June 1, 1911.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



295 



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Pnbllihed on tha lit of oioh Kosth br 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO. 



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HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 44. 



JUNE 1, 1911. 



No. 3. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON L.\ST P.\GE OF READING, 



BRAZIL AND VALORIZATION. 



It H.A.S been held by financiers from the beginning that 

 Brazil's valorization of coffee was economically un- 

 sound. It was also predicted that other interests, 

 sugar, cacao, perhaps Brazil nuts, and certainly rubber, 

 would sometime insist upon the same government 

 assistance. In one of these items the prophets seem 

 to have been right. The secret syndicate that gathered 

 in several thousand tons of rubber is a matter of his- 

 tory. So is the part that the Banco de Brazil took in the 

 matter. The fact that the holders of the rubber were not 

 able to raise the price and that it fell materially in spite 

 of their manipulation, has placed them in an exceedingly 

 awkward position. To extricate themselves the govern- 

 ment of Para is said to have passed the following propo- 

 sitions : 



"First : Loan $30,000,000, 10 years, 5 per cent, inter- 

 est. Guaranteed by tax 400 reis. 



"Second : Guarantee privilege individuals or con- 

 cerns engaged cleaning, washing, refining rubber, 



"Third : Open agricultural bank, capital up to 

 $15,000,000, Para State guaranteeing 6 per cent, interest." 



It will be noted that the first of these puts a supertax 

 on rubber of 400 reis per kilogram, equal to a trifle over 

 5 cents a pound. 



Brazilian rubber is already burdened by too large an 

 export ta.x. More than any other thing it is this tax 

 that keeps outside capital from planting up the vast fer- 

 tile country in and about Para to Hevca Brasiliensis. 



The second proposition for washing rubber at Para 

 and Alanaos has often been mooted. It would, of course, 

 save something in freight but it would not save any- 

 thing to the rubber manufacturer for the reason that the 

 concessionaire would expect to make a good thing of it 

 and be obliged to share it with the government. The time 

 to wash rubber is before it is coagulated, just as the 

 planters in the Far East do. That process then becomes 

 a part of coagulation. There is great danger that rub- 

 ber washed and sheeted in either of the centers named 

 will be held up as a manufactured product by the customs 

 officials in the United States, Germany, France, Russia 

 and Belgium, and be very heavily taxed. The fact that 

 the rubber manufacturer gets no advantage from this 

 washing, that it is not done to standardize the rubber 

 but simply to raise revenue, and that it is going to be a 

 great cause of trouble, is bound to make every manu- 

 facturer in the world more than ever bitter against the 

 great Brazilian crude rubber producers, which is a pity. 



Propositions of the same sort have been made and it 

 is said passed in Manaos. It is probable that none of the 

 plans for raising money on bonds from either Para or 

 Amazonas will go through without the backing of the 

 Federal government, .-\lthough Brazil is a heavy bor- 

 rower it is said that England, for example, would absorb 

 the bonds thus backed. 



A MULTIPLICATION OF ELASTICITY IN 

 INDIA-RUBBER. 



Prologue, 

 ■ I 'HE man of solid common sense, the unvaryingly 

 ■*• matter-of-fact individual is, of course, the bulwark 

 of the nation, the sturdy wheel horse of industry. He 

 is never an inventive, imaginative, creative genius, nor 

 can he abandon the ruts of accepted experience and 

 hew new roads of his own. To the common-sense man, 

 the creative type, is flighty, his ideas are wild, his deeds 

 grudgingly acknowledged. All this is but a preliminary, 

 designed to muzzle the unimaginative reader ere he con- 

 demn the somewhat startling suggestions that follow. 



