March i, 1909/ 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



207 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



Nt.lW that a list of the naim-s of lliosc coiiiprisiiig tlii* com- 

 mittee has been published, it would have been interesting 

 to have had fuller details as to the terms of reference^ 

 to use a parliamentary expression. To say that the object of the 

 committee is to advise on standardizing chemical and mechanical 

 tests used in the rubber trade is not 

 ..=^^^Pn««fnt^v^ sufficiently illuminating as to the full 



TESTING COMMITTEE. / " 



scope of the work to be undertaken. 

 Presumably, however, one object at any rate to be achieved 

 is to agree upon the exact lines of procedure to be followed 

 in the case of certain ordinary tests, such as the determination 

 of resins, substitutes, and sulphur in nrUber goods. To this 

 extent the committee will be following on established lines work 

 of this sort having been undertaken in connection with agri- 

 cultural and other products. Previously, however, to the best 

 of my knowledge, the members of such advisory committees 

 have all been trained chemists, whereas in this case it appears 

 that any manufacturer who wishes to join the committee will 

 have facilities afforded for doing so. This is stated to be the 

 case as far as British manufacturers are concerned, and pre- 

 sumably it applies also to those of other countries whose chem- 

 ists are taking part. The advisory committee list of the Olympia 

 Rubber Exhibition rapidly assumed an imposing length, though 

 only a few of the natues were prominent in any way with the 

 proceedings. There seems likewise a possibility that owing to 

 the new brotherhood which has been fostered by plantation 

 interest we shall see the new International Cominittee consider- 

 ably swollen before any real work commences. Of course the 

 manufacturers can give valuable information to the various 

 secretaries and botanists on the committee as to how rubber 

 goods are constituted, especially as they are all more or less 

 familiar with the adulterants used by their competitors. Other- 

 wise I don't quite see where the manufacturers come in— that is, 

 those who have not had any chemical training. One of the main 

 difficulties which arises in my mind as to this standardizing of 

 chemical tests is the fact that there are practically no standards 

 of rubber now that the admiralty authorities have substituted 

 the term "best rubber" for Para rubber. In the case of food 

 products it is different, and definite standards can be referred 

 to. In rubber goods there may be certain variations which may 

 affect the accuracy of any particular standardized test. If there 

 is not this point to fall back upon an unscrupulous manufac- 

 turer could engage a chemist to show him how to render the 

 test inefficient. To take an instance from food products, a 

 certain quite reliable method had been worked out for determin- 

 ing the amount of cocoanut oil put into butter and lard by 

 nefarious traders. After the latter had got into trouble they 

 engaged eminent scientific help, with the result that they de- 

 stroyed the value of the test in the ordinary analyst's hands by 

 a very slight addition of another foreign matter. This case is 

 an important one, and is attracting considerable attention at 

 the present time; it is mentioned licre merely as an indication 

 of what might happen in certain cases of rubber analysis, and 

 I have no wish to be drawn into any discussion on the case 

 itself. Another point that seems worthy of reference is the 

 language question. This always complicates the work of an 

 international committee. Judging from the list of names before 

 me it does not appear that any one language would be under- 

 stood by all — supposing that a general meeting were held, an 

 eventuality which will probably not be realized. Probably there 

 is one, if not more, on the committee who can speak English, 

 French, German, and Dutch, and his services should be in gen- 

 eral request. With regard to the persoiuiel I am glad to see tliat 



Dr. Speucc, who is now located at University College, Bristol, 

 can find time to give his services. I note the absence of the 

 name of that prolific writer on rubber. Dr. Ditmar, of Austria. 

 With regard to Germany, the list includes the name of Dr. 

 C. W. Thiel, of Hamburg, who I imagine will not be very widely 

 known, as up to the present he has maintained a strict reserve 

 about getting into print. In the course of his experience as 

 chemist at Messrs. F. Reddaway & Co., Limited, Manchester, 

 the Ilarburg-Vienna company, and the Calmon Works, at Ham- 

 burg, he must have accumulated matter with regard to analysis 

 likely to prove of much service, and now that he is a free 

 lance he will doubtless be more communicative. 



The recent editorial in The Indt.^ Rubber World as to the 

 correct classification of jelutong or pontianak is much to 

 the point. It certainly seems undesirable 

 JELUTONG. that a substance worth 2 pence per 



pound and imported in large quanti- 

 ties should not go to swell the statistics of raw imported by any 

 particular country. In my opinion it is at the best only a bastard 

 rubber, which is a useful designation for this and one or two 

 somewhat similar low-grade substances. In a recent legal case 

 it was gravely contended that anything of this sort was rubber; 

 it was only a question of grade. If this is to hold good there 

 is no reason why Para rubber should not be classed as a 

 low-grade resin, as it undeniably contains a little resin. On the 

 commercial side it is interesting to note how greatly the import 

 of jelutong to America has increased in recent years, the 

 European import showing a much slower rate of increase. I have 

 been asked where it all goes to in America, but this is one of 

 the points on which my knowledge is at fault. From some 

 experiments I have made it is much inferior to resin as a water- 

 proofing material, and as far as I am aware it has not replaced 

 any of the ordinary resins of commerce in any trade applications. 

 I never was enamoured with the proposals to make a rubber 

 from it by extraction of the resinous matters with volatile 

 solvents. This procedure has not only been suggested but has 

 been put into actual practice in England. I believe I am right, 

 however, in saying that the work has been discontinued, as it 

 was not remunerative. Probably large as the present American 

 demand seems to be. the supply from the Straits and Malaya 

 is equal to it, and there is no need to go further afield. Practi- 

 cally the same material, however, is obtainable in a far distant 

 part of the globe. I have recently been investigating the stuflf 

 which it was hoped would fetch at least a shilling per pound 

 as rubber if it was cured by some of the advertised up-to-date 

 methods. I was unable to hold out any encouragement in this 

 respect, being still as of yore extremely sceptical about the 

 transmutation of raw rubber brands except in the reverse 

 direction to that desired. It would be interesting to know what 

 the rate of profit is for the Eastern pr(i<lucers where tlie product 

 sells for 2 pence per pound. 



A RECENT meeting of the shareholders of this concern was held 

 in order to consider a reconstruction scheme, the accounts for 

 recent working showing a further loss 

 and increasing the total adverse bal- 

 ance to £8,632. This appears to be an- 

 other instance, of which there have been several others, where ill 

 luck has dogged the footsteps of a new company founded in the 

 ashes of one which has gone wrong. In a few sentences the his- 

 history of the premises may be given. The location is Woodley, 

 about eight miles from Manchester, and the main building is an old 

 cotton spinning mill, which was turned into the Hyde Imperial 

 Rubljer Co. at the time of the evolution of the Dunlop tire 



THE ITNITY RUBBER 

 CO., LIMITED, 



