January 1. 1914.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



16: 



X'^Tk 



Published on the Ist of each Month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO 



No. 25 West 45th Street. New York. 

 CABLE ADDRESS: IRWORLD, NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 49. 



JANUARY 1. 1914. 



No. 4 



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COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING CO. 

 Entered at the New Y'ork postoffice as mail matter of the second class. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



1913 IN THE RUBBER TRADE— AND 1914. 



I3OSSIBLY some humorist may say that the onlv 

 *■ trouble with 1913 was the 13, but the trouble with 

 1913 as far as concerns the rubber trade — and as far 

 as there was any trouble — cannot be diagnosed quite so 

 simply. Taken as a whole, the rubber trade has no just 

 ground for any specially vociferous complaint against 

 the year just closed, but on the other hand it must be 

 admitted that it was not a twelvemonth that called for 

 any particular juliilation. All in all, it was rather dis- 

 appointing — and from a complication of causes. 



First, there was the periodical ebb that always follows 

 the business flood. Sometimes this commercial recession 

 is assignable to definite causes and again it seems simply 

 to come because it is due. 1913 was a recessional year 

 everywhere. .\11 the commercial centers of Europe have 

 complained of a perceptible slowing down of the ma- 

 chinery of trade. In this country, in addition to world 

 conditions we had the political upheaval that generally 

 attends the entrance of a new administration with a 

 variety of new policies to be tried out. This is upsetting 



^r always. So every American industry, from steel down. 



'~ has been disposed to take in sail while it charted the 



course ahead. And when this particular new administra- 

 tiiin rushed through a radical tariff and promised sundry 

 innovations in the banking and currency systems, enter- 

 prise was still further convinced that it was a good time 

 to sit tight and await events. 



In addition to troubles at large the rubber trade has 

 enjoyed a few of its own. Tiie tire department has suf- 

 fered from too much ])rosperity. Two years ago, when 

 prices were at their highest, the talk, in the trade and 

 out, was all on the prodigious profits of the tire makers. 

 The natural result — a great rush to make tires ; until 

 the production, or at least the capacity of production, 

 outran the capacity of consumption. Then came the in- 

 evitable .scaling of prices, amounting to nearly 25 per 

 cent. — averaging tubes and cases of all sizes — during 

 the year : and this on top of an earlier reduction in 

 1912. And there were the flood in Ohio and the strike 

 in Akron, both unforeseeable and thus impossible to guard 

 against, and both destructive of rubber property. 



.\s to the makers of footwear, they have not suffered 

 so much from over-production as from under-consump- 

 tion. The manufacturer of rubber boots and shoes is in 

 one respect an unhappy mortal — he is always throwing 

 dice with fate, and can't help himself. Given normal 

 conditions, it can be forecast to a nicety how many pairs 

 of leather shoes, how many pairs of stockings and how 

 many hats any given twelvemonth will consume, but 

 with rubbers it is purely a guess. Will it be an old- 

 fashioned winter with snow to the window sills, or one 

 of those new-fashioned open winters when everybody 

 goes about dry shod? Last winter was decidedly an 

 open one, and the retailers' stocks of goloshes did not 

 move as they should; so all the maker of rubber foot- 

 wear can do now is to use much discretion as to the size 

 of the stock he will manufacture ahead and pray vigor- 

 ously for snow. 



In the mechanical line tilings liave pursued more 

 nearly a normal course, but with the slacking up of gen- 

 eral industry fewer belts have been called for, less hose 

 has been wanted and not so much packing been ordered 

 from the factory. In druggists' sundries there would 

 seem to be less ground for a falling off in business, but 

 still there has not been that rhythmic pulse beat indicative 

 of robust health. People have needed hot water bottles 

 just as much as at any former time, but with eggs selling 

 at 60 cents a dozen there are economic souls who forego 

 the hot water bottle and use a heated hrick. 



But— 



There is another side to the picture. There is the 



