February i, 1907.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



139 



in minerals, the mining of which on a large scale has 

 awaited the coming of better means of transportation. 

 Whatever may be the motive for building railways in 

 Bolivia, their operation can hardly fail to promote the 

 gathering of rubber, for which reason there is reason 

 to congratulate the trade over the fact that N^ew York 

 capitalists are now projecting rail lines meant to make 

 both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts more accessible 

 from Bolivia. 



At the same time some very important railway ex- 

 tension is being promoted in the Congo country — 

 primarily with a view to reaching mineral regions, but 

 at the same time calculated to bring new rubber fields 

 within closer reach. The British, who have stimulated 

 the East African rubber trade by building the Uganda 

 railway, will likely do something in the same line by 

 railway building in Nigeria, just as the French have 

 done in their West African colonies. 



The point which we desire to make is that some of 

 the greatest natural rubber fields are becoming much 

 less remote, and under circumstances which promise 

 rubber in greater plenty, if not at a lower cost. As 

 everybody knows, the crux of the matter has been 

 the limited supply of labor in many of the rubber 

 states. Railway lines doubtless will prove the entering 

 wedge of new conditions, under which life in those 

 regions will be more tolerable for imported labor — for 

 rubber gatherers as well as miners and traders. Much 

 of the Amazon country to-day doubtless is as well 

 adapted for the residence of Europeans as the Missis- 

 sippi valley was 300 years ago,' and we doubt very 

 much that as many years will be required for making 

 the South American States as populous as those on the 

 Mississippi now are. 



The pages of The India Rubber World this month present a 

 somewhat changed appearance, which we trust will be appreciated 

 by our readers no less than the typographical dress with which 

 they have been familiar for so many years. The change has been 

 made necessary by the changing conditions in the printing trade, 

 which, like all other branches of modern industry, never stands 

 still. It may be that, when this issue comes out in its completed 

 form, the result will not be as handsome as we have hoped, but in 

 any event w'e shall constantly strive to improve the paper in ap- 

 pearance as well as in its scope and the character of its contents. 

 It may be added that the paper, in its new dress contains more 

 reading matter than formerly. 



More than one million pounds of rubber was shipped from 

 the plantations in Ceylon and the Federated Malay States during 

 1906. This could not have realized less than $1,000,000 (gold) 

 for the planters. .\t the fortnightly auctions held in London 

 the average obtained for all grades of plantation rubber sold 

 ranged, at different dates, from 5 shillings [=$i.2i->^] to ss. lid. 

 [^$1.44] per pound, and the average for the whole year was 

 cosiderably more than 5 shillings. Several planters have esti- 

 mated their net profits on cultivated rubber at more than $1 a 

 pound, and no doubt correctly. It is not easy always to figure 

 the cost of produce on a new plantation, but if the actual cost 



were taken in the present case, it probably would not be ex- 

 travagant to say that a handful of Far Eastern rubber planters 

 have pocketed $1,000,000 in I'rr.tlis ,.1. l-i-t year's crop, and this is 

 only a beginning. 



The progressiveness of our neighbors in Canada has never 

 been questioned. They were not long behind the United States 

 in developing a rubber industry, and a new article of manufacture 

 in this branch is no sooner introduced south of the border line 

 than it is taken up by the enterprising factories in the Dominion. 

 The population up there is still much smaller than ours, but it is 

 growing, and its tendencies are in many ways like those in Uncle 

 Sam's domain. The latest indication of this is the disposition of 

 the Canadian newspapers to indulge so freely in talk about a "rub- 

 ber trust," just as our own newspapers have been doing. And, 

 more than this, the work of consolidating the control of rubber 

 factories over the border seems to be in progress. 



The tendency of trade to follow the flag is illustrated of 

 late by the gravitation of most of the rubber produced in the 

 French colonies to the markets of Havre and Bordeaux, just as 

 Portuguese rubber has long gone to Lisbon. The Congo Free 

 State production to Antwerp and that from the British colonies 

 to London and Liverpool. We do not know that any complaint 

 can justly be made of this tendency, and it is referred to here 

 only to point out that the greater the diversification of the crude 

 rubber market, between the ports mentioned and others, the more 

 impracticable becomes the dream of "cornering" the world's supply 

 of rubber. 



If we are to have many more "open" winters the rubber 

 trade may begin to doubt the wisdom of the adage about shoe- 

 makers sticking to their last. It may be decided to be better 

 policy for every, rubber manufacturer to adopt such a diversity 

 of production as to render him independent of any possible 

 weather conditions. For instance, when there is not enough 

 snow to cause a lively demand for overshoes, it would be con- 

 venient to be prepared to make tires, the consumption of which 

 is greater in a winter favorable to motoring all season. 



Mexico may yet become one of the great centers of rubber pro- 

 duction from wild trees of the CastiUoa species, plantation rubber 

 of the same variety, and the now much talked of "guayule" rubber. 

 And a few days ago there was offered for sale at Antwerp a ton 

 of the "palo amarillo" (yellow tree) product. Now that the 

 rubber culture has become so firmly established there, what reason 

 exists for doubting that ultimately every important rubber pro- 

 ducing species may be domesticated in some part of Mexico — 

 the Heveas and all the rest? 



A SNOWLESS winter MAKES A FINE HARVEST tiUe for the waste 

 rubber trade, particularly as cast-off rubber footwear still consti- 

 tutes the most important basis for reclaiming rubber. The less 

 snow, the fewer rubber shoes worn and thrown away, and the 

 .scarcer and higher priced the waste rubber collected in the coming 

 spring. Rubber shoe manufacturers and dealers who find such a 

 winter as the present has been detrimental to their profits, might 

 do well to take on as a side line the business of dealing in old 

 rubber. 



It is ch.\racteristic of modern industrial methods that they 

 permit nothing to go to waste. It was thought that a great 

 advance had been made when means were discovered of reclaim- 

 ing rubber from worn out and discarded goods, and rightly, 

 since this invention has been worth untold millions to the world. 

 But now further progress has been made, in the prevention of 

 waste, through a discovery whereby even the textile fibres in old 

 rubber goods are rendered commercially valuable. 



