6. TRANSPORTATION AND COM MUNICATION. Before the white man had set foot in Mexico the various nations then occupying what is now the Mexican republk had built many well-paved roads and innumer able mountain trails, in all probability better than the trails of to-day, if we are to judge them by their still existing remains, and by the ruins of the great and populous cities whose arteries they were. Following the Con quests, and as Spain gradually extended her power over her trans-Atlantic domains and as peace became established upon a firm basis, bringing with it an extension of trade, the neces sity for an extensive system of highways be tween the inland cities and the ports and be tween city and city became apparent. ' The Spanish government, ever alive to its own in terests, began the construction of the caminos reales, or king's highways, which, a century after the Conquest, had already connected to gether all the centres of commercial importance in New Spain.
Transportation Facilities of the Republic.
—Throughout the revolutionary period (1810 21) transportation facilities of every kind in Mexico were neglected, on account of the ac tivity of the revolutionists and the exhausted condition of the Spanish treasury after the Napoleonic wars. From 1821 to 1876, the new republic formed upon the ruins of the govern ment of New Spain was so occupied with its own local dissensions that it found little time to give to upbuilding of highways and byways of communication. Yet it was toward the dose of this period of unrest that the first railway was built in the republic. In 1854 a lithe con necting Mexico City and Guadalupe; a dis tance of three miles, had been constructed; and a year later Vera Cniz was connected with Tejeria (12 miles). These were the two ex treme ends of a railway by means of which it was proposed to give the capital an all-rail route to the first port of the republic. But so slow was the work of construction that it was not until 1873 that this comparatively short line (263 miles) was completed. Practically no other railway construction was undertaken in Mexico until after the election of Porfirio Diaz as president in December 1876. In No vember of the following year, the Secretary of Public Works signed a contract with James Sullivan and his associates for the construction of a railway line from the United States bor der to Mexico City, and from there to the Pa cific Ocean, But Sullivan found difficulty in get ting the capital necessary to build the proposed lines. In 1880 a strongly-subsidized concession was granted to the Mexican Central Railway Company, organized in Denver to build a wide gauge railway from El Paso to the Mexican capital; and about the same time the Sullivan concession was extended and rearranged so as to empower the holders thereof to construct a narrow-gauge railway from Mexico City to Laredo, on the Texas border. Both these lines were eventually built. From 1880 to 1898 hun dreds of railway concessions were granted by the Mexican government, most of them ac companied with subventions in cash, govern wept bonds and national, lands. Such a very active railway era was inaugurated that, in 1890, the government found it necessary to create the new Department of Communications and Public Works, at the head of which was a minister of the Cabinet. In 1898 Finance Minister Limantour announced that, in the fu ture, the government would give subventions only to roads of great political and financial importance. In the plan for railway exten sion laid down• by Mr. Limantour at this time were included a road to connect the centre of the republic with some Pacific Coast port, Guay mas or Topolobampo preferred: a line from the interior to Mazatlan; another from the interior to Manzanillo and a fourth to Acapulco. The plan also included lines to connect the capital with Acapulco and Tampico. The fol year a new general railway law was issued in order to co-ordinate the work of the Minister, of Finance and to govern the roads in existence and those being 'built. The most im
portant railway lines of the country were con structed between 1880 and 1890; after which very little building was done until Mr. Liman tour took matters in hand in 1898. By 1902 the following roads had been constructed: The Mexican Railway, connecting Mexico City with Vera Cruz; the Mexican Central, from El Paso to the Capital; the Mexican National, from Laredo to Mexico City; the Sonora Rail way, from Nogales to Guaymas; the Inter oceanic, from Mexico City to Vera Cruz; the Tehuantepec National, across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, from Coatzacoalcos . (Puerto Mexico) to Salina Cruz; the Mexican South ern,•from Puebla to Oaxaca; the United Rail ways of Yucatan; the Pan-American, from San on the Tehuantepec road, to a point in Mexico close to the border of Guate mala. In 1906 the Mexican government suc ceeded in uniting the two great railway lines, the Mexican National and the Mexican Central, with the 'National Railways of Mexico?' By 1908 the Mexican International, the Pan-Ameri can, the Vera Cruz and Pacific, the Interoceanic and the Tehuantepec National had been brought under the control of the government and in cluded under the foregoing title of the Na tional Railways of Mexico. During the revolu tionary period from 1910 to 1916 the railroads of Mexico suffered very greatly; much of the rolling stock was destroyed and bridges, stations and other buildings were burned or wrecked. In January 1915, according to a statement of the Mexican Minister of Railways, the total monthly income of the Mexican National lines was only 647,000 pesos (paper currency). But in August 1916 the • monthly income of these roads had risen to 25,000,000 pesos (paper cur rency). At the same time the transportation of freight had become almost normal, not withstanding the fact that the loss of the Na tional Railways for the fiscal year 1913-14 was $28,835,624, and for the following year $28,909,328. When the Carranza government undertook the management of the railways in June 1915, it had to face a deficit of $41,289,609 United States currency. Since then the railway income has steadily improved. In 1916 there were over 16,000 miles' of railway in operation in Mexico. Diming the fiscal year 1917-18 the total receipts of the Federal Railway was $72,000,000.
Postal Service.— In 1913 there were in Mex ico 2,917 post offices, branch post offices and postal agencies. In the postatl service of the re public about 15,260 miles of railway, 300 miles of street railway and 10,000 miles of steamship routes were in use for the distribution of postal matter. During the year domestic postal orders to the amount of $48,771,821, and foreign postal orders valued at $8,886,979 were issued. Dur ing the same period the other income of the postal service was $4,914,640. All the railroads of the country_ disposable were made use of in the postal service; and they were aided in the work of distribution by messengers, horses, mules and automobiles, on land; by river boats of the interior navigation service: and by some 23 steamship companies, ampng which were The Mexican Navigation Company, the Pacific Navigation Company, F. Leyland and Company, Limited; West Indian and Pacific; Imperial German Mail, the Harrison Line, the New York and Cuban Mail Steamship Com pany, the Munson Steamship Line, the Atlantic and Mexican Gulf, the Southern Steamshin and Banana Company. the Canadian Mexican At lantic Line, the Kosmos Line, the Chinese Im perial Steamship Company and the Toyo Kisin Kaisha, There were 158 traveling post offices, principally on trains. During the year 26 new post offices were opened to the public, The parcel post service, which was instituted a few years previous, has proved of great value and is, year by year, securing more patronage. The government proposes to extend the scone of this service and to make it of still greater utility. Consult Halsey, F. M., of South and Central America' (New'York 1914).