May I. H)C^ ' 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



247 



W-Pis^ 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



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Vol. 38. 



MAY 1, 1908. 



No. 2. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE READING MATTER. 



THE RUBBER MILLS GETTING BUSY. 



AiNIERICAX newspapers of late have contained 

 numerous references to the rubber industry — 

 mostly reports that certain factories have resumed 

 work after a temporary shut-down, or that others have 

 increased the number of their employes or the number 

 of working' hours per week. In October and November 

 last the same factories w-ere the subject of newspaper re- 

 ports, but then they were curtailing operations, to render 

 them more secure against a then impending financial 

 storm w'hich, fortunately, was foreseen-in time to pre- 

 vent disastrous results. It would be too much to say 

 that the American industrial situation of a year ago has 

 been revived fully, or even that a normal condition of 

 activity now prevails. 



The question arises here, however, as to what are 

 normal conditions. For years and years we saw a steady 

 increase in factory capacity and in the production of 

 goods of all kinds, together with an unprecedented ap- 

 parent growth in prosperity and national w'ealth, during 

 which time one might have been thought unpatriotic who 

 dared suggest that this growth could ever reach its 

 zenith, or be followed by a reaction. The reaction has 

 come, how-ever. but not to such an extent as to cause 

 demoralization in industrv or trade, and in the stock- 



taking which has followed in the period of enforced les- 

 sened activity it has been demonstrated that the real hbrxk 

 wealth of the country is as great as ever, even if for [i^g^/ yoi; 

 a while overestimated. All the elements of stability andHOT ■ 

 growth remain, the same incentives to legitimate effort. OA^ 

 the same vigor and ambition and hopefulness a? before 

 the panic, w^hich was not really a panic. 



But for a while industrial production may continue on- 

 a smaller scale than the maximum figures of the past 

 few years, and new' construction may be at a slower pace, 

 and there may be more hesitation than at some time in 

 the past to expand unduly upon a limited basis of capital. 

 On the whole, the scare of last autumn may in the end' 

 prove a blessing to the country, in forcing attention upon 

 the need of reforms in the financial and commercial 

 structure, with which the common prosperity is so closely 

 related. Such reforms are less apt to come about when' 

 no signals of danger are in sight. 



This article has been suggested mainly, by the way, by 

 the reports which continue rife abroad of the closing of so 

 many rubber factories in America and the assumption 

 that this has caused the recent marked decline in the 

 price of crude rubber. Some of the reports to which 

 we refer would imply that many rubber concerns here 

 have gone out of business, but of course everybody at 

 all informed knows that this is not true. Much of the 

 inactivitv has been in the rubber footwear factories — 

 large concerns devoted to a single branch of the industry 

 — with which it long has been the custom to close during" 

 some part of every year after supplying the demand for 

 goods for a winter's trade. During the season past the 

 footwear factories were closed longer than usual, but 

 at this date. — the formal opening of the business year in 

 that branch — all the factories are at work or have fixed 

 a definite date for resumption, and no reason is now ap- 

 parent why they should not be occupied at full scale dur- 

 ing the summer in making stocks for next winter. 



Few of the mechanical goods or other rubber factories 

 have been closed at any time, though in a number of 

 them production has been confined to actual require- 

 ments, instead of manufacturing for stock in any inter- 

 vals between orders. No rubber company of importance- 

 has become bankrupt or gone into liquidation. The very 

 small concerns that have come to grief probably were 

 not more numerous than usual during the same number 

 of months. 



As was shown in these columns last month, the amount 

 of crude rubber imported into the United States during 

 1907 was larger than in any former calendar year, indi- 

 cating that the slump in prices could not be due wholly 

 to smaller buying in this country. It seems proper, how- 

 ever, to say here that the rate of imports declined during- 

 the latter part of the year, and has not since returned to 

 the n-iaximum figure, but the imports are still large, as 

 compared with recent years, and every indication that 

 reaches us points to a larger consumption of the raw 

 material here before it experiences another decline. 



