June i, 1902.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER V^^ORLD 



275 



tition, and leaving out of sight the question of dividends 

 •until control has been regained of as much as possible of 

 trade which has been lost during the last two years to 

 their competitors. It is not possible that competition will 

 ever be eliminated, and the only hope for the big company 

 is in being able to reduce the cost of production, including 

 administration, to such an extent as to give it an advan- 

 tage over the independent companies. 



So far as can be judged from the late report, the most 

 important promise of economy lies in the direction of super- 

 ior facilities for buying raw materials. An important 

 fact revealed relates to the amount of crude rubber con- 

 sumed by the company last year, and the preparations 

 made for the direct importation of this large quantity un- 

 der the company's own letters of credit. This method of 

 importation has been followed for many years by an im- 

 portant subsidiary company, and it is assumed that the 

 existing arrangements are to be extended to meet all the 

 requirements in rubber in the United States company. 



SOME RUBBER TRADING EXPERIMENTS. 



nPHE rubber trade is slowly undergoing a change in the 

 •*• direction of lessening the number of hands through 

 which the product passes between the forest and the fac- 

 tory. Naturally it is the expectation of every handler of 

 the crude rubber that a profit shall be made in the trans- 

 action. If, at some of the stages, the business is done in a 

 haphazard manner, the risk is greater, and larger profits 

 must be figured on, than under better systematized condi- 

 tions. Doubtless some such considerations led to the or- 

 ganization of the Comptoir Colonial Franyais, whose bank- 

 ruptcy is mentioned on another page. We have referred 

 in the past to the advantages which this company appeared 

 to have — assuming its capital to be real — in having con- 

 trol of desirable rubber fields on the Amazon, of boats, 

 trading stations, and organized bands of workers, enabling 

 the company to send rubber direct from its own estates to 

 the consuming markets. During the first full working 

 season no less than 1,300,000 pounds of rubber were ship- 

 ped in the company's name from Para, and that before the 

 decline in prices — which seemed to be a good beginning. 

 We do not know the details of its management, nor how 

 far its capital of 9,000,000 francs has been impaired by 

 concurrent operations in French Africa. But the mere 

 fact of the failure of the company is calculated to cause 

 rubber exploiting enterprises to be regarded with less 

 favor. 



A great deal of money has been made in crude rubber 

 in the past, in spite of loose business methods in so;ne of 

 the countries of production, and money is bound to be 

 made in future, since rubber is an actual necessity, the 

 consumption of which is steadily on the increase. It was 

 inevitable that the first attempts to handle the product di- 

 rect and on a large scale should involve costly mistakes 

 and some failures. But the same thing has been true at 

 first of all large enterprises involving the employment of 

 capital in remote regions. There is no inherent reason 

 why rubber trading should always be unprofitable any 



more than gold mining at a distance from where the capi- 

 tal is raised. 



There is reason to suspect that one element of weakness 

 in the group of French companies now embarrassed — with 

 an aggregate of more than 18,000,000 francs capital — has 

 been that the financiers back of them have been more con- 

 cerned about stock transactions than about the details of 

 rubber gathering. There is no telling how much of their 

 capital consisted merely of " shares." But one thing we do 

 know was that the principal intelligence that has reached 

 the world concerning them has been through the bourses 

 of France and Belgium, and it does not require very much 

 argument to prove that the place to make money in crude 

 rubber is not on the stock exchange. 



As for an American company being formed to exploit 

 concessions on the French Congo, it may be referred as 

 a matter of interest, as the first instance where it has been 

 proposed to employ American capital in that direction. 

 But with the United States as so large a consumer of Afri- 

 can rubbers, it is only natural that the experiment should 

 be tried of gaining the necessary supplies from that quar- 

 ter more directly than has been the case hitherto. Already 

 more than one important American company has made a 

 beginning in the Bolivian rubber field, and much Ameri- 

 can capital is ready for investment in the Acre rubber dis- 

 trict so soon as certain preliminaries have been arranged. 

 Africa is even more accessible than Bolivia, and may prove 

 as good a field for well directed enterprise. 



Thirteen is no longer unlucky, as proved by the suc- 

 cess of the New England Rubber Club dinner on May 13. 



NEW YORK'S FIRE HOSE SUPPLIES. 



THE Merchants' Association of New York, composed of 

 business men of prominence, in connection with its work 

 of attempting to secure greater economy in the city adminis- 

 tration, is distributing a pamphlet containing a comparison of 

 the cost of government in New York with that of thirteen other 

 leadmg cities In the United States. In regard to fire hose, it 

 is shown that, at the average prices paid in the thirteen other 

 cities, 124.167 feet could be bought for the amount of money 

 paid for 84,231 feet in New York. 



It may be remembered that last year an indictment was ob- 

 tained against the then Fire commissioner of New York city — 

 whose term of office has since expired — charging him with con- 

 spiracy to rob the city by means of the payment ol a higher 

 price for fire hose than was usually charged by the rubber man- 

 ufacturers. It was alleged by the public prosecutor that fire 

 hose could be sold to the city only through one "agent," who 

 was supposed to receive a liberal compensation, which he di- 

 vided with the Fire commissioner. The case was never brought 

 to trial, but the published references to it suggested that the 

 rubber hose manufacturers had Indulged in bribery in order to 

 be able to do business with the city. The manager of a leading 

 manufacturing concern, in a statement to The India Rubber 

 World, says : 



" This impression is wrong. We have paid no bribes, and 

 there has been no occasion to pay any. We have sold our hose 

 at regular prices to the persons offering to buy the same, and 

 if they have charged the city higher prices, that has been a 

 matter with which we have had no connection." 



