FUTURE OF MEXICO

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 April 1938, Page 4

FUTURE OF MEXICO

WHAT CARDENAS IS DOING With the close' of 1937 the present stage of the Mexican Revolution appears to be reaching a climax the effects of which may be of more than Mexican importance hi the next year, writes a Mexican correspondent in the“ Manchester Guardian.” The Revolution has recently celebrated its twenty-seventh anniversary and President Cardenas his third year in oflice. The Mexican system is a kind of benevolent despotism. No one denies that President Lazaro Cardenas is honest, well-meaning, a capable politician, and an idealist, possibly the only President of Mexico who has possessed these qualities since Francisco Madero was murdered for this very reason in 1913. Under the Constitution, one of the most liberal in the world, the executive is vested in the president and, in practice, takes almost complete precedence over the Legislature.

President Cardenas is a perpetual surprise to those accustomed to the usual pattern of Mexican politics. He has taken the Six-year Plan seriously and has tried to put it into practice, against wind and water. The Six-year-piati was originally hardly a plan at all. in the sense of the Soviet fiveyear plans. Six years were fixed upon since this is the Presidential term of oflice fixed by the Constitution. It. was originally no more than an election platform for Calles’s nominees in the National Revolutionary Party, and in method closely conformed to the hundreds of "plans” always published by Presidential candidates with no great intention of carrying them out. Cardenas was trained by Calles in all the wiles of Mexican politics, but he went further and did what no other President had ever done. He actually took a personal interest in the working out of the plan, making long journeys on horseback to remote places where no politician had ever been. His popularity increased enormously. and Cardenas is really worshipped by the peasantry as a sort of “Little Father.” Such is the reliance placed in his promises and such the distrust of politicians in general that the words “The President, has signed the decree” tire taken as a guarantee that it will be carried out. without graft and inefficiency. This has its disadvantage. The President is difficult to find. His anteroom, on the rare occasions when he is in the capital, is open to all peasants and workers, but he is often absent. , His mind is fixed on largescale schemes and administrative detail suffers. Also, between Cardenas and the common people there is tile traditional stratum of Mexico City politicians. The capital is built on mud a mile and a half above, sealevel. One might contend that any city more than a mile in the air is too far in the clouds; it is symbolically true of Mexico. Most of what is vita) in Mexico happens between sealevel and 5000 feet.

THE FASCIST PRESS Under Cardenas there is almost too much liberty. Apart from bureaucratic vexations, one may do very much as one pleases. A curious example is that of the Press. The Government National Revolutionary Party lias only one paper; the. whole of the rest of the Press, with vastly larger circulation, is frankly pro-Fascist. While the Spanish Republican flag was displayed prominently at the recent, celebration of the revolution's anniversary, all these papers openly favour Franco. ’rhe. National Revolutionary Party (P.N.R.) itself includes the widest diversity of tendencies. Fascist, and Communist parties are allowed to exist freely, but the 19X4 elections gave some two and a quarter million votes to the P.N.R., as against about. 47,00(1 to all other parties. Any candidate not endorsed by the P.N.R. has small chance of being elected or, if elected, of not being overridden by the Government nominee. It. is a moot point whether Cardenas runs the P.N.R. or the P.N.R. runs Cardenas, and it is ( upon this point that Mexico’s near future depends to a. large extent. There.are three current opinions about the Mexican President. The least important, but held by persons (mostly foreigners) in key positions, is that he. is well-meaning but impractical, and that by taking the Six-year Plan too seriously he is imperilling both himself and his country. A second is that almost unlimited power, the traditions of Mexican Presidential autocracy, and the admitted inefficiency of the administrative and political mechine have driven him into the position of a dictator and the belief, shared by so many prominent politicians, that “I know that I can save the country and that, no one else can.” A third opinion, held by < quarters with a considerable experience of Mexican politics, is that Cardenas is, in his own Mexican way, imitating Stalin and clearing the ground between himself and the people by < making himself both understood and 1 indispensable. The Mexican constitu- 1 lional slogan, appended to the close 1 of all official correspondence, is “No re-election,” and Cardenas’s term end 1 in 1939. But by forcing his enemies out into the open and by showing that any « other President would be a worse evil 1 than a breach of the Constitution the 1 Six-year Plan might be carried for- 1 ward. <

Congress is about to go on vacation. and for the first, time in fourteen years the President has stated that he will not ask for all powers to carry on until it meets again. Hitherto the President has always been virtual dictator during this interval, the most important of his powers being that of the allotment of Budget moneys. Congress generally had time to decide upon methods of collecting revenue but not on means of Spending it.

THE OIL POSITION Simultaneously a larger number than usual of important reforms and decisions are being mooted. The relations of Government, labour, and foreign capital have come to a head, in the case of oil, with the recent deal with the British Aguila Company and the long-awaited arbitration decision claim for a big wage increase, which the companies have declared they cannot pay.

There has been a considerable wave of partial strikes lately, and • there riie thi eats of more. Mexican labour has revived notably under President Cardenas, after an eclipse in the lattei days of the Calles regime. Recently a new labour organisation has made surprising progress. This is the Federation of Mexican Workers (C.T.M.) under Vicente Lombardo Toledano, a lawyer of considerable talent and organising power. The C.T M

claims about. 700,(100 members, but wages are still so low that union dues aie rarely paid. The C.T.M.. although Lombardo Toledano has joined the Government Party, appears to be shunning the pitfalls of direct collaboration with the Government. It has, however, 23 extremely vigilant representatives in Congress.

Strikes at. present. result sometimes from competition between the U.T.M. and other organisations or company unions. But usually they are intended to call the Government’s --or, rather, the President’s —attention to abuses. For example, a recent general strike in San Luis Potosi, fief of the allegedly reactionary Governor, General Cedillo, demanded about £l,t)00 to remedy the deficient drinking water supply. The President at once offered investigation and £2OOO, and the strike was called off. A third source of strikes is the gradual fall in the standard of living. While the Government almost invariably favours Ihe workers and money wages have risen under Cardenas 30 to 40 per cent., real wages have dropped by about 10 per cent. The Government policy of satisfying the workers’ immediate demands as far as possible is creating a somewhat anomalous position. This situation makes the study of Mexican politics extremely deceptive. Recently the Government, having nationalised the main railway lines, decided to hand them over to the workers. On the face of it, this appeared a really advanced step. Examination by the workers’ representatives. however; showed that railway finances were chaotic, that reorganisation and weeding out of personnel would be essential, and that, it would be the new worker-con-trolled directorate which would have to bear the odium.

The clue to the present situation in Mexico probably lies in such examples. An attempt is being made to construct a semi-Socialist State within a peculiar capitalist system, still largely dominated by foreign owners and bond holders. To a large extent the success of the Cardenas regime, certainly a big step forward in the revolulion, is conditioned by the continuance of Roosevelt’s “good neighbour” policy and, economically, by the United States purchases of silver at the current rate at least.