154 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



TFebruarv I, 1904. 



glimmer from the torches borne by political partisans. It is 

 not my intention to enter into the fray myself, but I may note 

 how divergent are the views held by prominent men in the 

 rubber industry — not only between firm and firm, but in more 

 than one case we find a house divided against itself. The differ- 

 ence of opinion, I may say, concerns itself with the momentous 

 question of a reversal to a protectionist policy generally ; with 

 regard to the free entry of manufactured rubber goods into the 

 country the trade seems to be practically unanimous that it 

 constitutes a real grievance, and one that calls for remedial 

 measures. With regard to America a subscriber to The India 

 Rubber World who has recently returned from a business 

 tour in the States has expressed to me strongly his conviction 

 that it would be a fatal step for us to remodel our system on 

 American lines. No doubt other British subscribers would try 

 to convince me to the contrary if they thought it worth while. 

 After reading the newspaper accounts of the New York 

 blizzard it seems somewhat trivial to refer to the more sedate 

 methods of our winter. Still we have had some 

 WEATHER hard frosts with the usual accompaniment of 



TROUBLES. J J . . , 



burst water pipes and domestic invectives. 1 

 overheard a conversation between two sufTerers, where the 

 question was put as to why the lead pipes were not lined with 

 India-rubber. I don't know whether anything of the sort has 

 been tried or not but it might be worth consideration. Of 

 course the metal would pursue its usual course but the attend- 

 ant disadvantages would be obviated. If some procedure of 

 the sort were adopted it would probably be found that Gutta- 

 percha would have advantages over rubber. 



A MANUFACTURER of this Commodity assures me emphati- 

 cally that his sales to rubber works have shown no diminution 

 whatever in recent years, though he admitted that 



SOLVENT j[^g price had fallen considerably. As the manu- 



NAPMTHA. '^ . , / J ui 



facturer in question has contracts of considerable 

 magnitude this information is somewhat surprising and quite 

 at variance with the mournful tone adopted generally by man- 

 ufacturers of the moribund macintosh. As I have no good 

 reason to dub my informant a prevaricator I must take it as an 

 alternative presumption that naphtha is being increasingly 

 used for other than macintosh making purposes. Exactly 

 what these purposes are I am ignorant, and I must say I find it 

 difficult to believe that there are in existence any processes or 

 combination of processes which can call for the use of naphtha 

 to an amount anything like what was used in the macintosh 

 industry, five or six years ago. 



I AM glad to hear that this concern, which has experienced 



some rathertroublous times, has now undergone reconstruction. 



I am precluded at the moment from enlarging 



THE ECCLES j ■■ , .u i < 



RUBBER CO °" "S'^'' "^^ "i^y say that the prospects for 

 the future under the satisfactory capitalization 

 now being effected seem bright enough. The capital of the 

 New Eccles Rubber Works. Limited, is /25,ooo, 



The recent flotation of this limited company to take over a 

 private firm of the same name has been chronicled in some 

 journals as an event of importance in the 



JOSHUA LISTER 

 & SONS, LIMITED. 



rubber manufacturing world. It may be men- 

 tioned, however, that this firm is one — and 

 there are several of them —who do not manufacture card cloth- 

 ing throughout. They buy the cotton and the rubber sheet 

 and then proceed to put in the steel points. In the sale of the 

 finished article they come into competition with the members 

 of the Card Clothing Manufacturers' Association. From what 

 a member of this association told me it appears that the card 

 trade is the worst paying one in existence, owing to the inabil- 

 ity to obtain an advance when the price of rubber was prohibi- 



RECOVERED 

 RUBBER. 



tive. The men who bought the rubber ready for use could not 

 be said to effectively compete with those who manufactured 

 the article throughout. 



This business, judging by what one hears in the trade, seems 

 to be getting overdone. The number of those engaged in re- 

 covering or in collecting old rubber has multi- 

 plied largely of recent years, with the result 

 that rubber manufacturers are being called upon 

 by vendors to an extent which somewhat tries their patience. 

 The collector of old rubber does not find his business half as 

 easy as it used to be, as those who have old rubber goods are 

 now so wide awake with regard to their market value. The 

 dealer also finds when he goes to sell his goods, be they merely 

 scrap rubber or recovered rubber, that he has competitors in 

 the rubber manufacturers themselves. Not competitors in a 

 general sense, perhaps, but several firms have perfected re- 

 covery methods of their own and work up their own waste, 

 both that produced in the factory and that which they buy back 

 from their customers who now look upon this procedure as 

 due to them for their custom. The two concerns of import- 

 ance in this branch established in the last year or two — the 

 North-Western Rubber Co. (Litherland, Liverpool), and the 

 DialeneCo. (Preston) have made headway with their product", 

 though the prices asked do not altogether meet with the ap- 

 proval of the frugally minded manufacturer. One may 

 mention also the new works at Copenhagen — those of the 

 Dansk Afvulkaniserungs Aktieselskab — which appear from 

 all reports to be doing such good business, turning 

 out stuff at 2 shillings per pound. It would be interest- 

 ing; to know if this is derived from vulcanized waste? 

 =^The statistical tables referring to the American exports 

 of reclaimed rubber to different countries given on page 130 of 

 the January issue of The India Rubber World are interest- 

 ing, more particularly from the great variations shown by the 

 same countries in succeeding years. For instance in 1901-02 — 

 using round figures — we find $320,000 value for Great Britain, 

 while in the following year it was $129,000; last year it was 

 SjSo.ooo. Even more striking are the figures for Norway and 

 Sweden: $18,000 in 1901-02 ; $15,000 in the next year, while for 

 last year the value was only §8000. If these figures are reliable 

 it would be interesting to have them elaborated.=^=[The ex- 

 ports of American reclaimed rubber to the different countries 

 is not necessarily a measure of the consumption of the Ameri- 

 can product in those countries, for the reason that consumption 

 at a given point may sometimes be supplied indirectly from 

 another European port, and not from New York. — The Editor.] 

 In a recent legal case relating to a serious shock received 

 by a man repairing electric wires a good deal was said about rub- 

 ber gloves and it was laid down that an employ- 

 er IS not guilty of contributory negligence if he fail 

 to provide his men with these gloves. One would 

 have thought that such a precautionary measure would have 

 been obligatory, but apparently it is not. Some of the news- 

 papers in commenting on the case advise the extended use of 

 gloves, and seeing that several firms are now supplying gloves 

 specially intended for the purpose and against which nothing 

 can be urged on the score of comfort and durability, it is to be 

 hoped that some sort of an agitation will result from this case 

 with the effect of largely increasing their sale. 



RUBBER 

 GLOVES. 



The new American lists [says T/^^ Canadiati Shoe and Leather 

 /ournal] are practically identical, a few items on the American 

 list being higher than the Canadian, while on the other hand a 

 number of lines are lower on the Canadian lisL The difference, 

 however, is slight. 



