146 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[February i, 1903. 



cess, for even if it prove inconvenient for long distances, it 

 is a valuable addition to the world's means of communica- 

 tion, and as such should be welcomed 



As regards its effect on the business which is always our 

 nearest interest, we have no fears. If the Marconi sys- 

 tem provokes severe competition with cables, business 

 will be better rather than worse. Competition is some- 

 times unpleasant, but it is immensely productive of im- 

 proved methods and apparatus. We know well how the 

 art of cable making has progressed, but we feel certain 

 that between the cable of the present and the cable of the 

 future there is a prodigious gap. Some day fast automatic 

 sending will be in regular use on long cables, and the live- 

 lier the competition the sooner that day will come. Old 

 and inefficient cables will be replaced by better ones, and 

 all the skill of the cable builder will be called into play to 

 hold up the cable end of the fight. With increased cable 

 efficiency will come lower rates, and an enormous increase 

 in the volume of business, demanding steadily larger facil- 

 ities. Twenty years ago people were predicting that the 

 telephone would soon make an end of the telegraph busi- 

 ness, but on the contrary the telegraph service has grown 

 better and more extensive year by year. We are now fac- 

 ing similar conditions with respect to wireless telegraphy 

 and cables. The former is not one whit more startling 

 and revolutionary than the telephone. It shares with the 

 telephone the material disadvantages of sensitiveness to 

 small disturbances and lack of secrecy and has not the 

 compensation of great speed of' communication. We be- 

 lieve that wireless telegraphy will find for itself a sphere 

 of great and permanent usefulness, but that it will push 

 the cable to the wall seems far from Ukely. There is room 

 enough for both systems in the world's work, and so far as 

 the insulation business is concerned, it has directly or in- 

 directly been the gainer by every new application of elec- 

 tricity to the service of man. 



AUTOMOBILES AND TIRES. 

 » 



"\ T OT only has the automobile proved its great utility 

 ^ ^ in America, for purposes of pleasure and business, 

 but the success attained by manufacturers here renders it 

 no longer necessary to go abroad for really good machines. 

 The recent notable exhibition of the new vehicles in New 

 York alone afforded evidence of a widespread popular in- 

 terest in automobilism that should go far toward stimu- 

 lating the new industry in the United States. 



The demand has begun on a large scale for motors as 

 pleasure vehicles, in the ordinary sense ; for touring pur- 

 poses, a new interest on this side of the Atlantic ; for 

 racing, a feature which is certain to be promoted largely 

 in a country so generous as this in the encouragement of 

 sports; and for the manifold commercial uses for which a 

 field appears open in large and small cities alike. The 

 automobile has been found desirable for these various pur- 

 poses, its use has been proved economical for many of 

 them, and as for the purposes for which only the well to- 

 do can afford to own them, this class happens to be so 

 large as to make a good demand possible. 



Nor is the interest in the new vehicles to be regarded as 

 a mere fad, or passing fancy. The automobile possesses 

 innumerable advantages in comparison with the bicycle, 

 for instance, to fit it for a permanent place in the affairs 

 of daily life, and the bicycle has by no means been retired 

 from trade, even though the widespread cycling craze of a 

 few years ago has passed. The automobile trade seems 

 founded upon a solider basis than was the bicycle interest 

 at the outset, and it appeals to a more substantial, more 

 serious, and more varied popular interest. It may be idle 

 to talk about the disappearance of the horse ; doubtless 

 there will always be room for both horses and motor ve- 

 hicles. But for many purposes the self propelling vehicles 

 will prove superior to horse drawn ones, as was the case 

 when the locomotive displaced the old stage coach, and 

 later when electricity drove horse cars from city streets. 



The interest of this important new development to the 

 India-rubber trade lies in the necessity for resilient tires 

 for every motor vehicle used, of whatever type, and only 

 the rubber manufacturer can supply these. The perfect 

 rubber tire has not yet been produced, just as a perfect 

 automobile has still to be made, but both vehicles and tires 

 exist that perform their service well, under conditions that 

 make their manufacture profitable. 



It is perhaps not too much to say that no single indus- 

 trial development in the past has ever opened so great a 

 new field for the rubber industry as the coming of the 

 automobile. At the same time, the extent and the char- 

 acter of the new demand for tires afford an incentive for 

 effort in the direction of their improvement that may yet 

 bring reputation and wealth to some rubber man in a de- 

 gree not exceeded in the rubber trade hitherto. 



THE CAPACITY OF THE RUBBER INDUSTRY. 



\\7 E have received a letter from a member of the trade, 

 taking exception to a statement contained in the 

 last Indi.\ Rubber World, in regard to the productive 

 capacity of the industry being greater than the normal de- 

 mand for rubber goods. Our correspondent adduces facts, 

 such as the recent expansion of long and substantially es- 

 tablished rubber factories, in support of his argument, and 

 also intimates that the publication of such statements as 

 the one referred to are calculated unnecessarily to dis- 

 courage the growth of the industry. We may mention 

 that through no other source has so much information be- 

 come known regarding the extension of rubber factories 

 and the erection of new factories within the past two or 

 three years as in the columns of The Indi.\ Rubber 

 World. But at the same rate of growth it would not re- 

 quire many years to give the United States ten times the 

 rubber factory capacity required to supply its actual needs. 

 There has been, since the period of financial depression 

 referred to in our recent editorial, a very material growth 

 in the demand for rubber goods, but the rate of growth 

 was greater during a portion of the time than could rea- 

 sonably be expected to remain permanent, as was pointed 

 out in these pages, for the reason that the whole country 

 was, so to speak, " short" of rubber goods, and railways 



