GRAVE SITUATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 23 February 1931, Page 5

GRAVE SITUATION

LOWER CALIFORNIA PEASANTS WORKLESS AND HUNGRY ULTIMATUM TO AUTHORITIES (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, 21st February. A message from Mexico City states that news from Mexicali, Lower California, has been received to the effect that a mob of three thousand hungry workless peasants sent an ultimatum to the authorities threatening to sack the city to-morrow unless food and jobs are provided immediately. It is stated that there is considerable misery in the neighbourhood of Mexicali, where many recently died of starvation and shops experienced much trouble with mobs of peasants attempting to obtain food. The police hope to control the situation and have been doing all possible to provide scant available rations of flour and beans for the sufferers. The situation was made worse by the recent reduction of the minimum salary in the cotton fields to about a dollar and twenty cents a day. It is reported that the Governor has left Mexicali for Tijuana after issuing orders that saloons and restaurants should discharge all foreign employees and substitute Mexican unemployed. An undercurrent of political difficulties heightens the gravity of the situation.