West coast papers are strongly opposed to Chinese immigration, while at the same time they are denouncing native labor for being untrustworthy. The trouble with the peons in the hot country is that they will not work steadily, and it is difficult to believe that newspaper declamation, which they never read, will have any effect on them. This entire labor question requires to be decided for the good of Mexico as a whole. Possessing vast stretches of most fertile lands, Mexico is destitute of the laborers necessary to make her a great exporting nation."
And yet the population of Mexico, to the square mile, is believed to be at least equal to, and possibly greater than, that of the United States.
In Yucatan, United States Consul Thompson reports (1885) the condition of labor to be as follows:
"Suitable farm-labor is very scarce. Strangers, from the nature of the climate, are useless, absolutely so, as farm-laborers. Laborers from the Canary Islands have been imported, but the experiment was a failure. A negro laborer stands the test no better than the Canary-Islanders. Upon the Mayan Indian alone fall the heaviest burdens of agricultural labor."
The following are the retail prices of some of the principal articles of domestic consumption in Mexico: Fresh beef, twelve to eighteen cents per
