March i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



183 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



PHRIIAPS a word or two on this topic may be allowed in 

 so far as the rubber trade may be considered con- 

 cerned. Although no prominent rubber manufacturer 

 stood as a candidate, the name of Mr. Harvej- Du 

 Cros, the conservative victor at Hastings, will of course be 

 familiar to many owing to his association with 

 THE RECENT the Duulop compan}'. It is said that the main 



GENERAL r i. - -xr T-> r^ . ^i- 



ELECTION. f'lctor ui Mr. Du Cros s success was the pos- 

 session, or perhaps I ought to say the use, of 

 So motor cars. The motor car played a very important part 

 in the election and there have been plentj' of cases where 

 workingmen voters would not be taken to the poll in a horse 

 vehicle as they wanted the novelty of riding in an expensive 

 motor. In the course of the electioneering at Manchester 

 speeches were made at the works of Messrs. D. Moseley & 

 Sons, Limited, by Mr. Balfour and Mr. Horridge, k. c, who 

 won at the poll. In the remarks of Messrs. D. and J. F. 

 Moseley, who presided at the respective meetings, fiscal re- 

 form was advocated, it being stated that the firm had recent- 

 ly lost an order for 3000 lengths of hose, which had gone to 

 Germany. Elastic thread, cut sheet, and tires were also 

 mentioned as goods in which the firm were losing orders 

 owing to foreign competition in England. A 5 per cent, 

 tariff would prevent these losses of business, it w-assaid, and 

 the firm therefore stronglj' supported the policj' of retalia- 

 tion. Where a good manj' issues are before the electorate it 

 is difficult to say which has been the most important in the 

 voting. The great JIanchester Liberal victory is generallj' 

 attributed to the support of Free Trade, but the manager of 

 a large rubber works tells me that the Liberal success was 

 largelj' due to a general feeling that the Conservatives had 

 had a long enough innings and that the other side deserved 

 a look in. During the past year or two, two or three men 

 prominently connected with the rubber trade had been looked 

 upon as probable candidates, but thej' withdrew and with the 

 exception of Mr. F.J. Fuller, who was re-elected in the West- 

 bury division of Wiltshire and who is financiallj' interested in 

 the Avon Rubber Co. , I am well aware that the trade is other- 

 wise represented than in the case of Mr. Du Cros already re- 

 ferred to. It might be mentioned that a son of the last named 

 gentleman stood for one of the London divisions, but was 

 not successful. 



The name of Richard Russell Gubbins has appeared of late 

 years several times in the lists of patents referring to rubber 

 scrap and its treatment, the most recent 

 reference being to his patents for a mechan- 

 ical arrangement to minimize labor in the treatment of scrap 

 in acid solutions. Mechanism rather than chemistry or any 

 intimate knowledge of India-rubber is Mr. Gubbins' forte, and 

 he is forever working at some problem connected with ma- 

 chinery. Apart from his patents his personalitj- is not with- 

 out interest ; probably few who have watched Mr. Gubbins in 

 his w-orking clothes in the not too aristocratic surroundings 

 of a rubber scrap works would associate him with that old 

 Irish family, whose present head is chiefly known as a 

 wealthy owner of race horses. In early life Mr. Gubbins was 



MR. R. R. QUBBINS. 



a lieutenant in the Sixtieth rifles and gained the medal in the 

 Indian mutiny. On leaving the army to follow his engineer- 

 ing bent he worked for some time in the United States, tak- 

 ing out a patent in 1872 for a paper folding machine to work 

 in combination with a high speed printing machine. This 

 patent he sold to the Hoe company of New York. A patent 

 in connection with rolling mills in iron works realized a con- 

 siderable sum in England, and it was his former rolling mill 

 practice that led up to his patent machine for the recovery 

 of rubber frotfl armored hose. 



In some recent notes I referred to the fact of 6 per cent. 



being given in a German scientists' paper as the amount of 



resin in Ceylon Para rubber. Since then I 



CEYLON have had an opportunity of testing some mv- 



PlANTATION. ,, i ^ I , r . 



RUBBER s^" ^'i" nnOi the figure to be 1.62 per cent. 



This is much more than I should expect 

 and one can only assume that the German investigator had a 

 sample which was not at all representative. From a certain 

 source I hear complaints that this rubber is already being 

 adulterated with farina, a fact which surprises me a good 

 deal. I merely pass this on as a statement made to me, and 

 have no personal experience to enable me to vouch for its ac- 

 curacy. Of the flotation of rubber plantation companies there 

 is no end and people are beginning to enquire whether the 

 thing is not being overdone, but as long as money can be ob- 

 tained the company promoters will continue active. 



I HAVE referred recently to the increased numbers and ac- 

 tivity of rubber scrap collectors without touching upon a 



certain phase of the subject as it affects the 

 RUBBER rubber manufacturers. Not so long ago it was 



customary for small rubber goods dealers to 



make a collection of unsalable goods whether 

 due to old age or other causes, and to send the lot to a manu- 

 facturer asking him to give his best price. To-day this pro- 

 cedure has undergone a change. The shopkeeper is called 

 upon by the waste rubber dealer's local agent, who generally 

 secures the rubber giving better terms than the rubber works 

 because the scale of the operations and the careful sorting 

 into grades enables the resale to be carried out at a profit. 

 As things are at present the rubber manufacturer who 

 wishes to buy scrap has to pay higher prices to the dealer 

 than to the shop keeper, who is now out of his market and 

 this of course quite independent of the rise in the intrinsic 

 value of rubber in the last few years. Another feature with 

 regard to old rubber collectors is that they include other 

 forms of waste material, and a rubber scrap dealer who is in 

 a large way of business tells me that he finds it necessarj- to 

 buy and do what he can with various waste materials if he 

 wishes to have the refusal of the rubber. For instance, one 

 dealer is seriously contemplating putting down plant for re- 

 covering tin from old tin vessels and scrap tin plate, a de- 

 velopment which would have been received with incredulitj' 

 not so long ago. I believe there is an industr}' known as 

 rag and bone collecting and it may yet be found necessary 

 for the rubber scrap dealer to get into touch with it and to 

 put down plant for making artificial manures. 



SCRAP 

 COLLECTORS 



