LAND GRABBING.

Southland Times, Issue 19277, 23 June 1924, Page 4

LAND GRABBING.

Advocates of land nationalisation under whatever guise it is presented, should be interested in the agrarian policy of the Mexican Government which has resulted in the withdrawal of the British Charge d’Affairs from the republic. Mexico is a country of great ranches rivalling the tremendous holdings of the South American States, but the land-owners in Mexico cannot boast titles that are free of anxiety. Since the downfall of Diaz, there have been many attempts to deal with the land problem of the country, but the obstacles in the way of close settlement are tremendous, and so men with presidential hopes usually talk grandiloquently of the manner in which they intend to dispossess the ranch-holders, but rarely attempt to solve the problem in a legal or an equitable way. Villa in the course of his wild campaigning often drove ranch-owners from their lands or shot them against the walls of their own barns, but the subsequent distribution of the soil amongst the landless natives usually resulted in a tremendous slump in production. The Mexican to-day seems to have a disinclination for work, and in most cases to give him a farm spells its ruin. In the southern part of the country the landowners, who can boast estates extending for miles, have been able to hold out because the Government cannot buy them out and has not dared to go in for open seizure. Nearer the capital, however, there has been in progress for a long time an underhand campaign directed at foreign land-owners, who are subjected to all sorts of intimidation with the hope that they will abandon their properties and get out of the country. Mrs Evans is not the only one to be treated in this fashion, but she has been holding out against the Government for a very long time. A determined woman, she has fought legal assaults on her property, and supported by the British Agent she has declined to giye way in face of all sorts of illegal tactics. Troops have been sent to occupy the place, and have tried to cut off her supplies, but without achieving the Government’s objective, and evidently Mr Cummins has been turned out of office as part of another attack on Mrs Evans. Landgrabbing is part of the Obregon Government’s programme, but it is threatening the agricultural strength of the country, a fact which should not be overlooked by the advocates of schemes involving compulsion as a method of solving the land question.