42 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[NOVEMBEK I, 1910. 



It must be taken into account that the successful 

 sanitation and satisfactory food supply at Porto Vclho 

 have been due to the work in progress there being on 

 a large scale and under capable scientific and financial 

 control. If f;ach engineer and dirt digger had to look 

 out for himself probably the enterprise would have 

 ended long ago in disaster. The lesson for the rubber 

 interest in South America is the reorganization of 

 rubber camps on a large scale instead of the work 

 being conducted by scringiiicros singly or in small 

 groups. This change, by the way, is already in prog- 

 ress, and it is reasonable to suppose from indications 

 already apparent that ultimately the food supplies on 

 the better scriiigaes in the Amazon basin will compare 

 favorably with those on farms in the United States. 

 When this new regime becomes better established it 

 is not to be doubted that rubber supplies will be in- 

 creased, and the cost to consumers materially lessened, 

 while still yielding an adequate profit to the producers. 



THE AMERICAN MACKINTOSH TRADE. 



TIME was when every lady wore a gossamer water- 

 proof, and the hillsides about the proofing factories 

 were covered with solarizing tables. The business was 

 big and competition was fierce. In spite of agreements 

 and associations prices went down until rubber garments 

 brought about the price of the unproofed cloth. But all 

 of a sudden the garments went out of fashion. 



Then came the mackintosh, and that was overdone, and 

 the fickle public got sick of it. For some reason or other 

 rubber surfaced clothing got a black eye, and the busi- 

 ness fell off. The result was that the plungers, the peo- 

 ple who wanted volume rather than profits and those who 

 had but little capital, dropped these lines and sought 

 others. There were those, however, who made a certain 

 quantity of good goods. Year by year they supplied the 

 market, doing a fair business at a fair profit, and, as it 

 should, the public is begining to appreciate them. 



The old-time gossamer has been replaced by light, well- 

 made, well-fitting coats, lightly coated with rubber on the 

 calender and vulcanized, not solarized. Sometimes the 

 thin coating of rubber is on the surface ; sometimes the 

 outside is fabric, with the rubber inside. The mackintosh 

 manufacturer has called in the cloak cutter and the ladies' 

 tailor, and style and fit are beyond criticism. As for the 

 rubber coat, nothing ever really took its place and it has 

 come into its own again. 



This is why the proofing plants are busy everywhere, 

 and the mackintosh and clothing departments in the rub- 

 ber factories are working full time. 



IS SENATOR ALDRICH IN THIS? 



THOSE American newspapers whose conductors 

 appear so susceptible to pain in the stomach at 

 any indication of prosperity in their own country — 



always suspecting the same to be due to tinkering with 

 the tariff by some man in public life — are in danger 

 from apoplexy if they should happen to see some re- 

 cent reports on the Congo rubber trade. Happily we 

 may be spared any such unfortunate experience, since 

 what has developed in this school of journalism in 

 reference to the Bristovv-.Mdrich dispute over crude 

 rubber suggests astigmatism among the editors wher- 

 ever ordinary business facts are involved, however 

 clearly they may be able to read a baseball score. 



We all know how the New York World type of 

 newspapers went up in the air when a company in the 

 business of producing crude rubber in Mexico began, 

 after several years, to pay dividends at the rate of 7 

 per cent, a year. But now comes the Compagnie du 

 Kasai, a Belgian concern trading in African crude rub- 

 ber, with a dividend of 520 per cent, on the common 

 stock for the last year, after having paid comfortable 

 dividends on its preferred and common stock during 

 all the preceding years. It may be mentioned, incident- 

 ally, that the net profits of the Kasai company during 

 its eight years of existence have totaled $6,174,447, and 

 the capital stated is only about $193,965. This would 

 work out at an average annual return of about forty 

 times the original investment. 



Can it be that Senator Aldrich, while busying him- 

 self with the tariff at Washington, has also been con- 

 trolling the fiscal affairs of Belgium? How else could 

 the crude rubber business in that country be so 

 profitable? 



IS THIS A NEW "RUBBER TRUST"? 



""PHE able Philadelphia Record, without giving any details to 

 ■*■ enable its readers to verify such interesting statements, 

 delivers itself as follows: 



A rubber trust has been formed, which, extending in operations from 

 the growing of rubber trees to the making of rubber goods, makes 

 the consumer pay all the traffic will bear. There should be a heavy 

 and immediate reduction in the tariff duties on rubber goods. As the 

 matter stands, consumers are unmercifully fleeced solely for the benefit 

 of the trust. The government treasury gets little or no benefit. 



Why doesn't the Record help the public by putting its facts 

 before the "government treasury"? 



Tlie able Fort Fairfield (Maine) Rciiezv also might benefit 

 "the plain people in this country and other countries" by show- 

 ing its hand. Here is what the Review says : 



The price of india-rubber has doubled in the past year. The great 

 demand for rubber in making automobile tires is a principal reason 

 for this advance, but the fact that rubber now is mostly controlled by 

 a trust is also a powerful cause in the advance. How long will the 

 plain people in this country and other countries submit to robbery 

 by the favored few controlling the trusts? 



How does it benefit the editors of our esteemed daily con- 

 temporaries to keep concealed under their hats such momentous 

 information, the revelation of which might prove helpful to so 

 many people ? 



Somebody h.wing started a keport one pay of the failure 

 of the rubber plantation at Santarem, up the Amazon, and no 

 attempt having been made to contradict it, the story is still 

 going the rounds, making a convenient "filler" for those trav- 

 elers who write their observations without taking the trouble 



