TENSE TRADE RIVALRY

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2339, 8 January 1926, Page 5

TENSE TRADE RIVALRY

RUBBER AND COFFEE WAR. AMERICAN ECONOMY CAMPAIGN. WASHINGTON, December 23. In referring to the proposed investigation of rubber, coffee, and wood pulp prices by a committee of Congress, the Secretary for Commerce, Mr H. C. Hoover, said: “Nearly £340,000,000 a year is being exacted from the American public by the British East Indian rubber combination. It was understood that 1/5J had been fixed as a fair rate, but the price has now gone to three times that amount. I can promise drastic action to economise rubber aijd kindred materials if something to improve the price situation is not done." Mr Hoover has appealed to I every motorist, every garage and service operator, carefully to use and patch his tyres Jo that the country’s demand shall immediately drop 25 per cent. In short, Mr Hoover wants America to start a tyre strike. Wilts

tyres, like clothes, he says a i/atch in time saves nine. REVERSE FOR MR HOOVER. BRITISH FINANCE FOR BRAZIL. NEW YORK, December 23. Mr Hoover’s drive for smashing the prices of rubber and other commodities which America does not control received a check when the Brazilian coffee dealers succeeded in obtaining British backing to finance their crops, whose sale Americans have been trying to force. Sao Paulo borrowed £10,000,000 from London bankers, having been refused the usual accommodation in America for obvious reasons. Mr Hoover followed the receipt of this now’? with the statement: “Americans must defend themselves against the trade war that is being made upon us. American buyers should combine for emergency action against foreign monopolies.”

COMMENT IN LONDON. GRAIN PRICES AND RUBBER. LONDON December 28. The Morning Post suggests, "Let us tell Mr Hoover quite frankly that If we, like he in 1919, had tried, by limitation of sowing to raise the price of corn to starving Europe, we should not have the face to complain of Britain’s limitation of rubber production.”