110 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[DECEMBtR 1. 1913. 



parison of Para and scrap prices for every year since WISELY AWAITING THE RESULT OF THE TARIFF. 



1895 : 



TAKING THE MEASURE OF THE LAST THIRTY 



YEARS. 



A RUBBER manufacturing company in New Jersey, 

 mentioned in our news columns, some time ago 

 planned to expand its plant by the addition of a tire de- 

 partment, but when the tariff as finally passed still retained 

 the low duty of 10 per cent, on tires, the directors con- 

 cluded to postpone their entry into the tire field. This 

 was commendable wisdom. Doubtless in time — possibly 

 in the near future — there will be room for more tire fac- 

 tories in the LInited States, but ju.st at present the tire 

 producing capacity of this country is rather in excesss 

 of the tire consuming capacity, and a drop in the duty on 

 foreign importations from 35 per cent, to 10 per cent, 

 will without doubt tempt quite a number of the foreign 

 makers to enter the field. Possibly their entrance into the 

 American market may not be appreciably felt, and again 

 it mav — that remains to be seen. Under present condi- 

 tions, it is certainly the part of discretion for new aspi- 

 rants after tire business to wait and see how the game is 

 progressing before plunging in. 



THE National Civic Federation, a body of distin- 

 guished and disinterested citizens banded together 

 for the general welfare, has embarked on an undertaking 

 of great importance and of stupendous proportions. It 

 plans to take such a comprehensive survey of the country 

 as to enable it to show just what progress has been made 

 in the past three decades in the material, mental and moral 

 condition of the American people — to see if men. women 

 and children are better oflE today than they were thirty 

 vcars ago. This is a totally different matter from com- 

 piling statistics of the national wealth, the volume of 

 manufactures, extent of exports and imports and increase 

 in bank deposits. These figures are very readily obtained. 

 The present inquiry is to determine if the average man — 

 the average merchant, manufacturer, farmer, carpenter, 

 clerk, teacher, hod-carrier — is getting more out of life 

 than he did a generation ago. And the comparison is 

 made with three decades ago because it is during this 

 period that there has been such a tremendous output of 

 effort by executives, legislatures, political parties, char- 

 itable organizations, the press, the pulpit and private 

 philanthropists, to correct the faults, real or imagined, of 

 former days. Socialism, semi-socialism and varying de- 

 grees of radicalism have all been busy in changing the 

 old settled order of things. What has been accomplished ? 

 It is a gigantic question. If the National Civic Federa- 

 tion can answer it the world will be its debtor. 



THE TRANSPORTATION TAX ON THE RUBBER 

 MANUFACTURER, 



AN article entitled "The Rubber Manufacturer's 

 Transportation Burden," which is full of interest- 

 ing figures, will be found on another page of this issue. 

 It contains some statements almost startling, but it was 

 prepared for this publication by a writer of exceptional 

 accuracy. Doubtless it will amaze many manufacturers, 

 to learn that, with all the vast transportation equipment 

 of the country today, it costs as much to ship goods from 

 the New England seaboard by rail direct to the nearer 

 points of the middle west as it did seventy years age- 

 when such shipments were made by way of New Orleans 

 and up the JNIississippi and Ohio rivers. The exorbitant 

 railroad charges for short hauls are brought out in bold 

 relief by the experience cited in this article of an ex- 

 porter who filled an order for mechanical rubber goods 

 from the Russian government. His freight bill on the 

 goods from the factory to New York, a distance of 50 

 miles, was more than he was charged on the same goods 

 from New York to a port in Germany 3,250 miles distant. 

 The auto truck, which, within reasonable distance, en- 

 ables every manufacturer to control his own transporta- 

 tion, will undoubtedly compel the railroads to treat the 

 short-haul traffic with much more consideration than has 

 heretofore been the case ; for in this particular field each 

 road, generally speaking, has enjoyed a monopoly and 

 exercised it to the limit. 



