POTENTIAL MEXICO

Having but a year ago transferred from the administration of Obregon to that of Calles by peaceful and constitutional means, the Mexican Government is now striving to complete its sovereignty. It governs an agricultural nation of industrial resources, inhabited by an uneducated and half-breed population. To its credit it has international recognition and several years of warless existence. Its task is to solve severe problems dealing with stability, national unity, racial peace, popular education and, not loast, agrarian comfort and natural resources.

A century of disorder in Mexico has sanctioned frequent American intervention and more frequent threats of it. This policy has crystallized in the mind of the American, Industrialist with holdings in Mexico into the habit of appeal to the United States Government for security of his property. Such appeals are, in their essence, appeals to protect rights that the Mexican Government alone ought to be competent, not only to protect, but also to define; and are subversive to its every attempt to assert itself.

It is therefore unfortunate that Foreign Minister Saenz employs a legal fallacy in refuting the American allegation that Mexico has violated, by her land laws, a treaty of the Obregon administration, known as the Claims Commission agreement. Mr. Saenz replies that the Mexican courts will protect the treaty against any legislative infringement that may have occurred, as soon as a pertinent case arises for adjudication: It is the prevailing interpretation, however, that, as far as a nation's courts are concerned, a law subsequent to and infringing a treaty is valid, just as an ordinary repeal is valid. And all that is left of the treaty is the mere terms of its obligation enforceable by negotiation or, in extreme cases, by war.

It is to be hoped, then, that the United States will handle the negotiations with gloves, respecting the natural temper and the prestige of a government that is actually trying to make Mexico a nation. It is to be hoped that the false contention of the Mexican Foreign Minister will not be too aggressively held up to view; and that American interference will not be such as to jeopardize any chances of lasting peace on the southern border.