76 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^7VORLD 



[December i, 1901. 



=The beautiful hard rubber gavel which the secretary of the 

 club presented, was made by the Joseph Stokes Rubber Co., 

 one of the latest concerns to enter the field of hard rubber man- 

 ufacture. 



= Chairman W. J. Kelly, of the dinner committee, and in- 

 deed the whole committee, are to be complimented upon the 

 excellent menu that the banqueters discussed, alltogether the 

 best yet. 



= Mr. George P. Whitmore, who is on the dinner committee 

 and also the treasurer of the club, had the floral decorations in 

 charge, and received many compliments on their excellence 

 and appropriateness. 



= As Mr. W. H. Gleason, assistant secretary of the club, was 



to celebrate his silver wedding anniversary the next day, some 

 very beautiful flowers that adorned the tables were sent him, 

 with the cordial congratulations of the executive committee. 



= Mr. William E. Barker, of the entertainment committee, 

 who had the music directly in chaige, made a most excel- 

 lent selection, and proved, as has long been known to his 

 intimates, that he is a lover of good music. 



— Mr. VVu Ting-fang, envoy extraordinary and minister pleni- 

 potentiary from the Chinese Empire to the United States, a 

 most delightful after dinner speaker, had planned to be present 

 to speak on " Chinese Laborers in the Tropics," but, finding 

 that his official duties would engross him during the whole of 

 November, was unable to arrange to do so. 



RUBBER SHOES AND THE GERMAN TARIFF. 



IN connection with the proposals for a radical revision of the 

 German import duties, to meet the views of the protec- 

 tionist sentiment in that country, the Handehkammer 

 (Chamber of Commerce) of Hamburg has made a study 

 of existing trade conditions and prepared a report for the con- 

 sideration of the government. The paragraphs which follow, 

 in relation to rubber goods and particularly to rubber foot- 

 wear, are translated from this report as found in the Gummi- 

 Zeitung. It will be seen that the Hamburg chamber opposes 

 an increase in the import duties on the goods referred to: 



•'An important item is No. 576— rubber shoes. It is pro- 

 posed to raise the tarifl on unvarnished shoes from 40 to 90 

 marks, per double hundred weight (220 pounds) and on var- 

 nished shoes from 60 to 100 marks. The board of trade heard 

 the statements of eight rubber goods manufacturers, of whom 

 six are not making shoes, and consequently have no intimate 

 knowledge pertaining to them. The representative of the 

 Harburg factory advocated a tariff, on varnished rubber shoes, 

 of 120 marks, while the representative of the Leipsic factory, 

 who are not making shoes themselves, but are carrying the 

 product of the Russian-American India-Rubber Co., of St. 

 Petersburg, to supply their customers, recommended that the 

 manager of that factory be heard before the board in Ger- 

 many ; but this did not occur. 



" There are only three factories in Germany engaged in the 

 manufacture of rubber shoes. The Harburg factory produces, 

 according to a statement of its director, 10,000 pairs for each 

 working day, equal to 3,000,000 pairs per year ; Hutchinson, at 

 Manheim— a branch of a French firm— 750,000 pairs a year; 

 and Volpi & Schliiter, in Berlin, 325,000 pairs. These figures 

 include rubber-soled canvas shoes, the export of which, as 

 gleaned from well-informed sources, exceeds the import mate- 

 rially. Official statistics of these cannot be given, the custom 

 house figures grouping them with other linen goods. Of rub- 

 ber shoes, 637,900 kilograms were imported (including 450,100 



kilograms from Russia) valued at 4,210,000 marks; there were 

 exported 287,200 kilograms, valued at 1,723.000 marks. 



" A comparison of 18 pairs of shoes from the Harburg factory 

 with a corresponding lot from St. Petersburg showed the 

 former to weigh 7804 grams, and to cost 39.06 marks, while 

 latter weighed 7305 grams, and cost 47.29 marks. This figures 

 the price lor the Harburg shoes at 500 marks per double hun- 

 dred weights, and that lor the Petersburg shoes at 660 marks. 

 These figures have been accepted and considered for recom- 

 mendation by the imperial bureau of statistics, in fixing tne 

 import and export duties. But these are selling prices, 

 which include expenses, profits, and, on foreign ship- 

 ments, freight, and duty. The average price of foreign 

 made shoes is about 500 marks, so that the present 'tarifl 

 represents about 12 per cent, ad valorem, and the pro- 

 posed tariff about 20 per cent. If the assertion is made by 

 the Harburg factory that their product is equal in quality to 

 that of foreign manufacture, it is in line with their statement 

 that they can hold their own with English factories in proofing 

 fabrics, a statement which has proved a detriment to the Ger- 

 man trade in waterproof goods and has succeeded in killing 

 the efforts to biing it to greater perfection. All impartial ex- 

 perts agree that their statement does not hold true, and that 

 the foreign manufacture, though being much lighter, is decid- 

 edly more durable. 



" This is proved conclusively by the difference in the prices 

 (for Roumania the Harburg factory concluded a price agree- 

 ment with the St. Petersburg factory whereby the latter sell 15 

 per cent, higher than the former, and yet they have a preponder- 

 ance of the sales). That the two are of entirely different quality 

 is shown by the fact that the firm of Volpi & Schliiter have 

 made the representative of the St. Petersburg factory their sole 

 agent for Germany — a deal which is most [profitable to them- 

 selves. It seems to be intended, therefore, to saddle the Ger- 

 man public with higher prices for the superior goods, in favor 



Rate of Dividends Earned by German Rubber Factories for Ten Years Past. 



Names of Companies. 



Vereinigten GummiwareD-Fabriken, flarburg-Wien 



Continental Caoutchouc-und Guttapercha Co., Hanover 



Hannover'schen Gummi Kamm Co., Hannover 



Vereinigten Berlin Frankfurter GummiwarenFabriken, Berlin 



Vereinigten Hanfschlauch-und Gummiwaren-Fabriken 



Carl Schwanitz & Co., Aktien-Gesellschaft, Berlin 



Gummiwaren-Fabrik Voigt & Winde, Berlin 



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