170 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



March i, 1907. 



to do away with their present method of coagulating 

 and adopt one, even if it is a smoking process, that will 

 produce a stronger, and above all, a more stable product. 

 It would not by any means of necessity be a process of 

 hand dipping such as is used up the Amazon, as a very 

 simple mechanical process, continuous and economical, 

 could easily be devised, first, to produce films of latex, 

 and secondly, to cure them. Another thing: 95 per 

 cent, of the rubber manufacturers would infinitely rather 

 have cultivated rubber of a dark mahogany color, if in 

 quality it was equal to upriver fine, than to have it a 

 beautifully transparent product, luit weak. 



WHY SCRAP RUBBER IS DEAR. 



'T'lIE recent marked advances in the cost of waste rub- 

 ber not unnaturally have revived suggestions for 

 the regulation of prices. But there is little in the his- 

 tory of the trade to support the idea that regulation is 

 practicable, however desirable fixed prices at lower than 

 the present market might be. It is not reasonable to 

 credit present prices to speculation ; the trade in waste 

 rubber has become far too diversified for any sort of 

 artificial price level to be long maintained. The truth is 

 that with the growth of the rubber industry as a whole 

 has been developed an increased demand for reclaimed 

 rubber at a rate which has exceeded the increase in sup- 

 ply of scrap stock. In other words, changed conditions 

 have brought about change in prices, and the situation 

 demands a fuller study than a mere comparison of quota- 

 tions. 



At one period the price of old shoes to reclaimers was 

 steady for a good while at about 3 cents a pound, but the 

 market was dominated then by a combination of con- 

 sumers, making practically but one buyer m the trade. 

 That condition no longer exists and is not likely ever to 

 be repeated. Since then a number of reclaimers have en- 

 tered the field, introducing improved processes and im- 

 proved products, with the result that reclaimed rubber has 

 found many new uses and a vastly increased total con- 

 sumption. The present use of reclaimed stock in the 

 United States has been estimated to be as large in weight 

 as of new rubber, and there is no important rubber factory 

 abroad in which reclaimed is not used. 



Old shoes were first used for reclaiming rubber, and 

 continue to form the most important material for this 

 purpose. Similarly the rubber shoe industry was first 

 to use reclaimed rubber to an important extent. But to- 

 day reclaimed stock goes into mechanical goods in great 

 volume, into insulation compounds, and so on. The col- 

 lection of old shoes becomes better organized every year, 

 so that scarcely any are now overlooked in this country 

 or any other, but the same has not become true of many 

 other classes of waste rubber. The reclaimers still de- 

 pend largely upon old shoes, while reclaimed rubber goes 

 more and more into classes of goods which yield as yet 

 comparatively little in the way of waste stock. 



The next development in the trade will lie in the direc- 



tion of the wider treatment of scrap other than shoes, 

 thus enlarging the stocks open to reclaimers. This may 

 have the effect of lowering the price level of scrap, but 

 never again to the figure which prevailed ten years ago, 

 when the reclaiming industry was still so small as com- 

 pared W'ith now. 



SYNTHETIC RUBBER DELAYS. 



HTHERE is no doubt that many, or perhaps more ac- 

 curately, that some believe that the discovery of s\n- 

 thctic rubber is near at hand. Nay! Further than this 

 their faith is that synthetic rubber has already been pro- 

 duced in laboratory experiments, and that its production 

 on a large scale is merely dependent upon the solving of 

 certain mechanical difficulties in manufacture. The men 

 who believe this are not rubber men. to be sure, but are 

 in certain instances, at least, thoroughly capable and 

 successful business men in other industrial lines. Their 

 faith is so potent that they put up hard earned dollars not 

 only to build experimental machinery, but as a rule to 

 keep the breath of life in the body of the discoverer of 

 the great secret. 



Now, it may be that one of these discoverers has really 

 discovered — that he has really made rubber synthetically 

 at the rate of a pound, two pounds, or five pounds a 

 month, but isn't it a little bit odd that when the same 

 discoverer is put up against a problem of producing rub- 

 ber even in ton lots that something always goes wrong? 

 The power plant is lacking in something, the grinders, 

 if they use them, won't grind, the tanks, made of special 

 metal from (ierniany, fail to arrive — in other words, 

 months and years of delay ensue, and the only thing that 

 is really permanent is the hope of the backer and the 

 salar\- of the discoverer. 



I 



'SCARCITY OF RUBBER.' 



.-N some recent comments on the rubber prospect in 

 Ceylon. Dr. John C. Willis, of Peradeniya, whose 

 work has done so much to encourage the systematic cul- 

 ture of rubber, cautions planters against too great op- 

 timism in the matter of continued high prices. No doubt 

 such caution is timely, on the general principle that in- 

 vestors in any line of production are wise not to count 

 for all time on top notch returns. We ourselves see no 

 present indication of materially lower prices for rubber 

 in general, but some reaction from the unprecedertedly 

 high level of a year or so ago is only natural, and iilant- 

 ers should be prepared for a decline if only as a matter 

 of common business prudence. 



What strikes us particularly in Dr. Willis' article is 

 his suggestion that the high prices experienced of late 

 have been due probably to a "scarcity of rubber." It 

 follows that if rubber is about to become more plentiful 

 and continue so, there will be an end to large returns for 

 planters. We have pointed out already the general re- 

 lation of supplv and demand for rubber to prices, but 

 how shall "scarcity," as Dr. W'illis uses the word, be fie- 



