SYNTHETICS: Cheaper Tires

Restrictions on the use of rubber will be "largely eliminated" after Jan. 1, the National Production Authority announced last week. This will be the first lifting of controls on a major raw material since the start of the Korean war. NPA will continue its ban on white sidewall tires (to save natural rubber and titanium-dioxide pigments), and inventories of synthetic will be policed to prevent hoarding. But U.S. manufacturers will get all the synthetic rubber they need, and once again will be allowed to import natural liquid rubber.

The turnabout in rubber is the result of increased synthetic production and...