April i, iqio.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



245 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THESE have been following so quickly upon each other's 

 heels that a busy man has no time to digest the pros- 

 pectuses. In the financial column of a leading daily paper 

 investors are advised to limit their dealings to companies which 

 have well known names on the board — that is, names known in 

 rubber association with successful plantations. 



PLANTING But in "boom" times, when so many are 



companies. trying to "get in," people who have not 



followed the matter during the last few years do not know one 

 name from another, and there is very little time available for 

 study or for going about to ask for advice. With regard to the 

 point of well known names, it is rather a matter for question 

 whether a man can successfully direct innumerable companies; 

 there must be some limit to his time and capacity. 



Among the most recent flotations wild rubber propositions 

 have been prominent. The history of wild rubber companies 

 generally is not very exhilarating to read ; something or other 

 has always seemed to militate against their success. At the 

 present time, however, there is this to be said for new issues of 

 this class : they are already producing rubber, while many of the 

 new plantation companies will do very little in this way until 

 three or four years have elapsed and then, according to general 

 expectations, prices will have fallen considerably. 



One of the most recent wild rubber companies is the Agilete 

 Lagos Rubber Estates, Limited, of Southern Nigeria, capitalized 

 at £100,000. The rubber is mainly Funtumia elastiea, though 

 there are also Landolphia vines and "root rubber." A good deal 

 is made in the prospectus of the fact that about 30 tons of Fun- 

 tumia rubber from the Mabira Forest (Uganda) Rubber Co. has 

 been sold at about 8 shillings per pound. This seems a high 

 price, but what I have seen of it is certainly good quality com 

 pared with what came from Lagos about 25 years ago, at the 

 commencement of its exploitation. Of course, the rise in price of 

 the Uganda product apart from current market quotations is 

 accounted for to a considerable extent by its freedom from im- 

 purities or what is the same thing to it, low loss on washing 

 compared with the coast product of former days. I should think 

 it doubtful whether the new company can produce anything as 

 good from the forest, at any rate until the native methods, 

 as is the case in the Mabira forest, are under technical control. 



Another more or less wild rubber company is the Henriquez 

 Southern Rubber Estates, Limited, of Panama, in which there is 

 also a large acreage of plantation ready for tapping. Estimates 

 are based on the price of 6 shillings per pound against the 

 current price of 8.y. 6d. per pound. I do not notice, however, in 

 the prospectus any reference to the species of rubber tree. The 

 price 8s. 6d. surely refers to Para rubber, while the indigenous 

 rubber mentioned in the prospectus is surely Castilloa, which is 

 not quite the same thing. 



The Manbesa Rubber Plantations, Limited, with a capital of 

 £135,000, are located in German East Africa, and are highly 

 thought of, it appears, by Herr Durnberg. the German colonial 

 minister. Here the Ceara rubber is the principal product and 

 this can be produced and delivered in London at is. 6rf. per 

 pound. The present selling price is 4.?. 3d. and the prospectus 

 estimates it at 2s. 6d. in 1914 This is not too conservative an 

 estimate compared with the figure mentioned for Para. 



A topic of interest which may be said to have caused a re- 

 action in the trade is the taking over of the Liverpool Rubber 

 Co., Limited, by Messrs. Charles Mac- 

 intosh & Co., Limited. At the date of 

 writing (March it. the purchase is not 

 an absolutely accomplished fact, as. although the purchase is 



ANOTHER 

 WORKS ABSORPTION. 



arranged, it has yet to be confirmed by an extraordinary general 

 meeting of the Liverpool Rubber Co. There is little doubt, how- 

 ever, about the thing going through, and the shares of the Liver- 

 pool company, which have been for some time at a considerable 

 discount, have recently had a sharp rise. Specialties of the Liver- 

 pool company have been elastic thread and rubber footwear, the 

 latter being a branch not hitherto taken up by Macintosh & Co. 

 Previous works taken over by Macintosh & Co. are the New 

 Eccles Rubber Works, Limited ; Broadhurst & Co., and Pickard's 

 cable works, of Derby. 



This new industrial rubber concern is certainly launched 



under good auspices, as the Dunlop company are going to market 



the product and Messrs. Harland & 



PFLE ™*"V 1910) Wolff, the eminent shipbuilding firm of 



LIMITED. ' F 6 



Belfast, are going to manufacture it at 

 their Southampton works. We may take it that these firms 

 have not associated themselves with the company without 

 making careful investigations. The main object is to produce a 

 material of a spongy nature to take the place of the inner tube 

 in pneumatic tires, though a large field is also claimed for the 

 product in upholstery and as a substitute for leather, and the 

 like. Patents seem to have been taken out practically all over 

 the world, though no details of the patent were given in the 

 prospectus except in so far as reference was made to the use of 

 compressed air. [Our correspondent, writing in an earlier issue 

 — April 1, 1908, page 221 — said of Pfleumatic: "It is composed 

 of gelatine and glycerine, but has compressed air blown into it to 

 form a spongy material in which the air is retained in the 

 cavities. — The Editor.] It will be remembered that there are 

 several existing patented products, such as "elastes," purporting 

 to effect the same end, but it cannot be said that any great 

 degree of success has rewarded the patentees; for one thing I 

 understand that the increase of weight has proved a disad- 

 vantage. Pfleumatic is the invention of an Austrian, Herr 

 Robert Pfleumer. and though I have not yet seen any of it I 

 take it to be a modification of ordinary rubber sponge. 



With regard to rubber sponge, which is now being made by 

 several firms, after having been for so long a monopoly of the 

 Russian-American India-Rubber Co., of St. Petersburg, I note a 

 recent patent of Emile Poizot. of France, in which the use of 

 ammonia gas is claimed. I should have thought that this re- 

 agent was hardly patentable for the purpose at this time of day. 

 Laarman's patent of 1909 seems to come near Pfleumatic, as the 

 solution of rubber has nitrogen gas forced into it under pressure 

 and the product is filled into tires. 



"That terrible word," as I once heard Mr. Haldane, the 

 minister for war call it, at a mining institution dinner. Mr. Hal- 

 dane's brother, Dr. J. S. Haldane, 

 ankylostomiasis. f.r.s., is, I may say, the great British 

 authority on the "hookworm" disease, 

 having made a special study of it for the Home office when it was 

 introduced into Cornwall and the Transvaal gold mines a few 

 years ago. It is only in connection with these localities and the 

 colliery districts of Westphalia that I have been familiar with 

 the name, and I was rather surprised to see in The India 

 Rubber World [February 1, 1910 — page 162] that the disease 

 has become a curse in the southern United States and that its 

 ravages may be apprehended in the rubber districts of Ceylon 

 and Malaya. I don't propose to discuss an unsavory matter at 

 length, and shall merely say that if cleanliness takes the place of 

 dirty habits in any locality there is little to fear as to the 

 ravages of this disease. [The annual report of The Planters' 

 Association of Ceylon for 1909, says: "The prevalence of this 



