"Bald, Unadulterated"

To Secretary of State Hull's stiff note in July, demanding payment by Mexico for $10,132,388 worth of farms and ranches expropriated from U. S. owners, or at least arbitration of the claims (TIME, Aug. 1), the Mexican people paid little attention. The Government of bold President Lazaro Cardenas, feeling sure that Mr. Hull did not mean business, said in its reply: 1) that the matter was not subject to international arbitration since Mexico's own laws require eventual payment; 2) that to arbitrate U. S. claims would be unfair to Mexican claimants, who have not been told when or what they will be paid.--*

To this double negative, Secretary Hull last week, again with the help of Under Secretary Sumner Welles's forceful pen, dispatched an answer. He declared that expropriation without compensation is "bald . . . unadulterated confiscation"; that Mexico's attitude was alien to the constitutions and undermined confidence in the fair dealing of all 21 Republics of the Western Hemisphere; that Mexico ought at least to stop expropriating the lands of U. S. owners, agree to a two-man (U. S. and Mexican) commission to fix values, and start putting aside some cash to pay for lands already taken or to be taken in future.

Mr. Hull made no threat, but again his language was uncharacteristically strong: "Astonishing theory," "the proposition scarcely requires answer" etc. And his new words, widely read in Mexico, filled Mexicans with indignation and foreboding.

In neither note did Mr. Hull mention President Cardenas' far larger expropriations of foreign-owned oil properties. These seizures, resulting in grave loss of markets and taxes, have undermined Mexico's national currency to a cracking point (TIME, Aug. 29). The Hull-Welles stratagem of confining their claims to "small" U. S. interests was adopted partly to avoid charges of Imperialism, also partly to give Senior Cardenas a graceful out. But Mexico's President has no easy out. In Mexico's economic crisis he needs U. S: comfort and support. He also needs the powerful support of Mexico's left-wingers, who regard President Roosevelt's New Deal and "Good Neighbor" policy as handy shields for their radical designs. To them it still looked like a good bet that Secretary Hull would spare the rod rather than spoil the good neighbors. At week's end, President Cardenas appeared to be casting about for a way to meet Secretary Hull's terms without losing face at home.

Good Neighbor or not, Secretary Hull seemed to have resigned himself to the necessity of speaking bluntly to recalcitrants. Last week he had Ambassador Grew in Tokyo strongly protest Japan's shooting down of a Chinese-U. S. airliner in China.

--*One Mexican who has been paid is Gabino Vazquez, chief of the Federal Agrarian Department For his expropriated farm and 50 cows in suburban Atzcapozalco, President Cardenas let him have 100,000 gold pesos.

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