Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/255

 

The President of the Republic has directed to me the following Decree: —

Porfirio Diaz, Constitutional President of the United States of Mexico, to the inhabitants thereof: Know ye —

That the Congress of the Union has enacted the following: —

The Congress of the United States of Mexico enacts: Only Article. The Executive is authorized to reform the contracts which he has celebrated for the construction of international and interoceanic railways, and to celebrate new ones with another or other companies, which may present themselves, granting in each case a concession, without comprehending the arrangement of the English debt, upon the following bases:—

1st. The concession or concessions shall be in force not more than ninety-nine years, and shall contain clauses relative to the reversion of the road to the nation free of all incumbrance, at the end of the term stipulated.