ops a fine feeling of loyalty. The experience of many American. companies, forced during the great exodus of 1914 to leave their valuable properties in charge of their Mexican employees, abundantly proves this point.

Compared with that of other nationalities Mexican labor appears to fair advantage. While the testimony of employers is far from unanimous, in general it may be said that Mexicans are superior to negroes and equal to Orientals, Greeks and Italians. It is when one reaches the managerial and skilled mechanical classes that discrepancies begin to appear. The belief long persisted, especially among foreign companies operating in Mexico, that in positions requiring initiative, resourcefulness and executive ability, foreigners were to be preferred. But beginning with the last years of the Diaz régime and extending through the decade of revolutions such positions, in so far as they continued to exist, have been perforce largely filled by Mexicans; especially is this true on the railroads. While these Mexicans have not always risen to their new responsibilities, under favorable conditions they have attained a fair measure of success. It must never be forgotten, however, that in many instances this marked rise in the status of Mexican labor would hardly have been possible but for the training and opportunities offered by foreign companies.

Occupations: In the census of 1910 an effort was made to classify the population of Mexico according to occupation. The methods followed were unscientific and inaccurate and the results frequently unsatisfactory and misleading. Even were the figures reliable at the time, the social and political upheaval of the last ten years would deprive them of much of their value. Yet despite these shortcomings the census returns give certain rough approximations of the kinds of employment in which the Mexican people are engaged and furnish some data for differentiating between what we may call the "laboring classes" and the "middle and upper classes." In the tables which follow only the more important occupations are listed; ordinarily those in which less than five hundred are employed are omitted.1

1While the statistics here given are based on the official census returns of 1910 the arrangement is partly based on the admirable book of Mr. Wallace Thompson, The People of Mexico, pp. 338-341.

The foregoing classification lends itself to a number of interesting commentaries, most of which may be more conveniently discussed in the sections dealing with labor in agriculture, mining and manufacturing. It may be noted at this point, however, that the census returns reveal evidence of the extent of those occupational groups from which is ordinarily recruited the middle class. The totals indicate 4,638,344 belonging to the so-called "laboring classes" and 841,594 included in the "middle and upper classes." However inaccurate these figures may be they clearly indicate that at the end of the Diaz period a relatively small but vigorous middle class was coming into existence. This fact would be more evident if space permitted a detailed comparison with the census return of 1895; by way of example the percentage of increase in a few occupations may be noted. Thus the number of architects during this decade and a half increased 137.7 per cent; engineers, 36.8 per cent; mechanics, 339.6 per cent; plumbers, 261 per cent; teachers, 66.9 per cent; physicians, 71.1 per cent.

In the tables of occupations just quoted no reference was made to the labor of women and children. Nothing is said in the census reports regarding children, but an attempt was made to note the number of men and women engaged in a given industry. From other sources we know that children have been employed to a certain extent in mining-the number decreasing from 5852 to 2541 during the years 1895-1910-and in considerable number in the cotton factories. It is in the latter occupation that the most serious problems of child labor have arisen. There is reason to believe that at the end of the Diaz period some eight thousand boys and girls were to be found in the cotton mills. Their wages were low-averaging seventy-five centavos-and their hours very long. These conditions, which find a certain parallel in a number of cotton factories of the United States have been materially improved as a result of recent labor legislation.

Fortunately, more material is available on the labor of women. The number of women employed in mines in 1910 was less one per cent of the total, being 467 out of 79,024. In agriculture the percentage was 1.7 or 61,981 out of 3,570,674. In the last decade of the Diaz period the labor of women in modern industries and factories revealed a steady increase; in cotton factories, to take the most striking instance, there were in 1895, 9895 women out of a total of 20,994, and in 1910, 12,565 women out of 32,309. On the other hand, the number of women employed in cigarette factories declined from 8930 to 5353, the loss being doubtless due to the increased use of machinery. We also find 51,763 listed as "comerciantes," i. e., small shopkeepers and the like. In the professions, comparatively few women are to be found outside the ranks of teachers, of which there were 13,532 or 64.6 per cent of the total. Finally, an interesting de

velopment is revealed in the presence of 1785 government employees. As was to be expected, however, an overwhelming proportion of the women listed in occupations was still to be found under the caption of domestic service; 181,914 servants; 82,962 seamstresses; 62,324 laundresses.

One might easily exaggerate the importance of women in the industrial or commercial life of Mexico. Careful estimates would seem to indicate that in 1910 barely 9.5 per cent of the women employed in occupations were engaged in non-household labor. Mexican women who wish to embark on a business career have had to encounter a mass of conventions and prejudices which could only slowly be broken down. The evidence shows that a beginning, but only a beginning, has been made.

Data on the wages received by women are so meager as to be practically useless, but the evidence is fairly conclusive that their wages have been considerably lower than those of men engaged in the same occupations.

Agricultural Labor: The opinion has long been widely current that the main industry of Mexico is mining. From the standpoint of both production and exports this is true if the petroleum industry with its recent enormous expansion be grouped with mining. In 1898, agricultural products amounted in value to 248,000,000 pesos, or over two and one-half times the value of mineral production, and the proportions, excluding petroleum products, have changed but little since. According

to the census of 1910 the number of males employed in agriculture amounted to approximately three-fourths of all those engaged in gainful occupations. A comparison with conditions in the United States is not without interest. According to the United States Census of 1910 the number of persons engaged in agriculture amounted to 10,887,488, being approximately 11.6 per cent of the total population, while in Mexico (census of 1910) they amounted to 3,595,758 or approximately 23.5 per cent of the total population of 15,160,369. These statistics are particularly significant when viewed in connection with the total agricultural production of Mexico, which in 1903, when the Diaz régime was at its apogee, amounted to 273,268,065 pesos. This sum, divided by 3,570,299, the total number of males employed in agriculture, gives the total receipts from agriculture per male. employed as only 76.56 pesos, amounting to only a little over seventy-three cents, American gold, per week. These figures furnish a striking commentary on the extremely unproductive employment of the agricultural population. A similar conclusion may be drawn from the fact that this great body of men produces no exportable articles, if exception be made of henequen and certain products such as chicle, cocoa and coffee. In the case of corn, whose cultivation largely absorbs the energy of