November 1, 1913.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



95 



The India Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE PRICE OF RUBBER. 



THE low price to which plantation riiliber has fallen has given 

 rise to a panicky state of mind in England, which doubtless 

 finds no parallel in America, where, I understand, rubber 

 plantation shares are by no means so widely held as they are in 

 Great Britain, as the result of the boom. Perhaps the most interest- 

 ing outcome of the situation is the number and variety of the sug- 

 gestions put forward by writers in the "Financial Times" and other 

 journals as to how the long-suffering shareholders — many of 

 whom, by the way, have been receiving dividends of 100 to 200 

 per cent. — are to get level with the greedy and unscrupulous 

 manufacturers. No one gauges, says one scribe, the gigantic 

 profits being made by the manufacturer. Probably not — for the 

 best of reasons. The position no doubt is irritating to many people, 

 but I do not know that these persons shed inany tears of sym- 

 pathy with the manufacturers, who were at their wits' end to 

 know how to tide over the troubles caused by the high prices of 

 three years ago. One writer suggests that reclaimed rubber is 

 playing a large part in the debacle and angrily suggests that the 

 Board of Trade should make it obligatory for goods containing 

 reclaimed rubber to be branded as inferior. But why stop at 

 reclaimed rubber as reducing the amount of new rubber used? 

 Why not brand the admiralty mixings for containing so much 

 zinc oxide? After all that has been adumbrated as to the ex- 

 tended use of the rubber pavement as the panacea for over-pro- 

 duction, it comes as a cruel blow to hear that the rubber pave- 

 ment at the Savoy Hotel is to be replaced by asphalt, the main 

 reason being that as the bulk of the vehicles are rubber tired, a 

 noise deadener is not required. Further, it is said — and no doubt 

 with truth — that tlie oil dropped from motor vehicles damages 

 the rubber. 



The correspondents, of course, include those who are as- 

 tonished at the ruling premium on Fine Hard, in the face of 

 the fact that their own chemists have shown that there is no 

 ground for the statement that the wild product is superior to 

 that from the immature plantation trees. Perhaps Professor 

 Dunstan's statement that the latter generally is not equal to Fine 

 Hard will be seriously regarded by those authorities who persist 

 in ignoring the fact. 



The topic of the moment is the proposed Selling Exchange, as 

 to the advisability and prospect of which considerably divergent 

 opinions are expressed. I do not propose to discuss the matter 

 here, and shall merely say that perhaps not unnaturally the idea 

 does not meet with the approval of the merchants, who under 

 present conditions buy the rubber and resell to the manufacturers, 

 these latter not attending the auctions personally. It is hinted 

 that the merchants have been doing very well lately, in the falling 

 market; and shareholders who say that the manufacturers are 

 making abnormal profits might correctly include the merchants 

 in their criticisms. 



LEYLAND & BIRMINGHAM RUBBER CO., LIMITED. 



Presiding at tlio annual meeting of this company in September 

 — when a dividend of 7y> per cent, for the year was declared — 

 Mr. R. T. Byrne made special reference to the fire of January 

 last, already referred to in these notes. They were much in- 

 debted, he said, to Mr. Roberts, of the Wood-Milne Company, for 

 placing his works 'at their disposal for certain purposes'. The 

 new buildings whidi are now being erected will afTord 20,000 

 square feet of extra space over (hat occupied by the burned 

 premises. Under the management of Mr. R. T. G'oudie arid 

 Mr. Anderson, the Glasgow works for garments and golf balls 



had made good progress, labor conditions being more favorable 

 than at Leyland. Mr. Byrne said with regard to the price of 

 rubber that he preferred a steady price to a low one, as when 

 rubber was cheap their customers were exacting in efforts to 



obtain what he called absurd prices. 



ACETONE EXTHACI. 



The article on this subject by Professor Jones in the September 

 issue of the India Rubber World will doubtless have interested 

 many readers. Beyond the particular points brought out, it 

 serves to emphasize the fact so frequently ignored— that rubber 

 analysis, if it is to be at all accurate, is a matter taking up con- 

 siderable time and cannot therefore be adequately remunerated 

 by a very few shillings. The matter of the difficulties surround- 

 ing rubber analysis wes referred to by Professor Dunstan in a 

 recent lecture in London, and it is somewhat depressing to hear 

 that despite all the methods advocated in recent years by Ger- 

 man chemists, practically no progress has been made in the 

 direct estimation of rubber in a compound. With the methods 

 advocated by Professor Jones to avoid sources of error there will 

 probably be no disagreement among rubber chemists. Undoubt- 

 edly in some forms of extraction apparatus the acetone extrac- 

 tion takes place at considerably below the boiling temperature — 

 a matter calling for remedy. In addition to paraffin and mineral 

 oil, bitumen from mineral rubber might also have been mentioned 

 as occurring frequently in the acetone extract. This, of course, 

 does not affect the rubber extract determination, as, being un- 

 saponifiable, it goes into the ether extract of the soap solution. In 

 the case of commercial analysis the term acetone extract is some- 

 what loosely used and analyses giving reports should always state 

 clearly whether the extract is given as a whole or has been sub- 

 divided so as to give the actual organic extract derived from 

 the rubber content of the sample. It certainly has been generally 

 accepted that vulcanization increases the resinous contents of 

 rubber, and it is interesting to note that Professor Jones com- 

 bats this idea, his experiments having shown that where this in- 

 crease has been found it has been due to the mixing on the 

 rolls and not to the subsequent vulcanization. He says that 

 where the compound is properly made there is no increase in 

 organic extract at any part of the process, this evidently being 

 due to wrong procedure, tho whether in the composition of 

 the mixing or the method of mixing is not specified. The point, 

 however, is of interest, and is one, moreover, on w^hich more is 

 likely to be heard, 



W. T. GLOVEE & CO., LIMITED. 



On the occasion of a general meeting in ^Manchester of the 

 Institution of Mining Engineers a large party of members paid 

 a visit to the Glover Works on September 25, and were enter- 

 tained at luncheon, Mr. E. A.. Claremont, the managing director, 

 replying to the vote of thanks. The works of this company, now 

 situated in Trafford Park, were established 45 years ago, in 

 Springfield lane, Salford, the move to the present site being made 

 in 1900. The business has shown a steady increase and further 

 extensions are now in progress. From the point of view of this 

 journal, it is interesting to note that tho until quite recent years 

 the firm purchased its rubber and rubber compounds from rubber 

 manufacturers, it now has a complete rubber manufacturing 

 plant. As it has also a complete wire drawing and twinning plant, 

 the company is quite self-contained. Cables for mining use have 

 long been a specialty, so the mining engineers naturally found a 

 great deal to interest them in their inspection, large numbers 

 of cables, from double wire armored solid bitumen shaft cables 



