210 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1908. 



sible to draw a most spectacular picture of the near 

 future of rubber jjlanting profits. 



But just as a thousand or so tons of cultivated rub- 

 ber began to be produced, along- with, say, 70,000 tons 

 a year of the forest product, an unexampled drop in 

 prices occurred, and investors in plantations naturally 

 have been disturbed. The exact cause of the drop re- 

 mains yet to be understood; up to date nobody seems 

 to be able fully to understand what sent rubber up or 

 down, or "where prices are made." At every meeting 

 of a planters' association in Ce^'Ion it is gravelv stated 

 that the lower prices to-day are due to something ha\-- 

 ing happened in America. 



But that is because the planters in Ceylon are lirit- 

 ish. Ten years ago, or five years ago, whenever crude 

 rubber prices went up, London and Liverpool dealers 

 told their customers it was because something had hap- 

 pened "in America." But all the while everj- Ameri- 

 can who cared a snap of his fingers about the situation 

 blamed everything upon England or some other coun- 

 tr3% and at this moment the same thing is true — in 

 every market it is said that rubber has gone up or 

 down because of conditions somewhere else. And 

 there you are. 



The LTnited States has not ceased to buv rubber. 

 Look at these figures, showing the government state- 

 ment of the quantity and value of rubber — total and 

 average per pound — imported into the United States 

 during ten calendar years past : 



Year. Pounds. Value Per Pound. 



1898 4.j,236.070 $25,9j7,ioS 56 cents. 



"899 54,4oS,49S 34.219,019 63 cents. 



1900 49.337.183 28,577,789 58 cents. 



•901 55.152,810 28,120,218 51 cents. 



'902 50.851,257 25,158,591 49 cents. 



•903 55.744,120 35,152,642 63 cents. 



1904 61.889,758 43.784,297 71 cents. 



'905 64,147,701 48.517,906 76 cents. 



'906 67.907,251 53.391.137 79 cents. 



'907 68,625,647 49.797.437 73 cents. 



New York is not, like some other rubber markets, 

 an international clearing house for rubber: for the 

 most part whatever supplies come into this port go 

 promptly into the hands of home manufacturers. The 

 recent decline in prices does not, therefore, depend 

 alone upon conditions on this side the Atlantic any 

 more than upon conditions on the other side, or in 

 regions less discussed in this connection. It will be 

 seen from the same table that prices have fluctuated, 

 without regard to the volume of rublier imports (prac- 

 tically the volume of rubber consumption) into the 

 United States. 



But this article is not intended as an apology for, or a 

 defense of, New York, and still less as an explanation 

 of the influences which cause rubber to sell now higher 

 and now lower. The immediate pressing question in 

 Ceylon and other planting regions is: At what point of 

 decline will the Amazon regions cease to export rub- 

 ber, and thereby leave the prospective planting interest 

 in command of the field ? 



Our opinion is that the Amazon river will carry rub- 



ber to market for very many years after every rubber 

 planter now alive has been gathered to his fathers. No- 

 body knows what it costs to produce Hcvca rubber in 

 South America, unless it be an exceptional owner of a 

 seringa! here and there who troubles himself to keep 

 books. And the Brazilian who admits to himself that 

 the sun rises or sets outside his country, or that good 

 rubber can be produced elsewhere, is no patriot ! Do 

 not the cotton planters of the Lhiited States rest under 

 the same delusion regarding their own special product? 

 AVha* is the use, they would say, of considering the 

 possibilitv of com])etition. and planning how to meet 

 it? 



There arc rubber manufacturers in the L'nited States 

 to-day who remember when fine "Para" cost them 

 only 25 cents [a shilling] a pound, and there never was 

 any scarcity of raw material. Of course, with the 

 growth of demand prices went up, which was natural, 

 and the consumer did not complain. But it is impossi- 

 ble to fi.x a limit of price below which the Brazilians 

 and their neighbors will not produce rubber. What- 

 ever was true at an earlier date, most of the scriiignc- 

 iros of to-day have got to produce rubber, or starve. 

 Their country as yet affords no other export staple — 

 no other means of subsistence. The Ceylon planters 

 whose enterprise fails can go "home," or somewhere 

 else. But the Amazon rubber gatherer must gather 

 rubber or die, and if the high prices of recent years 

 which have amazed him and led him into extravag- 

 ances and to feel that Amazonia had "the world in a 

 sling" should disapjjear permanently, he would still 

 gather rubber and manage to sustain life on the pro- 

 ceeds. 



This is not written to discourage the rubber planter. 

 The world will continue to use rubber more and more. 

 The world as a whole is only on the threshold of using 

 rubber as a general proposition. But it is idle as yet 

 for a few bookkeepers to try to figure out what forest 

 rubber "costs"— whether on the Amazon or on the 

 Congo — and at what minimum of cost it will cease to 

 be marketed. There are as shrewd business men on 

 the Amazon as elsewhere, only they have not yet been 

 forced to apply system to their accounting. When 

 they are, the European shareholders in companies in 

 the Far East must see to it that their directors are not 

 worsted in the competition. Have we not seen millions 

 of European capital invested in exploiting forest rub- 

 ber in South America, and almost invariably at a loss? 

 But the rubber output of the Amazon has gone on in- 

 creasing year after year, and it is incredible that the 

 peojjle who have ]iroduced this great volume of ex- 

 ports have done so at a steady loss. So far the Brazil- 

 ians as business men have not suffered by comparison 

 with any competitors. 



The real question is not, "At what low figures will 

 Brazil stop producing rubber?" but "How cheai)ly can 

 anybody else supply equally good rubber?" 



