Evening star., 1942-04-26

national cartel situation.
A. P. Photo.
the cartel has been denounced as a pro-
life breeder of bloodshed
President Roosevelt and Prime Minis
ter Churchill are believed to have struck
at the international syndicate when they
guaranteed, in the Atlantic Charter, lib
erty of access to raw materials for all,
time to come.
National safety, Congress has been as
sured by Thurman Arnold, Assistant At
torney General in charge of antitrust
prosecutions, demands that American
participation ins these pools should not
only be stopped now, but outlawed in
the future. bill is being framed in the
Senate for the appropriation Of patents
essential to war manufactures. Presi-
dent Rooseyelt. last week roydered the
alien property custodian, Leo 7, Crowley,
to take possession of all enemy CON
trolled patents.
What the Record Charges.
From information at hand, it appears
that two giant cartels may be charged
with important contributions to the
rubber crisis of the United Nations. One
was an Anglo-Dutch association, the
International Rubber Regulation Com
mittee, which from 1884 until recent
months held a 81 per cent monopoly on
the worlds natural rubber.
The second, a German American COM
bine, possessed absolute control of pat
ents for making artificial rubber from
coal and petroleum. It's members were
the Standard Oil Co. and that trust
of trusts" the Interessengemeinscha
Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft of
Frankfort an Main which is known for
short as 81 c. Farben."
The following allegations have been
drawn from the record:
Present American impotence in the
manufacture of composition rubber Is
due principally to the fact that Adolf
Hitler planned 1t that way. The agent
employed by the Reichsfuehrer was
series of concordatS, starting in 1929,
under which Standard Oil ceded to l. c.
Farben control of synthetic rubber in
the United States
An early act of the Nazi regime was
to serve notice that it would look with
disfavor on sharing with foreign coun-
tries the I. G. Farben processes for max
ing buna-type rubber from coal.
At the direction of its German partner,
Standard Oil frustrated the develop
ment of synthetic rubber in the United
States.
This end was accomplished by refusal
to license American industry for the
manufacture of buna-S tire rubber, and
also by Withholding Standards own in
vention, butyl rubber, which is made
from by-producr gases of petroleum re-
flning
Though details of the butyl formula
were concealed from American industry
and even the American armed forces
until March of this year. the process. on
grounds Of business honor" was con-
flded to I. G. Farben in 1898. 1t thus
became available not only to Germany,
but to Italy and Japan.
Monopoly Is Defended.
Out of concern for price levels and
dividends, the International Rubber
Regulation Committee, during 1910 and
part of 1941, rebuffed all pleas for en-
larging output beyond so per cent of
capacity. Stockpiling in Great Britain
and the United States was strenuously
resisted because of possible destructive
consequences to the syndicate's profit
structure after the war.
To defend its monopoly, International
Rubber opposed cultivation of the quay
ule shrub in California and Mexico, as
we'll as the development of an American
synthetic industry. One argument
against the latter which is said to have
impressed London and Washington was
that it would deprive the British Empire
OF its chief source of foreign exchange.
Lofty superiority to national interests
is an outstanding trait of the cartel
After the invasion of Poland, L G. Far
hen and Tnferpa tinraf Pnhker uars