Far out on the Pacific last week lay the U. S. battle fleet, its maneuvers completed, its next job not yet laid out. Beyond the battle fleet and across the Pacific many a U. S. businessman cast an uneasy mind's eye. For south and east from the foot of Thailand (Siam) across the Java Sea to Papua lie The Netherlands East Indies, whence the U. S. gets major portions of two strategic materials: rubber and tin. With The Netherlands at war, Japan might cut off that supply, alternatively might exploit a grab by controlling production, prices.
Rubber is the No. 1 U. S. strategic material in tonnage and dollar volume. To U. S. ports comes some 50% of the world's production (almost 500,000 long tons in 1939, of which 75% went into tires). No. 1 producer in 1939 was The Netherlands East Indies, which shipped 377,038 tons; No. 2 British Malaya shipped 375,441 tons. Cultivating seeds originally brought from South America, both have long since outstripped Brazil, whose "wild" trees last year furnished only 16,094 tons. All the "wild" trees in the world produced less than 40,000 tons last year, less than a month's supply if the motor-minded U. S. got it all. On hand in U. S. storehouses last week was a supply of about three months, with about two months more on the sea bound for U. S. ports, and on U. S. shelves lay three months' supply of finished tires.
Against disruption of its rubber supply, best U. S. hedge is reclaimed rubber, which last year furnished 32% of the rubber used in manufacture, could furnish more in a pinch. But with a reduced or interrupted supply of new crude, reclamation would gradually dwindle away. For new supply, the U. S. has little more than a start. U. S.-owned plantations in Latin America are still on an experimental scale, retarded in growth by inadequate labor, poor transportation and the reliance of the U. S. on sources across the Pacific. Rubber-growing in the Philippines, Florida and California is still in the nursery stage.
Although big Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) has U. S. rights to the process for the manufacture of Buna-S, the German tire ersatz that shoes the wheels of Nazi military equipment, it is not yet ready for commercial production, nor have other synthetic rubbers made in the U. S. yet been shown commercially usable for tires. Last week, surveying its tiny stock pile, the U. S. rubber industry went into no panic, said not a word about the possibility of higher prices for tires. But the headlines helped speculators raise the price of spot rubber from 20¢ to a high of 25¢ a pound.
Tin, a long way from being as indispensable as rubber, is also a less ugly picture from the supply side. No. 1 use (45% of consumption) of tin is for coating the cans in which U. S. citizens get their beans, their beer, their motor oil. Other uses are smaller percentagewise, but often less easily switched. Tin is indispensable for Babbitt metal and bronze used in aircraft and automobile engines.
No. 1 market for tin is the U. S., which consumed 70,265 of the 183,700 long tons produced in 1939. No. 1 producer is Britain's Malaya with 1939 exports of 55,945 tons, No. 2 The Netherlands East Indies with 31,281. Like rubber, tin is also controlled in production by a British dominated international cartel. British and