January 1, 1914.1 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



209 



The India Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE illustrated article on Singapore as the rubber market of 

 the future, given in the November issue of The India 

 Rubber World, has been read with interest by manufac- 

 turers. The idea will probably not commend itself to certain im- 

 portant London interests, but manufacturers express the opinion 

 that the change of venue would lead to a reduction of about 4d. per 

 pound as compared with purchase in London. The London scheme 

 for grading plantation rubber into four classes has been favorably 

 received by the trade, uniformity of quality being the great 

 desideratum. Fine Hard is always bought as such, without any 

 samples being submitted and without any anxiety on the part of 

 the buyer as to what the delivery will be like. At the present 

 time plantation from this or that source is bought to sample, 

 and strict watch is kept that the deliveries are equal to sample, 

 especially when the market is against the rubber broker. Cases 

 have occurred recently where later deliveries have been obviously 

 inferior to sample and first deliveries, and the result has been 

 rejection. 



Perhaps there has been too great a tendency during the last 

 year to put down anything that has gone wrong in the factory 

 to inequalities in the plantation rubber. It is a suggestion that 

 cannot easily be refuted and has the great advantage of absolv- 

 ing the factory management from blame. Contracts for delivery 

 over next year are being made at several pence per pound 

 advance on those which have lately ruled ; which portends a 

 better state of afTairs for the plantation companies, unless they 

 fail to deliver to sample and thus invite trouble. Some discus- 

 sion has taken place in London as to the desirability of the 

 regular publication of plantation yield statistics. Such informa- 

 tion is certainly useful to the manufacturer and conduces more 

 to his interests than to those of the plantation industry. 



Turning to wild African rubber — the recent trend of the market 

 has, of course, been all against its production and sale at a 

 profit, a serious financial matter for many of the districts con- 

 cerned. Sentiment is supposed to be dissociated from business 

 but it is not altogether pleasant to read the speeches of the 

 financial magnates of the planting industry, wherein the annihila- 

 tion of the African rubber collection is set up as an important 

 object to be achieved. Certainly there is another side to the 

 question — that of the hardships suffered by the collectors in 

 swamp and forest and the toll of human life exacted by the 

 industry. This subject has been noticed in some of our promi- 

 nent reviews and journals, but is too large to receive more 

 than a bare reference here. From the manufacturer's point 

 of view the shortage in the present supply of certain brands of 

 Africans is a cause for regret, and this will have its baneful 

 result in the future, the present tendency being to banish Africans 

 from mixing formulie because of the uncertainty of continuity in 

 supiilies. This is an important matter, as once a formula has 

 proved satisfactory there is a strong disinclination to make any 

 alteration in it. 



This leads one naturally on to the question of reclaimed 

 rubber. It might be thought that with plantation in the neigh- 

 borhood of 2s. per pound the competition of reclaimed would 

 practically cease. This, however, is not the case, tho it is 

 quite probable that the reclaimers have suffered some reduction 

 of business. The alteration of formulae arises again here, and 

 where a particular brand of reclaimed rubber has given satisfac- 

 tion for years manufacturers are chary of replacing it by a mix- 

 ture of plantation and mineral at the same price ; and this 

 mainly because they cannot foretell the course of the raw rubber 

 market, and the exigencies of selling price of the goods may 



at any time necessitate a return to the reclaimed, which may 

 or may not be available. What is perhaps inevitable in the 

 reclaiming industry is a somewhat lower range of prices, a 

 matter which depends largely upon the scrap rubber dealers, 

 who have persistently held out for higher prices than the state 

 of the rubber market warranted. In view of the undoubted 

 fact that some large manufacturers have reduced their pur- 

 chases of reclaimed rubber, it is obviously necessary for scrap 

 dealers to come into line with reclaimers if the latter have to 

 reduce prices to keep business alive. 



REFORMED RUBBER. 



Four years ago, at the height of the rubber boom, the Premier 

 Reforming Co., Limited, was brought out, the prospectus issued 

 to the public containing testimonials to the value and importance 

 of the process from men prominently connected with the scientific 

 and manufacturing sides of the rubber industry. Now it has 

 been found necessary to voluntarily wind up the company, prepar- 

 atory to forming a new company in which the name Reforming 

 does not appear. The new company — to be called the Headway 

 Rubber Co. — is to be mainly concerned with the manufacture 

 of a tire, presumably from new rubber. Prima facie this looks 

 as if reformed rubber has not exactly come up to expectations. 

 .Mtogether, however, there have been five or six companies 

 making reformed rubber goods under one or another patent, 

 and in the absence of any authoritative figures as to the business 

 these companies have done or are doing, it would be unfair to 

 jump to the conclusion that all reforming is a failure. That 

 the claims made for the process as an epoch-making advance 

 in the rubber industry were unduly exaggerated is a fact which 

 can hardly be denied. 



This fact, indeed, I think, is generally admitted ; but this is 

 not the same thing as saying that there is nothing at all in the 

 process — or perhaps I ought to say processes. Leaving out of 

 account the validity of the different patents — the master patent 

 bein.g claimed by the Simplex Rubber Co., Limited, of London — 

 it is obvious to me that while some qualities of rubber may be 

 suited for reforming other qualities are quite unsuitable and art 

 incapable of competing with a new rubber mixing. I am not 

 writing at random, because I have had under observation a re- 

 formed rubber article being used alongside one of new rubber 

 of similar composition made at the same time. These goods 

 have been in use for 2^ years and both are giving satisfaction. 



LAWN TENNIS B.\LLS. 



Great Britain differs from the bulk of the countries of the 

 world in that the popular game of lawn tennis is nearly always 

 played on grass, and that the season is limited to the summer 

 months. In most countries the hard court made in various ways 

 is the rule. Now, however, there is a decided tendency to play 

 the game all the year round on hard courts, and quite a number 

 of the modern so-called "En-tout-cas" have been put down in 

 the last year or two. The writer, as the recipient of a prize 

 for the veterans' handicap at an open tournament last summer, 

 is playing assiduously through the winter for the first time, in 

 the hope of further triumphs, and he has noticed that many 

 other players of advanced age are taking the opportunity of 

 getting some really good exercise. This by way of an exordium 

 to the statement that there is likely to be a gro\ving demand for 

 lawn tennis balls in the winter in England. 



Different ideas prevail as to the most suitable ball for hard 

 courts, but at any rate at the not unimportant club with which 

 I am connected play has been carried on with the ordinary 



