new Premier apparently adopted this view, and began to hamper the Unions and the cooperative societies by subjecting them to a system of bureaucratic supervision and regulation which was as vexatious and obstructive as it was unnecessary. At the same time he increased the severity of the censorship, and made military necessity an excuse for preventing discussion even of domestic affairs.

There had been for a year or more a great deal of dissatisfaction with the administration of public affairs by reactionary or incompetent provincial governors. The Ministry made a show of removing these inefficient men, as if in compliance with the people's wishes; but, instead of dismissing them altogether, it merely jumped them over one another's heads by transferring them from place to place. They were shuffled like cards, but they were always in the pack. This shifting of obnoxious officials, which was derisively characterized in the Duma as a bureaucratic game of leap-frog," increased the popular discontent instead of allaying it. Then, too, there was a general belief that Sturmer and some of his associates leaned toward Germany and were lukewarm, at least, in their sympathy with the nation's determination to fight the war out to a decisive finish. All these causes of dissatisfaction, taken together, brought on the struggle of the people with the bureaucracy which began in the second year of the war and which is still in progress. After the appointment of Sturmer as Premier the Duma was twice prorogued, possibly with the hope on the part of the Government that the Progressive bloc would disintegrate between sessions. The bloc, however, increased steadily in strength and aggressiveness, while the bureaucracy showed itself less and less capable of dealing with the economic problems which came up for solution, and which grew more and more complex and difficult as the war progressed. The Czar, in his effort to improve the state of affairs and satisfy the people, changed the Minister of the Interior four times in less than ten months; but it was merely a continuation of the "bureaucratic game of leap-frog." The men who were jumped over another's heads, into or out of the Ministerial chair, were all of the same type, and what the country wanted was a change of type.

one

Finally, about six weeks ago, the Czar made a new departure by appointing as Minister of the Interior Mr. A. D. Protopopof, a wealthy landed proprietor from Sim

birsk.

crat.

Mr. Protopopof was not a bureauOn the contrary, he was a member of the Duma and an Octobrist. At first sight, therefore, it seemed only reasonable to interpret his appointment as a concession to the people and to the Progressive bloc, of which he was a member. It soon became evident, however, that, estimable as he might be in personal character, he was too impressible and pliable a man to represent adequately the aggressive popular majority in the Duma. Soon after his appointment he granted an interview to the Parliamentary journalists of Petrograd, and was asked by them what his programme would be. He replied: "We have, by law, a united Government, and the programme of a united Government can be announced only by the President of the Council of Ministers. You will perhaps say that there is a certain field in which I am permitted, or may be permitted by Imperial direction, to exercise some freedom of action; but until I receive the instructions that will guide me in the course I am to pursue it seems to me impossible to speak of my programme." A little later, after he had had an interview with the Czar, Minister Protopopof said to a group of journalists in Moscow: "I cannot expatiate on the subject of programme. My programme is that of the whole Ministry now in power. It is impossible at the present mo-. ment to imagine any other programme, and it will be laid before the Duma in the near future, by the President of the Ministerial council" (Sturmer).

Inasmuch as the "whole Ministry" then in power was unsatisfactory to the liberals and to the public, the admission by Protopopof that he would act with his colleagues, in accordance with instructions from the Czar, did not inspire the nation with much hope. It was entirely satisfactory, however, to the bureaucrats and the reactionists.

The popular disappointment which followed Protopopof's announcement of his policy-or rather lack of policy-was heightened by the Government's failure to deal adequately or successfully with the problem of subsistence. As winter approached, about two months ago, many parts of the Empire began to suffer from a lack of fuel and food. The country as a whole contained an abundant supply of both; but the means of distribution were in the hands of the Government, and all the bureaucratic measures of relief that were adopted proved to be illadvised or ineffective. Many provinces had

1916

more grain than they needed, but they were prevented by bureaucratic regulations of one sort or another from shipping their surplus to places that had little or none. Many provincial governors, anxious to conserve their own food supply, made such representations to the Ministry that they were allowed to place embargoes on grain shipments. The trouble was aggravated by an attempt on the part of the Government to fix prices. The bureaucratic intention was doubtless good, but the prices fixed were so low that holders would not sell at all. The final outcome of inadequate railway facilities, provincial embargoes, and fixed prices was a plethora of food in some provinces and a state of need that was not far from famine in others.

