as it has done in Europe, among the indus-
trial magnates. Thirdly, Mexico is used to mis-
governmint. That is perhaps the most dismal
feature of all. A whole generation has grown up
since the fall of Porfirio Diaz who has known
nothing but pillage, graft and degeneration' It
is not s-hocking to ihem to hear of scandals in high
places ; they ire not disappointed when promises
^are
repudiaied ; they have grown accustomed to
seeing- everything working rather less well year
by year. They lack the spur to action which comes
fr'om exasperation at seeing something -misused
which they have seen in ProPer order. Many of
the more thoughtful of them have come to the
conclusion that there is no cure for their ills' It
is not unknown in history for the jungle to recapture
its lost provinces ; one can see it happening, to{ay,
in the West Indies. It is only by unremitting,
76
 NO CONSERVATIVES
concerted defence and counter-attack tJrat man
retains his place on the earth. M*y Mexicans,
and those some of the most honouraLle and dis-
interested among them, have despaired of the
effort.

77
 CHAPTER FOUR
OIL
I
fT-1HE National Museum was full of school-
I children. Crocodiles threaded their way
I from Huitzilopochtli to Tlahuizcalpante-
cuhtli, Chac-Mool anh Teotihuacan, pausing and
stopping at the command of their guide,- gazing
about t]h.- with that air of sullen bewilderment
common to schoolchildren in museums in all
parts of the world. An eager, English-speaking
guide had attached himself to me in the courtyard'
" There are too many childrenr" he remarked'
" Yes."
" It is their holidaY."
Together we struggled to the huge Calendar
Stone"which is the hili-mark of the more expensive
souvenirs. You can get the Calendar Stone in
china as an ash-tray, or in gold the size of a three-
penny bit on a ring, or in silver the size of a soup-
ilut.'.t a salver; you can even get it-oddest of
^.lI
ao**.morative conceits-engraved on an onyx
egg, but no one knows what it means' Ingenious,
ciJst-*otd minds have played with this z4 ton
puzzle for r5o years and devised various explan-a-
'tions
flatteriig to its Aztec caryers. It has been the
base of a pai-iotic claim that before the -Spanish
conquest, the Indians had advanced beyond.Europe
in the scilnce of chronology. We stood and looked
7B
 OIL
at this stone ; the schoolchildren swarmed round
us.
" It is better to see this very interesting stone
early in the morning," said the guide. " There
are some beautiful objects in the room across the
patio."
We passed into a very nice jumble of bric-a-
brac : costumes, snuflboxes, Imperial regalia,
lace and needlework . . . " This," said my guide,
" is one of the sn ords of Maximilian's body-
guard."
It was one of those triple daggers, ornamented
with cairngorms and silver thistle, that form a part
of Highland full-dress. Heaven knows how it
had found its way here (or did Maximilian keep a
piper ? I have not seen him mentioned in any of
the biographies, but it is quite conceivable that he
imported the idea from Balmoral in his romantic
Miramar period.)
" That has come from Scotland," I said.
" Scotland ? "
" A part of Great Britain."
" Ah." This gave my guide the chance to satisfy
himself on a point that had been puzzling him for
some time. " You are not American ? "
" No, English."
" The English are more elegant."
" Yes."
" They have more nobility than the Americans."
" Vary true."
" I am surprised to see an Englishman here since
we took your oil. What do they think in England
aboutthat? ..."
The eternal question, with which all conversa-
tions in Mexico began and ended : what was the
79
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
British Government going to do ? What did the
Rritish people feel about it ? The true answer, I
suppose, was that though there was only one large
international question for the Mexicans, there
were a hundred for the British Government. We
had stated our views uncompromisingly and were
quite prepared to wait a year or so before dis-
cussing them. And as for the feelings of the British
public, these are only aroused when they see
politics in simple terms of underdog and oPpressor.
They have not yet got used to thinking of British
Companies as underdogs. Moreover the confisca-
tions had been accompanied by a number of
potent phrases about democracy. If the Japanese,
or Nationalist-Spaniards, or Germans or Italians
had taken our oil, then there would have been a
series of meetings in the Albert Hall ; but the
Mexicans had a Left Book Club vocabulary. It
so happened that the Mexican regime showed
features which elsewhere would be damning :
the government was autocratic ; the autocrat was
a General ; there was only one political party;
educational appointments were political and the
teaching purely state-propagandist ; history books
were being edited on the lines of nationalist self-
assertion Some of the British public knew
these things, some did not; but to the politically
minded, vocal minority, one thing was of para-
mount importance : when the Mexicans saluted
their bosses they raised the arm with clenched fist,
not with extended fingers. So they were all right ;
they were democrats, like ourselves and the French.
It is true that the majority of Englishmen do not
think in quite such simple terms, but it is the
minority who edit the weeklies and hold meetings
Bo
 OIL
in Trafalgar Square. It is they who are quoted as
expressing ' British opinion'. Sober citiiens had
more on their minds than Mexico in the summer of
Ig3B. The Oil Qgestion, however, makes a very
nice working model of a modern international-
economic problem. It has practically all the
features of the larger problems that are disturbing
our lives and may be examined conveniently in the
Iarge, but not overwhelming, volume of conflicting
p.r-opaganda that has been issued by the opposing
sides.
The main facts are not in dispute. On March
r8th, r938, General Cardenas, by Presidential
decree, confiscated the properties of a dozen or
more oil companies representing British, Dutch,
American and other foreign shareholders valued
by them at about d8o,ooo,ooo. Since that date his
action has been confirmed by judicial decisions
and amplified by the executive officials to include
business premises in Mexico City and the Isthmus
which had no direct connexion with the production
or sale of oil. The decree of expropriation was, in
form, the General's answer to the refusal of the
companies to accept the award of the Mexican
Labour Board in a dispute between them and their
employees. The British Foreign Office, unsup-
ported by the State Department at Washington,
protested on April Bth, in a note from which the
following salient points may be quoted :

- " His Majest2's Gooernmentinthe United Kingdom

do not question the general right of a Goaernmint to
ex{ropriate in the public interut ind on payment of
adequate .compensation I but this principle- does nit
se-rue to justtfl ex?_ropriatiorc esseitiall.y- arbitraryt in
character . . . The Mexican Eagk Compan2 were,
l.u.L-
Br
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
as a result of uarious Proceedings in law, confronted-
with an aiard rendeied b1 the I'abour Board and'
ioin *td brt the Subreme iourt, which uas nnt in the
ii. of rtis lutaiistv's Gooernment justified on the
iix i . . Esseitia{ eoiderue hnd been improperly
'eicluded, inadequately corsidued and unjustffiably.
oroiiddi, @ eiperts'and the Labour Board-; which^
euiderce uis directed to shou that the fguru of
irofi* and costs of tlu - Compan2 subsequently
'aiooted brt exberts -and the Labour Board uere

thnt the conditions following for ryln-

satisfied
,o*blio*t with the award aie not such as haae
wahanted the adoption of sycl a drastic and.far-^
rearhinq measure is expr"opriation-
-step
The seaerit2 of
this hirsh and arbitrirv utas out of all pro-
bortion to the exipencies-of tfe situation which it was
'allesedlv desipnel to meit and went far be2ond what
*oi irutori if tt t real object which the Mexican
Gouernment'nia naa bqfoie them was merelt to
secure the execution of thi award and what, in their
aieut. would be fair- treatment -for the utage earners
. . . UX Majeit2's Goaernmeit haae looked in uain
fu on) explicit- and -adequate statement .of such
'bublit-inttiest os would ie seraed b1t nothing less
'than expropriation; nnr do the2 think it could haae
-

been iemirutrated that anlt such public interest

existed.
", . . His Maiesty's Gouernment''' -frnd
dfficulty in escaping the corclusionsthat the real
iotiae'for the ixbrifrriation was a political desire
to acoiire for Mixiio in Permanerce the adaantages
of oinersfrib and contro[ of the oil felds ; that
ixbrobiation *^ tantamouit to corfucation carried
oit inder a aeil of legalit2 formed b1t basing it upon
labour issues I ina itta{ the consequences haue been
a denial of iustice and a transgression b7 the Mexican
Goaernmini of ttu prirciples of international law'
Bz
 OIL
* His Majesfit's Goaernment see no uay in which
th.is situation can be remedied but by the restoration
of its properties to the Company iiself. This His
Majest2's Minister is instricted hereb2 formall2 to
request."
The Cardenas Government replied on April reth.
"... The Mexican Goaernment cannot do other
tlzan point out tltat, eaen on the assumption that
numerzus Britislt inuestors are aery muc[ interested
in the situation in which the Compan2 finds itsetf,
the latter is a Mexican enterprisr,'ortr iturTort iti
defense of its interests does nit appertain to iforeign
State . . The Mexican Gouirnment cainot 7n
an) ua) admit the unjustified limitation which it is
sougli to place on tlte right of expropriation . . .
Th9 expropriation decree must be afpraised separately
and must be adjudged legal and aalid in itself,
altltough it is recognipd that the circumstanies
lreceding it made expropriation indisperuable . . .
The ground of public iiterest wltich led directly to
it was created in tlis case b2 tlte contempt of iourt
on the pal of the companies-in the fac, oj o"duision
rendered b2 the ltigltest court of tli land . The
frm dele-rmination to ?ry for the properties expro-
priated ltas been declared publicl2 -before the whole
world and the Republic's iapacii2 ti pa2 is a real
and certain fact . . . It cannot- be saiil that there
wqs. denial of justice, so long as the legal resources
?
wltich tlte compan2 ltaae for their protection haae not
yet been exltausted before the Mexican Courts.,,
As the result of a further exchange of notes in
which certain technicalities were disputed and the
fundamental disagreement of the two governments
accentuated, diplomatic relations were severed, on
the initiative of the Mexicans, on Mry r3th.
Legal proceedings to set aside the expropriations
83 G2
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
were protracted for months, without hope of
redress on the part of the companies. The Mexican
Courts enjoy far less independence than those of
Nazi Germany, and in recent years have never
been known to give a decision, in a matter con-
cerning politics, that was not in accordance with
presidential instructions, but the tedious and expen-
sive farce had to be played out, to satisfy the
Mexican objection that a denial ofjustice could not
be pleaded so long as there were legal means of
appeal open. The proceedings were voluminous
and, to the lay mind, futile. No one expected
impartial justice to result; no one was surprised
by a series of decisions, some of which violated the
law, some of them commonsense, and some both.
Mexicans are nimble advocates ; they settled down
to the case luxuriously, like gluttons to a feast.
The height of fantasy was reached when the
Supreme Court decided that the Companies were
guilty, not only of contempt of court, which was
technically arguable, but of breach of contract with
their employees. The men, no one disputed, had
occasioned the quarrel, by striking for a new col-
lective contract when they were already bound by
a series of contracts, most of which had some time
to run after the date of the stoppage. The Supreme
Court, however, held the Companies guilty of
breach of contract and liable, not only to the
payment
-but
of three months' pay but of an undefined
potentially vast compensation. Presumably, in
dictiting this judgment, the President hoped that,
in whatever final reckoning might be made, this
sum might, somehow, be introduced into the
balance as an asset, and written off as an instal-
ment or as the bulk of the compensation which he
B4
 OIL
had promised to pay. But the lawyers had trans-
lated the question to a world of make-believe.
Men, in their attitude to law, may, nowadays,
be divided into those who believe that if an act ii
legal, it is irrelevant whether it is just and expedient,
and those who believe that ifit is just and expedient,
it is irrelevant whether it is legal. Few identify
the terms, for respect for Larv, as such, is the sui-
vival of a much earlier age and of another con-
ception of Society. Then the Ruler was con-
ceived of as someone holding a commission to
enforce the Law. Law was the inherited, and in
many systems divinely revealed, wisdom and
morality of the people. The good king was the
one who administered it ; the bad king let it be
broken or broke it himself ; he was himself the
subject of the Larv, not its creator. Nowadays,
however, Law is merely a formulation of the whims
of the plty in power. It is used for social experi-
ment ; it is 'tried out' on the people and li[htly
abandoned if it proves unpopular.- Rulers iorn.
into power largely on their piomises to make new
laws or repeal old ones. As a consequence law has
become intensely provincial. It hai followed the
general break-up of international concepts. In
the- drying up of civilization, cracks apptur ar,d
widen ; th_e parched nations shrink u*uyho* or.
another. It becomes, year by year, more difficult
for people of one nationality to make their homes
among those of another. When a man voluntarily
submits himself ro the law of the land in which hL
is living, he cannot predict the implications of his
submission. He is prevented from taking any
g?T il forming a system which may change.dizzily.
This is true among the great and stablJ fo*ers ;
B5
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
it is of graver consequence in a country like Mexico
where Iny hooligan may get into PoY9r, govern by
decree, and assume, bY his own dismissals and
appointments, a judicature who will give his
diirees any interpretation that an emergency may
require. 'ih.rs tle question of.whether Mexican
exicutive actions ca., be reconciled with Mexican
legislation is purely academic ; a source of revenue
to"the overcrbwded Mexican bar ; an opPortunity
for personal recrimination in the Mexican weekly
pup.tt ; but a barren topic as far as practical
^ Thus are
poiitics concerned.
all serious political discussion, today, must
employ extra-legai terms. It was, I believe,
abundantly p.or.d in the Mexican Courts, that
the act of'expropriation violated the larvs and the
tut these are not the grounds on which
constitution,
the ordinary English or American observer will
find his inteiest aioused. Some, indeed, have their
minds already closed to discussion' There is the
purely nationalist preconception on either side,
i"t i.ti is unshakabli ; the English-pretty few of
them in these days-who believe that the world
was created to supply the English rvith physical
comforts, and that-ihe armed forces of the Crown
exist to .rrrrr.. the regular payment of dividends-
'if the dagoes don'i like it, damme, what's the
Fleet for ?; There are the Mexicans-thousands
of them-who believe that the soil of the country
and anything on and below it, was ordained for
the excfusivJuse of the heterogeneous peoples who
have been born there ; that this possession is
inalienable and that any use made of it by a
foreigner is an act of theft. Besides these, there
ur. ih" ideologues, to whom all capitalists are
B6
 OIL
outlaws ; they believe that a state of war exists
between employer and employed; that any gain
for one is a corresponding loss to the other ; that
all profits are stolen from wages and that there is
no solution to the differences that arise, except
the extermination of the rival party. With these
there is no arguing. But beyond either group
remain those who believe that mechanical industry
and private property can cause both harm and
good, and that each case must be judged on its
merits. To these the significant q-uesiio.r, ur. ,
Did the foreign oil companies establish themselves
piratically in Mexico ? Did their presence retard
the peaceful development of its political and social
life ? Were the workers in the oil fields neglected
and underpaid, and their recent demands based on
bona fide social grievances ? Was the destruction
of the companies the only way of satisfying them ?
Has the Government any intention of paying
compensation ?

Petroleum is, next to the Cinema, the youngest

of the great industries of the world and, unlike it,
the most highly organized ; for the outsider to
attempt to disentangle all the ramifications of
allied and subsidiary companies is like tracing the
marriages of the royal families of Europe. After
a period of intense and very nearly disastrous
rivalry during the early years of the century,
the numerous private concerns which had begun
to deal in oil, decided to combine. Pros-
pecting, mining, refining, and marketing are now
co-ordinated by enormously wealthy international
87
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
groups, whose ramifications are so wide that in
*u"j, minds they have come to bear a slightly
sinisier connotation. No doubt this is largely due
to the fact that besides being an essential of almost
every branch of civil life, oil is altto a^primary^
requisite in time of war. By a -rare beneficence of
pr6vidence it so happens that the nations who are
at the moment credited with the most war-like
disposition, are deficient in oil. But it also happens
thai the sources of oil are, with the exception of
those of Russia and the United States, located in
small countries who could not hope to maintain their
independence by force unaided, and the strong,
p.acefrl powers control the supply, by arrange-
inents mote ot less analogous to the one lately
repudiated by Mexico. Now these small countries
ar-e watching events in Mexico with keen interest.
If she is suciessful in her experiment, they will be
tempted to imitate her, and a change in the balance
of pbwer may result which will prove the deciding
consideration in the unresolved question of whether
the war-like powers will settle down to exploit
what they have already gained, or push ol t9
further, iataclysmic adventures. This is indeed
a sinister aspect and it must be remembered when
the industryis being treated as a purely commercial
organization.
But even as a commercial organization there are
certain unique features about the petroleum
industry. The potential profits are vast; so are
the poiential losses. It is a highly speculative
business in which it is impossible to predict any
relation between capital expenditure and the
return. Prodigious sums are sPent yearly-and
must be spent if production is to be maintained-
8B
 OIL
on the exploration of new fields, which often prove
entirely fruitless. It is a business on which only
very rich corporations can embark with any
reasonable hope of success. The stories of small
farmers and Indian villagers who find themselves
boundlessly wealthy overnight are romantic
material and are copiously used as such by drama-
tists and scenario-writers ; but the real history of
the oil industry has been made by arduous, unre-
mitting prospecting, financed by companies who
can bear the losses because of their occisional dis-
proportionate gains elsewhere. A small state with
a precariously balanced budget could not con-
scientiously undertake the risks of exploring its
own resources out ofrevenue.
Moreover, petroleum is one of the very few
industries who serve the general interest by stan-
dardization. The civilized man, today finds the
world intolerably monotonous in detail ; he travels
from country to country, continent to continent,
and finds the same firms in almost identical build-
ings displaying uniform mass-products to uniform,
mass-clothed, mass-educated customers. The spec-
tacle is so depressing that he is apt to forget ihat
there are occasions rvhen standardization is desir-
able. There is everything to be said for regional
cookery, regional architecture, regional craftiman-
ship, but nothing for regional petrol. The car
user wishes to be sure that he can get the identical
petrol to which he is accustomed, every ten miles,
for thousands of miles and that is what the organiza-
tion of the companies assures him. He wants,
moreover, to be sure of a constant price. Large
and erratic fluctuations in the price of oil would 6e
an annoyance to the private driver ; they would
B9
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
be disastrous to the numerous industries who depend
on it for their power. If petroleum were impro-
vidently mined-and markeied by competing small
.o*prt i.t and small states, there might, at the
cost of great dislocation and unemployment in
the industry itself, be a fall in price for a few years'
There are a number of wells which, once they have
been found, produce petroleum copiously 1ld
easily, with working costs which would enable
them to sell at a very low price ; at present these
profits are being absorbed into the industry to
talance less succissful districts and finance further
exploration. Should the industry disintegrate and
fai into the hands of competing small companies
or governments these sources would speedily. be
exhiusted ; in a year or two there would certainly
be a sharp rise in price, possibly a world shortage
of oil ; a condition which, in the rather precarious
economic balance of the world, might well pre-
cipitate another vast wave of unemployment'. It
is not conceivable that a grouP as improvident
and corrupt as the politicians now controlling
Mexico *olld resist the temptation to make imme-
diate profits where it could, or that-even supposing
that iome provision was voted for exploration,
the sums grinted would ever be properly^ employed
for that pirtpot.. It is to the interest of the world
at large thit the oil industry should remain an
internitional state, as in effect it is today, and as it
certainly would be in the ideal Marxist world'
The profits accruing to private -individuals are a
cheap price to pay i., exih-a.nS9 for coherence and
stabiiity. But io'admit this is not to settle the
particular problem that has arisen in Mexico' It
bft.r, happens with human organizations that
9o
 OIL
though generally beneficent in purpose, they are
mishandled in practice. It would nol be surpiisi.rg
if by reason of its great power and resourie, thE
international oil industry were ruthless in individual
cases. Was this the case in Mexico and has General
Cardenas hit upon the happiest solution ? We are
thus back at the six questions from which we
digressed.

3
Did the oil companies, as is commonly asserted,
establish themselves piratically in Mexico ? The
answer, so far as the British intcrests are concerned,
is that they came rvith every encouragement from
the existing government and were at great pains
to satisfy every lawful requirement of title. Imper-
sonal corporations are at a disadvantage in dealing
with dictators, in that the latter can deny all
continuity with their predecessors. General Car-
denas, for example, chooses to regard his advent
into Mexican politics as the initiition of a new,
apocalyptic regime of righteousness and joy. Mus-
solini, Hitler and Stalin (who rvould no doubt
courteously include Lenin) live under the same
rosy illusion. It makes government, in certain
respects, vastly more simple if you can repudiate
previous history. The fact remains, howevir, that
the oil companies came to Mexico less than forty
years ago with the full encouragement of the
President, Porfirio Diaz. His successors, transient
arrd often fugitive figures, have been willing from
time to time to sign away for ready cash concessions
that were not theirs to give. Diaz; at the beginning
of the century, was the undisputed ruler of a very
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prosperous republic. He was the one man since
ihe ixpulsion of the Viceroys, who could without
affectalion, claim to speak with authority for the
whole Republic. He rvas, however, antecedent to
the Cardenas Six Years Plan and all his acts are
now officially anathema.
The man who created the Mexican Eagle Com-
pany was very far from being the penurious adven-
iurer who, in popular fiction, seeks his fortune
-peoples.
among backward -Mexican fle was, in fact, the
greate-st figure in development, second
only to the President in importance and esteem'
feetman Pearson (later Viscount Cowdray)
went to Mexico for the first time at Christmas
r88g. He was already one of the most prominent
.rrglr.... of his time, the head and sole motive
foie of the firm that had successfully executed
great engineering works in many parts of the world,
ind a min of substantial private fortune. He came
to Mexico at the President's invitation to cut the
Mexican Grand Canal, the largest public work
yet undertaken in the Republic. This contract
was the beginning of an association with the countfY
which endld only in his death, during which he
left his mark on every asPect of the national
organization. His largest rarorks in Mexico were
thE reconstruction of the Tehuantepec Railway,
and the construction of its terminal ports, Salina
Cruz and Coatzacoalos which until the opening
of the Panama Canal, provided the main trans-
continental route from Atlantic to Pacific, and the
creation of a new port at Vera Cruz, where, under
his impulse the old city was cleansed, its streets
..purr.i, water and drainage supplied-work so
*.11 don. as to withstand 25 years of wanton
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neglect ; it is only now beginning to relapse into
its original squalor. Wherever his operations
moved, improved sanitation followed. He set a
new standard of healthy living conditions, draining
swamps, clearing bush, tapping sources of pure
water. His object was not primarily philanthropic ;
these things were the requirements of efficient
labour and appeared as by-products of his work.
The conditions of his labour gangs were not up to
the standard of modern European developments,
but they were superior to anything yet attempted
in Mexico. He worked in close association with the
President who found in him and his staff men who
could be relied on to keep their word and overcome
difficulties rather than plead them as excuses for
evading their obligations.
It was not until rgor that Pearson turned his
attention to oil, and he came to the subject without
any previous acquaintance with its complexities.
More than once there were rumours that he was
ruined, which approximated nearly to the truth ;
only his perseverance, his great financial resources,
his ability to learn quickly from experience, and a
little luck, brought him to final success. The story
of the venture is told in detail by Mr. J. A. Spender
in the official biography.
He needed oil for the use of his locomotives on
the Tehuantepec Railway ; his surveyors had
lately reported local seepages on the Isthmus near
San Cristobal on a tributary of the Coatzacoalos
River and at a place on the River Pedregal further
East. These reports were no doubt in his mind
when, stopping for a day at Laredo in Texas, he
found the place in a state of wild excitement over
the discovery, two months before, of the famous
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Lucas Gusher at Spindle Top. This fired his
imagination and he promptly cabled his agents to
secure options on large areas round his properties
where oil had been observed. These instructions
were amplified later from New York. He engaged
the engineer who had made the lucky drilling at
Spindle Top and with the least possible delay had
begun the development of the San Cristobal-
Capoacan field. He quickly learned, however,
that the discovery of oil was only the first stage of
the undertaking which needed a continuous series
of successes to make profitable ; the crude oil had
to be controlled, refined, conveyed and sold. For
a long time expenscs greatly exceeded the returns.
In rgoz he r,r'as talking of 'cutting his losses and
clearing out' when he had spent dI,5oo,ooo.
Before the end he had spent three times this sum.
It was not until I906 that he felt justified in erecting
a refinery and tankage, at the cost of a further
d5oo,ooo. It was not until rgoS that the refinery
began work.
Pearson soon gave up the idea of cutting his
losses and clearing out. He had learned the first
principle of the industry, that it must be conducted
on a huge scale, or not at all. In 19o6 he obtained
concessions from the Federal Government and the
State Governments of Vera Cruz, San Luis Potosi,
Tamaulipas, Tabasco and Chiapas for further
exploration and exploitation rights. In March
19o6 he owned about 6oo,ooo acres of oil land and
had zoo,ooo-soorooo acres more on royalty leases.
These were not obtained by mere strokes of the
Presidential pen, as is popularly believed in Mexico.
A staff of lawyers was continuously employed for
years verifying titles and scrutinizing the transfers.
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 OIL
The records of land-ownership were often inex-
tricably confused ; every kind of fraudulent impos-
ture was attempted on the Englishman who had
gone into the market so extravagantly for land that
had hitherto been held as valueless.
And still the business showed no profit. Drilling
had been continuous but San Cristobal remained
the only workable field as yet discovered. San
Cristobal only promised a two years' life and in
those two years things grew worse instead of better.
Pearson went in for marketing oil in competition
with the American firm of Waters Pierce who up
tillthen had enjoyed a profitable monopoly in
Mexico ; when the produce of his own fields fell
short of the market commitment, he was obliged
to buy and import ; he soon found himself buying
more than he produced. In June rgog he bought
4oo,ooo barrels of oil from Texas, while the input
of his refinery was dor.r,n to 3,ooo barrels a day.
A further field at Furbero which was allied with
Pearson proved a disappointment. In the end,
when success did come, it was not in the Isthmus
where he had originally started, but 4oo miles
north of it, where he had not been particularly
hopeful. In January rgro a shallow, highly pro-
ductive well was struck at Tanhuijo and in Feb-
ruary Potrero No r gave promise of a rich field.
Now, after he had borne all the costs and anxiety
himself, Pearson for the first time felt justified in
coming before the public and in May the Mexican
Eagle Company made its first public issue of shares.
In December of the same year Potrero No 4 was
struck; a mine that has become famous among
oilmen. For two months it ran to waste at a rate
of roorooo barrels a day, before the engineers could
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succeed in getting the immense flow under control.
This well ran for eight years before it was exhausted
and yielded over roorooorooo barrels, having nar-
rowly escaped total destruction in l9r4 when it
was set on fire by lightning and burned for seven
months. It was the discovery of Potrero 4 which
proved decisive in the competition with Waters
Pierce Company, which until then was going none
too favourably for Pearson. With the end of this
conflict, on Pearson's terms, came the beginning
of the great system of commercial alliances of which
the Mexican Eagle now forms a part. By rgt8
Mexico had become the second greatest oil-pro-
ducing country in the world. It has recently lost
its position for reasons rvhich will appear later.
Oil is still there when conditions allow its produc-
tion. The history of its discovery is not the familiar
cinematographic tale of the destitute heroine finding
a fortune on her mortgaged farmyard and living
happily ever afterwards, but it is, in its own way,
just as exciting.

4
Did the oil companies exercise a malevolent
influence on local life and politics ?
Last summer a naive little pamphlet named Tlu
Good Neighbor, by Mr. Oscar Morineau was being
distributed free in Mexico City to tourists, who
looked as though they might have bourgeois sym-
pathies. Other, more outspoken literature was
kept for fellow socialists. The thesis which Mr.
Morineau had been turned on to defend was that
Mexico was not communist, still welcomed private
enterprise and further foreign capital investment,
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 OIL
but had been driven to drastic action in the par-
ticular case of the oil companies because of their
licentious behaviour. ' The origin t tl" oil industry
in Mexico,' he says, 'is stairud with blood, aiolerce,
plunder, corruption and intrigue of all kinds. We mal
forget crimes and mistakes of tlu past, prouided tie
organilation or industr2 committing them later justfies
its existerue from a social point of oiew. Unfortunitel2
tlu oil companies did not haae the necessar) foruight io
co-operate in the deaelopment of the regions in which
tluy operated . . . they teft no traces of culture . . .
only saloorc and places of prostitution flourished . . .
we are frml2 determined to preaent priaate enterprises frorn
becoming positioe factors of corruption.'
General Cardenas in his broadcast message to
the nation, of March r8th, r93B said '. . . Another
ineuitable cltnequence of tlte preserue of the oil companies,
strongl2 characteriled b2 tluir anti-social tendercies, has
been their persistent and improper interaention in national
ffiirs.'
' Tlu oil companies' support to strong rebel factions
against the constituted goaernment in the Huasteca region
of Vera Cruz and in the Isthmus d Tehuantepu diring
tluyears rgrT to rgzo zi no longer a matterfoi discussion
b2 an2one. Nor is an)one ignorant of the fact that in
later periods and eaen at the present time, the oil companies
haae almos't openly fanned the ambitiorc of elemenis dis-
contented with the country's gouernment They haae
-.
had mone2, arms and munitions for rebellion . . but
for the progress of the countr2rlfor establishing an economic
equilibrium with their workers through a just compensa-
tion of labour, for maintaining hygienic conditioru . . .
they haoe neither mone) nor the desire to subtrart it from
tlu aolume d their profits.'
A few days earlier, Sr. Lombardo Toledano,
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
speaking to the C.T.M. GeneralCongress, had said:
'- fou reiall, comrades, lnw tlu wealth of tlu oil cornpanies
was atquired in Mcxico . . . How nary wretched-
Indians in Vna Crul, in Tamaulipas, in Tabasco, and
in otlur parts of the countr2 were sacrifued !, Tlu2^
cmphyed iompany potice and, during tlu fatefu! dof .o.f
Rcaoiution, eaen-hid a wlule armlt at their seroice. Like
tlu condottieri of Renaissarce ltalt, these traitors to tluir
country were paid b2 the companies to protect their pro-
perties.'
' St.t.-.nts of this kind were the fuel for most of
the oratory which blazed in Mexico at the time of
the expropriation. They were widely accepted in
the country and even outside it where so much
pubtic opinion is formed by the readilg of heartlines.
Wetl-intintioned citizens of the U.S.A. and Eng-
land, who had no special interest in the questiol,
became vaguely awire that 'there was a lot to be
said on both sides ; the oil companies did not
behave at all well.' What is the truth ?
The charges are never substantiated by detail
against Mexican Eagle and the question is rather
philosophic than historic ; what ought the beha-
,io,rt t-o be, of a large, wealthy corporation in a
small and poor State ? The oil companies came to
Mexico *hen it was a wealthy and stable country ;
the revolutionaries brought it to ruin ; one by one
they obliterated its former sources of wealth except
petioleum, which the companies managed to keep
for ten years with a very
'decline)from rgzt
going (though
[."ry until they occupied a position -of
disproportional importance. - It was admittedly
antm-barrassing position for the republican govern-
ment to find tliemselves the sovereigns of a vastly
richer subject ; as we shall see the solution which
9B
 OIL
commended itself to them was to ruin that industry
too and reduce the whole country to uniform
squalor. Was it improper for the Companies to
resist this solution ?
It is manifestly unreasonable for General Car-
denas to plead, as he did in his Note to the British
Government, that the Mexican Eagle was an
exclusively Mexican concern answerable only to
local law, and at the same time deny them the
right to take any interest in the procesrls by which
the law was made. The General, too, is,-like all
revohrtionary leaders, in a somewhat ambiguous
position with regard to revolutions. The Crown
of Spain might logically claim that all rebellion
was of its nature, wrong ; no subsequent govern-
Ignt- of independent Mexico has that right.
'Traitor' has come to mean one who did not
support the last successful act ofrevolution. General
Cardenas's personal vanity enables him to take the
logical hurdles without a spill. All governments
before th-e splendid day in 1935 when, with clemency
unprecedented in Mexican politics, he gave his
former boss, General Calles, twelve hourslo leave
the country alive, have been unjust and their
personnel traitors (he would probably make an
exception of Jtarez and Madero ; for the latter,
sentiment is still strong ; he and General Cardenas
would have found few points of agreement).
Thus a corporation which has attempted to *oik
harmoniously with his predecessors is damned as
an ally of the Enemies of the People.
- 'Working harmoniously' with any Mexican
institution involves a good deal thaf might be
regarded askance in Europe. On occasions no
doubt the oil companies, faced with the alternatives
E'
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
of curtailing their work or of paying the customary,
irregular levies of the political bosses, conformed to
local usage ; there are few concerns in Mexico,
native or foreign, private or public, which are
innocent of this. The majority of the courts and
the government officials are venal ; that is they
expect and are expected to supplement their
meagre salaries as best they can. A bought decision
is not necessarily an unjust one. The government
inspectors whose duty it is to examine machinery
and see that the prescribed safety devices are
employed, expect large tips not to certify defective
factories but to approve efficient ones ; if the tip
is not paid they refuse their certificate and the
company is fined ; if the company appeals, they
may be left unheard or a higher official may be
sent who will expect a correspondingly higher
bribe. A wealthy institution like the oil com-
panies naturally becomes the target for a con-
iinuous fusillade of malicious and irresponsible
litigation. They soon learned to their cost that a
clear case did not guarantee a favourable decision.
It is cheaper and quicker to conform to the custom
of the country however reprehensible it seems.
In the matter of political interference the truth,
as far, at arry rate, as Mexican Eagle is concerned,
seems to be the exact reverse of the popular belief.
If the company is censurable with regard to its
political behaviour it is that it did too little, not
too much. They were in Mexico for the PurPose
of producing oil and they stuck to their posts
resolutely through all the giddy changes of local
politics. When the American drillers fled, the
British stayed on, continued to drill, store, Pros-
pect, though rival armies were maneuvring all
IOO
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round them. They paid their taxes to whomever
was in a de fado position to demand them. When
the whole country was given up to guerilla bands,
looting, burning and massacring, they armed their
men to defend their own lives and homes and the
company's property. When the Federal Govern-
ment had ceased to function and a revolutionary
general was in a position to demand blackmail,
they sometimes paid it ; that is what General
Cardenas means when he talks of their financing
rebellion. The Mexican Eagle staff stayed at
their work in conditions of imminent danger and
concentrated on their work. In the light of recent
events it is easy to say that they should have done
more ; that they owed obligations to the country
where they worked and should have defended more
than their own possessions ; that they were too
tolerant of the succession of scoundrels who emerged
from anarchy into brief periods of power. When
all the decent elements in the country were united
against Calles they did nothing and allowed the
successful revolt, when it came, to be the work of
Cardenas and Toledano. That is, I think, an
arguable indictment; but, as many American
ambassadors have learned to their cost, it is diffi-
cult to meddle profitably in Mexican affairs, very
easy to deplore events that take place there, very
difficult to foresee them. The companies' modera-
tion may yet be rewarded and the extreme folly
of Cardenas and Toledano may turn to their
benefit.
Ironically enough, at the early stages of the
conflict, one of the charges was that the oil com-
panies were anti-democratic in sentiment and sold
their oil to the fascist powers. Nothing has been
IOI
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
said about this lately, since the Mexican Govern-
ment has found little enthusiasm for the confiscated
oil in lawJoving countries and has been obliged
to deal mainly with the fascist states.
The further charge, that the oil companies failed
to promote culture among their workmen, is not,
I think, seriously made by anyone in Mexico and
is intended solely for foreign consumption. What,
I wonder, did Mr. Morineau expect the companies
to do ? They paid high wages and the men spent
them in Mexican fashion, on loutish enjoyments.
'Saloons and houses of prostitution flourished' ;
what does Mr. Morineau expect the companies to
do about that ? When, in time of manifest peril,
the companies organized protective guards, Mexican
patriots pretended to be outraged ; what would
they say if the companies had formed vigilance
committees and patrolled their workers' homes with
squads of women police ? That, indeed, would be
an intolerable imposition ; the workman may well
talk of slavery when his employer claims the right
to supervise his leisure and direct how his wages
are to be spent. The companies did much to secure
healthy conditions for their men, and were deliber-
ately prevented from doing more, but this point
belongs to the further question of whether the
men's claims were bona fde grievances. The com-
plaints quoted from Mr. Morineau and General
Cardenas mean nothing less than that the com-
panies did not usurp the proper functions of local
government. They paid high wages and high
tar(es; the workmen misspent the wages and the
politicians misspent the taxes, with the result that
the country did not benefit as richly as it might
have done had it been differently inhabited. That
r02
 OL
is hardly the companies, fault ; but supposing
that t!.y had-
adopted a different podi ;;;
supposing, as would obviously not havi happened
in fact, the local authorities 'had allowed thim to
make.their- properties in a state within the state, a
model settlement standing in perpetual reproach
to the ramshackle and savage- lands surrounding
!h*. Supposing they had taken their worker"s
in hand from birth to death, had them born in a
company's-hospital, educated in company,s schools,
entertained in the company,s playing'fields and
theatres, edified in the co-pa"yt li-b.ury, p..r-
sioned offin the company,s alms houses and-buined
up in the.company's crematorium ; if they became
company's men instead of Cardenas,s. There
indeed would be an imperialism to enrage a patriotic
Mexican ; a development that could-ont1i end in
the political separation of the oil fields from the
rest of the country.
One can imagine the charabanc loads of proud
tourists driving out to the companies, domains . . .
" And here, folks, we turn our backs on the dark
ages and come into the_light of the zoth century
progress. You are now leaving Mexico and entei-
ing Petroland. Th-e queue outside the gates are
appryrnq for Petroland citizenshfi ; since
Y.A.T:
the Toledano-Cardenas war applications foi citire.r-
ship have greatly exceeded the quota ; but tem-
porary
*grkigS permits- are being issued to refugees
who satisfy the medical requirements. The blSck-
house on the right is the headquarters of the petro-
Iand gendarmerie. On the l-ef.! you see the Doheny
shrine. This beautiful marble statue was erected
at the cost of over a million American dollars by
admirers in Tea Pot Dome. On the right is thl
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Ambassador Wilson memorial note the native
woman laying flowers at the feet of Mr. Doheny'
I am glad-to tell you that in Petroland this cult is
rapidly replacing the retrograde devotion to saints
and crosses which we have noted uP country
the Company's post-office is here. You may buy
Petroland stampi in all denominations. No doubt
some of you would like to send a postcard of the
late Sir Henri Deterding back home and after-
wards, if you step round to the Hail and Farewell
Bureau you will each be given an ornamental
bottle of crude oil to take away as a souvenir . . ."

