In the new “Constitution of 1917,” which is literally the most radical written constitution of any country in the world to-day, the chief, if not the only object was to make difficult the operation of foreigners in any line of business in the country. The laws against their holding land are drastic and final in their import; no foreigner may own property within sixty miles of the border or within thirty miles of the sea; foreigners may not control a Mexican corporation formed for the purpose of holding such land unless they waive their citizenship rights with respect to such companies; great estates are prohibited, so that true agricultural industry is made virtually impossible; foreign plans for irrigation projects--the one hope of the Mexican farmer--are nipped and killed; most serious of all, such lands are virtually confiscated through nationalization projects which have already been applied to many great properties, some of them of foreigners, and have been kept from affecting others only by active diplomatic protest. But, the casual observer of things Mexican asks, how is it that business still continues? How is it that the oil companies to whom, we are told, these nationalization laws especially apply, how is it that the oil companies are still doing business, are still drilling wells and taking out oil? Does this not mean that these laws are merely provisions against a revival of the abuses of the old days? These are the questions that occur, as the Mexicans planned them to occur, to the outside observer. The Mexicans assure us that this is truly the case, but the effect of the laws is very different. Their effect is to place all business, Mexican and American, foreign oil wells and native merchants alike, in the status of receiving the _privilege_ of doing business, in place of the _right_ of doing business. In effect they make every foreigner in Mexico, from the missionaries who conduct services contrary to the law of the land which prohibits foreigners from officiating as priests before their own altars to the oil men who dig wells under permits wheedled out of a grasping government department, law-breakers or receivers of special and “pernicious” privilege. To-day no business man can defend his rights before the courts of Mexico, for all rights, even the common rights of corporate business, are in some way or another contradictory to the laws of the land. They receive privilege, and privilege in great and generous measure--if they are friendly to the ruling group or their satellites. They receive privilege by the grace of government, not rights by the power of government. Government theoretically exists for the protection of the weak, but government in Mexico exists actually for the exploitation of the strong by officials and for the suppression of the weak if the strong want and can pay for such suppression.