110 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January i, 1903. 



stimulate buying on the part of the public. The factories 

 in this branch are reported to have been unusually busy. 



Lately has been developed a more general movement 

 than at any time hitherto, on the part of organized labor, 

 to bring the rubber workers of the country under the con- 

 trol of unions, but the greater diversity of work and 

 wages in a given rubber plant than in many other indus- 

 trial establishments is in itself a considerable obstacle to 

 the unionizing of rubber workers and the stndardization 

 of wages. Moreover, the movement seems to have had its 

 inception, not in any e.xpressed grievances of rubber fac- 

 tory employes, but in the minds of professional organizers 

 on the outside, who evidently regard this, on account of 

 the large number employed and the generally good stan- 

 dard of wages, as a ripe new field for their peculiar ac- 

 tivities. 



A FIFTH WHEEL NOT NEEDED. 



'"T'HE proposal now being discussed seriously at Wash- 

 *■ ington, to create a governmental department of 

 commerce, appears to us to be very much in the nature of 

 adding "a fifth wheel to a wagon " — a term widely used" 

 to describe an appendage that not only is useless, but is 

 likely to get in the way and thereby impede progress. We 

 are aware that the proposal has the support of men of 

 prominence in business affairs and in political life, but this 

 alone is not proof that the need exists for an additional 

 arm of the government. . Not all the so-called commercial 

 organizations in the country can claim real merit — some 

 of them exist only to promote personal ends, being ready 

 to support any new movement if the names of their active 

 members may thereby be brought into the newspapers. 



It is probable, however, that the new measure has re- 

 ceived the serious support of some business men because 

 they believe that a department of commerce would help to 

 extend our foreign trade, but it remains to be pointed out 

 what services in this direction could be rendered by a 

 secretary of commerce sitting in the president's cabinet 

 better than by the existing official bureaus at Washmgton. 

 In fact, all the claims made for the new department have 

 been most vague and unconvincing, nor are the advocates 

 of the measure agreed as to what powers should be given 

 to the new secretary, or what he should be expected to 

 accomplish. He could have no authority over the con- 

 sular service, which is expected to be helpful to our com. 

 merce, because that in the nature of things belongs to our 

 department of foreign affairs. Nor could he control the 

 administration of the customs laws, which belongs to the 

 treasury department, or negotiate commercial treaties, 

 without vitally changing the federal constitution. In fact, 

 the proposal now being considered involves little beyond 

 creating a new office to which shall be turned over certain 

 statistics now required by law to be collected by several 

 different bureaus, in which event they doubtless would 

 be made available for the public less promptly than now, 

 on account of passing through more hands. 



The manufacturers and others who look to the govern- 

 ment, through the creation of new offices, to sell more of 



their products abroad, labor under a mistaken view of the 

 laws of trade. At home, a manufacturer seeks first to 

 produce an article suited to the needs of possible buyers ; 

 he then works to make them familiar with its merits ; he 

 next puts it where they can buy it, and if the price ap- 

 pears too high he manages to remove that objection, 

 through decreasing the cost of production, eliminating 

 middlemen's profits, or otherwise, but without once think- 

 ing of asking for help from the government. If the same 

 manufacturer should desire to do business in Europe, or 

 Corea, or Patagonia, precisely the same procedure would 

 be necessary, and not one nor twenty new government de- 

 partments could relieve him of the necessity of making 

 his own markets if he would sell goods. 



NOT SUCH A BAD SHOWING. 



■X^^E do not know anything in regard to Mr. Frederick 

 J. Haskin beyond the fact that he has written to 

 the Philadelphia Record, from Me.xico, a long letter advis- 

 ing extreme caution in the matter of making investments 

 in rubber planting in that country. The India Rubber 

 World does not feel called upon to defend the rubber 

 planting interest against all criticisms, nor has it ever urged 

 anybody to plant rubber. Our reason for mentioning Mr. 

 Raskin's letter is to suggest that the statement of results 

 which he quotes as provmg his case would be regarded by 

 very many people who are interested in rubber as particu- 

 larly encouraging. The quotation which follows was de- 

 rived by Mr. Haskin from what he calls "an honest con- 

 cern " doing business in Mexico, and he asserts that it " is 

 based on facts " ; 



We sent a representative to make a tour^of the cultivated rubber 

 groves in Mexico that had been tapped and their products marketed. At 

 a plantation near the town of Tu.xtepec, on the gulf side of the state of 

 Oaxaca, near the line of the state of Vera Cruz, the planter stated that 

 he had tapped 350 of his trees and obtained from them 800 pounds of 

 clean rubber for market. A few of these trees were planted twenty 

 years ago and yielded as high as 12 pounds, but the most of them were 

 from seven to nine years old and the average yield of the latter was two 

 pounds of net rubber to the tree. Five months after being tapped these 

 trees were in hue condition, the wounds in the bark being filled with the 

 new wood so they will be ready to tap again next season. 



To prepare the rubber the sap was caught in buckets and poured out 

 on the cement floor used for drying coffee. It was allowed to stand to 

 a depth of two inches and left for several days to dry in the sun. It 

 was then cut into long strips, rolled up into compact form, and shipped 

 in this condition. The rubber netted the planter $1 per pound in silver. 



The money value of the yield above stated was equal to 

 only $312 in United States currency, and such an amount 

 as a total result from planting 350 trees and waiting for 

 from seven to nine years may not at first seem an attract- 

 ive proposition. But if these trees were in the fine condi- 

 tion stated five months after tapping, and " ready to tap 

 again next season," if the report means anything, it is that 

 an equally good return — i.e.^ a profit of $312, gold, from 

 about two acres of land — may be expected again year 

 after year, without any other expenditure than for the col- 

 lection of the rubber. On the whole, the letter writer 

 from Mexico, in the only statement of fact which he pre- 

 sents in support of his warning to Americans, does not 