But the companies did not create, nor could they

without the help of international intervention have
created, a Petroland. They remained instead a
part Republic, subject to its laws
-and of the Mexican
sharing its diverse fortunes. They left it -to
the Government to produce its own plans for
national salvation, and the plans, when ready,
were found to follow the old Mexican precedent
that has proved disastrous again and again but
remains ineradicable in Mexican statesmanship, of
progress through theft.
' Tle simple principle, that a nation becomes rich
through the industry, thrift and enterplise of its
people and through nothing else, so- well accepted
ilr"*h... in the world that it is trite to mention
it, remains a paradox to the Mexican politiciarr.
For him wealth is, in fact and in theory, the
product of theft I when in the early days of the
itepublic the politicians had reduced the state to
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 OIL
bankruptcy, they looked round for something to
rob ; the Church was physically defenceless so
they set themselves to obliterate the single common
bond which united the heterogeneous population ;
the single institution which transcended provincial
limitations and which, however imperfect in state,
provided an acceptable and universally accepted
machinery for infusing international culture ; the
full implications of the destruction of the Church
in Mexico rvill be discussed in another chapter;
here the significant fact is that the robbery was a
complete failure in its ostensible object ; the sums
produced were completely disproportionate to the
damage done, and quickly disappeared into private
pockets, leaving the State in as distressed a con-
dition as it had been before.
In the present generation when the Government
set about the laudable work of establishing a
population of peasant proprietors on the land, the
same predilection was evident. The country is
very sparsely populated and though much of it
would require very large clearance, irrigation,
drainage and fertilization works of the kind so
successfully introduced into Italy, to bring it into
cultivation, there were tracts of country lying empty
which required only the plough and rudimentary
attention to make fertile. A land scheme based on
increasing the cultivated area would have had the
support of every reasonable person, there and
abroad. That however was not the Mexican
politicians' habit. Instead they adopted the easier
course of revenging themselves on their political
opponents by seizing the estates that were already
in profitable occupation. Certain provision was
made in the law for the protection of special crops
r05
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
coffee, sugar, etc.-but they were disre-
-sisal,
garded in practice. The confiscations were carried
through, and are still being completed, with the
usual accompaniments of graft and jobbery ; the
white aristocracy Mexican and foreign alike was
ruined ; that was the only success achieved ; pro-
duction fell everywhere; the country was increas-
ingly unable to feed the towns, and in the areas
where the government had taken a direct share in
the enterprise, lending money for seeds and tools,
they were faced with a huge deficit which showed
no promise of improvement. To the Mexican
political mind this admitted of only one solution ;
a new steal. The plunderable assets were rapidly
decreasing; bank accounts were being trans-
ferred abroad ; the mining industry was, for the
most part, working on a suicidal policy of getting
all they could while there was anything to get;
working only easy seams, cutting down on expan-
sion, failing to renew plant ; the railways -had
mostly been taken over already and were already
bankrupt; those which still worked under their
former management had ceased for some years to
show any profit. One industry alone seemed to
offer a substantial temptation-oil.
The steps by which the theft was made, are
common knowledge.
Two things were necessary; a change in the law
so that the act might be legal, and a campaign of
agitation so that it might be popular. General
Cardenas personally undertook the first task; the
second was entrusted to the very able hands of
Lombardo Toledano and the C.T.M. bosses.
One of General Cardenas's first acts when he
was put into the presidency was to employ the
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 OIL
powers recently conferred on him to rid the Supreme
Court of judges likely to be unsympathetic and
replace them with his own nominees who, under the
new Act, held office only during his own term ; to
these judges and their subordinates-most especially
to the arbitrators who sat in the Court of Con-
ciliation to hear industrial disputes between
employers and workers-he dictated as a matter of
public policy what had for some time, under fear
of the C.R.O.M. and its more violent successor,
the C.T.M., been their practice : that judicial
favour was the exclusive possession of the manual
labourer. 'The modern conception of the func-
tions of the State,' he said, ' requires that doubtful
cases be decided in favour of the weaker party.
To mete out equal treatment to two parties that
are not equal is neither to administer justice nor to
act equitably.' Henceforward no complaint of
employed against employer was too preposterous for
sympathetic hearing and, almost invariably, for
success. In a speech at Monterey he suggested
the principle that ability to pay was the sole cri-
terion in fixing wages and in a sinister phrase
invited the employers who were 'weary of the
social struggle' to surrender their businesses. He
left it to Toledano and his law courts to provoke
the weariness.
Until 1936 the powers of the governing party
over private property had not, in theory, been
totalitarian. The 'Constitution' of r9r7 provided
that : 'Private property should not be expro-
priated except for reasons of public utility and by
means of indemnification.' In November 1936
General Cardenas sent to Congress for ratification
a new Law which annulled this provision by
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
defining 'public utility' in terms so wide and
vague that they could cover any presidential
caprice. The Mexican Bar Association protested
against the Bill as unconstitutional, but it passed
inevitably into Law. From that moment the
President's power over every piece of property in
the country was absolute.
Meanwhile the C.T.M. had been organizing a
campaign of agitation among the oil workers. The
hold which this organization had over the workers
was complete; the companies had after a struggle
accepted the 'closed shop' principle ; the local
syndicate bosses now held the right of deciding
who should be employed and who promoted, and
exercised it with all the intimidation and extortion
to which the country was accustomed. A man who
voted against the wishes of the C.T.M. boss lost
his syndicate membership and with it his livelihood.
Since the syndicate funds depended on subscrip-
tions, it was the C.T.M. policy to swell its member-
ship by the inclusion of casual labourers who had
no interest in the welfare of the industry. These
considerations were no doubt effective in some
degree in securing local support to Toledano's
policy ; no doubt there were many workers in the
oil fields who found themselves obliged to vote
against their convictions, who were content under
the companies' rule and distrusted the voluble
officials from Mexico City, but to explain the whole
movement in these terms, as many of the oil
companies' executives are disposed to do, is to
disregard a decade of growing animosity and a
climax of spontaneous, if brief, exultation. There
is an unanswerable case that the indignation was
irrational, but it was none the less genuine and its
IOB
 OIL
explanation is independent of local considerations.
Man is by nature an exile, haunted, even at the
height of his prosperity, by nostalgia for Eden ;
individually and collectively he is always in search
of an oppressor who will take responsibility for his
ills. The Treaty of Versailles, Sanctions, Jews,
Bolshevists, Bankers, the Colour Bar-anything will
do so long as he can focus on it his sense of griev-
ance and convince himself that his own inadequacy
is due to some exterior cause. It requires neither
great oratory nor astute conspiracy to inflame a
group with a sense of persecution ; a hint is
enough; and once a grievance is aroused there is
no place for figures and arguments.
The workers in the oil industry were, both in
actual wages and benefits, the most highly privi-
leged in the country. The lowest unskilled labourer
who, elsewhere, had an average daily wage of rr3
pesos, was getting from 3 to 3'5o in the oil fields ;
masons earned from 5'zo to 8'4o, elsewhere they
averaged r'89; electricians had 6 to 7'6o, against
2'74; carpenters 4 to B'4o against 2'o5, etc. These
figures are taken from the Annual Reaiew of the
Mexican Department of Labour for 1935. At the
time of the expropriation the figures for the oil
industry were, in most cases, rco/o or r5o/o higher.
In addition to these wages the men received housing
or a housing allowance, schools and dispensaries.
The companies had made frequent offers to increase
their social services, but a spirit of antagonism had
arisen in the men, so that they were met with
constant obstruction. The abuses of the medical
benefit, for example, made them despair of any
sane co-operation. The syndicates claimed and
exercised the right to appoint the medical officers,
r09
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
who in most districts became agents for robbery. A
man had merely to present himself at the dispensary
to claim exemption from work, sick pay, and, most
important, prescriptions for expensive patent medi-
cines which he discounted for cash at the drug
stores. Large numbers of peons were still living in
temporary and wholly unsuitable huts; pictures
of these were circulated as propaganda at the time
of the expropriation; what was not shown was
the great store of building materials which had been
lying near them for two years, which the syndicate
had forbidden the company to erect, not because
they proposed to do so with non-union labour but
because they were not employing the particular
contractor from whom the syndicate boss had
arranged a commission and whose tender had been
the most expensive submitted. Vexatious litigation
in which the company was invariably the victim,
further embittered relations. Now that the oil had
been found, and until the present wells were
exhausted, conditions were favourable to produc-
tion. The companies could afford to pay more and
still show a reasonable profit provided they were
allowed to control their business ; at the end of the
negotiations they offered concessions which would
cost them 25,ooo,ooo pesos a year, conditionally
upon the re-establishment of the normal working
conditions without which a business of any kind
anywhere in the world, must fail. This was refused
and even used as a demonstration that the protes-
tation of inability to pay had been made in bad
faith. Nowhere in Mexico was there any illusion
that the oil workers merited compassion ; that was
an emotion kept for export so that the foreign
governments involved might be embarrassed by
IIO
 OIL
sympathizers of their own nationality. No one in
the Mexican government intended that the oil
workers should gain anything by expropriation-
nor indeed have they. When, however, at the
beginning of the strike the companies made the
suggestion that any additional charge on the com-
panies should be distributed by way of an excess
profits tax, not among the small and already privi-
leged class of oil workers, but among the community
as a whole,it was disregarded, for this was precisely
what General Cardenas intended to do, while to
have admitted it would have been to stultify the
whole Toledano campaign of agitation in the oil
fields. Throughout the entire controversy there are
always these two separate forces : General Car-
denas, resolved to avert the disaster which his
agricultural policy had provoked, by confiscating
the oil properties, and consequently giving complete
liberty of action to Toledano to create a state of
chaos in the industry. Toledano's policy cul-
minated in the preposterous demands of the strikers
in November r936.
The version of these demands published in Eng-
lish by the Workers' LIniversity of Mexico and dis-
tributed free to visitors at the Six Year Plan Exhibi-
tion, requires considerable correction in matters of
fact. The demand was for a new collective contract
applicable to the whole industry annulling the
various existing contracts by which the workers had
willingly bound themselves at various recent dates.
As itemized in this pamphlet the principal points of
the new contract were :
(r) " Reduttion of the ' confidential emplo2ees '," i.e.
adrninistrative, executive and advisory posts not
appointed by the syndicate, from goo, a number
III
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
which had been found barely adequate, " to rr4.
All other emplo2ees to be appointed and controlled b7 the
S2ndicate." The Workers' University pamphlet
omits to add that 5oo/s of the legal advisors were to
be syndicate nominees.
(z) " In cases of lays-ofs, an indemnitl to eath
uorker of go da2s' uages, plus z5 dEts' wages for eath
2ear that fu had been in the comparyt's sen)ice."
(g) " Workers aoluntarily leaaing emplo2rnent qfter
ten years to be paid z5 days' wages for eath 1ear. Should
his leaoing be caused by an abrogation of the labour
contract through the emploler's fault, an additional
indemnity of So dals' wages." With regard to this
latter provision it is worth noting that in the existing
state of the industrial courts it will be almost certain
that a case would go against the employer, i.e.
after ten years' work a man could give up his job
and receive a bonus of a year's wages plus (see
below) a life pension of 6o0/o of his former earnings.
(4) " The establishment 0f the 40 hour week " ;
with pay for 56 hours.
(5) " Medical seruice on a disease-preaention basis to
be furnished at the cost of the employer with the necessar2
facilities for diagnosis, adequate medical installation, and
the elimination of all humiliating red tape."
This is the kind of provision which sounds bene-
volent and unexceptionable but which, to anyone
familiar with local conditions, would be intolerable.
The doctors were to be syndicate nominees-a fact
omitted from the pamphlet-and to serye the
workers' dependants as well as themselves. The
interpretation which might be put on 'disease-pre-
vention basis' and the 'elimination of all humiliat-
ing red tape ' might include almost any uncontrolled
expenditure. It would in fact commit the companies
rt2
 OIL
to the provision of any amenities which the syndi_
cate might think desirable.
.,
(6) " fn cases o{ degth lfrom non-occupational cannes,
the p.alment of 6o da$ wi-ges,
furural irprorrr, ptus zj
dalts' wages for each.year of seruice.',
(7) " In cases of death from occupational causes,
t,4oo da2s' tuages."
(8) :' fn-cases o1f total and permanent disabiliU _from
occupational causes, rrBz5 dqls, wages, plus 1ay zj
eaer) )ear of seraice. If fi; injired wo"rker ias
ltages for
b,!t! employd for more than len 1,rirr, a pension.,,
(Unspecified amount.)
^(9) "
A pension .s2stem- u-ar2ing between wages full
after- Jo 2ears' seraice and 6o6/o *ogu aftei ten yirl
emplo2ment."

-(Lo) " Eighteen compulsor2 rest days a 1)ear,,, in

addition to Sundays, all with full pay.
(r.r) " Vacatioru':'for workers irt, 2ears, seraice,
z5 days^! )ear ; rtlm -fiyt to ten 2eais, n2t ; _froi
tt, ti.rtfiln lelrs, 5o days -frim fiftein452rirr'uj,
; 6o
do)t." On full pay.
(rz) " The establishment of a Saaings Fund, rco/o
discount from uages, r5o/o of wages contibuted by
emplo2er."
(r3) " The founding of 45 scholarships ltor workers
or their children."
. (r+) ".An opportunit2
for Mexican workmen to atquire
the to replace foreign techniciins,,
_experierue necessar)
and all fole_iqn technicians td be- replaced by
.
Mexicans within one year.
(r5) " Sanitarlt and comfortable housing for all
workers or z pesos a da2 alloiarce.,'
99 '!.YqSt totalling zB,r49,56o pesos.
irurea_ses,,
The Workers' University o."it froii" tfri', fist
various provisions tightening the hold of the synai-
r.u.L.
II3
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
cate on the workers and making it impossible for
the company to discharge men for anything ^exgept
criminaf offences and i further privilege of three
days' leave of absence on full pay at the worker's
demand whenever, and, apparently, as often as he
chose.
There was some dispute as to the total cost of
these demands. The C.T.M. estimated the increase
at 65,474,84o
-
pesos annually ; . the com-panies'
actuiriis giAS million. It is impossible to
"i
estimate the loiseJ in business efficiency. No one,
whatever his political views, can suPPose that
Toledano intenied these demands to be acceptable,
or that General Cardenas believed that the nation
would benefit by the creation of a class, twenty-five
thousand strong in a nation of sixteen millions,
enjoying wages out of atl proportio-n to the standard
ofiivin[ in the country, and privileges unknown to
any traf,e or profession in any country in the ryo1ld'
In the contr6versy that followed the exp:opriation
no serious attempt was made to defend Toledano's
demands, .rot *is any attempt made to Put them
into effect by the new managers. By then the issue
had changed and the appeal was for sacrifice rather
than imp"rovement, pitriotism rather than privi-
lege. But at the time of the threatened strike, in the
*irrt.t of 1936 and the spring of 1937, it d6es seem
that the *Jri nua been plrsuaded that the paradisal
conditions proposed were in fact rcalizable, and it
was on the bisis of these demands that the case
was heard by the Court of Conciliation'
The real decision had already been made and the
steps taken to legalize it-are of purely academic
int'erest. The hiitory of the succeeding months
merely demonstrates that the Mexican Government
rr4
 OIL
had already dismissed the ideal of a peaceful settle-
ment. The demands were first itemized on Novem-
ber 3rd, r936, with the intimation that they must be
not only discussed but approved by a date finally
extended to November zgth at r r a.m. The draft
had taken many months to compile, covered 165
pages of legal script, contained z5o clauses, and 4o
pages of figures dealing with the wage-schedule.
The companies expressed their willingness to nego-
tiate but pointed out the impossibility of digesting
proposals so elaborate and revolutionary within the
time limit. Public opinion, neither at home nor
abroad, was sympathetic to the syndicate's per-
emptory tactics and General Cardenas proposed a
six months' extension for discussion. The com-
panies pointed out that similar contracts in the past
had taken as long as two years to negotiate and
never less than eight months. The Labour Delega-
tion insisted on a period of rzo working days and
were upheld. The assembly sat almost daily from
the beginning of December until the end of May
r937, under the chairmanship of the Head of the
Labour Department. The policy of the Labour
Delegation was consistently obstructionist; in par-
ticular by its contention that the new contract should
not be legally binding on the industry as prescribed
by the Law of November z7th, but a temporary
' special form of general collective contract ' liable
to further expansion and providing no guarantee of
settled working conditions, by its attempt to coerce
the Maritime Workers' IJnions into the Petroleum
Syndicate, and by an attempt to exclude all lawyers
from the Employers' Delegation which they pressed
to the point of absenting themselves from the
assembly for some days. By the end of March it
II5 t2
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
was clear that the discussion of the clauses seriatim
could not possibly end within the prescribed limits.
Accordingly there was a recess, at the end of which
the Employers produced a counter-proposal, ex-
pressly omitting the wage-schedule which in its
nature required longer consideration. These pro-
posals were submitted on April r2th. Within
twenty-four hours-a time hardly sufficient for their
perusal, still less for their study-the proposals were
rejected and the strike called for midnight on May
27th. Public opinion, however, was still unpre-
pared for drastic action. The strike was called off
in ten days and a year of hopeless, acrimonious dis-
cussion followed before General Cardenas felt him-
self strong enough to decree the expropriation.
The form the campaign now took was an
' economic suit' and the investigations of a com-
mission appointed by the Labour Board into the
question of the companies' ability to pay. The
Commission, as things turned out, consisted of one
man, a local communist professor whose activities
form one of the few humorous features of a drab
episode. In order to establish the average profits of
the industry he confined his enquiry to the years
I934-36, serenely neglecting the previous depres-
sion ; for these three years he preferred his own
purely fanciful assessment of profits averaging
d3,too,ooo to the figure of dt,zoorooo proved in
the companies' books, and on the basis of these
figures made his recommendations for increases in
wages and benefits. So mixed did he get in his
arithmetic even then that he calculated the cost of
his proposals at dr,4oo,ooo ayear, when, in fact, as
was abundantly demonstrated, they would have
cost {er3oo,ooo, i.e. almost double the actual
rr6
 OIL
average profits. He further reaffirmed the adminis-
trative demands originally made by the syndicate.
The Labour Board confirmed the professor's
findings and the companies appealed to the Supreme
Court. Their case, a formidable compilation of
Tooo pages in length, was presented on February
znd, 1938. Despite the fact that their deliberations
were disturbed by popular demonstrations, the
judges were able to weigh the evidence with
despatch and at the end of the month announced
their decision against the appeal. The companies
made a final offer to increase wages and benefits by
dI,4oo,ooo-the sum which the professor thought
his proposals would cost-provided the administra-
tion of the business was not interfered with. General
Cardenas refused to discuss the offer or to com-
municate it to the workers. Their part in the affair
was over. They had been useful, with their
imagined grievances, in bringing about the crisis ;
from now on they must get back to work and forget
their aspirations ; forget, too, the tangible benefits
which they had won for themselves in the past. It
was not to enrich them that there had been all the
bustle in Mexico City. A few of the bosses, it is
true, profited for the time. A Mr. Juan Gray, the
manager in Mexico City of the Petroleum syndicate,
increased his salary from 5go pesos a month to
5,3oo; Mr. Viesca Arispe, manager at Tampico,
from 6oo to z,8oo; Mr. Rubio, comptroller at
Tampico, from 5oo to 2,ooo ; the wages of a Mr.
Azorar rose suddenly from 7.7o a day as chauffeur,
to lr3oo a month as manager.
For a dozen or so of the most active politicals,
expropriation brought apocalyptic rewards. In the
oil fields, however, thousands have been thrown out
t17
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
of work and the sole gain was that some of the
houses, bought years before by the companies and
boycotted by the syndicate, were hastily fitted to-
gether to greet the delegates of the International
Labour Congress on their tour of inspection and
approval.

6
The expropriations, once decreed, were carried
out speedily and effectively ; property of all kinds
was taken without being inventoried, safes were
forced and documents, title deeds and cash carried
off. In practice, as in theory, the whole process
conformed to the new, Nazi statecraft.
Every feature of the Cardenas regime-except the
catch-phrases-is an echo of Central Europe.
Government is by a semi-military executive which
overrides judicature and legislature ; popular con-
sent is achieved by agitation ; education is a depart-
ment of propaganda, religion banned from the
schools and its place taken by nationalism and
national grievances; the basic assumption of
foreign policy is that the democracies will not fight ;
force may be used to steal what force will not
defend. There is the same chain of cause and con-
sequence ; the Government tells the people that
they are miserable and that the cure of their ills is
violent breach of international order ; when the
beneficial effects do not follow, the breach is held
up to admiration as a positive achievement-an end
in itself--which must be defended by further sacri-
fice. That has been the result in Mexico. The
expropriations were first proposed as a means of
raising social conditions; they are now an excuse
rrB
 OIL
for depressing them. Finances are desperate.
General Cardenas has found that the law-abiding
will-not buy his petrol and the outlaws cannot pay
for it, _ The temptation to join the Barter Group
would be overwhelming were it not for the question
of indemnity. General Cardenas has repeatedly
offered to pay compensation for the exprbpriated
properties. Since the fall of Porfirio Diaz, Mexico
has been a consistent defaulter on her public debts,
which amount to about ten times herlotal annual
revenue ; she has paid neither the principal nor the
interest on her earlier expropriations of agricultural
properties. By taking the oil properties she was
adding a sum to her capital liabilities which she
could not conceivably pay, but until she has actually
defaulted it is difficult for the State Department at
Washington to accuse her of a breach of inter-
national law. Accordingly, in the face of all facts,
she maintains her readiness to pay. Suggestions
that she should pay for her theft by returning a per-
centage of the stolen property are too naive to be
considered seriously anywhere except in the Mexican
press. In March rg3B, General Cardenas attempted
to cash in on the popular
-Theseenthusiasm by raising a
loan of d5,ooo,ooo. bonds *e.e io bear-no
interest for ten years but to remain in the sub-
scriber's possession as 'diplomas of patriotism,.
Prodigious attempts were made to stimulate gene-
rosity. Government agents distributed live stock
to the peasants in the vicinity of the capital and
what had not been devoured overnight was returned
next mo-rning at the Opera House to the accompani-
ment of military music and news-cameras. About
dzo,ooo was raised. In July the loan was closed
and the fund diverted to pay the troops.
II9
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
The situation at the time of writing is a deadlock,
the issue of which must depend on the degree of
pressure which the United States can bring. There
is a market for bootleg petrol in Japan, Germany
and Italy; an exclusive barter agreement on the
Central European model might save General
Cardenas's finances, but he wants money not
material and within his country he has to reckon
with the Marxism he has fostered in every depart-
ment of national life; it would be difficult for
Toledano to accept the Nazification of the coun-
try ; can Cardenas now dispense with him ? And,
further, would the ' Good Neighbour' policy bear
the strain of the transformation ?

r20
 CHAPTER FIVE
THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
I

[S has been noted before, the attitude of the

LA lthe Mexican has many points of resemblance
ordinary citizen of the United States towards

with that of the nineteenth Century Englishman,s

towards Ireland. He regards him as disorderly,
improvident and superstitious, and behind thi;
condemnation there lurks an undefined feeling of
guilt. The history of the two countries consisti of
a series of misunderstandings and miscalculations,
of injudicious interference repeatedly prosecuted
up to the point beyond which it might hive proved
beneficial and then capriciously -abandonid, of
alternations of arrogance a.rd sentimentaiity,
rapacity and benevolence, domination and negleci,
of a kind which forms a close parallel with the
English policy in Ireland during the centuries
between the Reformation and the peace Treaty,
r.rq th9 consequent ills have been aggravated
rather than mollified by the fact that, thiJughout,
Mexican ildependence has been sedulously affiimed.
It is difficult for modern Europeans, still more
for Americans who tend, by .riture, to take a
short view of history, to realize that the predomi-
nance of the U.S. in the New World ij quite a
recent development. The inhabitants of Mexico
before the conquest lived on an immensely higher
r2t
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
plane of civilization than the aboriginals of the
North ; in the colonial period the Spanish pos-
sessions were pre-eminent in extent, wealth and
culture. It was only after her severance from
Spain that the decay of Mexico, threatened before
by certain inherent but not ineradicable weak-
nesses, was consummated by the factional and
revolutionary troubles that are still daily debasing
her. The splendour of Spanish colonial archi-
tecture still stands to remind tourists of this
superiority but there are other, less accessible, facts
which are sometimes overlooked. By 1575, a
century before the first press was set up in British
America, books were being printed in Mexico
City, not only in Spanish, but in twelve different
Indian languages. There were three universities
in Spanish America nearly a century before the
foundation of Harvard. There was a Medical
School at the Royal and Pontifical University of
Mexico two hundred years before llarvard's, and
anatomy and surgery were taught with dissection
eighty-six years before William Hunter opened the
first school of dissection in England. Elementary
education for Indian children existed wherever
there was a mission station ; inevitably, in three
hundred years, some of the schools languished while
others flourished, but the campaign for their exten-
sion only ended with the revolution.
At the village schools the peasants were taught
not only their religion, but reading, writing, music,
handicrafts of all kinds and agriculture. In many
centres there were institutions of higher education
for the Indians, some ofwhom even tookup teaching
posts in Europe. As early as I54r a disgruntled
iolonist, Geronimo Lopez, himself no great scholar,
r22
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
was complaining bitterly to the King that there
were Indians who spoke Latin' like another Cicero,
and everyday the number grows.' Von Humboldt,
in r8o3, made these observations : , No city in
the new continent, without even excepting tirose
of the United States can display such great and
solid scientific establishmenti as the capital of
Mexico' ; 'The capital and several other cities
have scientific establishments which will bear a
comparison with those of Europe,. . Instruction
is communicated gratis in the -Academy of Fine
Arts. It is not confined alone to the diawing of
Iandsca,pes and figures . the Academy labours
successfully to introduce among the artisans a
taste. for elegance and beautiful forms every
evening some hundreds of young people draw from
re^li9fs or living models, while others iopy drawings
of furniture, chandeliers or other o.naments in
bronze. In this assemblage rank, colour and race is
confounded.' ' No European government has sacri-
ficed greater sums to advance the knowledge of the
vegetable kingdom than the Spanish government,
(of Mexico). '. . All these researches, conducted
during twenty years in the most fertile districts of
the new continent, have not only enriched science
with more than four thousand new species of plants,
but have also contributed much to diffuse i taste
for natural history among the inhabitants of the
country.' 'The best mineralogical work in the
Spanish language \^/as printed in Mexico, the
Manual of Oryctognosy by M. del Rio . the first
Spanish translation of Lavater's Elements of Chenistry
was also published in Mexico.' While the Puritan
settlers in the North were denying all education to
their women, nuns had established elementary girls,
r23
 ROBBERT UNDER UIW
schools all over Mexico and, in the cities, sub-
stantial colleges.
There weri, of course, abuses and distortions ;
Francis Clement Kelly 1 must be read in conjunc-
tion with Ernest Gruening 2 ; unsuitable men
sometimes got themselves appointed to important
posts in Church and State ; charitable institutions
iometimes failed to Preserve the energ'y of their
founders ; racial and class distinctions often
hampered the working of good .laws; order was
prec;riously maintained in districts remote from
ihe centres of government ; acute poverty existed
side by side with splendid wealth; but the records
up to ihe last decade of Sparrish rule, give evidence
that the normal processes of renewal and expansion
were continuouily at work and that Mexican
civilization was alive and, in many ways, vigorous.
There was little intercourse with the English
colonies, for it was the policy of the Kings of Spain
to monopolize all trade ind much of the antagonism
of the sixteenth century still survived in the New
World. The Mexicans despised their neighbours as
barbarians and had not yet learned to fear them;
thus the Chinese regarded the Japanese in the days
of the Manchu Empire. When the English colonists
declared their independence the differences between
the two races widened ; Mexico, now, represented
not only the historic dangers of the Armada and
the Inquisition, but the more present and obnoxious
enemy-European imperialism. From the first the
United States were kein proselytizers for republican
I Bladircnclud Altds by Francis Clement Kelly : in spite of the Tt"F ;
ablc artincss of its illustrations, this book is the best statemcnt ol the clencal
--i-Mr*i-
crul€.
atd its Haitage by Ernest Gruening : -for most Americans and
many English tbc staodaid d'efence of the revolution.
t24
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
and puritanical institutions and the natural enemies
of the monarchical, feudal, hierarchic,. baroque
culture ofMexico. Accordingly they sought, errcol.-
aged and misinterpreted the elements of revolution.
Hoy far they misinterpreted them may be judged
^
from the interview betweCn President, then Selretiry
of State, Monroe and Colonel Bernardo Guttiercz
de Lara. This took place in r8r r ; Colonel de Lara
was a revolutionary refugee who came to Washing-
ton to see what help might be forthcoming for his
movement. Monroe received him amicably and
said : The United States would aid the revoiution
in the Mexican provinces with all their power and
u'ould sustain it to the point, not only offurnishing
arms and ammunition but in addition with z7,ooo
good troops which they would soon have for the
purpose. But that Colonel Bernardo and the
other revolutionary chiefs should arrange for the
establishment of a good Constitutio"...He
laid stress on that of the United States and gave
him to understand that the American Government
desired that the same Constitution be adopted in
Mexico, and that they then would admii these
republics into the Union and that with the addition
of the other American provinces it would become
the most formidable power in the world.
Colonel de Lara was a fugitive and a suitor. He
listened with growing impatience until the Secre-
tary_of State raised the question of absorption into
the Union, when he lefr in fury. In thi light of
subsequent history one may doubt whether his
country would not have been the happier for
Monroe's suggestion; in r8rr, with Meiico still
proud and prosperous, it came as an outrageous
rmPertrnence.
r25
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
The Mexican revolution as a popular movement
was speedily suppressed ; when it came, it was the
work of the suppressors; a military movement
planned in the Masonic Lodges. Its original aim
was to eliminate the cumbrous and dilatory
machinery of the Vice-regal government and
establish a monarchical and aristocratic regime
under which locally born Spaniards might have a
full share in the profits of office. The Empire of
Iturbide had few features which Monroe could
regard rvith sympathy ; it had many weaknesses
which it became the policy of Washington to
exploit. The first instrument of this policy was
Joel Poinsett, who came to Mexico at the establish-
ment of its independence, first as United States
agent, later as accredited Minister ; the means he
chose, perhaps the only efficacious means he could
have chosen, was the establishment of a rival
secret society-the Yorkist Rite to oPPose the
dominant Scottish Rite.
By its nature the full history of the secret societies
of Mexico can never be known and in the general
ignorance vast legends have naturally accumulated.
Ii is certain that most of the disasters of the first
generation of independent Mexicans, and it is
probable that much of their successors', have been
due to the organizations which adopted the voca-
bulary of European Freemasonry. So far as is
known the Grand Lodges of the United States and
England have consistently refused recognition to
their Mexican brothers. The Scottish Rite, which
seems to have no connexion with Scotland, apPears
to have been introduced into Mexico by the Spanish
garrisons of the Napoleonic era who had themselves
adopted it from revolutionary France. There is no
r26
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
need to accept sensational stories of a world organi-
zation dedicated to anarchy, to understand how the
Lodges became the centres of intrigue ; at their
meetings men of different positions, whose associa-
tion elsewhere would attract comment, could meet
in circumstances of absolute secrecy and freedom of
discussion ; since the law of the Church forbade
membership, it was natural that their tone should
be exclusively agnostic and anti-clerical. The Scot-
tish Rite, however, may have included renegade
members of the clergy ; so far as it had any policy
it seems to have favoured constitutional monarchy,
to have been zealous of the privileges of rank and
services and tolerant of religious practices for the
uninitiated ; it concerned itself mainly with per-
sonalities and the distribution of public offices to its
own members. The Yorkist Rite, introduced by
Poinsett, was the natural rallying point for those
who had been disappointed in the share-out of
benefits I it was made up of the lawless elements of
the revolution-the Villas andZapatas ofthe revolu-
tion of rgro-and was republican, proletarian and
fiercely irreligious in character. Five lodges were
organized with local chiefs. Poinsett's chief office
was to coax from the Scottish Rite disgruntled
members of more responsible position I the most
important of these recruits was Arizpe, the Minister
of Justice, a political priest. His presence in the
new Rite secured protection for its members before
the Courts. The acquittal of a Colonel Ayestaran
on a charge of peculation, advertised this privilege ;
there was an immediate resPonse from senators,
generals, governors. Soon the two Rites were
divided not only by political views but by personal
vendettas. For fifty years the history of Mexico
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becomes a series ofcoups and plots, assassinations and
executions ; of embezzlement and bribery; the
Iearned and charitable institutions were sacked to
provide funds for the rival gangs ; the work of three
centuries of civilized rule was obliterated in a
generation, leaving the nation bankrupt, dis-
credited abroad and divided by irreconcilable
hatred at home. By this time doubts began to arise
at Washington whether these turbulent neighbours
would be a desirable addition to the United
States.
The personalities of the various competitors for
power during this anarchic period-Santa Anna
Alvarez, Comonfort, Farias, Bustamante and the
rest-are of purely local interest. Throughout their
blood struggles the participation of the United
States took two principal forms. There was what
may be called the ideological campaign against the
Spaniards and the Church, initiated by Poinsett,
and there was the purely practical campaign for the
acquisition of territory. Both were tolerably suc-
cessful. The former culminated in the Spring of
186o in armed intervention in favour of Juarez,
when he was on the point of defeat, by the con-
fiscation by the United States navy of two of
Miramon's ships; this action, and the conviction
that it would be repeated if necessary, changed the
future of the war and consummated the revolution.
Jtarez had signed a treaty offering territorial con-
cessions as the price of help, but the United States
Senate honourably refused to enforce it.
Less delicacy had been shown in the case of Texas
and California. In r8zo the first United States
citizen, a Moses Austin, had obtained permission to
settle in Texas, then Mexican territory, on the
I28
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
grounds that he was a persecuted Catholic; he
died prematurely but his son Stephen carried out
his intention, and in r8et Mexico adopted the
practice of granting charters to colonists from the
North. As political conditions in Mexico deterio-
rated the position of these settlers became less
enviable, but their numbers increased and they
soon formed a vigorous minoritysomewhat analogous
to the uitlanders among the Boers. In IB35 they
had become self assertive enough to provoke
government notice and Santa Anna abrogated the
State Constitution. A revolution, led and sup-
ported from the United States, was savagely sup-
pressed. A small force of American soldiers then
captured Santa Anna and his whole army ; under
danger of summary execution he acknowledged the
independence of Texas and returned in a dilatory
manner by way of the United States. General
Houston became first president of Texas, which
avowed nominal independence until 1844, when
great bitterness was aroused in Mexico by its in-
evitable annexation. President Herrera issued a
call for the defence of the country, and Santa Anna
returned from one of his frequent periods of exile
to lead a disastrous campaign against the invaders,
who had, meanwhile, over-run California. The war
was an unrelieved series ofdefeats for the Mexicans ;
Mexico City was taken and the Peace of Guada-
lupe-Hidalgo signed on February znd, 1848, on
the Americans' terms. By these terms Mexico lost
more than half her territory. Compensation, of a
kind, was given. The Americans could have taken
more and paid nothing ; the surviving bitterness
was in no way lessened by their moderation ; subse-
history would have been very different if, as
1y, I2g x
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was proposed at the tirrre, the boundary had been
drawn south of Tampico.

