LATIN AMERICA: Largest Landowner

William Randolph Hearst, largest individual landowner in Mexico, has filed a formal protest with the State Department at Washington against the threatened seizure of his Barbicora ranch of 333,000 acres by the Farm Commission of the state of Chihuahua.

Mr. Hearst’s manager, William Ferris, spent a month in Mexico City, negotiating with the Government, and left abruptly. On Mr. Hearst’s visit to Mexico, he appealed to the American authorities to prevent new taxes on his 1,000,000-acre ranch, extending through the three states of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas. Taxation was levied on the Vera Cruz portion alone.

The protest in Washington places his estates on the list of seized properties discussed by the Recognition Conference, just at the moment when it was thought that the most difficult of the problems discussed were on the way to solution.