October i, 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



13 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



B\ Our Kc^iiltir Concsl^cniinil. 



STATE OF 

 TRADE. 



IT goes without saying that the fall in price of raw rubber 

 (luring July and August proved very welcome to the trade 

 whatever may have been the case with investors and com- 

 pany promoters. Although in some cases reductions in the 

 price of goods have been made, this is by no means general. 

 There is plenty of rubber yet to ar- 

 rive at the factories bought at 2 or 3 

 shillings a pound more than the price 

 of today. A fact which buyers of rubber" goods do not always 

 recognize is that rubber manufacturers do not carry their busi- 

 ness from hand to mouth, but are bound to buy far forward 

 delivery, to a great extent at any rate. Another point is that 

 when prices are raised by the manufacturers this rarely occurs 

 until profits have been considerably curtailed, so it is only 

 reasonable that a corresponding time should elapse before 

 notices of reduction in price are sent out to customers. Of 

 course the price of rubber is still high enough to curtail con- 

 sumption and there is little doubt that a further drop of a 

 shilling or two would result in a considerably increased demand 

 for goods. 



It is not only the man who wants a new macintosh who has 

 decided to wait for a fall in price ; such large and important 

 customers as the government department have sent out their or- 

 ders as sparingly as possible. Considering all the circumstances it 

 is somewhat surprising that the reports of such manufacturing 

 companies as publish their accounts have been so satisfactory. 

 In referring to this in conversation recently with the general 

 manager of an important factory, he said it was true that they 

 had maintained their dividend, but that this had only been 

 possible by the most strenuous application to business. He 

 personally had had the hardest time of his thirty years' ex- 

 perience, nearly every order having to be carefully gone into 

 and calculated and re-calculated times without number. 



To touch on another matter, though of course one cannot 

 say what will happen to the raw rubber market next year, those 

 firms who have contracted to purchase plantation fine at 12 

 shillings per pound for 191 1 delivery, must feel in rather an 

 awkward position. On the contrary, it is not surprising that the 

 plantation companies whose output has been sold a year ahead at 

 12 shillings are congratulating themselves all the more since the 

 fall in value below the Brazilian product. 



Thk prelimininary announcements in the press concerning one 

 of the latest synthetic rubber are of the familiar type. There is 

 the usual chemist who has suddenly 

 discovered how to make the real thing, 

 years of trials and disappointments, 

 and the usual company with a large capital is shortly to be formed 

 to exploit the invention. It was announced in June tliat a com- 

 pany was to be formed in Liverpool with a capital of £250,000 

 to put this latest synthetic rubber on the market, the producing 

 price being a fraction over one shilling per pound. 1 don't say 

 that there is nothing in it : that may be the usual feature, for all 

 I know, lliough I have not yet seen a sample, I hear that it is 

 being closely examined by chemists in rubber factories, and that 

 chairmen of rubber planting companies are making anxious en- 

 quiries about it. 



I Foiixn time the (ther day when in North Wales to look in 

 at the Meadow Mills, Holywell, where Mr. Eyre has for some 

 years carried on the business of wash- 

 ing low grade rubber for the trade. Mr. 

 Eyre's experience in this business goes 

 back about thirty years, he having been established in Liverpool 

 many years before the removal to the present more connnodious 



ARTIFICIAL 

 RUBBER AGAIN. 



SOME NEW 

 REGISTRATIONS. 



RUBBER 

 WASHING. 



premises was effected. Considerable additions have been made 

 lo the plant in the last year, and the output of washed rubber has 

 been largely increased. Mr. Eyre is quite an enthusiast on the 

 subject of rubber washing, and the plant in use at his works 

 has been specially designed by him to effect complete cleansing 

 of the rubber without causing ony deterioration. Holywell, I 

 may say, has long had a great reputation for the healing powers 

 of the holy well, to which pilgrimages are made by the afflicted. 

 To a large extent the water supply of the Meadow Mills is de- 

 rived from the same spring, though whether it has any par- 

 ticular beneficial effect upon refractory low grade rubber I am 

 unable to say. 



Thk Rubber Kefinnig Syndicate, Lnnited, with a capital of 

 iio.ooo, has been formed with the object of purifying and cleans- 

 ing rubber for the trade. The expres- 

 sirn "washing'' does not occur in its 

 objects, and probably this has been 

 purposely left out, so tliat no confusion can arise with a large 

 company already referred to in these notes as having been formed 

 for what is really the same purpose. 



.•\nother company of interest is the Hazel Grove Rubber Co., 

 Limited, with a capital of £50.000, to carry on the business of 

 manufacturers of and dealers in rubber goods, etc., and to adopt 

 an agreement with T. (Jare and the Gare Patent Tyre and Wheel 

 Co., Limited. The registered office is at 5, Castle street, Liver- 

 pool, and presently the business will be carried on at Hazel 

 Grove, which is a mile or two from Stockport. This is where 

 the Gare reforming patents have been worked for the last three 

 years on a modest scale. I am not in possession of the terms of 

 the agreement referred to, but I may remark that the Gare re- 

 forming patent is in the possession of the Simplex Rubber Co., 

 of Willerden, of which company Mr. Parker Smith is the chair- 

 man. 



The Premier Reforming Co. is forming a subsidiary company 

 with a capital of £150,000, to work the six northern counties. I 

 don't quite know why counties should be worked in this manner, 

 unless the main idea is to save distancee in sending scrap rubber 

 to be reformed. In the counties referred to rubber manufactur- 

 ing is only carried on in Lancashire, the Yorkshire business be- 

 ing on a very small .--cale outside the card clothing branch. TTie 

 Premier company is certainly losing no time in getting itself 

 established, though I have heard prominent men in the rubber 

 trade suggest that the new flotation might as well have been 

 deferred until the jiarent company had paid a dividend. 



The Greenwich Rubber Recovery Co., Limited, with a capital 

 of £3,000, has been formed to acquire the premises and effecti 

 of the Surrey Tyre Co., at Pelton road. East Greenwich. 1 may 

 say that the Surrey company has long ceased to do any business, 

 and the premises have for six or seven years been occupied by 

 Mr. R. R. Gubbins. for working his patents in connection with 

 scrap rubber, and more particularly with removing wire from 

 armored and embedded hose, like a good many other patents, 

 Mrs. Gubbins — who is a young man, was an officer in the army — 

 allowed himself to be engrossed more by details of mechanism 

 and the possibilities of improvement than by strict attention to 

 the economical side of the business. He has now no connection 

 with the company, which is in possession of his patents, which 

 I understand arc to be worked in conjunction with a secret 

 process of Mr. W. McCowan, a director of the new concern. 



A new company has recently been formed at Warrington to 

 manufacture a sub.stitutc for rubber, especially for use in the 

 insulation of cables. The invention is said to be due to a German 