At the beginning of 186r Juarez entered Mexico

City ; he owed his position to support from the
United States ; he was regarded with detestation
by the conservative elements in the country; the
government was deeply in debt and without hope
of legitimate increase of income. The Church had
been despoiled by successive dictators, her plate
melted down and her colleges closed ; Jtarez
exiled the Bishops and made a last, desperate
attempt to sell off the Church's remaining assets.
But few could afford, and still fewer were willing,
to purchase property acquired in this way. In
Mexico City houses belonging to various religious
institutions, assessed at over half a million dollars,
realized less than two thousand. In the provinces
the sums obtained were further reduced by the
peculations of the various officials through whose
hands they passed. He succeeded in bringing about
the final ruin of the Church without adding appre-
ciably to the national wealth. There was no alter-
native but to suspend payment on his foreign debt.
But for the time his friends in the North were occu-
pied with their own affairs. The civil war in the
United States seemed to offer the Mexican conser-
vatives a chance to re-establish themselves without
interference, but they were now so demoralized that
the only means which seemed suitable was to invite
further foreign intervention.
The episode of the Emperor Ma>cimilian is an
r30
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
ideal subject for the cinema and has twice been used
as such. In Mexican history it is nothing but an
episode. It showed that the country had now
deteriorated to a condition in which government
could only be maintained by force and that national
pride still ferociously preferred anarchy to foreign
domination. Juarez still lived and the United
States, though preoccupied, still supported him;
the Church treasured mediaval traditions of laer
responsibility, did not recognize a champion in
Maximilian, with his sceptical nineteenth century
German culture and his light love affairs, nor accept
from him terms she had rejected fromJuarez; the
patriots in the army resented the French garrisons.
Only a man of superlative energy could have
enforced his rule. It was agreeable to many, after
the brigand-camps from which the country had
been governed, to have a Court organized on the
most stately European model, to have a Hapsburg
in place of the half-breeds, to have an Emperornith
a fashionable taste in house decoration and an
interest in botany, to see at public functions a
gracious figure, head and shoulders above the
assembly. But Mexican popular heroes are drawn
in another shape-squat, swarthy, passionate, in-
tolerant, vain men who when cornered shoot their
way to freedom and take to the mountains, who will
steal and promise and give lavishly, sell anything
and repudiate the bargain, murder their friends and
buy off their enemies, nurse a grudge and forget a
kindness, sometimes grossly sacrilegious, sometimes
heroically pious, Aztec and Castillian inextricably
confounded. It is a significant fact that the
Mexican history books and the frescoed caricatures
which are the most notable instruments of govern-
I3I x2
 ROBBERI" UNDER LAW
rnent propagallda deal gently with the Archduke
Maximilian; he was never at all dangerous ; he
conformed to the Mexican ideal only in his dignified
bearing before the firing squad. Miramon, one of
the finest of the Mexican conservatives, was shot
with him.
The United States regained their influence;
Juarez came back and reigned for five years, until
his death, among sporadic but unsuccessful rebel-
lions. flis successor, Lerdo de Tejada, attempted
to carry on Juarez's system in face of growing
odium ; in 1876 civil war on a national scale broke
out, Tejada fled to the United States, General
Porfirio Diaz took Mexico City and retained unin-
terrupted control, even during the Gonzalez presi-
dency (r88o-r884), until l9l r. For some time the
United States refused recognition of Diaz's govern-
ment. The American Civil War was over but the
South was still in a dangerous state and a war of
aggression was seriously suggcsted as a possible
outlet for domestic bitterness. John W. Foster, the
U.S. minister, President Hayes and a powerful
group in Washington were strongly anti-Mexican.
In Foster's Diplomatic Memoirs, writing of this time,
he says ' Certain gentlemen especially interested in
the administration of President Hayes had con-
ceived the idea that in view of the tension in the
public mind created by the partisans of Mr. Tilden
ind of the disturbed condition of affairs in the
Southern States, it would divert attention from
pending issues and tend greatly to consolidate the
new administration, if a war could be brought on
with Mexico and another slice of its territory added
to the l-Inion.'
War, however, would not have been popular in
t32
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
the U.S., and the very cause which rendered it
desirable-the weakness of Hayes' popular support
it impossible ; General Diaz moreover
-rendered
was a man ofvastly superior capacity to the military
dictators who preceded and succeeded him. Wash-
ington was obliged to recognize him and was
soon working with him in tolerable harmony. The
chief cause of friction during his reign was a series
of police incidents on the frontier ; both sides of
the line were remote from the law and Mexico
became the natural goal of fugitive criminals.
Between rB74 and rBBz American posses in pursuit
of marauders crossed the frontier trventy-three
times, each occasion being, technically, an invasion
of national territory. Moreover Mbxican citizens,
then and later, enjoyed very little protection in
American territory ; there were lynchings, some-
times in atrocious' circumstancesr rr**..y execu-
tions and fatal brawls for which no effective protests
were made in Washington. It is fashionable now,
in Mexico, to speak of the regime of Porfirio Diaz
as a time when national interests were sacrificed to
foreign and the government became a native
police force charged with making it easy for
foreign capitalists to get rich. In fact Diaz was
all the time concerned with keeping, as best he
could, the commercial balance of polver in the
country. It was natural that American interests
should predominate but it was an essential part of
his policy to set them off, as far as he could, with
European and to keep them in their proper place,
as commercial undertakings concerned merely in
developing natural resources. The conduct of
foreign nineteenth century capitalists and their
supporting governments in China made it clear
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that there was no place in the history of his age,
for an exclusive nationalism. He kept the peace
and he preserved the integrity of the country;
there were no more cessions of territory. For a
long time the United States had openly coveted the
isthmus of Tehuantepec; it was Diaz himself, with
the help of British capital and skill, who developed it
and made it, before the opening of the Panama
Canal, the main route from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. He had a practical, soldier's estimate of
the importance of national pr'de ; he did not want
to harbour foreign criminals and was quite pleased
that their own police should take the trouble of
recapturing them ; he did not think national
honour required Palmerstonian defences of the
kind of citizen who got himself into trouble in the
Texas saloons. But he went further ; one day the
Texans roasted alive a Mexican rough named
Rodriguez. The newspaper El Debate reported the
incident indignantly and there was general ill-
feeling in Mexico City ; instead of protesting,
however gently, to Washington, Diaz suppressed
El Debate. In rglo the American Ambassador
objected to the anti-American tone of two other
papers, the Diario del Hogar and the El Pais :
both were suppressed. These actions added nothing
to the popularity either of the United States or the
President. Moreover in spite of these efforts to
be agreeable in many sections of America Diaz
was not admired ; towards the end of his reign he
seemed to be sacrificing Mexican interests without
gaining a corresponding support in the United
States. High-minded Americans began to condemn
him on doctrinaire grounds. He had reduced
democratic forms to an absurdity; in many
r34
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
districts his police were corrupt and cruel; some-
thing barely distinguishable from slavery existed in
Yucatan, the American public were tired of
eulogies of the dictator and read with zeal the.well
substantiated denunciations of his tyranny. Thus
began the disastrous epoch of American inter-
ference in Mexican affairs on humanitarian grounds.
Before Diaz the issue was perfectly simple. The
Americans believed in their 'manifest distiny' to
rule the entire continent ; they were an immensely
powerful and sporadically aggressive neighbour to
be kept at bay by whatever means seemed pos-
sible ; from the beginning of this century the issues
became infinitely involved ; generally speaking
they may be summarized in President Wilson's
phrase, 'I am going to teach the South American
republics to elect good men.' This ambition,
equally obnoxious to the Mexicans, is pregnant
with ambiguous implications.
'I am going to teach'1 that is to say: the
Mexicans are still in a state of tutelage ; it is the
duty of the American government to instruct and
discipline. ' /', the party momentarily in power
at Washington ; what if a different party, with the
same coercive powers, shall aspire to teach a
different lesson ?
'To elect '; the basic American assumption, in
face of much foreign and democratic evidence to
the contrary, that 'election' is more than a con-
venient method of providing a government ; it is
divinely ordained. Elections, even in countries of
homogeneous race, widespread education, and a
tradition of disinterested public service are a
capricious guide ; in Latin America they have always
been farcical. There are, in various parts of the
r35
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
world, various means of securing election ; the
candidate may buy votes in the old English way o!
ready money down, in the new English way of
prontises to pay from the public funds when elected ;
-he
may evict oPPonents from their cottages o_r shoot
them up with machine-guns in the streets ofCicero ;
the Mexicans, for the most part, prefer to leave
the voting papers uncounted and draw from the
lists made up at the party headquarters. To whom
and in whai terms was President Wilson proposing
to teach this elusive art ofelection ?
' Good men' ; good for what ? To be a strong
and independent nation with its own institutions
developed from its own traditions and needs, or a
politicil no-man's-land of conflicting foreign influ-
Lrrces, with orderly habits, balanced public finances,
or a republic on the United States model which
one day will earn inclusion in the lJnion, or a
political experimental farm where revolutionary
id.us may be tried out with a view to importation
into the United States. (Just as the United States
earned the gratitude of the u'orld by ' trying out '
prohibition,
-trying
so the Mexicans may be said to be
out Marxism.) All these aims have varioursly
been- attributed to the ' good man ' in Mexico
and all have received support from Washington
at one time or another.

3
Ithink it is an open point whether, in r9ro, a
patriotic Mexican-or, for that_ matter, a dis-
interested foreigner-should have been a suPPorter
of Porfirio Diaz. It is characteristic of Mexican
r36
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
history that at almost any period one looks at
there are abundant reasons for deploring the
existing regime ; one turns the pages and realizes
that one was wrong ; the cure was always worse
than the ill. This consideration alone should make
one sceptical of betterment by the overthrow of
General Cardenas.
Politicatty the Diaz regime had the weakness of
all autocracies, that are not based on royalty, the
difficulty of succession. Socially there was every
reason to complain that the peons had not shared
at all in the general prosperity and that the
Mexicans of the more fortunate classes had not a
proportionate place of influence in their country's
development. After the long period of peace it
seemed reasonable to believe that the people had
become accustomed to orderly conditions and
would not again lapse into anarchy. The days of
bankruptcy seemed over ; I\{exico was now rich
enough to contemplate a more equitable distribu-
tion of her property. Wealthier Mexicans had been
educated in England, France and the United States
the Mexican educational system never re-
-for
covered from the Reforms-and had learned to
respect representative institutions ; they could be
trusted to work a parliamentary system in a public
spirited manner. These were the assumptions ofthe
Maderists ; they proved tragically false but they
seemed reasonable enough at the time.
It is not the object of this chapter to recount the
details of the decline and fall of Mexico, but to
trace their connexions u'ith the United States and
explain the peculiar relations that in consequence
subsist between the two peoples.
Francisco Madero had every reason to believe
r37
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
that his policy would be sympathetic to the greater
part of the American people ; everything which he
represented had long been a boasted feature of
their own system. His rebellion was not a prole-
tarian movement ; the peasants' revolt in Morelos,
which had been growing against Diaz, coincided
with his own but developed into a movement
against him. The kind of state which Madero
hoped to bring into existence was very much like
those that existed across the border. He was the
type of President Wilson's 'good man '. Yet of
the numerous causes to which his failure was due,
one of the chief was the open opposition of the
American Ambassador, another Wilson, who had
a different conception of the country's requirements.
The guilt of Ambassador Wilson has been
itemized by Gruening and seems indisputable. He
was appointed to Mexico in the last days of the
Diaz regime; he had no previous diplomatic
career to qualify him for the post ; his brother was
Senator John M. Wilson, Republican boss of the
State of Washington. There is a curiously
ambiguous phrase employed in American politics,
the 'tie-up' ; it may mean a family connexion,
a personal friendship, or direct paid employment.
Ambassador Wilson was 'tied up'-by means of
John M. Wilson and Richard Ballinger, Taft's
first secretary of the interior-with the Guggen-
heims whose American Smelting and Refining
Company had great interests in Mexico which were
in direct competition with the Maderos. It is
impossible for a foreigner to judge how much
importance can be attached to these political-
commercial 'tie-ups'. What is certain is that
from the moment of Wilson's arrival the American
I38
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
Embassy became the headquarters of a group of
American business men who had ambitions in the
country. It seems possible that at first this group
welcomed a change of government in the belief
that a weak President might be more amenable to
pressure. It soon became clear that Madero had
neither the inclination nor the authority to help
them. From then on Ambassador Wilson set
himself to destroy the administration, embarrassing
it directly by peremptory and sometimes unreason-
able claims, and undermining its prestige abroad
by the information he sent to Washington. It is
doubtful whether Madero would have survived
long, even if he had been given sympathetic
treatment ; Ambassador Wilson's opposition made
his fall a certainty. In the summer of rgr r he was
forecasting Madero's failure. In January rglz he
described the country as ' seething with discontent'
and the ' area of actual and open rebellion against
the Government' as 'not inconsiderable'. In
February of that year his reports persuaded the
Government at Washington to mobilize the entire
regular army of the United States along the border,
and to reinforce it rvith the National Guard and a
recruiting campaign. News of this man@uvre,
spreading throughout Mexico, was interpreted
as having only one meaning ; that public order
had broken down and that the American Govern-
ment believed Madero's regime was about to fall.
Immediately, all over the country, politicians who
had been suspendingjudgment declared forrebellion;
bands of brigands became armies and a period of
seven years civil war had begun.
On March r, the Orozco rebellion broke out in
Chihuaha; next day, before he had had time to
r39
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
inform himself of the gravity of the situation, and
while his colleagues were still waiting on events,
Wilson urged American nationals to evacuate large
areas of the country. On March I5 he was calling
for arms to defend the American colony in Mexico
City. Three days.later he_ telegraphed for a small
armoury-rooo rifles and r,ooo,ooo cartridges-
for the use ' for patriotic motives ' of two of his
American friends. One of these was Mr. George
Beck, who, among other activities, was a director
of a company known as the ' Tampico News Com-
pany' ; this company, it was found at the begin-
ning of Muy, was engaged in running guns to
Zapata, one of the most ferociously destructive of
the rebel leaders. On August zz, he reported con-
ditions in six states to be 'as bad as at any time
during the two revolutions, if not worse' and
Madero as 'incompetent to meet the situation'.
On the same day, two hours later, he was pro-
testing that the President, who, according to his
own reports, was no longer in effective control, was
evincing a 'growing anti-American spirit' and a
'preference for European markets' and was
'harassing and discriminating against American
interests'. As disorder spread Ambassador Wilson
pressed Madero for 'a comprehensive and cate-
gorical statement' as to the measures he proposed
to protect American interests. At the height of its
troubles the administration replied patiently and
in detail to all Wilson's complaints, showing such
a proportion of them to be unjustified that it is
impossible to attribute them to anything but
malice. On January 7th, rgr3, Wilson opened the
new year by describing the whole situation as
' gloomy, if not hopeless '. A week later he called
r40
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
for a warship. On February gth began the period
known as the ' tragic ten days'.
Up to this date, it is difficult to distinguish
between cause and effect. Wilson had said the
country was lapsing into anarchy; it did lapse
into anarchy; it is arguable that he was more
foresighted than his colleagues and that he was
merely doing his duty in communicating his appre-
hensions to his Government ; that is arguable if
not convincing. During the ' tragic ten days' his
conduct was grossly irregular.
The course of events is recent and familiar his-
tory. The rebellion in Mexico City was the work of
a garrison of Boo men, three batteries of artillery
and the palace guard. It was enough to suppress
normal activity in the city but not enough to
dominate it. Wilson wired that public opinion,
' both native and foreign', was 'overwhelmingly'
against Madero ; he called for 'drastic instruc-
tions, perhaps of a menacing character', which
were not forthcoming. Instead Wilson persuaded
his colleagues to ask for Madero's resignation. The
President refused. The American Embassy now
became, in the words of the Cuban Minister,
Marquez Sterling, ' the centre of a true conspiracy '.
The determining event of the ten days was the
defection to the rebels of General Victoriano
Huerta ; the day before this took place Wilson
wired 'Huerta notifies me to expect some action
that will remove Madero from power.' At noon
next day he wired that the coup had taken place ;
it had been planned for that time but actually took
place an hour and a half later. The evidence that
Wilson was a party to the plot is overwhelming.
That evening the meeting between the leader of
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
the rebellious garrison, Felix Diaz, and General
Iluerta, former commander of the defence, took
place in the American Embassy. Healths were
drunk to the new regime. Someone bothered to
ask, 'And what wilt be the fate of poor Madero ?'
'Oh they will put Senor Madero in a madhouse,'
said Wilson. 'Ai for the other' (Pino Suarez) 'if
they kill him it will be no great loss We must
not meddle in the domestic affairs of Mexico.'
Gustavo Madero and Basso, the Intendente of the
Palace, had already been murdered. It was clear
to everyone in the city that Francisco Madero's life
was in danger. Wilson concerned himself only with
the recognition of the new government. But
suspicions had already been aroused in Washington
about the part their ambassador was playing. He
was instrucled to see that no harm came to Madero.
' . . . This Government earnestly hopes to hear
that he has been dealt with in a manner consistent
with peace and humanity. You may in your dis-
cretion make use of these ideas in your conversation
with General Huerta.' Wilson, however, reassured
them that there was' no Prospect ofinjury ' to either
the deposed President or Vice-President ; he urged
the relognition of the new government as consti-
tutional, popular, and, in the unanimous opinion
of all observers, the only means to avoid further
bloodshed.
It is a gloomy coincidence that in the two
blackest crimes of recent Mexican history-the
murders of Madero and of Pro-there was in each
case an American Ambassador at hand who, alone,
could have averted it. In Mexico everyone
knew that Madero was in danger. The Cuban
Minister, Madero's father and his mother appealed
r42
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
directly to Wilson ; at last his wife overcame her
resentment and came to him in person ; she has
left an account of her interview, printed by Gruen-
ing, on whom most of the evidence quoted in this
section is drawn. She went with her sister-in-law ;
the two ladies were kept waiting while the Ambas-
sador was summoned from the Palace where he was
at that moment in conference with Huerta ; when
he came his manner was 'brusque'.
Mme. Madero said, 'I want you to use your
influence to protect the lives of my husband and of
the other prisoners.'
'That is a responsibility I do not care to under-
take, either for myself or my government.'
'Will you be good enough, then, to send this tele-
gram to President Taft.' She produced the draft
of a message which she had attempted unsuccess-
fully to send through the normal service.
Wilson said, ' It is not necessary to send thisr' but
on pressure, put it in his pocket saying, 'A11 right.
I will send it.' He then, in her distress, proceeded
to lecture Mme. Madero on the cause of her hus-
band's downfall. . . . 'He never wanted to con-
sult with me . he had peculiar ideas . the
people rvere not satisfied . . . I knew all this was
going to happen . . . it would not have been good
policy to warn him .'
Mme. Madero pressed that, whatever his short-
comings, he should be allowed to leave the country.
Wilson would promise no more than that his bodily
safety would be seen to.
Two days later the prisoners were murdered in
circumstances which left no doubt that the crime
was premeditated and condoned. It is charitable to
suppose that lVilson was not in Huerta's confidence
r43
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
in this matter, but however shocked he was by the
tragedy, he concealed his emotion in the telegrams
in which he announced it. ' I am disposed to accept
the Government's version of the affair,' he said,
'and consider it a closed incident.'

4
On March 4 the Taft administration retired,
Woodrow Wilson became President of the United
States, and the policy of the State Department at
Washington experienced a radical change. Huerta
was now in power-precariously and disgrace-
fully, but with the possibility of redeeming
himself and restoring order ; his prestige de-
pended very largely on the assumption that he had
the support of the United States. The onlyjustifica-
tion for the means he had taken to get power would
be the use he made of it ; the only justification of
the support which Washington, in the person of
their Ambassador, had given him when he was a
rebel, would be continued and vigorous support now
that he was de facto President.
Huerta was the antithesis of Madero ; it was pos-
sible he might succeed where his predecessor had
failed ; for generations, now, most Mexican Presi-
dents had reached their position by violence ; the
sort of problems-Villa and Zapata in particular-
which confronted the new government needed ruth-
less solutions ; besides the treacherous guards there
were many decent men in Huerta's party-Pedro
Lascurain, for example. It was not inconceivable
that a tolerable government might emerge. Ambas-
sador Wilson exerted himself in every way to pro-
TM
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
vide Huerta with a fair chance ; his dispatches
m^inimized the opposition, misinterpreted thl views
of his colleagues, suppressed unsympathetic consular
reports, and continually urged the State Depart-
ment to give Huerta their recognition. It- was
useless. In July he was recallid and retired.
President Wilson believed that Huerta had done
wrong and should be punished for it, no matter
who else suffered with him. The punishment has
lasted many years now and no one his suffered more
than the innocent.
. During the civil wars which followed, American
' recognition ' became the label of the d.e juregovern-
ment I these usually became defacto because ricogni-
tion meant the exclusive right to buy arms. On"e of
President Wilson's first acts was to reply to the
message- ofcongratulation from Huerta witha simple
acknowledgmentaddressed tohim as,General,. Tiis
was on March gth. In August, after Ambassador
Wilson's recall, the Presiderrf in his message to Con-
gress said, 'It is now our duty to show what true
neutrality will do to enable the people of Mexico to
set their affairs in order. We cannot be the partisan
of either party .'
Either party' was an unduly simple statement
^'
of the situation. There was in fact one party, then
in power, Huerta's, which still commandld the
adherence of those who preferred stability to
revenge or loot and there was ranged againsi it a
multitude of heterogeneous rebels. - For i time an
attempt was made to give them a semblance of
unity by naming them collectively , Constitu-
tionals' but they had nothing in common except
the desire to overthrow the gover.rment and weie
soon at war among themselves. All the leaders of
R.U.L,
t45
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
this period-Villa, Zapata, Catranza, Alvarado,-
Cedillo, Obregon-with the single exception of
Calles who liveJ in affiuent exile in the United States,
have died violently, all at different times and in
different circumstances. Villa, sniped one duy
during his retirement, Zapata ambushed by his
-when
hosts arriving for a dinner party, Carranza
murdered in his sleep in a lonely hut on the road to
exile, Alvarado before a firing squad, Cedillo
hunted to death in the hills ; Obregon, most
curiously of all, was attacked by a- gioul.young
artist ai a dinner table surrounded by his own
adherents ; the boy was tortured before he was
executed, tut no explanation was ever published
of the fact that while five cartridges were fired
from his revolver, fourteen bullets were found
in Obregon's body. Huerta died of his imprison-
ment irithe U.S.A. It is popularly believed in
Mexico that he was poisoned. The various rebels
represented different ilements of discontent' Cedillo
u.rd Cur.unza were of the type of rebel baron in
King Stephen's
- reign, Zapata led a kind of ' ja'-
qrr.r:i. ' ; Villa *is an intolerable blackguard,
guilty oi .r..y conceivable public and - private
itroiity, who iras lately been represented to the
cinemajgoing public as a rough and generous Robin
Hood ; et"iiuao a hooligan of the type--of the
gangster bosses of Chicago in the '2os ; Calles and
bUigo" appear somewhat more presentable than
"of
most theii fellows, with strenuous political ambi-
tions. The armies of these leaders included any
kind of follower, fierce Yaqui Indians from the
North, simple peons who had been told that by
taking armi they would get land and liberty, Pro-
fessioial soldiers'following their immediate superiors,
r46
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
pure criminals ; besides these there was an organi-
zation which was to play an increasingly important
part in local affairs-the 'Industrial Workers of
the World', later to be renamed less pretentiously
the Confederation Regional de Obreros Mexi-
canos ; this society, popularly known as the CROM,
had its headquarters in Vera Cruz with branches in
all the industrial centres ; it is led by Morones who
has made himself very rich by means of it. It was
a part of the international communistic organization
which developed in the great cities of the world
trventy-five years ago. In recent years its import-
ance has been overshador,r,ed by the rival organiza-
tion of Lombardo Toledano, the C.T.M., but for ten
years it ruled Yucatan, Tabasco and Vera Cruz and
exercised predominant influence on many occasions
in Mexico City ; Obregon was its ally. It differed
from other revolutionary organizations in its atti-
tude to the Church ; to the Liberals the Church
n,as something to rob ; robbery had to be justified
by abuse ; but the revolutionary leaders often
called for priests on the death bed, and encouraged
their womenfolk to attend mass ; the CROM rvas
fixedly and militantly atheistic and sought to destroy
religion as such. It w'as also narrower in its aims ;
the Liberals avowed a zeal for the general welfare,
some of them almost exclusively for the majority,
who lived on the soil ; the CROM aimed purely at
the power of the smail section who worked in indus-
trial concerns, to destroy the commercial organiza-
tion under which they worked and give them con-
trol of the wealth, and so of the policy of the nation.
It is customary for writers, according to their views,
to attach particular obloquy to one or other of these
parties. The truth is that the atrocities committed
r47 L2
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
by all r{ere so many and so hideous that it is icllc to
differentiate. Poor Huerta has gone down to his-
tory rvith the label of 'bloodstained', but his
crimes seem mild in comparison with those of his
successors.
President Wilson can hardly be blamed for not
foreseeing these developments. All he knew was
that a bad man was in power in Mexico ; he set
about looking for a good one. So ill informed was
he of local conditions that he flirted with the idea
of backing Villa-from every conceivable point of
view, patriotic, moral, international, the worst of
the lot. Finally he decided on Carranzawho had an
amiable, almost a venerable appearance. He had
been governor of the state of Coahuila under Diaz
and ruled with the usual accompaniments of the
padded army list, purchasable justice, and com-
mercial graft ; he was no worse, perhaps rather better
than the usual run of governors. He was prepared
to back Madero provided he was left undisturbed ;
he was prepared to back, had, in fact, already
backed Huerta on the same terms. But Madero
had squandered the savings of Diaz, Huerta needed
money and did not want a disproportionate amount
to fall into provincial hands. There was a disagree-
ment about the sum of 5o,ooo pesos which Carranza
had stolen from the banks, so Carranza declared
against him and for the ' Constitutionalists'.
Huerta meanwhile carried on government of a
kind and it became clear at Washington that more
definite steps were needed to upset him. In Febru-
ary ryr4 Wilson lifted the embargo on arms, thus
ensuring, if not their victory, the ability of the
' Constitutionalists' to remain in the field inde-
finitely. In April, on the flimsiest provocation, he
t48
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
went very much further; he occupied Vera Cruz
thus stopping a supply of arms that were due to be
landed there for Huerta. This decided Huerta's
fate, just as, three generations before, Miramon's
had been decided at the same place, but the n ar-
like intervention was not particularly welcome to
Carranza. A curious situation ensued in lvhich
Wilson attempted to assist Cananza, first on certain
conditions, then on no conditions at all, and Car-
ranza continued to repudiate his help. Villa was
already at rvar with Carranza; he now cheerfully
went to \r'ar on his own account with the United
States ; n'ith the arms the Americans had sent him
he began a series of outrages along the border. On
January roth, 1916 he lined up sixteen American
engineers at Santa Ysabel' and shot them ; on
March gth he attacked the town of Columbus and
burned it, murdering sixteen citizens. President
Wilson ordered an army into Mexican territory to
'get Villa alive or dead'. They failed to get him.
Carranza refused all co-operation ; General Persh-
ing's expedition marched through empty country
and finally rvithdrew ; Villa was pardoned and
paid off by Carranza. Still President Wilson con-
tinued to 'recognize' him. In March r9r7 he was
formally inaugurated as President. A party mani-
festo, knorvn as ' the Constitution of Queretaro'
\r'as promulgated. Carcanza settled down to a
brief but voluptuous period of authority, charac-
terized by orgies, that have become fabulous, in the
capital, and an abandonment of the provinces to
gangster rule. It u,as during this period that
Yucatan was reducecl to permanent ruin by
Alvarado. The persecution of the Church will be
dealt with in a separate chapter. Here it may be
r49
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
noted that Carranza's attempt to stop it, more than
any other cause, brought about his death. Presi-
dent Wilson was reluctant to admit the crimes of his
protig6s ; it was only after the facts had again and
again been set before him and Catholic opinion in
America was becoming seriously inflamed, that he
sent a protest. He asked for three things : freedom
for foreigners to pursue their businesses in peace ;
an amnesty for political opponents ; a remission of
the persecution of religion. 'Nothing will shock
the civilized world more,' he wrote, 'than punitive
and vindictive action towards priests or ministers
of any Church, whether Catholic or Protestant ;
and the Government of the United States ventures
most respectfully but most earnestly to caution the
leaders of the Mexican people on this delicate and
vital matter. The treatment already said to have
been accorded priests has had a most unfortunate
effect on opinion outside of Mexico.'
Carranza accordingly went before the Congress
in December rgIB to propose a modification of the
'Constitution of Queretaro' in favour of the
Church. But Obregon had now entered into an
alliance with the CROM ; the price for their sup-
port was the continued persecution of the Church.
Obregon's supporters in Congress were therefore
instructed to reject the amendments. Carranza was
driven out and murdered. Once again American
intervention had proved disastrous.
For the next few years United States policy took
the form of mild hostility. A highly capable and
honoured Ambassador, Mr. Sheffield, was charged
with the disagreeable office of watching the steady
deterioration of the country and at the same time
of patiently pressing a long series of legal and
t50
 THE GOOD NEICHBOUR
financial claims against a government lvho would
yield to nothing but force and were perfectly con-
fident that force would not be employed against
them. At last a new and very different Ambassador
was sent to employ a very different policy.

