Carranza, when he became president of Mexico, cast envious eyes toward the oil fields, and sought to make them his own, for loot and for graft, and not for conservation, be it noted here. He “nationalized” petroleum, by his new constitution, and tried to force the companies to give up their properties. They did not surrender, in fact or in principle, and for five years have fought for their rights, and for what they believe is the hope of oil development in all the backward lands of the globe. In 1919 Carranza stopped the drilling of new wells, in an effort to force the companies to submit to his decrees, and not until Tepetate and Juan Casiano went to salt water and the tax returns of nearly $30,000,000 a year (at that time) were direly threatened, did he give temporary permits for drilling. He might fight for the nationalization of the oil, but he was routed by the danger to the vast sum upon which he ran his government and upon which his generals and favorites fattened and grew rich. Thus in the oil fields drilling has been resumed. But off the “line” there is virtually no drilling, none of the “wild-catting” which is the life of the oil industry. Until the new government, if it ever does of its own free will, loosens the death-grip of Carranza, the oil industry will remain paralyzed and confined to its narrow, shrinking bed between Tampico and Tuxpam. But why does Mexico go on? Why does she see so little of the way before her? The situation is complicated by many factors, two of which stand out in relief. These are the support given the Carranza ideas first by the British companies and second by some new American companies. The British needs in Mexico have from time to time been identical with the American, and then the two have worked together, but the British occupy a peculiar position, going back to the Madero revolution of 1910-11. At that time the Mexican Eagle company (which is a Mexican corporation) was caught with a number of the old Diaz “reactionaries” as its company officials, and it was also the holder of the hated Diaz “concessions.” As a result it had to walk the chalk line very carefully under both Madero and Carranza, a condition which has always made its position weaker than the American. The large local business of the Eagle Company, in refined gasoline and oils, as well as in fuel oil, has also complicated the matter. It was due to these and similar factors that the Eagle Company placed itself under the “protection” of the Carranza decrees when they were first issued, although with protests, both legal and diplomatic. With a single American exception, the English interests were the only ones which gave any comfort to those early Carranza plans. Upon their support the former president built many of his subsequent activities, including the ruling on drilling permits. He gave these permits to the Eagle Company without conditions, at the very time withholding them from the “unfriendly” Americans under a