CHAPTER X
THE MEXICAN LABORER: HIS CONTRACT
One of the greatest handicaps to the progress of the laboring classes especially among the less advanced populations is the "lack of wants." In highly developed industrial communities a sudden increase of income for the laborer does not result immediately in a wise expenditure of his surplus for the general betterment of his standard of life. But where the examples of those who have had greater opportunities and greater income are constantly before the worker and his family, the transit from the old to a new standard comes with no great delay. New desires are felt which demand all the increase of income and more. Thus occurs the constant and insistent pressure from below for a better standard of living, which is so marked a characteristic of the civilization of Western European peoples.
But in tropic or semitropic lands, such as Mexico, the conditions that surround the laborer do not produce, or at least have not heretofore produced, that wholesome unrest which is the dynamic element in countries less favored by nature. Life is too easy. Poverty is always near but actual starvation is known hardly by report. Contrasts in habits of life outside the larger towns are not so great as to furnish incentive to enterprise. The working man feels himself a part of the community and occupies a traditional position within
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