408 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Apr 1 1. 



perily of tlic existing enterprises by starting operation from 

 the same basis that had proved successful in their instance. But 

 it is questionable whether the limits of this earlier development 

 of the industry have not been reached, whether in the mean- 

 while in fact it has not outgrown the surroundings of its child- 

 hood. 



This is a point which deserves the most serious consideration 

 of the men in charge of the future of the rubber industry. 



ECONOMIC CAPACITY OF ANY ONE CITY IS LIMITED. 



The economic possibilities of any given neighborhood and its 

 capacity for sustaining an industry are l>y no means inexhausti- 

 ble. If this fact had not been already known to economists our 

 most recent war history would have brought new proof. Under 

 the pressure of the unprecedented war demand many industries 

 were forced to expand, and finding it convenient for their pur- 

 pose carried through the process of expansion upon the ap- 

 parently fertile soil of their own location. New factories were 

 erected in the immediate neighborhood of the mother enterprises 

 and labor was attracted to the localities by the artificial mes.ns 

 of offering high wages and similar inducements. The so-called 

 war prosperity of the nation has not diminished since this hap- 

 pened. In fact, always e.xcepting those industries that were con- 

 nected immediately with the war, there has been a continuous 

 growth in the economic activities of the country. Nevertheless, 

 there is evidence that many of the works erected under the 

 spur of the war were no! destined to prosper under normal con- 

 ditions They find it difficult to hold their full complement of 

 lalior. they complain about the lack of fuel and power, and the 

 distribution of their products is not proceeding as evenly as 

 might be desired. 



The cause is obvious. The existence of these new enterprises, 

 planted upon the already heavily charged soil of one district, is 

 menaced by the increasing economic exhaustion of that soil. A 

 railway line can transport only a certain quantity of goods 

 from and to one location. Charge it with a larger load and it 

 must break down under its own real or imaginary prosperity. 

 .•\ community can house only a given number of inhabitants, and 

 its facilities to provide for more are the limit of its progress 

 toward increased population. It must take years to change 

 these fundamental factors affecting the economic energies of a 

 district and the industrial progress of the nation cannot wait 

 until the process has been completed. Hence the failure of the 

 industrial plants that come in contact with conditions as those 

 described. 



To apply this rule to the rubber industry there is much in the 

 present location of that industry that calls for caution. The 

 rubber industry in certain of its branches is a lavish employer 

 of labor. It needs great quantities of water in others, and 

 spacious factories are essential to the successful conduct of its 

 affairs. This is not written to discourage the location of rub- 

 ber factories in certain parts of this country, but to point out 

 the danger of overloading the facilities of certain districts to 

 the detriment of the industrv as' a whole. 



It is only too obvious that industries working under artificially 

 inflated conditions affecting their most essential manufacturing 

 operations must work more expensively than others. Let three 

 water-mills compete for the water power of one stream, and 

 the system for carrying the water to the mill wheels will be 

 more expensive to each mill than if only one mill operated on 

 the same stream. The cost of mill operations will increase by 

 the simple fact that the upkeep of the installations is more ex- 

 pensive. The same applies to a number of rubber factories 

 competing for water, labor and the shipment of raw materials 

 and manufactures inside the limits of one district or one city. 

 Increased demand for these facilities will tend to increase their 

 cost and while such a tendency may not show on the surface it 

 is bound to influence each factorv in one manner or another. 



The need of having a large labor surplus, so essential to the 

 operation of the rubber industry, causes a rather serious situation. 

 To house this surplus, to make it comfortable and content with 

 working conditions, is more difficult in a neighborhood danger- 

 ously overcharged than where living conditions are easy, where 

 housing is plenty, and where labor may stay on comfortably even 

 if temporarily unemployed. 



If conditions are different, if they are in fact as witnessed just 

 now in several of our great rubber manufacturing centers, labor 

 will not stay. It will keep floating from city to city in search of 

 better conditions, and it will certainly leave those locations 

 where it finds it most difficult to remain. The result in each in- 

 stance is an ever-recurring shortage of labor which makes work 

 easy for the professional agitator. It degrades labor to the 

 standard of a commodity shipped from city to city and prevents 

 the growth of a healthy labor market based upon a labor force 

 that owns its own home and commands a banking account that 

 may be drawn upon during the short periods of unemployment 

 which will happen even in the best organized industry. Inci- 

 dentally it will give to the industry a labor force that stays on 

 the job and does not leave for reasons entirely unconnected 

 with conditions in the factory. 



It seems from this that the present policy of centralization 

 followed by the rubber industry is faulty from practically all 

 reasons that apply to the selection of industrial location. It is 

 not justified by the supply of raw materials and the markets of 

 distribution. It has no support from the existence of special 

 facilities for the operation of its enterprises because these con- 

 ditions arc not exceptional and are found practically in every 

 city of importance in the United States. It is not advisable 

 out of the special national consideration that may necessitate 

 the location of certain valuable industries in regions where their 

 presence is needed as a matter of economic policy. 



While centralization is not wrong in itself and has its uses, 

 a time may come where it can be dispensed with, where in fact 

 a change in policy is advisable in the interest of the future 

 growth of the industry. .This time seems to have come for the 

 -American rubber industry. 



The truth of this content ion has been fully realized by many 

 leading rubber manufacturers, and during the war attempts 

 were made to place new rubber plants outside the more common 

 range of location of. that industry. No revolutionary steps have 

 been undertaken, but the geographical location of the field of 

 production has been broadened, with the result that many new 

 cities have been entered by the rubber industry. The statistical 

 records that are available for the study of such a development 

 are still incomplete, and the following statements, therefore, are 

 based upon general impression rather than upon statistical facts. 

 The student of the more recent development in the United 

 States rubber industry, however, will consent that this develop- 

 ment while it has carried the industry over its former geo- 

 graphical limits, nevertheless has followed the lines of a dis- 

 tinct regional evolution. It has left the municipal centers and 

 spread o\er states. 



EFFECT OF RELOCATION. 



The attempted relocation of the rubber industry has princi- 

 pally affected all the states that were originally important as 

 rubber manufacturing centers, but it seems to have affected them 

 not always in the same manner. In Ohio, for instance, the 

 rubber industry has seen many additions. A close investigation 

 of the situation, however, shows that the growth in the im- 

 portance of that state as a rubber goods producer is still the 

 result of increas'ng centralization, instead of the more desired 

 decentralization of location. .-Xkron still holds the overwhelm- 

 ing producing power of that state, and what new rubber works 

 have been formed are located mostly in this city or in its imme- 

 diate neighborhood. The gain of the rubber industry in that 

 region, therefore, may not be an entire blessing, although it only 

 falls in with the general tendency of the pre-war growth of the 

 industry. 



