260 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[M \v i, 1903. 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



'""I "* IlEtalkofthemomentisonthe forthcoming act ions which 

 the Dunlop company are bringing against Moseley's 

 and the North British for alleged infringement of the 

 beaded tire tread. It is said by the Dunlop com- 

 pany that the patent in question did not lapse early in March. 

 as generally supposed, but that it forms part of the 

 Welch patent, which runs until October, 1904. Up 



LITIGATION. ' . ... . 7 1 



to now Moseley s have not made this tread, though 

 they had an arrangement with Dunlop as to royalty should they 

 have decided to make it; now they are making it and do not 

 admit that any royalty is payable. A season's trade is evidently 

 worth having, or one would hardly have thought that costly 

 litigation would be justified in the case of a patent having 

 little more than a year to run. 



The other day a professional man was making some very 



caustic remarks to me about the slackness of the British 



rubber manufacturer to develop new business. It 



a question seems tnat ne had required a special article made of 



of policy. n \ ... 



rubber and that the various shops he had gone to 



were not disposed to consider the business. "This is what they 

 do and then they complain about bad trade," was his remark. 

 After a time, however, I succeeded in convincing him that the 

 rubber salesman and the works behind him probably knew their 

 business best, and that it was only reasonable that they should 

 not jump at putting themselves to the inconvenience and ex- 

 pense of making one special article for which there was no 

 general demand. I know one firm who made it a rule never 

 to refuse an order of this kind, and I also know that other 

 firms when approached on such business used to advise their 

 customer to go to the firm who used to take up and lose on 

 this class of order. Of course each case should be judged 

 on its merits, but it certainly is very doubtful whether the 

 policy of never refusing an order is in the long run justified by 

 its results. Certainly as far as my experience goes the firms 

 who leave odds and ends to their competitors have shown 

 the best financial results. 



A FRIEND of mine who has visited the recent automobile ex- 



hibition at Berlin tells me that what struck him as the greatest 



novelty in tires was the Lins patent detachable tread. 



This is a sort of grooved arrangement by which the 



NOTES. , .,-,.,- 1 • , 



tread can be fitted easily into the cover without neces- 

 sitating any solutioning or vulcanization. = = Mr. Perry's article 

 in the March issue of Thr India Rubber World with regard 

 to the general displacement of solid tires in Paris by pneumat- 

 ics has occasioned some surprise to English manufacturers. 

 But it seems to be largely a case of circumstances, although it 

 is generally supposed that the solid stands rough roads better 

 than the pneumatic; yet it seems to be the case that in Paris 

 this is not so, the flint gravel of the Parisian streets acting more 

 injuriously on the solid than on the pneumatic. I am assured 

 by an English manufacturer that similar circumstances do not 

 occur in England, and that the supremacy of the solid tire does 

 not, at present at any rate, show signs of being assailed. == 

 The New York Wheel and Rubber Tyre Co. having recently 

 changed their title to the De Nevers Rubber Tyre Co., the warn- 

 ing as to confusion of title with another firm of transatlantic 

 origin has now no significance. = = I hear that the Manchester 

 Wedge-Tyre Co., Limited, of Pollard street, Ancoats, Man- 

 chester, have lately experienced an increased demand for their 



tires, which have now had a sufficient time to prove their value. 



The question of standard parts and sizes of machines has, I 



believe, long been settled affirmatively in the United States, 



and is now agitating our engineers. It has ali-o 



' come to the fore in connection with electrical im- 

 parts. 



struments, in which the vulcanite manufacturer is 



interested. An English maker of vulcanite goods tells me that 



the electric business would be much easier and more profitable 



if the system of standard parts were adopted, and says he has 



hopes that this desideratum will shortly be a matter of fact. 



My excuse for the perceptible shortness of this mor.th'scom- 

 munication compared with what I usually write must be my ab- 

 sence from England in France and Italy. When I say 



NOT^s that I am posting this from Monte Carlo, my readers 

 will recognize that India rubber factories do not loom 

 prominently in the geographical horizon and that the 

 varied attractions of the place cannot be considered as incent- 

 ives to scientific or technical writing. Of course there isagood 

 deal of speculation in the purchase of raw rubber, but it is not 

 exact y of the character associated with the lapis verb. Natur- 

 ally, with the brilliant sunshine with which this spot is favored 

 during so many months of the year, the macintosh is very little 

 in demand, though rubber in the form rjf motorcar tires meets 

 the eye at every point, cars of the most luxurious character be- 

 ing met with in rather loo great numbers, considering the nar- 

 rowness of the roads. 



Some two years ago I sent The India Rubber World 

 some notes on rubber manufacturing in Italy and I have noth- 

 ing much to add on the present occasion. The number of 

 works has not been increased, Messrs. Pirelli & Co., of Milan, 

 if we leave out of account two small concerns, having practi- 

 cally the whole business in their hands. I had a pleasant con- 

 versation with Engineer Emilio Invernizzi, of theelectrical staff 

 of the Messrs. Pirelli, and he recalled the notice given in The 

 India Rubber World of the firm's exhibit at the last Paris 

 exhibition. The Institution of Electrical Engineers of London 

 are visiting the works this week, the event being looked upon 

 as of some importance. I was presented with a copy of the 

 Italian edition of the descriptive booklet of the works specially 

 prepared for the occasion, and I hope to give some extracts 

 from it in my next correspondence. 



As far as I could judge by cursory glances at the shops ex- 

 hibiting rubber goods in Venice and other towns, America is 

 represented principally by the rubber boots and shoes of the 

 Candee company, though I cannot say that I saw any of these 

 g >ods in actual use. Turning from the particular to the gen- 

 eral, there is abundant evidence everywhere in the north of 

 Italy of the progress of manufactures and the increase of wealth, 

 a necessary consequent of which must be a larger demand for 

 rubber goods of all kinds. With, however, the protective 

 tariffs imposed in accordance with Crispi's schemes for the 

 progress of the country, there is not much chance of this pro- 

 spective increase being satisfied by outside manufacturers, 

 which is the same thing as prophesying yet further financial 

 triumphs for the great Milan firm referred to above. 



Mr. H. H. Holland has been appointed manager of the 

 European dep6t of the United States Rubber Co., in London, 

 having gained no little knowledge of the trade through his as- 

 sociation with the late John W. Knott, whom he succeeds. 



