February i, 1905.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



153 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



RETROSPECT. 



ANY review of the past year would be incomplete without 

 a reference to the dominant feature of the record 

 prices ruling for raw rubber. Such brief concession to 

 law and order is, however, all that will be said on the 

 topic, in order to avoid repetition. With regard to the manu- 

 facturing side there is a dearth of subjects which 

 call for comment. No new works have been 

 started during the year, and certainly none were 

 needed. Despite the adverse conditions which have prevailed 

 there have been no failures— that is, of actual manufacturers. 

 It is clear, however, from perusal of the balance sheets issued 

 by those firms which are public limited companies, that the 

 year has not been a particularly prosperous one ; of course with 

 regard to private firms one can only in the absence of special 

 information, speculate as to the results obtained, but it is a fair 

 assumption that those firms whose figures have not become 

 public property have had much the same experience as the 

 others. As regards novelties in the trade, there is practically 

 only one article which calls for mention by reason of the 

 amount of rubber necessitated in its manufacture. I refer of 

 course to the heel pad, which the past year has seen made in 

 such largely increased quantities. With respect to the tire 

 trade, the London cycle show this season revealed an utter lack 

 of novelties. It would seem that as far as the rubber of motor 

 tires is concerned, finality has been pretty well attained ; it is in 

 the direction of a really rot-proof canvas that improvement is 

 urgently wanted. The waterproof business, as far as rubber is 

 concerned, has not at all shown that resuscitation which was 

 predicted of it, and there is little evidence of an improvement 

 being imminent. Perhaps the event of the year has been the 

 lapse of the Dunlop monopoly, but this matter has been referred 

 to exhaustively elsewhere in this Journal. Despite the contin- 

 uance of experimenting, I understand that none of our manu- 

 facturers have yet solved the problem of making a rubber 

 sponge which will compete with the Russian article, and now 

 that prices have come down the incentive to continue experi- 

 menting is not so great as it was. This sponge business is a 

 good instance of the difficulty which rubber manufacturers ex- 

 perience in imitating their rivals; another striking example is 

 the position which has been held for so many years by Messrs. 

 William Warne & Co., Limited (London), in red rubber, de- 

 spite the efforts of their competitors to get on equal terms. 



The Financial Times (London), in a reference to the rubber 

 market of 1904, says that a feature was the rise in price of fine 

 rubber out of all proportion to the prices ruling 

 for other sorts. It is also stated that the rise of 

 \s. 2d. per pound in the year is due to combined 

 increased demand and speculation. It is not hinted who the 

 speculators are, but presumably they are the Liverpool rubber 

 brokers, or the merchants at Para. So many dark things have 

 been said within this country and on the Continent as to the 

 part played by the Liverpool men in the situation which has 

 arisen, that one may well wish for some authoritative state- 

 ment on the point. This, however, we are hardly likely to get. 

 It has been urged elsewhere in The India Rubber World 

 that the high prices were merely the outcome of the law of de- 

 mand and supply, and could not fairly be attributed to any 

 cornering of rubber by this or that Liverpool house, and cer- 

 tainly in the absence of reliable data to the contrary this view 



THE PRICE 

 OF RUBBER. 



seems the most sensible one to take. With regard to the state- 

 ment that the prices of lower grades of rubber have not moved 

 in conformity with those for Para, the matter is referred to 

 here as suggesting a subject for study by any reader of a sta- 

 tistical turn of mind. In a recent correspondence I expressed 

 some doubt as to what would be the attitude of the American 

 firms in London with regard to the 10 per cent, rise of the In- 

 dia Rubber Manufacturers' Associstion. The circular which 

 was sent out stated that, inter alia, rubber boots and shoes 

 would come under a special arrangement. What this arrange- 

 ment is or whether the American and British producers are 

 working in harmony, or not, I do not know, but I find that the 

 Americans have raised their prices in London. For instance 

 in the case of ladies' goloshes, which are being increasingly 

 sold in London, I am informed that the same article which 

 was sold at 2s. iid. in December, 1903, cost 3^. 6d. in Decem- 

 ber, 1904. It is the golosh with raised sides, which gets a 

 good grip of the boot, which is so much in favor ; it is consid- 

 ered a great improvement on the older type, which was fre- 

 quently left sticking in the mud. 



The illustrated article on this subject in The India Rubber 



World for November last was interesting as adumbrating 



quite a new departure. I do not gather from 



ELECTRIC ^^ icTii. whether the employment of electrical 



VULCANIZING. ^ ' 



heat for vulcanizing is an accomplished fact or 

 whether its feasibility has been merely demonstrated. Noth- 

 ing is said as to the cost of generating the current — perhaps 

 because this is so variable. It is stated, however, that the ac- 

 tual cost of operation is about one half of that of steam. This 

 statement must of course be duly qualified, according as to 

 whether fuel is cheap or dear. The cost of electricity for light- 

 ing purposes varies a good deal in British towns, and so far 

 the application of the current for heating purposes in cooking 

 ranges and fires has made any progress only where the cost is 

 comparatively low. Certainly electrical energy is in use at 

 some of our rubber works, though its employment is not 

 spreading with rapidity. If the new process attracts serious 

 attention probably those who are now using electricity as a 

 motive power will give it their attention. The process would 

 seem to deserve attention in Scandinavia, for instance at the 

 Gislaved rubber works, in Sweden, where electrical energy 

 derived from the falls in the river is utilized and where coal is 

 expensive. 



The rule excluding politics from the columns of this Journal 

 must, on the whole, be commended. All the same, however, 



when, as at present in Great Britain, there is be- 



^"^ fore the electorate a topic which is entirely con- 



QUESTiON. cerned with manufactures, it certainly seems 



appropriate enough for those engaged in partic- 

 ular trades to join in the voluminous utterances of politicians 

 who come to public meetings to discuss trades, the details of 

 which they are only acquainted with by the medium of informa- 

 tion kindly supplied. Where matters of the sort are made a 

 strictly party question points which are somewhat damaging to 

 the policy advocated are apt to be ignored and we are treated 

 at any rate to a suppressio -,>eri, if not to a suggestio falsi. It 

 seems to me that reputable trade organs, always supposing that 

 such are free from political bias, might enter into the fray with 

 advantage to those who seek for light but only obtain a feeble 



