T Is There Order or Bolshevism in Yucatan? HE American Egypt, as Yucatan has been called on account of its being one of the most interesting regions of the world from the point of view of the archæologist, has been recently denounced as a hotbed of Bolshevism in Mexico. Accustomed as we are to similar reports about all regions in that country, the accusations might have been easily accepted. "Yucatan presents a picture of complete national degradation, with liberty overthrown, capital destroyed, industries slowly dying, education perverted, hatred and strife encouraged, robbery and murder rampant, the educated classes exiled or murdered, and the laborers exploited and impoverished by rapacious despotism," says the article to which we allude, published in a recent issue of Leslie's Weekly. Sr. M. Carpio, a Mexican newspaper man, has energetically protested against this picture of desolation, and in an article published in The Nacion he affirms that law and order prevail in the Peninsula, from where he has just returned, having spent considerable time acquiring first-hand information about conditions there. According to him, Yucatan is working to its full capacity, endeavoring to improve its market conditions, which, although somewhat affected by the war, are recovering the unusual prosperity that was brought about by the movement initiated by General Alvarado in 1915. He compares the information given at random in the Leslie's Weekly's article with the fol lowing item published in The Monthly Crop Report issued by the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States in March, 1919: CROP NOTES-MEXICO The American Consul at Progreso, Yucatan, reports that the Comision Reguladora estimates a production of hemp for 1919 of one million bales, with a surplus on hand January 1, 1919, of five hundred thousand bales. The Reguladora has, through the Governor of the State of Yucatan, requested the Legislature to pass an act to stop hemp cutting for a time, the State to finance the farmers in cleaning, planting, etc., until the production be again started. They state that if production is not curtailed by law, the price will lower, and there will not be suffi cient warehouse space, and that it might be necessary to destroy some of this stock. "The New Orleans newspapers," Mr. Carpio continues, "comment on the fact that the cotton planters of the South were intending to follow an action similar to that adopted by the planters of Yucatan in order to reduce by one third the acreage devoted to cotton. This is surely no fruit of Bolshevism. "The custom house records at Progreso, the principal port of Yucatan, show that during the year 1915, the one in which General Alvarado took charge of affairs in that State, the value of a limited number of imports, including live stock, vegetables, mineral and chemical products, paper, vehicles, and the like, amounted to seven million dollars, American currency. During Alvarado's two years. up to 1917, the actual total of the same importations was fourteen million dollars in American currency, an increase of one hundred per cent. per annum. This is no fruit of Bolshevism, and no grim tragedy has ap parently been enacted in the once peaceful and happy Yucatan, if its commercial movement has increased one hundred per cent. in value and importance during the two years of General Alvarado's control. "A community infected by Bolshevism and disorder, where social values have been inverted, does not increase its financial welfare, but diminishes it and even destroys it. Such is not the case with Yucatan, as I will prove by a few more figures. Let us begin with those famous twenty millions stated to be the best annual value of the henequen crop produced by Yucatan before the régime established by General Alvarado. According to the Supplement to the Commerce Reports of the United States, dated April 3, 1918, O. Gaylord Marsh of the United States Consular Service in Yucatan, reported that the value of the henequen exported during the year 1917 was $34,959,937. The books of the Comision Reguladora del Mercado de Henequen show, for the fiscal year ending November 22, 1918, that the value of henequen exports amounted to fifty-nine million dollars, the highest amount ever received for one year's crop of sisal in Yucatan. The official statistics kept by the Comision show that the number of bales exported from Progreso increased steadily from 558,996 in 1910 to 1,191,433 in 1916, and that in 1918 it amounted to 798,862. "The Yucatan laborer now receives a salary for specified hours of work; he is looked upon as a human being; he is organized on a co-operative basis and enjoys, just as the planter himself enjoys, a proportionate share of this stream of gold that comes into the state, and that does not leave in the hands of the middle-man in the United States a large part of its volume. The value of all articles imported into Yucatan during the year 1918, according to American figures, amounted to forty million dol The social system [of Yucatan] was feudal. Four hundred owners held all the henequen land. No foreigner (and all born outside the boundaries of the State were considered such had been allowed to acquire henequen