CRUDE RUBBER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 144, 21 June 1930, Page 26

CRUDE RUBBER

THE AMERICAN OUTLOOK

INTERNATIONAL ASPECT

America's prospects in the crude rubber..field are reviewed by one of its papers.' ,It quotes tho Union Trust Company,-of. Cleveland, as saying that despite the collapse-in 192S of the British plan to limit crude rubber supplies, the fundamental gravity of the problem of crude rubber supply-remains practically unmodified, and its solution is vital 'not only to American prosperity, but also to world peace.

The efforts of American rubber interests to achieve some metlfods of pro-

teeting the sources of their most important raw material are described' in the bank's magazine, "Trade Winds." The abandonment by British interests of their plan to control the world market by '"restriction- of .crude; rubber" exports should be regarded by rubber manufacturers of the 'United States as a breathing spell,'' it .says.' ..

"The United' States consumes sonic 70 per cent, ofl 'the-world's crude rubber production, but controls only about 3 per cent, of it. ; The remainder" is controlled, by, Dutch and British interests, chiefly.' by ,the. latter, although the French-, control a limited * amount of. rubber : in French Indo-China. The bulk of the supply comes from.the Middle and Far East, and American manufacturers of tires and other rubber products must purchase crude rubber nearly six months' in advance of .-consumption, j HYPOTHETICAL CALAMITY. "The precariousness of this situation directly affects some 12,000,000 Americans,' whose livelihood is dependent upon industries to which rubber is essential. A hypothetical set of circumstances which could entirely shut off the crude rubber supply of the United States would' represent a calamity comparable in seriousness. to a nation-wide crop failure or th,e utter break-down of any other basic industry in a complex economic structure." - The extent and- nature of the crude rubber producing enterprises of American interests in the Dutch East Indies, 'Liberia, Brazil, the. Philippines, Florida, and'the South-Western States, are described and ■summed-up,' the following'being the conclusions arrived at: "The key.to tlie immediate future of American crude rubber supply seems to lie in. closer co-operation with British and Dutch'■■ interests, and in further development of the large holdings of such,companies as Goodyear and United States Bubber in the East Indies, Ford in Brazil, Firestone in Liberia. In general, our chief reliance should bo upon the established plantations of the: East, while Latin America should be. developed as -an additional measure of protection. '