286 THE IRR1GA TION A GE. 



can laborer cannot compete in wages or the standard of living that sat- 

 isfy the native peons." 



There is little skilled labor in Mexico, the work being done by the 

 most primitive methods. As an example of this it is only necessary to 

 state that hundreds of railways have been built there without using a 

 horse or wagon, let alone a steam shovel. Capitalists have found in 

 many cases where the work is temporary in nature, such as road build- 

 ing, etc., that it is cheaper to hire a large number of men and allow 

 them to work after the manner of a hundred years ago than it would be. 

 to instruct a smaller number in the use of machinery. So the contract- 

 ors have found a cheap and effectual way of keeping the track-layers 

 supplied with timber is to pay the native laborers or peons, one cent 

 each for carrying the ties forward from where they were dropped by the 

 construction train. The worker has a card suspended from his neck, 

 and whenever he carries a tie a hole is punched in his card, on the prici- 

 ple of score cards at a progressive euchre party. At the end of the day 

 he is paid a cent for each hole in his card, and will often make sixty or 

 seventy cents a day, though the ties have to be carried in many instances 

 a quarter of a mile. The section hands work from 6 o'clock in the morn- 

 ing until dark and receive, as their day's wages, fifty cents. 



The Mexican is slower in learning to operate a machine of any kind 

 than is the American laborer, but where he succeeds in mastering the 

 mystery of it he makes a very good operator. However, when he has 

 progressed this far he is content to halt; he has no desire to learn more; 

 no curiosity as to how the man next to him does, and never attempts to 

 make any improvement or innovation inthe manner of doing work. In 

 other words he is not inventive in the slightest degree. One queer phase 

 of Mexican character is shown in the large machine shops, where it is 

 found they will work well and contentedly under American, German or 

 English foremen, but draw the line at working under the supervision 

 of one of their own nationality. 



The cotton industry in Mexico has begun to be one of its recognized 

 sources of income. Most of the cotton mills are managed by resident 

 Spaniards, who seem to be able to. run them cheaper than either Ameri- 

 cans or Englishmen, making a profit of from 20 to 40 per cent, a year 

 on their investments. Coffee raising is another paying industry, or to 

 be more accurate it is the paying industry, always having stood at the 

 head of the agricultural exports. It is said coffee raisers make a profit 

 of from 100 to 200 per cent, on their coffee, and that their recent "kick" 

 about low prices was because they could no longer make 300 per cent. , 

 as was formerly the case. It can be raised at an expense of but 8 cents 

 silver per pound, transportation to New York is about 50 cents per hun- 

 dred pounds, where it is sold for from eight to sixteen cents gold, per 

 pound. The United States is the market for the greater part raised, the 

 remainder of that exported going about equally to England, Germany 



