El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-02-19
RUBBER Is RUNNING SHORT.

Here is bad news for the pretty girls
and the stalwart men who spin over the
roads on air cushioned wheels. The
worlds supp Y of the wonderful gum
which we call India rubber is running
short, and unless some one shall dis
cover a substitute, pneumatic tires will
soon be at a practically prohibitive
premium. And what will the bicycle
rider do then?
India rubber has become such an in
dispensabie feature of modern civiliza-
tion in many ways, indeed, that it is
difficult to conceive how we could ever
get along without it. Not to one per-
son in 10 900 would it ever occur that
the world might be called upon to face
the posi- bility of the supply becoming
exhausted, Yet this is a real peril,
one which is regarded by experts as
being of so grave a character that two
| of the great European powers, Ger
many and Great Britain, are now de-
vising extraordinary measures with the
object of providing for the eventuality
The English government has just
| started a nursery of rubber trees in
Assam extending over an area of some
400 square miles, while the colonial de-
partment at Berlin, in conjunction
with the imperial bureau of woods
and forests, is adopting a similar course
| in the Kameruns, on the west coast of
Africa.
According to the experts consulted
| by the English and German govern
ments, the available supply of rubber
| will become exhausted long before
their state nurseries begin to yield,
and the material is the one vegetable
| product used in manufactures for which
no mineral, animal or other kind OF
| substitute has ever been discovered
| though hundreds of scientists have
| racked their brains to produce
one.
| CAUSE OF THE EXHAUSTION,
The exhaust on is attributable to
two distinct causes-namely, to the al
| together phenomenal increase of the
demand aud to the characteristic i'm
providence and carelessness of the
natives harvesting the sap. Along the
| Congo, where the rubber is principa ly
| obtained from a shrub, the natives
simply cut it down and get what Juice
| they can cut of it, while at Lagos, Ma
oagascar, Brazil and Burma, where it
| is produced by trees, the latter are
| tapped, overdrained and left to ooze
| their life wav. The rubber trees as
well as shrubs, grow only in regions
most deadly to the white man, and
thus the harvesting has to be left en-
| tirely to the cOlOred races, who are the
same the world over-that is, thinkir Q
only of present gain and taking no
| thought of the morrow. 1t is useless to
argue with them, to plead against the
disastrous and downright criminal
waste Of not only the sap, but also of its
| producing tree or shrub, due to their
negligence and reckless greed. They
are deaf to all reasons.
With regard to the growth of the
demand, it noe1 only be pointed out
Z hat aF.an lrr a Il NV, tbD,,
| bringing the news of some new appli-
| cation of Indian rubber to industry,
ard the most competent judges are un-
animOus in declaring that this in it.
self would suffice 10 prevent decline in
price even if by some miracle the pres
ent enormous output were to be doubled
within year.
In the course of a single year, from
! 1895 to !S2a~, the exports fyoa Lagos