February i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



145 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



^ 1 ■^IINIR was w 

 I land, notal 



when the cnt sheet niannfacturers of Eng- 

 , notably the Manchester firms of Macintosh and 

 Moseley, supplied the requirements not only of 

 England but of the continent. Of late years, however, .sev- 

 eral continental firms have taken up this 

 CUT SHEET ))i-anch, more particularlv, however, in the 



FPOM ABROAD , „ ' , r , 



thicker counts. 1 he number of sheets that 

 go to make up an inch depends upon the perfection of the 

 machinery and it is understood that the engineers' drawings 

 relative to the machinerj- made for the Manchester firms 

 mentioned were not to be used for the supplj- of machinery 

 to possible competitors. Some ten years ago Macintosh & 

 Co. had the reputation of cutting the thinnest sheets, 125 

 of which went to an inch, but I cannot say now which firm 

 is cutting the finest or whether any greater degree of tenuity 

 has been attained. What I wanted chiefly, however, to draw 

 attention to is the fact that a prominent Brussels rubber 

 manufacturing firm who wished to bu}' cut sheet from Eng- 

 land thought themselves somewhat badlj' treated in the pre- 

 liminary negotiations for business and decided to make for 

 themselves a year or two ago. This they are now doing on 

 a large scale, and what is more the}' are selling their pro- 

 duct in England in competition with the home firms. Prob- 

 ably the case is not important enough to excite the fiscal 

 reformer, else at a moment like this with election literature 

 on a 1 sides the would-be reformers might point to another 

 e.xample indicating the ultimate extinction of our industries. 



This new concern has already been referred to as having 



its location in the factory of the defunct H}de Rubber Works 



Co., Limited. 7 he promoters of the new com- 



RuBBER CO. pany are Messrs. Mandleberg, the well known 

 LIMITED. waterprooting firm of Pendleton, Manchester. 

 The capital is ^53,000, and although no public issue is being 

 made, the scheme for the private issue of the capital is as 

 follows : Messrs. Mandleberg take 3000 deferred shares, 

 which rank equally for dividend with the 30,000 other ordi- 

 nary shares, when the latter have received 6 per cent. I 

 don't know how far the 30,000 shares have been taken up by 

 the public, but to some intending subscribers the scheme 

 appears too much in favor of the promoters to suggest it as 

 a very profitable investment, which opinion as given to me I 

 pass in for what it is worth. 



Tins firm have now removed from London to more com- 

 modious and convenient premises at River Bank wharf, 

 Charlton, London, S. E., adjoining 



MESSRS. H^S^C^HUMACHER ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^,„,.^^ ^f jj^^^^^ JohuSOn & 



Philliixs. The buildings are of the 

 wood lined corrugated iron order and are extensive enough 

 to allow of the treatment and sorting of various kinds of 

 waste rubber to be carried out with due regard to order and 

 cleanliness. I mention this point because the works form a 

 good contrast to others I have visited where dirt and chaos 

 were more conspicuous than cleanline.ss and order. Activity 

 in this branch of the rubber trade is very apparent at the 

 present time and the number of those engaged both as dealers 

 in and collectors of scrap rubber has largely increased of 



late, to such an extent indeed that complaints are made that 

 the profits to be made are on a sadly lower scale than ruled a 

 year or two ago. At the same time the business done is 

 much greater so that those with sufficient capital can face the 

 future with equanimity. In Dr. Schumacher the conipanj- 

 under notice have a manager with expert knowledge of the 

 rubber trade and doubtless we shall soon see that many 

 fi)rins of waste rubber hitherto found unsalable will take 

 their place among those which can be profitably treated for 

 re-sale. 



TiiK paper read by Dr. Caspari in December before the 

 London section of the Society of Chemical Industry and en- 

 titled " Notes on Gutta-percha and Balata " cov- 

 THE gred ground which has no great interest for the 



SCIENTIFIC .. , , r J r r 



gipg practical man, and a few words of reference here 

 will suffice. It dealt largely with the nitro and 

 halogen compounds which readers of Weber's and Harries's 

 papers are familiar with in the case of rubber. In some ways 

 the ensuing discussion was more interesting than the ])aper. 

 The usual stress was laid bj' one speaker on the great bene- 

 fits to be derived from synthetic rubber when it is made on 

 a commercial scale, but surelj' the plantations in progress 

 for the supply of the genuine article will do all that is re- 

 quired without our having recourse to some chemical mon- 

 strosity. The presence and remarks of D. J. Spiller were 

 interesting, his contributions to our knowledge of the oxida- 

 tion of India-rubber and Gutta-percha dating from 50 j^ears 

 ago. Dr. Lewkowitsch, the eminent authority on oils and 

 fats, has evidently been studying the recent scientific con- 

 tributions to the chemistry of rubber. He remarked that 

 those who had gone over the same ground as Weber had 

 failed to corroborate this author's figures and that before 

 these various chemical compounds of rubber and gutta-percha 

 could be considered as established the various laborers in 

 the field ought to get concordant results. Certainly if the 

 existing apathy of the practical man towards these chemical 

 researches requires any further justification it is to be found 

 in the substance of Dr. Lewkowitsch 's remarks. 



After a brief interval Mr. C. J. Beaver, of Messrs. W. 



T. Glover & Co., has again contributed an interesting paper 



on the subject of insulated cables. His audi- 



^'"notes^*'" '^"'^^ '•'"'•'^ '•""^ was the Electrical Contractors' 

 Association. The main theme of the paper 

 was the causes of breakdowns and the underlj'ing moral was 

 the necessity of buj-ing from a reliable manufacturer who, 

 it would appear, is not to be found outside the ranks of the 

 Cable Makers' Association. Only a few crumbs of comfort 

 were thrown to those practical men who want ready tests to 

 enable them to judge of the value of samples of cable and 

 emphasis was laid on the importance of chemical anah-sisas 

 the final tribunal. With this I quite agree if it is carried 

 out by those who are familiar with their subject and not by 

 the head of the local technical school or the borough an- 

 alj'St. Rightly enough in my opinion the heat tests for 

 rubber came in for some criticism, and the reference to 

 the importance of good tinning of the copper wire was not 



