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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



| July i, 1903. 



plies to India, but that country is less suited to cotton 

 than the southern United States: the Straits Settlements 

 may yet supply English factories with India-rubber, be- 

 cause better suited than the Amazon valley as a home for 

 the white races ; but the time has not arrived when by a 

 mere act of parliament she can make Canada and Aus- 

 tralia her chief purveyors of food, for the reasons given 

 above and others. For these reasons the people of the 

 United States have given little concern to the proposed 

 new British tariff scheme. 



It may be added that the pending tariff legislation in 

 Germany will succeed, if at all, through the support of the 

 farming element there, which is assured protection no less 

 than the manufacturers. But if, as the ultimate result, 

 dearer food is threatened, the whole tariff proposal may 

 fall to the ground. The first requisite of every country is 

 food — at the lowest possible cost — and the most favorable 

 circumstance for the United States, bearing upon their 

 future as an industrial power, is that the country is depend- 

 ent upon no other for food, but always has a surplus for 

 export. 



RUBBER AND THE CONGO SYSTEM. 



*T^ 1 1 K king of the Belgians was reported lately to be 

 * about to visit London, on account of the action of 

 the British parliament calling for a conference of the Pow- 

 ers in relation to his administration of the Congo Free 

 State. King Leopold in London may be able to influence 

 the tenor of the note which King Edward's government is 

 about to send to the various parties to the treaty upon 

 which the Congo state is based. Or later, wherever he 

 may be, he may be able to offer a defense satisfactory to 

 the Powers. But apart from considerations of civilization 

 and of free trade on the Congo, the question is involved of 

 the future supply of rubber — for rubber really is the raison 

 d'etre of the Congo Free State. 



It will be remembered that the state, having declared 

 the whole rubber region " public domain," undertakes to 

 regulate the collection of rubber therein. The people of 

 the country, having had a "civilized " government placed 

 over them, must now pay taxes, and as they have no money 

 and produce nothing else that the state can use, they are 

 required to gather rubber to satisfy the tax collector. Be- 

 sides, the state has granted concessions of large areas to 

 trading companies on the basis of receiving half the prof. 

 its. The native is not allowed to tap rubber vines except 

 to pay his taxes, or lor sale to the trading companies. In 

 either event he is working for the state ; the price for his 

 rubber is fixed, and fixed very low, because there can be 

 no competitive buyers. The blacks have shown so little 

 inclination to work under these conditions that the state 

 has been obliged to provide a large armed force to give 

 them an incentive — an armed force, by the way, composed 

 always of natives of some other tribe than the workers to 

 be persuaded, unfriendly to them, and glad to become 

 their oppressors. It is by such severe measures that the 

 output of rubber from the Congo Free State has been in- 

 creased within a few years from nil to more than is pro- 



duced in any other country except Brazil, whose rubber 

 trade has existed for eighty years. Another explanation 

 of the rapid growth of the Congo trade is that under the 

 monopoly system such enormous profits have been made 

 as to spur the controlling spirits to their utmost efforts. 



The rubber consumer may or may not be concerned 

 about the cruelty of this system, forced upon helpless and 

 unoffending natives ; he may be indifferent to who profits 

 from the initial handling of the rubber. He cannot be 

 indifferent long, however, to the exhaustion of rubber 

 which the Congo system is bringing about. The natives 

 do not gather rubber long in one spot ; the same vine does 

 not long survive the heavy tapping necessary to meet the 

 combined requirements of a state hungry for taxes and 

 European companies hungry for dividends. Already the 

 dividends earned have repaid many times the original in- 

 vestment of capital, and when no more rubber can be 

 found the companies can well afford to retire from the 

 field, leaving only the rubber trade to suffer. 



The state, it is true, has given orders to guard against 

 exhausting the rubber, but this very action is proof that 

 the native supply is being killed off. The law requires 

 that for every 15 pounds of rubber exported a new rubber 

 vine shall be planted. But the law does not require that 

 these vines shall be forced to grow, or that anybody shall 

 stay and care for them 15 or 20 years, while this slow 

 growing species is becoming productive. Really very little 

 is known yet about the practicability of cultivating the 

 Landolphia, and of all projects yet suggested for rubber 

 cultivation, this compulsory wholesale planting on the 

 unsalubrious Congo is the least promising. The prob- 

 ability is that, when the wild rubber is all gone, the planted 

 slips or seedlings will be speedily deserted. 



The one hopeful feature of the case is that the Congo 

 system has not spread to other rubber regions. French 

 Congo — across the great river from King Leopold's do- 

 main — was parcelled out among concessionaire companies 

 after the great profits of the Belgian companies became 

 known, but no such profits were realized there, and many 

 of the concessions have been abandoned. The result might 

 have been different if armed rifles had been used to per- 

 suade the French Congo natives to gather rubber, and, 

 when it was gathered, to accept a penny a pound for it. 

 Fortunately for the rubber industry, the forests there re- 

 main largely unexplored and the same is still true of some 

 other parts of Africa. It is better for the world that this 

 rubber should thus remain in reserve, against the time 

 when the Congo Free State shall no longer yield rubber. 

 Then, when the craze produced by yearly dividends from 

 rubber of 100 to 500 per cent, is over, and the world is 

 forced to look elsewhere for new supplies, perhaps the new 

 fields will be opened under conditions that will insure a 

 permanent yield, instead of the wasteful system which now 

 feeds the Antwerp market. 



There is no need for worry over the (uture of the rubber 

 supply. When all the known sources have become exhausted 

 rubber will still be as plentiful as it is now. Science is pro- 

 gressive, and belore the limit of its development is reached, 



