36 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November i, 1905. 



ploitation of Amazon rubber yields profits to the people 

 concerned in it, else the supply would cease. No doubt, 

 also, many operators and investors suffer losses, just as is 

 true in gold mining. And these losses are most apt to fall 

 upon people who live abroad, or who have not become 

 familiar with the business as a result of costly experience. 

 Hence it is not strange that rubber concessions find so 

 few ready buyers. 



Many drawbacks to the rubber business ought in time to 

 be overcome. To tell the truth, the Amazon valley is prob- 

 ably not less fitted now for the residence of Europeans 

 than was the Mississippi valley 300 years ago, considering 

 the advance science has made in sanitation, in engineer- 

 ing, and in other lines. All South America will be thickly 

 populated in time. But this is no encouragement to the 

 buying of wilderness rubber farms to-day, too remoteforthe 

 investors to keep in touch with them, and under the jurisdic- 

 tion of governments ineffective in the matter of protection, 

 indisposed to give aliens fair treatment, and concerned 

 about rubber only in ta.xing the traffic oppressively instead 

 of adopting a policy of assisting its present and future de- 

 velopment. It is this same governmental policy, that, as 

 much as anything else, promises to lose to Amazonia its 

 preeminence as a source of the world's supply of rubber. 



Ceylon plantation rubber has begun to appear at 

 the Antwerp auctions. But nowadays rubber from every source 

 figures in the important sales there. What is of much more 

 consequence is the recent formation of a large company by 

 Belgian capitalists to acquire several productive plantations of 

 " Pard " rubber in the Malay States. This action we suspect to 

 be the result of an exhaustive study made during the past two 

 years by a member of a large Antwerp firm who have been an 

 important factor in the crude rubber market there from its in- 

 ception. Recognizing the imminence of a decline in produc- 

 tion of rubber on the Belgian-owned concessions in Africa, an 

 expedition was organized to study the conditions, present and 

 prospective, of rubber production in every country, in order to 

 determine the most promising field for the investment of a part 

 of the capital which now yields less returns in the Congo than 

 formerly. The conclusions reached were that the world's hope 

 for, rubber supplies lies ultimately in planting, and that, for 

 the present at least, the Far East offers the best field for in- 

 vestments in rubber culture by Belgians. The new company 

 mentioned in our news columns this month is the first result. 



We have heard people express surprise that the India- 

 rubber trade afforded enough " news " to call for the regular 

 publication of a journal devoted to that interest alone. We do 

 not recall any month, however, when something really new in 

 connection with the rubber business has not transpired, and it 

 has been our pleasure as well as privilege to aid in giving the 

 information currency in the trade. For example, we believe 

 that this issue of The India Rubber World is the first jour- 

 nal to report the discovery that Balata is not mentioned in the 

 United States tariff schedules, and that the customs powers that 

 be have decided that, in default of provision to the contrary, im- 

 ports of Balata henceforth are dutiable. Ii may also be " news " 

 to the trade^that there is a collector of customs at Norfolk, Vir- 

 ginia, though it was through the close scrutiny of this alert 

 functionary that the discovery regarding Balata was made. 

 What previous record of merit the Norfolk collector may have 



to his credit we cannot say, but it appears that, on having to 

 deal for the first time with Balata he tried to swell the national 

 treasury reserve by an impost upon it, and his superiors will 

 stand by him. It may be that the latest decision in the matter 

 will yet be upset; but the Norfolk collector, having had a 

 chance to be heard from, has not been caught napping. 



The great development of automobillsm, and the re- 

 lated demand for tires, many of them costly, without doubt has 

 been the basis of the greatest growth of the rubber industry 

 in recent years. There has been nothing comparable to this 

 growth in any former period. And it may not have occurred 

 to everybody in the trade that France, the home of the automo- 

 bile and of the pneumatic motor tire, no longer leads in the use 

 of such vehicles. In New York state alone the number of reg- 

 istered automobiles at last accounts exceeded by some 3000 the 

 number of registered motors in France, and two other American 

 states together show as many registrations as New York. And 

 there is no one of the other forty-two states without automo- 

 biles, though the lack of registration laws in many states ren- 

 ders impossible an estimate of their number. It is no wonder, 

 then, that the American market for tires is coming to be re- 

 garded with interest by makers everywhere. As for the rubber 

 factories, they have further encouragement in the growth of 

 the use of rubber tired commercial motors, already a good 

 second to the automobile, and destined possibly to exceed it in 

 the demand for rubber involved. 



The Vanderbilt cup race on October 14, just outside of 

 New York, did not result in an American victory, but that, 

 of course, was not the object. The contest did, however, 

 stimulate greatly the American interest in automobiling, by 

 bringing about a closer competition with foreigners, and giv- 

 ing both makers and users of automobiles on this side of the 

 Atlantic a better idea of what is needed to put them abreast 

 of the most advanced progress made in Europe. The fact 

 that the cup goes to France is all the better, provided it 

 should next be contested for in that country, by reason of 

 the educational efllect upon the Americans who will go over 

 to attempt to reclaim the trophy. We feel that, on the whole, 

 America has no cause to be ashamed of the showing made 

 by the machines entered by home makers or by the work of 

 the contestants in the race, while the showing made by the 

 American tires was most creditable — and it is this feature of 

 the whole business which most concerns the rubber industry. 



The arrivals at Antwerp of rubber from the Congo Free 

 State for the first nine months of the current year were smaller 

 by 28 per cent, than in the same months of 1901, since which 

 year the Congo rubber output has declined steadily. The best 

 days of the Congo rubber trade probably have been passed, and 

 the days of fabulous profits of the trading companies holding 

 concessions in the Free State. The future of the State and the 

 condition of the natives do not appeal strongly to the interest 

 of the outside world, but where the rubber is to come from to 

 replace the supply from the Congo when that is exhausted is a 

 question of direct or indirect interest to all workers in or users 

 of rubber. 



Alaska appears destined to become of great importance 

 to American commerce. It is only a straw which points the di- 

 rection of the wind, but it may be worth mentioning that the 

 shipment of American rubber footwear to that territory during 

 the last fiscal year amounted in value to $166,644, or more than 

 2.3 per cent, on the $7,200,000 which the United States paid to 

 Russia for Alaska. 



