MEXICAN CAPITAL THREATENED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 11110, 6 May 1911, Page 5

MEXICAN CAPITAL THREATENED.

FAMINE CONDITIONS. ATROCITIES REPORTED IN SOUTH CALIFORNIA PEACE NEGOTIATIONS.; By Telegraph—Press Associatlon-CopyrUbt Mexico City, May 4. ■Two thousand rebels threaten tho capital, where famine conditions prevail. The country is more unsettled than ever. Independent bands of rebels are out pillaging. Tiventy-fiye Federals were killed at Magdalena. Horrible atrocities in Southern California are reported. The rebels secured full possession of ono town, killing everyone caught. Already five have been shot and two burned. Two American miners have been murdered in Sonora County.

General Madero, leader of the insurrectos, met Judge Carbajal, the Diaz Government's peace envoy, near Juarez, and the two informally arranged tho details for a peaco conference. General Madero will not participate in the conference, Dr. Gomez representing him. Another rebel attack on the town of Agiiaprieta, recently occupied by the Federal troops, is expected. Tho people of Douglas, a Texan .town on tho frontier, aro apprehensive that if peace is not reached there will probably be a battle at Nogales, Sonora, whore Federals and insurrectos are numerous. AN INSURRECTION IN THREE PARTS. . The insurrection in. Mexico is divided into three parts, not related to each ?i V ,f h ? 1 iu Chihuahua and Sonora, Jed by Madero, a man of means, began early m November. later an uprising ot the laquis was reported in Yucatan. Later still came tho movement in Lower Lalilornia by another independent body ol men, mostly Americans, and, if dispatches are to be trusted, mostly fugitives lroni justice. 'For five months, says "Current literature" for April, the disorder uiis been spreading, and the Mexican Government's efforts to quell it have been singularly inadequate, only small bodies ot troops being sent, inlo Chihuahua and bonora, Ihe main array remaining massed near tho Mexican capital. "Wo have scarcely touched our resources as yet," said fccuor Creel, in March, Mexico's .Minister of foreign relations; ,"with the money, guns, and men at our command, wo can easily put in the field 50,000 men." Still tlio disorder has been allowed to continue, and, instead of putting an adequate torco in the field, the Mexican Government has kept her soldiers near the capital and.expended her energies iu the wa / ? f 1 , re P ( ; ate( l Protests at Washington, a lact that lends some colour to the claim made m dispatches to American dailies tram Mexico City that 93 per cent, of the population even in that district are in sympathy with the insurrection. <5o many influential Mexicans are compromised by tho movement of which Madero is the figurehead, fays the correspondent of tho "Temps," tint the success or Diaz and his continuance in rower are rendered improbable from that circumptimco alone. Many officials who held lush office under the Diaz system were inYii 111 , the rece »t outbreak in Yucatan, i ? vcr }X°. XKO ono fi n<l.«, we read in the JUOMloii News, former agents of the federal system who feel aggrieved at having been used by Diaz and then cast aside, in all tho northern States aro elements which moreiy aivait the turn of events Oetore_ docidiou upon which side to cast their influence. Diaz would have it appear that the men of light and leading m tlie iaiul arc with him. There may be revolt among the Yaquis in Yucatan and among tho ignorant peons everywhere, but tup propertied classes aud the men of affairs believe in Diaz, and wish to sustain him. lhat view is scarcely borne out by dispatches in London dailies. Investigators who have toured the land and talked with prominent peoplo in confidential terms report far more, discontent with Diafc than the outside world suspects. He ami tho men about him are "too rich," to quote quo anonymous Mexican. In Iho city of Mexico itself thcro seems to exist among tho advisers of Diaz n fierce factional difference. This is the impression in Paris, whero the press lias had the advantage of intimate contact with men -high in the councils of the maker of, modern Mexico. The factions are raging over two banes of contention. Ono side is of opinion that the timo has now arrived for concessions to what in this country would bo called the people. Diaz has shown a tendency of late to trust only such advisers as aro favoured by tne members of his immediate circle. Tnis clique wishes n continuation of tho autocratic ideal. Matters were made more complicated by the progress of the revolt in tho 'north. Tho administration in the capital adopted the policy of crushing it at a blow. Tho more liberal faction urged a policy of slow starvation with judicious negotiation. Tact in dealing with captured rebels could have «aved the situation. Instead of that Diaz shot and imprisoned somewhat indiscriminately, making 7nan.y enemies for his system among tho influential local inhabitants. This cxplo nation of a , growing fooling in northern Mexico emerges plainly from the accounts of (he present revolt which find their way into the Paris dailies. Diaz is supposed in London to have set his face firmly against the policy of liberalism which his progressive advisers wanted him to adopt. The. General, however, is not strong enough at his timo of lifo to take Ihe initiative in fighting the new ideas, and there is not among his supporters of tbo autocratic school a single character .'trong enough to put down the rebellion. Matters are consequenUy drifting, if the Lomlou "Times" be correctly informed. Meanwhile, American interests had suffered uot only in a purely commercial sense, but from.the standpoint of diplomacy. President Tnft is assumed to bo acting from inside information with energy c.-il-cnlatcd lo anticipate the concert of Europe.