The number of men employed in the mines at the present time is about two hundred thousand. Wages are low and average about fifty cents for common labour and one dollar for native miners in Mexican money. However, in recent years wages at the mines have had a tendency to rise. Mexico’s annual production of silver amounts to from $30,000,000 to $35,000,000 in gold value and gives it first place. As the price of silver is advancing, the production will no doubt be further stimulated. It now occupies fifth place in the production of gold, being exceeded only by the Transvaal, Australia, United States and Russia. The production of Mexico in 1906 reached a value of $15,000,000.
Many other minerals are found in Mexico. Perhaps the most valuable, next after gold and silver, is copper of which there are a number of rich deposits. In 1906, one hundred and thirty-five million pounds of copper were mined. When this is compared with a production of nine hundred and fifteen million pounds in the United States for the same period it is not a bad showing for Mexico. Iron is not generally distributed but there is a mountain of nearly ninety per cent. pure iron ore at Durango. Tradition says that the Indians first led the Spaniards to Durango by tales of a mountain of gold where the yellow metal sparkled on the surface. When they arrived at this mountain, now called Cerro del Mercado, they pointed to the outcroppings of pyrites which the ignorant natives thought—or pretended to think—were of the same metal that these strange white men had come across the unknown seas in search of. A little coal has been found but not in quantities sufficient for local consumption, so that considerable coal and coke are imported each year from England and the United States. Lead is found in large quantities, and most of the graphite used in the United States is imported from Mexico. The greatest development in recent years has been in the production of petroleum. Some of the most remarkable flowing wells in the world have been struck near Tampico. Great rivalry has resulted between the English and American interests, and the Mexicans have profited by it. Another profitable field has been found on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The total production for the year 1910 exceeded four million barrels. Several of the railways have already adopted this fuel.
Wonderful progress is being made in developing the mineral resources of this country, and it is possible that greater discoveries will yet be made. The wealth of Mexico to-day is not being squandered after the manner of many of the bonanza kings; but it is being spent along legitimate lines, and is one of the greatest aids in building up a strong republic and developing a nation of intelligent and liberty-loving citizens.
CHAPTER XVI
RAILWAYS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
A work upon Mexico would be incomplete without a description of the railways and the present progressive railway movement. Nothing has contributed in such a degree to the great progress that has been made in the last quarter of a century in Mexico, as the rapidly increasing railway lines. This is true not only of the influence these advance agents of progressiveness have had upon commerce, but they have enlarged the intercourse with other nations, especially with the United States. Through this means the dormant energies and ambitions of the Mexican people have been awakened, and a new era has dawned in our Latin neighbour.
The centres of population in Mexico have always been situated in the great central plateaus in the interior. Only a very small proportion of the population live on, or near the coast. Communication with the ports was over long, narrow and rough trails. The transportation of commerce was slow and expensive, and required great droves of slow-moving pack mules and patient burros, and whole armies of cargadors. Furthermore, the very isolation of the people and difficulty of communication kept them aloof from modern progress, and left them content with things as they were, with no ambition for anything more advanced or better than had been enjoyed by their forefathers. It also prevented the development of a real, national spirit, because one community was, in a true sense, not familiar with the neighbouring cities, and took a special pride in its local interests rather than in the idea of a homogeneous, strongly-centred whole.
So jealous were those employed in the business of transportation in the old crude way, that, in order to placate them, some of the earlier roads were obliged to commence construction at the point furthermost from the port, in order to give employment to these people in transporting the material from the port to the place of beginning. Those who are familiar with the great development of the west, since the construction of our own trans-continental lines, will better appreciate the change that railroad construction has wrought in Mexico. There is this difference, however, that the people were in Mexico before the railroads were built, and, instead of a newly-developed country it is a rejuvenated old country.
Prior to the beginning of the railway movement, Mexico was noted chiefly for its minerals. Now, although only a small portion of the mineral wealth has been dug out of the earth, mining has become of secondary importance. The increase in commerce and manufacturing, and the stimulus to agriculture brought about by these avenues of communication, have swelled the general wealth of the country far more than the millions of white metal extracted from old mother earth each year. Manufacturing plants have sprung up on every hand, and the products of the mills are increasing in volume and variety each year. Mexico could, probably, after a fashion, supply all the wants of her people without any imports from the outside world. The factories include almost every line of trade from the making of articles to adorn the outward man to the solid and liquid goods which cheer and sustain the inward man.