November i, 1908.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



65 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE EXHIBITION 

 AT OLTMPIA. 



NOW that the curtain has fallen on the Rubber Congress, as 

 it may be called, no doubt the trade organs in English, 

 French and German will have something to say on many 

 of its aspects over and above the exhibits proper. Personally, 

 I have no grievance to ventilate, though I have no doubt that 

 the India-Rubber Journal, in its spirited 

 protest against the exclusion of its re- 

 porter from the conference room, is only 

 voicing the feelings of many of its readers. On a future oc- 

 casion no doubt some ofHcial will be appointed to draw up a 

 program of titles, dates, and hours in advance, so that men who 

 cannot be in attendance all day for a fortnight can make arrange- 

 ments to attend any lectures in which they are particularly in- 

 terested. An interesting and useful feature of the Exhibition 

 was the opportunity afforded the scientific workers, both chemical 

 and botanical, from different countries, to become acquainted 

 with one another. As regards the lectures, however, the lan- 

 guage difficulty cropped up. It is one thing to address a few 

 words of salutation to a foreigner, and another to follow a 

 learned discourse in a foreign tongue clearly enough to be able to 

 criticize it. Until the lecturer had got to work the audience 

 never knew what tongue he was going to speak in, and it is 

 hardly surprising that audiences which in many cases were not 

 large at the commencement of the lecture, became still more at- 

 tenuated during its delivery. It cannot be said that the rubber 

 manufacturing industry of Great Britain did much by their e.x- 

 hibits or their presence to promote the success of the Exhibition, 

 but it must be remembered that the trade as a whole is strongly 

 conservative, and in the conduct- of its affairs has always pre- 

 ferred the wooden shutter to the glass windows. Over and 

 above the question of expense involved no doubt a feeling ex- 

 isted that there was a danger of giving away more than would 

 be got in return, seeing that so many experts were coming from 

 abroad. Personally, if I had an exhibit of goods, whether manu- 

 factured rubber, or to be used in the rubber manufacture, I 

 should show some reserve in explaining their details and merits 

 to perfect strangers. Exhibitors may, of course, claim that they 

 know their own business and do not want outside advice, but 

 were I an exhibitor of proprietary articles I think I should ask 

 for my interlocutor's visiting card before describing to him in 

 flowery language the particular merits and applications of my 

 goods. 



Turning now to raw rubber, with which the Exhibition was pri- 

 marily concerned, one or two novelties call for attention. At the 

 stand of David Bridge & Co., the rubber machinists, was the 

 patent coagulating machine of Da Costa, by the use of which 

 it is claimed that rubber equal in every respect to fine Para 

 can be produced from Castilloa latex. By a pictorial representa- 

 tion of the old smoking process for Para in the forest, and of 

 the new process in which fumigation is also employed, it is 

 sought to convey the impression thit the old has been super- 

 seded by the new. I didn't know how far this assumption is 

 founded on fact, but so far I have been unable to get any 

 corroborative evidence from our manufacturers of the claims 

 made for Castilloa rubber coagulated by the new process. Of 

 course the rubber may not have come under their close notice 

 yet, and they may yet recall the expressed opinion that they do 

 not believe in it. There was also a Ceara rubber on view, pre- 

 pared by a new process, which made it equal to Para ; in this 

 case, as well, some corroborative evidence from the factory seems 

 desirable. I was told that it fetched a penny per pound more 

 than fine Para for such purposes as ground sheets, where its 

 greater adhesiveness and greater capacity of taking up mineral 



GOLOSHES AND 

 FLINT ROADS. 



had proved points in its favor. At the Netherlands stall I noticed 

 a quantity of gutta-percha, the analysis of which was given as 

 follows : Resin, 18.2 ; gutta, 76.2 ; water and dirt, 5.6. This 

 was obtained by tapping trees in Java, presumably from planta- 

 tions, and it is of importance in showing that not only can gutta 

 trees be cultivated, but that the product can be obtained of excel- 

 lent quality without the wasteful procedure of felling the tree. 



It was with much regret that I noticed in the papers the death 



of Mr. John Pollitt, at Warsaw, from cholera, contracted at St. 



Petersburg. Mr. Pollitt was senior rep- 



OBITTIAET. rcsentative of the Irwell and Eastern 



Rubber Manufacturing Co., Limited, of 



Salford, Manchester, with which firm he had been associated for 



about 20 years, and his presence in St. Petersburg was due 



to a business tour he had undertaken in Russia. 



In the various districts in the south of England, including 

 London suburbs, where broken flints are largely used as road- 

 mending material, complaints are rife 

 as to the damage done to goloshes. I 

 was shown the other day a pair of quite 

 new rubbers bearing the inscription "Boston Rubber Shoe Co.," 

 which had been cut on the sole as to let in water freely, and it 

 was suggested that I should write something on the subject. 

 The destruction caused by broken flints is by no means confined 

 to goloshes, as wearers of leather boots will testify, but na- 

 turally the results are more disastrous in the case of rubber. 

 Seeing that goloshes are being increasingly used' in England, 

 especially by ladies who are not particular to a penny or two 

 about the price, I would suggest to those primarily concerned 

 that a brand with a harder sole should be put on the market, 

 as being especially adapted for use on flinty roads. The flints, 

 it should be mentioned, are put on the footway as well as on the 

 road, and in an important London suburb it is a common thing 

 to see pedestrians using the road instead of the sidewalk. I be- 

 lieve that a golosh with a heel shod with vulcanite has been pro- 

 posed by C. M. Berry of the United States, and the idea might 

 possibly be extended to the sole. 



The Jubilee Exhibition of the Chamber of Commerce at Prague, 

 the capital of Bohemia, must be pronounced a very good one, 

 and it is somewhat surprising that the 

 manufacturing exhibits have not received 

 more notice in the foreign press. The 

 racial conflict between the Slavs and the Germans may have had 

 something to do with this, to judge by what I gleaned in con- 

 versation with German merchants. For those who do not under- 

 stand Bohemian CCzechish) it is somewhat disconcerting to 

 find the universality of this language in Prague, and the Exhibi- 

 tion formed no exception, very few of the exhibits being described 

 in German as well as Czech. With regard to the rubber trade 

 I have hardly anything to notice, the few manufacturers, as far 

 as I could discover, not having any special exhibits. I looked 

 in vain for the Prager Gummi-Werk of Vysocan, and the most 

 complete show of rubber goods which met my eye was that of 

 J. Maendl, the agent in Prague for the United Berlin-Frank- 

 fort India-Rubber Co. In the September issue of The India 

 Rubber Woklo the mysteries of the Russian language in respect 

 to the designation of rubber works are explained; so I am em- 

 boldened to give an example from the Czech language which 

 has this advantage over Russian that Latin and not Cyrillic char- 

 acters are used. An exhibit in one of the stands was marked 

 "Pryzove a Asbestove Rukavice" (Gummi and Asbestos Hand- 

 schuh), or, in English, rubber and asbestos gloves. Vulcanized 



NOTES FEOM 

 BOHEMIA. 



