476 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



April 1, 1921 



land, the Unitcil States. Canada. Australia. Italy, Den- 

 mark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Bel- 

 gium, South America, India and Japan, would argue that 

 dreams may sometimes come true. For the comfort of the 

 manufacturers in the United States, one could also hope 

 that the Dunlops would not wake up, for if they can do 

 so much sleeping, the whole tire business of the world 

 would be in their hands waking. No, British rubber 

 manufacturers are not asleep. They are not even nod- 

 ding. 



RUBBER AND FIREPROOF LUMBER 



THE USE of solutions of soluble glass, alum, soda, 

 borax, and the like for impregnating wood to 

 render it less inflammable dates back many years. So 

 also are heat-resisting rubber compounds in which 

 asbestos is the heat-resisting material. Of these are, 

 "\'ulcabeston," the "It" products and the more mod- 

 ern brake lining. There was also "Intonaco," made 

 of gluten, albumen, oil, sulphate of lime and india 

 rubber. This was used as a covering for wooden 

 shelves as a preservative from fire, and for wainscoting, 

 tiles, etc. All of these suggested the practicability of 

 fireproof lumber. 



It is not of course claimed that such products are 

 actually indestructible. Great heat will fuse anything. 

 That these products are not inflammable, that they 

 will char but not burn, argues a vast superiority over 

 ordinary wood with its inflammable resin varnish cov- 

 ering. 



HOW ABOUT IDLE AMERICAN SPINDLES? 



run they will serve their own interests best, nut by help- 

 ing other nations to forge ahead, but by favoring their 

 own country that has with great irrigation systems and 

 other aids made their fruitful plantations possible. To 

 them the motto, "'Charity begins at home," has both 

 a personal and a patriotic significance. 



Helpful as we may like to be — and surely Ameri- 

 can liberality is well evidenced in the billions loaned to 

 Europe, we can hardly be expected to extend our debt 

 hazards still further in order that the spindles of Eu- 

 rope may hum while our own may be idle. Self-protec- 

 tion does not necessarily imply selfishness. Indeed, 

 many of the nations craving our aid are even now plan- 

 ning tariiif and other barriers to shut out American prod- 

 ucts and thus lessen employment for American labor. 



The simple fact is, Europe will find itself. And if 

 America takes too seriously some of the suggestions of 

 well-meaning, but deluded altruists it may before long 

 have some keen regrets. The world has emerged badly 

 bent, it is true, but not broken from the most violent 

 upheaval and exhaustive strain to which it was ever 

 subjected. The probabilities are that, just as it con- 

 trived to pass successfully through trying reconstruc- 

 tion periods in the past, it will do so again in the near 

 future. But in the great readjustment it will not be 

 the dilettante doctrinaires nor the professional politicians 

 who will do the real work, but the men who always re- 

 habilitate national and international trade, the practical, 

 broad-minded, enterprising captains of industry and the 

 fair-spirited, far sighted financiers, of whom America 

 has fortunately some of the finest types. 



AMERICA is making a serious mistake, so say econ- 

 omists, in not making extraordinary efforts to put 

 Euroi>e "on its feet" so that it may quickly resume large- 

 scale buying of our surplus products. Unless our ex- 

 port trade is soon expanded it will be impossible for the 

 United States to maintain its present high standard of 

 living. In order to keep Europeans employed so that they 

 may produce a surplus to be exchanged for Ainerican arti- 

 cles, it is claimed that we should supply them with our 

 raw materials on the easiest terms. The present method 

 of "trusteeing" cotton to one of the new southern Eu- 

 ropean republics, for instance, is mean, cumbersome, and 

 expensive, one expert says. Instead, he would keep the 

 cotton mills abroad going by supplying them with our 

 cotton and taking as the sole security, mortgages on their 

 mills, against which long-term bonds or debentures 

 would be issued and sold to Americans. 



This is in line with the appeal made lately to the 

 long-staple cotton growers of the Southwest that they 

 ignore the home market and ship their product to south- 

 ern Europe, where they would get a much better price 

 in goods than they would get in cash in the United 

 States. But the cotton growers hesitate to enter such 

 a scheme of barter, doubtless realizing that in the long 



FRENCH PROGRESS 



TH.\T France is coming back fast in the matter of 

 production, as well as in expanding its foreign trade, 

 is graphically illustrated in recent conunercial bulletins. 

 These show, among other things, that the nation im- 

 proved its adverse trade balance by 9,000,000,000 francs, 

 or almost 50 per cent, from January 1 to October 31, 

 1920, as compared with the first ten months of 1919. 

 In 1918 French export trade totalled 4,750,000,000 

 francs; in 1919 it almost doubled; and in the first ten 

 months of 1920 it amounted to four times the value of the 

 1918 export trade. It is true that France has been a 

 large importer meanwhile, merchandise brought from 

 overseas in 1919 totalling some 29,750.000,000 francs, 

 and reaching 27,250,000,000 during the first ten months 

 of 1920; but the imports, which have been largely of 

 raw material for conversion into goods for export, have 

 been declining since last April. 



No coiTiplete figures are available regarding the re- 

 covery of the French rubber trade, but it has kept pace 

 with the forward march of other industries. Thus the 

 French exports of automobiles and accessories for the 

 first seven months of 1918 were valued at 74,000,000 

 francs; for the same period in 1919. 147,000,000, and for 

 the same period of 1920, 848,000,000. 



