70 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December i, 1904. 



BOSTON AND PARA. 



npHE secretary of the New England Rubber Club, at the 

 •*■ last meeting of that body, at the request of some of 

 its members, laid before it for consideration a matter that 

 is of interest to the trade generally, and for more reasons 

 than one. The matter, in brief, relates to a reported move 

 at Para, Brazil, to grant a concession for a monopoly of 

 handling all the rubber taxable for export from that port, 

 which would involve of course a certain charge on every 

 kilo of rubber for the benefit of the concessionaire, in addi- 

 tion to the heavy taxes already imposed by the state and 

 the municipality. 



The fact is that the rubber producing states on the Ama- 

 zon live by rubber to a greater extent than any other states 

 in the world live upon a single commodity. A condition 

 which is peculiar to the rubber states, however, is that 

 whereas the trade is organized and carried on by foreign en- 

 terprise and with foreign capital, the local governments plan 

 and contrive to place upon the exports all the burdens, in 

 the way of imposts and taxes, "that they will bear," with the 

 idea that, Para rubber being a necessity to the outside 

 world, the foreigner, who pays the taxes, has no redress. 



It is evident from the action of the New England Rub- 

 ber Club, composed largely of manufacturers, that the 

 time has passed when new burdens can be placed upon the 

 rubber trade without protest. Besides, the members of 

 the Boston organization deal with the matter as American 

 citizens, jealous of any concession that may possibly be 

 granted to persons of other nationalities, empowering them 

 to discriminate against the interests of the United States. 



Whether or not anything may result from the rumored 

 proceedings at Para and the prompt notice of the same by 

 the New England rubber men, the matter still is of inter- 

 est from a viewpoint apart from anything noted in the pre- 

 ceding paragraphs. It all affords evidence of a growing 

 tendency toward closer relations between the rubber pro- 

 ducing and rubber consuming interests. The manufac- 

 turer will not always be content to buy his raw material in 

 the nearest market, without giving a thought to trade con- 

 ditions anterior to that stage. The rubber consumer at 

 Boston or Manchester or Hanover has a very direct in- 

 terest in whatever relates to the conditions of rubber pro- 

 duction and its transmission to market, and the action of 

 the New England Rubber Club may be regarded as the 

 first step in a new policy which, ultimately, will be adopted 

 by important consumers of rubber everywhere ; that is, of 

 taking an interest in and declaring themselves in regard to 

 whatever affects general market conditions for rubber, in 

 whatever country, and whether based upon governmental 

 or private initiative. 



REGULATION OF SELLING PRICES. 



■\ X 7E regret that The India-Rubber yw//«a/ should have 

 ' * construed some remarks in our October issue, 

 headed "A 'Timorous' Association," as an unjustified di- 

 gression from The India Rubber World's rightful field. 

 We beg to extend to our British neighbor the assurances 



of our most distinguished consideration, and to state that 

 it is not our desire to attempt in any way to regulate the 

 rubber trade, even at home. Above all things, we desire 

 to avoid "interference in a purely territorial matter," as 

 the Journal ^s\A&vX\y regards the comments m our October 

 number, which referred to a state of affairs in the Journal's 

 country merely as a text for considerations meant to be 

 equally applicable nearer home, where a rubber manufac- 

 turer's association has recently taken shape. 



The point is this : Is a manufacturers' association to 

 be described as "timorous" — which our dictionaries de- 

 fine as "Fearful; timid; shy; shrinking" — because it 

 fails to accomplish the impossible? What we apprehend 

 to have drawn The India-Rubber Journal's criticism of the 

 British manufacturers' association was its failure to do 

 certain things in relation to the regulation of selling prices, 

 and the difficulty of such regulation is due to reasons not 

 affected by territorial limits. 



As we remarked in the previous article : "The same 

 conditions exist in England as elsewhere." If A, B, and 

 C consent to any price agreement — whether as to a com- 

 mon fixed price or "a percentage advance on each firm's 

 own prices" — strict compliance with the same may not be 

 possible unless the firms are of like financial strength, or 

 possess business ability in like degree. For which reason 

 we have deemed it the part of wisdom for manufacturers 

 of rubber goods — more than goods of almost any other 

 class — not to deal with price regulation as the chief func- 

 tion of their associations, whether in England, Germany, 

 or America. 



As for Tariff and Free Trade in this connection, we had 

 not thought of the matter until it was suggested by our 

 contemporary, in its comments upon our article. Nobody 

 in America thinks of the tariff in connection with the gen- 

 eral rubber industry. Rubber goods are included in the 

 United States tariff schedules, it is true, but this fact is 

 perhaps the smallest element in the success of the rubber 

 industry here. We continually import more rubber goods, 

 in certain lines, and our exports of rubber goods are made 

 to Protection and Free Trade countries alike. Of course 

 the tariff question more nearly affects the rubber manu- 

 facture in some other countries, but no consideration per- 

 taining to tariffs would, in our opinion, affect the situation 

 which an attempt was made to outline in our former 

 paragraph, beginning "The same conditions obtain in Eng- 

 land as elsewhere." 



The record price for raw rubber, up to this date, was 

 paid at the London auctions on November 11, for a lot de- 

 scribed as " Fine thin Ceylon biscuits, part dark." The price 

 was 5 shillings <j]i pence per pound, equivalent in United 

 States money to $i.4o;8. It is equivalent also, to 15 francs or 

 13 marks per kilogram. The highest price reported for regular 

 Pard rubber at the same sale was 5 shillings i penny [ = $1,231^]. 

 Rubber from the Amazon having advanced materially since 

 the date above mentioned, cultivated rubber from Ceylon and 

 the Straits, if now oflfered, doubtless would bring more than 

 the figures given. In fact, some Ceylon rubber is known to 

 have been bought in London at private sale, by an American 

 house, at upwards ol 6 shillings, and sold for consumption at 