properties. The laborers were Indians, many of whom were born, lived all their lives, and died on the same plantation. They were well paid, well fed, fat and smiling, and seemed well content with their simple lives. . . . The productive capital was concentrated in a few hands: labor was illiterate and docile; the Peninsula was so removed from the rest of the Republic that no interference was feared. "No one who knew the facts would assert that the Indians of Yucatan under the feudal plantation system were well paid, fat, and contented. Quite the reverse was true. Even occasional observers are familiar with the famous "debt system," the "garrote," the punishment by whip, the twelve-hour day, the child's labor on the farm without any right to education, the paternalism which invested the planter with the right over the body and property of his vassals, and many other features of this type which General Alvarado and his supporters wiped out once and forever from Yucatan, making every Indian laborer a free man, whom no other power on earth will be able to take back into slavery. The writer of the article considers it highly praiseworthy that a great many of those Indian laborers were born, lived all their lives, and died on the same plantation. On those plantations before Alvarado's time there were no schools or places of amusement. The laborer obtained from his masters, at the plantation shop, a coarse kind of liquor called "pixoy," made of cheap alcohol. Those who indulged heavily in this drink would frequently be affected by pellagra and leprosy, and would fall into debt to the plantation owner. As long as the laborer was thus in debt he could not go to another plantation to work. General Alvarado suppressed this debt system, and decreed that laborers were free to work wherever they pleased, that they had a right to demand wages for a specified number of hours' work, that their children had a right to attend school, and that no child should go to work. on the plantations. In order to suppress the notorious evils caused by the liquor called "pixoy" in the Indian population, General Alvarado caused a law to be passed forbidding the manufacture and sale of liquor in the whole State of Yucatan. "The writer of the article I am commenting upon rises to the climax of his unsubstantiated utterances by saying that General Alvarado established in Yucatan the basic principle of Bolshevism, which ruled that all property, including women, belonged to the masses, and that the masses had the right to take them, using violence if necessary. "Here are a few facts that will show the utter falsity of that statement and reveal Alvarado's work in behalf of the women of Yucatan. He convoked and carried out a Congress in the City of Merida, in 1916, for the purpose of allowing women to discuss their own problems, principally in regard to home and children. He established the first vocational school for women in Merida, the first school of its kind ever known in Mexico. He started a campaign for the elevation of women that was without precedent either in Mexico or in any other Spanish-speaking country. He proected the women of the poorer class, making them free and respected in Yucatan, and giving them a legal place in the community which paternalism had denied them either within or without the church. You cannot go today to Yucatan and abuse any woman without making yourself liable to a substantial punishment. All the forces of the State are behind the sacredness of women. Alvarado did this work and nobody else before him ever dared to start it. He started it, challenging a whole army of feudalists and traditionalists, as well as the men in their pay. "Alvarado was not the keeper of a cantina, or saloon; and if his origin was humble, we cannot forget that one of the greatest of Americans was a railsplitter. He did not murder his opponents, confiscate their property, nor terrorize the entire population. On the contrary, he made life and property safe for every man who himself obeys the laws, and he chose, for the upbuilding of Yucatan, the ablest men that he could find, whether they were his opponents or his friends. There was no organization of the state on a Bolshevist basis. There were no political executions, and the educated people are not in exile or even in fear. They visit the United States at short intervals and they send their children here to school. Alvarado did not appoint Carlos Castro Morales Governor. He was elected at a general election by the plurality of votes cast, as in an election in the United States, according to law and the constitution. "These are a few of the grotesque statements contained in the article, and American readers may judge for themselves what really is the situation in Yucatan. I merely wish to remark in closing that erroneous information, both regarding Mexico and the United States, is very injurious to the mutual interests of both nations. The supplying of such misinformation is the kind of activity that makes for a decrease in the volume of business between the two countries, while Euro pean nations are every day improving their trade relations with LatinAmerica. We have frequently heard the question, "Why not