Most studies of relations between government and organized labor in Mexico stand firmly on the supposition that the Revolution of 1910 marked a sharp break with the past. The labor policies of the Díaz regime have alternately been described as either brutally repressive or as neutral and aloof in keeping with nineteenth century liberal doctrine (especially before 1906). If either of these somewhat contradictory characterizations are true, then the case for discontinuity in labor policies is clearly confirmed.

This essay will argue that neither description of labor policies during the Díaz regime is accurate. Rather, patterns of interaction between the Díaz government and urban working class organizations, especially in Mexico City, shaped the evolution of the Mexican labor movement and national labor policy along lines followed ever since. The Díaz government developed a flexible and sophisticated array of labor policy instruments that was based upon cooperation with and subsidies to progovernment labor organizations as well as political rewards and the other fruits of cooptation for labor leaders loyal to the regime. With its labor allies, the Díaz government promoted modes of organization which retarded labor militancy, sponsored informal as well as official mediation between workers and employers during strikes and other conflicts, and disseminated propaganda and instituted educational programs, including pro-government labor newspapers and schools for the working class, designed to promote labor's identification of its own well-being with the interests of the state. While the Revolution of 1910 and the later developments of the Cárdenas era institutionalized statelabor relations as never before, the objectives and instrumentalities of contemporary labor relations have their origin in the Porfiriato.

This study explores the convergent ground of two separate research projects: an analysis of the role of the state of Pernambuco in the Brazilian federation between 1889 and 1937, and a forthcoming study of the Recife Law School. The first part of this presentation will discuss the definition of the political elite, describe its composition, and examine the theme of continuity and change over the period of study. The second part will focus on the Law School per se, the principal vehicle for the training of the political elite.

Pernambuco's political elite constitutes less a model for other Brazilian states than a phenomenon specific to Pernambuco's own historical role. This elite may be examined systematically, although only in the broadest sense. For one thing, its membership never remained static, but changed constantly according to the ebb and flow of political life. Relative power within an elite is not easily measurable; nor does there exist a single elite; rather, one observes a fluid set of power relationships, arrayed vertically according to levels of influence and authority, and horizontally from small urban interest nuclei through local elites to subgrous scattered across regional, economic, and social networks.

In an age of fiscal and administrative reform, the army of New Spain stood out as an irredeemable drain on the treasury as well as a nightmare for bureaucrats and military planners. No knowledgeable observer could possibly advocate a continuation of the haphazard defenses of previous decades, but there were very few other points of agreement. From the perspective of the mother country, Mexicans had to recognize the need to defend themselves. The British conquests of Canada, the Floridas, and the temporary occupation of Havana, underscored the dangers and the possibilities of Mexicans losing their possessions and liberties. Naturally, the full burden of military finance and service would fall upon the residents of the viceroyalty, not to mention the growing costs of the annual subsidies (situados) sent to help pay for the defense of less advantaged possessions in the Caribbean, Central America, and the Philippines. The problem was how to prevent the army of New Spain from becoming a voracious consumer of money without offering much in the way of a standing defense force. In 1762 for example, Viceroy Marqués de Cruillas spent 3,398,471 pesos extraordinary funds without managing to get the fortifications at Vercruz into a state of readiness or a proper force to defend them. Most viceroys, inspectors general, and senior staff officers confronted with the task of having to inspect Mexican units catalogued a long list of failures. They described a history of constnatly changing military policies that achieved little other than to waste hundreds of thousands of pesos each decade while entrenching numerous chronic defects.

French Catholicism inspired one of the most ambitious missionary movements in the history of Roman Catholicism in the nineteenth century. French missionaries went to Latin America to build a new Church. In France, new missionary societies were founded for this task. Older, established religious societies were renewed in order to participate in the missionary movement of the day. French missionaries travelled across the globe establishing a network of missions linking the continents to France, and France to Rome. The missionary revival constituted the leading edge of religious renewal sweeping Europe and France during the nineteenth century.

The Latin American Church was especially receptive to French religious currents. Latin American religious leaders were preoccupied with internal struggles and absorbed with social and political conflicts. They disposed of few resources and of limited energy for evangelization and religious renewal within their newly-formed nations. The French were anxious and able to supply what was needed in Latin America. The French saw the missionary challenge as a struggle against secularization and liberalism, even though that battle was far from over within France itself.

William L. Sherman has written a good book on the personal service of the Indians, a theme so important in the society of Spanish America but here limited to Central America.

Series of studies exist on this topic for the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru but Central America, the intermediate region, has received only sporadic attention. Now it receives an impressive and more complete study, based on documents from the archives of Central America and Spain: actas de cabildo, letters, official depositions, law suits, juicios de residencia and notarial registers. Both the old and modern bibliography is cited, with some omissions.

In his volume, Professor Sherman includes all the distinct institutional forms of Indian labor. The first is Indian slavery either as the result of war or barter. This section enlarges our understanding of that topic for the entire region. Of special interest is the trade in Honduran Indians to the Antilles and those of Nicaragua to Panama and Peru. The Peruvian sources consulted are limited. In this connection, he recalls (p. 387, note 11), even though the matter does not concern Central America, the exportation of the Indians from the Province of Panuco in New Spain to the Spanish Islander of the Caribbean.