256 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



[June i, 1901. 



bankers, who are generally at a distance. Whatever may 

 be the prime cause, money is now a scarce article in the 

 rubber country, the rate of exchange is most unfavorable, 

 and credits have become contracted to an extent which 

 leaves the weaker operators helpless. It is quite possible 

 that the number of persons in the rubber gathering busi- 

 ness, and the number of estates, affected by the Brazilian 

 financial crisis will be so great as to curtail seriously the 

 production of rubber during the coming season. 



All of which leads to the thought that if the Para rubber 

 already produced has come, to an important extent, from 

 systematically marked out farms, visited year after year by 

 workers under the same control — albeit the general man- 

 agement of these estates may have been wasteful and im- 

 provident — there may be a good opportunity for the invest- 

 ment of capital by outsiders, on a basis of cash capital 

 instead of advances of goods and credit, in very large tracts 

 of rubber lands, to the profit of the investors, while rend- 

 ering the supplies of rubber more stable and the ultimate 

 cost to the manufacturer lower. 



A PANIC- AND WHAT IT SUGGESTS. 



"T^U PvING the past month has been witnessed a Stock Ex- 

 ■^-^change " panic," which, unlike previous occurrences of 

 the kind, was felt in its effects, not only in New York and 

 its vicinity, but throughout the country and even in 

 Europe, so widespread has become the interest in specu- 

 lating in the stocks dealt in here. But what is more to 

 the point, this so-called panic differed from others in the 

 past in that it was unaccompanied by the failure of great 

 financial institutions, to the injury of other than specula- 

 tive interests. Fluctuations in stocks due to the contend- 

 ing of " bulls " and " bears " we always have had and prob- 

 ably always will have, and a " panic " which hurts only 

 those who guess wrong on the next turn of the market 

 gives little concern to the owners of the properties which 

 the stocks traded in represent, and who devote their atten- 

 tion to the control of these properties for the purpose of 

 making legitimate profits. 



At the same time, the fact that the Wall street flurry of 

 last month passed without involving in ruin any of the 

 business and industrial interests of the country is a cause 

 for congratulation, for, as has just been said, the country 

 has not always been so fortunate under like circumstances. 

 There is evidence in all of this of a sound substantial basis 

 for existing business and industrial enterprises, the success 

 of which makes for the prosperity of the nation, instead of 

 a basis of credit or speculation. And the ill effects to 

 those who lost — even if only on paper — as the result of 

 this great speculative frenzy doubtless will be found to go 

 deep enough to serve as a warning to their class, for a 

 good while to come, against repeating their tactics on so 

 large a scale. 



This is, of course, no place to discuss the merits of the 

 contest between certain great railway interests in the 

 West, which, no doubt without any such intention on their 

 part, provided the opportunity for the stock gambling pure 

 and simple which was the world's wonder for the day. But 



it may be worth considering whether the struggle for 

 supremacy between the rival railway magnates was merely 

 for the control of the transportation business of the West 

 such as it has been hitherto, .\mong these men are some 

 who are exceptionally broad minded and far seeing ; and 

 there is reason to believe that they look for the greatest 

 commercial development of the new century on the Pacific 

 ocean and in the countries which abut upon it. Some of 

 the great American railway companies whose lines touch 

 the Pacific already are interested in the building on our 

 western coast of some of the largest steamships yet de- 

 signed, evidently with the idea of combining in one system 

 land transportation to the " Goldein Gate " with sea trans- 

 portation beyond. The same thing is being done with 

 railway lines extending to the Atlantic seaboard and trans- 

 atlantic shipping. 



The prospective development on the Pacific will stimu- 

 late the growth of population and wealth in the states of 

 the Far West, just as nearness to the Atlantic long gave 

 the seaboard states on this side of the continent an advan- 

 tage over the rest of the country. Then, with an actively 

 developed ocean commerce on both borders of the United 

 States, the center of the country ought to be twice as well 

 off as when it was in touch with only one tier of seaboard 

 states. 



The Wall Street " panic," therefore, has been of general 

 interest, first in giving the country a chance to see how 

 prosperous it is, and, secondly, in calling attention to the 

 probable tendency of transportation development west of 

 the Mississippi. 



THE EXHIBITION AT BUFFALO. 



npHE Pan American Exposition, which was formally 

 '■ opened at Buffalo, New York, on May 20, may be 

 regarded as the most tangible result, up to date, of the en- 

 deavors made by the late Secretary Blaine to promote 

 closer relations among all the republics on this hemisphere. 

 The statesmen of this then young nation who, nearly 

 a century ago, sided with the revolting Spanish colo- 

 nies to the south of us in their efforts for independence, 

 were influenced in part by the idea that under a new re- 

 gime the door would be opened for a profitable commerce 

 between us and them. The hope of a great development 

 in this field has never become extinguished, though the re- 

 sults attained have not always been most encouraging. 



Not only have other markets been nearer to us geograph- 

 ically, and far more convenient to our chief ports when 

 shipping facilities were considered, but our trade has pros- 

 pered more in other directions because of a better under- 

 standing between our own people and those of some other 

 countries. The matter of habit — formed before the United 

 States became a great nation — to say nothing of racial kin- 

 ship, and, to a large extent, sympathy with F;uropean polit- 

 ical ideas, long attracted South Americans to the old world 

 to an extent which has kept them as a class from inform- 

 ing themselves about this country. On the other hand, 

 while Europeans have traveled in South America, made 

 their homes there, and established banks and mercantile 



