NEW CIVILISATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 89, 12 October 1938, Page 14

NEW CIVILISATION

MEXICO'S STRUGGLES

A NEW ZEALAND VISITOR

A picture of Mexico as a country striving towards a new civilisation, and not a place of continual violence and rebellion, which, be said, was the common impression, was drawn by Mr. A. G. Harper, local government officer of the Internal Affairs Department, in an address to the Wellington Travel Club yesterday afternoon. Mr. Harper attended the international townplanning and housing congress held in Mexico City recently and spent eighteen days in Mexico.

Mr. Harper said that the Mexican people, the vast majority of whorii were Indians, were happy and courteous. They had their social, economic, and political troubles just like any other country, but on the whole they were contented. He instanced a revolt reported some months ago as an example of how Mexico was sometimes misrepresented. He said that the delegates to the congress found that they knew more about the revolt than the people of Mexico and had come to the conclusion that it had been an outbreak of larrikinism magnified into a major insurrection.

He also said that the wearing of revolvers by peons, sometimes three or four to a man, was liable- to give a wrong impression. These were chiefly worn through tradition. Mr. Harper mentioned the vigorous education policy that had been undertaken to relieve the primitive life of a large proportion of the population. He considered that some day Mexico would take her place among the major nations .of the world.

The scenery in southern Mexico Mr. Harper described as being so much like that of New Zealand- that one could easily imagine that one was travelling in the Dominion.

Though sport was taking a wider hold, the bull fight was still the most popular entertainment, said Mr. Harper. He spent an afternoon at .one and saw six bulls killed. It seemed very gruesome to him. A remarkable feature was the way the spectators signified their approval. They threw their hats and articles of clothing into the arena; he saw one woman remove her fur coat and throw it down into the ring.