MEXICANS WATCHING 



A COCK FIGHT 



Photo by Shirley C. Hul 



concede that on through cargo business 

 they cannot, under any circumstances, 

 compete with the Panama Canal, they 

 still believe that they will not be seriously 

 affected by the opening of the big water- 

 way. They think that the business boom 

 that the canal will bring to tropical 

 America will give enough additional 

 mixed cargo to take the place of the 

 through cargo lost. 



To illustrate : On a ship loaded with 

 lumber and bound for New York from 

 Oregon, the Tehuantepec route could 

 not quote a rate that could compete with 

 the canal ; but on a ship that left Liver- 

 pool with mixed cargo, some bound for 

 California, some for HaAvaii, some for 

 Peru, and some for China, the Tehuan- 

 tepec route could transfer that cargo 

 as advantageously as the Panana Canal. 



Mexico spent a fortune in building 

 port works at Salina Cruz and Coatzoal- 

 cos for the loading and unloading of the 

 big ships that carry cargo to and from 

 the Isthmus. At the former place a 

 modern harbor has been made where 

 scarcely an indentation in the shore line 

 existed before. The inner harbor is arti- 



ficial entirely, and ships now ride 30 feet 

 above what once was the old town site 

 of Salina Cruz. Great blocks of con- 

 crete make a sea-wall between the inner 

 and the outer harbors. The outer har- 

 bor is formed by two great breakwaters 

 which leave an opening about 600 feet 

 wide out to sea. These breakwaters en- 

 close a harbor space of about 20 acres. 



Ships are loaded and unloaded with 

 electric cranes, the cars having trap 

 doors in their roofs. The peons often 

 handle as much as 60 tons of sugar each 

 a day. They are paid a standard wage, 

 with a bonus for all above a certain 

 amount they handle, and they certainly 

 do work for that bonus. When the rail- 

 road was begun, wages in the Tehuante- 

 pec region were 25 cents Mexican a 

 day; they soon reached $1, then $1.50, 

 then $2.00, and finally, $2.25 a day. 



An interesting sidelight on the policy 

 of former President Diaz toward the up- 

 building of a middle class in Mexico was 

 afforded me by a conversation with the 

 Vice-President and General Manager of 

 the National Railways. He told me that 

 General Diaz wanted to put Mexicans in 



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