Ski'temeek I, igo8.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 





391 



^iuTlA-PtB^ 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO., 



No. 395 BROADWAY. NEW YORK. 

 CABLE ADDRBB8: IRWORLD. NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, 

 KDITOU. 



HAWTHORNE HILL, 

 ASSOCIATE. 



Vol. 38. 



SEPTEMBER I. 1908. 



No 6. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE READING MATTER. 



THIS MONTH AT OLYMPIA. 



AT the London rubber congress this month the 

 manufacturers of rubber goods will have an op- 

 portunity to meet a numl^er of important producers of 

 crude rubber — a fact which represents the most im- 

 portant step in progress made in connection with rub- 

 ber for many j^ears. It marks the beginning of direct 

 relations between grower and consumer — the produc- 

 tion of detinite qualities of rubber on specifications — 

 the establishment of a fixed reputation for the prod- 

 uct of given estates, protected by registered trade 

 marks — all of which are desirable. All of this will not 

 happen at (ince, of course, but every business develop- 

 ment must have a beginning before it can become 

 general, and we look to many new things in rubber 

 to date from the Olympia exhibition. 



It is not so long since the arrival of crude rubber 

 in market was so irregular ami uncertain as to be 

 almost a matter of chance. A sailing vessel would 

 come ill without warning, with consignments of rub- 

 ber of which perhaps no advices had been given, and 

 a broker went out and found buyers at what it would 

 bring. That was the practice in America : in London 

 a more stable tone was given to the market bv the 

 auction system, which still obtains. To-day ship- 

 ments are more regular, and more prompt, steam hav- 



ing succeeded sail, and the telegraph gives notice in 

 advance of all details, making possible the systematic 

 business which has grown up of rubber importing. 



Still the buying of crude rubber has remained very 

 much a lottery. The consumer and the producer have 

 had no relation ; even the importer or merchant, as a 

 rule, have not come into contact with the producer, so 

 that any attempt to fix rubber prices six months ahead 

 was about as uncertain as a weather prophecy. "I'he 

 more advanced plantations in Malaya, for example, 

 have now reached a position where, knowing the actu- 

 al cost of production, and being able to guarantee qual- 

 ity, they could contract to supply rubber at a fixed 

 price for any length of time, if they chose to do so. 

 But even if such a system does not prevail in the near 

 future, there are other advantages which may be ex- 

 pected to follow the closer acquaintance of planters 

 and manufacturers, and of planters with the suppliers 

 of plantation requisites, such as will be promoted by 

 the International Rubber Exhibition. 



The general public is likely to be benefited by the 

 wider dissemination of facts about rubber, as a result 

 of the exhibition, which ought to render more difficult 

 the flotation of unsound companies. It is desirable 

 that the public should invest in rubber, as in any other 

 good business, and this new field of investment ought 

 to be so safeguarded that none need be afraid to deal 

 with it. This, evidently, is one of the objects of the 

 exhibition at Olympia to which the management is ap- 

 plying itself, rather than any idea of making any profit 

 from the exhibition as a business enterprise. 



RAILWAYS IN AFRICA AND RUBBER. 



THE rubber world has more than one reason for 

 feeling interested over the activity in railway 

 building in Africa which is being promoted by everj- 

 European power having colonies on that continent. 

 African railways already have made available large 

 rubber areas which. other\vise. might yet be unpro- 

 ductive. Practically all the rubber exported from the 

 Congo Free State is conveyed over the railway around 

 the Congo Falls, which road has otherwise favorably 

 affected the rubber interest by facilitating in so many 

 ways the development of trade in the Congo rubber 

 area. Similarly rubber trading has felt the beneficial 

 effect of the railways in French W'est Africa and Brit- 

 ish East Africa. And it may be added that one of 

 the incentives to the further construction of railways 

 in the Congo State and of the Benguella line is the 

 prospective profit from opening new rubber fields. 



The carriage of rubber alone, however, in none of 

 the regions indicated, would be sufficient to maintain 

 a railway. But the promoters of these African roads 

 are building for the future — to accommodate a traffic 

 the development of which has barely begun. Just as, 



