Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/128

110 Mexico, it is true, has no hard and fast race line such as is found in the United States. It has a line of economic and social demarkation which is no less unfortunate. "Ever since the independence the Mexican mestizos and the Creoles. . . divided into two parties, both of them distanced from the nature of things because of their ignorance of the actual world; not knowing the true needs of Mexican society" have "continued to agitate it" but have not established Mexico upon a sound economic, social, and political foundation.

Foreigners, as an element in the labor supply and in office holding, can be disregarded. They have devoted themselves to trade, banking, and the development of the natural resources of the country, the latter almost exclusively through the use of the local labor. They represent a part of Mexican wealth disproportionate to their number and their enterprises have an important influence on the economic position of the country and its inhabitants, but they do not form an important part of the labor supply.

If the average Mexican laborer of the present day or of a generation ago is compared to the American laborer, he makes no favorable showing. For the dollar of wage received he does not yield more than the highly paid worker in the United States. The chief causes advanced in explanation of this fact are that he is poorly fed, poorly educated, less ambitious, and in large areas of Mexico less able to work because of climatic conditions. The plateaus are so high that the rarefied air