January 1, 1914.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



167 



plain living — if one insists on it. The India Rubber 

 World fattened perceptibly on 'I'liirty-eigiuh street, tak- 

 ing on an additional 2C0 pages a year. It hopes to round 

 out still further in its new home. Incidentally, it might 

 be mentioned that it had greatly outgrown its old quar- 

 ters and desperately needed the generous increase of floor 

 space — which it is now so much enjoying. 



THE LAST OF THE BOSTON PIONEERS. 



' I "WENTY years ago there were in Boston eight men 

 ■*• whose names were known from the .\tlantic to the 

 Pacific. Their activities centered chiefly about the manu- 

 facture of mechanical rubber goods and footwear. They 

 were friends, lunching together almost daily, calling each 

 other James and George and Henry. Of widely dif- 

 ferent temperaments, they often disagreed and threshed 

 out their differences like the good fighters they were, but 

 with no diminution of their basic respect and final 

 friendliness. They were sound business men, and suc- 

 cessful. The death of George H. Hood marks the pas- 

 sing of the last of them. Those of us wdio remain and 

 who knew them recall their strong individuality, their 

 many virtues, their interesting personalities. Their faults 

 forgotten, their achievements acknowledged, they pass 

 into history as pioneers and founders of the rubber 

 industry. 



IS RUBBER HEADED TOWARD HIGHER LEVELS? 



stead of 140,000 tons, to meet the need- ui manufacturers 

 for the year, there will be only 100,000 or possibly 110,000 

 tons — or a shortage of from 30,000 to 40,000 tons. 



Predictions as to future rubber supplies are always of 

 interest when coming from those who have reliable in- 

 formation on which to base their forecasts, but it is quite 

 possible that our correspondent takes too dark a view of 

 the situation. It is a case where supply will doubtless ad- 

 just itself to demand automatically, and as soon as the 

 output begins to drop by reason of low prices the neces- 

 sities of the manufacturers will assuredly send prices up 

 again and thus call fortli an increased supply. 



/^UR Singapore correspondent, whose letter published 

 ^^ in November on the subject of direct shipments of 

 rubber from Singapore to New York created not a little 

 comment in the trade, has sent us another communica- 

 tion — appearing elsewhere in this issue — in which, un- 

 der the title "Will 1914 See a Shortage in Rubber?" he 

 discusses the possibility (which appears to him to be a 

 probability) that the present low level of prices, if main- 

 tained, will cause such a contraction of rubber shipments 

 as to produce a decided shortage. He contends that at 

 2s. a pound — the present price of first latex being but a 

 few cents above that figure — comparatively few planta- 

 tions are able to do more than pay expenses, and that 

 unless an increase of price occurs in the very near future 

 there must be a marked shrinkage in plantation opera- 

 tions, while the cheaper African rubbers will be driven 

 from the market and the shipments from the Amazon be 

 reduced to one-third of their present volume. Even allow- 

 ing for an output of 55,000 tons from the Eastern planta- 

 tions for 1914, he predicts, unless prices mend, that in- 



MEXICO FROM THE INSIDE. 



r\URING the past decade a great many letters have 

 '-^ appeared in this publication from an American 

 correspondent in Mexico who went to that country 

 twenty years ago and engaged in the planting of agri- 

 cultural products suited to that climate — rubber trees 

 among the rest. His descrijnions sent us from time 

 to time of the development of the Hez'ea and Castilloa 

 trees on his plantation have been exceedingly interest- 

 ing and full of information as to the rubber possibili- 

 ties of that Republic. But the latest letter from his 

 pen — which appears in this issue — does not refer at any 

 length to rubber developments, but rather is a very 

 candid exposition of the Mexican situation as seen by 

 a foreigner so long resident in Mexico as to be capable 

 of forming sound and just opinions. His references 

 to Washington are not altogether in a complimentary 

 vein, but they appear well worth reproducing, as 

 they are the opinions of an intelligent and truthful ob- 

 server. And he is undoubtedly right when he states 

 that these opinions are shared by a very large part of all 

 the -Americans and foreigners resident in Mexico. 



Practically the only definite utterance regarding the 

 Mexican situation that has come from W^ashington 

 was given out some weeks ago when the administra- 

 tion called upon all Americans in that country to leave 

 and come home. In reply to this our correspondent 

 asks, "What are they going to do for a living when 

 they get to the States? It is not easy to throw up a 

 $300 job or carry off in your pocket a railway, a mine, 

 a plantation or any other possession worth holding 

 on to — not to mention a paying commercial business." 



The Mexican property held by Americans runs into 

 the hundreds of millions. American money invested in 

 rubber plantations and the guayule industry would 