At the time nothing seemed more brilliantly

triumphant, in its results nothing has proved more
futile than the policy of Dwight Morrow. He came
as the bankers' agent to collect the debts which had
been accumulating against the Mexican Govern-
ment and to restore conditions in which American
business men would be able to renew their activities.
He rightly believed that it was no business of a
foreign Ambassador to supervise the morals of the
Government to which he was accredited. He
arrived just at the time when Calles was not only
beginning to weary of the demands of the CROM,
but was also becoming scared at the tenacity with
which the rural population was resisting CROM
rule ; he wished to consolidate his private fortune,
and put the country into a more workable condi-
tion. Morrow showed him a way to make his peace
with big business and to keep his face at home. He
was unique among not only his countrymen but
all human kind, in being able to evince a personal
affection for the President; Calles responded and
a period of mutual admiration ensued in which
miny points of disagreement were nominally
settled. In fact none of the agreements have
proved efficacious. Calles was saved by American
assistance from one rebellion when the peasantry
I5I
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
rose to defend their churches ; he was not saved
from the communists. He got away, alive and rich.
Morrow's diplomatic achievements collapsed with
Calles. What survived was a new tradition of verbal
geniality which is known as 'the Good Neighbour
Policy'.
It is a policy which has had good results elsewhere
and is naturally sympathetic to the warm heart
of the race. American business men, as all who
have had dealings with them gratefully acknow-
ledge, dispense with both the honeyed flattery of
Asia and the ponderous and often chilly courtesies
of Europe, practising instead a particular kind of
personal, man-to-man cordiality. It is taught I
believe in the commercial courses at their Universi-
ties. Its aim is to convince the other party in a
deal that you are negotiating, not for mutual, still
less for exclusive, profit, but out of affection. You
like him so much that you would sooner talk
prices than not talk to him at all. It is a delightful
convention for those who have plenty of time to
spare and, in its best exponents, is something more
than a convention ; it springs from a genuine
broad bonhomie and a love of figures. Morrou,,
it seems, did really like General Calles ; and he
liked Mexico. If he did not appreciate the highest
achievements of Mexican architecture he, at any
rate, liked peasant pottery; he gave Sr. Diego
Rivera an important commission ; he went around
smiling and shaking hands ; the average Mexican
was about his height and he was able to face the
camera with his arms on peoples'shoulders, without
appearing particularly foolish.
Now the Mexicans were not used to that kind
of treatment from Americans. In the course of
r52
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
a- hundred years their well founded pride had
c!a1S_ed to an equally well founded feeling
of inferiority. They expected to be treated ai
'dagos' and 'greasers', to hear their govern-
ment denounced as cruel and corrupt, their institu-
tions as antiquated, their beliefs as childish and
their domestic habits as disgusting. It was quite a
new experience to be praised, and this heady,
after-dinner oratory, prolonged next day and the
day after in private utterances worked ali too well.
Those to whom the revolution had simply meant an
advancement of personal fortune befan to fancy
themselves as philanthropists and statesmen ; thosl
who had lost by the revolution or had failed to
obtain the promised benefits, hearing it praised by
their censorious Northern neighbours,- suddenly
began to wonder whether, after all, there had noi
been some good in it which they had failed to
notice. Every government propagandist could
now enliven his speeches with quotations from
U.S.A.
Morrow's present successor, Mr. Josephus Daniels,
has been at his post during one of the most delicate
periods of Mexican history. He has seen the Calles
regime with which Morrow had come to terms,
overthrown ; he has seen the CROM and Morones
reduced to secondary importance by the rise of the
C.T.M. and Lombardo Toledano, the agriculture of
the country failing, the communications dislocated,
the currency discredited ; he has seen the serrsa-
tional theft of enormous American and European
interests, the development of a will to pure misihief
a_mong the industrial workers and of despair among
the rest of the population-and throughout hai
maintained an attitude of imperturbablJurbanity.
r53
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Saved from embarrassment by his ignorance of
Spanish, he has sat smiling on platforms where
Ir,iarxist'principles have been preached and ap-
plauded ; t. t ut let his name be quoted as a
supportei of the regime ; at the crucial time
im^mediately following the expropriations, wh-en the-
British Forlign Offici was iomposing^the -first of
its notes whiih led to the breaking of diplomatic
relations ; while the State Department at Washing-
ton had tliU girr., no clear indication of the policy
it intended to follow ; Mr. Daniels received a note
from General Cardenas in the following terms :
" M! Goaernment considers that the attitude adopted^ b7
the Goaernment of the United States in the matter of the
cxpropriation of the petroleum -companies reafirms once
mire'the soaeriignt2 of the peoples of this Continent '
Ay tn| auituii,'1ir. A*bolsadol, lour President and
iour beoble haae won the esteem of the people of Mexico'
'The'Merican nation has liaed in these last few day
through moments of triat in which it did not know whether
it uiuld haae to-gioe rein to its patriotic feelings or to
apptaud an act i1 i"st;c, oJ the ..neighbouring co.untry
r'$resented b2 Tour Excellenc2. Today m2 goynlr2 ry
nipil to celibrite without resiraations the prod.t{f':::d:
si$'which it has receiaed from llurs, and uhich will be
cairied in the hearts of its people-"
It rvas an audiciorrs -.tsage' The Mexicans
but for all the firertorks and bonfires
w'ere rejoicing,-f..lit
there ias u g of apprehension' Like the
infant Edmund Gosse rvhen he said his prayers to
a chair and waited to be struck from heaven, the
p.opl. of Mexico had defied the- powers that had
hominated them for so long, and were waiting to
see what would happen to them ; it was thus that
ihey had stood, briithless, while the first Spanish
r54
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
missionaries threw dorvn the old gods from their
sanctuaries. A snub at that moment, a reminder
that since the promulgation of the Monroe doctrine
the United States had peculiar responsibilities for
European interests in the Continent, a reminder,
even, that the State Department at Washington had
so far not defined its attitude in any terms which
allowed of General Cardenas's interpretation, would
have been sobering if not crushing. Mr. Daniels
replied, 'I am gratified to have thus formally
received this important expression of Mexico's deep
friendship for my country . . . this feeling is
mutual.' From then onrvards, on every govern-
ment platform, Mr. Daniels was quoted as a sup-
porter.
Shortly after this he left for three months' holiday.
It was thought in some quarters that he would not
return, but at the end ofJune he was back, with his
old infectious charm and benignity. By this time
the enthusiasm for the expropriations had cooled.
Prices had risen everywhere and Government
speakers were finding their audiences less respon-
sive. Mr. Cordell Hull had made no decisive state-
ment on the oil question ; instead he had pointedly
asked for a settlement of the debts incurred by pre-
vious revolutionary escapades. Neither the Ameri-
can nor the Mexican press was either optimistic or
cordial. In particular the anti-Nazi New Tork
Times had a correspondent in Mexico who was
exposing some of General Cardenas's propaganda.
It was noticed that Mr. Daniels adopted an un-
usually cautious tone with interviewers. But in
the meantime other 'good neighbours' with other
motives were appearing. There was an influential
little group interested in the marketing of the
r55
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
expropriated oil. The central figure of this group
was a Mr. Davis, who for many years had been con-
cerned with oil transactions independently of the
main controlling groups. Davis had secured the
post ofmiddleman for the disposal ofall the Mexican
oil abroad. Negotiations were extremely difficult.
Some oil was indisputably the property of the
Mexican Government-the product of their own
wells-and it was impossible to identify any parti-
cular shipment as being stolen property. The posi-
tion of buyers and sellers varied at law in different
countries ; cargoes had been distrained. Many
countries refused to accept the imports and many
buyers were reluctant to expose themselves to legal
proceedings. The countries without scruples were
also without foreign exchanges. It was unlikely that
a permanent embargo could be maintained, but at
the moment Davis' most hopeful market seemed the
United States. Politically he u,as 'tied up' with
Senator Guffey, Mr. Walter A. Jones, and, through
them, with the labour leader, John L. Lewis.
As has been remarked above, it is difficult
for a foreigner to understand the importance of
these political-commercial alliances. He is disposed
either to discount them altogether or to suppose
that a formal conspiracy exists where in fact there
is only an intermittent joviality. A few facts,
for what they are worth, are certain. On August
zznd Davis w-as taken by Walter A. Jones to inter-
view Cordell Hull. On September 4th the Houston
Posf reported the election of Walter A. Jones as
President of the Good Neighbour League. Jones
is described as ' Guffey's right bower'. He had ' a
gilded cage at the Mayflower with vintages and
Perfectos galore. Law makers were lured there. He
r56
 THE GOOD NETGHBOUR
gavc a rich blor,r'out to John L. Lcwis, with 5o gilt
edged guests . Joncs knou,s all about coal and
oil . . and sees everything including the advan-
tages of the Good Neighbour League as a strictly
non-partisan mechanism for boosting the New
Deal.'
On September r Ith part of an American delega-
tion arrived in Mexico City for the International
Labour Congress. It consisted of Mr. John L.
Lewis, Mr. Edr,r'in S. Smith and Miss Mary Van
Kleeck. On the same train rvith them was Mar-
garita Nelkin, a Spanish communist. They were
received by a guard of honour but with less popular
enthusiasm than greeted Gonzales Pefra and Leon
Jouhaux. International socialists were common in
Mexico City that u'eek.
Miss Mary Van Kleeck is a well-know-n American
radical ; Mr. Edwin S. Smith had been an associate
of hers on the Russell Sage Foundation. He was
nominally on holiday but his normal work is as a
member of the National Labour Relations Board, a
body lvhich came into existence under the Wagner
Act. This body is in some r,r'ays analogous in func-
tion to the notorious Conciliacion of Mexico. The
Cardenas party were quick to seize upon this simi-
larity and represent Smith as the mouthpiece of the
New Deal. Ifc r,r,as believed to be a close associate
of President Roosevelt's and in some circles it was
supposed that he had come to kecp watch on John
L. Lewis ',,r,ith the intention of preventing indiscre-
tions which might embarrass the State Department.
Any such expectations were disappointed.
From the first NIr. Smith was a very much more
interesting figure to the Mexican politicians than
Mr. Lewis. The Government were already abun-
r57
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
dantly assured of the goodwill of most of the labour
organizations of the world. Cables had come to
them in great numbers at the time of the expropria-
tions, from powerful unions and modest study circles.
They knew where they stood as far as'proletarian'
sympathies were concerned. What they did not
know, and what neither they nor anyone else yet
knows, is how powerful 'proletarian' sympathies
were in influencing American foreign policy. 1\Ir.
Lewis travelled with some circumstance and it
was noted without enthusiasm that while other
delegates lived modestly in rooms that were costing
them Io or 12 pesos a day, Mr. Lewis engaged the
most expensive suite at the town's principal hotel.
Perhaps in this the Mcxicans saw a certain likeness
to their now discredited Morones. As a public
speaker he had a forceful manner and the normal
socialist matter. All the delegates at the Congress
had much the same message to deliver in their dif-
ferent languages-the solidarity and certain victory
of the working classes ; the identification of Fascism
and capital which in more critical circles is becom-
ing daily less tenable. But there was an element of
awkwardness in Mr. Lewis's position. One of the
chief grievances r,l'hich the government agitators
had been hammering on, in all their speeches, was
the Mexican peon's degraded condition in com-
parison with the American workman's. Large,
transparently intelligible diagrams had been issued
contrasting the rates of wages that pertained on
opposite sides of the border-the Yankee worker in
his cap and overalls balancing on his palm two
great coins representing 16'r3 pesos ; the peon in
jacket and sombrero gazing wistfully at three little
discs representing 4'68. More than this, there had
r58
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
been another, widely circulated diagram showing
the relative production of the two workers ; a great
pile of z3 and a fraction barrels of oil (each repre-
senting too barrels) produced by the Mexican in a
year ; the meagre crop of 7 and a bit produced by
the Yankee. The various statistical manipulations
required to justify these diagrams need not be
examined here. The significant fact was that over a
long period of time the C.T.M. organizers had been
telling their men that the Yankees were paid enorm-
ously more than they for very much less work. Thus
when Mr. Lewis sought to inflame a Mexican
audience with tales of the oppression of the fascist-
capitalists of his own country, the indignation he
provoked was tepid.
Mr. Smith on the other hand was credited with
disproportionate importance. He was a second
Josephus Daniels come to judgment. When on the
first day the Peruvian delegate, at a meeting in the
Workers University advocated the internationaliza-
tion of the Panama Canal, and Mr. Smith did not
openly dissent, it was construed by many that the
United States were agreeable to the proposal. On
the second day of the Congress particular attention
was paid, as it well might be, to the example set by
the Mexican Labour Courts. A delegate, Arturo
Martinez Adame said that their efficacy depended
on 'correct revolutionary interpretation' of the
Labour Laws. Pressed to explain further, he
said, 'Conscience decisions are based on justice
and equity rather than on legal proofs and pro-
cedure. Consequently Governors of all states are
ordered by the Federal Government to make sure
that labour laws always act in favour to the
workers.' To make the lesson still clearer to Mr.
r59
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Smith another delegate remarked that the United
States would 'begin to get somewhere' when his
National Labour Relations Board was 'fully deve-
loped'.
Any doubts as to whether Mr. Smith found the
atmosphere of the Congress sympathetic, were
dispelled by his own speech. He drew a parallel
between the United States and Mexico; in both,
he said, there was a capitalist structure of society
and a government, based on proletarian principles,
determined to revolutionize it by law. In Mexico
the victory was almost won ; with the Wagner Act
the United States had started on the same trium-
phal progress ; in the United States there was a
further problem to be faccd-the existence of a
provincial bourgeoisie whose sympathies, misled
by propaganda from the capitalist, ran counter to
those of the proletarian. The official reports of
Mr. Smith's various speeches were issued in some-
what different form in different languages. The
English 'hand out' omitted many of his more
violent expressions ; the Spanish, which was widely
circulated in Mexico City, contained a specific
approval of the oil expropriations, coupled with
the ' boxed' notice that he was a representative of
the United States Government. There seems some
uncertainty whether the words were actually
uttered in public. A number of questions were put
to him which give the impression of having been
prearranged ; it is likely that in his answers to
these he was more explicit than in his actual
speeches.
On the following Saturday, General Cardenas
formally opened the Congress Against War and
Fascism. The fact that his agents were at the
r6o
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
moment feverishly negotiating for a trade pact to
supply the Nazi bloc with the materials of war,
was not mentioned during the proceedings. The
meeting was staged with all the heraldry of
Marxism. The motto of the Congress was dis-
played on a huge central banner ; " The alliarue
of organi4tions of workers in the seraice of the State
salutes the proletariat of the world at these decisiue
moments uhen it is fighting against fascism and for the
transformation of the capitalistic rigime into a socia'
listic rigime." Round it were a circle of banners
bearing hammers and sickles, Soviet stars charged
with the names of Lenin and Marx, ' Por la Lucha
de Clases' (For the Class-war) and similar devices.
The International was sung and salutes were given
with the clenched fist. On the platform with Mr.
Smith sat other representatives of the United
States-Miss Van Kleeck, Mr. Abe Isserman, the
counsel for the CIO and the Civil Liberties l-Inion,
Mr. Nathaniel Weil, son-in-law of the New York
newspaper proprietor Stein, and the Rev. Mr.
Swafford representing the American League for
Peace and Democracy.
Next morning there was a mass meeting in the
Bull Ring which gave greater scoPe for the display
of communist insignia. Mr. Smith spoke at the
first of the meetings ; Mr. Lewis at both of them.
He said, 'It makes no difference whether these
avaricious capitalistic organizations are in the
United States or in Mexico or in the countries of
Europe, their attitude towards the workers and
their tactics are the same. Recently there have
appeared on the American continent two great
statesmen whose sympathies cause them to extend
a generous hand to workers of their respective
R.U.L.
r6I
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
countries. In the United States that man is
President Roosevelt. In Mexico that man is
President Cardenas . . In Mexico we have seen
under the regime of President Cardenas with
profound satisfaction the enormous growth of the
labour movement through the C.T.M. and
have witnessed how the natural resources of this
country have been made available to the people
of this country. The workers should so organize
that what has taken place in the United States and
Mexico can be achieved in all countries of Latin
America.'
When this speech was delivered the chief concern
of thoughtful people in Washington was precisely
this ; that the successful confiscation of the oil
properties in Mexico might lead to a wave of similar
actions throughout Latin America and the absorp-
tion in the Nazi trade bloc of American interests.
From Mr. Cordell Hull's point of view few utter-
ances could have been more mischievous than this
invitation to emulate Mexico, and the identifica-
tion of Cardenas with Roosevelt, coming from the
representative of 4,ooorooo American workers whose
livelihood would be the first to be threatened by the
loss of South American export trade, in the presence
of a representative of the United States administra-
tion.
Speaking at another meeting on the terms of
Mr. Cordell Hull's note, Miss Van Kleeck said :
'In diplomatic relations between Mexico and the
United States the way appears now cleared for
social and economic approach . Counter-
balancing any suggestion that payment' (for the
expropriated properties) 'should be immediate is
the thoroughly established policy of the Roosevelt
r6z
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
Administration for international co-operation. Co-
operation is implied in the good neighbour policy
and insistencc on immediate payment without
regard for the social and economic problems
involved is objectionable, not only because it is
unneighbourly but because it cannot be carried out
. Mexico having embarked on a path of
economic democracy has sovereign right to deter-
mine the course of its economic program.'
What were the delegates to make of all this ?
They varied in position from simple South American
workmen to successful English novelists ; the
elderly and more astute of them had no doubt
heard a great deal of this kind of oratory before ;
had affirmed proletarian solidarity in other days
with Germans and Spanish and Italians ; had
heard fully accredited representatives of different
states hold out hopes of co-operation which, for
one reason or another, had come to nothing. But
they were all socialists, and socialists live by hope ;
sometimes in one quarter of the heavens, sometimes
another, the messianic dawn seems likely to break ;
they have learned to look in improbable places,
and no one, listening to Mr. Smith and Mr. Lewis
can have doubted that it was now from capitalist
America that the lead was coming, and that the
patient correspondence of the Washington State
Department represented the last faltering tones of
a dying regime.
A short time after the Congress, when war seemed
imminent in Europe, I was talking to the Trini-
dadian delegate-who was not at all the ingenuous
darky that his position might make one expect.
I remarked that a European rvar would at any rate
settle the Mexican question ; that the United
\2
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
States, sooner than see a supply of oil going to the
central powers, would probably occupy the oil
fields in the name of the companies. A kindly
smile spread over the Trinidadian delegate's face.
'They might want to,' he said, 'but Lewis would
never let them.'
Though nothing in his public statements justified
it, Mr. Lewis certainly left the impression with
maly Mexicans that he was able and willing to
paralyse any coercive measures against Mexico
with a general strike. Americans tell me that such
an idea is preposterous and that the American
unions would never strike on an international
issue. In Mexico, however, strikes are a national
habit, extolled in the schools as one of the normal
duties of citizenship, and practised for the most
capricious reasons. To the Mexicans a boast of
that kind, if it were made, would be perfectly
credible. And large numbers of influential
Mexicans believe it was made.

Once more, at a crucial moment in Mexican

history, when a choice was imminent between
further violent experiment and a return to saner
counsels, representatives from the United States
have lent their influence to the disorderly side.
One can be perfectly certain that of the many
confused motives that inspired Mr. Smith and Mr.
Lewis, one that was totally absent was the wish to
imperial expansion. And yet it has been defined as
America's 'manifest destiny' to extend her rule to
the isthmus of Panama. National destiny works
r64
 THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR
out in curious ways ; empires seem to grow in-
dependently of individual ambitions. Is it con-
ceivable that the historian explaining to future
generations the reduction and disappearance of
Mexico, may include in the succession of empire
builders-Poinsett, Monroe, Houston, Ambassador
Wilson and the rest-a chapter on the mid-twentieth
century radicals ?

r65
 CHAPTER SIX
PLAN SEXENAL

N the first half of September, r93B the Mexican

Government had two separate calls on its hos-
pitality. There was a Cuban delegation who
came, complete with a marine band, to take part
in the celebrations of Independence Day, and there
were the delegates to the Labour Congress. The
nature of the entertainment was tactfully varied to
suit the interests of the guests, and the impression
which General Cardenas wished to make on them.
To the Cubans he wished to appear principally as
a patriot, the leader of Latin-American indepen-
dence ; accordingly the armed forces were paraded
with their latest equipment and an official party
was given at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where,
for the first time since General Cardenas's accession,
evening dress r,l'as \4'orn and members of the former
aristocracy were coaxed out of their seclusion. It
was a very grand party with a gay, costumed band,
a splendid display of gold braid and jewellery, bright
French dialogue, champagne, caviare, and press
photographers. One might have been in Athens.
The President himself did not attend, but all the
more presentable members of his government were
there chattering to Japanese admirals and Italian
attachds in the most civilized fashion.
For the socialist delegates a different air was
r66
 PLAN SEXENAL
assumed. Their entertainment, particularly in the
provinces, was profuse but lesJ decorative. For
them the President was no narrow patriot, but a
lieutenant of the International, chief idministrative
worker of a Workers' State. An element of edifica-
tion lay behind all their jaunts ; they were shown
the swag of the recent confiscations, and, as though
this was not enough, their guides enriched it wilh
srrch imaginary features as a pipe line from the oil
fields round Tampico, leading,-they explained, to
the Pacific coast, whence preir-ably ii could be
shipped _to _help the wor[ers of Japan in their
struggle for freedom against fascist China. But the
main focus for their interest in Mexico City was the
Six Year Plan Exhibition at the Bellas Artes.
British and American tourists are now well
accustomed to being entertained by governmental
exhibitions in which the commonplaces of our own
individualist society are presented is the triumphs of
one or other of the ideological parties. We even
forget that we, too, have hoqpitalJand infant schools
and recreation grounds at home, so overwhelming
is the gusto with which they are shown us abroadl
But the Plan Sexenal was remarkable among exhibi-
tions of its kind for its naivet6.
Under what is conveniently but loosely called
'the Mexican Constitution', the president holds
o-ffi.. for six years. After that the deluge ; some-
times assassination, sometimes executionr-sometimes
exile; very rarely has a President retired into
honourable private life in his own country. General
Cardenas's predecessors were mostly conient with a
six year plan of collecting as much as they could of
the public funds and banking them in iheir own
names abroad. General Cardenas had more dis-
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
interested, ifmore mischievous ambitions. He came
into power with the will to do so much damage-in
his six years to the existing financial structure of his
country that it could never be reconstructed on the
same ii.r., ; primarily this meant doing on ?
universal scale-what many of his predecessors had
attempted in individual cases and abandoned in
disillusionment ; the confiscation and redistribu-
tion of the land, the confiscation and socialization
of industry. The word'plan' is an exampl-e of the
borrowed and barely understood terminology in
which l\fexican political utterances abound. It was
not a ' plan' in the Soviet or Nazi sense of a vast
co-ordiriation of production, exploitation and
administration, the bureaucratic paradise of the
Machine State. It merely meant a resolute deter-
mination to do as much as he could and damn the
consequences. Instead of the ant'hill organization
of Ruisia and Germany, he had at his service only
the old gang of Calles and Obregon reinforced with
a few rivolutionary orators. It is not surprising
that the results have been disastrous, but it is sur-
prising that so much of the failure should be
apparent in the Exhibition.
'f.[evertheless
it was well attended ; school chil-
dren were there, poor mites, led around and
harangued by theii masters ; that is inevitable'
TherJwere aiso numbers of workmen in their over-
alls-deputations sent up from the provinces by
their lpial C.T.M. but a large proportion of the
crowds on the two or three times that I went were,
like myself, enquiring foreigners. Sgme no doubt
were misled bylhe name Sexenal and having heard
lurid stories of sexual education in the schools, were
there in the hope of being shocked. A great
r68
 PLAN SEXENAL
number, however, were earnest students of the
Left Book Club kind, who, abroad, will stare
entranced at a cot or a blackboard if they have
been told that they represent proletarian progress.
The Exhibition was divided into sections corre-
sponding with the various departments of govern-
ment-Ifealth, Education, Agriculture and so on.
The Bellas Artes, where it was held, is the imposing
series of galleries which form part of the Opera
House building. English-speaking guides were in
attendance in the foyer. There were certain singu-
lar exhibits such as a great board on which were
stuck the photographs of all the girls employed at
the Ministry of Labour, but for the most part they
conformed, in intention, to the European model ;
there were statistics in the form ofgraphic diagrams,
architects' plans for public works, trade exhibits
shor.t,ing the products of various industries, stalls
for the distribution ofpropaganda leaflets and so on.
At first sight it all seemed quite normal. Indeed it
required some exertion to maintain an attitude of
polite interest. On the first landing my guide and
I passed a collection of carpentry tools. I am
interested in carpentry tools so I paused to admire
them. They seemed to be of excellent quality.
" These were made in Mexico ? "
" Certainly. Under the present government
Mexican industry is making great progress."
I looked closer and was surprised to find the trade-
mark of a well-known American firm. I pointed
it out.
" Many American firms used to work in Mexico
in the old days," the guide explained. " Now the
government has taken them over."
" But these are all marked 'Made in IJ.S.A.'."
r69
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
" Yes," he said. " I do not know why that is so.
There are many more interesting things further on."
It is poor sport to bait official guides. Poor
drudges, they are more bored than anyone by their
work ; but I was genuinely puzzled and pressed for
further information.
" I will ask one of the officials," he said, and
returned after a time with the man in charge of the
department ; together they examined the trade-
marks and spoke rapidly in Spanish that I was
unable to follow. At length the guide turned to
me, reassured. " It is as I told your" he said.
" They were all made in Mexico."
And there the matter rested. It had given me,
however, a new line of interest. I no longer
embarrassed us both by asking questions. I simply
looked for trade-marks ; there were traffic lights
made in U.S.A., hospital equipment from Germany,
scientific instruments from Italy. Something like
Boo/o of the exhibits were made abroad.
Now I do not suppose that in this matter the
committee of the Exhibition had a fraudulent inten-
tion. I think that each department was asked to
show what it had been doing ; they merely wanted
to show that their cities had traffic lights, that their
hospitals had operating theatres and their carpen-
ters'shops planes and hammers. But there are two
wider conclusions to be drawn from the incident ;
first that the government is completely dependent
on foreign imports for every branch of its life and
secondly that local patriotism is so simple and
ignorant that even quite responsible officials will
not admit this primary economic fact.
In the department of Agriculture, however, the
conduct of the exhibitors does not allow so charit-
t7o
 PLAN SEXENAL
able an explanation. There is a distinction to be
drawn between legitimate propaganda and absolute
falsehood which is generally observed in matters of
commercial advertising and may well be applied to
governments. To take an examPle from the Six
Year PIan Exhibition : there was, as might have
been expected, a hall devoted to the oil expropria-
tions. The most lively minds in the republic are
exercised with this question and this part of the
show was nlore expensively and more cleverly
arranged than any other. There was a model of a
refinery complete with a toy train which ran cease-
lessly round a circular track ; this attracted, as
working models always do, constant attention, and
all round it were placards painted with quotations
from speeches, figures and diagrams giving, in
admirably concise and intelligible form, the govern-
ment's case. There rvas, for instance, a not wholly
fanciful picture of three types of dwelling in existence
in the oil fields ; the first a moderately roomy, two-
storied house, the second a decent bungalow, and
the third a dilapidated hovel. There were beside
them diagrams showing n'hat proportion of each
kind of house was occupied by foreign and by native
employees, drawing the apparently inescapable
conclusion that the oil companies housed their
foreign staff in comparative luxury and left the
Mexicans in slums. The diagrams were astutely
deceptive and yet, as far as they went, fairly
accurate. No one disputed that the most resPon-
sible jobs in the old fields were held by foreigners ;
the reason for this is not flattering to Mexican
pride ; it was simply that they had learned by
experience that they could not always trust the kind
of Mexican who took up a commercial career. If a
17r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
man goes abroad to work he expects to be com-
pensated for his exile by a higher standard of life
than he would enjoy in the same post at home ; that
is a commonplace ofcommercial societies in all parts
of the world. The foreign companies in Mexico do
not import expensive employees from any disin-
terested desire to provide comfortable billets for
their fellow countrymen. They do so because they
have learned by experience that it is profitable.
They can trust them to earn their salaries and to
avoid deleterious local entanglements. In any
country in the world-individualist, fascist or com-
munist-the more responsible officials live in the
more comfortable houses. That too is a common-
place. Therefore it was quite unexceptionable that
the proportion of foreigners living in good houses
should be higher than the proportion of Mexicans.
But very many more Mexicans were employed than
foreigners so that if the figures had been stated in
the other way, i.e. the proportion of good houses
occupied by Mexicans compared with the propor-
tion occupied by foreigners, the result would be to
show that Mexicans were greatly in the majority.
Thus given a perfectly normal situation, the same
figures can be used by either side in the controversy
to support its argument, and both are employing
legitimate methods of propaganda. In this parti-
cular matter of housing there are other considera-
tions. There was the fact that the companies had
been trying for years to build new quarters for their
men and had been stopped by the C.T.M. There
was also the fact that many Mexican workers pre-
ferred the housing allowance which the companies
paid to a good house. It is usually an obnoxious,
and certainly an outmoded, contention that the
r72
 PLAN SEXENAL
poor prefer living in slums. It is true, however, of
many Mexican peons. At Orizaba I visited a colony
ofhovels, constructed, like inverted birdsnests, of bits
of palm leaf and sacking and flattened petrol tins,
into which well paid jute operators had moved in
preference to the solid and sanitary quarters pro-
vided by the mill. It was not the business, however,
of the organizers of the Exhibition to weaken their
case by calling attention to these points I that was
the business of their opponents. They had made a
very lively show in the oil section and may be
honoured for their work.
The agricultural section, however, was quite
another matter. Here, faced with damning and
notorious facts, the ministry had resorted to pure
invention. The facts were that agriculture was in
a disastrous decline ; the exhibition merely stated
the reverse, categorically.
In his various public speeches and in his notes
to the State Department at Washington, General
Cardenas has treated his land policy as a sacred
mission to the fulfilment of which all other interests
must be subordinate. It is an ambition with which,
in general, there seemed grounds for sympathy.
It is reasonable to regard the establishment of an
independent peasantry as a primary source of
national strength. The ills of modern society rise,
not from the presence of private property, but from
its absence ; too few people have tangible posses-
sions; a system in which avery few individuals, or,
worse still, corporations, absorb all the sources of
wealth, exhibits most of the disadvantages of
socialism. In general the wish to see as many
people as possible supporting their own families
on their own holdings of land, is wholly laudable.
t73
 ROBBERI^ UNDER LAW
Those who enquire no further into General Car-
denas's statcsmanship than his avowed aims, have
seldom any reason for r,r'ithholding their applause.
How far he is personally sincere in his professions
no one has yet thc right to give an opinion. Doc-
trinaire philanthropy is responsible for many ills.
The outside observer must judge the results, not
the motives. The simple fact, which is deducible
from the published ofiicial figures and universally
acknowledged in Mexico-except in the agricul-
tural department of PIan Sexenal F.xhibition-is
that in the last trvo years agricultural production
of every kind has fallen in volumc by about zoo/,
or z5oio, The rural districts are no longer feeding
the towns and at a time when other political and
economic experiments are straining ttre national
finances unendurably, Mexico is obliged to pur-
chase its food in foreign exchanges. This would
seem a surprising result of a land settlement
scheme and its cause lies deep in Mexican condi-
tions and history.
In the first place, there is plenty of land in
Mexico. It is an enormous country varying in
fertility from rich tropical and sub-tropical soil
to bare rock. Experts are no longer as confident
as they were twenty-five years ago in their appor-
tionments of cultivable and uncultivable areas.
Fascist enterprises in Italy and North Africa in
draining marshes, watering deserts, binding loose
sand and so on, have shown what land settlement
means in efficient hands. Communists are culti-
vating the Arctic. It may well be that no part
of the earth's surface is unredeemably infer-
tile; but in the case of Mexico there was never
any need for heroic experiments. The country is
174
 PLAN SEXENAL
sparsely populated ; its area is about 5oo,ooo,ooo
acres of which, it is estimated, about 58,ooo,ooo
acres can be cultivated by normal methods. Con-
ditions of climate and soil vary so greatly from one
part of the country to another that this area can
produce crops of every kind-rice, sugar, cotton,
coffee, maize, wheat, fruit, vegetables, etc. The
population is less than r 7,ooo,ooo. There is,
therefore, no natural reason why there should be
any shortage of foodstuffs. The explanation must
be sought in social and political causes.
When the Spaniards came to Mexico they found
a system of land tenure in the Aztec districts closely
analogous to the manorial system of European
feudalism ; great estates belonged to the c.6*rr,
the priesthood and the military nobility; the
cultivators lived in village communities holding
their land in common and paying regular dues in
work and kind to their overlords ; there was also
domestic slavery of the sort that had died out in
most parts of Europe.
Under the medieval Spanish system all property
rights emanated from the Crown and revirtea ti,
it in default of direct heirs. This system was
introduced into New Spain u,ith little disturbance
to the existing order. Enormous territories were
granted to the heroes of the conquest, with some-
times more than roorooo dependent natives over
whom the - recipient exercised almost sovereign
powers. The Indians were not only serfs; they
w:rg a conquered people, and in the earliest years
of the-colony there was a danger that they might
be enslaved. Against this Pope and King legishled
decisively. .After mature examination of the speci-
mens submitted the theologians came to the con-
175
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
clusion that they were human beings. fluman
beings can be treated atrociously and many in
theiitime have envied the lot of well-kept animals.
The human nature of the Indians did not in itself
ensure them any particular advantage as far as
physical conditioni were concerned, but certain
iigtrts were declared to be inalienable ; though they
*e.e e*.-pt from the Inquisition (a fact constantly
forgotten by the painters of Mexico's modern his-
torical frescoes), they were members of the Church
which, as in Medieval Europe, gave them the hope
of advancement in the priesthood and in education,
and ensured their right to marry and bring up their
families ; they were never mated like animals as
were the negro slaves of the English ; they shared
in the holidiys of the Church which provided fre-
quent and extremely lively intervals in their lives
of toil-this privilege was bitterly grudged by-m1ny
of their overlbrds and helped to foster an anti-clerical
sentiment among the colonists. They were also
confirmed in the possession of their village lands. By
royal ordinance ill comm.rnities existing at the time
ofihe conquest were granted land for their support in
the immediate neighbourhood, which they worked
when they were not fulfiIling their duties for their
overlords. As long as they remained in their native
villages they had a protected position, if a sub-
serviint one. New introductions such as the plough,
the horse, the wheel and the reduction of silver ore
by mercury greatly increased the production of the
country. The monasteries, greatly enlarged during
the centuries by pious bequests, became in many
cases horticultural and agricultural experimental
farms as well as centres of learning. The introduc-
tion of negro slaves was forbidden, and although it
r76
 PLAN SEXENAL
existed in an underhand manner, never made a
serious difference to the economy of the country.
There was usually a shortage of labour, aggravated
by the brutal conditions in many of the mines, and
the colonists were constantly in search of devices for
evading the laws ; against these the Spanish govern-
ment waged a continual and, when difficulties of
communication are considered, surprisingly suc-
cessful war. The practice of tricking the Indians
into slavery by debt was put down and did not
re-emerge as a serious problem until after the
Independence. The King's courts dealt out impar-
tial justice. Henry Hawks, the first Englishman to
visit New Spain, wrote in 1572, " In Mexico the
Indians are lfaaoured b7 the judges. If ool Spaniard
does them an injury, dupoiling them d anything (as is the
clmmzn practice) and this happens in a pueblo in which
tltere is ajudge, the aggressor is punishedjust as if it had
been done to another Spaniard." As the encomienda
system of feudal holdings rnas found to be conducive
of abuse, it became the royal policy to replace it by
direct rule ; when from time to time heirs failed and
estates escheated, they were not granted to new
families, but divided into pueblos ruled by royal
officials, the corregidores, and the struggle between
colonists and crown took the new form, easy in a
Iand of ill-defined boundaries, of attempted usurpa-
tions of pueblo lands by neighbouring ha.cendad.os
(large landowners). It was not, however, until the
independent nineteenth century that this became a
real threat to the Indians' position. There is ample
evidence to show that in places remote from the
royal justice abominable cruelties were practised
from time to time according to the character of the
hamndado; it has been to the interest of modern
r77
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
historians to emphasize these ; similar atrocities
were taking place in other parts of the world ; in
general it seems that until the Independence the
case of the Indian villager was little heavier than
that of the peasant in many parts of Europe and
considerably lighter than that of the negroes on the
British, Dutch and American plantations. It was
however a condition which allowed of no deteriora-
tion without real distress and this deterioration
came with Independence ; the royal justice was
abolished ; the wide lands of the monasteries fell
into secular hands ; political intrigue and civil war
brought a grosser type to the top and a process
closely analogous to the landlordism of Tudor Eng-
land squeezed the villagers of their essential rights ;
in particular debt-slavery became almost universal
and the 'enclosures' of common lands proceeded
unrestrained. From the middle of the nineteenth
century until today the living conditions of the
Mexican Indian have been as degraded as can be
found in any except notoriously savage countries.
At the time when Mexico was prosperous this
argued a morbid condition. It is natural that it
should inspire compassion, and sympathy for any
effort to relieve it. Compassion, however, is not
enough. In times of national ruin it is always the
lowest class who suffer the most. The duty of a
ruler should be to see that the community, as a unit,
prospers and then to encourage the equitable distri-
bution of wealth within the community. To ruin
the whole nation in order to reduce the dispropor-
tionate prosperity of a part of it, is insane. That
has been General Cardenas's policy.
Until a year or two ago the country was still
organized, as it had been for centuries on the
T78
 PLAN SEXENAL
hacienda system. The haciendas were great feudal
holdings including agricultural, urban and mineral
properties. The hacendados were rnostly of aristo-
cratic Spanish origin, though in the course of the
centuries the blood of most families had become
mixed with native Indian. The rancheror-owners
of less than two thousand acres-formed a pecu-
liarly Mexican class, half yeoman half squireen,
descended either from Spanish colonists of humbler
origin or the illegitimate sons of the great land-
owners. They were predominantly Indian in
blood ; in costume, mallner and morals they were
typical of the picturesque Mexican of the cinemato-
graph. They did not send their sons to Stonyhurst
or hold the bank at baccarat on the Riviera.
Those who denounce the old system most vigor-
ously, often weaken their case by emphasizing the
fewness of the fortunate minority. A handful of
families, they point out, owned wlrole provinces ;
some had never explored tlie full area of their posses-
sions ; they lived lives of luxury in Paris and
Biarritz while their estates were managed by ruthless
agents. All this is substantially true in many cases
and aroused moral indignation, but it does not
provide a solution of the problem of poverty, for,
after all, even the most ostentatious individual
extravagances are a very small item in the budget
of a prosperous nation. Under the Mexican system
it needed an estate the size of an English county to
keep one family in moderate luxury. No doubt it
was very bad for the ltacendados themselves to lead
an idle and deracinl existence in Europe but the
actual sums misappropriated from the national
economy were negligible. Moreover it was only a
minority of the minority who led an exclusively
N2
t79
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
cosmopolitan life. The average hacendado spent
some months every year on his estates. He did not
regard them with the sentiment of an English land-
lord ; his principal house was in Mexico City ; his
country house was his business premises and his
holiday camp combined. He entertained there and
played the grand seigneur among his dependants.
Foreign visitors and diplomats have left accounts of
these picturesqu e barbecues when the landlord
feasted the village. Many hacendados took a patri-
archal interest in their men and competed with one
another in humane improvements. It was against
these enlightened landlords, even more than the
absentees, that the socialists worked, for they repre-
sented an alternative, saner solution to the problem.
The agricultural new deal was based on the theory
that the land originally belonged to the peasants,
had been taken from them unjustly and should be
restored. Ithas constantly been found in history
that retrospective acts of justice, even after the
lapse of a very few years, involve injustices greater
than those they seek to remedy. General Cardenas
is attempting to redress grievances of four centuries
standing for which the historical grounds are
extremely shadowy. The Spaniards found the
Indian villagers in the condition of serfs. In the
centuries they have themselves become Mexicans.
There is no question of driving out a foreign invader
but of dispossessing a class in the nation. The
agrarian movement has been a part of the class
war and as such has been a victory. Most of the
landowners have been successfully stripped of their
inherited and purchased property without compen-
sation I and the process is being hurriedly com-
pleted.
r8o
 PLAN SEXENAL
The process is as follows : A village makes a peti-
tion to the government that they have not enough
land for their needs and they are immediately given
a grant from the neighbouring estate, which they
then work in most cases as small holdings, in a few
districts in communal farms. The impetus has
come not so much from the peasants themselves as
from the government ; official inspectors have been
sent all over the country organizing the petitions ;
the Indians are simply told that there is a present
of land waiting for them if they ask for it ; naturally
they sign in enormous numbers ; when, however,
as is more often the case than might be expected,
they are reluctant to do so, either from affection for
the hacendado or a traditional distrust of official
philanthropy, the petition is made up by bogus
names and by the importation of families from an-
other district ; the original families are then trans-
ported to a place where they have no ties with their
landlord and where, unless they are given land,
they will starve.
A typical case is that of a friend of mine; a
middle-aged Mexican of pure Spanish descent,
now reduced to extreme penury by the operation
of the law. It is true that he r,vas brought up in
Europe, but not, in accordance with the popular
legend, because his parents were leading a life
of idleness in Monte Carlo ; they were serving
their country as diplomats in various European
capitals. He inherited a small estate from an
uncle. This estate had not been acquired by
graft or grant, but purchased from its previous
owner. No Indians were dispossessed ; it was
uninhabited at the time of the purchase. The
uncle invested his capital in making a model
r8r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
plantation where formerly there had been rough
pasture. He built a house for himself, a church, a
village and a school, and induced landless peons
to settle round him. He installed expensive
machinery for treating the produce. Here he lived
for the greater part of his life, experimenting with
various types of plant and methods of culture until
he had created a tolerably Prosperous concern.
When he visited his brother in Europe he came
home laden with small presents for his Indians ;
his return was celebrated with dances and feasts ;
he personally supervised the education of the
children and a simple medical service; he was
universally loved and respected. When my friend
succeeded he carried on the same tradition. One
morning a year or ttt,o ago he was visited by a
government 'engineer' from Mexico City who
told him that a petition had been made and that
his estate was to be divided. He was shown a list
of names many of rvhich were strange to him ; he
challenged the ' engineer' to produce the peti-
tioners ; these rvere not forthcoming for the list
was, substantially, a forgery. He appealed to the
local governor rvho promised that he should be
undisturbed until a genuine petition was made ;
nevertheless the confiscation went on uninter-
rupted. IIe was left with his house, his mill, a
few acres of land, and permission to gather and
market the crop then ripening on the property.
It was the practice of the planters at the begin-
ning of the season to sell their crop in advance to
thebuyers ; this he had already done. Suddenly,
and quite illegally, the 'engineer' announced that
the pirtition would take place immediately, before
the harvest ; there was a further period of appeal
rBz
 PLAN SEXENAL
with consequent lawyers' fees; finally the con-
fiscation took place as the engineer had said. In
order to repay the money advanced by the buyer,
the owner was obliged to sell off, precipitately and
at a bad price, the house, machinery and the few
acres remaining to him. Ife was left absolutely
destitute.
We went together to visit his former home.
The house was empty and the garden in decay;
a local politician had built a roadhouse on part of
it. The land immediately round the house, which
had been sold as a single unit to reimburse the
buyer, was still tolerably well cultivated though the
experimental plantation was no longer in use ; the
remainder of the estate which had been divided into
small holdings was already, in places, reverting to
waste. Shade trees and cropping bushes, unpruned,
were growing together half buried in weeds. In
places they had been uprooted to make room for
maize; the Indians contented themselves by
gathering the little fruit that still grew on the
rank bushes ; where these had been smothered,
the maize clearings would take their place. We
found the old gardener who, on the assumption
that he was too close to the patron, had not shared
in the spoils. We asked him about the conditions
of the people. He said they had no wages now and
that many of them had left their holdings and
drifted into the town. The others did not bother
to grow more than a bare subsistence for them-
selves ; if they did the government claimed it in
repayment for the tools and seeds they had been
lent ; when they were in need of ready cash they
set off to the hills and made charcoal.
We drove back in a sombre mood, my friend
r83
 ROBBERT UNDER LAI,Y
oppressed not only with his own loss but by the
spectacle of wanton neglect ; he had lost every-
thing and no one was the better off for it.
ffeaven knows, one cannot talk of sympathy
being wasted, but sometimes when I find my news-
papers day after day full of appeals, handsomely
supported and eloquently canvassed, for the victims
of totalitarian rule in Central Europe ; when I
read letters from English socialists, half of whose
time is devoted to denying the rights of private
property for their fellow countrymen, savagely
denouncing Nazi confiscations ofJewish shops and
factories ; I think of my friends in Mexico who also
have been ruined and outlawed, and have received
nothing from the democratic peoples except smug
suggestions that they and their ancestors have
brought things on themselves.
The incident quoted is typical both of the injus-
tice and the futility of the agrarian scheme.
In the case of my friend only a modest ranch was
involved ; hence ihe extreme speed with which it
was swallowed. The great haciendas took longer
and the process was perhaps the more painful to
their owners. First one area, then another would
be taken. The owner was often assured that if he
relinquished part of his property without dispute
he would be left rvith the remainder ; the policy
of the government officials was to wait until the
haundado had concentrated his energy upon develop-
ing a particular area and then confiscate it. It
was three or four years before he was left quite
landless. Even now there are huge territories
remaining to be divided. The most reliable figures
seem to be as follorvs : up to August 1938,
S+,2to,7go acres had been distributed, of which
r84
 PLAN SEXENAL
about 23r3oorooo acres were cultivated land ;
that is about 4oo/o of the total cultivable land of the
country. Recent confiscations should account for
a further roo/o. Agricultural production has fallen
by about a quarter ; it is therefore to be expected
that when the process of confiscation is co*plete-
and there is every indication that it is being hurried
forward-production will be at about half its
former extent. The estates still remaining in their
former hands consist of those owned by generals,
local governors and members of parliamint and
by certain influential German cohpanies in the
extreme South. Since my return thire have been
brief notices in the English papers of the confisca-
tion, against the clearly expressed wishes of the
local Indians, of a large and conspicuously bene-
volent Italian property in the North. No pretence
has been made at discrimination agaihst bad
landlords ; on the contrary those w.ho set the best
example have been the first to suffer. Nor has
any distinction been made between the various
rights of possession. Some properties were un-
doubtedly illegally augmented in the time of
Porfirio Diaz; some traced undisputed possession
to the time of Corte s ; some tvere recently acquired
by purchase. All have been treated aiike. - The
government campaign is against property as such
and_ again-st landowners as a class politically opposed
to themselves.
Of the former landowning class, those still left
in possession, or part possession, know that their
turn_ is coming and can only wait gloomily until
the 'engineers' have the time to attend to them.
I visited a ranch in another State rvhere the owner,s
son lvas carrying on a dairy farm on about a third
t85
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
of his former property. He showed me one large
piece of land tt ut nua been taken from him by the
Mirrirtry of Education; a small school had been
erected in a corner of it, the rest was lying idle ;
near the house was another field which, many
years before, his father had given at their request
io the municipality for the extension of the hos-
pital ; some half finished masonry like an orna-
mental ruin stood deep in undergrowth' His own
house was quarter furnished and his cow houses in
bad repair.^ He was an energetic Yiung man full
of plans for their improvement.. " What is the
goo'd," he said. " If I make it attractive the
!or.i.r*.tt will take it away. .My only chance of
f,olding on for a little longer rs to.escape notice'
If it looks worth stealing I shail lose it'"
All round Orizaba \ Ie visited partitioned
estates. The valley of Orizaba is one of the
most beautiful a.td naturally fertile districts in
Mexico. It is particularly well placed for com-
munication. Through it run the main road and the
railw'ay between Mexico Cily uld Vera Cruz'
Ten yea.s ago there lvere miles of rich sugar and
coffee estatels. We drove through a devastated
area. The sugar mills and ranch houses were in
ruins ; acre trpot acre of sugar land was lying
waste ; here and there a few puny animals were
grazing ; here and there were patches of maize;
ilorrg ihe roads came women and donkeys laden
witti charcoal-most fatally destructive of all
industries ; soon the hillsides, which might-have
been terraced into acres of fertile land, would be
stripped of their cover and washed bare of soil'
Indiins who wanted money tramped into town to
work in the cotton and jute mills, which the trade
r86
 PLAN SEXENAL
union officials were vigorously endeavouring to
reduce to bankruptcy. The great industry of
Orizaba was the brewery under Government
management ; the beer is as good as any in the
world ; work there is being held up because the
rice fields, now mostly working under government
auspices, had fallen in production and could not
deliver what they had contracted for.
People I talked to in Mexico City had sought to
impress me with the decay of agriculture resulting
fronr the partitions. In order to verify this, I had
first asked my hosts whether they could show me
any of these lands that n,ere going out of cultiva-
tion. After a morning's drive round the country-
side I had to alter my request ; could they show me
any of the nerv holdings which rvere being properly
worked ? With some difficulty we found a number.
The farming was not of a high order ; the condi-
tions of living seemed little, if at all, different from
elsewhere in the country ; the huts were very like
the official caricatures of housing on the oil fields,
but there was evidence that the family in their
way were taking pride in their property, or at least
were content in its possession, and, on inquiry, we
found that by selling their surplus produce to the
government clearing houses, they n'ere making
rather more than their former wages, even when
they had repaid the government loans for seed
and tools. It was a small proportion but one very
well u,orth legislating for.
It was natural that conversation outside Mexico
City should turn continually to the agricultural
plan, even to the exclusion of the ever present
question of oil. A certain number of Mexicans
maintained an uncompromising attitude; the
r87
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Indians were incapable of looking after themselves I
they would not work unless they were made to ;
they had been happy on the haciendas,' the hacendado
had been a father to them ; they told anecdotes
illustrating the loyalty and love that they had
inspired among their former dependants. Govern-
-..rt srpporters-notably American ladies living
on investLd capital-quoted Gruening on 'land
hunger', accepted the desirability of land dis-
tribution as their premise, and judged the govern-
ment purely
-
on its record in expediting .the
work. Thcy admitted that numerous politicians
had so far escaped confiscation, deplored the fact
as a relic of Calles's day, and looked forward to
its speedy redress. Others, indifferent to social
conditions, found a melancholy relish in the agri-
cultural figures and plight of the Agricultural
Banks, as full evidence of General Cardenas's
incapacity. But the vast majority, Mexican and
foreign aiike, agreed that there rvas the need for
an agricultural policy and that General Cardenas
had ihosen a particularly unhappy one ; chosen,
not devised, for the policy was not in fact General
Cardenas's invention. In theory it was the work of
his predecessors. General Cardenas's guilt merely
co.rii.ts in taking their professions literally, in
trying to put them into practice and in persisting
in thi attempt after its folly had been proved.
There rvere tu'o aims for a Mexican statesman ;
first the economic one of maintaining and increasing
production.
-has
In this General Cardenas's policy
been manifestly disastrous. The reasons for its
failure are first that after centuries of peonage only
exceptional members of a depresscd class will have
the lnitiative, foresight, thrift and resolution to
rBB
 PLAN SEXENAL
become succcsshrl indcpcndent farmcrs ; the
instinct of thc average peon, presented lvith
his land, has bccn to s(uat in a corner of it
and produce with tlie least tiouble enough to keep
himself and his family alivc. Secondly, certain
c_rgps such as henequen require capital and
skill ;. the peon has little inierest ir anything
that is not immediately edible. Thirdly,' aftei
decades of misgovernment and revolution the
administration is in the hands of a group who
are both incapable and malicious ; their aim has
been more to destroy thc rich than benefit the
poor ; !h.y have preferred to extinguish sources
of wealth rather than lcave them in the hands of
political opponents ; evcn the peon has an inherited
mistrust of the government, cinnot believe that its
benefactions are disinterested, and has learned to
fear that if he produccs any surplus someone will
come and steal it. Fourthly, the drastic shiftings of
population necessitated by the vindictive natui of
the policy have resulted in many agrarians being
isolated in small, defenceless coionics in parts oi
the-country rvhere they find thc inhabitants foreign
and hostile. There have been so many .ur., "of
attacks on the nen, settlers that the government
has in many districts becn obliged to arm them
and hundreds have drifted to the towns rather
than live in such inhospitable surroundings. Thus
at a time lvhen General Cardenas,s othJr experi-
ments make it most difficult to purchas. ,rppli.,
abroad he is faced w-ith a g.a,r. food shoitage.
His new Nazi associates can s..rd fri- .a-..u, u.rd
binoculars and aeroplanes, but not grain nor the
money with which to buy it.
There was, moreover, the social problem of im-
rBg
 ROBBERT I]NDER LAW
proving thc condition of tltc ,eons' The lot of
iru.ry Jf ,h.r,. u'as both to work hard and to live in
Jestiiution, thus gctting thc worst of both worlds ;
thev paid ihe penalties-rvithout enjoying the privi-
i.gJ Jriar.".ti. But it i1 a pogr solution simply to
..lor.ug. them to be idle ; it seems certain that
to keep.them at
r"*" f.iia of discipline is necessary should
*'ork ; the function of government be to see
they are compensated f6r it ; the form of discipline
iii.y ""a.rstood was that of the hacienda " should those
*ho ha'uc the qualitics to become yeomen
bv all means bL enablcd to do so ; those whose
is still formecl in the traditional loyalties
"i."i"fii, and hacienda, should be ensrrred a suitable
"G.itt
..irta for their labour. Above all somenosense of
,..r.lty of tenure lvhich at the moment one in
Mexico, peon or hacendado, feels, is to
essential
r"...ttf.rf'agriculture ; no man -lvorks to develop
i."J-tfri.f, irry b. taken fi'om him capriciously by
a change ofgovernment. When the Cardenas grouP
spare in
;;;;tp8rver thcre u'as plenty of land tostructure
Mexico urrd tlr... \^-as an existing social
*tri.f, was u'ell understood by all' It would not
hu'ue b..r, impossible to devise a policy. which
included the aims suggested above' The hacienda
ornu.rirution could t i"t been left substantially,
;I;;tt,h the individual patron as the nucleus of
,".i"f service and disciplini ; Iand that was lying
iJi. .orld have been appropriated and deveioped'
u, Ituly and North Africa have been, by state
Jir..,.a enterprises of drainage and irrigation ; on
could
it.t. u" alternative system oi small holdings
i;;;. L.." developed, rvith whom the hacendados
*r"fa be obliged io compete in amenities in order
to maintain their labour supply' The government
r90
 PLAN SEXENAL
could have reassumed the position of the Spanish
Monarchy as a fount ofjustice to prevent exploita-
tion and the infringement of such laws as were found
necessary to protect the Indians'well-being. Special
taxation might have been imposed on absentee
landlords. It is an open question whether the
Indian peon can, in his present position, be treated
as a responsible citizen capable of having equal
obligations with the mestizo and the white, or
whether he needs special protection. A policy
such as has been suggested above would allow for
the emergence of the more self-reliant strains of the
population, whiie ensuring the national food supply,
and, properly administered, would have been wel-
come to most of the hacendados. It rvas not however
a policy which could happily be combined with
subservience to the C.T.M. and its crusade of class
war or with the vendettas of the Lodges.
Meanwhile General Cardenas still represents his
land policy as the first aim to which other national
interests must be subordinate and advertises the
extent to which he has carried it.

