"ROUGHING IT" IN MEXICO

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 January 1914, Page 6

"ROUGHING IT" IN MEXICO

(By If. Hamilton Fyfe.) Laredo (Texas) October 11

Stout Cortez had difficulty in getting to Mexico City. All who know their Prescott will bear me out in that. But Cortez was not the only one. I have been trying to get there for .1 fortnight past. I menu that for two weeks I have been within forty-eight hot;:s of it by rail. But rails are of no use if there are no train.s running on them. Four lines run down from the United States border into the. heart of Mexico. I have tried each of them and found each blocked by fighting between Federal troops and the rebels, who call themselves Constitutionalists. A month ago President Huerta in his Message to Congress declared that the "war between brothers" was "on the point of terminating." If I had gone straight to Mexico City by way of Vera Cruz (steamer from New York and train from port to capital) I should have had no information of my own by which to check that statement. Now I know that both sides have large forces in the field, for I have seen them, heard of them from refugees fleeing to safety, seen something of the havoc they have wrought. The railway from Vera Cruz has been running continuously. A story is. told of a message from the British Foreign Office to General Huerta. warning him that "if you do not keep it open we , will." That, .story I do not believe, but it illustrates the belief of Americana along the border that if the United States Government had acted less feebly the civil war in Mexico »vould have ended long ago. 60,000 MEXICANS KILLED. It is only along the border that one can understand how much loss and suffering have been caused to .subjects of the I United States. The fact that some 60,C00 Mexicans have been killed concerns Mexico alone. So long as the peons can count on four shillings a day for being soldiers instead of one shilling a day, or less, for being labourers (with frequent opportunities of loot thrown in), they will fight willingly for either side and run the risk of getting killed. If they lived on a barren island all by themselves they might go on fighting until they were exterminated and no one would greatly care. But when one learns that 200 Americans have been killed, not to mention the enormous losses suffered, one is driven to ask with Mr Roosevelt whether it is not tlie duty of a Government to protect its subjects. j in New York, in the Eastern States' generally, in the Middle West, they knownext to nothing about events in Mexico.' and care less. Most people are densely ignorant about the country: a vast number scarcely realise where it is. They say ■'lf Americans go to these barbarous lands they must take their chance." If they liave any view of the political situation at .ill it is that "President Huerta is a bad man" and that a pious country (like the United StatcsJ ought not to encourage him; or that the best plan—this 1 have tieard hundreds say—would be to let each side buy arms and ammunition freely from the United States and fight it out. But in Texas, in New Mexico, in Arizona, especially in the southern parts which lie next to .Mexico, feeling against President vVilson and Mr Secretary Bryan is bitter aid contemptuous. APATHY OF THE PEOPLE. I travelled a few days ago with an official of the United States Immigration Department, in the course of duly he had to go over from El Paso (United States) to Juarez (Mexico) to make inquiries about a, coloured mail who had committed some offence in the United States. This, man had in the meantime joined the Mexican Army and been made a lieutenant. He had the immigration agent arrested by four soldiers without any warrant on a. charge of "being about to attempt to kidnap him." The soldiers marched the agent towards the hills; being convinced that they would shoot him .f they got him there, lie ran away. They .ired and shot him through the stomach. He managed to get to the Civil Police Post, but even there he lay for twentyfour hours without proper treatment, and his release was only secured by resolute action of another immigration officer. I asked him what his Government had done. "Done? Done nothing!" he said savagely. "Holding some sort of an inquiry! I tell you the people of this country, so long as they get enough to eat and can go to the picture shows at night, don't care what happens." I was reminded of what a fine old American soldier had said to me a day or two before. "There isn't as much red blood in this people' as there used to be." These south-western States are monotonous to the traveller's eye. For hundreds of miles nothing but sand and scrub, with low hills in the distance on. either side. Wherever there is water there are rich crops, but water is scarce. One night, after a gorgeous sunset which turned the brown hills first rose, then crimson, then a blue purple like the bloom on a dark plum, we had a moon riding in Hie southern sky. while to westward there were banks of heavy cloud ripped by zigzag lightning, and presently torrents of rain. "Time it came.,' 'said someone, in the observation-car laconically. "Haven't had any for a year." The towns are what one would cxpeei>-~ dusty and hot and dry. The smal 1 u' ones are of a dreariness and squalor ha. ily imaginable by those who only know the towns and villages of Europe. You ; wonder how people of active mind and , refined manners can bear to live in such places, until you discover what delightful homes they have—big, airy rooms, furnished with taste, provided with every convenience, full of books: wide, cool "porches," or, as we say, verandahs; balconies lo sleep out on ; every kind of bath. In the cities therqjs more life and movement than there would be in a European town of similar size. El L J aso has grown since the railway came: outwardly it is,j therefore, uninteresting: the usual huge] office blocks and banks and stores, and j big, pretentious hotels, seldom more than one-third full. San Antonio is pleasan- j ter; it has roots in the past. In the J middle of the town is one of those grey j missions which Spanish Franciscan friars built all over Ibis country in the 'eighteenth century, There are three others among the cotton fields a few miles out, of (lie town. Their architecture is not thrilling, but their crumbling towers and cloisters refresh one after the barrack-like banality of American, city streets. NEAR THE FIGHTING LINE. From San Antonio 1 came to Lancdo, after trying the other three railways in vain. An official assured me most politely that this line to .Mexico City, by way of Monterey, was running regularly. It was a, very different story I heard when I got here. There has not been a passenger or freight train in or out for throe days. The last out is supposed to have been dynamited, and at the same time a big bridge has been destroyed. The Mexican authorities say they have no information, but the United States Consul knows that they sent off a, train full of-troops, with field guns, early this morning, and the colonel in command of the United States garrison has been asked to furnish ambulances whenever the train, which is on its way here from Monterey, is able to come in. There is a battle going on eight miles down tin' line, and probably some Americans have been hint. All the indications point to the Mexican town Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande, being shelled to-night or to-morrow morning. The prospect before me is anything but cheerful. Laredo is not a health resort. Indeed, if I owned it and Hades I would cheerfully live in Hades and put Laredo up for Bale. Yet here I am for an indefinite period with the possibility of being dynamited when Ido get away. I may have to hark back to Galveston and take the Vera Gruz route after all.