The problem of fuel, which was almost equally important, became even more urgent as the weather grew colder. The Government had been warned by an interpellation in the Duma more than a year before that there would probably be a shortage of at least a million tons of coal; but no measures were taken to meet the emergency, and when the pinch came, in the fall of 1916, many provinces found it practically impossible to get either coal or wood. The railways were overburdened by the insistent demand for the transportation of war supplies; horses in many places had been commandeered for military service, or were being used in farm work; and there was no way of getting wood hauled, even when it was near at hand. The situation in the city of Kiev became so desperate early in October that the municipality imported three hundred camels from the Province of Astrakhan to serve as draught animals.

This scarcity of food and fuel is not only causing widespread distress, but is intensifying the hostility of the people to their rulers. Nothing is more potent in giving a sharp edge to popular feeling than the grindstone of physical suffering, and it would have been safe to predict at any time within the last sixty days that when the Duma should meet for the fall session of 1916 an attempt of some kind would be made to cut the bureaucratic cords that bind the people's faces to the stone. The attempt was made; and the blow struck by Milyukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, brought on an open fight between the people and the Progressive bloc on one side and the Czar and his bureaucracy on the other. The censorship of the Russian press, which is still in

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the hands of the Ministry, prevents us from knowing all that was said and done; but the Minister of War and the Minister of Marine seem to have supported Milyukov and the Duma, and the menace of an alliance between the Progressive bloc and the military forces of the Empire seems to have compelled the Czar to give way. At any rate, Sturmer, the reactionary Premier, was dismissed; his place was given to General Trepof, who is an army man rather than a bureaucrat; and substantial concessions are said to have been made. As Sturmer acted as Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as Premier, the second vacancy in the Cabinet was filled by the promotion of the Assistant Foreign Minister, Neratof, about whom little is yet known.

At the present stage of the contest neither side can claim a decisive victory; but the liberals have not only eliminated two reactionary Premiers, one after the other; they have greatly strengthened their position. If it be true that the Minister of War and Minister of Marine supported the Duma in its struggle with the Cabinet, the moral effect in the country at large will unquestionably be great. The Progressive bloc, moreover, can bring pressure to bear on the Czar in another way, through the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Municipalities. These great popular bodies are carrying on gigantic operations in the field of relief and supply, and at this critical stage in the war neither the Czar nor the Ministry can afford to dispense with their services or excite their active hostility. They are in sympathy, of course, with the Duma. The bold attack on the Government in the Duma, together with the support that it received both in and out of the Taurida Palace, is evidence enough that the nation will not tolerate for a moment any faltering in the prosecution of the war, and that, in the not distant future, it will insist effectively on its right to exercise some control over the Ministry, which now supervises and directs all governmental activities. Never since 1905 have the people been more united in their opposition to bureaucratic rule.

It would be too much, perhaps, to expect that the Duma will gain a complete and immediate victory; but there seems to be at least a fair chance that the Progressive bloc will succeed in firmly establishing the principle of Ministerial responsibility to the people's representatives. When that shall be accomplished, the first step will have been taken toward real constitutional liberty.

W

HOEVER in the United States eats bread is indebted to Yucatan.

The bread supply of the United States is dependent on Yucatan..

Yet Yucatan imports flour from the United States.

These statements seem irreconcilable, but they are not. Although Yucatan produces insufficient flour for herself, a product of Yucatan makes it possible for us to have bread. That product is henequen. Of all the bread-eating Americans, probably only a few have ever heard of henequen. Yet without henequen we could hardly harvest our grain crops, and consequently without henequen we could hardly get bread.

From henequen is made the twine with which most of the grain crops of the United States are bound into sheaves. Eighty per cent of the world's henequen and the best henequen in the world is grown in Yucatan. And more than ninety per cent of the total henequen crop of Yucatan is used every year to make binder twine for the farmers of the United States. Consequently, any shortage of henequen may mean a shortage of grain and ultimately of bread, and any increase in the price of henequen to the American farmers may mean an increase in the price of bread to the American public.

In 1916 the farmers of this country were forced to pay $4,000,000 more for their binder twine than in 1915. There is a great probability that they will have to meet a further increase of several million dollars in 1917. All this affects you, the average bread-eater of this country, who have already felt the enormous increase in the cost of living that has taken place in the past year.

Yucatan imports flour, not because she has to, but because she chooses to. Her soil, while not rich, is adequate to raise enough grain to feed all the three hundred thousand Yucatecans. But this grain would be of only mediocre quality, for the soil of the country is full of lime, which is not calculated to aid the growth of most vegetation. Yet this very calcareous quality of the soil, which discourages ordinary crops, encourages the growth of henequen. In fact, the extraordinarily limy nature of Yucatan earth is the

reason why henequen grows there better than in any other part of the globe.