increase our trade with Latin-America?" The first way to increase American trade with Latin-America is to understand her life and the aims of her people, who, in Yucatan at any rate, have the same fundamental conceptions of liberty and democracy as prevail in the United States. T The Argentine Grain Convention HE opinion of the Finance Chamber of Deputies practically unanimous in recognizing the necessity of the country granting credits to likely purchasers of the Nation's produce so as to secure an export outlet for it. But, while the majority report favors a loan in the nature of a credit which may be extended by the Treasury of the Republic to Great Britain, France, and Italy, for the acquisition of Argentine produce, the minority recommends that the Government be authorized to enter into Convention with any foreign government asking for credits. The Bank of the Nation assisted by private banks and by the Convertion Office, if necessary, would finance the credit of $200,000,000 to the Allies at 5 per cent. per annum, payable in two years, to purchase Argentine produce, stipulating that not less than 75 per cent. of the loan is to be utilized in the purchase of wheat and maize. The wisdom and efficiency of such Convention was amply proved by the grain Convention of 1918 amounting to a credit of $200,000,000 gold granted to the above-named nations. Referring to the success of that lon Sr. Carlos A. Tornquist, the eminent authority on Argentine economics, remarked that it ought to be considered not only as a solution for the normal ization of the exchanges but also in its financial results in the sale of exportable produce at prices remunerative to the producer and the country and above all, in relation to the enviable position which the republic will assume as a "creditor" nation in markets which can provide the country with those articles at present absolutely lacking but indispensable for its commercial life. The interest on these credits alone, will pay to a great extent the cost of necessary imports. A long drawn-out political debate in the Chamber has come to delay the conclusion of the new Convention with the Allies, and agricultural circles fear that formidable competition is to be found if in the meantime other sources become accessible; besides, the new harvest is almost upon them, and the opinion of the country requests a speedy solution of this question. i The Air Line to Cuba NE of the inevitable results from the long distance flights and continuous trip records set by the recent ocean to ocean air race across the United States and back, is the establishment of regular services for passenger, mail, and express traffic between important stations and particularly between places where land communication is lacking and the water routes are slow, tedious and inconvenient. A most favorable point on the Caribbean and Gulf coast for the inauguration of such a passenger and mail service across a narrow stretch of water is that between southern Florida and Havana, where the land journey is necessarily broken and where delays due to dependence upon steamer schedules are most acute and annoying. It is with considerable interest, therefore, that we have learned of the proposed inauguration of a Key West, Miami and Havana aeroplane service, which we regard as constituting the first step in the extension of such service to and between all countries. of the three Americas. This air line to Cuba is the result of the efforts of Sr. Hannibal J. de Mesa, a wealthy sugar planter of that country whose project for the estab lishment of this service was outlined in an interview reported by the New York Herald as follows: "I have just returned from France where I have been since April on a mission for the Cuban Government. While there I was astounded at the advance made in the use of the aeroplane as a passenger carrier. As you know, there are three lines at present in operation-from London to Paris, Paris to Brussels and Paris to Deauville. ville. And what probably will be news in America, a line is to be operated this winter between Paris and Monte Carlo. "I grew so interested in the idea that, solely upon my own initiative, I bought eight aeroplanes to establish lines between Cuba and the United States. Two are Goliaths, carrying eighteen people-sixteen passengers, pilot and mechanic. Six are two passenger aeroplanes, built by Farman and known as the F-16 type. The latter have already left France and the Goliaths will leave this month. "The project is to fly them between Cuba and Key West and Miami, which will shorten the trip to my country by eighteen hours, and later on we may extend the route to New York. The course is less than two hundred miles, and when you consider that the Goliaths can fly for 250 miles by one motor alone, the safety of the journey is assured. I hope that the Government of Cuba will decide let me carry the mails all over the island. to "I'm just a planter and don't know anything about aviation, so, to manage the whole affair I have procured Captain Kerillis, business manager of the Farman works, a noted French ace and an aviation attaché of the Minister of War. He will bring four celebrated French pilots to operate |