Mexico has, therefore, well established all the machinery of a republic, wherein equal rights of man and the sovereignty of the people are well set forth. How do these excellent methods and theories work out in practice as regards the social system and inhabitants? A republic in name, Mexico shares with Spanish-American countries generally, social conditions which are far from being embodied in the real meaning of that designation. It is not necessary to dwell much upon this palpable fact, and its reason is not far to seek. The communities of the New World which Spain conquered were inhabited by inferior peoples who were easily enslaved, or who were already subject to autocratic forms of government. Every Spaniard who arrived there--were he a noble of Castile or a common boor from his native Iberian province--was full of the arrogance and superiority, sometimes fancied, generally real, of the civilised European, and this spirit burst into full bloom amid the environment of such countries as Mexico and Peru. Thus an autocratic race was established whose class distinctions are as strong and enduring as those of the most class-ridden countries of Europe. It would be impossible to expect other conditions yet, with a great mass of the people being of Indian race, and coming on almost imperceptibly towards civic knowledge and intellectual advancement. Scarcely 13 per cent. of the total population can read and write, whilst as to the labouring classes they are only just beginning to show any advancement along lines of modern civilisation. Nevertheless the Government of the country has their welfare at heart, and in the last quarter of a century has regarded the working classes and Indians as citizens with rights rather than mere material for revolutionary struggle, as was formerly the case. The Mexican people having always been sharply divided into two classes, an upper and a lower; a middle-class, such as in Europe or the United States forms the great bulk of intelligent citizens, tends but slowly to appear, and it is this which must be encouraged to arise and to absorb the aboriginal element. [Illustration: THE MEXICAN PEONES: STREET SCENE AT CORDOVA.]