The owner of a large tract of rich orebearing land would be a fool if he devoted that land to agriculture. So the Yucatecans would be fools if they devoted their barrenlooking but valuable soil to ordinary agriculture. Instead they grow henequen and sell it to buy their grain, eggs, milk, limousines, and trips to Paris and New York. Well do they call it "the green gold of Yucatan."

If you go to Yucatan by water, almost the first thing you see is henequen. The land back of the yellow ribbon of beach is green with the aquamarine of henequen fields. From this green henequen are made the flaxen threads of sisal hemp, and from the sisal hemp is manufactured the American farmers' binder twine.

The green gold is welded into the history of Yucatan and into the life of the people to-day. The wonderful ruined cities of the ancient Maya Indian civilization which are scattered through the jungle of interior Yucatan were built with the aid of henequen. With ropes made of sisal fiber the laborers of ancient dynasties hauled to the tops of their pyramidal temples the great stone blocks which time has not tumbled. To-day the uses of henequen are multifarious. After meals the modern natives of this cleanest Mexican State saw their teeth with strands of sisal fiber in lieu of dental floss. At night they sleep in hammocks of the same thread, for in Yucatan the only beds are in the hotels for tourists. Sacks for carrying vegetables or other merchandise are made of sisal. Door-mats are made of it, ladies' slippers, the harness of burros, and the springs of the native volan, a cart on two giant wheels which alone of all vehicles can travel the rocky roads of the interior.

Sisal hemp forms the warp and woof of Yucatecan social, business, and official life. Henequen is the foundation of society in Yucatan. In a former article I told how Governor Salvador Alvarado has derived from henequen the capital to begin the building of his idea of a Utopia-a sort of Socialistic des

potism-which his enemies call a "Socialistic hell." I described how the Governor has abolished peonage, established an eight-hour day for labor, closed most of the churches, opened many schools, abolished bull-fights and gambling, and established temperance— most of these things done with the funds derived from the Government control of the sisal monopoly.

This monopoly of henequen is already of vital importance to American farmers who raise grain, and is likely to be of vital importance to all Americans through the effect it may have on the price of cereals and the price of bread, the commonest of all foods after mothers' milk. The question of the right and wrong, legality or illegality, of this monopoly is before the American public now. Indeed, almost a year ago a sub-committee of the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry began an investigation of this monopoly, for through its sale of henequen to American twine manufacturers the monopoly becomes subject to American laws. This sub-committee, after hearing a vast amount of evidence, without publishing a final report, has placed the subject in the hands of the Federal Trade Commission.

Any one who undertakes a private investigation of this question on his own account without going to Yucatan soon runs into the blunt wall of the flatly contradicted statements of the opponents and defenders of the monopoly. Certain facts, however, can be established even in the United States. In the first place, it is unquestioned that the control of the henequen output of Yucatan by the Comision Reguladora del Mercado de Henequen (Commission for Regulating the Henequen Market) as directed by Governor Alvarado is a monopoly. The officers of the Reguladora, as the commission of planters which is Alvarado's stalking-horse is commonly called, admit this, but they deny that it is a monopoly in restraint of trade as defined by the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. But while, on the one hand, it is said that the increase in price felt since the Government formed its monopoly is arbitrary and unjustified; on the other hand, it is alleged that the increase has been justified by a number of circumstances, including increased freight rates between Yucatan and the United States, the increased cost of living in Yucatan, and the increased cost of Manila hemp and New Zealand hemp, the principal competitors of the sisal article.

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On the one hand, it is said that the henequen monopoly has benefited the Yucatecan planters, their laborers, and the whole society of the State. On the other hand, it is said that the monopoly is a hold-up scheme by the Governor, Salvador Alvarado, and that it cheats the planters, injures the cause of labor, and reduces the prosperity of all Yucatan. Of course the question of the legality of the monopoly under the Sherman Law is one for the courts to decide, but it was to get first-hand evidence on such questions as these others just mentioned that I went to Yucatan. From the point of view of the American farmer the disadvantage of the increased price of twine, for which some people blame the monopoly, is plain. But if the monopoly is justly administered and is bringing about a greater prosperity in Yucatan, even if it is entirely responsible for the increased price of sisal, there is much to be said for it, for, obviously, it is a primary assumption that, since henequen is a product of Yucatan, the natural advantages derived from the cultivation of it ought first to be felt by the Yucatecans. On the other hand, again, if the extra four million dollars of the American grain-raisers are being badly used by an evil Government to the disadvantage of the mass of Yucatecans, nothing would seem to remain to be said in defense of the monopoly.

