The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, MARCH 21, 1938. REVOLUTION BY LAW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun.

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 1938. REVOLUTION BY LAW.

For the cause that lack* aseistanct, For the wrong that need* reMttanoi, For the future in the distance, And the good that we am do.

The action of the Mexican Government in "expropriating" the properties of British and American petroleum companies may be interpreted as a headlong plunge towards the Bolshevisation of the country. The final aim of the revolution is to transform Mexico from a poor country, though rich in natural i"esources, into a modern industrial State, with Mexicans in eontrol of all the sources of production. That is a legitimate ambition, but as it cannot be realised without capital the choice before the Government was to co-operate with foreign capitalists, who have long had a large stake in the country, or to attempt to set up some form of State socialism. In theory, one observer pointed out recently, the Government of President Cardenas has always been ready, to co-operate with foreign capital: in practice, by supporting- every demand of the unions, which are its strongest supporters, it has stultified capitalistic endeavour. "The large industrial concerns," wrote the same observer, in January, "have seen their profits whittled away by successive labour conquests, until now they seriously wonder whether it is worth while to carry on." In consequence their attitude stiffened, and the oil companies declared that if the Courts persisted in forcing impossible labour conditions upon them they would quit the country. Tie response to that attitude, evidently, is. the decree of expropriation of which we hear to-day. This is not the beginning , of the .Mexican revolution, which may be said to have started 25 years ago, nor is it the end. But it is exceedingly instructive to those who care to understand it. Despite democratic forms, Mexico is still under a dictatorship—that of the National Revolutionary party. It is supported by the industrial unions and by the rural masses, for whom it has admittedly done a great deal. The demands of the labour unions, however, have grown more and more extreme. Strikes, many of them without justification even under laws exceedingly favourable to labour, have been the order of the day. The Courts support them. The Press finds it expedient to support the Government, and in any event, because of the large percentage of illiteracy, has little influence. Under these conditions the position of the foreign companies has steadily become untenable. Now—in the ease of the oil companies—an order to pay £10,000,000 "compensation for wages" has been deemed impossible to fulfil, the workers thereupon seized the properties, and the industry has been nationalised by a stroke of the pen. It remains to be seen whether the Governments of the United States and Great Britain will accede supinely to this major example of legalised tbeft.