CHAP. 9.—LEGISLATION IN MEXICO 75
misions to proceed carefully and judiciously in order to avoid the
necessity of revision.!®
Reviewing the Mexican situation as regards minimum wages, both
the facts and the law are extreme, but in opposite directions. Wages
are extremely low, but the law adds guaranty to guaranty for the
workers—a minimum wage for all classes of workers without exception;
 obligatory profit sharing; arbitration, compulsory for the
employers but not for the workers; right of a majority of workers
n cach enterprise to declare a strike, and prohibition for a minority
to break the strike. The one-sided character of these legal stipulations
 can not be denied; when their role—that of eliminating the
extremely low wages—is fulfilled, public opinion may be expected
to bring about new provisions. The point of interest here is whether
the minimum wage for all occupations is to be counted among the
merely provisional rules of a revolutionary period, destined to
vorrect evils recognized as such by public opinion.
Examination of the State minimum wage laws shows that they
do not contain one-sided stipulations like those in the Federal constitution
 as to awards or those of the Federal law of December 30, 1925,
on “liberty to work,” prohibiting the replacement of strikers (see
p. 74). The minimum wage laws of all the States are bilateral in
character ; they are very similar, both in machinery and scope, to those
of Victoria, Australia, which have remained in operation for many
years, approved by all portions of public opinion. The passage of
such laws in one Mexican State after another and the passage in the
Federal Chamber of Deputies of a minimum wage bill relating to the
Federal District many years after the Federal constitution of 1917
show that public opinion is steadily, though slowly, growing toward
more practical application of general principles. There seems evidence
 for the assumption that the general minimum wage laws of
Mexico will be of a permanent character.

1 Bulletin of the Pan American Union, Washington, July, 1923, p. 92.
109931°--—28——@