THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October 1. 1915. 



rubber trade" would have fulr 

 iniquities of the rubber robbers. 



inated against the 



WHAT A MOUNTAIN OF SCRAP THE WAR 

 MAKING ! 



at our ports — the accumulation of rubber scrap on the 

 Continent must be enormous, and the amount available 

 for reclamation after the cessation of hostilities without 

 precedent. 



WllA'l" a pletluira of scrap rubber there will be one 

 of these days when the war is over! 

 For the year ending- June. 1914, the total imports of 

 scrap rubber in the United States amounted to nearly 

 26,000,000 pounds, nearly 20,000,000 of which came 

 from Europe, l-'or the year ending last June, eleven 

 months of which were included in the war period, the 

 total imports of scrap rubber amounted to only 11,000,- 

 000 pounds. The Department of Commerce has not 

 yet published its report giving the individual sources of 

 this supply, but the figures have been compiled, and they 

 show that the receipts from Europe for the last fiscal 

 year amounted to only 4,286,195 pounds; hardly more 

 than one-fifth of the amount received the year before and 

 less than one-eighth of the volume received from that 

 source in the year ending June, 1913. 



Naturally the Germans are sending us no scrap rub- 

 ber, though they have unearthed every piece of it in 

 the Empire and doubtless have a larger accumulation 

 than ever before. The neutral countries of Europe are 

 also conserving every piece of rubber obtainable, and 

 even in England and France, where new rubber is in 

 fair abundance, there would, of course, be no disposi- 

 tion to export any considerable quantity of old rubber, 

 which it might be a great convenience to have a little 

 later. 



More rubber is now on its way to the scrap heap than 

 ever before in the history of the industry. This is an 

 automobile war. For the first time in the history of 

 military operations the motor car is the chief mobilizer. 

 Troops, supplies, equipment, aeroplanes — all move on 

 motor vehicles. At the beginning of the war, or soon 

 afterwards, Germany, according to the best estimates 

 obtainable, had 70,000 motor vehicles in military serv- 

 ice ; while the Allies doubtless had three times that 

 number. Even assuming, as is often stated, that mili- 

 tary auto-trucks last only a month (in all probability 

 they last much longer) the Allies, or at least England 

 and France, must greatly have increased their number 

 of auto vehicles during the last twelve months. The 

 English factories alone have been producing seven or 

 eight hundred motor vehicles a day and their importa- 

 tions from the United States since the war began ex- 

 ceed 50,000. And there is no other rubber product that 

 reaches the scrap heap so quickly as a tire on an auto 

 m service at the front. 



So, all in all, between the universal destruction of 

 rubber goods in Europe and the lack of incentive for 

 the present for collecting these rubber remains for the 

 American reclaimer — as shown by the meager receipts 



THE OPTIMISM OF THE AMAZON. 



OPTIMISM is half the battle. In fact, to observe 

 mathematical accuracy, it is probably two-thirds. 

 Consequently it is pleasant to read in the letter which 

 appears on a later page in this issue, from a man long 

 identified with the rubber interests at F'ara that, no mat- 

 ter what the plantation people do. the Amazon will al- 

 ways be able to hold its own. His cheerful jirophecy 

 runs as follows : 



"The Amazon will always be able tc compete with 

 Ceylon in prices. As cheaj) as they may be able to 

 produce their rubber, the Amazon will be able to pro- 

 duce it still cheaper." 



To be sure, the statistics of the Amazon, when com- 

 pared with those of the East, have rather a pessimistic 

 aspect. In 1905 the output of the Amazon country 

 amounted to 35,000 tons of rubber. The product of the 

 plantations amounted to 145 tons. The estimated yield 

 for the present year is 35,000 tons for the Amazon, or 

 just the same as 11 years ago, while the plantations will 

 probably produce 90,000 tons. In other words, while the 

 Amazon is just where it was a decade or more ago, the 

 product of the plantations has increased during that pe- 

 riod over 600 times. Moreover, while' no one prophesies 

 an increase in the Amazon production, at least for many 

 years to come, careful estimators believe that within 

 four or five years the plantations will produce 300,000 

 tons. Furthermore, men experienced with Amazon pro- 

 duction place the cost of a pound of Upriver fine put on 

 board at Para at 60 cents, while in the East many of the 

 plantations have already reduced the cost of a pound of 

 rubber to 25 cents, and in some cases to less than 20 

 cents. 



In view of this deadly parallel a note of optimism from 

 the Amazon is certainly most gratifying. Undoubtedly 

 there will always be some rubber coming from the 

 Amazon, regardless of price reductions in the East. But 

 unless some comprehensive plan of colonizing labor is 

 adopted, shipments from Para are likely in time to con- 

 sist chiefly of such rubber as is easily accessible and 

 which may be gathered in time which would otherwise 

 be unemployed, and the returns from which, whatever 

 the market price, will be viewed as so much clear gain. 



