Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/143

Rh of course, marked changes in labor conditions. No great economic transformation such as that which marked the period could occur without disturbing the entire network of human relations upon which the national life rested. Nevertheless, the change in the labor contract was less fundamental than apparent. Cities grew, commerce increased, and the nascent industry of the '80s achieved an importance in the public economy never before known. On the routes most visited by foreigners there were many evidences of the passing of the old and the coming of a new economic day. But in the back country life was still stirred from the accustomed routine only in a secondary way. Local customs continued, legislation intended to bring the nation into line with the developments in the Western World was added as an embroidery or flourish, but it did not replace the habits of generations. It was not fundamental in character. The position of the average Mexican laborer was still one of status not of contract.

The labor arrangements found in later periods in different parts of the country indicate the degree to which the relations of employer and employee remained unaffected by the developments which were transforming the life of the nation. They show also modifications which the new conditions introduced in the labor contract.

In Yucatan, at the end of the Diaz régime, debt service was still a characteristic of the labor system. It was still illegal but seldom questioned. The large hacendados, or owners of haciendas, aimed to keep as many laborers living on their plantations as they could. Many