form, but followed the laissez-faire policy in economics. The bad results of this course are evident in (1st) distribution of the land, and (2nd) disposal of the disbanded army.
The decree of 1856 failed in its object of establishing small farms and served instead to ground a new land-owning aristocracy. This might have been prevented by limiting the size of holdings or putting into execution a law, passed in that year, which says: "the right of property consists in the occupation or possession of the land, and these legal requisites cannot be conferred unless the land be worked and made productive."[1]
The decree of 1856 also destroyed communal property owned by villages and towns. "The aborigines (Indians) were swiftly transferred from a system of communal to individual ownership for which they lacked preparation—no means whatever was taken to finance the laborers and small agriculturalists nor were laws enacted to render impossible the prompt sale of their lands."[2] No attempt was made to utilize the communal customs of the Indians by developing collective agriculture and irrigation so much needed in Mexico. Neither did the government take steps to introduce modern farm implements and method.
There was no plan for disposal of the disbanded army. Diaz took advantage of this and, after seizing the government, organized the dissatisfied military element into a constabulary for maintaining his dictatorship.
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