242 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[February 1, 1915. 



present time our winter has been marked by extreme 

 severity, but simply because of the general cleaning up 

 of stocks by foreign orders. Then the increase in rail- 

 road rates recently granted by the Interstate Commission 

 has already stimulated the demand for railroad equip- 

 ment, and some of the trans-continental lines are ar- 

 ranging new financing on a large scale to supply such 

 equipment — which means, of course, more hose and more 

 packing. 



It can be very safely said that we not only can but will 

 use all the rubber England can spare us, and that there- 

 will be no surplus to be attracted abroad by unusual 

 financial offers on the part of the enemies of the Allies — 

 even if there were any American dealers disposed under 

 present conditions to make such sales. 



at least, why, with disappointing winter conditions at 

 home, rubber dividends have been earned and rubber 

 shares rule strong. 



A WONDERFUL CHANCE TO CLEAN UP. 



ONE does not need a lively sense of credulity to 

 believe current reports that the makers of rubber 

 boots and shoes have been enjoying a chance without 

 precedent to clean up. With millions of men in the field, 

 fighting, sleeping and living in trenches in mid-winter, 

 it is obvious that the first requisite for preserving health 

 and maintaining fighting fitness is waterproof footwear; 

 and it is equally obvious that the belligerent governments 

 have been in no position to wait for their orders to follow 

 the ordinary manufacturing routine but must take what 

 they could get quickest. If there are manufacturers of 

 rubber boots and heavy shoes who have not cleared out 

 their surplus stock it would appear to be their own fault; 

 certainly fate could not have been kinder. 



Emptying the warehouse does not in the least signify 

 the working off of damaged or inferior goods. There- 

 is no other line of manufacture on earth where it is so 

 impossible to foretell the future demand as it is in the 

 rubber footwear industry. Who can say in July whether 

 the coming January will bring five feet of snow or glow 

 with springtime balm, with pedestrians complacently 

 going about in pumps? Both contingencies must be pro- 

 vided for. If the blizzards come, well and good — every 

 rubber finds its leather sole-mate; but if the snow fails. 

 many cases must stay in the storehouse for another sea- 

 son. But that mean- no appreciable deterioration, 

 where the goods have quality to start with. So the 

 soldiers of the Allies, who have depleted American surplus 

 stocks as probably they were never depleted before, are 

 not wearing discards, but are comfortably and serviceably 

 shod. 



This unprecedented foreign demand explains, in part 



HOW WOULD IT WORK OUT? 



"IMMEDIATE action by the United States Con- 



*■ gress prohibiting absolutely the importation of 

 British rubbers or products thereof or any kind of 

 manufactured rubber goods into the United States." 

 That was the whimsical suggestion made in all good 

 faith in the columns of the daily press by an ardent, if 

 injudicious, friend of the American rubber trade — in 

 case England did not forthwith lift the obnoxious 

 embargo. 



The idea evidently was that if our English friends 

 would not let us have what rubber we needed now, we 

 would have none of their rubber in the future, and that 

 it should be left to pile up in their warehouses until it 

 decayed of old age. But how in reality would it have 

 worked out ? If a British embargo for two months 

 proved so troublesome, what would be the effect of 

 an American embargo declared for an indefinite peril id ? 

 Would restrictions emanating from Washington be 

 any less onerous than those originating in London? 

 If withholding needed supplies for a few weeks caused 

 us so much distress, what would be the result of a 

 permanent prohibition? It was declared in the midst 

 of the embargo, by several manufacturers, that if it 

 were continued very much longer our supply, which 

 normally should be 60,000 tons a year, would be cut 

 down to a paltry 35,000 tons, that workmen would be 

 laid off in all our factories and that there would be a 

 marked and universal increase in the cost of rubber 

 goods. How would this unhappy situation have been 

 relieved had Washington added its embargo to that of 

 London? 



As a matter of fact, had Congress ever attempted 

 such a measure and rubber prices had gone up fifty or 

 seventy-five per cent., would not the army of a million 

 and a half tire users, to say nothing of other consum- 

 ers of American rubber goods, have swept down on 

 Congress like an avalanche, demanding the instant re- 

 peal of the rubber prohibition? 



Fortunately, the situation did not call for extreme 

 measures and the suggestion quoted above, which ap- 

 peared in a number of papers, was probably never 

 seriously entertained by our national law makers — 

 even though they have at times shown a marked pen- 

 chant for fantastic legislation. 



