554 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August 1, 1913. 



fifty-cent rubber, would be prohibitive, but with rubber 

 at fifty cents such roadways on a hniitcd scale are sure 

 to come. Their noiselessness and cleanliness — their free- 

 dom from rattle, jar and dust — arc bound to l)ring tliem 

 into constantly increasing favor where these advantages 



problem before the rubber industry today is not so 

 much how to utilize the constantly increasing rubber 

 supply as it is h<uv to use it to the best advantage. 

 That is a problem worthy of the diligent application 

 t_>\ the most acute inventive minds. And if the planters 



are most desired— as around hospitals, churches, schools shall co-operate to offer substantial rewards for the 

 and lecture halls, around courts, in fine residential ave- discovery of new use.s of rubber, new uses would un- 

 nues, and even about apartment houses and office build- duubtcdly be discovered by the thousands; and some 

 ings of the better sort. When rubber sells at fifty cents of them certainly would be sufficiently practical to 

 there will be plenty of rubber paving. utilize all the surplus in-oduct of the plantations for 



many years to come. 



PRIZES FOR NEW USES OF RUBBER. 



IN the department entitled "Some Rubber Interests 

 in Europe," found elsewhere in this number, there 

 is reproduced a letter recently sent out by the Secre- 

 tary of The Mincing Lane Tea and I^ubber Share 

 Brokers' Association Ltd. to the rubber plantation 

 companies — of which there are between 500 and 600 — 

 inviting their co-operation in a plan of offering sub- 

 stantial prizes for the suggestion of new uses for rub- 

 ber. The association gives an earnest of its own 

 interest in this matter by oft'ering a prize of 100 

 guineas, to be given at the Kubber Exposition to be 

 held in Lt)ndon next summer, fur the best new use 

 of rubber submitted at that time; and also by its 

 further oft'er to subscrilie £.^0 to any fund contril)Uted 

 by the planters. 



This episode shows the changing conditions of the 

 rubber industry. Hitherto prizes have been offered 

 for inventions and discoveries looking to an increase 

 in the amount of crude rubber produced, but these new 

 offers are for inventions and discoveries that shall 

 lead to the increased consumption of rubber. 



There is no danger — although some pessimistic sur- 

 veyors of the situation occasionally express such a 

 fear — that there will be too much rubber. Even should 

 the estimates of experts be fulfilled, that the year 1919 

 will see a production of plantation rubber amounting 

 to over 300,000 tons, which — assuming that the wild 

 output from the Amazon and other localities continues 

 at its present level — will bring the total production 

 well towards 400,000 tons, this amount, vast as it is, 

 could undoubtedly be utilized through the present 

 channels of consumption. When rubber becomes 

 cheap enough it will probably become the universal 

 flooring, and its employment in the paving of streets 

 is capable of an almost unlimited extension. But the 



GUARANTEEING THE UNGUARANTEEABLE. 



A S a matter of fact, isn't the whole tire guarantee 

 ** idea a fight against nature, an attempt to accom- 

 plish the manifestly impossible? From the very character 

 of the service a tire is called upon to perform, can the 

 duration of that service possibly be guaranteed? 



It is logical enough to guarantee a watch, because one 

 can predicate the normal treatment of a watch, viz. : that 

 if will l)e carried quietly in the pocket during the day and 

 wound up with great regularity about the same time each 

 night. The piano can be guaranteed, for the piano runs 

 a normal course. Generally speaking, it stands unmo- 

 lested in its corner, to be played on with more or less 

 discretion a few minutes or possibly a few hours a day. 



But with a tire it is quite different — that has no 

 normal career. When it leaves the factory a dozen dif- 

 ferent futures may be open to it. It may possibly fall into 

 the hands of a cautious, conservative person who wants 

 to get full service from it and who takes particular pains 

 to inform himself as to how a tire should be treated for 

 its own good, and to the best advantage of its owner. Or 

 possiblv it ma\- fall into the hands of the owner's son, 

 just home from college, a reckless scapegrace who re- 

 gards not principalities or powers, much less tires, and 

 whose only idea of a car is to make it cover the greatest 

 amoutit of the earth's surface in the least possible time. 



Or the tire may be turned over to the tender mercies 

 of a chauffeur, whose business relations with the pro- 

 prietor of the neighboring repair shop are such that the 

 more abuse the tire receives the better is the chauffeur's 

 financial status. Or, more likely, the tire will fall into the 

 hands of just an average sort of man who has no malicious 

 intention of abusing it, but who doesn't take the trouble to 

 find out how it should be cared for, and who doesn't 

 bother very much about such a trivial matter as proper 