Mexico is one of the richest countries in the world, and Yucatan is one of the richest States in Mexico. Although Yucatan produces fish, tortoise-shell, valuable hardwoods, and chicle for the world's chewing-gum, still most of the wealth of the State is derived from henequen. This plant is allied to the maguey plant, called the century plant in the United States, from which is made pulque, the national drink of Mexico. The botanical name for henequen is Agave sisalense, and it is often called sisal grass, sisal hemp, and sisal. Above a thick, cylindrical stump covered with large scales rise the swordlike leaves of the henequen, pointing outward from the grouped bases at the center like chevaux de frise. The Indians found it growing wild in the forests of Yucatan and understood its uses, but for many years it has been carefully cultivated. In the deep coastal strip from the northwest to the southeast of Yucatan, where most of the henequen is grown, an investment in this plant is almost as safe as an investment in good bonds. For, like good bonds, the principal care

henequen requires is to be cut. The plant never grows so well as when the annual increment of new leaves is clipped like dividend coupons.

The henequen of Yucatan is grown on nearly four hundred plantations or haciendas, ranging in size of cultivated area from a few hundred acres to seven thousand, and employing from a score of men and women to several hundred. About two hundred of these haciendas are large ones, and..they are owned by about seventy-five old Yucatecan families. These seventy-five families and their connections, who derive their great wealth from the dividends on the green gold which are cut for them by the great mass of the working classes of Yucatan, have intermarried and have invested their money in other resources of the State until they form a virtual oligarchy, subject nominally to the despotic governors whom Yucatan has had, but in reality usually appointing these governors and within limits controlling Yucatan as firmly as any oligarchy ever controlled any state in history. Thanks to the geographical isolation of Yucatan from the rest of Mexico and thanks to its independent wealth, this oligarchy virtually ruled the State as an independent nation up to some time after the downfall of Huerta. The members of this aristocracy of wealth were wont to leave their plantations in charge of superintendents to supervise the coupon-cutting from the investment in the green gold while the owners devoted most of their time to the limousine life in Paris, London, and New York: Occasionally they would return for a few months to their handsome homes along the Paseo de Montejo, that beautiful boulevard in Yucatan's beautiful capital, Merida, a city of seventy-five families of the "best people" -that is, the large landowners-and of seventy-five thousand other citizens.

Below this class is a small middle class, but seventy per cent or more of the people of Yucatan belong to the lowest class, the class of labor, and are entirely or largely Indian in blood. On the henequen ranches of the State are employed about twenty thousand laborers. These men live with their wives and children on the haciendas, which are virtually the subdivisions of the State, just as counties are the subdivisions of our States. Often the women and children help harvest the sisal. In the old days of the Diaz régime there was a profitable trade in rounding up Indians in northern Mexico and shipping them

by train-load and boat-load to the slavery of the henequen ranches of Yucatan.

The aristocrats who owned these haciendas were not always directly to blame for this slavery. Often the system was adopted by their overseers, more or less without their knowledge. Still the haciendados were responsible, in the ultimate analysis, just as the stockholders in an American railway are ultimately responsible for the policy of the rail

These planters thought that it paid them best to sell their product in the raw state to American manufacturers rather than to make

Two

it into twine in Yucatan. The greatest single buyer of the sisal hemp for years has been the International Harvester Company. years ago this corporation and the Plymouth Cordage Company were buying about eighty per cent of the million bales constituting about the recent average annual output of the 'green gold mines" of Yucatan. A bale is from 380 to 400 pounds in weight.

Believing that the individual planter was at a disadvantage in selling his product to buyers who were well organized, four years ago several of the henequeneros (henequen planters) decided to band together for co-operative selling. The organization which they formed, with the help of the State Legislature, was called the Comision Reguladora del Mercado de Henequen, and in theory its members were about all the planters in Yucatan. Also in theory the Reguladora acted as the representative of all the planters in determining the selling price of the hemp with the American buyers. But in practice it never worked out so. The agents and brokers of the In ternational Harvester Company and of the Plymouth Cordage Company and the other buyers could always find enough planters willing to sell at the figure of the American corporations to frustrate the attempts of the Reguladora to fulfill the function which its name implies, for the planters had insufficient capital to enable them to withhold selling the henequen long enough to force the foreign buyers to come up to the Reguladora's asking price.

Such was the condition of affairs when Salvador Alvarado came to Yucatan early in 1915. Alvarado, with several thousand soldiers, was sent by Carranza to oust Governor Arguemedo, who had installed himself in the executive office by a shrewd coup d'état. As a reward for the successful accomplishment of his mission Alvarado was himself