130 MEXICO - MISCELLANEOUS 



company, if the land is suited for any kind of crop and can be easily 

 irrigated. 



In this way the land has been concentrated in the hands of a few pro- 

 prietors and a very considerable part is uncultivated. Of the cultivated area 

 there are no statistics but it is calculated that of the 2,000,000 square kilo- 

 metres in the whole country, about 400,000 are incapable of cultivation 

 leaving 1,600,000 square kilometres of which only one fourth is actually 

 cultivated. 



The great disproportion between the number of land holders and of 

 the members of the proletariat has already given rise to conflicts originating 

 in a claim for the division and free distribution of the land among the 

 peasantry. 



There is no doubt that the agricultural question in Mexico is largely 

 a land question, and the authorities have more than once attempted to deal 

 with it as such. For example, in 1909, a decree was made to suspend the 

 power of ahenating uncultivated land {haldios) belonging to the nation 

 by the system of denuncias, so as to prevent further concentration of it in 

 the hands of a few. In 1912 the Department of Fomento issued a circular 

 containing the necessary instructions for fixing boundaries and for the di- 

 vision and distribution of ejidos or communal property. 



The Government has also tried to found rural colonies on the system 

 of denuncia of national land and by means of immigration, but without 

 satisfactory results in either case. As regards immigration, attempts have 

 been made with non-Europeans, more especially with Boers and Japanese, 

 but the results have not been satisfactory. 



5. The Conclusions of the National Agricultural Commission. — The 

 authorities, seeing that the solution of the land question grew every day more 

 urgent, proposed to study a vast land programme ; and to settle in differ- 

 rent parts of the country " the largest possible number of producers, in 

 conditions favourable to their independence and prosperity, so that de- 

 velopments in other directions and the exploitation of new sources of 

 production and of wealth may become possible". 



The objects of this poUcy may be divided into two classes : 



(i) the increase of production by irrigation works, the influx of capital 

 and the employment of scientific sj'^stems of cultivation etc... (2) a better 

 distribution of land, colonisation by division of the latijtmdia and the cre- 

 ation of smaU holdings. 



In order to accomplish these objects the Government has recently 

 appointed a National Agricultural Commission, composed of farmers, 

 engineers, lawyers and others whose competence in economic, juridical 

 and social matters is generally recognised. 



Before beginning its labours, the Commission drew up a complete 

 programme for the study of the land question in all its aspects. This 

 vast and detailed programme comprises the preservation of forests and 

 the encouragement of sylviculture, the regulation and utilisation of water- 

 courses, the extension and intensification of cultivation by means of the 