2
Another department of the Six Year Plan Exhibi-
tion which was of particular significance, lvas the
Educational section. As has been said above, the
mid-nineteenth century confiscations of the educa-
tional and charitable endowments of three hundred
years created a gap in Mexican development that
has never been filled ; from being, in its continent,
outstandingly cultured, the country became notori-
ously barbarous. Many hacendados maintained small
private schools for their dependants; here and
I9I
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
there in the time ofDiaz the religious orders, though
still officially proscribed, returned to their work
with the connivance of the govcrnors and began
patiently restoring the tradition that had been dis-
turbed. Generally speaking, however, the peons
remained illiterate and those Mexicans who could
afford it, sent their sons to school abroad. A
vigorous educational policy was needed and General
Cirdenas's zeal is undoubted; a great part of the
work he hopes to do is laudable. The truth, how-
ever, is thai he has been able to do very little, and
that little has been largely nullified by rveaknesses
is workils.
-included on lvhich he
inherent in the principlcs -
The exhibits some examples of school
furniture, painted with animals from Walt Disney
films, examples of children's work and of their text-
books and plans and models of school buildings.
With rega.d to the latter it must be remembered
that no very clear distinction was made between
what had been done and what was proposed. A
cursory inspection rvas calculated to give the impres-
sion that the whole country abounded in new, con-
crete and glass, functional school houses, a small
fraction of which had in fact been erected. More-
over the organizers had been none too scrupulo-us
in their attribution of the work of others to the
Government PIan. For example there is on the
road to Guadalupe a prominent and very imposing
girls' school rvhiih cannot fail to attrzct the notice
6f passers-by. This great building is the creation of
private chaiity. A wealthy and pious co,uple having
iost their only child, decided to devote their fortune
to a free boarding school for poor Mexican gi-rls'
They themselves planned every detail of it and left
in their will that iti management should be entrusted
r92
 PLAN SEXENAL
to a committee whom they could rely upon to carry
out their intention. It was intended to be more
than a single benefaction, but a model which might
be followed by others. It is a magnificent place
unlike anything that had been seen before in
Mexico-gardens, swimming bath, playing fields,
laundry, kitchens, dormitories, library, class-rooms,
r,r,orkshops are all equipped on the scale and quality
of the most expensive European and American
establishments. The girls, coming to it, are furnished
with clothes, books, even toothbrushes, entirely free.
One feature is absent, a chapel, for religious instruc-
tion or practice of any kind is forbidden in any kind
of school ; the girls may not even say grace after
their meals. The name, even, had to be changed
by government order, for the founders had wished
to dedicate it to a saint and that was illegal. For
some years this institution has occupied a peculiar
and precarious position. It is by law the property
of the state and subject to state inspection ; the
staffare, however, still those appointed by the bene-
factors. At any moment they may be discharged
and replaced by officials from the Ministry of
Education. The government is watching them for
a suitable excuse ; girls have been visited at home
and questioned about their religious beliefs in the
hope that they may be trapped into an admission
that their teachers are symPathetic to religion.
When, therefore, some weeks before the Exhibition,
the school was unexpectedly visited by a fbrmidable
deputation from the office of education, the staff
feared the worst. To their relief the invasion
proved to have no more sinister intention than to
photograph the place in order to display it as an
example of General Cardenas's initiative.
I93
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
The Government, with so many expensive pro-
jects on its hands, can scarcely be blamed for not
having built more. What it has done, with abun-
dant inergy, is to send out from Mexico City an
arrny of enthusiastic teachers, many of whom have
suffered acutely, losing noses, ears and occasionally
their lives at the hands of the ungrateful Parents.
For the education ordained by the Government is
strictly ideological ; and its aim primarily !o +1\.
surviving religious and moral prejudices and glorify
the personnel of the dominant regime.
Aiarming stories are told by opponents of General
Cardenas about the impropriety of the instruction
in his schools. Boys and girls are said to be stripped
and exhibited naked to mixed physiology classes. I
confess I find it hard to credit. There were numer-
ous examples of the government's hygienic Propo-
ganda on vie* at the Exhibition and it seemed per-
fectly inoffensive-lively little drawings commend-
ing the use of soap and toothbrush, glT warnings
thit are certainly needed in Mexico of the dangers
of venereal disease, advice about nutritive diets and
the extermination of bed bugs-the latter could
with advantage be studied by the managers of at
least two of the leading tourist hotels. The fact
remains, however, that the new school-teachers do
seem to have aroused storms of spontaneous moral
indignation in a people not unaccustomed to libidin-
ors officials. I cannot help thinking that it is in
their supercilious attitude of brand-new city-made
enlightenment and their avowed wish to make the
children critical of their homes that the chief
grounds of their unpopularity must_be sg"qh-!. .
- It is undoubtedly true, however, that the Ministry
of Education, which is largely the creation of a
r9,[
 PLAN SEXENAL
fanatical fellow called Portes Gil, does represent
the most extreme opinions in the country. This is
true nearly everywhere ; a great proportion of
militant communists are or have been teachers ;
partly because those who hold their opinions very
enthusiastically, rightly regard school-teaching as
the best chance of propagating them and partly
because there is something about the work itself
which sensibly inclines the mind to bigotry. The
analogy between school and state is facile ; the
need for reducing all problems to their simplest
terms tends to the acceptance of ready-made
solutions ; the necessity for selecting facts and
arranging them memorably; the ambition to
provoke enthusiasm of any kind in dull little
minds ; the unremitting association with the
immature; the peculiar social position of the
school-master in a remote district-the lonely
intellectual closeted of an evening with his books,
so like, it is pleasant to believe, the exiled Marx
in the British Museum Reading-Room ; the longing
to believe that he is making some mark in the
world, preparing a new generation for a new order,
not just earning a meagre wage by forcing into
unwilling heads facts that will soon be forgotten;
the ever present anxiety about keeping order pre-
disposing the mind to a system of absolute decrees,
secret police and summary executions-all these
considerations, no doubt, contribute to make
school-masters and mistresses a subversive race.
At the Six Year Plan Exhibition no attempt was
made to disguise the Marxist character of the state
education. Even the products of the infant schools
showed the hammer and the sickle, and the clenched
fist represented in a variety of simple handicrafts.
r95 o2
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
I made a small collection of the publications of the
Ministry of Education. They are-mostly very well
producid. There is a series of alPhabets-Carteles
de atfabetizacion-octavo sheets,. printed in red and
blue] comprising on one side the characters of the
alphabet ind on the other certain elementary
initruction. One number opens with an exhorta-
tion to revere the teacher (and not to cut off his
ears). 'The rural master,' it saysr-'has been the
victim of the tendencious ProPaganda of Reaction,
which attacks the Socialist School' The heroic
rural master, nevertheless, has remained at his
post,
^frigfily
advancing and realizing - his magnificent,
patriotiJ and humane labour' He is the
apostle of the Socialist School '
".iitrUti
Countryman, spread in the rural population grati-
tude foi his altiuistic and self-denying work which
aims only at the well-being of the community'' - On
the next page is a large drawing of a clenched fist
with the le[end : 'We Protest. The Proletarian
protests aga'inst physical ind moral misery, insuffi-
lient salaiies, the rvorst food, etc.' Opposite it is a
drawing of a personable young 11n beqrr:rg -tI"
banner"of the e.T.M. Below it : ' The C.T.M' is
syndical front in the class war in the
a national,'thl
service of Mexican Proletariat ' and a briet
enthusiastic summary of its work against 'the
semi-feudal structure'of the country', 'the inter-
vention of imperialist powers', ' reaction' and
' fascism'. Another pige is decorated with a
hammer and sickle and a snake and an exposition
of ' the Origin of the Class War''
Another Editiot of the alphabet has the picture
of a boy under a shower-bath with an appeal
against the 'horror which is fett against water and
r96
 PLAN SEXENAL
washing' and a list of the benefits of the daily
bath which among other things 'stimulates the
spirit'. There is also a diagram, in the best fascist
spirit, against the evils of slouching, and a page
devoted to the dangers of dust. Opposite these
salutary lessons are two political pages ; one shows
a workman carrying the banner of the strike
(Huelga). ' Comrades, the right to strike is positively
a constitutional right' ; the other a voter putting
his paper into the ballot box of the P.R.M. (Partido
de la Reaolution Mexicana). It is idle to speculate
what would be the outcry in a democratic country
if the government in power attempted to introduce
party politics into the school curriculum in this
way.
There is a children's magazine-Periodico Infantile
named Palomilla-issued by the Ministry of
Education ; it consists largely of contributions by
children and articles about hobbies. The centre
the Tiger Tim supplement in the magazines
-like
of English childhood-consists of a double coloured
page of picture-story. In the second issue of this
magazine the story is as follows : the first eight
pictures contrast the lot of the rich and poor ; the
poor woman works washing clothes n,hile the rich
lady, attended by three caddies, foozles her drive
at golf ; the man dressed as a chef prepares a
luxurious dinner while the millionaires dressed in
fur coats, white gloves and top hats (an object,
never seen in Mexico, rvhose presence in the cartoon
suggests foreign origin) and smoking large cigars
are concerned only with ' jokes and holidays ' ;
the daughter of the poor family makes clothes for
the rich girl to wear in her motor-car ; the poor
child mends the dolls which the rich one breaks.
r97
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
The last two pictures offer the remedy for this
invidious socia[ division. The poor family makes
itself into a syndicate ; we see their simple room
decorated with red flags and hammer and sickle ;
the father of the famity thumps the table command-
ing the attention of his womenfolk; finally-comes
thi great Mexican panacea-Je declara en huelga ;
the black and red flag of the strike is hung across
the gates of the rich man's villa and the poor family
sits idle outside. It is an interesting variation on
the exemplary tales of the Victorian nursery in
which by self-denial and industry the poor man-
raised himself until he, too, was able to treat of
' jokes and holidays ' and send his wife out to the
links.
It would be tedious to multiply examples to
prove a case which no one seriously disputes.
Mexican education, Iike that of all the totalitarian
states, is planned with the primary intention -of
' conditioning' the children in the interests of the
political regime ; transPose national expansion for
ilus *u. and you have a system very similar to
that of modern Germany. The school-teacher in
the small towns is the agent of government propa-
ganda. It is his duty to educate people ofall ages,
to read them the nen's from the capital with appro-
priate comments, to promulgate- presidential
i.....t, to stimulate hostility to foreigners and
gentlemen, to nose out and report evidence of
ieligion or political disaffection, to embody, in his
o*r, p.tson, the virtues of the Six Year Plan ; to
his friends he is, in the words quoted above,
'the heroic rural master advancing and realizing
his magnificent, highly patriotic and humane
labour . . . a veritable apostle'1 to his enemies
I98
 PLAN SEXENAL
he is a professional prig and spy. The reports of
travellers from the interior seem to agree that in
most places where he has been allowed to remain
he is carrying out the work for which he was
appointed with greater thoroughness than is shown
by most Mexican officials. He has profited by the
popularity of the government in places and at
times when it has been popular. He suffers from
the general displeasure when things go wrong. As
things go progressively more wrong it is probable
that he will suffer more and that he will be the
victim of the next rising-a martyr to noble prin-
ciplesr-a martyr to General Cardenas's conceit,-
just a mischievous ass getting his deserts-according
as you like to look at him,-but doomed, I am
afraid, to an unhappy end. This is not the place
to debate the first principles of politics, and it
is by these he must be judged. The practical
question does, however, arise ; what apparent
effect is the educational drive having on the present
generation of Mexican children ?
The answer, of course, varies in different parts
of that vast country. In the rural districts, as has
been mentioned above, the reception has been so
hostile that the Government has sometimes had to
abandon or modify its policy. There is moreover
an underground organization of teachers who
refuse to concern themselves with politics and are
actively, at great personal risk, continuing religious
instruction in spite of the Government ban. As is
to be expected, the communist schools are most
influential in the large towns where the C.T.M.
organizers can keep a watch on them and the
C.T.M. parents are sympathetic. Here, the
evidence is overwhelming, political theory has so
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
far dominated the ordinary school curriculum that
the standard of general culture and information
has deteriorated from its previous low standard,
while discipline has almost ceased to exist.
The teachers have not made their own lot easier
by the principles they support. The right to strike
is'taught as i civic duty and the children practise
it enthusiastically. The formation of school syndi-
cates is far from being a game ; every large school
has its student organization analogous to the
C.T.M. Meetings are called with great frequency
during school hours and the children spend their
time lobbying for votes and making speeches to
one another. The school becomes a factory in
microcosm, reproducing all the disorder of Mexican
industrial conditions. A children's committee
demands an equal share in the management of the
school and to their chagrin the teachers find that
in the immature mind, they, more often than not,
occupy the position of employers and the children
that of the proletariat ; the syndicates which they
encouraged have become a machinery for enforcing
changes of curriculum and personnel. Strikes
are called to protest against imagined cases of
favouritism, against severity in examinations,
against personalities that are generally unsym-
pithetic, and-a still more mischievous source of
wasted time-against the doings of foreign govern-
ments. While I was in Mexico, Vasconcelos, a
journalist and former Mexican minister of educa-
tion, who had been teaching in the United States,
lost his job. Vasconcelos is far from being the
model Marxist which General Cardenas'$ ministry
of education is trying to popularize ; he was a
patriotic rather than a proletarian leader ; in his
200
 PLAN SEXENAL
exile he had said some very hard things about
General Cardenas. Nevertheless the children of
Mexico had a strike and a demonstration against
the 'Yankee imperialist fascism' of President
Roosevelt in sending him home.
The children do not stop at words. The head-
master of the Preparatory School-the chief secon-
dary school of the country-was lately physically
ejccted by his pupils ; the girls are said to have
taken a ferocious part in maltreating the poor
fellow.
It is not surprising that in this atmosphere
serious studies languish. The worst results are
evident at the University. The Royal and Ponti-
fical University, which held rank with that of
Salamanca, and was for centuries the main centre
of learning in the New World, had an unhappy
history during the nineteenth century. It was
closed in r833 by the radical Gomez Farias,
reopened in 1834 by Santa Anna, closed again by
Comonfort in 1857, opened again by Zuloaga in
1858, closed by Juarez in 186r, opened and shut
again by Maximilian. As on a Sunday in the United
States the train bar opens and shuts in accord-
ance with the moral feelings of the State through
whose territory one is passing, so the lJniversity's
existence varied with the prejudices of the govern-
ing gang. The cxisting University is its successor,
holding at the moment a somewhat anomalous
position of semi-independence ; there are I5,ooo
students few of rvhom have any ambitions to
scholarship ; they are qualifying for certificates
and diplomas which will enable them to get
government posts ; they contribute little or nothing
towards their education. The institution subsists
20I
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
on some small endowments that have survived its
former proud possessions and on capricious grants
from the Government. The salaries of the pro-
fessors and tutors are miserable and, even so, are
irregularly paid. The combined salaries of the two
important chairs, for example, amount to I3o pesos
a month-at the present rate of exchange a little
over d6. As works of scholarship have to be
bought with foreign currency, there is some con-
siderable difficulty for the professors in keeping
abreast of recent research. The total grant for the
purchase of books for all subjects, technical and
humane, is 4oo pesos a year, and there is a
recurring annual struggle to secure its payment.
Foreign languages have ceased to be an essential
part of the curriculum. As almost all the authori-
ties for the courses are in French, English, Latin,
German or Italian, lectures are given without
bibliographies ; the library does not stock the
books and the students could not read them if
it did. Lectures, in fact, consist purely of dictated
notes for the answers to examination questions.
Disorder is grossly rampant. The authority of
the University is vested in a Council on which a
students' committee has a 5oo/o voting power.
Meetings are held in public, to the accompaniment
of munching, singing, whistling, the throwing of
ink pellets and fireworks, with the governing body
so hemmed that they can barely raise their hands
to vote. Last year the entire faculty except two,
was expelled by the students, and in the last seven
years only one Rector has retired normally with
comparative honour.
It is gloomy atmosphere for those teachers-and
there are a few of them left-who have tasted the
 PLAN SEXENAL
sweets of a life of real scholarship, but they at
least have the compensations of their own finely
made minds ; what is the prospect for the wretched
youths brought up to know nothing better ? What
equipment have they to inherit the world that
General Cardenas is preparing for them ?
There is much to be said in a very stable, pros-
perous, self-satisfied society for the presence of a
Bohemian student body. It is a thing we have
always lacked in England. One of the good effects
of discipline should be to provoke a healthy resist-
ance in the more enterprising and self-reliant
spirits. It is impossible to regard the Mexican
student disorders in these humane terms. The next
generation is growing up without any intellectual
or moral standards and they will come to manhood
in a country faced with every possible internal and
external problem in its most acute form.

3
There are other features of General Cardenas's
Six Year Plan whose beginnings could be traced in
the Exhibition. The President, in his electional
campaign, toured the country, enquired into the
particular local needs and promised attention-a
road was needed here, a canal there ; it should be
done. It was in fact begun. Then came the oil
confiscations and the cessation of public works all
over the country.
The last traveller to publish an account-and a
brilliant one-of conditions in the remote provinces
of Mexico is Mr. Graham Greene. His Lawless
Roads is an appalling account of the mismanagement
and miseries which are kept hidden from less cour-
203
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
ageous travellers ; it is all the more damning for
its author's obvious antagonism to capitalist society.
This is his description of the public works at Las
Casas-the former capital of the State of Chiapas.
" Herr F. led me oaer the rocks to show me examples of
Mexican engineering. First the reseraoir half finished
standing there to crack into ruin in the winter because
there was ru more mone) : all money was diuerted to Tam-
pico and the oil-fields . Seuen)ears ago there had been
a flood. Herr F. had been in charge of relief
disastrous
operations ; he showed me the loergrlwn, neglected canal
he had dug at the cost of only ffty pounds. Then Cardenas
aisited Las Casas ; he was not 2et president, he was on
his electoral tour, and he had promised, if he were elected,
men and moru). He kept ltis promise : mone) poured
into Las Casas : federal engineers began tlte work all
ooer again : the walls were made of loose rocks stuck into
cracking cement : in the next rains the walls themselaes
would help to block tlte channel. Then as a contrast he
showed me what tlte Spaniards had built eight2 years ago.
Thefine maslnr) of General Utrilll stood intact : onlt the
alteration in the leuel of the land made his works out of
date."
There's the rub ; the hopeless, universal deterior-
ation of things in Mexico ; that is what changes
General Cardenas's futile little exhibition from farce
to tragedy. The purser on board the Sibonel had
cautioned us to be tolerant of Mexican conditions.
" They are doing their best . . ."
If Mexico were a small, new country, just emerg-
irg from barbarism, house-proud of its little
achievements, pardonably anxious to conceal the
evidence where zeal had outrun capacity, then,
indeed, it would be ungenerous to wound the
national pride and abuse hospitality by uncovering
204
 PLAN SEXENAL
its failures. But it is nothing of the kind. It is a
huge country with a long and proud listgry, taking
prJcedence in its nationil unity of half the states of
^Er.op.
; it has been rich and cultured and orderly
and has'given birth to sons illustrious in every walk
of life ; iro*, every year, it is becoming hungrier,
r.r,ickeder, and more hopeless ; the great buildings
of the puit ut. falling in ruins ; the jungle is c.losing
in and' the graves of tfr. pioneers are lost in the
undergrowth-; the people are shrinking back.to
the rirer-banks and riilheads ; they are being
starved in the mountains and shot in back-yards,
dying without God. And General Cardenas and
his {a"g stand on their balcony smirking at the
uppLrt. of communist deleg-ations ; the tourists
tiamp round the Exhibition of his work marvelling
at hammers and sickles in cross-stitch and clenched
fists in plaster of Paris and the plans of monstrous
public oflic.. that no one is ever going to build'

