February i, igaj] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



169 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



ADMIRALTY 

 CONTRACTS. 



DL'kING the last year or two the government authorities 

 have placed their contracts for a limited period of six 

 months, instead of for the whole year as was formerly 

 the rule. This really only amounted to having a right to change 

 the contractor at the end of six months, if it seemed desirable to 

 do so, and further it allowed of cer- 

 tain orders being distributed among a 

 larger number of manufacturers. Now, 

 however, I understand the old practice is being reverted to, and 

 contracts for delivery over twelve months will be placed. This 

 will be somewhat later than in recent years, the new tender 

 forms not being expected until early in January. I have not 

 heard of any new regulation or alterations in the reformed 

 chemical tests. With regard to the alcoholic potash extraction 

 test I hear the usual stories of goods which do not pass it, go- 

 ing into store and consumption. As these stories arise, however, 

 from trade competitors they must be accepted with some degree 

 ■of reserve. With regard to the test itself, although an un- 

 • doubted improvement on the old moist heat test, it could be modi- 

 fied with advantage, in my opinion, by the alcoholic extraction 

 being preceded by an extraction with acetone. 



The last report of this Manchester company shows a profit 



nearly four times greater than in the preceding year, and allows 



of a dividend of 7V2 per cent, being 



GOKTON RUBBER CO., •, u .^i »i j- j r 



' „„"° paid on both the ordmary and prefer- 



ence shares. A specific reference to 

 this seems justified because the opinion has been freely ex- 

 pressed that it is becoming increasingly difficult for strall con- 

 cerns to compete with establishments of greater size and capital 

 resources. In several cases this expression of opinion has found 

 justification. Management, however, has no doubt a great deal 

 to do with failure or success, and as the improved position of 

 the Gorton company synchronizes with the appointment of Mr. 

 George Spencer — for many years connected with Messrs. Charles 

 Macintosh & Co., Limited — to the managing directorship it is 

 a fair presumption that credit attaches to him. 



I SEE from a paragraph on tlie subject in the December issue 



■ of The Indi.v RunBER Woklp that it is suggested to put a com- 



paratively hi.gh import duty on barytes 

 BARYTES. coming into the United States in order 



to benefit the home mining industry. 

 Although barytes has never figured in England as a compound of 

 high class rubber goods, it has always found regular application 

 in the trade. I understand that its use in the American rubber 

 trade has considerably increased, and after the paint trade the 

 rubber trade is the principal producer. Whether there is any 

 important increase in its use in the British rubber factories is 

 a point on which I have no direct information, and am unlikely 

 to obtain it easily. British barytes mining has, however, had a 

 great jump in recent years, and it does not now rank as the un- 

 profitable sort of business it was a decade ago. The output of 

 crude barytes from the mines amounted to 41,974 tons in 1907, 



■ compared with 26,327 tons in 1904, and being the highest on 

 record. The United States output in igo6 was 43.759 metric tons, 

 and about 4,000 tons annually are imported. A considerable pro- 

 portion of the British output is the carbonate of barytes, which 

 is more expensive than the ordinary sulphate, and to the best of 

 my knowledge is not used in the rubber trade. America hardly 

 produces any carbonate. The two countries named are now the 

 leading producers of barytes, Germany, France and Belgium com- 

 ing next in importance. I shall not go further into technical mat- 

 ters, except to say that if the present demand keeps up there 



will probably be an advance in prices. The difficulty in the 

 .•\merican mining seems to lie in the fact that the product comes 

 from a large number of small concerns widely scattered, and the 

 freights to the grinding mills are often heavy. With such a low- 

 priced mineral, moreover, it has not seemed expedient to embark 

 capital on special machinery, and altogether there is an absence 

 of the organization and method so noticeable in other branches of 

 American mining. Much the same state of affairs had been the 

 case in England, but with the increased demand the capitalist is 

 taking the place of the Derbyshire "hillocker." who for long has 

 earned a precarious livelihood by turning over the old lead 

 mine dumps for "cawk," as it is called. Of course, barium sul- 

 phate in the precipitated form is a normal component of the litho- 

 phonc, and this pigment has had increased application botli in the 

 paint and rubber trades in recent years. 



A C0MP.-\K.'\TivEi.v modern procedure in rubber works practice 



is the issue of tender forms for various rubber chemicals to 



manufacturers and dealers who arc sup- 



TENDERS FOR „ j ^ u • •.• ■ ^ 



RUBBER CHEMICALS, ^°^^^ '° ^^ '" ^ position to quote. In 

 many cases a close specification is given 

 of the requirements, both as. regards physical properties and 

 chemical composition. Owing, in many cases, to keen competi- 

 tion among the suppliers of rubber chemicals who do not always 

 manufacture the goods themselves, prices have come down a 

 good deal in recent years, and profits have shrunk to a corre- 

 sponding degree. In these circumstances it is not surprising that 

 dealers are not very keen on entering into contracts which under 

 the most favorable conditions yield a very meager profit now 

 that they are expected to supply to specific requirements, the de- 

 tails of which may be quite novel to them. They are told, for 

 instance, that in the case of a certain substance the specific grav- 

 ity must always be 5.5, nothing being said as to the degree of 

 latitude allowed. Then a particular mineral must be quite free 

 from a certain impurity. .\s a matter of fact, very few com- 

 mercial chemicals are quite free from impurities. I think the 

 term commercially free should be used, otherwise the buyer who 

 wished, for any particular reason, to get out of a contract could 

 depend upon finding traces of the impurity if the analysis was 

 made upon sufficiently large quantity of material. The new pro- 

 cedure will, of course, affect the middleman, with his small mar- 

 gin of profit and his ignorance of the details of manufacture of 

 what he sells, more than it will the actual manufacturer. As in 

 many other industries the middleman has l>ccome of less impor- 

 tance in the rubber chemical trade of late years than was formerly 

 the case, the more general employment of chemists in the works 

 and keener buying having combined to effect his effacement. 

 Now he will require the actual manufacturer to indemnify him 

 against claims, a request which may not be readily acceded to if 

 only because it has not been customary to say more about the 

 composition of the goods except that they are the best quality. 



The question of the recovery of the textile fabric in reclaiming 

 rubber from textiles and insertion goods has long been before the 

 trade, but as far as I can gather there is 

 still no regular business being done be- 

 tween rubber reclaimers and such firms, 

 notably in West Yorkshire, who deal in what may be termed tex- 

 tile scrap. An important desideratum is that the textile material 

 must be entirely free from rubber, and the penalties attaching 

 to a contravention of this requirement were too great in the case 

 of one process I have in mind to encourage the reclaimer to enter 

 on the proposed business. As regards waterproof cuttings the 

 difficulty has always been the due separation of the woollen and 



TBXTILES IN 

 RUBBER RECLAIMING. 



