December i, 1902.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



75 



rubber cored ball helps the poor and medium player far more 

 than it helps the most skilful. It follows that if a golfer is in 

 the skilful class he prefers things to remain as they are. He 

 can beat more opponents with the gutta ball than with the 

 rubber. And goUers who are not in the skilful class naturally 

 hesitate to proclaim their inferiority, unless it be one of those 

 things that proclaim themselves so loudly as to reach even the 

 ears of the unduly vain. Evidently, as a matter of theory, 

 at least, it is left for the duffers to fight the battles of the new 

 ball. 



And yet one finds some people of very respectable attain- 

 ments in other lines than golf upholding the innovation. No 

 less a personage than the Right Honorable Arthur |. Balfour 

 has rushed or been pulled into print with a delense of the rub- 

 ber core. The point which the Prime Minister makes is that 

 golfers ought not to be restricted in their choice of playing im- 

 plements. The only way in which the new balls can be ruled 

 out is by the adoption of specifications for a standard ball, and 

 probably in time by the giving ol some single manufacturer or 

 combination of manufacturers a monopoly of the market. 

 Things have worked that way in baseball, and so far as cham- 

 pionships are concerned they would pretty certainly work so in 

 golf. Now it is one of the attractions of golf to a good many 

 busy people that it allows a man to follow his own whims just 

 as far as courtesy to other members of his club permits. He 

 can rush around the links or he can take all day on a single 

 round. He can drive with a putter and put with a driver if he 

 feels inclined. He can play with a caddie or without one. He 

 can use a long club or a short one. He can play one way one 

 day and another way the next, with no man to say him nay_ 

 however much his friends may feel entitled to laugh at his 

 whims. To establish specifications as to a standard ball would 

 be £ departure indeed. 



The opponents of the new ball have no record of consistent 

 conservatism back of them. The appeal to immemorial usage 

 IS estoppped. There must be men living who remember when 

 golf was played with a ball of leather stuffed with feathers. Af- 

 ter having made the radical transition from feathers to Gutta- 

 percha, the step from gutta to rubber seems short indeed. Yet 

 the attitude which they have taken must be attributed in part 

 to a dislike for change as change, perhaps especially when the 

 change bears an American label. Every new thing has to en- 

 counter opposition of that sort, and the opposition sometimes 

 goes to extreme lengths. The days when laborers struck 

 against the introduction of labor saving machines is so far gone 

 that a manufacturer no longer needs to figure on the chance that 

 any new machinery he puts into his mill will be smashed. But 

 the spirit which made the introduction of machinery so risky a 

 speculation survives not only among laboring men but among 

 sportsmen as well. Anything which compels a readjustment of 

 ideas or of practice is sure to meet bitter opposition. 



Such opposition never pays, however. It is written in an an- 

 cient poem that a gentleman named Joshua once commanded 

 the sun to stand still and was obeyed. But this is one of the 

 few cases on record where human opposition to progress has 

 been successful. The sun rises and sets on time every day, and 

 a man who tries to stop the earth from revolving around the 

 sun has undertaken a contract many sizes too large for him. It 

 might pay the members ol the British Professional Golfers' 

 Association to ponder the story of the retraction of Galileo. 

 He solemnly abjured the error of asserting that the eanh moved, 

 but the earth moved just the same, and Galileo knew it and said 

 so on occasion. Darwin was never put under duress to force a 

 retraction of his great scientific theory, but if the odium theolog- 

 icum could have availed to do anything with him, he would 



surely have suffered. But nowadays the theologians are falling 

 all over each other to see which can go farthest in applying the 

 idea of evolution to the doctrines they teach. The mathemat- 

 ical demonstration that a steamship could not cross the Atlan- 

 tic ocean was brought across the Atlantic on a steamship. In 

 fact, history is full of instances of the folly of standing in the 

 way of progress, and a study of them is commended to the at- 

 tention of those who would refuse standing to the rubber cored 

 golf ball. 



If this controversy were a matter of political interest, we 

 should be sure to hear the suggestion that the opposition was 

 dictated in the interests of the " corporations " and should be 

 exhorted to stand by the new in oider to rebuke the aggres- 

 sions of capital. The fact that corporations are interested on 

 both sides would never be stated in any single paper. But it is 

 not at all likely that we need suspect any corruption fund has 

 been arranged or any press propaganda undertaken. The ques- 

 tions undei discussion will be decided according to the merits 

 of the case. If the new ball is really better than the old, the 

 old must go. 



The first notable attempt in the new world to cultivate 

 any species of Hevia (" Para" rubber) is being made in Ecua- 

 dor by citizens of Minnesota, one of the most northern of the 

 United States. Now that the feasibility of rubber culture has 

 become impressed upon the minds of A.^ericans, there seems 

 to be no limit to their enterprise in this new field. Another 

 venture mentioned in our pages this month is that of a New 

 Englander in introducing the native rubber of Ceara (southern 

 Brazil) into Nicaragua. These foreign locations, by the way, 

 will not appear nearly so " far from home " as they might to 

 the people of some other countries, for the reason that the 

 average citizen of the United States becomes accustomed to 

 long distances in getting established in business in his own 

 country. If once a promise of profit in rubber appears, no 

 mere consideration of distances will prevent the most from be- 

 ing made of it. Hence the people of the United States may 

 yet be found first in the matter of systematizing the exploita- 

 tion of South American rubber, both in conserving natural 

 supplies and by increasing those supplies through planting. 



It is very doubtful if Mr. Carnegie ever uttered the ad- 

 vice to young men to invest liberally in rubber planting that is 

 being credited to him in the advertisement? of certain com- 

 panies organized lately in this interest. But even if he had — 

 and with all respect to Mr. Carnegie's surpassing ability as a 

 business man— his advice on the subject of rubber planting 

 would be worth no more than that of the first man to be met 

 on the street, because Mr. Carnegie has never had any exper- 

 ience to fit him to advise for or against investments in rubber. 

 As for the rubber planting companies referred to, we should 

 expect more of them if they were to quote from authorized 

 statements of persons qualified to speak, instead of from such 

 doubtful sources as the alleged Carnegie interview. 



The creed of thf, curious Russian sect known as the 

 Doukhobors, who, having a large and prosperous settlement in 

 northwestern Canada, suddenly freed their cattle, deserted their 

 farms, and started out on a crusade to convert the world, is favor- 

 able to the rubber trade. They believe it to be wrong to make 

 any use of leather, because animals must be slain to produce 

 it, and hence the men wear rubber boots and the women rubber 

 shoes. Very sane and sensible is that part of their conduct. 

 Honest, earnest, foolish fanatics though they be, may they 

 prosper and their tribe increase. 



