bulletin briefly describing a part of its activities. The National Agrarian Commission is dependent directly upon the Presidency of the Republic and not upon this Secretariat. The Caja de Préstamos, under this Secretariat, has under process the liquidation of the debts that were incurred by loans made by it under the Diaz régime.

The Secretariat of Communications and Public Works has power to regulate the railways whether national or private, street railways and tramways, the numerous telegraph and telephone. systems, cables, and wireless stations, and the mails. It is charged with maintenance and improvement of public roads, bridges, harbors, etc. This Secretariat also controls the public buildings of the nation and manages new constructions.

The Secretariat of Finance (Hacienda) collects all national taxes and contributions, has charge of all custom houses, mints, and assaying offices. It has been recently much concerned with framing a new banking law and with issue of permits to new banking institutions. The predominant interest of the Federal government in the taxation system gives this Secretariat greater importance than usually belongs to treasury departments elsewhere.

The Secretariat of War and Marine has control of the national defenses and of maintenance of the various military and naval training schools. Under this department a Comisión Revisora de Hojas de Servicios is laboring toward the reduction of the national army, a task full of thorny problems but of paramount necessity for the sake of improving the condition of the treasury and restoring the country to stable conditions.

The Judicial System, the organization of which has been already briefly alluded to, is interesting because it is so closely restricted by constitutional provisions which are usually left to statutes or rules of court. A special feature of Mexican jurisprudence is the development of the writ of amparo as the highest form of redress of grievances against individual guarantees. This writ has been described by an eminent American juris-consult as "combining the functions of habeas corpus, mandamus, sequestration, injunction, and writ of prohibition." (Burges.) It is applicable in both civil and criminal actions, and is not subject to legislative or executive interference, except of course in case of suspension of constitutional guarantees. It is intended. to be invoked against alleged aggressions by administrative acts. Its efficacy depends of course upon the independence of the courts. These have been, unfortunately, noteworthy as frequently dependent upon executive interference, and the system of indirect election of judges has not served to eliminate apprehension that judicial decisions may follow more closely the dic

tates of public policy than of abstract legal right. The trite criticism of American courts of justice, that they are notoriously slow and uncertain, is applicable in accentuated measure to Mexican courts. The saying of Justo Sierra in 1892, "The people are hungering and thirsting for justice," is as true today as when written.

There is one point in Mexican legal procedure concerning which some misapprehension exists among foreigners who have to deal with court decisions. It is held sometimes that the development of the rule of precedent is prohibited by the constitutional provision that legal decisions, in cases of amparo invoked against administrative acts, shall be confined to affording individual protection in actions, and shall make no general statement as to the law or the act complained of. This provision means only that each individual case must be plead and proven in court; the development of a jurisprudence is not thereby prevented, but previous decisions are illuminative rather than conclusive. The absence of a satisfactory jurisprudence in Mexico is, according to the Mexican jurisconsult, Sodi, rather due to the inconsequentiality of decisions because of executive interference and ignorance than to anything inherent in the system itself. The Supreme Court decrees are used in arguments and, where they are consistent, constitute bases of precedent which contribute toward the development of a genuine jurisprudence.

The Relation of the Mexican States to the Union has sometimes been uncertain and often variable. Mexico is in reality far less a Federal republic than is the United States of America. It must be remembered that Mexico was centrally administered as a Spanish colony, and continued so to be administered during a large portion of her republican existence. Even under the socalled Federal organization, the economic and social preponderance of Mexico City has militated against wide distribution of governmental functions. Constitutionally, the Mexican states are limited almost in all the ways American states are limited, with the addition of other restrictions arising from the increased autonomy of the municipality, and from the federal control of most taxes and other affairs usually considered domestic.

By far the most interesting provisions of the new Constitution are contained in the now famous Article Twenty-Seven, a part of the "Bill of Rights." This article is a declaration of the original national proprietorship over all lands and waters, and of the national right to create private property as the government sees fit. By an extension of the theory of eminent domain, reassumption of national ownership of lands or waters previously transmitted to private ownership was declared to be the purpose of the government. This was intended to legalize resumption of government control over lands which had irregularly

ceased to be waste or national and which were to be resumed for redistribution in the interests of the general public welfare. It was also intended to provide an opportunity for reassumption of national control over petroleum-producing lands which had passed into private control. Under conditions well known but of too recent political importance to admit of adequate discussion in such a place as this, the Mexican government has receded from the attitude as indicated, and numerous statements have been made to the effect that no "retroactive" application of the constitutional provision will be made. The national Congress will, it is anticipated, make an effort so to modify the Article in question as to prevent its inoperation retroactively from serving as a stultification of its declared purpose. Progress toward this congressional move has frequently been presaged in news dispatches. Recent judicial opinion has declared against the retroactivity of the Article. It is to be noted that it is provided in this Article that certain restrictions on owning of property by foreigners are now made a part of the national Constitution. It is not the case, as has been often asserted, that these restrictions are an innovation in Mexican legislation. Their general purport was contained in the proposals which were made for American investment in the Tehuantepec region in 1843, and the same provisions were made a part of the Civil Code which was framed in 1894. The constitutional requirements now in force are as follows:

"Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership in lands, waters, and their appurtenances, or to obtain concessions to develop mines, waters, or mineral fuels in the republic of Mexico. The nation may grant the same right to foreigners, provided they agree before the Department of Foreign Affairs to be considered Mexicans in respect to such property, and accordingly not to invoke the protection of their governments in respect to the same, under penalty, in case of breach, of forfeiture to the nation of property so acquired. Within a zone of one hundred kilometers from the frontiers, and of fifty kilometers from the seacoast, no foreigner shall under any condition acquire direct ownership of lands and waters. This provision has been invoked in the case of transfer of a piece of property from a foreigner to an heir, when the property in question was merely transferred as a gift. It is to be doubted whether such partial abnegation of the rights of foreigners to make representations to their governments would be considered to have binding force upon any such foreign government in case it should be disregarded by aggrieved foreigners possessing property rights in Mexico. That is to say, the validity in actual practice of this attempt to override the established practice of international relations would depend upon the acquiescence of foreign chancellories or upon the degree of force with

which the Mexican government chose to back up its Constitution in diplomatic conversations or otherwise.

The general clause of confiscation embodied in the same article says furthermore:

"All contracts and concessions made by former governments from and after the year 1876, which shall have resulted in the monopoly of land, waters, and natural resources of the nation by a single individual or corporation, are declared subject to revision, and the executive is authorized to declare those null and void which seriously prejudice the public interests."

When it is remembered that the greater part of the industrial development of Mexico, and most of the exploitation of natural resources, have been brought about by transfers since 1876, it will be seen that the entire economic situation in the country is dependent, not upon rules of equity or the decisions of courts of justice, but upon the vicissitudes of executive will and opinion. What an executive may consider as monopoly, or what may be deemed an injury to the public is thus likely to be a matter of changing opinion which is certain to make investments for long terms of large sums of capital somewhat hazardous, whether the question is raised concerning Mexicans or foreigners. As a matter of fact, enormous properties which were embargoed during the first two years of the revolution have been offered and advertised by the Department of Hacienda for return to their lawful owners. Many of these have as yet declined to come forward to reassume proprietorship, because of varying considerations. It may be safely asserted that this constitutional provision is one. of the most potent causes of the feeling of hesitancy and uncertainty which pervades property-owning classes throughout the republic. The benevolent attitude of the present government toward vested rights will require the enactment of constitutional provisions guaranteeing the stability of property rights before an epoch of settled development is likely to return to the republic. At the same time it must be remembered that inveterate wrongs in property relationships are the direct cause of this attempt at remedial legislation. Those persons who believe that a simple return to the conditions and policies of the Diaz régime will satisfy the nation's demands for social progress and political stability are self-deceived. The attempt of the revolution to remedy old wrongs and to create opportunity for the development of the masses was the result of a genuine aspiration on the part of many sincere Mexicans. That the policy has been largely vitiated by impractical legislation intended to produce "the greatest good to the greatest number," and that the administrative machinery has been clogged by the dishonesty of certain civil and military officers whose egoism has defeated the purposes of the revolution, do not constitute proof that there is no social

movement in Mexico. The radicalism of reformers and the peculations of politicians will inevitably give way to respect for life and property and bring about a development of just conditions rather than a return to old abuses.

The Position of Religion under the revolutionary governments has created wide interest. Outside of the small fraction of the population now in control of the government, and indeed very largely even within that group, the citizens of Mexico are preponderantly religious. The anti-clericalism of the last two régimes. has been directed against social and economic abuses which characterize the church in Mexico, rather than against religion as a dominant social force. The people of Mexico are essentially Roman Catholic, but the determination to effect the utter separation of the church from economic and political control is as strong as the language of the Constitution. This does, however, prohibit the normal functioning of the church as a spiritual guide to the people except by governmental tolerance, which is too prone to be variable from administration to administration. The inabilities to own properties, and to carry on religious work, which theoretically limit the activities not only of the Catholics, but of Protestant missions in Mexico, create another situation in which progress in social work among the middle classes is dependent upon executive clemency. It is true that generous appreciation of the work of the Protestant missions has characterized the governmental attitude during recent years, and it is likely that this attitude will be permanent, and that the influence of the mission work will increase in proportion as the service lends itself to education in hygiene, sanitation, agriculture, and elements of culture rather than in religious discipline. There is every reason for generous cooperation of all religious bodies of whatever faith in the work of improving standards of life and living among the masses.

The Status of Labor is unique under the actual government. The social tradition from time immemorial has been that of sharp contrast, abysmal cleavage, between the privileged few and the submerged masses. Independence, the constant declination of the pendulum toward radicalism, toward the inauguration of untried political nostrums, toward the newest extreme in the most recent ultra-liberal theory, have as yet made little headway against this unfortunate social cleavage. But the present Constitution makes a desperate effort to correct the evil, with results that are as yet disturbing to the social organization and the economic outlook. The provisions of the fundamental law on labor are dangerous, not so much because of the ideals sought, as because of lack of discrimination in details or of wisdom in methods employed. Some of these provisions are admirable in spirit. For instance, eight hours is the maximum day's work, seven the