38 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November i, 1903. 



regard to the Trusts getting control of all the industries 

 and compelling the payment of exorbitant prices for man- 

 ufactured commodities, there is evidence of a growing de- 

 mand for the protection of investors against worthless 

 corporation stocks. To day banks are so closely regu- 

 lated by law that no holder of a banknote need fear its 

 possible depreciation in his hands. The States also prac- 

 tically guarantee the reliability of the insurance com- 

 panies, while railway companies are required by law to re- 

 port so fully in regard to their condition as to enable 

 everybody to judge of the value of their shares. It will 

 not be strange if a demand should next arise for the safe- 

 guarding of the public against the sale of stock certificates 

 without some basis of value. Without doubt there is room 

 for useful legislation here, but complete protection of the 

 public will never exist. Before the first joint stock com- 

 pany was, people with more money than judgment easily 

 found chances to make themselves poor, and if it should 

 now become impossible to buy any but " gilt edge " stocks, 

 somebody would begin selling town lots in the moon to 

 investors who prefer foolish to wise use of money. 



Many so called Trusts organized during the past few 

 years have ceased to exist, and not all the others are fac- 

 ing the future with equanimity. Some very big concerns 

 have been worried by the competition of the once despised 

 "little fellows" on the outside. Another cause for dis- 

 comfort is the prospect that, in the event of the dissolu- 

 tion of many a big concern, the distribution of its assets 

 might be very one sided. It is said that Mr. Carnegie put 

 his steel works into the control of the steel Trust on terms 

 which will enable him to take them back in case the Trust 

 fails, regardless of what the other shareholders may get, 

 and the steel Trust is not exceptional in this regard. Al- 

 together the existing Trusts appear to have enough 

 trouble of their own not to need congressional action to 

 protect anybody against them, while the disclosures re- 

 garding the projected United States Shipbuilding Co. will 

 serve for a long time to discourage the organization of 

 new companies capitalized for many times their real value. 



THE BRAZILIAN TAX ON RUBBER. 



A MAZONAS is truly a state that lives by rubber. Not 

 ■**■ only is rubber the source of income of the people 

 there who work and of those who engage in trade, but it 

 is especially the source of the public income. It even 

 supports people who neither work nor trade, judging from 

 the recommendation by the governor at Manaos, in his 

 last message to the state legislature, that fifteen "worse 

 than useless " revenue stations be closed, they not having 

 collected a cent for a year, though the officials regularly 

 drew their pay. 



According to Governor Nery, the state revenue in 1902 

 was equivalent to $3,109,814.24, of which all but $33,913.21 

 — about 1 per cent. — resulted from the tax on rubber ex- 

 ports. We believe that the theory prevails in the Amazon 

 states that the foreigner pays the tax on rubber ; there- 

 fore, no matter how high the rate, no burden falls upon 

 their own people. But the theory is a mistaken one. 



Their rubber would bring precisely the same price in the 

 consuming markets, taxed for export or untaxed, and 

 every milreis exacted at the Manaos or Para custom 

 houses leaves so much less for the citizens of those states 

 than they would have if the government kept its hands off. 

 Everybody in Amazonas believes that rubber from that 

 state is smuggled across the rio Javary and then sent 

 down the Amazon as the product of Peru, thereby avoid- 

 ing the payment of duties to any Brazilian state. Yet in 

 New York that rubber brings the same price, grade for 

 grade, as the rubber taxed at Manaos. Which indicates 

 that the seller of untaxed rubber gets more for his product 

 than the other fellows. 



Of course the state is bound to have a revenue, and the 

 only resource of an undeveloped state is to put a tax on 

 the natural products exported. The people on the Ama- 

 zon do nothing to make their lands valuable, and therefore 

 taxable ; there are no corporations, to pay for franchises ; 

 there is practically nothing in that region but a natural 

 monopoly of rubber of a grade that is much wanted by the 

 outside world. And when this want operates to induce 

 the natives to work in the seringaes, the government thinks 

 to make the unloved "foreigner " pay dearly for the rub- 

 ber by imposing as a tax "all that the traffic will bear." 

 The Brazilians really pay the taxes, as they ought to do, 

 but perhaps the rate would be lower if they better under- 

 stood the situation — and if they ever stopped to ask what 

 the government gives them for their money. 



From Governor Nery's message it is possible to com- 

 pute the average tax on rubber at Manaos during 1902 at 

 10.2 cents per pound — assuming 12 pence to have been 

 the average exchange for the milreis — and as the tax is 20 

 per cent, ad valorem, the average export price of rubber at 

 Manaos would work out at 51 cents per pound for all 

 grades, including Caucho. It is interesting to note in 

 this connection that the average import value of all Bra- 

 zilian rubber into the United Scates during 1902 was 49.9 

 cents per pound, showing that the Manaos authorities 

 were careful to avoid undervaluation. 



BLUE, GREEN, AND RED LATEX. 



IT is said that experimenters in Roubaix, France, have suc- 

 ceeded in making- silkworms do their own dyeing. By 

 feeding the voracious caterpillars on leaves containing a natural 

 or artificial pigment, they have obtained raw silk in red, blue, 

 and bright orange. We may before long see " natural colored 

 silk " made and sold— no doubt at a fancy price. 



Now your up-to-date rubberman does not let anything of 

 that sort happen without beginning to think. He knows that 

 certain shades of color in rubber are much to be desired, but 

 have never yet been obtained in the crude article. He won- 

 ders if things have gone back far enough, and straightway 

 places an order for certain chemicals and pigments to be 

 shipped to his plantation. 



It does not yet transpire what the outcome will be, but fancy 

 p'ctures the time when carefully prepared crude rubber will be 

 shipped in assorted colors from the tropics. The blue will be 

 tinged by the infusion of indigo poured about the trees in one 

 section of the plantation, whde red and orange and green will 

 be secured by other pigments. 



