OCR Text |
Show MATCHES BY THE TRILLIONS 4,675,050,000,000. No, gentle readers, read-ers, this long line of figures does not as might be supposed represent the paper money of the European countries coun-tries in which currency inflation is the order of the day. On the contrary, con-trary, they are the plain uninflated statistics of the world consumption of that article of daily and hourly use, the match. A recent floatation in the United States or a large loan for the purpose pur-pose of enlarging the activities of the world match manufacturing industry in-dustry has led the Trade Record cf The National City Bank of New York to a study of the world's outturn and cousumption of matches and it estimates that the people of the. world used last year 4,G75,650,000,;-000 4,G75,650,000,;-000 matches for which they paid approximately ap-proximately $200,000,000. This estimate of the number of matches used and their cost to the "final consumer" is based upon data I supplied by high authorities in the match industry of the world. Figures Figur-es recently published by a high auth- ority in London put the average per capita consumption of matches by the people of Europe at from 6 to 10 matches per day, and estimates by an equally high authority in the match industry of the United States put the average per capita consumption of the whole world at about 7 matches per day. Applying this estimate of ,i world average of 7 matches per day to the figures of world population popula-tion as recorded by the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1,830,-000,000 1,830,-000,000 persons, we get for the average aver-age consumption 12,810,000,000 matches mat-ches per day, or a grand aggregate of 4,675,650,000,000 as the authoritative authorita-tive estimate of the world's annual consumption. Equally high authorities authori-ties familiar with the factory cost and the wholesale and retail selling price of this 4 trillion matches consumed estimate the sums paid by the final consumer at approximately $200,000,000 per annum. Most of the 4Vi trillion matches manufactured for the world markets are the products of a half dozen countries having special facilities for the production of this article of world requirement. The three requisites requis-ites for successful manufacture of matchese are, first, a plentiful supply sup-ply of the kinds of wood suited for their manufacture; second, plentiful capital for the purchase of the ingenious in-genious and expensive machinery by which they are turned out; and, third, plentiful supplies of labor. Aspen and white pine are the timber chiefly chief-ly used. As a consequence, the biggest big-gest match manufacturing countries of the world are the United States, Sweden and Japan, though Great Bitain and Germany are also considerable consid-erable 'oducers, drawing their material ma-terial from the Scandinavian forests where large supplies of the aspen wood are available. Japan draws the aspen used in her factories in part from her own forests and in part from those of Manchuria and Siberia. In the United States the wood used in manufacturing matches is the white pine. Russia with its plentiful supply of timber and large population popula-tion was prior to the war a large manufacturer. It is not to be supposed from the above statements that all of the world's matches are produced in the six countries named, the United States, Sweden, Japan, Russia, Great Britain and Germany. Limited quantities quan-tities are produced in other countries, and in France the industry is a government gov-ernment monopoly, and those acquainted ac-quainted with the subject assert that the cost of matches used in France is much greater than in other countries coun-tries where competition holds down the price and nt the same time results re-sults in the production of a higher quality of match than those turned out under the government monopoly in Fiance. About 33 per cent of the 4 Va trillion tril-lion matches consumed in the world are produced in the United States, 20 per cent in Sweden, 20 per cent Japan, 15 per cent in Great Britain, and tlie bulk of the remainder in Poland, Po-land, Norway, Germany and limited quantities in China. The United .States, while the biggest producer of the world, exports but a limited quantity Japan and Sweden are the world's chief exporters of matches. Japan supplies a large part of the matches used in the Orient, especially es-pecially India, China, and the Dutch Fast Indies, while Sweden exports largely to adjacent Kuropean countries, coun-tries, and also to AfiTca, South America Am-erica and Australia. A large share of the matches made in Sweden and Japan are of the "safety" type, while not more than one-third of the 1,-r,90,000,000,000 1,-r,90,000,000,000 made in the United States are of this type. While the match is looked upon as an inexpensive article its manufacture manu-facture requires a larger amount of capital in proportion to outturn than that of many other important articles. ar-ticles. The 11)20 report of the United States Census of Manufactures puts the capitalization of the match factories fac-tories of the United States at nearly $30,000,000, suggesting that the capital cap-ital invested in the match industry of the world approximates $100,000,000. |