Mr. Hoover is conducting in America an angry agitation against
the price of British rubber. We cannot compli- ment him on either his manner or his method. He talks of the British " monopoly " and of a policy of unfairly exacting a tribute from. the American people. The facts are these. It was open to the whole world to plant rubber and the pioneers of the British rubber industry had the foresight and the enterprise to do it. They prospered exceedingly until shortly after the War, when the price of rubber, owing to over-production, fell to a ruination level. American buyers could have bought as much rubber as they wanted at 6d. a lb., but they held off, no doubt thinking that the British industry might break up, and that they could buy a bankrupt stock at even lower prices. Then Great Britain introduced the Stevenson scheme to restrict output. Some think that this saved the industry, others deny it ; but whatever the truth may be this means of salvation was no more artificial or unfair than the recommendation which (as the Morning Post reminds us) Mr. Hoover himself made that the sowing of Ainerican wheat should be restricted in order to raise the price. Indeed,. Mr. Hoover's pro- posal was worse, since wheat is a necessary and rubber is not. * * z *.
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