205
 CHAPTER SEVEN
THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
I
T is a common complaint against Catholics
that they intrude their religion into every
discussion, postulating a ' Church Question'
in matters which seem to have no theological
connexion. This is, in a way, true ; the Catholic's
life is bounded and directed by his creed at every
turn and reminders of this fact may well prove
tedious to his protestant or agnostic neighbours.
In the case of Mexico, however, no apology is
needed for speaking of the subject. It is not land
or oil or race or political organization but religion
which is the single, essential question of the nation,
and foreign writers may be judged, as to how far
they grasp the character of the place, pretty lvell
by the importance they attach to it. Those who
regard the religion of the people as a picturesque,
quaint local custom or as a mildly deleterious
survival of an earlier age, to be gently discouraged
and superseded by a more rational ethical outlook,
can have little of interest to say about any Mexican
topic. The issue is simple enough. There are, it
is true non-Catholic missions of various sects in
Mexico handsomely provided with funds from the
United States. It is their good fortun0 to be able
to distribute alms where the native clergy have to
ask for them; they collect fair sized congregations
206
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
and do considerable work in relieving distress and
encouraging hygienic habits ; their influence in
the life of tt . people,
-
however, is so slight an$ th-e
possibility of their ever founding a national,
ivangelical church which could exist independently
of Almerican financial aid, is so inconceivably
remote, that the authorities do not take the trouble
to suppress them. They provid-e useful testimony
for Gbiernment propagandists of the kind that was
lately heard from Barcelona, that the government
is not opposed to Christianity as such-only to
political p.iests. There are also paganl ; Indian-s
iescended from communities where the Spanish
missionaries never penetrated, or those who have
for generations been cut off from the life of the
Chuich and have lapsed into animism and odd
superstitions. But for the purpose of any-,fruitful
diicussion the politicians know that the religion of
the country is Catholic ; and it is in direct conflict
with merciless, fanatical atheism-an atheism that
at the moment adopts Marxist language, just as
in earlier generations it used Liberal language,
but which antedates either ; the atheism of the
impenitent thief at the crucifixion.
thir ir no place to argue the truth of Christianity-
The Catholii believes that in logic and in historical
evidence he has grounds for accepting the Church
as a society of divine institution, holding 2 unique
commission for her work, privileged on occasions
by special revelation, glorified continu-ally -by
me-6.tt of supernatural sanctity ; he finds in her
doctrine a philosophy which explains his own
peculiar posilion in the order of the universe, a
way of li6 which makes the earth habitable during
his existence there and, after that, according to
2(U-7
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
his merits, the hope of Heaven or the fear of Hell.
He may or may not be deluded in this belief.
But this is what the vast majority of Mexicans
mea-n by religion. They either hate it frenetically,
or cherish it above life itself.
It is a faith which, within its structure, allows of
measureless diversity and this is a fact which those
outside it find difficult to realize; the spacious
wisdom of St. Thomas More, the anxiety about
liturgical colours of the convert spinster, the final
panic of the gangster calling for the sacraments
in the condemned cell, the indignation of the Irish
priest contemplating the spread of mixed bathing
in his parish, the ingenious proofs of the Parisian
asthete that Rimbaud was at heart a religious
pget : . they are all part of the same thing.
The Catholic knows this and others do not, hence
the continual, unavailing attempt of the enemies
of the Church to represent the religion to which
they are opposed as something quite distinct and
peculiar to their own part of the world ; unavailing
as far as Catholics are concerned, but effective
enough among the general, indifferent, mildly
well-intentioned, ill-informed people of America
and England among whom public opinion is
formed. These know their Catholic neighbours to
be on the whole reasonable and law-abiding, with
certain odd practices on Sundays and an unac-
countable aversion to meat on Fridays, crema-
toriums, contraceptives and so forth ; at elections
some Catholics vote conservative and some of
them vote labour ; there is nothing at all sinister
about them. They know this from their own
experience, but when they are told that this same
society in other countries is corrupt and oppressive
208
 THE STMIGHT FIGHT
it does not seem improbable. Foreigners are
different. Thus they are quite ready to accePt
official explanations for acts of brutality and
injustice which in their own country would inflame
them with angry sympathy.
For three generations now, offand on, the enemies
of the Church in Mexico have had it their own way
at home and abroad. The first question which an
intelligent foreigner asks is why, if the Church is
what her adherents claim, she should have enemies at
all. The answers are as diverse as human nature ;
just as there are infinite varieties of goodness,
there are varieties of wickedness. The Church
makes claims and imposes restrictions which many
men find onerous ; she reminds rich men that
their possessions are temporary and rulers that
there are higher laws than their own. In Mexico,
however, in general, anti-clericalism has been
based on the single vice of cupidity. The Church
was rich and physically defenceless ; robbery had
to be justified ; human nature is moved more
strongly by guilt than the will to vengeance ;
we hate most savagely not those who have wronged
us, but thosc whom we have ourselves wronged.
When it is said, usually with reproach, that the
Church in any particular place is rich, there are a
number of different things which may be meant
and should be distinguished. In Mexico, a hundred
years ago, the Church had great possessions
accumulated through the centuries by good hus-
bandry, pious bequests and state grants. The
figures of her revenue, particularly the diocesan
figures, seem formidable and often the reader of
popular history is left with the impression that
these sums were the personal allowance of the
R.U.L.
209
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Bishop ; they were in fact the income out of which
not only the whole ecclesiastical organization but
what would now be called the 'social services' of
the district were maintained. Under the Spanish
system, as in mediaval Europe, education, poor
relief, hospitals, orphanages, lunatic asylums were
all managed by the Church ; it is always possible,
of course, for a bad official to embezzle public
funds ; no doubt in the long era of colonial rule
there were from time to time Bishops who did this,
but when accounts are found by contemporary
visitors of the magnificence of some episcopal
establishments it should be remembered that it
was no uncommon thing for a man of private
fortune to enter the Church and live in the same
style as his lay kinsmen. (Jrban Englishmen who
denounce the system of tithes by which the Mexican
Church was in part supported, seem to forget that
the same system is still in force in our own country,
where the national church represents a very much
smaller proportion of the population than it did in
Mexico. When I r,r'rite my cheque for the tithe on
my own few fields for the support of a body of
which I am not a member I do so reluctantly,
but with no personal animosity against our local
rector.
In the time of Juarez and Maximilian it may
have seemed arguable that the Church might
profit by being disembarrassed of some of her
duties ; that government specialists could better
administer the great funds that were then in clerical
hands. That, in the light of subsequent history,
can no longer be maintained. The clergy may have
been slipshod and dilatory in some of their methods,
but those who robbed her, squandered the booty
2ro
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
on private ends and left nothing in her place.
Nor, I think, would anyone seriously maintain
that the motive of the robbers was a desire to do
better; they simply saw great possessions in the
hands of those who could not protect themselves,
and they took them ; their sole defence has been
to blackguard their victim.
Another thing is also meant by the ' riches of the
Church' ; the splendour of the actual churches.
Even in their devastated condition they arouse the
tourist's wonder and the official guides are quick
to point a moral-'all this silver and gold round
the altarsr' they SZy, 'while the people wore rags
and slept in hovels,' and to those brought uP across
the boider in the austere tradition of the white-
washed meeting-house the contrast is indeed
striking. All along the tourist, route one heard the
same comment, sometimes prompted, more often
than not spontaneous. 'Think what it must have
cost ! Think what good they could have done to
the poor with all that money' ; it is a cry that
echoes back to Judas and NIary of Magdala-
' To what purpose is this $'aste ? '-and when I
heard it I thought of another incident in my
journey in a church that had nothing about it to
attract the tourist.
We stopped at the place by chance on the main
road bet*een Puebla and the famous t tiled church
of San Francisco Cholula. It was a drab little
village of Indian houses clustering round a shabby,
unremarkable church. The presbytery was empty
and desolate, for there had not been a parish priest
for ten years ; the people were not even sure of a
weekly Mass ; a priest rode out when he could
1 Though not to Dr. T. Philip TerrY.
P2
2tt
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
from Puebla ; there were dozens of surrounding
villages in his charge ; wherever he went there
were so many demands on him for christenings
and blessings, confessions, marriages. advice, arbi-
tration in disputes-that he could not keep to
any time-table. He appeared when he could, a
dusty fellow in lay clothes like an impoverished
ranchero to look at ; when he came he rang the
bells and the people stopped what they were doing
and flocked in to Mass. When we arrived the men
at first pretended that they had lost the key of the
church ; they thought we were 'from the govern-
ment' and had come to destroy something or take
it offto Mexico City. That was all they knew about
the government ; that . they were well dressed
people who arrived unexpectedly in motor-cars to
steal something ; (and this rvas in the most civilized
part of the country a few miles out of Puebla). We
assured them of our good intentions and at last
they gave way i even then half the male popula-
tion of the place followed us in to kcep an eye on
us. The dark little building n as full of the rough,
highly coloured carving in rl,ood and stone in
which the country abounds. It would create a stir
in a Bond Street gallery, for it has remarkable
qualities of design-but after a few weeks in Mexico
one gets used to it. Our genuflections to the altar
reassured them a little and they began showing us
their possessions, explaining, as had been explained
to them, the identities of the various saints and
telling us the stories of the biblical events portrayed.
Then they showed us with great pride what they
themselves r+'ere doing, for since the priest went
away the building had been in their sole care.
They had got hold of a tin of gold paint and were
2r2
 THE STMIGHT FIGHT
' doing the place over'. It was the nastiest kind
of gold paint that dries with a dull, powder_y
surface and rapidly turns green, but they were all
poor men and it must have cost them considerable
iaving. They were dabbing it about everywhere,
even on the bells, and were about to start on a
pair of fine estofodo figures. All of-them lacked the
-thirgs
which we consider necessaries and they had
clubbed together to buy imitation gold paint ;
asthetically the result was deplorable ; they had
ruined the patina and rendered their statues quite
unsuitable for the drar+'ing-rooms of Cuernavaca.
. . To rt'hat purpose was this w'aste ? The answer,
quite simply, \t'as carved on the lintel A.D.M.G.,
t-o the greater glory of God. The splendid age o{
trained and directed craftsmanship, of gold leaf,
ivory and majolica, lt'as over ; it rvas left for the
peasants to preserve the memory of it. For the
impulse to adorn is a part of love, and those who
see i., the glories of Mexican decoration only the
self advertisement of a clerical caste and the
oppression
-
of a people, do not know love.
In the three hundred years of Spanish rule the
churches, particularly those rvhich rvere centres of
pilgrimage, became vast treasuries ; every inch
of ineir surface was carved, gilded, jewelled ; the
furniture and statuary was often of solid silver ;
an irresistible temptation to the politicians of the
new Republic ; all this rvealth in the hands of a
few old tarons, mumbling the Office in their great,
intricate stalls ; all this rvealth lying idle, paying
no dividends, when the national treasury had been
emptied by one gang and their successors had their
for[unes to make, quickly, before they too were
driven into exile. So the great steal began and
213
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
with it, inevitably, the campaign ofjustification, of
slander; and with the guilt and the hate, the
wanton destruction ; the libraries thrown out into
the gutters, the canvasses slit up, the statues piled
up and burned in the plaza, the whole bloody,
degenerate business which culminated a year or
two ago in the firing squads and the massacres ;
the red-shirts lounging over their guns in the early
morning sun, waiting in the square for the women
to come out of Mass, to fire a volley or two and
make off in their lorries . .

'The problem,' says Mr. Gruening, the leading

apologist for the revolution, 'has lain and lies in
the character of the clergy.' He has collected many
pages of matter to support his case, some of it the
opinions of secondary authorities but much of it
contemporary evidence of a formidable kind. The
collection cannot have cost him very great trouble,
for there are plenty of people in Mexico eager to
supply details. I was taken by an English business
man to visit the Dominican church at Tepoztlan.
'Believe it or not,' he said, ' the Jesuits were a
fairly decent lot. They were kept in order.'
' I believe it,' I said.
'But the Dominicans ! ' he said. 'Do you know
what their favourite little game was ?-solicitation
in the confessional. I've read about it myself in
tluir own records.'
Mr. Graham Greene 1 met a disappointed
American tourist who had just returned from
I Lawlcss Roals, quoted in the previous chapter.
214
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
Puebla. ' f went to an ageru1 in San Ant'onio, Texas,'
he told Mr. Greene. ' Thq said: " Areyou afree-
mason?" I said: "fes." Thel said: "We got
just the thing for you. The hidden conaent at Puebla.
fou'll be met b7 a freemason. He'll giae you the real
goods-shou 2ou things. The bones of all the nuru'
babies." He paused and said with suppressed furl :
" There tteren't any bones of nuns' babies. It's all
propaganda."'
The guide who hires one a candle-end to visit
the underground cells at the monastery of Desierto
de los Leones shows one where some water drips
from the ceiling, ' This was the water torture. The
monks used to tie the Indians under it until they
went mad.'
The main staircase of the Presidential Palace in
Mexico City has been painted with a huge fresco
of a friar embracing a prostitute.
It is all round one, in Mexico, the lubricious
snigger about the priesthood, and, of course, there
is a nucleus of truth in some of the stories. The
nuns at Puebla did not have babies ; the monks
at Desierto did not torture the Indians, but my
acquaintance at Tepoztlan had certainly unearthed
some scandals in the pages of the Dominican trials
and there seems good reason to think in the rural
districts, remote from effective discipline, a parish
priest could sometimes be found living a domestic
life as patriarch of a family. Hidalgo declared
that chastity was contrary to nature ; Morelos,
the other priest of the first revolution, had children ;
it was one of the twenty-three charges made against
him in I8r5 that he had had the eldest of his three
sons brought up a Protestant. A catalogue of
known delinguents cbuld undoubtedly be compiled
2r5
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
which would be profoundly shocking; a dirty
story about a priest is, anywhere, doubly offensive ;
but considered objectively, what do all these tales
amount to ? In four hundred years, in an enormous
country, where strict surveillance was usually
impossible; where the climate in many parts
predisposes to indulgence ; where the priesthood
occupied a position of unique privilege and
authority so that many were attracted to it from
laziness and the love of potver ; where the posi-
tion of priest's mistress was considerably more easy
than that of the peasant's wife ; where, himself
none too well educated, the priest was shut off
from educated converse and intellectual interests,
it was humanly speaking inevitable that there
should be scandals. It is either priggish or mali-
cious to make more of them than this.
But suppose, for the purpose of argument, that
in this case the Church's enemies rvere justified
in their denunciations, that the evidence were
overwhelming and damning, that it were not
possible, as it is, to rnatch every disgrace with a
dozen proud achievements, every unr,r,orthy priest
with a multitude of devoted brothers ; suppose
that the Mexican clergy had so deteriorated from
their high origins that the bad predominated-
What was the remedy ? In her trvo thousand years
the Church has experienced the changes that are
evidence of her life ; here seeming to lie fallow,
there bursting into sudden flower; a christian
civilization dics in the Eastern Mediterranean,
another rises in the forests of the North ; she has
her fount of continual renewal. The discipline of
Rome is always there to punish her faults ; the
religious orders to fertilize her virtues. Again and
er6
 THE STMIGHT FIGHT
again in history the process of renewal has been
accomplished. Had the critics of the Church
wished merely to correct abuses and restore her to
health, the means were at hand. Nothing, how-
ever, could have been further from their ambitions.
Their earliest move, before they dared strike at
the parochial clergy was to cut the people off from
the life of the Church by suppressing the religious
orders with their international organization, and
to forbid papal delegates and foreign clergy of any
kind from taking part in a restoration of order.
They sought to reduce the clergy to the condition
in which they depicted thenr.
It is the character of the Church that, left
undisturbed in her work, she becomes the trustee
for great benefactions and also the possessor of
splendid works of art. To say that the Church in
any place is rich, means primarily that she has
been loved and trusted. To her enemies, however,
her wealth represents money \,!'rung from a cowed
and superstitious people and they are often able to
quote examples from personal observation which
scem to support this view,. It is unedifying but not
uncommon in peasant communities to find the
parish priest wrangling with his parishioners for
the price of his services. Many travellers, par-
ticularly in Mexico, Catholics as well as non-
Catholics, have been shocked to see, for example,
a woman of the poorest class, baby in arms, plead-
ing rvith an obdurate priest for a remission in the
price of its baptism ; they have turned from this
spectacle to the relics of ecclesiastical grandeur
about them and argued plausibly that it u,as by
such hard bargaining as this that the great churches
were adorned. In fact, however, the argument
2r7
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
depends on a reversal of historical sequence.
Where the church is richly endowed, it is the poorest
that profit, not only in the various charitable
institutes which it supports, but by the services of
the priests who, adequately supported, can afford
to be generous. The people come to look upon
their priest as the source rather than the recipient
of bounty. When the endowments of the Church
are confiscated the priest is obliged to rely on
direct payment for his services. The peasant likes
to give, but he also likes to bargain ; the priest,
drawn from the same stock, has similar tastes.
Hence these heated arguments, both sides pleading
poverty with equal justice, which are so strange to
visitors who are familiar only w'ith Anglican parish
life. flence, also, on occasions an antagonism
between priest and people based not on any dispute
of the value of the services offered, but of their
price. The woman wants to get her child baptized
and she wants to get it done as cheaply as possible ;
if she knows that a neighbour has been given a
special price nothing will induce her to pay more.l
There have been cases when villagers have driven
out an unpopular priest, usually on the charge of
avarice, and in general it may be said that the
Indian's devotion, which in recent years has found
expression in so many unplanned, unled, disas-
trous risings against the government's policy, has
been centred on the tangible fabric of his parish
church, on his God, Our Lady and the saints, and
r Among ncgro Christians in the West Indies the satisfactory so.lu.ti.oq
has been fd'und-ofgrading funerals, marriages etc. as first, s€con4 and third
class, according to-the length and gaiety of-the service. Thus the essential
rites'are madJaccessible io the poorest, while the negro's natural love of
disolav ensurcs the priest a tolerable income from those who can afford it.
fl'. Uoi."" Indiaix have little of the compctitive spirit on which this
systcu dcpcnds for its success.
2IB
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
the basic facts of his creed, rather than personal
allegiance to his parish priest.
When, however, stories are being related of the
unworthiness of the Mexican clergy, there is one,
of very recent date, that should always be remem-
bered. A few years ago, when the persecution was
at its bloodiest and the resistance to it was becom-
ing increasingly formidable, Calles thought of a
solution ; it was not a nerv one ; it had worked
very well in very similar circumstances in Tudor
England ; he proposed to found a National
Church ; buildings should be opened to it, pro-
tection and financial support guaranteed ; all
that the priests had to do was to resign their allegi-
ance to the Pope and transfer it to Calles and, as a
guarantee of their good faith, to marry. The
alternatives were official favour and advancement
and a comfortable domestic life on the one hand ;
persecution to the death on the other. Hostile
propaganda had made the lV{exican clergy notorious
all over the world ; they were said to care only for
women and money ; in many parts of the world
their brothers had found it ernbarrassing to defend
them, had decided to shelve them with the Renais-
sance Popes, as one of the inexplicable shady
parts of history, like the rubbish heaps one some-
times finds, pushed out of sight in odd corners of
cathedrals. And yet in that whole maligned
society only three old reprobates could be found to
accept Calles's offer. One of them is said to be at
his job still, at the altar of an empty church some-
where in Mexico City; no one seemed to know
exactly where.

2t9
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW

3
But, say Mr. Gruening and his readers, the Indian
is not really Christian. He may be willing to- die
for his religion but it is not the religion of Notre
Dame and Fordham ; it is a hotch-potch of poly-
theism and black magic ; with the foreign tongue
which the missionary taught him he pays lip
service to the Spanish God but in his heart he still
worships the old, bloody gods of the Aztecs.
Europians and Americans who attempt to stir
,rp symprthy for him are merely seeking to per-
pitrutea
- It is a form of degraded paganism.
disingenuous argument for its ultimate
aim is to discredit not the Indians' religion, but
everybody's ; it is the familiar thesis of the pro-
fessors oi 'co*parative religion' all over the
world ; that marl's disposition to worship comes
from his awe of natural forces and from his own
dreams ;that there has been no special revelation
but a cycle of myths, finding new rrames in the
differeni stages of man's Progress to rational
atheism ; just as churches were built on the ruins
of temples, pagat statues christened and giv-en the
names of saints, and the holidays of the Churctr
thi
synchronized with the Pagan calendar, so her
sacraments are merely the liturgy of the old mystery-
cults. Most knor,r'ledgeable Christians have con-
sidered this case at one time or another and, if they
have remained Christians, have rejected it, but it
is an arguable case and this is not the pl1c9 t9
attempt lts refutation. What is not arguable^is
Mr. druening's case ; that Christianity is true for
the American and the European but untrue for
the Indian. The christian believes that the par-
220
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
ticular historical events from which he takes his
chronology-the birth, life and death of Christ
which he calls the Incarnation and the Atone-
ment-meant the expression in humanly intel-
ligible form of truths beyond his comprehension ;
he knor,r's that the society which then arose, which
he calls the Church, on'es its form to a variety
of human influences-to Greek speculative philo-
sophy, Jewish poetry and theology, Roman political
organization and so on-all of rvhich have left
their plain imprint on its history and character. He
knows that in the centuries before the Incarnation,
human organizations and discoveries w-ere con-
verging on this particular point of time.
In just this way, before the coming of the Spanish
missionaries, the inhabitants of Mexico were
approaching similar ideas. They had, for instance,
the conception of sacrifice in a highly developed
but monstrous form. For the mass butchery
of the Aztec temples the missionaries substituted
the conception of a single, unique human sacrifice,
daily consummated on the new altars. They
found, too, habits of devotion curiously analogous
to those they sought to introduce ; the old priests
employed holy rvater and incense in their cere-
monial, they heard general confessions of sin and
dispensed absolution, they taught the existence of
a future life divided into heaven, hell and limbo.
Some of the simpler missionaries were disconcerted
by these resemblances and attributed them to the
devil, but they made the new teaching readily
acceptable, and the Church followed the policy
traditional to her, of accepting all that was assi-
milable in the existing order; the new churches
were built, just as they had been in Europe, on the
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
sites of the old temples. Sometimes the old idols
were found among the new statues. Mr. Gruening
found one still standing in a monastic cloister, still
honoured by the presence of a few flowers ; there,
he says, is the proof that the Indians merely follow
their old gods with a new name. But there is
another explanation ; he is on common ground
with many a zealous friar in neglecting it; it is
simply another rvay of regarding the same facts.
Before they had heard the story ofJesus and Mary,
the Indians lvorshipped them under other names ;
in the long memory of the race there is still room
for gratitude for the blessings they received in those
dark ages and they cherish those earlier, confused
intimations of truth as the mother of a family may
still cherish the dolls she nursed in her childhood.
The love of statues and holy places plays an
enormous part in the Indian's religion, and the
great shrine of Guadalupe is, certainly, far more
important to him than St. Peter's in Rome. It is
the Indian Virgin as distinct from the little Spanish
Virgin of Los Remedios, and Mr. Gruening is able
to make great fun, as many have done before him,
of the competitive nature of the various popular
devotions of the country. It is easy to say that
since God is everywhere, there is no reason why any
particular place should be more holv than any
other ; that since all statues and pictures are most
inadequate symbols of what they represent, that
none should excite special reverence ; it is easy,
for that matter, to say that there was no reason why
God should become man; it is on that central
theme that all christianity depends-word becoming
tangible flesh-and those who accept its illimitable
implications believe that it is only in material
222
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
symbols that man is capable of recognizing the
truth by which he lives, and that, because of his
own material nature, he has been allowed occasional
glimpses of divinity in material form. One of these
is the miraculous picture of Guadalupe.
Its history and its presence in Mexico cannot be
treated merely as a pretty piece of folk-lore.
Mexico abounds in picturesque legends of one kind
and another, but the Guadalupe stands entirely
apart. It is for all the Indians and for great
numbers of whites and mestizos the main focus for
their hopes and aspirations.
The story is notable as having no pre-christian
Mexican parallel r ; the account of its origin is
as precise as that of Lourdes. It has been told
countless times but never better than in its first,
contemporary form. One may well be cautious of
saying that any narrative has the ' mark of truth '
about it, but the author of the Diego story was
either relating what he believed, or else was an
extremely accomplished fraud. It is this : On
December 9th, I53r, ten years and four months
after the conquest, an Indian peasant, fifty-eight
years old, was on his way by foot to the mission
church of Tlaltelolco, to hear mass and attend a
class in the religion in which he had been christened
a few years earlier under the name ofJuan Diego.
No outstanding sanctity was at the time imputed
to him. After the event he became a guardian in
I Sahagun, a generation later, states that a temple existed on the site of
Guadalupe, dedicated to the Indian maternity goddess. He was a zealous
scholar and schoolmaster working in the neighbourhood at Tlaltelolco.
No mention, contemporary with Diego, is found of the temple, It is
reasonable to suppose that the friars of Tlaltelolco had already destroyed
it, bcfore the apparition. It would be a suitable place for the new church
to arise among the ruins of the old. ' Whorn thaetmcyc igoruntl2 uuship, him
I dcclarc ,ailo )ou', has been the text of the missionary church since the time
of Paul.
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
the new shrine and died a holy death at the age of
70. IIe was typical of the thousands of Indians
who had accepted the conquerors' religion after a
minimum of instruction ; accepted it, presumably,
in a kind of bemused resignation as part of the
many foreign introductions that had suddenly
revolutionized his world.
Following the track across the desolate area
where the town of Guadalupe now stands, passing,
it is likely, the ruins where in youth he had paid
homage to the native mother-goddess, he suddenly
saw the place transfused with unfamiliar light and
colour ; there was the sound of music and, on a
rock above him, he saw a woman, a fellow Indian
in colour and type, who called him to her, addressed
him as her son, told him that she was Mary and
that she wished a church to be built on the spot
where she was standing. He r,vas to tell this to the
Bishop.
He was received with the scepticism that such
tales usually arouse in the higher clergy, and sent
away. He returned to the spot; The Lady was
waiting for him ; he pointed out that it was no
good sending him on a mission of this kind ; why
did she not send a Spaniard or someone of import-
ance ? She told him to go back with the same
message. He vl'ent. On this second visit Diego
aroused the interest if not the sympathy of the
Bishop ; perhaps this was a case of witchcraft of the
kind which the Church was endeavouring to stamp
out. He told him to bring some sign with him and
sent two men to follow him and see what happened.
Next day, the roth, these men reported that Diego,
when he reached the rocks where he claimed to
have seen the apparition, mysteriously disappeared
224
 THE STMIGHT FIGHT
from view. unaware of this himselfi he received
orders to return next day and receive his sign.
Then in Diego's slow, peasant mind suspicions
began to arise. He lvas getting mixed up in affairs
that were beyond his capacity. Besides his uncle
was ill. He did not return. On the tzth, however,
his uncle was worse and wanted a priest; that
meant going to Tlaltelolco again. Diego did not
like it and chose a circuitous path. But The Lady
was there, too, blocking his way. He told her about
his uncle being ill. She knew all about it; he
would get well, she said ; Diego had another duty
to perform. He must take his sign to the Bishop.
Above where they stood the rocks rose in a sharp,
barren hill ; The Lady told him to climb there and
pick roses. It was an improbable place but Diego
found them, miraculously blooming among the
stones ; enough to fill his sarape. So he trudged off
again, back to the suspicious Bishop and spilt the
flowers at his feet. He may have thought, on the
road, that it was not much of a sign ; after all,
there was only his word for it that they came from
the desert. But he did as he was told and revealed
not only the roses but a picture of his lady, Our
Lady, imprinted on the sarape. That is the picture
which now hangs over the high altar at Guadalupe.
The Church was begun immediately on the site
which Diego showed. In 1532 the picture was
solemnly conveyed there. It had already created a
sensation ; a disagreeable one to the many
Spaniards who regarded the Indians as animals.
There had already been some distrust of the policy
of baptizing the Indians, giving them the idea that
they, too, had souls equal before God with their
conquerors. And now Our Lady had appeared to
225 a
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
an Indian, more than this she had appeared as ai
Indian ; and here, for all time, was the evidence ;
a Virgin with an Indian face; a thing no painter
would have dared do without incurring the charge
of blasphemy. And the Spaniards accepted the
miracle. The important feature is not the repug-
nance it aroused but the fact that the repugnance
was overcome. The nobility of the country, from
the Viceroy down, solemnly prostrated themselves
in the new shrine and from that day until now
every christian ruler of Mexico, even Maximilian,
has made his homage there to the fact which it
had needed a supernatural revelation to enforce,
that the religion of the Spaniard was equally the
religion of the Indian.
The shrine has never been closed or pillaged,
though the neighbouring convent suffered with the
rest of the country. At the height of the Calles
persecution the Indians guarded it day and night.
A bomb was placed under the altar-the cross may
be seen as it was twisted by the explosion-but the
picture was undamaged. For the time a repro-
duction was substituted but now the original is
back in its place. While I was there the church
was being repaired and redecorated ; it is always
full of worshippers.
Mr. T. Philip Terry, whose Guide to Mexico has
been mentioned elsewhere in these pages, provides
the tourist with the kind of comment which the
present government encourages. ' One cannnt but
admire,' he says, ' the positiae genius of (urnarraga
(the Bishop) in planning that the Virgin appear in
Mexico not as a caraed figure, nor 1et in the likeness of a
Spanish u)oman, but rather in the guise of an Indian
priluess with some resemblarue to the reaered goddess
226
 THE STMIGHT FIGHT
Tonantzin thus striking the Indian population at the
most aulnerable point . . the picture is perhaps oJ'
Spanish origin . . The fact that the apparition
occurred during the iruumbency of the Bishop /umanaga,
the bigot . . . is signiJicant . . . It is belieaed that
the Indiars regard the image of the Virgin as a diuine
manifestation of tluir primitiue goddess. . . On the feast
day the unhygienic and ignorant Indiaru oaerrun the
oillage to such an extent that tlu problem of preuurting
pestilerce is a serious one to the authorities. The church
is usua@ packed to sffication : the deaotees bring habits
and an entomological congress as aaried as they are astonish-
ing, all the church decorations within reach are kissed to
a hi.gh polish and thoroughly fumigated later, and all
breathe freer when the frenaied shriners haae returned to
their dffirent homes. Morry of the pilgrims are wretchedfit
poor and to maintain themselues on the journelt-which
not a few make on foot-they bring curious lwme-made
knick-kna*s . . . A carefut scrutinlt of the church is
dfficutt on Sundays . . . At these times it presents a
aerl animated and democratic appearance. Well dressed
Mexicaru, foreigners, ragged Indiaru, cr2ing babies . . .
are prominent features. Less oisible but just as pro-
minent, in a wa2, are the agile specimerc of the gemts
pulex which the oisitor to this sanctuary usually carries
away with him.'
These smug and facetious passages are an exact
expression of the wrong-thinking which the miracle
of Guadalupe rebukes. Mr. Terry starts with an
assumption which stultifies all his subsequent
observations, that a miracle is of necessity a fraud
. . . 'the positive genius of Zumarraga in plan-
ning.' The value of miracles anywhere is not in
the direct benefits they confer-a single cripple
among millions enabled to walk, one hungry man
227 c2
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
among millions given a single meal-but in their
manifesting the nearness of the supernatural. But
most miracles also show an immediate and local
purpose. The apparition of Lourdes came at the
height of French scepticism ; at Guadalupe it
came to teach the Spaniards that the Indians were
men and women and souls, to teach the Indians
that the Spaniards' god was the god of all human-
fi"d. Mr. Terry by his primary incredulity finds
himself led into denying these beliefs in order to
discredit the revelation that supports them. For
what- is his argument ? The Indians are a dirty
lot, they are crawling with fleas, the place has to
be fumigated after they have gone, t[ey have no
business at Guadalupe at all, everyone , breathes
the freer' w'hen they go, they come on foot
with 'curious knick-knacks', a pestilential mob
with whom no tourist cares to rub shoulders,
animals . . And, since they are like this, it is
absurd to pretend that they are worshipping the
same God as well-fed, expensively - eduiated
Americans and Europeans is beiieved , they
; 'it
l9gard the Virgin as ' their primitive goddess;.
She has 'some resemblance to the revered
Tonantzin'. The innocent reader might imagine
trut Mr. Terry had made an iconograph--ical
study, had found an image of Tonanizin and
compared it with the Virgin of Guadalupe ; what
he has really^ done is to read page 236 of Gruening,
and what Gruening has done is to guote whit
Father Sahagun wrote fifty years after ihe time of
Zumarcaga, that the Indians when going to
Guadalupe said, and, I believe still say, . Lit us
go to the festival of Tonantzin' ; and what does
this sinister word Tonantzin mean ? It is simply
228
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
the Indian word for ' Our Mother'. What more
fitting epithet could be found for the Virgin than
this, once unworthily applied to a member of the
old pantheon ? But the Indian is a subhuman
creature; if he once thought a heathen goddess
was his mother, he does still ; he cannot have
learned very much, otherwise he would be rich
and clean. This is the basis of the criticism.
The Christian point of view is to admit that
miracles are possible but exceedingly tare, and to
examine each on its evidence. The Guadalupe
stands the test well. Hostile critics have usually
weakened their case by preliminary abuse of Arch-
bishop Zumarraga. At the time of the conquest
quantities of Aztec painted manuscripts r disap-
peared, which w'ould have been of enormous interest
to subsequent historians. Zumarraga is charged
with their destruction. The authority for his
is the utterance of an eccentric
responsibility
friir named Mier, (who in rBrT disguised himself
as a Bishop and landed at Soto la Marina with a
small revolutionary force under Francisco Javier
Mina which was dispersed after a short guerilla
campaign). From him the tale has been copied
from book to book, even those published since
Francis Clement Kelly's exposure, until it is
generally accepted. The Indian historian Ixtlil-
xochitl of the seventeenth century mentions the
destruction but attributes it, inconsistently, both
to missionaries and to the Tlaxcalans who sacked
Tezcoco eight years before Zwarraga landed in
Mexico. The only certain association of Zwarraga
with Aztec manuscripts is that he made a collec-
I The Aztecs as has becn mcntioncd bcforc had no alphabct or real
written language, but a well devcloped system of hierolJlyphic rccord.
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
tion of all that had survived and took them to
Europe in 1532, where they are now preserved in
various libraries. As for the missionariCs in general,
by giving the Indians the alphabet they made it
possible for them to record their oral traditions.
Hundreds of volumes of this kind were kept in the
monastic libraries until the Liberal revolutions of
1855 and 186r, when they were sold as waste
Paper.
Zumarraga was outstanding in a generation of
devoted missionaries for his zeal in educating,
evangelizing and humanizing the Indians. tt
was he who petitioned the King against their
enslavement, smuggling his message out of the
country in a hollow image. 'If it is truer, he
wrote, ' that your Majesty has granted permission'
for the process of enslavement, ' you should out of
reverence to God, do humble penitence for it.,
It was he who founded the first ichool for higher
education of Indians, Santa Cruz in Tlaltelolco,
who started the education of women there, intro-
duced the first printing press and laid the founda-
tions of the great educational and charitable
system which only came to an end in the revolu-
tions. While others were making their fortunes,
the Archbishop died in debt. His ambition was to
see a new province of Christendom, in its widest
application, rising beyond the Atlantic. He was
one to whom the special revelation to the Indians
would be intensely welcome. Those who lack
strong moral feelings themselves, are ever ready to
credit their moral superiors with a disposition to do
lvil that good nray come of it. Earnestly as
Zumarraga may have prayed for a sign hom
Heaven, warmly as we know he accepted it, it is
230
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
scarcely conceivable that his stern conscience
rvould have bent to a fraud of the kind with which
Mr. Terry credits him; but even were one to
accept this psychological improbability, there are
many difficulties to explain.
The ground of the picture is certainly an Indian
sarape of the normal coarse weave with its central
seam clearly visible from the sanctuary rails. This,
and the native character of the model make it
highly unlikely to have been imported ready
made from Europe. It is stretching the imagina-
tion too far to conceive of the whole matter being
plotted and prepared in Madrid, yet the painters
who visited Mexico in the earlier colonial days
are well known and none of them did work re-
motely resembling the Virgin of Guadalupe. More-
over no one has been able to identify the material
with which it is painted ; it is not oil, water nor
kind. In r756
tempera colour of any recognizable
the best knou'n of Mexican painters, Miguel
Cabrera, published the report of a careful technical
examination in which he professed himself quite
unable to explain the process by which it was made ;
on two other occasions committees of painters
have been allowed to take it out of its glass and
have been able to give no explanation. Nothing
would suit the present government better than to
be able to expose the thing as a priestly fraud, but
they have been obliged to keep silent.
And yet, it must be admitted, the picture is
very like a human composition; the folds and
pattern of the robe, the rays of Blory, the crescent
moon at the feet, the cherub below, are all curiously
stylized. One cannot imagine a painter sitting
down to design the holy shroud of Turin, but one
23t
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
can imagine him drawing the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Looking at it I wondered whether perhaps some
human agency had not intervened to preserve and
ornament the true image which Diego and Zumar-
raga saw. The bodies of saints exposed for venera-
tion are often so overlaid with wax that the surface
is nowhere the actual skin of the body; there is
no fraud ; the body is there but the preservative
hides it; I wondered whether this might not be
the case with Guadalupe ; it was a purely personal
doubt and it seemed to leave more unexplained
than the frank acceptance of the miracle ; it did
not explain the actual pigmentation of the material ;
if one can accept a God who treats with human
beings in a way they will understand, one can
accept the miraculous appearance of a picture;
it is neither more nor less credible for having some
of the marks of a human composition.
Anyway, the appearance, or, as the guide-books
prefer it, the alleged appearance of Our Lady at
Guadalupe is one of the important features of
Mexican history ; to the great majority of Mexicans
it is something far more real and personally sig-
nificant than the coming of Cortes, and anyone
who treats of Mexico without considering it, is
necessarily superficial. Reproductions of the picture
are everywhere; even in the homes of the most
sceptical foreign business men. There was an
enorrnous output of replicas, some of them by the
greatest painters of the country, and today picture
postcards and medals are sold in millions. But it
is to the shrine itself that the people flock. There
is an air of gaiety surrounding the village, a per-
petual fair day. The path which Diego climbed
to pick the roses is lined with photographers'
232
 THE STMIGHT FIGHT
booths and Indians who have tramped for weeks
to make the pilgrimage may, by sticking their
heads through a canvas screen, take home as a
souvenir the picture of themselves sailing over the
shrine in an aeroplane. It is, however, not only
Indians who come to Guadalupe; it is, as Mr.
Terry remarks with apparent distaste, very'demo-
cratic'. You see people of all nations there, as
you do at arry place of pilgrimage. (A great deal
of nonsense is talked and repeated about the par-
tisan loyalties of the various shrines. One is told
for example'that Our Lady of the Remedies is
'the Spanish Virgin'. I went to Los Remedios
on the morning of the feast; in the crowd that
queued up to kiss the little statue which a soldier
of Cortes's had brought with him in his saddle
bag, we were the only whites.)
There are votive offerings at Guadalupe, but
fewer than in most places of pilgrimage in Mexico
or elsewhere. In Mexico they take a form which
as far as I know is unique. They are little paint-
ings on tin portraying the danger from which the
pilgrim has been preserved-accidents with horses
and motor-cars and trams, attacks by bandits and
soldiers, fires-all graphically represented. Most
towns have an artist or two who specialize in this
work and will do you a disaster for a peso or so.
The Ministry of Fine Arts has collected some from
the shrines where they belong and added them as
a humorous contribution to the furniture at
Churibusco. But there were not many at Guad-
alupe for it is not principally frequented with a
view to particular benefits. Mexicans go there
several times in their lives; before journeys
abroad and on great occasions as a kind ofdedica-
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
tion, but more often I think as an act of pure
n'orshi5and for reassurance. As long as the
Virgin is there over her altar, however desperate
things may seem, there is still hope. If she deserts
them, then they are back again, helpless, on the
reeking altars of Huitzilopochtli. They believe
that it was at Guadalupe that Mexico became a
nation and that Our Lady took them in her keep-
irg; she is still there guarding them ; and they
have to come from time to time to make sure.
For myself, at any rate, the great twilit Cathedral
was the most impressive sight in Mexico ; it was
much the same at all hours of the day and on all
days of the week ; sometimes it w'as fuller, but
there was always the same atmosphere of hushed
veneration ; there were workmen high overhead
on scaffolding, hammering at the roof, but it
made no difference. It was the one place in Mexico
that never seemed noisy. People of every conceiv-
able kind were always there, praying. There were
family groups of all ages, candles in hand, working
their way up the aisle on their knees. There were
men who remained apparently interminably on
their knees with their arms stretched out on either
side of them ; they were like that when one came
in and still there, in the same position, when one
left ; rapt, their lips moving, their eyes open
fixed on the picture. There were women who, in
spite of their shabby civil costume, one knew to
be nuns, and swarthy, inconspicuous men dressed
like small shopkeepers who, to one's surprise, one
found to be priests. There were mothers guiding
their children in the sign of the cross. All the
limitless variety of the Church seemed to be
represented there. No doubt there were also
234
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
' members of the genus pulex 'hut it did not seem the
least important.

