RUBBER SHORTAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 March 1942, Page 2

RUBBER SHORTAGE

EFFECT OF CARTEL ACTION

EXPLAINED IN UNITED STATES. RESTRICTIONS ON WAR PRODUCTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) WASHINGTON, March 26. Mr Thurman Arnold, Assistant Attor-ney-General and Chief of the AntiTrust Division, told a Senate Committee investigating the rubber shortage that cartel arrangements with Germany, entered into by the Standard Oil Co., of New jersey, were the principal cause of the present shortage of synthetic rubber. Mr Arnold explained, however, that these arrangements were not designed to aid Germany—the sole motive was the Standard Oil Company’s desire to get a protected market, eliminate independent competition, and finally restrict production in the world's market, in order to maintain control. Mr Arnold further testified that the Standard Oil Coy had developed a synthetic rubber cheaper, better and more plentiful than the Nazis produced, and the Standard Oil Coy had transferred it to German interests before the United States entered the war. Mr Arnold said that until the consent decree, the Standard Oil Coy had held back, even in this rubber shortage, in making its patents available to American rubber companies. Mr Arnold added that other companies had restricted the production of magnesium, aluminium, carbide, drugs, and dyes. So long as such cartel agreements continued to exist, he said, the inevitable result would be shortages of essential materials. 1