The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-24
INDIA RUBBER.

n earlier year, and wiz amout TO owe
:. forty million dollars in value. The de
d mand for this article of exclusivel,
; | foreign production for use in manu-
Il featuring has increased very rapidly il
recent years. and the imports in tn
a | present fiscal year, as shown by tn
Department of Commerce and Labo
, through its Bureau of Statistics. viii
amount to about sixty million pounds
valued, as already indicated, at full!
, forty million dollars. This rapid in
crease is apparently due, in large
! degree. to the increasing use of thi:
material for tires of vehicles OF va
rious classes, though in other lines OF
manufacture the demand is also very
great.
The rapid growth in the use of this
article of manufacture in the United
States is illustrated in the fact that
the total value of india rubber and
gutta-percha imported in 1870 was less
than three and one-half million dollars,
in 1880 nine and one-half millions, in
1890 fifteen millions, in 1900 thirty-one
millions. and in 1904 will be fully forty
millions. The increase in quantity has
| in value, owing to the fact that prices
{ have advanced materially by reason of
| the greatly increased demand of the
various manufacturing sections of the
J cioIJ w he
In 1880 the quantity of rubber i'm
ported into the United States amounted
to seventeen million pounds valued at
nine and one-half million dollars, MAX
ing the average price about ffty-five
cents per pound. In 1890 the quantity
imported was thirty-four million
pounds valued at fifteen million dollars,
or slightly less than fifty cents per
was forty-nine million pounds valued
at thirty-one million dollars, or about
sixty-three cents per pound; while in
1904 the record of the ten months for
an average value for rubber imported
of sixty-eight cents per pound. In adj
dition to this, however, large quantities
of material utilized in conjunction with
india rubber are now imported.
Importations of ''gutta-joolatong," a
product of India, which is used in GER ]
tain industries as a substitute for in
dia rubber now average more than a |
million pounds month, while impor |
tations of old and scrap india rubber |
to be remanufactured amounted to over |
fifteen million pounds in the ten months |
of the fiscal year for which a record |
is now at hand. These importations of /
old and scrap rubber for remanufac-
ture and of gutta-joolatong as a SUBJ
stitute in certain lines of work are
new and have only been
by the Bureau of Statistics
as a separate item during very re-
cent period The fact that they are
now utilized and that the importations
of old and scrap rubber to be remain
ufactured have reached such a large to-
tai indicates the great demand for this
material in the manufacturing indus
tries of the United States.
Brazil is the most important source
of this material. More than one-half
of the india rubber imported into the
United States comes direct from Brazil,
the total from that country alone being
for the ten months thirty million
pounds, valued at twenty and one-third
million dollars. The United Kingdom
in the same period over seven
million pounds, valued at five and one
fourth million dollars; Germany, two
million pounds valued at one an6 one
fourth million dollars; and Other
Europe" nearly ten million pounds
valued at over seven and one-half mill
lion dollars. These supplies of india
rubber which come from the European
countries are in practically all cases
the product of their various colonies.
Germany drawing her supplies from
her colonies in Africa; the United
Kingdom, from Africa. India, Ceylon
and the Straits Settlements, while the
supply from countries designated as
Other Europe is chiefly that obtained
in Africa by Belgium from the Kongo
which it controls.
Belgium supplied in 1868 nearly five
and one-half million pounds of india
rubber against less than two and three
fourths millions in 1900, less than one
million pounds in 1897. and but 10000
pounds in 1898. Germany's supply OF
rubber to the United States has grown
from little over one and one-half mil
lion pounds in 1898 to practically three
millions in 1903, while that from the
United Kingdom has increased from
six and one-half million pounds in 1898
to nearly ten millions in 1903. Por-
tugal also draws considerable quanti-