330 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August i, 1907. 



establishments growing from small beginnings made 

 by an inventor starting in alone to market some prod- 

 uct of his skill or ingenuity. But these are exceptions 

 rather than the rule. In modern manufacturing, 

 whereas the basis of numberless concerns is some 

 particular invention, generally patented, the inventor 

 is not generally seen at the head of the management 

 or contributing to it in an important degree. 



Any reader can recall instances of inventors who 

 feel that fate has dealt harshly with them — if not un- 

 justly — owing to their failure to reap the lion's share 

 of profits realized from an industry for which some 

 idea of theirs formed the original germ. But manu- 

 facturing is a singularly complex business, requiring 

 talents of many kinds, and above all is an intensely 

 practical business. And the mere fact that a man 

 has devised a machine that will enable one man to do 

 the work which before employed twenty does not 

 necessarily prove him a "practical" man. At least it 

 does not prove him capable of making the machine 

 economically or creating a market for it. It does not 

 imply capacity to organize and direct working forces 

 on a large scale ; it does not involve the ability to 

 finance an extensive business. None will gainsay the 

 ability of Mr. Edison, for example, for he ranks as the 

 greatest of the world's army of inventors. But none 

 will concede more readily than Mr. Edison that he is 

 not a "business man." His forte is the development 

 of new practical applications of science — not in di- 

 recting a factory or finding outlets for its products. 

 And so with most other inventors of high and low 

 degree. The deriving of a commercial reward for 

 their work calls for other forms of talent perhaps as 

 marked as their own. 



One trouble about the inventor at the head of a fac- 

 tory is that its products are apt never, to his mind, to 

 be completed or perfect. While the commercial type 

 of man will seize upon an invention as it stands and 

 devote his mind singly to the work of finding a mar- 

 ket for it, the original creator of the machine or 

 device would be likely, if in charge of the business, to 

 have his mind full of ideas of improving the article 

 and be found constantly experimenting. The thing 

 for the average inventor to do, therefore, is to stick to 

 his inventing and seek to interest in his work men 

 who are capable as manufacturers, salesmen, and 

 financiers, not forgetting to seek a business man's 

 advice in making any agreement as to his ultimate 

 share in the profits. 



has become an importer on a large and increasingly 

 heavy scale." This applies both to manufactures and 

 to farming. From all over Europe the industrial 

 forces of Germany are being recruited, under the new 

 era there that provides work for everybody at home 

 and for more, whereas it is not so long since a great 

 problem was that of finding elsewhere room for the 

 surplus German population. 



Of course the influx of foreign labor means that 

 labor is better paid in German}- to-day than in the 

 regions from which the immigration is drawn ; in other 

 words, that a better standard of living is possible to be 

 maintained there as the reward of labor. One result 

 will be that any advantage in favor of Germany in 

 competition with some other manufacturing countries 

 — America, for example — on account of a low wage 

 scale will gradually disappear. On the other hand, 

 the industrial leaders of Germany, aided by the bene- 

 fits of widespread technical education, may be counted 

 upon to strive to prevent any other country from ex- 

 celling them in the matter of processes and methods. 



The fact that Germany is importing men, consid- 

 ered from another viewpoint, means that she is ex- 

 porting on a rapidly growing scale the products of 

 skilled labor and thus realizing a profit from supply- 

 ing an increasing share of the manufactured wares 

 needed by the world at large. The importance of 

 her position as a competitor in any branch of industry 

 cannot be ignored. 



To take a single example of industrial expansion in 

 Germany, one may note the growth in the consump- 

 tion of india-rubber in that country, which, according 

 to estimates made by the Guinmi-Zeitimg, amounted 

 to only 673 tons in 1858; 1989 tons in 1872; 3329 tons 

 in 1889, and 13.542 tons in 1905. This increase is ac- 

 counted for only in part by the greater use of rubber 

 goods in Germany ; an increasingly important item is 

 the consumption of German made rubber goods 

 abroad. 



GERMANY'S INDUSTRIAL GROWTH. 



IN a published interview credited to Count von Posa- 

 dowsky-Wehner, lately of the imperial German 

 ministry, that statesman emphasizes the change that 

 has come about in his country, whereby "Germany 

 has definitely ceased to be an exporter of men and 



SOME NEW RUBBER FACTS (?). 



IN view of The Indl.\ Rubber World having been 

 among the first to commend the practical value 

 of the United States consular reports as now prepared 

 and published, and of its being to this day second to 

 none in appreciation of the work of the consular ser- 

 vice, we may be allowed, we hope, to criticize these 

 reports now and then without prejudice to the system 

 as a whole. It is taken for granted that the consuls 

 do not assume to be experts on the thousand and one 

 subjects that come under their notice — and their pens 

 — but we fail to see what harm could come from in- 

 cluding somewhere in the consular administration a 

 little more expert knowledge of every day topics than 

 is sometimes apparent, in order to guard against ab- 

 surd utterance*;. 



