January 1, 1920.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



201 



Rcf. United Statea Pat. Off. Reg. United Klnsdom. 



Published on the 1st of each month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO 



No. 25 West 4Sth Street, New York. 



Telephone — Bryant 2576. 

 CABLE ADDRESS: IRWORLD. NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, F.R.G.S., Editor 



Vol.61, 



JANUARY!, 1920. 



No. 4. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



New Year's Qreetings ! 



A HAPPY NEW YEAR and a prosperous one! 

 ^M. May all of our friends here and abroad have the 

 good luck to zvish zvisely and their zvishes be realized. 

 Thus the rich promise of this new year, to our industry 

 and to the zvorld, zvill be fulfilled. 



THE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE. 



IT IS NO EXAGGERATION lo State that as a whole, rubber 

 workers are better paid, housed and looked after than 

 laborers of any other great industry. This has been done 

 wholly through the initiative of individual companies. 

 This will continue without a doubt, but it is to be aided 

 and strengthened by collective effort. This is forecast by 

 the formation of an Industrial Relations Committee con- 

 sisting of twenty-five firm members of The Rubber Asso- 

 ciation of America. The getting together of the great 

 manufacturers for the purpose of exchanging views 

 should be of the greatest benefit to employer and em- 

 ploye. 



AMERICAN RUBBER PLANTATIONS IN MEXICO. 



X Tot long ago there were 150 rubber plantations in 

 *■ ^ Mexico, some of them very important undertakings. 

 They were owned by American companies with head- 

 quarters in every important city from New York to 

 San Francisco and from St. Louis to Chicago. They 

 owned hundreds of thousands of acres of land, buildings, 

 machinery — the best of equipment. They had cleared and 

 planted great areas to rubber, cofifee, cane and foodstuffs. 

 They employed large forces of natives whom they housed, 

 fed and paid well. 



Tcnday, that whole industry has been destroyed, the 

 buildings looted and burned, the plantations given over 

 to the jungle, the laborers scattered. Furthermore the 

 American superintendents and foremen, such as were not 

 slain, have been driven from the country. And so far 

 there seems to be no redress. 



LABOR FAMINE NOT TO BE FEARED. 



T^ROM MANY WELL-iNFOR.MED SOURCES evidence is accu- 

 ■*• mutating that manufacturers, business men, bankers 

 and others fear a labor shortage. The era of spending 

 that reached its climax during the Christmas holidays in- 

 dicated a feeling on the part of laboring men that money 

 is very plenty, that big wages are to continue, and their 

 jobs secure. 



The x\merican Bankers' Association affirms that an 

 alarming proportion of our 14,000,000 foreign born are 

 drawing money from the banks, selling Liberty Bonds 

 and houses and are preparing to return to Europe. The 

 estimate made is that $4,000,000,000 will be carried away 

 by the 1,500,000 workers who are leaving for home, just 

 when the call for workers here is most acute. It is said 

 that in one plant employing 12,000 foreign born men, 

 45 per cent have signified their intention of leaving this 

 country and the superintendent declares that should even 

 15 per cent leave, he would not know how to replace 

 them. 



There is this to be remembered, however. We faced 

 the severest sort of labor famine during the war that 

 could be imagined, and most of the factories ran. 

 There is to-day a new force of workers in the thousands 

 of women who found congenial and remunerative work 

 in many industries. The United States is also better pre- 

 pared to create automatic and labor saving machinery 

 than is any country in the world. 



There is also the probability of employing the plentiful 

 and cheap labor sup|ily of the Orient. Consider the 