In their way, of course, the Mexicans are super-

stitious ; it is a legacy of the dark origins of the
human race that is found in every country; it is
only an unfamiliar superstition that seems to us
shocking. There, as everywhere, it is the concern
of the clergy to distinguish and drive out the harm-
ful superstitions ; many of them are innocent
enough. The priest of a large parish in Oaxaca
was showing me his church ; one of the statues
had a coin inserted between its painted teeth.
The priest sighed resignedly. 'They will do it,'
he said. 'I am always trying to stop it.' It was
the statue of an early christian martyr who had had
his tongue torn out and who, as a somewhat
remote consequence, was credited locally with
particular powers against scandal-mongers ; when
anyone in Oaxaca finds there are rumours going
round about him, he puts a coin in the saint's
mouth. Sometimes, if no one has noticed it and
the gossip seems to have abated, he comes and
takes it away again and feels the kind of satis-
faction people get after completing a railway
journey without a ticket. Customs of this kind are
prevalent; Mexicans, like Europeans, resort to
special shrines for particular benefits. It is common
to hear a certain type of foreigner-Catholic as
well as agnostic-say that the saints are more
important to the Mexicans than their God ; that
they still worship a host of deities. The routine of
their daily life gives some colour to this misappre-
hension, just as a stranger might believe that the
film-stars and athletes who form so large a part of
235
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
ordinary English conversation were the real heroes
and leaders about whom our national life revolved.
The test came a few years ago in the peasants'
revolt against Calles, when all over the country
people rose in defence of their churches and were
massacred by the federal troops. They were
fighting for essentials then and they called them-
selves ' Cristeros' ; Viaa Cristo Re2 was the rally-
ing cry of that gallant and disastrous campaign.
Of course by no means all the Cristeros were
pious crusaders. There is always present in Mexico
a considerable semi-bandit population who will
join in any disturbance ; there were cases when
these usurped the badges and banners of the
Cristeros and committed outrages which Gruening
has carefully catalogued. Even Gruening, however,
is bound to admit that the suppression of religion
in Mexico has throughout been the work of a
hated minority. It is notable, too, that nearly
every amelioration of it has resulted from violent
popular protest.
The story of the persecution has often been told
but has received curiously little attention in
Europe. Aspects of it have been noted from time
to time in these pages. It began simply as an act
of robbery, with the accompanying campaign
of justification by agnostic teaching and the vilifi-
cation of the clergy. Throughout the nineteenth
century the Masonic Lodges remained centres of
an anti-religious party which ensured for itself
influential positions in every department of the
state. The old-fashioned Liberal-Mason-Agnostics,
however, tolerated the priests as a harmless source
of comfort to their women and their peasants, sent
their daughters to school in convents abroad, and
296
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
even called for a priest themselves on their death
beds. ft was only after the fall of Diaz that the
movement became militantly atheist; it was then
a definitely communist, proletarian revolutionary
body under the same international auspices which
caused the Leninist revolution in Russia and the
brief and bloody regime of Bela Khun in Hungary.
In a decade of civil war and anarchy, with rival
generals everywhere proclaiming themselves the
government, the communist organization, soon to
be known as the CROM, represented a single,
consistent policy and achieved an importance quite
out of proportion to its numbers. It became
the virtual master of each successive President and
the price of its support, always, was the extinction
of the Church.
Its influence may be shown on the change of
Carranza's and Obregon's policy between rgl5
and r9r7. In the former year they both declared
for religious liberty for all Mexican citizens. In
the latter Carranza assembled his supporters at
Qperetaro and formulated the decree on which
all the subsequent troubles have been based. The
decree is now dignified by the name of the ' Con-
stitution', but the convention which discussed it
was nothing more than Carranza's faction. This
' Constitution' began on a sinister note by reversing
the normal logic of politics ; instead of deriving
the powers of the constitution from the will of the
people, it derived the rights of the people from the
constitution, defining certain elementary rights
which Carranza's party were disposed to 'grant'.
No attempt has ever been made to ratify this camp
pronouncement by popular vote.
Like the Labour Laws, the Constitution of Qyere-
237
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
taro must be read in the knowledge that subsequent
rulings would resolve all ambiguities in the most
drastic terms which they were capable ofbearing, but
even in their simplest form the provisions represent a
legal condition for the Church which has no
parallel in any country except Russia. They
declare education to be totalitarian and forbid
religious corporations or ministers from establish-
irg or directing primary schools ; any school
erec_ted for the purpose of religious teaching is
confiscated ; ministers of religion may not miin-
tain institutions for scientific research ; religious
orders of every kind are proscribed; 'the Law
recogni4s no juridical personality in the religious institu-
tioru known as churches' ; i.e. they are deprived of
all legal rights of appeal to Congress or protection
by the courts ; no one of foreign birth may be a
-priest
in Mexico; any Mexican becoming a priest
loses his rights of citizenship, his vote andhis-right
to hold office ; ' ministers of religious creeds are
ircapable legalQ of inheriting b1t will from ministers d
tlu same religious creed or from atry priaate indiaidual to
ulwm they are not related b2 blood within the fourth
dggrec' ; ' no trial b1 jury shall eoer be granted for
tlu irfraction of aryt of the preceding prouisiors' ; ,ro
hospital or poor-house may be under the patronage,
administration or supervision of a religious cor-
poration.
There are other provisions of a similar nature, all
of which would be intolerable in America or drrg-
land, but it was some time before matters came to
a crisis. At first it was uncertain how long the
Calles-Obregon-Carrartza alliance would lait or
who would succeed it ; it was also uncertain what
force and interpretation would be given to the new
238
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
constitution. There had been hard laws on the
statute book in the time of Diaz, but they had not
been enforced and the Church had been able to
carry on her work in comparative Peace. It was
nine years before it became clear that the urban
com..rr.rist party was growing in influence and
that the Calles-Obregon government had decided
to stave off its economic demands by satisfying its
hatred of the Church. The Mexican Bishops then
attempted to exert their influence by peaceful and
topical means in declaring what amounted to a
stiike ; Calles replied by instituting a regime which
made no pretence of any other motive than the
total and immediate extermination of Christianity
in his country. He was of Syrian extraction, with-
out share in the high traditions of Mexico ; today
he is an affiuent exile in California. There is
nothing remarkable about him and he would
have gone down to history as a purely local figure.,-
one of a succession of negligible names, the riflraff
of party intrigue and violence that gets to the top
in times of disorder, had it not been for this cam-
paign of his. It was not even his ; he was merely
in instrument, allowed to pile up his private gains
so long as he followed the policy ordained for him.
When he became reluctant to continue he was sent
away. But the few years of his regime will always
be known by his name and he will be famous,
until the end of the world, as the man who murdered
Father Pro.
There were hundreds of others done to death at
the same time. Mexico had been infertile of reli-
gious heroes for some generations ; now she sud-
denly burst into flower; but popular imagination
always seeks to personify its ideals, and it is on
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Pro, very worthily, that it has fastened as the
embodiment of the spirit Calles provoked. Within
a few hours of his death he was already canonized
in the hearts of the people ; with typical ineptitude
Calles had photographers on the scene of the
execution and issued pictures of it to the press ;
within a day or two it was a criminal offence to
possess one; they circulated nevertheless from
hand to hand and were reproduced in secret all
over the country. Today you can buy cards of
Pro outside the churches and even government
apologists have stopped trying to justify his death.
It was a mistake, they admit; it was indeed ;
one of those resounding mistakes which make
history. While Dwight Morrow and his clown and
Calles were offon a trip together in the Presidential
train talking of debt settlements, Pro was being
shot in a back yard. Dwight Morrow is already
forgotten. Pro is the inspiration of thousands
through whom the Mexican Church is still alive.

4
The present situation of the Church in Mexico
is the result of the truce effected with the mediation
of Dwight Morrow. Mexican Catholics profess
small gratitude to him for his intervention. The
promises then made by the government have not
been kept. The Cristeros were induced to sur-
render their arms under an amnesty which has been
broken by a series of retributive murders. The
hierarchy believed that their spiritual work was
to be allowed to continue without persecution;
they have been bitterly disappointed. For Catholics
240
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
the unhappy character of the compromise has been
emphasized by the grave warning of the late Pope
in the encyclical Firmissiman Corctantiam of Easter
rg17. For English radicals the situation was
explained in an article in New Statesman of February
r2th, rgg8. 'Although the power of the Church's
hierarchy has been broken, freedom of worship
continues to exist unhampered in Mexico.'
It is true that for the incurious tourist conditions
in the districts he frequents may seem more or less
normal. They find a number of churches put to
civil uses as garages, libraries, warehouses, fire-
stations ; 'There were too many of themr' the
to one surveying the g6S
guides explain, and
1 that surround the little village of
churches
Cholula, the excuse sounds plausible. The
churches that are open are perpetually crowded;
priests are at the altars and in the confessionals,
apparently undisturbed.
Landing at Vera Cruz, with an afternoon to wait
before the train left for Mexico City, I set out to
look at the town. I had read of Vera Cruz as a
state where the government were particularly
anti-religious and expected to find its churches
shut. The first I entered had been converted into
a public library. It is a curious thing, but churches
never seem suitable for any other purpose than the
one for which they were built. I have seen secu-
Iarized churches in many parts of the world being
used as museums, mosques, billiard saloons, draw-
ing-rooms-they never looked right. The library
at Vera Cruz was damp and stuffy; two or three
r This prodigality is exccptional, but is always quoted as thc o<ample of
clerical superfluity. The churches were built in conformity with mis-
sionary custom on the sites of existing shrines.
2+r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
children of high-school age were doing their lessons
there ; a few others were lounging over the picture
papers. It had a depressing air, but so have most
public libraries anywhere in the world. The other
church was open arrd very busy ; the decorations
were shoddy and shabby ; plaster statues had
taken the place of the rich colonial sculpture, but
at every altar there were people making their
devotions, not old women only but quite young
men, and in the nave a young catechist was giving
instruction to a large class of schoolchildren. They
were learning the responses of the Mass, repeating
them in unison. It looked as though the com-
promise were working quite well. The Church
was being allowed to compete with the State on
equal terms for support of the new generation.
Seeing it the Catholic tourist might be tempted to
think that the religious press in his own country
was making an unnecessary fuss.
Vera Cruz, as a matter of fact, is a place where
the Church had recently won a considerable
victory. A year before every church in the State
was shut as they had been in the time of Calles.
Dwight Morrow's bonhomie had had no effect
there. The Bishop had been forbidden to enter his
diocese; a few gallant priests moved in disguise
from house to house saying Mass in secret. Then
an incident had occurred which suddenly aroused
the patient people ; it was typical of what had been
going on all over the country for more than ten
years. Those responsible for it had no reason to
expect any trouble. They did no more than murder
a little girl, as had often been done before, but for
some reason the people who had suffered so much
in dumb resentment suddenly asserted themselves.
242
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
The child had been to one of the houses in
Orizaba where the police rightly believed Mass
was being said ; she came out alone, in the early
morning, straight from her communion; she was
not of those for whom the New Statevnan would
have us believe 'freedom of worship continued
unhampered' ; the police followed her ; she
took fright and began to run. They shot her down
in the street and returned to their quarters for their
usual torpid Orizaba Sunday. But it proved
different from other Sundays. News of the murder
spread in the town, which was full of peasants in
for the day. Suddenly they rose, broke open the
doors of their church, barricaded themselves there
and began ringing the bells. The C.T.M. bosses
telegraphed helplessly to Mexico for advice. All
over the State news spread of what had happened in
Orizaba. Everywhere the churches were re-
occupied. General Cardenas was just completing
his plans for the confiscation of the oil properties ;
he dared not risk another Cristero rising. The
local governor was made to give way. The Bishop
returned ; the priests came out of hiding, and the
people flocked back to their churches.
It is by means such as these, not by the exchange
of cigars in the Presidential train, that the Church
is being re-established in Mexico. A European is
tempted to write 'Faith' instead of Church. I
had, indeed, done so and struck it out, for the Faith
has never been lost to the vast majority of the
country. But the Faith cannot exist for ever
without its tangible expression ; it is not a mere
system of philosophic propositions and historical
facts ; though it may sometimes appear as this,
in certain intellectual types living in a sympathetic
a2
243
 ROBBERT UNDER LAI,I/
atmosphere. It is a habit of life and a social
organization. The simpler a people, the ruder
their living conditions and the more limited their
information, so much the more do they need to
symbolize their ideas in concrete shapes. They
must have buildings in which they consort for
worship, statues and pictures to make the ideas of
their creed intelligible and memorable ; above all
they-equally with the most arid theologian-
must have the sacraments. The communist may
logically maintain that these things are futile and
mischievous ; tricks invented by his enemies to
delude man from his real duty in life, which is to
get through the largest possible amount of con-
sumable goods and to produce those goods in the
largest possible quantities so that he may consume
them. Isolate a people absolutely from tainted
contacts ; obliterate every monument to the old
delusions ; exterminate those who remember the
old order with regret; educate the children in
ignorance of its principles ; then, humanly speak-
ing, you w'ill produce a race of atheists, or at any
rate of non-Christians. Curious ideas will no doubt
take shape in their empty minds, but it is not con-
ceivable that a race, theologically sterilized in this
way, will evolve for itself the doctrines of the
Trinity and the Incarnation. This was the thesis
of the communist gang behind Calles ; it is reason-
able enough, by purely human standards. What is
not reasonable is the attitude of the extreme Nazis
and the present Mexican apologists-who have to
be double faced in their apologies, to their too
zealous international friends on one side, and the
too curious humanitarians on the other-that
religion is a purely private business; that if a
244
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
man is disposed that way he can sit at home and
be religious by himself ; that he needs no special
class to minister to him, no special association with
sympathizers, no place to associate and no means
of conveying his belief to his descendants. Either
his religion will die or it will find concrete expres-
sion in these ways.
The Church for her life, has to have a priest-
hood, an order of men peculiarly educated and
consecrated for a specific work; she has to have
property where she can preserve her sacred things
from outrage; she has to have the opportunity of
conveying her teaching to children whose parents
desire it. Deny her these elementary claims and
you deny her life. Each one of these is still being
denied in Mexico.
General Cardenas, himself, seems slightly fuddled
on the subject of religion. He is not, of course, a
practising Catholic; his party would not leave him
in office a day if he were, but there are signs that, in
his own classic phrase, he has begun to'weary ofthe
social struggle '. ' I am tired,' he said, ' of closing
churches and finding them full.' He is a man who
has spent most of his life in barracks in the masonic-
agnostic atmosphere of the revolutionary army; in
childhood he worked in a printing office but entered
government service at adolescence ; r9I3 found
him as a gaoler with a single prisoner; he let the
man out and together they joined the revolution ;
since then he has probably never come into contact
with anything that can be called Christian life;
at the age of z5 he was a general, an ally of Calles
and Obregon. He was taught that the Church was
invented for their profit by priests and harendados ;
the priests and hamndados have gone, and it
2+5
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
seems to come as a genuine surprise to him each
time that a popular disturbance brings it to his
notice that the people still value their faith. His
habit has been-as in the incident at Orizaba
quoted above-to give way. He is more interested
in pleasing the people than in following any logical
policy; but, relying as he does for his position
and safety upon the C.T.M., he dare not alter
the laws ; nor can he, until they are brought
forcibly to his notice, take any steps to see that the
laws are not exceeded. While I was there two
State governments, those of Tabasco and Chiapas,
still refused even the meagre freedom that the law
prescribed. In Tabasco, the churches were still
all shut-those, that is to say, that had not been
demolished. The late Governor Garrido had got
into trouble for carrying his anti-religious zeal too
far; he had sent squads of gunmen far beyond
the boundaries of his State to shoot up church-
goers near the tourist zone ; that had been too
much and he had had to disappear to Costa Rica,
but his successors maintained his policy of absolute
prohibition of every form of worship. In Chiapas
some of the churches were open but all were with-
out priests. There has lately been news of a
peasants' rising in Villahermosa, the capital of
Tabasco, where some peasants were murdered by
troops while trying to say their prayers in the
ruins ofone ofthe churches Garrido had demolished.
General Cardenas has promised redress.
Illegal atrocities may be matched by illegal acts
of clemency. In many parts of the countryr par-
ticularly in the tourist zone, greater indulgence was
given than the law allowed. In Oaxaca I met a
priest who wore clerical clothes in the streets with-
246
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
out molestation. One Sunday, while I was in
Mexico City, the Catholic students of the University
marched in procession to Guadalupe ; the matter
was kept out of the newspapers and no action was
taken against them. In general, however, the
regime in Mexico is still violently anti-religious.
The number of priests permitted in any State
is decided by the Governor. This is every-
where grossly inadequate. In the United States
and Europe the average is one priest to every
seven or eight hundred Catholics ; a priest with
I5oo in his charge, particularly if they are
in a rural district, would rightly regard
scattered
himself as overworked. In Mexico the average
is said to be one to ro,ooo ; this is a some-
what unsatisfactory figure since some States have
no priests at all; in some one is allowed to every
30,ooo, while Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca,
Cuernavaca and Taxco are fairly well provided.
Many of the priests whom the tourist sees in these
places, however, are there in defiance of the law
with the temporary connivance of the authorities ;
they are legally criminals and are liable to arrest
at any moment should the temper of the police
turn. In the conditions the priesthood have been
given exceptional facilities by the hierarchy and
say numerous Masses on days of obligation.
Seminaries are absolutely forbidden everywhere ;
this law knows no extenuation and the police are
active in searching for and confiscating any house
where theological instruction is given. A large
seminary has been established in Texas and this
has supplied many priests in recent years, but, as
well as this, seminaries do exist secretly in most of
the dioceses. The lot of the students is miserable,
247
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
for to the normal austerities and restrictions of
their life is added the necessity of keeping com-
pletely out of sight during the entire period-two
or three years--of their studies. Financial support,
moreover, is so meagre and precarious that they
live in conditions of genuine privation. In spite
of all this there is no shortage of applicants. Per-
secution is already having its normal result of
producing a priesthood of intense devotion. Only a
very small number, however, can be maintained
in this way; the law against the immigration of
foreign religious is still rigidly enforced and the
shortage of priests is acute. Added to this is the
fact that in the case of trouble of any kind they
have no civil rights.
The religious orders are still forbidden absolutely
as they have been since the time of Juarez. One
of the show places of Mexico is the hidden convent
of Puebla ; the place where Mr. Graham Greene's
acquaintance was disappointed of babies' bones.
It is, nevertheless, a thrilling place, and it is sin-
gularly obtuse on the part of the government to
make the show of it that they do. Here, in the
heart of the town, a community of enclosed nuns
lived for over seventy years without the knowledge
of the police. It was a seventeenth century foun-
dation of no particular importance in colonial
times; when Juarez drove out the nuns elsewhere
this little community escaped notice ; they were a
poor order, with few possessions to attract the
government agents ; they had always led a life of
strict retirement; now they disappeared from the
knowledge of all but a handful of friends; their
little patio was so built that no building overlooked
it; they had their chapel and a gallery with eye-
248
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
holes through which they could see the altar of the
neighbouring church and hear Mass on occasions
when it was too dangerous for a priest to visit
them. The only entrance to the world was through
a small private house whose occupants were in
the secrei. Great ingenuity was used to disguise
the two doors, through which provisions were
brought to them and needlework taken as payment.
Here they were professed, lived the strict rule of
their order, and died ; their bones were thrown
into a common pit which now provides a macabre
exhibit for the curious. In the more generous
times of Diaz novices were admitted but in the
last years of its life this was impossible ; about
forty elderly women were found there in 1935
when the police broke into the place.
One is shown it, as in a fashionable New York
restaurant one is shown the devices ofprohibition
days which conceal the piping hot cellars where
they ruin their wines. First the living room of the
private house ; the guide pulls some shelves from
the wall, presses a button and a door opens leading
straight into the cell of the Mother Superior ;
there is another concealed door in the house, at
the bottom of the stairs, leading into the patio.
The convent is still kept more or less as it was
found ; it disappointingly revealed few treasures
and no scandals. The most valuable find was a
collection of very ugly paintings on velvet. There
is still enough of the convent atmosphere left to
give an element of outrage to each new intrusion.
The guide himself, recruited with the rest from the
local masonic lodge, had a shamefaced air. It was,
to me at any rate, inexpressibly shocking to see him
jingling the little penitential chains which they
249
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
had found the nuns wearing; to hear him sneer
at the underground cells where the nuns retired
for meditation and at the three foot door through
which they crept to Mass. It affected others, too,
in the same way; one could hear them arriving
jauntily and noisily, with slightly lubricious expec-
tations ; they thoroughly enjoyed the secret doors ;
it was all part of a detective story ; then, as they
tramped round those secret places, they became
ill-at-ease and silent. They knew they had no
business there. A few of them asked questions,
'Why were the nuns turned out ? '
' It is against the law.'
'What harm were they doing ? '
'They were breaking the law.'
Some, who had never before had any acquaint-
ance with convent life, were obviously startled.
Their shock found expression in such phrases as,
' Morbid kind of place '. But I do not think they
really meant this. What they were feeling was a
sense of personal guilt. They were prying into
things with which their own lives had no contact.
They came out into the street in subdued little
parties.
I do not know what impression the Government
seeks to give in the Hidden Convent I the guile
of the religious, the zeal of the detectives, the use-
lessness of a devotional life ? I suppose all these
things. I am sure nothing could serve their pur-
poses worse. There are plenty of empty monas-
teries and convents in the country, now mere
architectural monuments with no keener spiritual
associations than the ruins of Fountains or Glaston-
brry; but everything is so recent at Puebla. It
is not merely that the sightseer can picture for
250
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
himself the scene of a few years back when the
police suddenly burst into the silence and bundled
the old women into the streets which they had not
seen for half a lifetime ; it is that he feels that in
his own trespass the outrage is being daily re-
enacted.
There is a repugnance for many people about
the idea of monastic life. No one suggests that
it is a suitable life for any except a particular
and relatively rare religious type ; for certain
people however it offers the highest happiness and
development. To deny these people the right to
live in the manner they require is a denlal of
religious liberty.
The churches, as has already been mentioned,
are the property of the state ; in some districts
they have been demolished ; in others locked ;
in the most favoured localities a proportion of
them have been returned on sufferanie to the
people for the use of their priests ; the furniture
and decorations, such as have survived, are the
property of the state ; even in the Cathedral of
Mexico City the vestments have been removed to
a neighbouring museum. Innocent tourists believe
it to be a kind of sacristy. While I was seeing them
a lady asked, 'Do the priests often weai those
things ? '
'No, madam,' the guide replied with a certain
grim humour, 'not often.'
'I should think not. They are far too valuable.,
'Yes, far too valuable.'
Pictures and statues are still constantly being
removed from churches, ostensibly to be put i;
museums.
Religious processions or the wearing of clerical
25r
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
dress outside the church walls has long been for-
bidden. Some thirty years ago the Scottish colony
of the city held a banquet on St. Andrew's Niqlrt.
They had a piper ; many of them wore the kilt;
at tlre end of ihe evening they decided to walk
home in a body. The police did not like the music
or the bare knees. They were run in for causing
a disturbance, and innocently pleaded that it was
St. Andrew's Night. The fine was promptly
doubled ; they had taken Part in a religious
procession.
Outside the church walls no association of a
religious character is allowed ; this is-interpreted
in the most oPPressive way to proscribe any sort
of social gathering of Catholics ; not only are-the
bazaars ind sewing parties and recreation clubs
that make a part of normal parochial life, illega.l ;
a man's housi may be confiscated if he holds family
prayers
- with his own household.
The government is still active in trying to efface
its Chriitian past in changing the names of streets,
cities and nitural features, that have christian
associations ; pages could be filled with examp.les
of the minor discomforts and humiliations to which
practising Catholics are Put in every branch of the
-
iegime. The most vital question, next to the
e*istet ce of the priesthood, is education.
As has been mentioned above, the department
of education is in openly communist hands and the
teaching it prescribes not only omits religious
instruction but makes anti-religious instruction a
prominent part. No kind of alternative school is
alowed uth parents are obliged to send their
children to be taught doctrines which they
abominate. The only place where religious instruc-
252
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
tion is allowed is in the churches and it is necessary
for the catechists to coax the children there during
their playtime. It is one of the duties of the govern-
ment schoolmaster to watch these classes and when-
ever he knows that a class is to be held, to arrarige
other activities ; he also holds up to the ridicule
of the school those children who attend. They are
nevertheless well attended, and it seems to many
observers likely that if their success increases new
repressive measures will be taken, for the degree of
toleration now granted is on the supposition that
religious practice was a foible of the elderly that
would die out with them. ' I am tired of closing
churches and finding them full,' said General
Cardenas in a public speech at Oaxaca. 'Now I
am going to open the churches and educate the
people and in ten years I shall find them empty.'
Will he ?
So far I have only given an account of the situa-
tion from the outside ; the spectacle of an armed
minority blockading the Church and starving it to
death ; the resistance of the people has shown
itself only in spasmodic, spontaneous outbursts of
indignation, and in a wistful tenacity which, unsup-
ported, must in its nature f,ail. But out of sight
the work of the Church is going on. There are
no eucharistic congresses or mass nreetings of
Catholics in Mexico ; but there is, nevertheless, a
religious revival in progress that is transforming the
Mexican Church; driven into the catacombs, the
Church is recovering their spirit. I was allowed
to see something of this work while I was in Mexico ;
the workers must remain anonymous; they meet
in empty houses in shabby streets. They go in
constant danger and I must write nothing that can
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give a clue to their identity. I may, however, say
something of the nature of their work. In per-
sonnel they are mainly laymen and women of
modest means and good education and they are
organized under the Bishops to carry out purely
spiritual work. There are no pistaleros among
them ; no talk of political disturbance ; they seek
to train and maintain teachers, within and outside
the government service, to counteract the official
atheism ; they facilitate the movement and con-
cealment of the priesthood in the proscribed areas ;
they issue simple doctrinal and devotional pamph-
lets ; they organize study groups where men and
girls of undergraduate age can discuss religious
questions and examine the official doctrines with
which they are stuffed in their classes. They have
taken as the basis of their discussions the encyclicals
of the late Pope, those relating to the particular
problems of Mexico and the ' Qudragesimo Anrn',
which owing to local difficulties was never, I
believe, fully promulgated in Mexico.l It was
this pronouncement which defined the Catholic
meaning of ' social justice ', and offered an alterna-
tive solution to the Man<ian class-war for the
problems of our industrialized world. There is
nothing reactionary, in the common use of the
word, about the aspirations of this lay orgariza'
tion in Mexico, nothing that will fit into the
idiotic dichotomy of Left and Right. Nor is
there anything specifically national. They believe
that the remedies they advocate are universal,
but that their need is manifestly acute in their own
1 Neither conscrvative nor socialist party was particularly anxious for
thc oeoplc to know how much Catholic doctrine has been borrowed by thc
S".i'"ti"L. Mr. Graham Grecnc ia lartless Roads mcntions a Bishop of San
Luir Potqi wbo Lept the eocydical Da Retwt Noosun ctacLcd in hir ccllar.
254
 THE STRAIGHT FIGHT
country. For in Mexico nationality, colour and
race are so confused, the divisions of class so arti-
ficially emphasized and embittered and the whole
principle of golre.t -ent so disordered that _only
iome extra-national force can bring relief. Such
unity as the country ever enjoyed was the gift
of the Church ; it was the Church who saved the
Indians from slavery and established their funda-
mental equality and identity with their conquerors.
It is popular to believe that after the first genera-
tion the Church neglected her mission; so far as
that was ever true, she has paid for it and is starting
her work again on her old, true principles. The
problem of rebuilding the Mexican nation is the
difficulty of finding any common principle on which
to work. Identity of economic interests is a weak
enough bond even in a more or less homogeneous
country ; in Mexico the divisions of the urban,
unionized labourer and the peasant are unbridge-
able in economic terms. Every class and individual
is obsessed by grievances, real or imagined. Only
the broadest possible identity provides a common
interest ; the identity, in fact, which the theologians
defined at the time of the conquest ; the identity
of a common human nature and individual souls.
Even in the times when the divisions of caste were
most meticulously observed, the Church was a
reminder of this equality ; tiny, significant inci-
dents recur in her history ; to build the shrine of
the Pocito ladies offashion worked with the common
labourers ; in IB4g Pavil Robertson,l a rigid
protestant, was particularly struck by the freedom
with which classes and races mixed in the Easter
festivities ; the priesthood was recruited from
I A Visit ta Meico. tB5g.
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
Spanish and Indian alike; the lutmdado would
confess and take the last sacraments from the son
of one of his peons ; it was from this fundamental
identity that a healthy state might have evolved.
That it did not do so is indisputable ; so is the
fact that those who, in a hundred years, have
brought the country to her present pitiable state,
were, without exception, enemies of her religion.
The luy organizations believe that it is only
through the Church that Mexico can recover
health and unity. But they do not think this can
be done merely by re-establishing the hierarchy
and restoring the churches. They do not want a
Catholic government of the kind of the Emperor
Maximilian, who posed as a Christian prince,
while personally breaking the church's laws and
doubting her teaching. They have not, in fact,
any particular views on the kind of government
they want, believing that a good people will
evolve its own political organization. They are at
an earlier stage than that of preparing political
programmes ; they seek to restore the people to
a state of faith rvithout which no political pro-
gramme has any value.
It is a huge and simple ambition in comparison
with the slick new world proclaimed by their
enemies. but they are setting about it methodically
and devotedly. One could spend all one's time
in Mexico among Mexicans and know nothing
about it. But it is there and the men and women I
met who were engaged upon it were the only
genuinelv huppy and hopeful people I met in
Mexico.

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 CHAPTER EIGHT
INDEPENDENCE
I
EPTEMBER r6th is Independence Day in
Mexico. On that duy r8ro, Hidalgo, an
elderly priest who had for some time attracted
the suspicions of the authorities by his neglect of
his clerical duties and by his political interests, fore-
stalled arrest by proclaiming to his parishioners at
Dolores a 'new dispensation' and summoning the
Indians to recover from ' the hated Spaniards'
their stolen lands. His proclamation is called the
Grito, or shout, of Dolores. There is evidence that
Hidalgo had few religious convictions, but he used
his position as priest to give the revolt the air of a
crusade. The Madonna of Guadalupe was used as
his standard. He became temporarily master of
his district, opened the gaols, and soon found
himself at the head of a disorderly army of Bo,ooo,
armed with agricultural implements, who overran
the countryside looting and murdering. At Guanta-
juato, in two massacres, they killed about 5oo.
The Indians had brought their women with them
to carry the loot, but as they deserted others took
their places. They overcame one body of troops
and advanced on Guadalajara with roo,ooo men
and 95 pieces ofartillery. At the Bridge ofCalderon
they met 6ooo trained soldiers and were routed.
Hidalgo was caught while attempting to escape
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towards the United States and executed, leaving
behind him a written statement of his rePentance.
His rebellion lasted less than a year. It is not an
incident which many nations would look back to
with particular pride ; it has nevertheless caP-
tivated the Mexican imagination ; its anniversary is
a public holiday and, on its eve, it has become the
practice for the President of the Republic to appear
on a balcony of the Palace and repeat Hidalgo's
C,rito.
We u,ere fortunate enough to obtain tickets of
admission to the ceremony. Most of the dip-
lomatic corps were there, the leading officials civil
and military, and a large assembly representative
of all degrees of Mexicans. Our sponsor, a member
of the former governing class, suffered a little from
social embarrassment which was shared by the
acquaintances he met. " Why, what are )0u
doing here ? " '( My English friends wished to
see it.But what are)ou doing ? " Each made some
excuse or other.
The whole range of state aPartments that give
on the Cathedral square were open and crowded.
People were shoving one another round the windows
trying to get a place as near as possible to the
Presidential balcony. The square was full of
people, but from the palace one could see very
little, for we were blinded by the floodlights that
played full on us. Fireworks went offspasmodically
in the darkness, rockets, squibs and now and then a
set-piece ; a large portrait in coloured fire revolved
and was consumed. Mickey Mouse flamed up.
There was more or less continual cheering, which
grew louder when the President appeared-and
drowned his utterance of the Grito. Then he came
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 INDEPENDENCE
back into the room and it was over. I reflected
on the divorce that flood-lighting makes between
public men and their audience ; we think of them
gazing down on a mass of eager faces ; all they see
is a blaze of electric light and a microphone ; they
might be speaking to the sea from the promenade
deck of a liner.
For the first time I saw the President at close
quarters ; he is certainly a supremely national
figure, squat and sturdy and clumsy, with a high
narrow head and that peculiar mirthlessness that
characterizes the Mexican Indian. People were
crowding round him now shaking hands ; he was
embracing the men with the awkward, national
hrg ; they were all about his height and weight
and build ; he seemed to be embracing a succes-
sion of relatives at a rather gloomy family gathering.
There had been a presentation of some sort ; a
relic of one of the revolutionary heroes, the hand-
kerchief, I think, which bound the eyes of Morelos
when he was executed. It was in a frame and the
photographers were trying to get a picture of him
and it together. It is not easy to make a satisfactory
picture of a little man with a heavy frame, par-
ticularly when he is surrounded with people trying
to embrace him ; at last they got him isolated
for a moment, held the relic like a halo behind tris
head and flashed their lights at him as he stood,
stolid and sombre, but not at all ridiculous because
he was not attempting to strike any attitude. He
just stood ; and then went on with the rough,
loveless embraces.
It is obviously impertinent to try to judge a
man's character from a glimpse of this kind, but
I had been talking about him, off and on, to all
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kinds of people, for weeks, and the impressions I
had formed became concrete that evening. There
was nothing of the charlatan or the doctrinaire
about General Cardenas. Calles is said to have
remarked, as he went into exile, 'I never counted
on his vanity', but he does not seem to be a vain
man in any ordinary sense of the word. People
speak of him, and he speaks of himself, as a socialist,
but I do not think he is interested in ideas. He is an
excellent tactician ; he knows his terrain and he
never leaves it ; he knows how to become powerful
in Mexico. He came into authority in a country
that had been reduced to anarchy and acute
distress by a generation of revolutions. He knew
that the avowed aims of the revolutionaries-the
policy of the Party-had never been put into
practice. He had been brought up with this
policy on every lip as the only one which anyone
cared to admit to. Accordingly he set out to
consummate it. He has encountered difficulties
he never foresaw. It sounded so simple ; the
capitalists and foreigners are rich ; the peons are
poor ; take the possessions of the capitalists and
foreigners and distribute them ; then everyone
will be huppy ; if the results are disappointing it
is because not enough has been distributed ; take
some more ; then more still until no one is hungry.
It is a policy naturally intelligible to a general
accustomed to the exigencies of commissariat ;
let the army live on the country. Much cleverer
and more knowledgeable people than himself,
men like Lombardo Toledano, have told him that
this is the way to repair the ravages of his pre-
decessors.
A question that is often asked with particular
e6o
 INDEPENDENCE
reference to oil confiscations but with general
application, is how can the President save his face
if he finds a reversal of policy necessary ? The
answer, I think, is that face-saving is not a problem
of Mexican politics; the question, there, is to keep
in power. Mexicans do not expect much of their
leaders ;
they have been disappointed and betrayed
too many times. The leader is not answerable to
an informed, critical and effective public opinion;
his position depends on maintaining supPort from
a balance of forces-mainly the army and the
trades unions. There are no hallowed constitu-
tional uses that he need fear to outrage ; there is
effective rule and anarchy, and the dual altruistic
aim of government in seeing that the people do
not starve and that the nation remains independent.
The change from the system in force in Mexico to
that of Germany is a matter of symbols and of
discipline. The people have adopted the clenched
fist and the hammer and sickle as Hidalgo's mob
adopted the Guadalupe ; they have fallen into
the habit of regarding the failure of a big industry
as a victory in the class war. If these victories,
fought under communist symbols, are found to be
barren of benefits they can effortlessly proclaim
a new allegiance ; a few executions perhaps would
be needed ; then the people would go back to
work as Nazi socialists and the nation would adopt
new protectors. DemocracY, for them, has meant
wealthy foreigners getting richer with their help.
Atrocity stories do not shock them ; they are the
commonplaces of their own political history. There
is a heresy in the Nazi party that is condemned-
but rather leniently punished-under the title of
National Bolshevism ; a combination of the race-
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
myth with the destruction of private property that
seems peculiarly apt for importation into Mexico.
And the trade routes for its importation are already
established.

