418 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[May 1, 1914. 



endeavors along business lines are very much helped by these 

 social gatherings. 



"In conclusion I want to express my appreciation of the faith- 

 ful work of our Executive Committee. These men, some of 

 whom live in New England, have been present at each of our 

 quarterly meetings in New York, except in the case of illness, 

 and it has only been through their co-operation and interest that 

 the success of the past year has been made possible. It is a 

 service which, given with considerable sacrifice, is something for 

 ■which no money can pay, and has been given with the sole pur- 

 pose of benefiting first of all our own membership, and indirectly 

 the rubber industry as a whole. 



"I bespeak from the members of the club your hearty support 

 in all our endeavors, and feel that if this is done your organ- 

 ization will become increasingly powerful as the years roll on. 

 Co-operation in business is the order of the day. Our industry 

 has been somewhat lacking in this principle in a broad way. The 

 Rubber Club furnishes the means for all of us to work together, 

 and to put our industry in the place where it rightfully belongs." 



The address elicited hearty applause, and when this subsided 

 the president introduced Colonel Henry L. Kincaide, of Boston. 



COLONEL KINCAIDE'S ADDKESS. 



The speaker opened his remarks by explaining that he was 

 a member of the party representing the Boston Chamber of 

 Commerce, who last year made an extended trip to the principal 

 South American cities. Then, starting with the Panama Canal, 

 which he considered the greatest engineering feat in the history 

 of the New World, and one of the most important promoters of 

 commerce, he justified the decision to have a lock canal rather 

 than to attempt one at sea-level. He explained how the present 

 canal is considered immune from attack either by water, land 

 or even from the air above. 



South America, he said, was an interesting country from every 

 view-point. For the first thousand miles south of Panama it 

 is most dreary. The great mountains frown down upon the 

 narrow seacoast. There are few harbors, none where steamers 

 can be docked, but where all freight must be lightered. This 

 showed the necessity of careful, secure packing, for in many 

 places the handling seemed needlessly rough, as if the laborers 

 were rather anxious that the cases might fall apart sufficiently 

 to allow some of their contents to "get lost." Then again, this 

 showed the need of such packing as would prevent the humid 

 atmosphere from reaching and damaging the goods. 



Lima, Peru, is an interesting city. Its streets are narrow, 

 the houses mostly having a projecting second story which over- 

 hangs the narrow sidewalk. Like all Latin-American cities, it 

 has a central plaza where people congregate in the evening to 

 promenade, and listen to the band concerts. Their summer is 

 our winter, but a strong Antarctic current sweeps up the west- 

 ern coast, which tempers the heat in summer and increases the 

 severity of the winter. Blankets are needed in the summer 

 nights even near the equator. The mountains are so near the 

 seacoast that many of the cities are built on terraces on the 

 mountain side. The population of Peru is from 65 to 75 per 

 cent. Indians, peaceable, unprogressive, living in mud huts and 

 content to live without labor. It is next to impossible to in- 

 culcate in them any ambition. Peru suffers today from its 

 recent war with Bolivia. There is more or less political unrest 

 there. Mr. Kincaide told of meetin.g Billingshurst, the acting 

 President, in order to reach whom, he was conducted through 

 ■several locked doors, each one guarded by soldiers. 



In all South American countries except Brazil, Spanish is the 

 •language spoken. In Brazil it is Portuguese. The dollar in 

 Panama is worth 50 cents gold. In Chili it is 20 cents. In the 

 Argentine it equals 44 cents, but in Uruguay, so good is the 

 government's credit that its dollar is worth $1.04 our money. 

 In Brazil the pound sterling is exchanged for IS milreis. 

 In all these countries the cost of living is much higher than in 



the United States. Everything is more expensive than with us. 

 -American $5 shoes cost $9 to $12, and $5 hats sell for $8 to $12. 

 Prices are "take it or leave it." The import duties are in part 

 the cause of these high prices, ranging as they do from 30 to 

 40 per cent, in all these countries. 



The English and the Germans are ahead of us in South 

 America. They already have an established trade. They have 

 learned to cater to the tastes, customs and character of the 

 Latin-American merchants. The Englishmen and Germans bring 

 their ships there. They invest their money there; they bank 

 there. There isn't an American bank in all South America. 

 Every bill of exchange goes through a foreign bank, and you 

 may be sure each one is. scrutinized very closely, and prices and 

 terms are therefore revealed to our business competitors in 

 Europe. It is an absolute necessity, if we would develop our 

 commerce, that we should have an American bank, with a branch 

 bank in each of the leading commercial centers. 



Bolivia is somewhat more advanced than Peru. Its capital, 

 La Paz, is the highest city in the world. Owing to transpor- 

 tation, cost of living is high. Coal costs $50 per ton, and only 

 three families there use coal for heating. There are 1,000 miles 

 of railways in Bolivia. The country is rich in mines of iron, 

 copper, silver and gold ; in fact iron and copper may be seen 

 sticking out on the surface of the mountains. The mines are 

 worked mainly by Americans. 



Chili is 2,600 miles long, and for the most part about 100 miles 

 wide. The nation is practically ruled by about 400 families. 

 Valparaiso and Santiago are very enterprising cities. The wealth 

 of the nation comes mainly through its exports of nitrate, which 

 goes all over the world. Santiago is a most attractive city, and 

 is said to have the most beautiful women in the world. The 

 climate is delightful, seldom below 40 degrees or above 70 de- 

 grees, with a moisture which makes the city very healthful. The 

 speaker referred to the incident of the American sailors from 

 the U. S. Battleship "Baltimore'' and the consequent anti-Amer- 

 ican sentiment, but Consul Fletcher has done much to inculcate 

 a better feeling, though the people still deem us imperialistic. 

 We must not cross their sensitive natures. Americans, or, in 

 fact, anybody, who wishes to do business with them, must do 

 it their way. There must be no brusqueness, but, on the con- 

 trary, extreme courtesy must be maintained. There can be no 

 Yankee "hustle" ; no American way of making a town a day. 

 He must camp out on his prospect four, five or 'six days. The 

 first day he calls and exchanges the most punctilious courtesies, 

 the next, calls and inquires after the merchant's health, perhaps 

 invites him to lunch, at which, however, he must never broach 

 any business subject; two, three, four days more, and then he 

 can ask the merchant to look over his samples. Such is the way 

 the English and German salesmen manoeuvre, and succeed in 

 securing big orders. The Colonel said he could enumerate many 

 cases where lack of this courtesy and thoughtfulncss lost trade' 

 to American salesmen. 



The trip across the Andes is the most wonderful, the most 

 beautiful in the world. From Santiago to Mendoza there is a 

 constant change of scenic beauty. In winter the railway is 

 sometimes blocked by snows for a month at a time, but in sum- 

 mer there can be no more delightful trip than across the moun- 

 tains into Argentina. 



Argentina is the richest country in South America, and one 

 of the most fertile. You ride across a level plain hundreds of 

 miles in extent between Mendoza and Buenos .\ires, and the 

 latter city is one of the wonders of the Western Hemisphere. 

 It has a beautiful harbor on which $30,000,000 has already been 

 spent and $20,000,000 more will be expended in making this one 

 of the safest and most commodious in the world. When the 

 speaker was in that city there were 116 steam ves,sels and 200 

 sailing vessels in the harbor, and not one bore the American flag. 



The imports amount to billions of dollars a year. Our own 

 exports last year were $60,000,000 to .\rgentina. .American goods 



