180 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[March i, 1906. 



appointed. Still, they are at the very beginning, if we 

 look upon the new interest as something which is to last 

 as long as the world needs rubber. 



No doubt Mr. Waldron's plantation, under his intelli- 

 gent supervision, will before many years reveal many 

 improvements in practice, which will afford financial 

 returns equal to his largest expectations ; at least we hope 

 so, and the general result will be furthered by the co- 

 operation of equally enterprising planters in Mexico, in 

 the Far Ivast, and no doubt in the Philippines and in 

 Africa. But the least of all things to be feared is the 

 possibility of over-production of rubber — at least during 

 the lifetime of those who are now actively interested in 

 this field. 



THE PEACE POLICY OF THE U. S. R. 



TIME was when the United States Rubber Co. was at war 

 with its neighbors and apparently neither cared to 

 make money for itself nor to allow others in the same line 

 to do so. With the advent of Colonel Samuel P. Colt as pres- 

 ident, however, there came a radical change. Prices went up, 

 " third grade " goods were almost eliminated, and while the 

 great company fought just as hard for trade, it was a fair, 

 open, friendly fight. A great company or so-called trust, is 

 always suspected by individual concerns in the same line and 

 its friendliness viewed with distrust, but it should after all 

 be sized up on its record. The record of the United States 

 Rubber Co. for the past few years has been a friendly atti- 

 tude toward all big and little, a policy of selling goods at a 

 fair profit, and the keeping up of the quality of goods. Both 

 the public and the independent manufacturer have profited 

 by this policy and it is only fair that it should be freely ac- 

 knowledged. 



The rubber planting interest occupies a very consid- 

 erable portion of our space this month, and we feel that it is 

 justified. Not only London, but New York, Antwerp, and 

 Hamburg have become markets for plantation rubber, on a 

 commercial scale, and in no case is the result discouraging 

 to the planting interest. With regard to New York, it is 

 worthy of note that a leading rubber importing house — the 

 house which figures second in exports of "wild "rubber 

 from the Amazon valley — appears in this month's news as 

 largely interested in the most notable plantation in the Ma- 

 lay States. And an important rubber manufacturing com- 

 pany here is in the forefront in promoting rubber production 

 under cultivation on this side of the globe. 



The new Germ.\n tariff, due to go into effect on this 

 date, it now appears, will not discriminate against the 

 United States — as was at one time reported — at least for an- 

 other year. Meanwhile there may be an opportunity for 

 such interchange of views between the two countries as will 

 permanently remove the possibility af a " tariiT war. " But 

 so far as the rubber trade is concerned, it is not clear why 

 either country should be dissatisfied with existing conditions. 

 Tnat is to saj% the constantly increasing sales of American 

 rubber goods in Germany appears to be about equally ofTset 

 by American imports of other classes of rubber goods from 

 the Faderland. 



Progress in the rubber shoe trade is shown by the 

 way in which it is adapting itself to a condition of less de- 

 pendence upon snow. Time was when the trade depended 

 largelj- upon the sale of heavy boots, for which the absence 

 of snow destroyed the demand. Nowadays millions of light 

 weight shoes are sold, of a type desirable even for an ordi- 

 narj' rainstorm. And doubtless in time we shall have water- 

 proof footwear so delicate that at least every lady or child 

 will consider a pair indispensable even in summer, every 

 time the weather predictions indicate a shower. 



The exi'ui-sion of vei-low fever from Havana (Cuba), 

 making it the most healthful of tropical cities, and what 

 appears to be the success of sanitar3' science in the Isthmus 

 Canal zone, means much for the future of the rubber busi-. 

 ness. We have before expressed the opinion that the Ama- 

 zon valley to-day is not more deadly for white men than the 

 now populous and prosperous Mississippi valley was in the 

 early days of the United States. And what is science good 

 for, if it does not enable intelligent men to live wherever 

 business calls them, even if that business is gathering rub- 

 ber in tropical forests? 



We .A.RE glad to print the news, which comes to us 

 from time to time of rubber associations from different parts 

 of the country, even if each is confined to a comparatively 

 small circle. No trade can fail to benefit from a proper co- 

 operation among its members, and it may be that in such 

 associations as that which exists on the Pacific coast, for 

 example, may be found the seeds of what will ultimately be- 

 come a National association, based upon principles mutually 

 beneficial to the whole trade in the States. 



Our .able contempor.\ry, the New York Evening Mail, 

 quotes with ill concealed doubt a prediction credited to The 

 Indi.a Rubber World — which, by the way, we fail to re- 

 cognize as our own — that rubber will get to be as valuable 

 as gold. Perhaps the Evening Mail will not object to answer- 

 ing the question whether rubber is not already •' as valua- 

 ble as gold?" It all depends upon the point of view, you 

 know. 



What would Charles Goodyear think, after having 

 worried himself for so many years about a single rubber pat- 

 ent, could he appear on the scene now and see hundreds of 

 new rubber patents every year, and many of them more re- 

 munerative than the one to which he devoted his life? 



Our salutations to the New England Rubber Club, for 

 its success in so long steering away from the shoals of "price 

 regulation," on which so manj- associations of rubber men 

 have been wrecked. 



The gambling in rubber company shares in London 

 bears about as much relation to legitimate rubber planting 

 as betting on horse races does to the world's practical use of 

 the horse. 



If Americans cannot grow rubber in the Philippines, 

 will it be an admission that they are less capable than their 

 British cousins in developing the possibilities of their tropi- 

 cal possessions ? 



