110 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January i, igio. 



success in working 

 by "rule of thumb." 

 The extent of the 

 German rubber in- 

 dustry cannot be 

 better illustrated, 

 perhaps, than by 

 putting before our 

 readers a statement 

 of the net imports 

 of crude rubber, 

 year by year. 



Emil Spannagel, 



[Director of Vereinigte Berlin-Frankfurter 

 liummiwaren-Fabriken.] 



Pounds. 



..28,243,380 



..29,793.280 



. .24,960,100 



. . 22,977,900 



. . .22,816,420 



Not only is there a disposition in Ger- 

 many to supply every demand for rubber 

 goods which may exist in the empire, but 

 the export of German rubber goods has 

 grown constantly from the beginning of the 

 industry in that country. As having a bear- 

 ing upon this subject, it may be worth while 

 to repeat some extracts from a letter from 

 a correspondent of The India Rubber 

 World at Berlin, printed in the issue of 

 May 1, 1900 (page 211) : 



"The leaders in the rubber industry in 

 Germany manifest a deep interest in what- 

 ever development js made by their com- 

 petitors abroad. When I visited Hanover 

 I found Herr Adolf Prinzhorn. head di- 

 rector of the great Continental company 

 located there, absent in the United States. 



He had lately entertained the superintendent of one of the most 

 important American rubber factories, and he was now returning 

 the visit. The effect of the tendency of the German manufac- 

 turer to adopt whatever seems to him best in the practice of 

 whatever country is evident in the growth of the exotic rubber 

 industry on a scale more rapid within recent years than even in 

 the country of its origin. 



"No doubt the rubber trade in Germany has benefited by the 

 fact that such men as Herr Emil Spannagel. director of the 

 United Berlin-Frankfort India-Rubber Co., at Berlin, and Sen 

 ator Carl Maret, of the United Rubber Factories of Harburg- 

 Vicnna. have developed their business career in part in other 

 countries. These two have both spent some years in the United 

 States. At Hamburg is the seat of the Harburg Rubber Comb 

 Co., whose proprietor. Dr. Traun, has grown up in the business 

 which he now controls. This business, as is well known, was 

 originally an outgrowth of the hard rubber manufacture estab- 

 lished by the late Conrad Poppenhusen, at College Point, now a 

 part of New York city. Already the eldest son of Dr. Traun 

 has spent a term of years in New York, at Para, and in the Far 

 East, and the doctor told me that he was looking forward to 



Pr( f. Dr. Inc. Adolf Prinzhorn. 



sending his youngest son — the third — to the United States to 

 study the rubber industry as it exists there. 



"It has been interesting to me to listen to those German rub- 

 ber men talking familiarly of rubber conditions in America. 

 Herr Louis Hoff, of the Harburg- Vienna company, for instance, 

 talked of the rubber goods stores in New York, and of the con- 

 ditions of the importation of crude rubber in the United States, 

 and the like, in a vein which would be impossible with most 

 American manufacturers in respect to the industry in another 

 country. Herr Hoff, particularly, did not confine his remarks 

 to the rubber trade. He had been reading in the newspapers 

 reports of utterances from high English sources on trade rela- 

 tions with Germany, and he had definite and pronounced views 

 on the attitude of the United States on the admission of foreign 

 imports into Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. The fact is 

 that these gentlemen regard the whole world as their field, both 

 from which to draw men and ideas in the building up of their 

 factories, and in finding a market for their products." 



What is said here about the familiarity- of the leaders in the 

 German rubber trade with conditions in America applies equally, 

 or even more so, to other countries. It has to do with the 

 export of rubber goods from Germany to 

 a larger extent than from any other coun- 

 try. The high tariff imposed on imports 

 into the United States has limited German 

 trade in the States, as it has the trade of 

 England and France, but in South Ameri- 

 can and Far Eastern countries the German 

 exporter has been singularly efficient. The 

 German trade has also extended largely into 

 Great Britain, a free trade country, to an 

 extent which has been felt severely by the 

 industry of that country and hindered its 

 development. Every German rubber con- 

 cern mentioned in these pages, and many 

 others, have branch houses in London, and 

 some of them in other important British 

 trade centers, and not only branch houses 

 but in some cases manufacturing establish- 

 ments. 



The thoroughness of the German as a 

 trader is illustrated in the experience of a 

 lead pencil establishment in the United 

 States which had its origin in Germany, 

 but, once established in New York, grew 



[Retired recently as director 

 1 aoutchouc- iiml Guttapercha 



of Continental 

 Compagnie. ] 



into an independent 

 concern, requiring 

 for the purpose of 

 making erasers 

 alone a rubber fac- 

 tory which before 

 for years had earned 

 an average of $3.0,000 

 a year in dividends. 

 This lead pencil con- 

 cern, while still hav- 

 ing its headquarters 

 i n Germany, can- 

 vassed hundreds of 

 thousands of Amer- 

 ican business houses 

 to learn Ci) what 

 lead pencils they 

 used; (2) whether 

 they used the Ger- 

 man pencil ; or (3) 



He Late Carl Otto Weber, ph.d. 



