A general immigration law was passed several years ago which has been supplemented by other laws since that time. At the outset immigration contracts with the Chinese are prohibited and the latter are not to be accepted as immigrants. The purpose of this is to insure white immigration and to prevent cheap coolie labor of a temporary character interfering with settlers who wish to establish themselves permanently. Immigrants are described as those foreigners having a profession, occupation or trade, whether day laborers, artisans, workingmen in factories, farmers or professors, who give up their own homes to come and settle in Guatemala and accept their transportation to be paid either by the Guatemalan government or by an immigration company. Immigrants also include the foreigners whose transportation is not paid by the government or by private companies. The wearing apparel and household furniture, tools, domestic animals and other possessions of immigrants are entered at the custom-house free of duty. An important provision authorizes the government to grant gratuitously to immigrants lots of public lands in certain districts provided that the immigrants bind themselves to cultivate within two years the third part of the land granted. For this purpose zones of tillable land are set apart in the districts named. Immigrants are exempted for a period of four years after their arrival from service in the construction or repair of the public roads and from the payment of municipal taxes. They are also exempted from military service except in the case of foreign war. They enjoy all the rights and privileges granted by law to Guatemalan citizens. PUBLIC LANDS FOR SETTLERS. Under a general law a body of official engineers was created for surveying and distributing the uncultivated public lands and fixing the prices therefor. The price varies according to the nature of the land, whether it is for grazing, raising cereals; whether capable of raising sugar, banana, etc.; whether adapted to coffee and cotton, or whether it contains forests. Public lands may also be granted to immigrants gratuitously. Information on these points can be had through correspondence with the Department of Agriculture called "Dirección General de Agricultura," in Guatemala City. President Estrada Cabrera's land policy has been directed especially to prevent great areas from being kept out of cultivation. He has dictated many measures with the purpose of breaking up the huge estates that often are uncultivated for want of capital and making them productive through the encouragement of small capitalists or farmers. The general system of highways and cart roads as well as of the railroads has been devised for this purpose.