August i, 1906] 



THE INDIA RUBBER "WORLD 



369 



RUBBER INTERESTS IN EUROPE. 



THE CONTINENTAL COMPANY S EMPl OYES HOMES. 



I HE measures taken hy the Continental Caoutchouc und 

 -*■ Guttapercha Co. (Hanover, C.erinany) for the welfare 

 of their employes have been referred to already in these 

 pages, though no reference has been made to the plan of 

 providing improved houses for their working people, the 

 first of which were opened for occupancy on .'\])ril 6, 1905, in 

 the presence of a number of representatives of the imperial 

 and municipal governments. The plans of the company 

 have met with a high degree of appreciation, and the funds 

 invested up to a recent date had amounted to {,26'i,<)oo, in 

 addition to the cost of land, comprising 31,139, square feet. 

 There are comprised S3 apartments in the 12 buildings 

 erected to date, the houses being of three classes, designated 

 respectively as being for workingmen, foremen, and higher 

 employes. The flats rent at figures varying at $32 to <,'^o 

 per year for the workingmen, up to $100 to $125 for the 

 higher employes. The amount collected for rents has been 

 2.1 percent, on the invested capital. The houses are kept 

 in repair and the ta.Nes are paid by the company. In order 

 to secure attractive designs for the buildings prizes were 

 offered to the architects of Hanover. Each house has a gar- 

 den, in addition to which a large playground for children 

 has been provided. The buildings sheltered at last account 

 389, persons of which 217 were children. On the completion 

 of the company's tenth year they presented to each emploj e 

 in their service since the foundation a life insurance policy 

 amounting to S375, on which the company pay the yearly 

 premiums as long as the employe remains with him. Those 

 employes who were not accepted as risks by the insurance 

 companies received a savings bank book to which the com- 

 pany- make an annual addition. At present 233 employes 

 are in possession of such policies or savings bank books. 

 Each foreman on celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary 

 with the company receives a cash contribution and other 

 employes after 25 years also receive sums in cash. Em- 

 ployes for 10 years or more have an annual vacation witli 

 pay, of two w-eeks a privilege enjoyed in 1905 by 3.13 per- 

 sons. 



GROWTH OF THE BERLIN KRaNKFORT WORKS. 



Akother factor}- has been acquired by the \ereinigte 

 Berlin-Frankfurter (Uimmiwaren-Eabriken, making the 

 fifth owned and operated by that company. The new acces- 

 sion is the long established firm of H. Schwieder, Sachsische 

 Gummi- und Guttaperchawaren-Fabrik, at Dresden. The 

 other factories are situated in Berlin, Gross-Lichterfelde, 

 Geluhausen (near Frankfort a Jl.), and Grottau. All told, 

 the Berlin-Frankfort company now employ a thousand work- 

 people, and steam engines of 1000 hi>. The capital of the 

 company has been increased to 3,500,000 marks, and, with 

 their reserve funds, they command about Si, 000, 000. .(Ml 

 the mills are very busy, and considerable enlargement has 

 taken ))lace of late in the works at Lichterfeld and Grottau. 

 GREAT BRITAIN. 



= The multifarious nature of the business of the India- 

 Rubber, Gutta-Percha and Telegraph Works Co., Limited, is 

 indicated by the fact that their cable steamer Sihertoifri , 

 after recently completing the laying between Manila and 

 Shanghai of some 1300 miles of cable made bj- the company 

 for the Commercial Pacific Cable Co. (New York), on her 



waj- home carried a cargo of 4000 tons of rice from Saigon to 

 Holland. This great company accepts with equal readiness 

 orders for ocean cables, bicycle tires, and golf balls, and has 

 for its various purposes a greatly varied equipment, but had 

 not been mentioned before in the general carrying trade. 



=The London Daily Telegraph says that at the annual 

 meeting in Leeds of the Electrical Contractors' Association 

 of the United Kingdom, which now numbers 250 members, 

 Mr. !•;. L. lierry (late chairman of the London section) said 

 an agreement had been made by the Cablemakers' Associa- 

 tion with the main idea of inducing the members of the 

 I'^lectrical Contractors' Association to use English made 

 cables pure and simple. 



= .'\ recetitly piililished account of a single British golf 

 ball factorj', licensed under the Haskell patents, reports its 

 production at 900 to 1000 dozen balls a day. It has been said 

 that the making of golf balls is as the making of mustard. 

 The latter pays not on account of the quantitj' used but on 

 account of the quantity wasted. So with golf balls — the lost 

 ones count ! Two tons of paint is the annual consumption 

 in the golf ball factory referred to, and over 3,000,000 tissue 

 wrappers are used. 



= Macintosh Tyre Co., Limited, has been registered, at 

 r.,ower Cambridgepoit street, Manchester, with ^7500 [= 

 $00,000] capital, to carry on the business of factors and re- 

 pairers of motor tires. M. Adler is managing director ; 

 Charles Macintosh & Co.. Limited, the rubber manufactur- 

 ers hold shares in the company entitling them to nominate 

 two directors. 



= Mr. William Firth, who for nearly half a century was 

 secretary of the North British Rubber Co., Limited, and 

 whose death was recorded in our last issue, is mentioned bj' 

 the India- Rubber Journal as having been president of the 

 Astronomical Institution of Edinburgh. Although an ex- 

 tremely busy man in connection with the rubber works, he 

 had long given attention to astronomical observations, and 

 continued his scientific reading as well as his attendance 

 upon the society- meetings up to the commencement of his 

 final illness. 



FRANCE. 



A NKW rubber manufacturing company is the Societe 

 Parisienne du Caoutchouc Industriel, at No. 85, quai dejavel, 

 Paris, of which the managing director is William Hausser, 

 formerly with the Societe Industriel des Telephones. 



The first annual Federated Mala}' States dinner in Lon- 

 don was attended recently by a number of gentlemen inter- 

 ested in mining, planting, and other interests in the States, 

 most of whom were or had been residents of the English set- 

 tlements there. The dinner was attended by Sir John .An- 

 derson, K. c. M. a., governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir 

 FYank Swettenham. k. c. .m. g., his predeces.sor in office, and 

 a number of other persons of prominence in public life. 

 F'requent references were made to rubber in the after dinner 

 speeches, including one by Mr. E. V. Carey, widely known 

 as a rubber estates manager. Several other rubber planters 

 were present. 



A CORRESPONDEXT of Tlic Malay Mail notes the arrival at 

 Penang of Mr. John I. Philips, from Australia, with a com- 

 mission to buy rubber for the Dunlop Rubber Co. 's factory 

 at Melbourne. The writer hears that that factory uses three 

 tons of rubber per week in the manufacture of boot heels alone. 



