July 1, 1911. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



341 



sented and discussed, the result of the dehberations be- 

 ing the adoption of the following resolutions : 



First. That employers rescind rules of discharge 

 in order to assist employees in resisting unreason- 

 able interest charges and deprive money-lenders of 

 the power of extortion. 



Second. That all employers disregard claims filed 

 by money-lenders against the wages of employees, 

 not in direct compliance with law, the employers to 

 interest themselves in assisting employees involved 

 with loan sharks. 



Third. That, in self-interest, as well as for the 

 benefit of their employees, all large employers of la- 

 bor encourage and assist in the creation of co- 

 operative savings and loan associations in their 

 respective establishments. 



Fourth. That laws be enacted which will allow 

 a reasonable rate of interest on all small loans and 

 provide for the licensing of money-lenders and the 

 efficient supervision and control of such licensees, 

 preferably under the supervision of the State Bank- 

 ing Department. 



A. H. Ham, agent of the Russell Sage Foundation, 

 spoke on the usurious loan business, its extent — about 

 $20,000,000 annually in New York alone— and the ex- 

 orbitant interest extorted — about 100 per cent, on the 

 sum invested. He explained that with the fear of dis- 

 charge threatening the employee in the event of defal- 

 cation, the risk of loss to the lender was verj- small. 



Walter S. Heilbron described the practice of the 

 firm employing him as superintendent, in refusing to 

 honor a loan assignment, where the provisions of the 

 law in regard to the filing of the loan have not been 

 strictly complied with ; other speakers following on 

 the same lines. The establishment bv firms, among 

 their employees, of co-operative associations for the 

 purpose of making small loans to deserving employees 

 at reasonable interest, was advocated by several 

 speakers, as was also the enactment of laws to govern 

 the money loaning business. S. T. Simonds, manager 

 of the Savings and Loan Department of the Celluloid 

 Club, at Newark, N. J., described the beneficial results 

 attending the operations of that institution. 



The objects of the meeting will coninK-ud them- 

 selves to all large employers of labor, as a means of 

 counteracting an influence that works only for evil 

 and that has, in many instances, shown its demoraliz- 

 ing effect on the working forces of important indus- 

 trial establishments. 



over the manufacture of sheetings, of ducks, and drills, 

 and the like, the thought is certain to obtrude itself 

 that some of the weaknesses and disadvantages that 

 are inherent to woven fabrics of cotton might be ob- 

 viated by the substitution of something better. All 

 the cotton fabric does is to add strength. It is not as 

 plastic, as durable, as waterproof, as rot proof, nor as 

 strong as rubber. It keeps it from stretching and that 

 is about all. It must be carefully covered by the 

 rubber to keej) out moisture : indeed, it must be 

 vacuum dried, stretched, ])icked, singed and generally 

 fussed over to make it do its work in connection with 

 rubber at all. 



It is this preparator}' work for something that is not 

 ideal that leads one to doubt if there be not something 

 far more adaptable and efficient. To follow the raw 

 cotton from ilu- tiny ball of fluff, often hand picked, 

 thrcjiigh the many processes of ginning, cleaning, 

 combing, twisting, spinning, and weaving, is to be more 

 and more impressed with the crudit_\- of the whole in- 

 dustry. The clatter of the billiim shuttles in the vast 

 cotton mills, is no longer the hum of industry, but 

 nature's vociferous protest against needless effort. 



\\'hat rubber manufacture needs is a fabric product 

 that can be forced out of a spewing machine in exactly 

 the shai)e desired for the rubber coating. Two proc- 

 esses should be enough. A masticator that should 

 prepare the raw material, a tubing machine attached 

 to it that should force out the tubes for hose fabrics, 

 strips of any width or thickness for belting and so on, 

 a product that instantly solidifies when exposed td the 

 air, that has no stretch, that does not absorb water, 

 and that is about ten times as strong as cotton. 



To ask or even to dream of such a product is to be 

 thought \isionary. Yet nature gives to the spider 

 simple machinery that enables him to spew a tiny 

 cable analagous to what we have described. 



Does not the chemist's opportunity lie in an investi- 

 gation of this substance and imitation of it? 



RUBBER PLANTATION BARGAINS. 



SYNTHETIC SHEETINGS. 



/^OTTON FABRICS are almost, if not quite as 

 ^^ much of a factor, in most lines of rubber manu- 

 facture as is rubber itself. Hence, when one ponders 



'T~'H()SF, who are bargain seekers in the line nf rub- 

 •■• ber plantations would do well to ponder over 

 the fact that the whole of the Far East is alive to the 

 value of its own [)Ossessions. Seven or eight years ago 

 scores of rubber plantations in Ceylon and the Fed- 

 erated Malay States could have been bought at what 

 today would mean a ridiculously low figure. Now 

 thev are held at figures that are almost prohibitive. 



