The war in the Pacific has focused attention on rubber as one of the key materials of peace and war economy. It has not only caused domestic adjustments in the United States as previously in other consuming countries, both allied and enemy, but has terminated an epoch in international rubber control. At the same time, it has accentuated the permanent international concern about basic materials—their location, accessibility, production, distribution, and utilization. Thus the international rubber régime, as it operated up to the disruption of trade-lanes and the invasion and devastation of producing areas, is of interest not only because of its effects in the period just ended but also as an approach to problems of international economic policy and administrative technique which are likely to continue into post-war world organization, no matter how different its political and strategical foundations may be.
International Economic Pluralism: Economic Policy in East Asia and the Pacific.