572 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[July 1, 1915. 



PRESENT CONDITIONS OF THE RUBBER MARKET 

 AT MANAOS. 



i Special Correspondent. 



FOR years the world has been hearing but one kind of sound 

 from the Amazon — that of complaint and distress. We are 

 told unceasingly that i In- Amazon is a lost case since hei principal 

 produ i'ara — lost the control of the world's rubber market, 



owing to the phenomenal growth of plantation production and Uie 

 quent reduction in price of the commodity. 



i voices which timidlj asserted confidence in the latent 

 : of the country to adapt itself to new conditions and to 

 come out of the struggle victorious in the end, did not succeed in 

 making themselves heard. Nor is it surprising that this should 

 have been so, since those concerned with plantations in the East 

 had an interest in demoralizing the Amazon as much as they 

 Could, in order to draw public attention away from the primitive 

 home of the Hevea in tin' direction of their own enterprise, never 

 losing an occasion to preach the downfall of the great rubber cen- 

 ter. Not only this, but the majority of the leading men on the 

 Amazon, in their efforts to get help and concessions from the 

 Federal Government, joined the general chorus of distress, helping 

 to make the whole world believe that the end of the rubber in- 

 dustry had come. 



There can be no doubt that the sudden and violent fall in prices 

 wrought havoc on the Amazon ; fortunes were lost — the fruit of 

 a lifetime of hard work and never-ceasing enterprise in combating 

 and overcoming the enormous difficulties which nature and climate 

 prepared for the daring seringueiro. Values were annihilated, 

 property became almost worthless, credit ceased entirely, and pub- 

 lic finances — based almost exclusively upon the production of rub- 

 ber — reached a condition bordering on bankruptcy. 



But they who counted upon the definite annihilation of the 

 Amazon rubber industry ignored — whether purposely or not — the 

 strength and elasticity of the country. To the attentive observer 

 signs of nascent restoration on the Amazon, from the economic- 

 financial point of view, are beyond doubt; to those well versed 

 in Amazonian affairs they come as no surprise. 



\*. a matter of fact, for many years there has been too large a 

 margin of profits in the rubber-gathering industry, entailing as a 

 natural consequence the reduction of productive work to a mini- 

 mum and raising unproductive expenditure to a maximum. Econ- 

 omy was at one time a word unkown on the Amazon — the fury 

 - the order of the day, both for the individual and 

 .Mir administrations. 



There have been several crises upon the Amazon in former 

 years, all forgotten as quickly as they came, because invariably 

 the direct cause of such crises disappeared within a short period. 



When the present debacle set in, people were not inclined to 

 take it too tragically, relying on the good star of the country to 

 point the way out, as had been the case so often before. Conse- 

 quently, careless life and expenditure, uneconomical working, and 

 the never-ceasing discounting of the future went on for a time, 

 aggravating the situation rapidly, until a point was reached wdien 

 the Amazonians awoke to the fact that they were on the wrong 

 track. 



From that moment two different movements could be distin- 

 guished. Due was directed by the official element, and many of 

 those who found themselves on the verge of ruin through the 

 great shrinkage of values in all property assets in the interior, 

 called out for help from the Federal Government; the Defeza da 

 Borracini was created but proved a complete failure. It is not 

 the object of these lines to discuss the reasons which caused this 

 effort of tin Federal Government to be a fiasco; it is certain. 

 ver, that with the amount of money that was then sacrificed 

 something profitable could have been done had better judgment of 

 the needs of the Amazon prevailed. 



All the same, i ne distinct advantage resulted — a considerable 

 ention paid to the Amazon River Com- 



pany in exchange for cheaper freight rates all over the Amazon 

 and its affluents, together with better and more regular shipping 

 facilities on the upper rivers. 



Apart from this, the effort of the Federal Government was pure 

 waste, and the latter, with this result before their eyes, will not 

 be likely to embark on another such venture. Nevertheless, the 

 Amazonian people continued in their appeals for help, painting the 

 situation as black as possible. In doing so they are right as far 

 as the Amazonas and Para State and municipal governments are 

 i on, , rued, for these are crippled with debts incurred when every- 

 thing looked rosy and there seemed to be no limit to the contin- 

 uous increase of revenues 



Now, seeing themselves faced with a greatly curtailed income, 

 quite insufficient to meet the current expenses and those of the 

 heavy obligations formerly assumed, and unable to increase tax- 

 ation of the population, they revert with reluctance to the cutting 

 down of public expenditure and probably, as time goes on, they 

 will succeed in making both ends meet. 



In the meantime, however, their cries of distress give a wrong 

 idea of the real situation on the Amazon as far as rubber produc- 

 tion is concerned. In fact, while this part of the Amazonian pop- 

 ulation practically obtained nothing, their system working directly 

 against Amazonian credit and resulting in the almost complete 

 cessation of credit not only in the United States and Europe but 

 also in the Argentine and in Brazil itself, another party got to 

 work unostentatiously. 



Accepting the actual situation of Amazonian rubber with regard 

 to the plantation product as a consummated fact, they did not 

 look back on departed prosperity, but sturdily took the matter in 

 hand in a practical manner: they set out to cheapen production, 

 and lo ! what before had seemed almost impossible proved to be 

 quite possible. 



Business was placed on a more solid basis ; shipping was run 

 on more economical lines ; a closer control of the scringueiros 

 was inaugurated; the aviamentos (the out-fittings) were reduced, 

 and the people living in the woods were induced to plant the 

 greater part of the crops they needed for food, such as beans, 

 mandioca, cane, etc. The rubber gatherers were held to their work 

 for a longer season, which isn't even then a desperate effort, con- 

 sidering that the average seringueiro seldom works much over 

 100 days in the year, although there is no reason why he should 

 not work for at least 200 days. 



Naturally, increased rubber-gathering effort was confined to 

 places of relatively easy access, as are all the lower parts of the 

 upper rivers with regular shipping communication with Manaos. 

 The results are plainly seen already. 



The following data give a fair idea of the evolution the Amazon 

 is undergoing: 



Imports from Manaos to the interior decreased from 1,259,984 

 volumes— 59,723 tons— in 1912, to 823,870 volumes— 38,257 tons— 

 in 1914. And in spite of this decrease of almost 35 per cent, in 

 merchandise sent up the rivers, entries of rubber (Hevea) at 

 Manaos for the first nine months of the present crop — July 1 to 

 .March 31 last — increased from 17,900 tons during the last crop, 

 to 18,120 tons for the present crop. 



This increase of about 220 tons of Hevea rubber for the nine 

 months of the crop may appear insignificant at first sight, but if 

 we consider that the output on the upper rivers, especially the 

 Federal Territory, suffered a decided decline and that this was 

 made up by a larger production on the lower parts of the rivers, 

 the results of the efforts of Amazonian and more especially the 

 Manaos people, become evident. In fact, the output of the rivers 

 which do not reach the Federal Territory, viz., the Madeira. Soli- 

 moes and Rio Negro, increased from 6,382 tons to 7,167 tons, or 

 a plus of 715 tons for the nine months. 



Under these conditions, Manaos commerce is far from being 

 distressed — in fact, the present crop has not only been satisfactory 

 in quantity but prices have also left a satisfactory margin. Lower 

 exchange has contributed to this result, but there is no doubt that 



