April i, 1901.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^^ORLD 



203 



THE INDIA-RUBBER IMDUSTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



NO attempt can be made in the space at present disposal 

 to treat this matter adequately, but a word or two may 

 fitly be said, as from what has appeared in The India 

 Rubber World it is clear that the ideas which pur- 

 chasers of several lines of rubber goods hold are much the same 

 the world over. I have discussed the matter of 

 LONQeviTY OF rg^ums with several British manufacturers who 



RUBBER GOODS. . , ,_ , , 



are all emphatic as to the unreasonableness ot 

 the demands which customers are apt to make. " When a 

 man's hat or coat gets worn out or shabby they are straightway 

 replaced by new ones," said a waterproofer to me recently ; " but 

 if his macintosh gets worn out, he is apt to resent this and 

 lodge a complaint against the maker." Now this complaint 

 need not be taken as showing a regular condition of afTairs, but 

 it certainly is not the outcome of fancy. The difficult point for 

 decision in such claims is as to whether the goods have had 

 fair treatment. In some cases a waterproof coat is only worn 

 on occasions, while in others it takes the place of the regular 

 overcoat and is worn whether the weather is wet or fine. Mani- 

 festly in the latter case it cannot be expected to retain peren- 

 nial youth, nor can it be compared with one which has seen but 

 occasional service. The question as to what constitutes a rea- 

 sonable period of life for rubber goods is certainly a very com- 

 plex one, so much depending upon the conditions of use, a 

 matter which is of course quite outside the manufacturer's pur- 

 view. The reasonable limit of time, though not in the case of 

 any goods that I know of fixed with even an approximation to 

 accuracy, has received recognition from tire manufacturers, who 

 give guarantees for a certain time for first quality goods, but it 

 certainly does not seem expedient to extend this privilege gen- 

 erally to all departments of the trade. It is inevitable that a 

 certain amount of bad work should be produced, and of course 

 I do not say that in cases of undoubted defects the customer 

 should have no redress, but it would certainly seem that he is 

 apt to adopt a querulous tone on occasions without sufficient 

 reason and the frequency with which such claims are settled is 

 a direct incentive to roguery. It might be too drastic a pro- 

 posal to suggest that claims should not be recognized after the 

 goods have been accepted and paid for, but it would certainly 

 be more in accord with the traditions of other trades. One thing 

 certainly should be impressed upon the buyer — that it is to 

 his craze for cheapness that dissatisfaction with the goods is in 

 the majority of cases traceable. 



The fifth annual of this show, which was held February 14-23, 

 does not call for much notice, as the only rubber firm exhibit- 

 ing was the North British, who had a good dis- 



MANOHESTER ]^ qJ clincher cycle and motor tires, though 



CYCLE AND *^ \ , . -' . , , .... 



MOTOR SHOW. Without anything particularly novel in their 

 make. The third quality of their make is this 

 season prominently on the market, being known as the " Red 

 Clincher." This is made no doubt to meet a specific demand, 

 and it is to be hoped that those who buy it will clearly under- 

 stand what they are doing and not compare it to its disadvan- 

 tage with the first quality of to-day, or of seven or eight years 

 ago. I confess to a feeling of impatience when I hear buyers 

 of cheap tires mournfully descanting oh the decline in quality 

 of the present day tire, though the prevalent suspicion that all 

 first class tires so called are not of equal quality certainly seems 

 to be founded on fact. Other tire exhibitors included the 



Radax company, whose tire was specially referred to in these 

 columns last year ; the Shrewsbury and Challiner Tyre Co., Lim- 

 ited—a recent amalgamation of the Shrewsbury and Talbot 

 Cab and Noiseless Tyre Co., and the Challiner & Willoughby 

 Carriage Tyre Co., and the Swain Patents Syndicate, Limited. 

 The last named company are the proprietors of the "Swain " 

 and " Horwich " tires, which have now been before the public 

 for a year, the works being at Horwich in Lancashire. In these 

 tires, of which the " Swain " is the first class quality and the 

 " Horwich " the second class, there are no wires, thickened 

 edges, or other mechanical fastenings to hold the cover on the 

 rim, the method of attachment being extremely simple. In the 

 price list just issued I notice that a slight increase is made on 

 last year's prices, which may or may not be attributed to the 

 use of a better rubber. In the case of companies such as the 

 three just mentioned, who get their tires made for them at one 

 or other of the rubber works by contract, the patentee is of 

 course somewhat at the mercy of circumstances of which he has 

 no intimate knowledge. To enlarge somewhat upon this point, 

 it may be mentioned that other companies, notably the Clip- 

 per, of Birmingham, have raised their prices for this season. 

 Rumor has it that this company, though closely in touch with 

 Birmingham manufacturers, draws its supply of inner tubes 

 largely from the Continental Caoutchouc and Gutta-percha Co., 

 of Hanover, a concern which has the reputation of turning out 

 a larger quantity of these goods than any other firm. This sale 

 of inner tubes in Great Britain, it may be mentioned, is not 

 affected by the Dunlop monopoly, which only applies to the 

 tire as a whole, or to the outer cover. 



In the reference to this trade which was recently made in 



these notes, the name of Ashworth & Co,, of Hasparbey, near 



Manchester, should have been mentioned as an 



CARD CLOTH independent firm outside the English Card 



MANUFACTURE. _, f". ,, , , r^ -ru r- i- u 



Clothing Manufacturers Co. The English 

 business in rubber faced cards with Russia has always been a 

 large and valuable one, because of the condition of the cotton 

 industry in that country. I refer especially to the running of 

 the mills night and day without intermission, a fact which ne- 

 cessitates at least double the consumption of cards as com- 

 pared with England. It has long been an object in Russia to 

 reduce this expenditure by using cards of greater permanence, 

 but the manufacturers have not yet solved the problem and, 

 after all, it can hardly be said to be to their interest to do so. 



The prospectus of this company which recently appeared 

 prominently in the newspapers has been rather severely criti- 

 cised by those " in the know," it being asserted, 

 REYROL ihough I personally cannot vouch for the accuracy 

 MOTOR OAR J j^ statement, that all the five companies it was 



SYNDICATE. . , , , • , , 



sought to combine have been losing money of late 



years. As, however, the company has not gone to allotment, 



there is little purpose referring to the matter in further detail. 



In the course of conversation with a gentleman who has 



been engaged in trade in Persia for the last twenty years, I 



elicited the fact that the wearing of goloshes 



RUBBER FOOTWEAR jg ygry general and considered a necessity 



IN PERSIA. . , . u -T-u J IJ 



in the winter months. The goods sold are 

 all of European origin, none coming from the United States, 

 except perhaps in a private way for the use of missionaries 

 hailing from America. Except for a short length of railway 



