100 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December i, 1907. 



tGuTO-riB"^ 



Vol. 37. 



DECEMBER I, 1907. 



No. 3. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Editonal: 



Page. 



The Business Situation 67 



Quackery in the Tire Field 6j 



The Coming Demand for Solid Tires 68 



The Industry in Japan 68 



The Question of Planting Profits 69 



Minor Editorials 69 



The Editor's Book Table 70 



Tires at the Madison Square Garden Show 71 



(With Illustrations.] 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



Our Regular Correspondent 75 

 [Admiralty Contracts. Borneo Rubber. Scottish Vulcanite Co., 

 Limited. Lebrian Rubber Corporaticn. Reclaimed Rubber. 

 Plantation Para. Death of George Bauham. Motor 'Buses. 

 Vacuum Drying. Body Blocks.] 



Rubber Selling Conditions in England 77 



The Science of Rubber Reclaiming iy_ T. Bonner 78 



New Rubber Goods in the Market 79 



["Fairfax" Rubber Shoes. "Victor" Bow Spreaders. Hartford 

 "Rough Rider" Grip. New Specialty in Rubber Fabrics. The 

 King Gogglette. Pommel Slickers. Hard Rubber Pen. "Nesthill" 

 Ball Inflator. Gilbert's Ice Creeper. Shavade Rubber.] 

 [With S Illustrations.] 



Recent Patents Relating to Rubber 81 



[United States, Great Britain, France.] 



Miscellaneous : 



Rubber Shoes in Interstate Commerce 83 



Views on the Congo ... 84 



[With 2 Dlustrations.] 



The Condition of Trade 84 



Standardizing Fire Hose Fittings 85 



The Progress of Rubber Planting 86 



[Malay Peninsula. Mexico. Central America. Jamaica. Peru. 

 Hawaii.] 



[With an Illustration.] 



Concerning Cotton Mill Hose 88 



Crude Rubber Interests 89 



Rubber Interests in Europe 89 



Miscellaneous: 



India-Rubber Goods in Commerce 74 



The Typical American Macintosh {Illustrated) 85 



"Symmes's" Hole Recalled 85 



Stepney Spare Wheel 88 



A Synthetic Rubbtr Enterprise 88 



Wants and Inquiries 89 



Will Chicle be Lower ? 100 



The Obituary Record 91 



Rubber Tire Interests 91 



News of the American Rubber Trade 92 



[With 3 Illustrations.] 



The Trade at San Francisco Our Correspondent 90 



The Trade at ,\kron Our Correspondent 90 



Rubber Trade in Canada 90 



Review of the Crude Rubber Market 95 



WILL CHICLE BE LOWER? 



[The following communication to a leading New York commercial 

 paper is reprinted for the interest of any of our readers who may be 

 concerned with its subject, and not with any intention or desire to in- 

 fluence trade opinion on one side or the other.] 



TO THE Editor of The Journal of Commerce and Commer- 

 cial Bulletin — Sir: In December last I took the liberty 

 of calling your attention to the chide gum market, stating that 

 there was no scarcity of the article, that prices were fictitiously 

 high, brought about purely by speculation, and added, that the 

 termination must be most disastrous to the speculators. Events 



have borne out the correctness of these statements. The bulls 

 still quote prices 47(Ssoc. per pound, when in reality it would be 

 difficult to sell 500 pounds at 5 cents per pound lower. The bulls 

 within three weeks have sold over 100,000 pounds of prime old 

 dry chicle, costing them not less than 50 cents per pound, at 

 40 cents per pound, and in addition to this over 150,000 pounds of 

 new crop chicle has been sold to arrive at 39 cents per pound, 

 and to-day it would be troublesome to sell a carload lot to a 

 manufacturer at several cents below this price. 



The bull speculators know this, but having high cost goods 

 still for sale hope that by quoting prices way above the actual 

 they may succeed in disposing of some part of their still con- 

 siderable spot holdings, besides misleading Mexican shippers as 

 to the real market value in the hope that shipments may be held 

 back, in which event the bulls would be enabled to unload at 

 better prices. It is not often that such tricks prevail. However, 

 let us be charitable, for the bulls have suffered much. 



Chicle prices are now ten cents per pound lower than they were 

 two months ago ; two years ago chicle sold at 27 cents per pound 

 duty paid, which is 12 cents per pound lower than it is offered 

 at to-day. To say that it is likely to sell at this price again 

 before long may appear venturesome, but stranger things than 

 thits have come to pass. The seven large chewing gum manu- 

 facturers are supplied with chicle for from one to two years 

 ahead, and the American Chicle Co., who use more chicle than 

 all the other manufacturers combined, will not at any future 

 time be forced to come into the open market as buyers, their 

 own chicle concessions now producing annually much more gum 

 than they can use annually in the same period. 



When speculators grasp this fact and understand that it means 

 disaster to any bull speculation, then will attempts to corner the 

 chicle market be abandoned. It was this company who at sev- 

 eral very critical periods in the recent eighteen months' specula- 

 tion stepped in and purchased over one and one-half million 

 pounds of chicle from the despairing bulls, but only at a loss oi 

 thousands of dollars to the helpless manipulators. 



The. present Mexican chicle crop will be a very large one, 

 and as the demand for chicle, outside of the seven large manu- 

 facturers, does not total 400,000 pounds, it is clear what must 

 and will happen to chicle prices within the next few months. 

 Me.xico does not comprehend that Honduras now ships chicle 

 enough to determine the market value, still such is the fact. 

 The bulk of the Honduras chicle goes direct to Canada, where, 

 after being dried and cleaned, it is shipped to the States ; this 

 means a large saving in duty to manufacturers. 



Honduras also ships chicle in large quantities to New Orleans 

 and other Southern ports, furnishing by far the greater portion 

 of chicle used by Southern and Western manufacturers. Only 

 a small proportion of this chicle now arrives at this port. These 

 shipments last season caused the hard-pushed bulls much anguish 

 of spirit, but they bore all disappointments bravely to the last, 

 and the courage and ardor they displayed was certainly worthy 

 of a better ending. 



.'\nother potent reason for lower prices is the large use of sub- 

 stitutes. This bids fair to increase unless chicle declines enough 

 to prohibit their sale. Trade depression has also set in and must 

 grow in severity as the months go by. This must also have a 

 most depressing influence upon all classes of merchandise. Sales 

 of chewing gum have fallen off, compared with the same quarter 

 last year, over ,10 per cent. This tells the tale for chicle, and the 

 wise ones will profit thereby. theo g. \ietor. 



New York. October 11, 1907. ^ 



The United States consul at Amsterdam, in a recent report, 

 quotes a shoe merchant in that city as saying that American 

 shapes in rubber footwear are regarded there with favor. The 

 merchant intimates, however, that the English makers have an 

 advantage in that market in respect to the matter of prices. 