2
Independence is perhaps the one national
achievement that has not lost its glamour for the
Mexicans. It has been accompanied by countless
disadvantages, many of which have been noted in
earlier chapters of this book-the loss of more than
half the national territory, the disappearance of
learning, the ascendancy of unworthy rulers, a
decay in prosperity which has borne most hardly
upon the poorest, the waste of whole provinces.
Perhaps it is unjust to attribute these entirely to
independence. Mexico has certainly proved quite
unamenable to representative government; on
the other hand Spain itself, in a less degree, was
suffering from similar disasters and experiments ;
nineteenth and early twentieth century Spain was
in no condition to govern a distant empire ; the
disability was increased by the loss of the empire ;
it has been a vicious circle in which both peoples
have suffered.
It was a natural reflection, on Independence
Day, to wonder what precisely Mexico was cele-
brating. There has not been a period in her century
of Independence when her rulers have not been
subject to effective foreign pressure ; at times, as
under Maximilian, she has been occupied by
foreign troops. At decisive moments in her history,
as when Miramon was forced to raise the siege of
Vera Cruz, the United States have intervened in
zGz
 INDEPENDENCE
favour of a government they hoped would be
sympathetic. In the days of Diaz the country
enjoyed the kind of international status which
comes from the domination of big business. The
last ten years, perhaps, have been the time of
greatest freedom and they have been years of
almost unrelieved failure. But the Mexicans do
mean something by Independence which, I think,
works out to mean recognizable identity. A
foreigner, wherever he comes from, knows the
moment he crosses the frontier that he is a foreigner.
The place has its own aspect ; the people their
own liabits ; it is easy to say that these things might
survive political absorption ; the observable fact
is that they do not ; they vanish inexplicably and
have to be kept alive by folk societies and tourist
agencies. Mexicans cherish their usages and even
those who find the regime antagonistic are reluctant
to emigrate. They see w'hat, through annexation,
has become of California and obstinately prefer
their onn comparative disorder and desolation.
On the other hand it seems to be the trend of
industrial history that small units cannot survive.
Fifty years ago it was reasonable to think that a
system of universal free exchange in currencies
and commodities would result in a civilization in
which political divisions would be mainly senti-
mental ; here a king, there a republic ; nationalities
would become matters of dialect and costume ;
a universal banking system would provide a
lingua .franca. Marx accepted this contemporary
assumption in one set of terms ; the idea of the
Leagui of Nations is another. At the same time
it was pointed out that man's loyalties did not
embrace large systems; Scotsmen were patriotic
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
about Scotland, not about the British Empire.
There was a Scottish national movement and a
Welsh national movement, to match the Irish;
attempts were even made to revive Cornish as a
nationality. The less important political frontiers.
became, the greater was the attiaction of a dis-
integrating loyalty of each district to the traditions
in which it had its origin. Separatism of small
nationalities depended on the separation being
sentimental. A reasonable man of ihe last genera-
tion _might well have welcomed and expected the
indefinite multiplication of sovereign slates in a
thg-I., universal financial structure and a machinery
for international litigation and conciliation.
In the last ten years, however, the process has
changed. Political frontiers have beiome more
important than at any time in history, rival financial
structures have developed and ruthless mergers have
c_onsequently extinguished the small political units.
Central Europe had broken up ; it is now riveted
together; Spain began to break, Catalans and
Basques have been forced into national unity. More
remarkable still, as a symptom of this process a new
sentimentality has arisen which infects the younger
generations of every race and is unintelligible-to
most men over thirty-crowd-patriotism. Hitherto
the instinctive reaction of a self-respecting man to a
crowd has been one of revulsion. fn a mob people
will applaud oratory and themselves shout-woids
which.individually each one of them would regard
as ridiculous ; worse than that they will commit
atrocities from which they will recoil in horror
next morning. Of all forms of intoxication that
which comes from participation in mob enthu-
siasm is the one which should bring the bitterest
264
 INDEPENDENCE
aftermath of shame. It was one of the great argu-
ments in favour of wider dissemination of general
knowledge-that the nineteenth century liberals
called education-that it would produce a race of
individual thinkers who would be proof against
demagogy and hysteria. By all reasonable exPec-
tation the discovery of wireless telegraphy should
have contributed to this new individualism ; a
man could listen to his political leaders at his own
fireside, uninfected by the emotions of his neigh-
bours; he had ample time to examine the argu-
ments before acting on them. Ten years ago, or
less, this would have seemed a sound assumption.
Events, however, have proved the reverse. As
traditional sources of intoxication have fallen into
increasing disrepute, mass hysteria has grown.
People find a masochistic relish in being jostled
and stifled in a crowd and in surrendering their
individual judgments. Instead of diversity of
opinion, they prefer rival orthodoxies. 'IIow does
so-and-so stand, Left or Right ? ' ' Well, it's hard
to say exactly.' 'Ah, sitting on the fence. No
contemporary significance.' They love a crisis
because a sense of universal danger, real or
imagined, draws them closer to the mob. In a
world where such influences are dominant, what
chance does a country like Mexico have of retaining
its independence ?
It is not a purely American problem. The out-
come of the Spanish war is vital to it. It may effect
it directly in more than one way. First, there is
the possibility of a large influx of population from
the defeated side, who at the time of writing are
corralled in France and towards whom cordial if
somewhat noncommittal sentiments have been
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 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
expressed. From the beginning of the Spanish
war the Mexican governing party expressed the
belief that the Spanish republicans were fighting
the battle which they themselves had already won.
Their contributions to the Republican side were
not extensive; they sent some obsolete armaments
which were sunk in transit and they received a
number of unhappy Basque children-whom one
General advised shooting-who are now interned
in the State of Morelos in circumstances which are
said to be rather similar to those of the legionaries
now in France. There were some Mexicans on
both sides in the Spanish war, more I believe, on
Franco's than the republic's. The responsibility of
finding a refuge for the republican army is one which
all parties are trying to impose upon one another.
When those who fought for local-Catalan
or Basque-patriotism, those who were prepared
to compromise on their economic doctrines and
those who merely found themselves geographically
in republican territory and were recruited for that
side, have been eliminated, there will remain
great numbers of stateless men-Italian and central
European communists, intransigent Spanish
communists and anarchists and the thousands of
criminals who, at the outbreak of the revolution,
were liberated from prison and armed-for whom
a home must be found. It appears that some-
thing like 5o,ooo men will come into this
category. An attempt will certainly be made by
the other nations to settle them in Mexico and
it is difficult to see on what grounds the present
government can refuse to take them. Their
arrival could only mean a vast increase of the
anarchical element which might drive the army
266
 INDEPENDENCE
into revolt. A successful military usurPation would
almost certainly be followed by the adherence of
Mexico to the German trade group that is being
busily built up in Latin America. This is far from
being an imiginary danger ; it has been little
expoied in England except in the socialist press'
but it is a develoPment which is causing genuine
alarm in Washington. It is to counter this danger,
not to preserve European frontiers, that the U.S.
armaments programme is directed. There are
already large colonies of Germans in various pa{s
of South America, in particular on the Brazil-
Argentine border ; German and Italian business
firms-which under the Nazi system mean the
State-control important industries all over the
continent ; the air lines are predominantly German,
with control of the landing grounds ; the steel
industry in Chile and the port of Malbrego in Peru
are largely German. Italians are training the
Bolivian army and the Lima police force ; in the
South of Peru, in the Chichama valley, Japanese
troops protect extensive Japanese sugar properties.
Britiih ind American interests are still predominant
but every German settled constitutes a Nazi unit
under the direction of party headquarters ; there
is a wireless service and a chain of newspapers
controlled by Germany and devoted to Nazi
propaganda ; in certain Brazilian districts the
gori*-.t t is virtually in the hands of the German
Nazi leader. The competition everywhere is of a
totally different order from that of rival British and
American firms. At present German penetration
in Mexico is mainly confined to the Guatemala
border where German planters have imported
large quantities of arms and maintain a private
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defence force. A movement to confiscate these
properties might be an international event of the
gravest consequences. Nazi negotiations to secure
the expropriated oil fields are open and, at the time
of writing, still liable to success. It is far from
fantastic to believe that in the event of political
conditions in Mexico being propitious, Germany is
prepared to intervene with vast, ready-made plans
for taking control. It must be observed in this
connection that the United States Government
will no longer be embarrassed by their radical
supporters from taking action.

There is another way in which the outcome of

the Spanish war may affect Mexico; the re-
emergence of Spain as a power with imperial
memories. People are now prophesying the dis-
appearance of Spain from international politics ;
she has, it is thought, internal problems of
reorganization which will keep her employed for a
generation, problems for whose solution she will
need the help, and consequently the influence, of
the individualistic states. She is seen now with her
country laid waste and her people divided; her
weakness is assured.
But Germany has shown, as revolutionary France
showed before, that reconstruction can be accom-
panied by expansion ; that there is no better way of
solving the problem of a divided people than in
uniting them in a series of dangerous national
experiments. In rg2o it would have seemed
ridiculous to foretell that in fifteen years Italy was
268
 INDEPENDENCE
going to defy England and France on an African-
Mediterranean issue and do so successfully. War
does not always generate war-weariness ; it
generates, also, a taste for fighting ; victory
generates victory ; there is a centrifugal force which
renders further expansion necessary to protect the
gains already won. This is not necessarily so, but
it is often so in history.
Franco's soldiers have fought under the inspira-
tion of their past; they saw their country dis-
integrating, as their colonies had done, into a group
of republics run by men whose policies were
derived from abroad and were antagonistic to
national tradition. They fought to prevent Spain
becoming like Central America. But to re-establish
Spain and make it a single people is, to many
Spaniards, only the beginning not the end of a
national renaissance.
In rg34 Ramiro de Maeztu published a work
called Defensa de la Hispanidad-'the Defence of
Spanishness ', the Essence of Spain ; it was written
in the darkest days of the Republic and it expressed
defiance of the alien ideas that were permeating
the government. It embodies the aspirations of the
Phalangist Party. A third edition was issued last
year in Valladolid. It has added to it, in this
edition, a map of the empire of Philip II. The
significance of this, and its obvious affinity with the
marble maps of the Roman Empire which Mus-
solini has erected in Rome, need no comment. If
those maps in Rome have proved an inspiration to
the Italian people, relating as they do to a period
two thousand years earlier, to the achievements of
a people who bore different names, professed a
different religion, spoke a rather different tongue
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and were genealogically of rather uncertain con-
nection with the present occupants of the city,
how much more must the dominions of Philip
mean to the Spaniard, conquered by the men whose
direct descendants are fighting by their side and
bearing the titles they won in battles less than four
centuries ago ; men who are as real and present to
them as Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney and
Elizabeth are to the modern Englishman, who
spoke the same language and worshipped the same
God in precisely the same forms as they do today.
Hispanidad has been caught up outside Spain in
South and Central America, where for a hundred
years 'Spanishness' has been subjected to insult
and persecution. It is being taken up as the anti-
thesis not only of communist rule but in the words
of Cardinal Goma against 'Monroeism, Statism,
Protestantism, Socialisnr and simple mercan-
tilism'. Hispanidad is in the heart of every South
American who has been treated as a dago. Italians
grew impatient of being treated as picturesque and
indolent guitar players, and are now reviled as
swash-bucklers. Spanish-Americans have the still
less amiable reputation of gigolos. Perhaps they
will surprise the world. They are the heirs of those
little companies who sank their transports and set
out in steel cuirasses through tropical jungle, into
lands not even known in legend, to conquer an
empire. Much can be said against the Conquista-
dores for their cruelty and avarice, nothing against
their courage and resource. Hispanidad represents
the view that the Spaniards having driven the
Moors out of Europe and having discovered and
captured the new world, were betrayed by poli-
ticians and driven into temporary obscurity from
270
 INDEPENDENCE
which it is their birthright and destrny to arise'
It will be seen that it has close affinities with the
German race-myth. At present, since its opponents
have been, in the main, itheists it has been strongly
Christian in sentiment, but Christianity and the
race-myth cannot long work together.
Untii a year or two ago the feeling of Hispanidad
was dormant in most Spanish-Mexicans because
economic security pre-disposed them to acquiesce
in their humbled position. Race-myth can only
flourish under a sense of persecution ; now that
they have been dispossessed the emotion has a
new face.
This sentiment is there, and growing. I heard it,
in one form or another, from many Spanish-
Mexicans. When, however, one comes to translate
it into real politics the difficulties are enormous.
There a.. o.rly a few thousand native whites in
Mexico ; perhaps they will shortly be swamped by
an immigration of communists from Spain ; in
any case what can the whites do ? Their move-
mint, if it took the form of a caste restoration, could
not hope for success. But supposing, which is not
inconceivable in the light of the past decade, that
Spain emerges once more as a world Power and
supposing she declares the whites in South America
ur-h.. spicial concern, and supposing, as is already
to some extent the case, that the Germans seek to
overturn the Monroe scheme of American balance
. . . It is all in the air, and conjectural, but these
possibilities should be borne in mind as Pos-
sibilities.
Another doubt occurs ; a mere pencilled query
in the margin of current history. Was the Pluned
Sapent as fantastic as it appeared when we first
27r
 ROBBERT UilDER LAW
read it ? The Nazis have been able to stimulate
a cult of pre-Christian deities ; suppose there were
a similar revival, of the kind Lawrence predicted,
among the mestizos and the Indians. They are a
devotional and superstitious people. When people
of their kind are deprived for lting of their priest-
hood and their sacraments, all minner of curious
beliefs and practices spring up. Mr. Graham
Greene reports a peculiar oracle in a tea caddy
that is widely revered in the Godless State of
Chiapas. The Mexicans cannot long get on with-
out an object of worship. Suppose that Hispanidad
beyond the Atlantic takes on a savage aspect, as
European exports often do, there mighf be an
anti-toxin of genuine paganism thrown out in the
deceased body.
This again is purely conjectural. The fascina-
tion of Mexico lies in the stimulus it gives to the
imagination. Anything may happen there;
almost everything has happened there ; it has
seen every extreme of human nature, good, bad
and ridiculous. It has, in a way, the position
towards Europe that Africa had to the Romans ;
a source of novelty . . . 'always something new
out of Africa' . . . but also a distorting mirror
in which objects are reflected in perverse and
threatening forms. The Romans sent their great
men to Africa ; they went to seed and became
despots and voluptuaries ; they sent their ideas
and the Africans turned them into enigmas and
paradoxes ; the precise statements of Roman law
and faith became equivocal in the African mirage ;
and when the barbarians came, Africa was the
first to go ; her canals silted up, her buildings fell,
the sand swept in from the desert over her fields.
272
 POSTSCNPT

THE OBJECT AND THE LESSON

I

E are justly suspicious of people who see

the world in terms of the single problem
in which they have a personal interest and
specialized knowledge. We saw too many of them
in the post-Versailles period, people who espoused
the cause ofneglected minorities or became obsessed
by cartographical slips. Their foibles seemed
innocent enough, but the result of them has been a
series of incongruous alliances which has aggravated
every political situation. Thus Catholic anti-
semites in France have found themselves defying
the Pope and pleading the cause of semitic Arabs
against Christian rule, liberal Parliamentarians
found themselves identifying the autocratic-
imperialist rule of the Amharas with the cause of
Democracy, champions of Basque nationalism were
allied with international communism. Such are
the confusions that arise through a piecemeal
view of politics. At the beginning of this book
I suggested that the present condition o1'
Mexico had a world wide significance. In sub-
sequent chapters I lrave tried to sketch the condi-
tions. So what ? Why should any ordinary
American, still less a European, be interested ?
First there is Mexico's geographical position,
I.U L.
273
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
lying across the continent of North America
separating the United States from the Panama
Canal and sharing with her an immense, arbi-
trarily defined frontier which has been the scene,
on both sides of it, of a long succession of bloody
outrages. Internal disorder in Mexico has always
constituted, and will always constitute, a lively
physical danger to the United States citizens
living near the border. Hundreds of men are still
living who followed Villa in his raids into the
United States.
Secondly there is her financial position. She
bears debts of the New and Old world which she
will never be able to pay. She is feverishly aug-
menting them by confiscations. She has great
mineral wealth, notably in petroleum, for which
the world has a use and which it uill use one way
or another.
Thirdly there is her political condition. For a
generation there has been anarchy n'hich has made
itclear to herself and to outside observers that she
has not the aptitude for the particular kind of
individualist representative government which, it
was assumed, would afford an eventual solution to
her troubles. To President Wilson her onlv problem
was to elect good men ; at his time there seenred
only two kinds of government, one of whiclt was
discredited in rgr8 ; there was democracy, as it
was understood in France, England and the United
States-government by rich men competing against
one another for popular favour-and hereditary
monarchy. Since then tw-o forms of proletarian
rule have appeared, Nazism and Communism.
Mexico is at present enjoying an uneasy com-
promise between the two. Her adoption of either,
274
 POSTSCRIPT
or the outbreak of a civil u'ar betu'een them, would
be an acute embarrassment to the United States.
Nor does the danger remain local. The Monroe
doctrine is being challenged by Germany all over
South America. Its peaceful acceptance in the
first place by Europe was due to two main con-
sideritions. Communications across the Atlantic
made a campaign there intolerably expensive and
precarious, and, at the end of the last century,
Europe was too busy parcelling up Africa to think
about South and Central America. Since then an
American army has fought in France. South
America has become accessible as a battle-ground
while at every point the German-Japanese alliance
threatens vital American interests. An anti-
Cardenas coup, which his policy increasingly pro-
vokes, might well result in Mexico joining the
anti-Comintern Pact. She is exactly the kind of
country where Nazi methods of government and
industrial organization might be expected to bring
substantial results. Germany and Japan know
this ; so do the United States ; so do a few
Mexicans.
It is in small countries, not in large ones, that
world wars start; particularly in heterogeneous
states like Mexico.
But, the reader may object, when there are so
many causes for alarm, everywhere, what is the
good of multiplying them with purely hypothetical
dangers ? Because the ordinary news seryices of
paper and wireless bulletins have not the time to
keep the public informed of anything beyond day
to day news. When a crisis is announced we
hastily turn to our atlases and look out the new
danger spot. We feel that these sudden explosions
T2
275
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
of international enmity, first in one part of the
world, then another, are as wantonly strewn about
the map as the bombs of the I.R.A. We have not
the time to watch them as historical events in a
series of cause and effect. If we have not heard
of the problem before, we see it as unimportant ;
the result ofsome purely irresponsible and malicious
agency. The truth is that, at this moment, when
the papers are full of other things, Mexico is as
dangerous to us as any part of the world.

And secondly, there is the simple cautionary

tale of the origin and consequences of Mexico's
decadence. Every state has something to learn
from that. We were most of us brought up on the
historical theory of recurrent waves of civilization
which lasted a few centuries, built massive cities and
tombs and were literally buried in the sands ; an
ebbing and flowing tide, city-desert, city-desert, to
which, presumably, our own culture would one day
be subject, but at a date so distant that it need no
more be considered in practical calculation than the
LastJudgment. We were educated in the assump-
tion that things would not only remain satisfactory
without our effort but would with the very minimum
of exertion on our part become unrecognizably
better. The elimination of physical pain and
privation was assumed not only by buoyant
characters like Mr. H. G. Wells but by Mr. Aldous
Huxley, who limited his apprehensions to pointing
out that a life without pain and privation might
be compensatingly dreary. Even at the time of
276
writing when ,.J:f:Tt'J;ier, the air is one
ofnervous vexation that progress should be checked
by malicious intervention ; progress is still regarded
as normal, decay as abnormal. The history of
Mexico runs clean against these assumptions. We
see in it the story of a people whom no great
external disaster has overwhelmed. Things have
gone wrong with them, as they went right with us,
as though by a natural process. There is no
distress of theirs to which we might not be equally
subject.
Some try to comfort themselves by supposing
that the difference of races put Mexico at an
initial disadvantage, but, in fact, it is difficult to
find any stage at r,r,hich this was decisive. The
rn,hite Spaniards interbred freely with the Irrdians
and the prestige and advantages attaching to white
blood were little, if at all, more than those attaching
to noble and gentle blood in contemporary Europe.
As purely heraldic standards of eminence began to
decline in Europe, so did those of racial purity in
Spanish America. For the last hundred years
Mexican leaders of all opinions have been white,
Indian and mixed without distinction. Americans
and British who see the colour question as vital
to Mexico are arguing in terms of their own
country and colonies.
Nor has there been any lack ofwhat are generally
spoken of as ' enlightened ideas'. Almost every
unhappy figure, from Iturbide to Cardenas, who
has appeared as a leader of the country, has spoken
in the phrases of contemporary advanced thought.
The country has known, in form at least, Nupo-
leonic-masonic monarchy, liberal-representatlve
democracy, German-enlightened-constitutional
277
 ROBBERT UNDER LAW
monarchy, international-individualist-capitalism,
socialism, dictatorship of the proletaiat, and, it
seems probable, will shortly develop-a species of
Hitleriim. There is no question of Mexico decay-
ing, as have other civilizations, -!y reason of a
rigid system that has proved itself inadequate to
clianging needs. Every marked step in her decline,
in factr- has corresponded with an experiment
towards ' the Left'.
The reasons for her decline have been primarily
moral ; the majority of her rulers have not been
-.r, oi goodwili and their aims have been- purely
materiai-; if one starts by assuming that the only
real good of which man is capable is-the enjoyment
of c-onsumable goods-and that has been the
assumption of the ' Left' for a hundred years-
it is aiery easy step-logically an inevitable step-
to accumulate the goods exclusively for oneself'
Altruism does not flburish long without religion'
The rulers of Mexico have almost all started by
denying the primary hypothesis ofjust government'
Secoidly,-in the-political sphere, there has been
no true coniervatism in Mexico. There have been
rival politicians appealing to the interests of rival
grouPs.
''A
^.orrr.rvative is not merely an obstructionist
who wishes to resist the introduction of novelties ;
nor is he, as was assumed by most nineteenth
century parliamentarians, a brake to frivolous
experiment. He has positive work to do, whose-
.ruir. is particularly by the- plight of
'Civilizationemphasized-
has no force of its own
Mexico.
beyond what is given it from within' It is under
constant assault ind it takes most of the energies
of civilized man to keep going at all' There are
278
criminat ia.u, u.,#:flffiss in every nation
and the first action of every revolution, figuratively
and literally, is to open the prisons. Barbarism is
never finally defeated ; given propitious circum-
stances, men and women who seem quite orderly,
will commit every conceivable atrocity. The
danger does not come merely from habitual
hooligans ; we are all potential recruits for anarchy.
Unremitting effort is needed to keep men living
together at peace ; there is only a margin of energy
left over for experiment however beneficent. Once
the prisons of the mind have been opened, the orgy
is on. There is no more agreeable position than
that of dissident from a stable society. Theirs are all
the solid advantages of other people's creation and
preservation, and all the fun of detecting hypocrisies
and inconsistencies. There are times when dis-
sidents are not only enviable but valuable. The
work of preserving society is sometimes onerous,
sometimes almost effortless. The more elaborate
the society, the more vulnerable it is to attack,
and the more complete its collapse in case of defeat.
At a time like the present it is notably precarious.
If it falls we shall see not merely the dissolution of
a few joint-stock corporations, but of the spiritual
and material achievements of our history. There
is nothing, except ourselves, to stop our own
countries becoming like Mexico. That is the moral,
for us, ofher decay.

279
 INDEX
A CAPULCO, 36 //^t.R.O.M., 56-7, ro7,
f\ff:il'ifux;i" t t ,47, I5o-I, t53,237
57, 6o, 62,
Alvarado, t46, t4g -C.T.M.,
6+, 79, 98, ro6-8, I 14,
Amaro, General, 7r r47, rb3, r59, l6z, r68,
American Civil War, I3e r72, rgt, r96, r99-zoo,
Anahuac, Mesa Central de, z4g,246
r9 Cabrera, Miguel, z3r
Anahuac River, 5I Calais, 3
Argentine, 267 Calderon, Bridge of, 257
Arispe, Viesca, rr7 California, B, I zB-9, 229,
Arizpe, tz7 263
Austin, Moses, rzB Calles, General, 24, 36-7,
Austin, Stephen, te9 65,7o, gg, IoI, 146, r5I-
Ayestaren, Colonel, te7 2, r68, rBB, 2r9, 226,
Azorat, lt7 z3&-4o,244-s
Aztecs, 20, 5I, 67, 78, zzo Capri, 4r
Cardenas, General Lazaro,
9, 37, 42-2, 57-8,62, 7r-
4, Br,83, 9r-2, 97, 99,
DALLINGER, R., r3B roI-3, ro6-7, rrr, rrq-
_[Balmoral, 79 9, r37, 154-5, 16o, 162,
Barcelona, ttr 2o7 r66-7, t73-4, r78, IBo,
Bath, 34 rBB-94, rgg-2o5, 243,
Beachcomber, Io 245, 253, z6o, 277
Beck, G., r4o Carlotta, Arch-Duchess, 53
Berlin, 4r Carranza, 24, 42r 56, 69,
Biaritz, B, 65, r79 r46, r48-5o,297-8
Boers, rzg Catalonia, zz
Bolshevists, l5 Cedillo, General, 57, r46
Borda,4r Chac-Mool, 78
Brazil, 267 Chalma,47-B
Bustamante, rz8 Chapultepec Palace, 27, 42
z8r
 INDEX
Cheltenham, 44 Dollfuss, r5
Chiapas, 37,94, zo4, z4G, Dolores, e57
272
Chicago, 15
Chichama Valley, 267 GYPT,6
Chichen-Itz a, 36 Elements of Chemistr2,
Chihuaha, r39 t23
Chile, 267 Elizabeth, Queen, z7o
Churibusco, 233
Cicero, rz3
Coahuila, r4B ARIAS, G., rzB, zor
Coatzacoalos, 9z Fascists, 74-5, r58
Coatzacoalos River, 93 Fez, 4t
Columbus, 149 Foster, J. W., r3z
Comonfort, lz8, zol France, 22, 70,265, z68-9,
Coney Island, 4r 274
Connolly, C., zz Furbero, 95
Corinth, Gulf of, 5
Cortes, 2or 5r, 69, ,85,
232-3 ARRIDO, Gov., 246
Costa Rica, 246 Germany, B+, l20,
Cowdray, Lord, 54, 9z-3, t58, l7o, rgB, zir,
95-6 zGB, 275
Cuba, 5r Gil, Portes, l95
Cuernavacar 361 4o,247 Goma, Cardinal, z7o
Gonzalez, t3z
Good Neighbor, The, 96
ANIELS, J., r53-5, Gosse,Edmund, r54
r59 Gray,Juan, lr7
Davis, 156 Greene, Graham, 37 -8, 2o3,
del Rio, M., re3 zr4, z4B, 2S+,272
Deterding, Sir Henri, ro4 Gresham's Lawr To
Diaz, Felix, t4z Gruening, Ernest, 66, tz4,
Diaz, General Porfirio, 42, r38, r43, tBB, zt4, z2o,
$-5,67-79, 76, 9r,. r 19, zzz, zz9, zg6
132-7, r4B, rB5, r92, Guadalajara, 36,257
237, z3g, z4B Guadalupe, 52, tg2, 222-5,
Diego, Juan, 22g-5, 222 227-9, 23r-4, 247, z6t
Diplomatic Memoirs, t3z uadalupe-Hidalgo, Peace
Disney, Walt, r9z of, rz9
Doheny, rcg-4 Guatemala, g7r 267
zBz
 INDEX
Guffey, Senator, t 56 Kemal, Mustapha, 68
Guggenheim, I38 Khun, Bela, zg7

ARVARD Univcr- T ARA, Colonel B. G.

sity, r ez de, rz5
,f-1-Laredo, -
Hawks, H., t77 36, 93
Hayes, 132-3 Las Casas, zo4
Herrera, President, r z9 Lascurain, Pedro, r44
Hidalgo, 52, 2r5, 257-8, Lavater, I23
z6r Lawless Roads, The,97, zog,
Hitler, gr 2t4, 254
Houston, General, Izg, I65 Lawrence, D. H., ror 272
Huasteca, 97 League of Nations, e63
Huerta, General, 55,65, 70, Lenin, gr, 16r
r4L-2, r41-6, I4B-g Lcwis, J. L., r56-9, r6r,
Huitzilopochtli, 78, 234 r63-+
Hull, Cordell, 155-6, r6z Lima,267
Hungary, e37 Limantour, 54, 56
Hunter, William, rzz Lloyd, Harold, 59
Huxley, Aldous, 276 London, rr 2Z,43
Hydc Park, 43 Lopez, Geronimo, rzz
Los Remedosr 22er 2g3
Lourdes, zz3, zz9
T.R.A.. z16
'r
Lucas Gusher, 94
4
I Ireland. z r
lsserman, A., l6l
Italy, r 2c) t7o, t7+, rgo
Iturbide, 20, 52,277 M^?lt8',tn-8;,ll;
r+4
Madero, IVIme., t4g, t4B
Madrid, z3t
TAPAN, r2o,27S Maeztu, Ramero de, 269
lJones, \V. A., I56-7 Majorca, 4l
JJouhaux, Leon, t57 Malbrigo, 267
Juarez, 28, 5Z-4, 65, 69, Manual of Or2ctognoY, rz3
99, rzB, r3o-2, 2or, 2ro, Mars,43
2+B
Marx, r6r, 263
Matteotti, I5
AISER, The, 15 Maximilian, Arch-Duke,
Kelly, F. G., r24, 2c.,42,53, 65, 79, r3o-2'
229 2or,2ro, 256, z6z
283
 INDEX
Mayans, 2o
Mejia, General, 53
Mexican Eagle Co., 54,81,
O"T*:t6!f,-f;'u'
Obregon, General,
-
83, ge, 95-6, gB-9 56-7, 69, t46-7, r50,
Mexico City, r t,2o-t,25- t6B, 237-9, 245
B, 3r-2, g6-7, gg-42, S+- Orizaba, 36-7, t7g, tB6-7,
5, 72, Bl, 96, roo, ro8, 243,246
tt7, r29-30,132, r3+, Orosco, z9
t4o) r+7, t57, 16o, t67, Orozco, 69, r39
rBo, r82, 186-7, r94,
2r2, 2t5, 2tg, 24t, 247,
25r rg7_
Mier, zzg
f).R.M.,
l- Panama. Isthmus of.
l
Mina, F. J., zzg 68,93, 164
Miramon, General, 53, rzB, Panama Canal, 92, rZ4,
t3z, t49, z6z r59,274
Monagasques, 6 Paris, 33, 179
Monroe, re5, 165, 27rr 275 Pedrigal River, 93
Monte Carlo, r8l Pefia, Gonzalez, t57
Montezuma, 20 Pershing, General, 56, I49
Nfontezuma II, 5r Peru, e67
More, St. Thomas, 2oB Philip II, 269-7o
Morelos, l38, rr5, e5g Plumed Serpent, ro-rr, 27r
Morineau, Oscar, 96, roz Poinsett, Joel, rz6-8, I65
Morones, r53, r58 Pro, Father, 57, r42r 2gg-
Morrow, Dwight, 57, r1r- 40
3, 24O, 242 Propocatapetl, e6
Moscow, r t Puebla, 36-7, 4o, 42, bZ,
Munthe, Dr., 9 2rrr 2r5,247-Br 25O
Mussolini, 68, 9r, 269

UERETARO, zg7
I\TAPOLEON III, 53
r\ N1lffu1iuti,,,,,,,
r6r-2, r84, r89,244, 26r,
267-8, 272,275
Nelkin, Margarita, r57
New York, 4,23,94,249
RIIliri6?,11,,,,
North Africa, r74, tgo zgr 66, r5z
Norway, 5 Riviera, r 79
284
 INDEX
Robertson, Pavil, 255 Spender, J. A., gg
Rodriguez, r34 Spindle Top, 94
Rome, 54, zt6, z69 S.S. Siboncy, *-5, 7, tr-r2,
Romonoffs, 15 20.4
Roosevelt, President, 44, Stalin, 9r
r57, tiz, zot Stein, r6r
Royal and Pontifical Uni- Sterling, Marquez, r4r
versity, r22) 2or Stonyhurst, r 7 r
Rubio, 4z Suarez, 69
Rubio, Mr., r r7 Swafford, Rev. Mr., 16r
Russia, BB, 168, 237-8

rfIABASCO,37, 5r, 94,

(r ABINA CRUZ, 9z I gB, 147,246
)sunu^s"", Fathlr, zzg, - Taft, President, r3B,
r+3-4
St. Louis Potosi, 4, 57, 94 Tamaulipas, 94, 98
Salamanca University, zor Tampico, rt7, tgo
Salas, 69 Tanhuijo, 95
San Antonio, +5, 2rs Taxco, 36,4t,247
Sanbornes, 44-5 Tehuacan, 36
San Cristobal, g3-5 Tehuantepec, Isthmus of,
San Michele, g-ro 97, r34
Santa Anna, General, 52, Tehuantepec River, 9z-3
rzB-9, zor Tejada, Lerdo de, r3z
Santa Cruz, z3o Tenancingo, gB-9, 47-g
Santa Maria del Tule, 3o Teotihuacan, 78
Santa Ysabel, r4g Tepoztlan, 2r+-5
Santiago, 48 Terry, T. Philip, rr, 30,
Schleicher, l5 3t-2, zt6, 226-7, 23r,
Shakespeare, 27o 233
Sheffield, Ambassador, r50 Texas, 4, B, g2,95, re8-g,
Sidney, Sir Philip, z7o t35, 2t5, 247
Six Year Plan Exhibition, Tezcoco, zzg
rr r, ,67, t7o-r, 173, The Drum, gG
r9r, r95 Tilden, Mr., r3z
Smith, E. S., r57, r59-6r, Tlahuizcaltantcuatli, 78
r63-4 Tlaltelolco, 229, 225, 2go
Sotelo, 15 Tlaxcala, 69, zzg
Soto la Marina, zz9 Tlazcalans, bt, 67
Spain, 2o2, 26+, z68-9 Tocal, 57
e85
 INDEX
Toledano, Lombardo, 42, Visit to Mexico, A, z1s
57-8, 62, 79, 97, ror, Vizcainas, eB
r03, ro6-7, IIr, rr4, Von Humboldt, lz3
t2o, tq7, r53, e6o.
Tolsa, 3o
Toltecs, 5o
Toluca,47-B
Tonantzin, 227-B
willil,;*",,1,
95-6
Weil, N., 16I
.S.A., 5, 36, 42, 52, Wells, H. G.,276
56, 58, 65-6, 68- West Indies,76, zr&
7o, BB, rzo-5, rzB Wilson, Ambassador, r3B-
-32, 136, 146, r5o, 153, 4r, r4g-5, 165
r55-6, r59-62, r69-7o, Wilson, President, 56, r35-
zo6,247, z5B, z6z, zGB, 6, r3B, t4o, t44-5, r4B-
27+-5 g, 274
Utrillo, General, zo4 Wilson, SenatorJ. M., r38
Workers' IJniversity, rrr-
13, I59
T TALLADOLID,269
\/- Vu" Kleeck, Mirt
M"ry, r57, 16r-z Indians' 67'
Vas Concelos, 2oo
Vatican, 54
Yl?;*',
Yucatan, 3b, t47, t+9
Venice, 30,33 Yucatan, Peninsula oq Ig
Vera Cruz, 4,26-7, 5r,92,
94,97-8, r47, tB6, z4r-
z, 262 ryAPA'IA, 55, 65, 69,
Villa, 55-6, 65, 69, r27, L r.27, t44, t46
_Luloaga,
r44, 146, t4B-9,274 2ot
Villahermosa, 246 Zumarraga, Juan de, 52,
Villefranche, 4r zz6-3o, zgz

286
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