turing industries is hard to estimate. Tobacco manufacture appears to have flourished. The textile mills, though they were hampered by the secondary results of the revolution: sabotage, strikes, high taxes, and impractical labor legislation, continued to operate at a satisfactory rate during at least a portion of the revolutionary period.
Mining, taken as a whole, did not prosper. The northern states were one of the favorite battlegrounds of the revolutionists and only properties near the railroads or large towns could be operated with any degree of security. The Chihuahua smelters were closed down for the two years ending April, 1918, and other mining operations were at a low ebb.
The worst industrial conditions seem to have been passed by 1918. From that time on the agricultural population has been less disturbed by bandits and the farmers were reported in 1920 to have gone back to work except in remote districts and certain sections of Puebla, Chihuahua, and Durango.
The rapid rise in the value of silver in the latter part of 1919 encouraged extending that branch of mining and the output of other metal and mineral products was increased under the stimulus of the business boom following the declaration of peace in Europe.[1]
The effect of the revolution on mercantile operations was to induce the sacrifice of stocks in regions threatened by disturbance. Those supplies that were left when the roving military forces came were often con-
- ↑ Supplement to Commerce Reports, June 21, 1921.
