sion in imports. Considerations of the prospects of the market or of
the incidence of import duties in a particular country will weigh witt
these firms in reaching a decision to establish factories in that
country. Thus, in the case we have quoted, the Goodrich Company
had been established and the Michelin Company had commenced
work on their factories in England prior to the imposition of the
33% per cent. ad valorem import duty on the 12th April, 1927,
whilst the other foreign firms commenced work on their factories
after that date.
13. Another instance of the manner in which figures of exports
and imports may be temporarily affected by causes other than
those of true market demand is furnished by the exports of tyres
from the United States in 1924 and in 1995. Exports of outer
covers were 28 per cent. higher in 1925 than in 1924. To some
extent this was due to a true increase in demand, but it was also
largely due to the decision of the Ford Company to equip their
ars with low pressure instead of high pressure tyres. Tyre
nanufacturers in the United States were therefore compelled to
reduce rapidly their stocks of tyres of the old type and in doing so
mloaded them on foreign markets.
Different
considera-
tions in
tyre indus-
try and
general
rubber
manufac-
bares.
Arrange-
ment of
the Survav.
14. In analysing the import figures of tyres in different countries
sare has clearly to be taken to avoid ascribing to changes in demand,
7ariations which may be due to entirely extraneous causes. Similar
sonsiderations do not occur to the same extent in regard to other
tinds of rubber goods. In the first place the factories which supply
hem are not organised on a similar scale. In fact for making
‘ome of these goods to meet a local demand a small factory in-
‘olving comparatively small initial expense—some £4,000—is
wilicient. Further, sales organisation is not under the control of the
nanufacturer to the extent that it must be in the tyre trade, in
which arrangements for local stocks, service and advertisement are
mportant. Many of the other rubber goods must necessarily be sold
i0 other industries, as for instance belting. In some cases they
must be sold through factors or merchants specialising in the needs
A different classes of retailers. Thus, for example, hot-water
»ottles are sold through those supplying chemists’ shops, rubber
ands and erasers through dealers in stationery stores, and water-
proofs through the channels supplying drapers and clothiers. This
side of the industry thus differs entirely from that of tyres both in
the scale of its organisation, in the methods of gale and distribution
of its products and in the degree to which standardisation in manu-
facture has been attained.
15. This survey therefore deals with a varied industry for
several sections of which detailed information regarding conditions
in competing countries is not forthcoming. We deal first and
briefly with the growth of the rubber producing industry and the
absorption of raw rubber by industry in the chief manufacturing