THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October i, 1902. 



the man that counts. Some men have begun without cap- 

 ital and grown rich selling bananas — but they were fitted 

 for the business and went about it in the right way. Any 

 industry is a good one for the right man, no matter how 

 many may have failed in it before him. 



MR. ROOSEVELT AND THE TRUSTS. 



'T^ H K President of the United States, in his public utter- 

 •*■ ances on the subject of regulating the Trusts by 

 law, does not seem to be able to suggest any very definite 

 course of action. Vet some good may result from his ad- 

 dresses, in focusing popular attention upon certain phases 

 of the subject, instead of everybody being left to consider 

 the evils of Trusts from a different standpoint. One thing 

 made plain by Mr. Roosevelt's published remarks is that 

 the regulation of Trusts is not quite so simple a matter as 

 the mathematical proposition 24-2=4. Less than two 

 years ago an aspirant for the presidency of the United 

 States — who, by the way, was supported by nearly half of 

 all the voters — had no hesitancy in announcing that, if he 

 were elected, he would have Congress pass a law that would 

 put an end to the Trust evil. Already it has become evi- 

 dent that the Congress, before it can enact any enforci- 

 ble law for the control of corporations, must first get au- 

 thority through an amendment to the constitution of the 

 government. This step alone would require so much time 

 that meanwhile many of the so called Trusts would have 

 gone the way of all unsound business enterprises, while the 

 others probably would outlive any present feeling of popu- 

 lar antipathy, just as the railway companies long ago 

 ceased to be an object of attack of the agricultural voters 

 of the great West. 



While Congress is awaiting a change in the organic law 

 of the land which will empower it to seize and control all 

 corporate businesses, the people will have time calmly to 

 consider who really is being hurt by the Trusts. Evidently 

 not the manufacturing interests, for the Census shows how 

 vast has been the increase in the number of factories and 

 the volume of their products in the period during which all 

 the anti -Trust agitation has arisen. Nor is it the factory 

 employes, who were never before so numerous, never bet- 

 ter paid, never able to buy so much with their wages. 

 The consumers of manufactured goods — who might per- 

 haps be supposed to be the worst sufferers — are getting 

 better goods and lower priced goods than in any other era. 

 Who, then, is qualified to band together and form the 

 backbone of an anti-Trust party on the ground of having 

 sustained substantial injuries? It must be the investors 

 in Trust securities They have been hurt where anybody 

 has been. Holders of the Bicycle Trust stocks, for ex- 

 ample, lately have seen their shares decline in market 

 value to less than 2 cents on the dollar. Some of them, 

 perhaps, paid par for their certificates. No doubt they 

 would like a government that would have protected them 

 from such losses. But is the government of the L^nited 

 States going to say to the free citizens of this great 

 country that a man shall not do what he likes with his 

 own money ? Must a force of salaried officials stand 



guard over pocket books and bank accounts, and say to 

 this citizen that he would better not buy shares in a bis- 

 cuit trust or a plow trust or a chewing gum trust, or to 

 another that he will regret it to-morrow if he buys a gold 

 brick to-day ? 



People have made mistaken investments in lands and 

 gold mines and patents and manufacturing enterprises and 

 trotting horses and a whole lot of other things ever since 

 money was first invented, and are likely to continue to do 

 so until every man's foresight is as good as his hindsight. 

 Not all the governments that human agency can devise 

 would protect an investor against lack of judgment in 

 parting with his money. And yet this is the gist of the 

 Trust problem when it is analyzed with a view to legis- 

 lating on it. 



THE BUSINESS OF GATHERING RUBBER. 



/^F all natural products which have become widely rec- 

 ^^ ognized as necessities among civilized peoples, India- 

 rubber stands alone in that, with all the aids of modern 

 industrial, commercial, and financial development, the 

 means of securing this commodity have undergone little 

 improvement, and the cost of securing it becomes greater 

 rather than less. Other tropical products, with places of 

 origin equally remote from the world's markets, have been 

 rendered vastly more accessible or greatly reduced in price 

 to consumers. While new rubber districts continue to be 

 opened, in order to meet the constantly growing demand 

 for the raw material, crude rubber now, as in the beginning, 

 continues to be produced on a small scale, by unintelligent 

 laborers employing primitive methods, and between the 

 forests and such markets as Manaos and Para or Antwerp 

 a single lot may change hands half a dozen times before it 

 comes within the control of the traders who supply the 

 manufacturers. 



There is little rubber in use to day which does not cost 

 the manufacturer, at least, $1000 per ton, and within re- 

 cent years large quantities of the better grades have gone 

 into consumption at a cost at the factory of more than 

 $2000 per ton. Naturally it has occurred to capitalists 

 aware of these facts, that through operating on a large 

 scale and by the introduction of economies under intelli- 

 gent supervision, rubber might be produced at a cost so 

 far below the prevailing prices for this material as to af- 

 ford handsome returns on the capital invested. From 

 time to time, The India Rubber World has chronicled 

 the organization of a number of companies, having for 

 their object the application of modern business methods 

 to rubber gathering in the Amazon valley, but in every 

 case has also been chronicled their lack of success, if not 

 total failure. 



In this connection a contribution to our columns this 

 month by Mr. Ashmore Russan, an English gentleman 

 who has had some interest in most of these companies, is 

 of particular interest. Mr, Russan having invested his 

 money, naturally has taken pains to inquire why he has 

 not received any dividends. It is especially interesting to. 

 learn that he believes the rubber properties purchased by 



