240 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Mav 



1903. 



Northern Securities Co., capitalized at $400,000,000, denied 

 in detail that any of the objects were had in view which 

 had been ascribed to it in the public mind. The real owner- 

 ship of the railroads involved, he said, had not been changed, 

 and the roads which formerly had been competing for busi- 

 ness were still competitors Then why the new corporation ? 

 In order that the owners of property might do with it what 

 they pleased ; in other words, they had tried, through 

 "community of interest," to get up a company so big that 

 it could not be bought up by unfriendly interests while the 

 owners were asleep, or one was off on a vacation. There 

 are some men who want to own railroad property and make 

 money by its management, without waking up to find that 

 it has escaped from their grasp, as happened lately with the 

 Louisville and Nashville road. 



There was a time when nobody in New York thought of 

 buying railroad shares as an investment, but only for spec- 

 ulation. The first Cornelius Vanderbilt led the departure 

 from this idea, and the fortune he founded is still largely 

 in " rails." The Vanderbilt system of roads hase.xpanded, 

 however, admitting other interests, until the whole family 

 probably does not own more than 10 per cent, of the New 

 York Central shares, instead of a majority, as held by the 

 founder of the family. But his methods of management, 

 continued by his successors — rendering a public service, 

 instead of speculation in stocks, as a source of profit — 

 have so commended themselves to the shareholders that 

 the Vanderbilts still remain in control practically as if they 

 owned the road. 



Thus far the speculative interest has been rampant in 

 industrial consolidation. The possibility of making mil- 

 lions by trading in shares has diverted attention from the 

 slower method of making profits from the manufacture 

 and sale of goods, with the result that some good proper- 

 ties have been endangered. But the public is obliged to 

 have manufactured goods, just as it must have means of 

 travel, and ultimately industrial securities — in those lines 

 in which there is a sound basis for consolidation — may be 

 expected to be removed from the speculative market to the 

 same extent as in the case of the railroad system above re- 

 ferred to. 



It is likely that large manufacturing corporations are to 

 continue, for reasons akin to those which have brought 

 great railroad systems into existence. And these cannot 

 be managed by one man as practical head of the factory, 

 of the selling department, and of the financial manage- 

 ment. There must be numerous departments, under ca- 

 pable heads. There must be a genius in financial affairs no 

 less than an expert in the position of factory superinten- 

 dent. But that genius will not find his vocation among 

 " bulls " and " bears " ; it will not be part of his business to 

 make profits at the expense of the public apart from supply- 

 ing the public with wares for consumption at prices which 

 will assure dividends to the owners of the factory. Just 

 now is apparent the entrance into rubber affairs, in an at- 

 tempt to control, of a spectacular figure in the speculative 

 world, whose first object, of course, will be to realize on 

 investments made for speculative reasons. Under such an 

 influence the industry will hardly make any marked prog- 



ress. But industrial consolidation is yet new, while time is 

 long, affording many opportunities for benefiting from ex- 

 perience, and the conditions of the moment are not neces- 

 sarily permanent. 



Fortunately, there is still room, in rubber, at least, for 

 "the little man." There is room for him to expand into 

 the large manufacturer. And he may hope to leave his 

 factory to another generation if his plans are laid well. 

 And these opportunities are by no means lessened by the 

 control of the great establishments by professional specu- 

 lators. 



THE OPPRESSED RUBBER HUNTERS. 



IT may afford the king of Belgium, who has been much 

 censured on account of alleged cruelties practised by 

 the overseers of the native rubber hunters in his domin- 

 ions on the Congo, some satisfaction to reflect that per- 

 haps not all his accusers are clean handed. No doubt 

 Germans, for instance, have joined in the cry against out- 

 rages in the Congo rubber region. Now it appears that 

 the complaints of the friends of the oppressed rubber 

 hunter extend also to certain practices in Kamerun, which 

 is a German possession in Africa. In view of this, his 

 Majesty of the Belgians might ask if he is any worse than 

 Kaiser Wilhelm. 



To tell the truth, and not to try to fix the blame for 

 any particular cruelty, it is probable that the lot of the na- 

 tive rubber hunter is not a happy one in any region where 

 circumstances have made him the slave of the white man. 

 It must be noted that nowhere does Indian or negro or jun- 

 gleman fall to gathering rubber of his own accord. The 

 work is not tempting to the wild man of any forest ; nor 

 are its rewards attractive. It is only when men of an 

 avowedly more civilized type penetrate the rubber wilds 

 and, by fair means or foul, place the natives in their 

 power, that the latter ever show any interest in this gum, 

 the uses of which are to them a mystery. 



There are missionaries even in parts of South America 

 who tell stories of the oppressive slavery of seringuieros 

 that would make it appear that there is room for reform 

 on this side of the Atlantic no less than on the other. And 

 as for England — whose newspapers have been particularly 

 impressed with the atrocities of Belgian agents — there 

 probably has been no greater case of demoralization of an 

 ignorant native people than has been wrought in West 

 Africa by her subjects by the barter of rum for rubber, 

 this being the commodity which most readily tempts the 

 black man to supply the traders' wants. But the whole 

 subject, no matter how shocking the conditions may be, is 

 too broad for any one man or any nation to feel responsi- 

 ble. The condition of the rubber hunter will hardly be 

 an ideal one until human nature has become so changed 

 that, in the contact of the races, the superior will strive 

 always to give the advantage to the inferior. 



In passing, it may be mentioned that in the French 

 Congo of late the natives, in certain sections, have resisted 

 the agents of the trading companies — whether on account 

 of their dislike of rubber hunting or not, does not appear 



