But for all that, General Alvarado protested unfailing friendship for the peons and the Indians, grieved somewhat by their distrust of him, but pronouncing his devotion to their welfare in no measured terms. In his carrying out of his “socialistic” policies, he did not, however, consult their wishes or even their possibilities of development. His one panacea for the ills of the Indians was “land,” and land he and his imported advisers were determined to give them, no matter whether they wanted it or not. Never did the ideals of socialism, beautiful in themselves, have an uglier distortion. “Land distribution” is, as I have said, the crux of the protestations of all Mexican revolutionists. Upon the alleged land hunger of the Indians the revolutionists have based most of their appeals for foreign sympathy. The actual facts of the labor situation, in Mexico and especially in Yucatan, are therefore worth brief description in this connection. The so-called “peonage system” of Mexico goes back historically to pre-Spanish times. It is based on the psychological difficulty of obtaining continuous labor. Continuous labor being vital to such an industry as henequen growing, there flourished in Yucatan, previous to 1914, a system of indebtedness which was practically slavery. Laborers on the plantations were allowed to get into debt in order that they might be held on the plantations on the pretext of working out the advances which were made from time to time by the hacendados. These debts averaged about 200 pesos ($100) a man, and it is undoubtedly true that the system was the origin of wicked abuses, a plantation store credit system being devised to keep the peons always in debt, and workers being sold by the head for their debts. Confinement in barbed wire enclosures was common in some sections, and altogether the picture of the Yucatan situation especially was a very unlovely one.