384 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August i, 1905. 



velopment of ihe two businesses have been so considerable 

 that it is now deemed expedient that the merchants and manu- 

 facturers shall be reunited in one concern with a capital ade- 

 quate to meet the present requirements and aflord further op- 

 portunities for developing and expansion. The combined 

 profits of the two businesses for the five years ended December 

 31, 1904, are certified to have been as follows : 



In IQOO Z53.324 46 In 1903 j£75.q87 5 > 



In iqoi 66,300 13 o In 1904 71.S69 6 7 



III iqo2 66,887 12 6 



The businesses involved include not only the British factories 

 and headquarters in London, but important selling depots 

 throughout continental Europe. 



RUSSIA. 

 The profits of the Russian- American India-Rubber Co. (St. 

 Petersburg) for the business year 1904 05 amounted to 3,908,754 

 rubels [=$2,013,008.31]. The dividend for the year is 1,800.000 

 rubels, or 30 per cent, on 6.000,000 rubels of capital shares. 

 The capital has been increased to 6,500,000 rubels during the 

 past year. 



GERMANY. 



Max Wertheim, managing director of Frankfurter Asbesl- 

 werke Aktiengesellschaft (vornials Louis Wertheim) since the 

 formation of that company, eight years ago, resigned his con- 

 nection with them on June 30. He had previously been active 

 in the firm of Louis Wertheim, Frankfort o/M., since 1S87, 



VIEW.S OF MR. E. V. CAREY. 



FROM "THE SrRAITS TIMES" (SINGAPORE), JUNE I3. 



MR. E. V. CAREY, of Selangor, returned from a trip round 

 the world by the P. & O. s.s. Simla, Saturday, and 

 leaves here for Kuala Lunpur to-morrow.* During his travels 

 Mr. Carey visited the St. Louis Exhibition, after which, he de- 

 clares, nothing else that he may ever see in this life will ever 

 surprise him. It was magnificent, but would have taken as 

 many months to see properly as he had days at his disposal. 



In New York he was discovered by Mr. H. C. Pearson, of 

 The India Rubber World, who it will be remembered, made 

 a professional tour of this part of the world a couple of years 

 ago, Mr. Pearson was full of enquiries about the friends he 

 had made in the Straits, and endeavored to reciprocate the 

 courtesies that had been extended to him here by introducing 

 Mr, Carey to all the rubber men in the American metropolis. 

 Of these men he noted that they differed from the big English 

 merchants of the same approximate class in the fact that they 

 were so accessible and so ready to leave the business of the 

 moment so as to put their time at the disposal of the properly 

 introduced stranger. How they made up for the time so lost 

 he does not know ; but their hospitality and courtesy were 

 alike wonderful. 



He notes that they have at last awakened to the importance 

 and necessity of cultivated rubber and have now started culti- 

 vating rubber of their own in Nicaragua. Some New York 

 and other large manufacturers have already opened up planta- 

 tions in that Central American state, where, so far, they have 

 only planted the Casttlloa, which is just beginning to be pro- 

 ductive. Mr. Carey expects that these plantations will be fol- 

 lowed by further developments of the territory referred to as a 

 source of rubber supply to the North American markets; but 

 the labor conditions in that part of the world do not tend so 

 favorably to the development of such an industry as do those 

 which obtain in the Straits. 



Mexico is also being largely planted with rubber— it being said 

 that there are many "wild cat" plantation schemes in the latter 

 country, boomed by queer firms in the United States. In both 

 countries Castilloa is the only plant cultivated — the Pard being 

 neglected because of the success met with by the other. The 

 products of the plantations so far turning out cultivated rubber 

 are of remarkably good quality, and that quality is improving 

 rapidly. 



From what Mr. Carey saw at home [in Emgland] just prior to 

 his departure for the East, he is disposed to warn people against 

 Hying into every investment that is thrust upon the market 

 merely because it bears the magic name of rubber. He advises 

 them to look into every such investment most carefully, as there 

 seems a disposition to fioat unsound concerns in connection 

 with estates in Ceylon and the Straits — estates for which no 

 leases, or even locations in some instances, have as yet any ex. 

 istence. In one such case, indeed, the chairman of one of these 

 more than doubtful money traps was warned by two leading Cey- 

 lon residents of London that it was such a patently uncertain 

 concern that he might be liable to find himself in the dock if the 

 prospectus were not withdrawn. That warning, however, seems 

 to have had no effect on the promoters, because the prospectus 

 had not been withdrawn when Mr. Carey left. This concern, it 

 may be mentioned, was very severely handled by the Financial 

 News some months ago — the allusions to it being republished 

 in these columns. The name of the company, it may be added, 

 aflfects the Straits in a fashion, because it rejoices in the euphe- 

 mistic and alluring registered title of " The Malay States 

 Planters' Syndicate." There are no F. M. S., Straits, or Ceylon 

 people known to be connected with the concern. 



Mr. Carey has only come back here on a short visit, with the 

 obiect of exercising his option to take up his concession of 30,- 

 000 acres comprised in the island adjoining Port Swettenham. 

 His investigations in London and elsewhere have convinced 

 him that the prospects for floating this concession into a large 

 company are exceedingly promising. Accordingly he now pro- 

 ceeds to the Selangor capital with the object of securing his 

 titles and completing the other necessary arrangements in re- 

 spect of the transfer with the F. M.S. government. He will 

 return to England as soon as these matters have been settled, 

 which will probably be in about a month's time. 



• * * 



[Some correspondence addressed by Mr. Carey while in 

 America to Mr. W. W.Bailey, chairman of the United Plant- 

 ers' Association of the Federated Malay States, and afterward 

 appearing in The Malay Mail {li.ua\a Lumpur) related to the 

 subject of direct shipments of rubber from the Straits plant- 

 ers to American manufacturers. For the interest of English 

 readers he mentioned that there are no such auction sales in 

 New York as exist for rubber in London, and that the essen- 

 tial feature in the case of shipment to the American market 

 is that the consignees be people of unquestioned integrity. 

 Mr. Carey mentioned meeting Mr. Bruce Webster who about 

 12 years ago was agent at Kuala Lumpur of the Chartered 

 Bank of India, Australia and China, and who now holds the 

 position of New York manager of the same bank who stated 

 that he would take bills on responsible rubber manufacturers 

 in America from the Straits.] 



•a portrait and sketch of Mr. Carey appeared in Thk India Rubbek World, 

 January i, 1905 (page 108), following his visit to ihc United Slates — Tub Editor. 



Mexico. — The manager of the American Stamps Works 

 (City of Mexico) recently made a visit to Yucatan for the pur- 

 pose of establishing a branch there, on account of the increas- 

 ing demand for rubber stamps, consequent upon the improve- 

 ment of business conditions in Yucatan, and especially in the 

 henequen (sisal) trade. 



