December i, 1907.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



67 



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Vol. 37. 



DECEMBER 1, 1907. 



No. 3. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE READING MATTER. 



THE BUSINESS SITUATION. 



THE disturbance in the financial world, centering in 

 New York, which lias prevailed during a month past, 

 apparently has become much less acute already. 

 Considerable time may be required, however, for general 

 business to recover from the shock caused by the inter- 

 ruption to the working of the credit system upon which 

 practically all commerce is based. A few banks having 

 been compelled to suspend — some of them have re- 

 opened already — there was a widespread tendency to 

 hoard cash and to accept all forms of commercial paper 

 with caution. There is, of course, no less money in exist- 

 ence than before, and no real wealth has ceased to exist. 

 But there was a general curtailment of buying, apart 

 from the limiting of credit, and many persons forced 

 suddenly to realize upon securities found themselves much 

 poorer by the shrinkage for the time being in values. As 

 a result every form of business has been affected in some 

 way, and international commerce as well' has felt the 

 effect of the crisis. 



The whole situation has been one of suspended credit — 

 the stoppage of the work of an intricate and wonderfully 

 ^ ramified machine. The United States as a nation are 

 ^ vastly more solvent than in 1893, the date of the last 

 I real "panic." and as the keynote of American life is 

 ^^ optimism the present financial flurry is likely to be passed 

 ^ much sooner than the event of fourteen years ago. The 

 Q causes of the existing situation, of course, remain to be 



defined and dealt with, but there is no such emergency 

 as to cause fear that capable hands will not be found for 

 this work. 



Business in the rubber trade appears to have lieen in 

 larger volume during the twelvemonth preceding the 

 recent disturbances than in any other like period, and LiBRi 

 very many persons were disposed to feel that good trade NEW > 

 conditions would continue indefinitely. At the leading R;i7 

 centers, however, a feeling of caution was taking shape. 

 Great transportation companies, estopped from further 

 expansion by an unfriendly anti-corporation spirit which 

 hindered them from securing further capital, were buy- 

 ing fewer supplies, and other evidences of a "slowing 

 down" were evident to observant financiers. Finally, the 

 better sentiment in the banking world demanded the re- 

 tirement of certain speculative elements, which was fol- 

 lowd by a "run" on a few banks and their suspension, but 

 there is no proof that any of those banks is not solvent. 

 The result of all this has been a marked check to activity 

 in the rubber trade, along with other forms of business. 

 The feeling is general that this will not be long continued, 

 but just how long is the question. 



After recovery, what? The country must continue to 

 develop, and must have more commodities of all kinds, 

 rubber goods included. Doubtless an era of more caution 

 in the matter of credits is at hand, and less recklessness 

 in the matter of doing business with insufficient capital. 

 If, added to those desirable features, there shall be an 

 improvement in the currency system, devised by congress 

 as a result of this recent object lesson, the so-called 

 "panic" of 1907 may not prove an unmixed evil. 



QUACKERY IN THE TIRE FIELD. 



THE first pneumatic tire ever made doubtless ended 

 its career by becoming punctured, and possibly 

 the same thing will happen to the last pneumatic 

 tire that ever will be made. Yet not all these tires sutifer 

 such a fate, and the chances that a good tire will ren- 

 der good service are so great that many millions have 

 been made and sold and used, and the rate of produc- 

 tion is now greater than ever before. A single firm an- 

 nounced recently thj-.t it had produced altogether up- 

 wards of a million pneumatic automobile tires, and 

 everybody who has bought one tire knows that a mill- 

 ion of them call for a big pile of money. What better 

 proof could there be that rubber tires are good tires? 

 At the same time there appear to be in the world 

 some millions of timorous souls who regard all pneu- 

 matics with distrust. They want pneumatics, but in- 

 sist upon it that they shall not puncture. What is 

 more, they undertake to aid the tire by investing in all 

 kinds of puncture preventing devices or substances. 

 The recent financial stringency might have been 

 avoided if the banks could have had command of all 

 the money which inventors of so-called anti-puncture 

 systems have paid out in patent office fees. Some of 



