BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

242 BARBAROUS MEXICO
Just one more of Mr. Lewis' all-embracing blunders
in that article. Said he:
"Search where you will, in cverv Mexican corner, from the
Pacific to the gulf, from Yucatan to the Arizona line, you will
meet no sugar trust to cheat the government with false scales,
no coal trust to steal the fires from the poor man's chimney, no
wool or cotton trust to steal the clothes off his back, no beef
trust to filch the meat from his table, no leather trust to take
the shoes off his feet. * * * The trusts do not exist in
Mexico."
\Vhich proves that Mr. Lewis does not know the first
principle upon which Mexican finance and Mexican commercial
life is based. Not only does the same financial
ring which monopolizes the great industries of the United
States monopolize those same industries in Mexico
—I shall presently enumerate some of them—but every
state and locality has its minor trusts which control the
necessities of life in their field a great (leal more completely
than such necessities are controlled in this country.
Mr. Lewis does not seem to know that the Mexican
government is openly in the trust business, that by sale
and gift of special privileges known as "concessions"
it creates and maintains trusts of high and low degree.
Personally, Mr. Lewis knows as much of Mexico and
Mexicans as any!
lust a slip or two from Mr. Stevens, taken almost at
random.
"There is no terrifying labor question to make the investor
hesitate. A strike is unknown, and there is no danger of a
shortage of labor, skilled or unskilled."
And another:
"No bank in Mexico can fail, no bank-note can be worthless,
and no depositor can possibly lose his money, no matter what
fatality may befall the bank with which he has his account."