Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/173

Rh government of Sonora then proceeded to sell some of the company's improved property, including company buildings, to satisfy the state tax, and demanded that the company should pay on account of this tax one half of all its receipts from irrigation, and proceeded to enforce the demand by taking money from the safe in the company's office by force. Later on, these assessments were modified. But recently the company has been faced by an exaction in another form which shows the utter lack of conscience, as well as of all care for the economic future of their country, which characterizes the Carranza officials.

The last exaction came in the form of a federal decree demanding that the company pay an annual tax on the maximum amount of water that its contract with the federal government gives it the right to divert from the Yaqui River for the irrigation of the entire valley, approximately 800,000 acres of land, payment of this annual tax to begin at once, although the contract provides a period of approximately twenty years in which to complete the irrigation system and subdivide the lands that will then, and not until then, be using the maximum amount of water provided. Upon the representative of the company explaining to the Secretary of Fomento that the company could not exist under such a burden, especially as it was being prevented from completing its work by the failure