Consumption of the entire supply of marketed rubber was, immediately prior to the European War, almost evenly divided between North America and Europe: one of the industrial adjustments made after hostilities began was the shifting of a larger share of rubber, and rubber manufacturing, to the United States, so that in 1914 she took fifty per cent of the marketed total, one hundred and twenty thousand tons, and in 1915 increased these purchases to nearly sixty-two per cent of the total marketed, or ninety-seven thousand tons out of about one hundred and fifty-eight thousand. Distribution of the world’s crop in 1915:— United States 61.5 97,000 Great Britain 9.6 15,072 Russia 7.6 12,000 France 7.2 11,500 Italy 4.8 7,500 Germany, Austria 3.8 6,000 Canada 2.5 4,000 Japan and Australia 1.6 2,500 Scandinavia 1.4 2,252 The course of the next few years may see Brazil herself on the lists as a rubber-consuming country. For fifty years she has exported rubber, crude, and such manufactures of rubber as she has used have been imported from the United States or Europe; she imported in 1915 about six hundred and eighty-three tons of rubber manufactures, chiefly tyres, worth a million dollars, which was less than the imports of 1913, and which might show greater diminution if the unfortunately conceived law intended to protect “fine hard Pará,” but which resulted in paralyzing rubber imports, were sustained. This alteration in the tariff, operating early in 1915, changed the old import tax of five per cent ad valorem to a scale with violent differences; rubber manufactures made with the Brazilian product were charged one hundred reis a kilo (a fraction over two cents U. S.) while articles made with foreign rubber were taxed ten milreis (say two dollars and sixty cents) a kilo. An excellent idea, warmly applauded; but when the time came to apply the law it was found impossible to discover the real origin of the rubber, and in order to avoid any chance of letting in foreign material practically scot free the official valuers charged all entering articles at the high rate.