i 
Dependence 
on other 
industries. 
Dominant 
position of 
the United 
States. 
in each garment is small. In electrical cables and wires the cost 
of the rubber used for insulation forms but a small part of the 
final cost. 
To consolidate the trade statistics for all these greatly differing 
industries as if they were all equally important branches of a 
rubber manufacturing industry would clearly be of ho value. We 
therefore, later in this report, deal separately with those sections— 
tyres, mechanical rubber goods, rubber footwear and rubber soles 
and heels—for which separate figures are available in the trade 
returns of the more important manufacturing countries and then 
bring together in a separate section the information we have been 
ble to collect regarding the other miscellaneous uses of rubber. 
We have omitted any detailed treatment of the trade in wires 
and cables, in which articles rubber forms only a small fraction of 
the final cost. 
9. A brief consideration of the uses of rubber enumerated in 
paragraph 7 brings out another characteristic of the industry—its 
dependence on other industries. Certain of the articles mentioned 
‘here, frequently many of less importance such as rubber balls, 
erasers, fountain pens, hot-water bottles, are in demand by the 
public independently of the fluctuating conditions in other indus- 
tries, but for many of the main uses to which rubber is put, as for 
instance in belting, in valves, in electrical installations, in tele- 
phones, in wireless and even in tyres, the progress of the rubber 
manufacturing industry largely depends on the progress of other 
industries, such as the development of the telephone service or the 
enterprise of the motor car trade. The rate of development of 
the rubber manufacturing industry in any country is thus dependent 
fo a great extent on the rate of development of other industries 
over which it.can exercise no control. In tyres, for example, a 
contract for first equipment of a car has an added importance to 
the tyre manufacturer from the advertisement it gives him when 
the car is sold. Thus tyre manufacturers in countries in which 
ihe motor car industry is rapidly extending have an advantage over 
hose in which progress is not so rapid. 
10. The tyre industry of the United States possesses an almost 
»verwhelming advantage on account of the size of the home market 
for motor vehicles. During 1926, 1927 and 1928 more than 78 per 
cent. of the motor vehicles registered in the world were in the 
United States, while the American share in the world production 
of motor vehicles, has been during the same period 85% per cent. 
in 1926, 81 per cent. in 1927 and 83} per cent. in 1928. In motor 
vehicles the United States also has a large share in the world 
sxport trade. That share, including assémblies in foreign 
countries, was 69 per cent. in 1926, 80% per cent. in 1927 and 
34 per cent. in 1928. The tyre industry largely follows the motor 
vehicle trade and the United States thus has also a dominating