Bisbee daily review., 1910-09-04

ment must be measured not only by dollars and cents, but by the scale on which the American mining and smelling operations are conducted. This involves the concentration of population at certain centers under distinctly American influences. which at times create disquietuoe in the public mind.
 But the investments made by the United States in Mexican mines are insignificant as compared with the money which this country nas con tributed to the building of Mexican railroads. Looking backward to the progress Of railroad building in the Republic. we find that the first rail road, that from Vera. Cruz to the City of Mexico, owed its existence to English enterprise; and though in the interval between that date and today most of the railroad work has been done by Americans, the latest completed road. that across the 18th mus of Tehuantepec, with it's well equipped termini on the Atlantic and Pacific. has been built for and leased from the Mexican government by an English firm. As soon, however, as the Santa Fe railroad reached Fl Paso, the Mexican Central was com menced as road. allied to the San la Fe. and built from Fl Paso to the City of Mexico between 1882 and 1884. And the Santa Fe railroad it. self subsequently reached the Gulf Of California at Guaymas by the So nora railroad. This branch of the Santa Fe, however. terminated at Benson, on the Southern Pacific in Arizona, and has since been secured by the Southern Pacific in exchange for a California connection. It thus has become the nucleus of the ex- tensiye system which the Southern Pacific Is now building along the West coast of Mexico with the ob- ject not only of traversing the deltas of the Yaqui. Mayo and Fuerte rivers and reaching their boundless agri- cultural possibilities. and Of develop ing the mineral wealth of Sonora and Sinaloa, but of linking the capital and the Platean states with the Western states. It will thus afford to the re- public the same political and indus- trial unity which the trans-continen- tai roads have given to the United States. In the eighties, while the Mexican Central was building, Gen eral Palmer proposed to connect the Denver & Rio Grande with a system of 26-inch roads from Laredo south ward into Mexico. then called the Mexican National It was designed to perform the same service for mines in the mountain districts of northeastern Mexico as his road was giving to Colorado miners. His com plete program was never carried out, and the Mexican National has since been converted into a broad gauge and become government property. Another railroad crossing the frontier into Mexico was built in that same early period by MT. Huntington to connect his Southern Pacific at Eagle Pass with the coal mines of Coahuila. This has been extended to Torreon, the city of Durango, and the city of Mechis, and now forms one of the members of the combination of rail roads controlltd and operated by the government as the National railways of Mexico. At present. besides the Southern Pacific system, Stilwell's Orient road Is designed to connect Kansas City, through Chihuahua. with Topolobampo. on the Pacific, and meanwhile a company Is, with Ameri- ca. Canadian and English capital, car rying out Mir. Greene's railroad and numbering schemes in the Sierra
 Madre on a most extensive scale.
 Of the 24,142 kilometers of steam
 railroad already constructed in Mexi- co not including private roads, only
 2s00 kilometers have been built by
 European capital. 1530 kilometers by
 the Mexican government or native
 corporations. and the balance. say 19 900 kilometers, have been built by
 American capital. But though the government built less than 2o00 kilo
 meters, they now control no less than
 1f,S2S kilometers, or nearly one
 half of the total mflage, and operate
 all of the roads they control. with
 slight exceptions.
 Like the government of Belgium
 and some other European states. the
 Mexican government grants to the
 concessionaire simply lease of thei,
 own road for one hundred years. The !roadbed and all immovable property lthen passes into the possession o1
 the government. the rolling stoci
 alone to be paid for at a valuation
 Now. the policy of the government
 seems to be to obtain control of al
 the principal railroad thoroughfare, lin advance of the expiry of the con
 cessfons, and as the terms they have Ioffered to the security holders O
 such roads as have already been ac ,quired are fair and even liberal, no |only has the transfer been made