Evening star., 1926-01-03
RUBBER SHORTAGE
END SEEN IN BRAZIL
Britain Losing Monopoly by
Forcing Price Up, Says
Company Head.

That Great Britain is losing hel
monopoly on crude rubber and hel
ability TO control and manipulate the
price was pointed out by William
O'Neil, president of the General Tire
= and Rubber Company, recently in an
address at Akron. Ohio.
There are signs that rubber will be
grown In many new regions along the
equator all the way round the world,
declared Mr.. O'Neil and among other
countries, Brazil looms again as a
source of some relief from the present
rubber shortage The Brazilian relief
can be made immediate, for she has
the rubber trees already growing in
her forests and junEles, and the price
FOR a long time will be high enough to
interest her workers and rubber ma
nipulators.
when Brazil had practically a mo-
nopoly of crude rubber production,
about 10 years ago, she made a squeeze
play by cutting out expectation of
rubber altogether for time, and wait
ed until the price rose to So a pound
before letting it go. That caused the
beginning of the great plantation ac-
tivities in the Middle East, which have
made Great Britain and the Dutch
, the greatest of rubber producers and
took away so per cent of the Brazilian
business.
Britain Following Steps.
80 it may be that SO rubber.
brought 15-cent rubber: then Great
Britain. not having learned a lesson
from the experience of Brazil. also
undertook a squeeze play through the
stevenson restriction aCt-a colonial
measure purely-and brought about
dollar rubber. This in turn stimulates
rubber growing all over the world. and
in about 10 years ir will bring a plen-
tiful supply at about 80 cents u pound.
which, 1t seems, is a figure enabling
plentiful production at a comforta BILE
profit. And incidentally Brazil comes
into her own again as a large pro
ducer.
"Forty-cent rubber wouldn't interest
Brazil because of the cost of her la
Dor. But rubber at 80 cents offers a
profit and an incentive to produce. .
Just how many millions of rubber
trees are growing in Brazilian forests
and jungles no one knows. 1t is a fact
however, that up to about 15 years
ago that country supplied 95 per cent
of the worlds requirements in rubber
of the highest grade, though, of course
the demand then was not nearly so
great as it is now. The trees already
located and formerly tapped run into
many millions, and even at the high
tide Of former production the work
was not done systematically and the
available records are far from accu-
rate.
Then there are still vast Brazilian
areas in the rubber belt that have not
even been explored. They are almost
inaccessible because of natural OBJ
stacles and are inhabited by wild and
savage tribes of Indians. \ number
of scientific and commercial exploring
parties are trying to penetrate the far
up-river and lateral country mysteries
this year. Some of these should re-
port very shortly.
Brazil has great opportunity and
apparently is awake to it now. The
ancestors of the plantation trees of the
East were natives of that country,
and while they must be planted in
other countries. in Brazil they grow
wild. All that is needed is stimulation
of the business Of actually tapping
trees and bringing rubber to the ports
for marketing.
THE Amazon River was the great
highway over which large quantities
of rubber were formerly brought tc
the seaports. Natives. mostly Indians,
did the work, and most of them oper-
ated on their own in small parties or
as individuals, not under company or
government direction. There are now
signs of activity on a more organized
basis