July 1, 1915.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



531 



adequate presentation of all the varied resources of the 

 Amazon Valley, including its potentialities in the way of 

 rubber plantations, could be brought before the attention 

 of the American people, and particularly of the leaders 

 in commercial activity, it -In mid certainl) result in a 

 great awakening of interest in that most wonderful part 

 of the globe. 



THE COLLECTOR ON THE WATCH. 



' I '111- attempt to export rubber concealed in other 

 •*• materials, which recently resulted in the conviction 

 and punishment of live men in a New Y"rk court, and 

 the dispute over the character of the cargo on the 

 "Lusitania," have determined the Collector of New York 

 to scrutinize all goods delivered to the steamships sailing 

 from that port. This does not mean that he will attempt 

 to examine every ease and package — that would require 

 a dozen regiments of inspectors; it simply means that 

 all merchandise delivered mi New York docks for export 

 which is of uncertain source or of suspicious aspect will be 

 subjected to a rigid examination. The signal failure of 

 the two attempts to smuggle rubber out of the country — 

 first, concealed in barrels of resin, and in the second place 

 hidden in bales of cotton — is likely to discourage any 

 further ambitions in this direction that sympathizers with 

 any of the belligerents might entertain. 



CONSULS TO GIVE SOME GENUINE INFORMATION. 



' I 'HE value of consular reports in the past has de- 

 pended largely upon the consul's particular fitness 

 or unfitness for his job. Consular plums have fallen 

 t" all sorts and conditions of men. Some have gone 

 to trained newspaper men who have sent home reports 

 full of genuine information. Others have gone to fic- 

 tionists who have sought consular service for travel 

 and foreign color, whose communications are quite 

 likely to be fair reading but rather lean in valuable 

 commercial facts. Then again, many consular posts — 

 perhaps the greater part of them — have been handed 

 over to plain political hacks without news sense or de- 

 scriptive faculty, whose reports have neither con- 

 veyed information nor excited interest. 



But Secretary Redfield hopes to change all this 

 The Department of Commerce, over which he pre- 

 sides, is preparing blanks for consuls to fill out which 

 will tend to standardize consular reports and will en- 

 able our government to secure just the information 



that American business men require. It is the inten- 

 tion of the department to prepare a list of questions 

 that shall so thoroughly cover the ground that the 

 manufacturers and exporters of this country can tell 

 at once whether a certain foreign market possesses 

 any interest for them, for instance, a consul will no 

 longer advise the department th.it a certain merchant 

 in Melbourne wants to purchase American rubbei 

 goods, hut he will specifically state what goods the 

 merchant wants, the kind and quality and volume, and 

 the price he is willing to pay. This will enable the ex- 

 porter to make a definite proffer at once without the 

 long delay involved in the interchange of correspond- 

 ence over a wide distance. 



The great extent and marked success ,,f the foreign 

 commerce of England and Germany are attributable 

 in no small measure to the intelligent assistance of 

 these two governments. Washington has always been 

 interested, of course, in the growth of American ex- 

 ports, but this interest hitherto has not invariably as- 

 sumed a highly efficient form. This new departure of 

 the Department of Commerce is a hopeful sign. 



SHALL WE HAVE A UNIVERSITY OF TIRE 

 REPAIRING? 



IN a general way educators may be divided into two 

 classes, the culturists and the practicalists. The 

 first cling tenaciously to the Latin and Greek and cal- 

 culus of the fathers — anything to exercise the mind; 

 while the latter contend that while the mind is about 

 it it might as well exercise itself on something it can 

 use. Those advocates of the useful in education can 

 take profound satisfaction in the schools now being 

 established in different parts of the country to teach 

 the complicated art of tire repairing. Here is educa- 

 tion that is practical to the core. 



There are, let us say, 10,000,000 tires in use at the 

 present time in this country. Probably 60 per cent, of 

 them, or, roughly, 6,000,000 tires, will need some sort 

 of repairing during the year. Assuming that a compe- 

 tent workman — taking injured tires as they come. 

 mild cases and serious cases together — could com- 

 fortably take care of 10 tires a day, or 3,000 in the 

 course of a year, there would be work enough to keep 

 2,000 repair school graduates constantly busy. That's 

 a very respectable student body — quite equal to that 

 of several of the best known American universities. 

 As these are distinctively days of standardization, why 

 not bring all these ambitious scholars together in an in- 

 stitution of adequate size and ample facilities, situated 

 in some locality where tire consumers consume tire- 

 in the greatest volume —near Xew York, for instance, 

 or Chicago — with power to confer on its graduates the 

 degree of D. P. S. — Doctors of Pneumatic Surgi 



