Modern Conception of Property

Rough and raucous Governor Vargas Lugo of the State of Hidalgo seized last week from its British owners the Cruz Azul Portland Cement factory, largest in Mexico, appraised for taxation at 1,000,000 pesos ($300,000).

Employes of Cruz Azul recently proposed to buy the plant, offered a down payment of 3% and future payments in correspondingly minute installments. When the owners refused this offer, Governor Lugo saw his chance to invoke for the first time his State's new Public Utility Expropriation Law, promulgated April 25. By plucking a group of Britons whose Government happens to be on the other side of the earth and headed by an avowed Pacifist, shrewd Governor Lugo hoped to set a precedent for plucking U. S. investors. The only questions were: 1) Is a cement factory a public utility? 2) Is Hidalgo's law constitutional in Mexico?

Having first seized the cement plant, Governor Lugo next answered these pressing questions:

"Public interest is absolutely preeminent. To quote from Article III of the law:'All . . . factories, industrial or commercial enterprises . . . are considered as of public welfare and consequently as an object of expropriation for the public welfare.'

"The company contends that our expropriation law is unconstitutional because it impairs the inviolability of private property. This conflicts with the modern conception of property and with contemporary laws. Property without limits would be tyrannical with respect to individuals and anarchical with respect to society."

In Hidalgo are the world's largest silver mines, owned by U. S. and British citizens, possible objects of expropriation.

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