The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-15

enough rubber to make tires for everyone. So optimistic are some theorists about this possibility that preliminary requests have been drawn up for priorities on 60,000 tin-cups to gether the rubber as 1t drips from the trees.
 But wait up minute. There are still a few realists remarking point edly that if this country is so re- mote, it might be bit difficult to get the rubber out, even if the ex- plorers do find 1t, which the skep- tics seriously doubt they will. And this tin-cup priority business is typ ical of some of the fuzzy thinking still going on in high places. Braz- ilians have been gathering what lit tie rubber they can find in gourds, for years, and there is no priority on grounds in the Amazon.
 DOWNRIGHT
 DECEITFUL Realists in the raw rubber supply business doubt that there is enough native rubber in all Latin America to supply more than 30000 tons, or less than one-half of per cent of U. s. needs this year. Consequently, it is downright deceptive to lead anyone to hope that there is any immediate or eventual solution to the rubber shortage in the woods of the western hemisphere.
 Department of Commerce sta tistics show that the best yeild of Brazilian rubber ever obtained was 55,000 tons a year when the price was $50 a pound. Top price today is 39 cents, and there is no enthusiasm for going out and getting it at that price.
 Such rubber as is produced in Brazil has three possible outlets, under present world shipping con- ditions: Brazilian manufacturers can grab it for home consumption, it can be exported to the United States, it can go out the back way through Bolivia to the Argentine. Brazilian rubber export figures for the month of May, 1942, latest figures obtainable, tell this story.
 Total production of Brazilian rubber that month was 2,000 tons. Of that, 1,150 tons went to Brazil ian rubber manufacturers, 25O tons came to the United States and the rest went to Argentina. Argentine buyers got over twice as much as the United States did, and the Argentine is the most ac- tive competitor this country has, all over South America.
 A LOSING
 GAMBLE
 In the face of this situation, the pressure from some government sources on Uncle Jesse Jones and his Rubber Reserve Corporation. to france a lot of rubber plantations in Latin America, is said to be ter rife. It takes eight years to get pro- duction from a newly planted rub Der plantation. In the face of cer- tain U. s. synthetic production with in two years, in the face of restora- tion of the Dutch East Indies and Malayan supply at the end of the year, no one but a sap would be in- terested in taking this gamble.
 William La Varre, chief of the American Republics division of the Department of Commerce, goes so far as to say that, If every Boy Scout in the United States could be set to exploring the alley jungles int his country and collect 40 pounds of scrap rubber apiece between now and Christmas, it would produce more rubber than can be imported from all Latin America"
 Charles T. Wilson, president of the U. S.-Mexican Chamber of Com merce and a former buyer for Rub- Der Reserve, now privately engaged in developing native guayule and castilloa rubber sources in Mexico, is equally pessimistic on the outlook there. At best, Mexico can produce only enough for its own consump- tion in the next year.