THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October i, 1906. 



It has been the pleasant task of The India RuinmR 

 World, month after month, to record all these and 

 many other elements of growth and progress in the 

 trade. It is still remembered in the office that when the 

 publication of the paper was first proposed, there were 

 friends of the Editor who felt it to be a mistake, because 

 they thought he could never find matter enough in rela- 

 tion to rubber to fill its pages. On the other hand, it 

 has been a constant problem how to get within the lim- 

 its of the paper as full a review as was desirable of the 

 growth of the trade. 



It may interest .some readers to have the fact recalled 

 that when the first India Rubber World was printed, 

 raw rubber was "'high", having just advanced above 

 60 cents a pound for fine Para. A price so low as 60 

 cents has never again been recorded in our pages. 



THE NEW STUDY OF RUBBER. 



NO fact in connection with rubber culture is more 

 fruitful of promise than the disposition of students 

 of the scientific production of rubber, in Ceylon and else- 

 where, to learn the various uses to which rubber is put, 

 and the diiTerent processes of manufacture, with a view 

 to best adapting the raw material to its final disposal. 

 This seems perfectly logical, and yet it is not so very 

 many years since even manufacturers regarded rubber as 

 rubber, just as lead is simply lead. 



But the requirements of the rubber factory are numer- 

 ous and widely different, and the most successful man- 

 agement is that which best selects the grade or quality 

 of rubber suited to each particular u.se. If this is true, 

 it is none the less desirable that the producers of rubber 

 should have an intelligent idea of what is requisite in 

 high class material, to guide them in supplying the wants 

 of the factory. 



If a difference in methods of the coagulation or drying 

 of rubber, or its packing for shipment, or conditions of 

 storage, renders certain lots of rubber better or worse 

 than certain others, it is not intelligent plantation man- 

 agement to ignore the various details involved. Hence 

 we were pleased recently when Mr. Burgess, a govern- 

 ment expert in rubber in the Malay States, while on a 

 visit to Europe, devoted so much of his time to discuss- 

 ing with the manufacturers of rubber goods the qualities 

 which they desired iu their raw material for this, that, 

 and the other purpose. And Mr. Herbert Wright, whose 

 book on " Para Rubber" is reviewed elsewhere in this 

 issue, devotes serious attention to similar questions. 



If rubber is required for waterproofing or insulation or 

 motor tires or solution — what can the plantation mana- 

 ger do to give the manufacturer the raw material best 

 suited to his needs? But this study must not be left 

 to the rubber producer alone. 



It is equally encouraging to note the increasing ten- 

 dency among experts in rubber factories to study their 

 raw materials, not merely from the time of their arrival 



in the stock room, but from the moment of the extrac- 

 tion of latex from the rubber tree. There was a time, of 

 course, when the rubber manufacturer or liis superin- 

 tendent could not go further back than to the stock room 

 in dealing with the nature of different rubber .sorts. 



But now that .so much rtibber is being produced under 

 conditions which permit of careful scientific observation, 

 we may look forward to the time when the rubber manu- 

 facturer will insist upon a definite treatment of the latex 

 which enters into the rubber which he is to use, just as 

 certain consumers of rubber goods now order upon speci- 

 fications, rigid compliance with which they insist upon. 

 We have in mind at least one successful manufacturer, 

 on a large scale, who has given careful study to many 

 details in connection with the preparation of crude rul)- 

 ber who feels that he has derived great benefit therefrom, 

 and his example is w^orthy of a wide following. 



We do not doubt that a great advance in the rubber 

 industry would follow the organization of a Rubber Con- 

 gress, for the periodical discussion of the proper prepara- 

 tion of rubber, to be participated in by producers and con- 

 sumers, to the end that their interests in common be dis- 

 covered and defined. 



MR. ROOT'S SOUTHERN VISIT. 



SOUTH America is beginning to figure very much 

 more prominently on the world's stage. Some per- 

 son of distinction has said lately that it is to be "South 

 America's century," and the prediction seems likely to 

 be verified, just as the century last past was distin- 

 guished by the great development of our own United 

 States. While so many parts of the world are becoming 

 overcrowded, half the Western hemisphere remains 

 sparsely settled and almost non productive— a condition 

 which the world cannot permit long to continue. 



Discovered by the same Columbus, Nortli America 

 has become the home of vastly more people than South 

 America and a much more important industrial center, 

 but whatever may have been the predominating causes, 

 this wide difference is bound to disappear, as the whole 

 world tends more and more to approach a common 

 standard. 



The recent visit of Mr. Secretary Root, of the Wash- 

 ington cabinet, to the various South American capitals, 

 has been the means of bringing out expressions of 

 mutual sentiments of interest and esteem between Latin 

 America and the United States the sincerity of which 

 cannot be doubted. While his errand was by no means 

 commercial in its nature, whatever tends to bind two or 

 more countries together iu interest promotes commercial 

 intercourse among them. 



Not that the visit of a single high official will neces- 

 sarily be followed by larger trade relations between 

 North and South America, but the conditions which 

 called for such a visit, and which it hasl)een tlie means of 

 revealing to the world, point to new opportunities for the 



