November i 1905.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



39 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



IT has been my practice for some years past at this season of 

 the year to give my readers some account of the rubber 

 industry as existing in the particular part of Europe vis- 

 ited. At the request of our Editor to add to my former 

 series of observations I noted this down as one of the subjects 

 to engage my attention. However, I may as well say 

 TRAVEL ^j once that the result is practically nil. If I was 

 writing for the Guti Maker's Journal on the subject 

 of revolvers, or for a tobacconists paper on the cultivation of the 

 narcotic weed, I could find plenty of material, but as it happens 

 the rubber trade was hardly at all in evidence. There are no 

 rubber factories in Bosnia, the Herzejovina, Dalmatia, Monte- 

 negro, or .Albanian Turkey, and the exigencies of rapid transit 

 did not permit of any visits being paid to factories in Germany, 

 Austria, or Hungary. Some of the inhabitants of the above 

 countries may have possessed macintoshes or rubber boots, but 

 I do not remember having seen anything of the sort in the ex- 

 tremely hot weather which prevailed all the time. From this 

 point of view it is perhaps rather unfortunate that my tour oc- 

 curred in the driest season for fifteen years and one of the hot- 

 test within living memory. At Seiajevo, the very Mohomniedan 

 capital of Bosnia, I saw in a shop window advertisement cards 

 referring to the galoshes of the Russian- American India- Rubber 

 Co., of St. Petersburg, and the Liverpool Rubber Co. I may 

 remark incidentally that the Servian language and alphabet 

 being so closely allied to the Russian makes business more easy 

 for the Russians than for the British whose language is not un- 

 derstood at all in the large area over which the Servian Croatian 

 languages extend. You meet plenty of men in the Near East 

 who own up to seven or eight languages, but English is not one 

 of them. Recent statistics show that the value of British rub- 

 ber goods exported to Bosnia is very trifling and owing to a 

 quite recent change in personnel at the consulate in Serajevo 

 I was unable to get any ideas as to whether an improvement 

 might be expected. As regards Montenegro there was little in 

 the appearance of the bronzed warriors of this mountainous 

 land to warrant the assumption that the opening of a macintosh 

 and galosh store in the village capital would meet with much 

 financial success. 



In the last issue some detailed information was given with 



regard to a process for treating rubber scrap at present under 



trial in France, In case any confusion may arise 



RECOVERY OF ^g .^^ ^j^g particular patent I may say that it is of 



VULCANIZED „ , . , . • . ■ , 



RUBBER. rrench origin and is quite distinct from the 

 French patent No. 345,926 granted to H. Pen- 

 ther, a German. I might also say that the French patent No. 

 351,152 granted to Wilkinson, Gubbins, and Ouin, in May of this 

 year, has nothing in common with those just referred to. In 

 reality it is the 1902 patent granted to R. R. Gubbins for his 

 special ^machine for separating fiber and metal from old me- 

 chanical rubbers. It was found that the machine, though am- 

 ply proving its value, could be improved in some respects and 

 the name of Wilkinson and Quin were added to that of the 

 original patentee in connection with the French and other for- 

 eign patents, the former of these gentlemen being a resident in 

 France. The above will serve to put straight any misunder- 

 standing which may have arisen as a result of my previous com- 

 munication. Turning to the subject generally the editorial on 

 reclaimed rubber in the September issue of The India Rub- 



ber World sums up the position appositely. At no previous 

 time have the prices of scrap rubber ruled so high* nor has the 

 energy of collectors ever made itself so apparent. Of course a 

 fall in the price of raw rubber might make a material difference 

 in the activities of the numerous collecting agencies but it may 

 be taken that the good old days when scrap rubber could be 

 had for the trouble of removing are gone never to return. 

 While goods bearing the names of well known continental rub- 

 ber factories are commonly met with in our collectors' yards a 

 good deal of British waste rubber goes to Germany and in 

 connection with this foreign business there are financial 

 backings which put some collectors in a much more favorable 

 position than others. An article which is always in demand 

 but of which the supply is limited is the diving dress. These 

 have to be carried by every man-of-war though I don't know 

 what the case is with regard to other sea going vessels. The 

 best rubber is used in their manufacture and the discarded 

 goods do not usually show much sign of deterioration. 



Secret processes in connection with rubber are often brought 

 before the uninitiated as being a rapid means of acquiring 

 wealth. The latest thing of the sort which has come 

 PONTiANAK. under my ken is the suggestion to extract the rub- 

 ber from Pontianak by means of a chemical pro- 

 cess. I have nothing personal against the inventor or the process; 

 I am merely skeptical as to how the operation can be made a 

 commercial success taking into account the cost of chemicals, 

 labor, etc., and the low value of the rubber recovered. I am 

 informed that a well known cable company has paid a consid- 

 erable sum for the right to use the process and is perfectly 

 satisfied with the deal. At the same time I know of other cap- 

 italists who after having experiments conducted came to the 

 conclusion that the prospects of wealth to be obtained by work- 

 ing it were altogether illusory. As regards its resinous and rub- 

 ber contents Pontianak is much on a par with potato rubber, 

 or Euphorbia gum, as it is also called, and it is difficult to un- 

 derstand how the small amount of rubber present in either case 

 can pay for its extraction unless the resins are found to have 

 a good market value. 



A WRITER in our London contemporary, in discussing the 

 disadvantages of the cold cure, recommends the wider adop- 

 tion of the chloride of sulphur vapor cure. In 



VULCANIZING experience this has been employed mainly 



WITH CHLORIDE ' ^ f J J 



OF SULPHUR. '" two cases, VIZ,: tobacco pouches and dress 

 preservers. In the former case uniform results 

 were always obtained, but with the latter this was not so easy 

 of attainment, and now and again considerable trouble 

 arose through acidity developing. Of course the ammonia 

 treatment now so generally adopted may be an entire preven- 

 tive of this, but all the same I don't think there is any dispo- 

 sition on the part of manufacturers to adopt the chloride of sul- 

 phur cure except where it is necessary. In the case of the to- 

 bacco pouch the rubber is thicker than in the dress preserver 

 and the vulcanization effected is but skin deep. In applying 

 the process it is usual to have large rectangular cupboards made 

 of wood with sliding front doors ; the pouches are hung on 

 wooden rods and there are steam pipes underneath to evaporate 

 the chloride and keep the temperature up to the necessary de- 



*This relates of course to Ihe British market, and not to the American.. 

 Editor. 



-The 



