Mav I, 1908.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



249 



bined and treated in a particular way. No premium is 

 offered here to the manufacturer for trying to excel his 

 competitor. A certain quality of hose is wanted, made 

 in a certain way, and the maker or would be maker is not 

 consulted with a view to possibly benefiting from his 

 experience or views. That would open the way for de- 

 parting from the "standard," and savor too much of the 

 practical to be pleasing to the class of modern purchasing 

 agents, to whom any neglect of their idol. Specification, is 

 sacrilegious. 



It has been asserted that ancient Egypt possessed fixed 

 canons of art, sanctioned by the king, who was at once 

 head of state and church, and woe be to that bold or 

 impious artist who dared to draw a picture of man or 

 beast on different lines of proportion than those which 

 had been O. K.'d by royalty. Every picture had to con- 

 form to an unalterable standard ; who cared for artistic 

 progress, when perfection had been reached already ? In 

 time, however, the race of royal censors passed away, and 

 new ideas in art found room. Which lends strength to 

 the suggestion that in time even the restrictive specifica- 

 tion writer may sink into ancient history. 



SELLING DIRECT TO THE CONSUMER. 



It happens that without any changes in the laws .Ameri- 

 can trade has been growing steadily in whatever direction 

 serious effort lias been made, and it may interest some 

 of our readers to turn to another page, where some statistics 

 of American trade with the non contiguous territories appear. 

 During the past five years there has been an annual increase 

 in the values of rubber goods shipped to .Alaska, Hawaii, the 

 Philippines, and Porto Rico — the increase extending to each 

 of the classes of rubber goods covered by the customs returns 

 of the total of such shipments in 1907 amounted to $613,390, 

 or about one-half as much as tl^e total exports of American 

 rubber goods 15 years ago. At that time the shipments of such 

 goods to the places named amounted only to about $18,000 in 

 one year. Already the shipments of .American rubber footwear 

 to Alaska alone are as large as the whole exports from this 

 country 10 years ago. Somebody is selling goods in these de- 

 pendencies, and presumably other firms can do business in the 

 same field, by the employment of similar methods, whether the 

 congress takes up tariff reform or not. 



The war of the tax gatherers in the rubber states of the 

 Amazon goes merrily on. When the Acre district was acquired 

 by Brazil from Bolivia, the state of .Amazonas, which it adjoined, 

 calmly appropriated the whole region as its own and taxed its 

 exports of rubber accordingly. The sum total soon became too 

 large, Iiowever, to escape the attention of the national govern- 

 ment, which organized the .Acre into a federal district, with a 

 separate taxing system. Whereupon the state government at 

 Manaos asserted that not only was it deprived of revenues from 

 territory rightfully its own, though in dispute, but that the .Acre 

 export dues had purposely been fixed at a lower rate than in 

 Amazon as to encourage smuggling from the latter into .Acre 

 territory. Now, it is reported, the duties at Manaos have been 

 reduced below the .Acre level of rates, with the result that rubber 

 scriugal owners up country are eager to ship under the Amazonas 

 tariff. Such a program of retaliation cannot be carried on very 

 long without causing the export duties to be abolished altogether, 

 but this is a result too desirable to be hoped for by the shippers. 



\ T the recent annual banquet of the Stationers' Board of 

 *»• Trade of New York a report was received from a 

 joint committee representing that body and the Stationers' 

 .Association of New York, on the subject of why jobbers and 

 manufacturers will sell direct to consumers. The chairman 

 of this joint committee was Mr. Edward E. Huber, of the 

 firm Eberhard Faber, and a member of the Stationers' .As- 

 sociation. Mr. Huber was in attendance at the banquet 

 above referred to, and spoke at length on the work of the 

 committee, adding his personal views of the subject which 

 had been referred to it. 



Mr. Huber, speaking from the standpoint of the manu- 

 facturer, and of his own experience of over 30 years in 

 the manufacturing stationery business, took the position that 

 the manufacturer is not entitled to the consumer's trade. The 

 manufacturer and jobber sell the retailer and the retailer 

 can sell only to the consumer; therefore the retailer is en- 

 titled to protection. The jobber is somewhat responsible 

 for the condition complained of by the retailer. He is in a 

 better position to quote the large consumer as to prices than 

 the retailer, hence procures many contracts which the retailer 

 claims he should receive. 



The committee here referred to called upon very many 

 houses, of the various classes in interest, and wrote to 

 others, with the result of gaining a large mass of opinions. 

 Many manufacturers were found who do not sell direct to 

 consumers, or who do so only to a limited extent. Where 

 such sales are made, various reasons were given in justifica- 

 tion. But Mr. Huber believes that by the inore thorough 

 organization of the retail trade the practice complained of 

 could practically be stopped. He was a great believer in 

 the value of trade organizations, in promoting a better under- 

 standing in the trade and in removing wrongful impressions. 

 He felt that the retailer and the jobber should first agree 

 on a method of mutual protection, and if a satisfactory ar- 

 rangement can be entered into between these two classes of 

 trade, he is confident that the manufacturer can be approached 

 with success. In any event, he felt that some good was 

 bound to come from the present agitation. 



Mr. Huber, in addition to his trade organization con- 

 nections referred to in this article, is secretary of the Rubber 

 Sundries Manufacturers' Association, a position which he 

 has held for a number of years. 



A CEYLON VIEW OF RUBBER PRICES. 



AT the fifty-fourth annual general meeting of the Planters' 

 Association of Ceylon, at Kandy. on February 14. the 

 chairman, Mr. James R. Martin, said: "Rubber has experienced 

 a fall in price recently, and that fall. I think, is correctly ascribed 

 to the financial crisis in .America. If that crisis improves, and 

 it does not spread, we may look for a revival of prices, which 

 will last for a few years, perhaps. Therefore, the near future of 

 rubber depends upon difficulties over which we have no control, 

 and is doubtful ; but whatever doubt there may be about the near 

 future, there is no doubt whatever about the distant future, and 

 that is that it lies with the cheap producer; and it is now our duty 

 to organize our estates and labor forces so that Ceylon will be 

 able to produce rubber at a cheaper rate than any other country 

 in the world." 



From the way the baseball opened, there need be no fear 

 that the use of rubber will decline. 



.A NEWSPAPER report from Fort Dodge. Iowa, mentions some 

 interest there in establishing a factory to make a rubber substi- 

 tue invented by Miss Mabelle Xewland, of that city, referred to 

 in The India Rubber World .April i. 190; (page 218). The 

 latest report is that "the invention uses wheat as its principal 

 constituent." 



