March 1, 1921 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



453 



within points in western classification territory, the same as applies 

 in eastern and southern territory. 



Solid Tires 



Less than carload ratings on solid tires, in burlapped bales 

 or burlapped bundles or burlapped reels, or on bundles en- 

 closed in burlap-wrapped fibrcboard or pulpboard containers 

 or in boxes or crates, are increased from second class to first 

 class in official classification territory, which is the territory 

 applying east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and 

 Potomac rivers. 



A. L. ViLES, General Manager. 



MINNESOTA LEGISLATION REGARDING MARKING OF 

 MERCHANDISE 



Xew York, February 19, 1921. 

 To Rubber Manufacturers: 



Our attention has been directed to a bill introduced in the 

 Minnesota Legislature by representatives F. E. Miner (Min- 

 neapolis) and B. F. Keller (St. Paul) on February 8, to re- 

 quire the marking of merchandise with the manufacturer's 

 cost, price at which sold by him, name and address of each 

 distributor and the retail price of the article. 



The impracticability and undesirability of such a condition 

 as would be required by the proposed legislation is obvious, 

 and it is suggested, in order to lend the influence of the 

 rubber industry to the opposition which this bill will meet 

 from other lines of business, that those of our members who 



are distributing merchandise -n Minnesota arrange for the 

 filing of a vigorous objection, by their representatives in that 

 State, to the passage of the bill. 



A. L. ViLES, General Manager. 



EXCISE TAXES REVISED 



The Rubber Association of America, Inc., calls the attention of 

 manufacturers of tires and tubes, rubber sundries, and mechanical 

 rubber goods, in legislative bulletin No. 8, to some changes made 

 in December, 1920, in the United States Treasury Department 

 Regulations (47) concerning excise taxes on sales by manufac- 

 turers under Section 900 of the Revenue Act of 1918. These 

 changes relate chiefly to sales for export which sales are free of 

 taxes if the article be sold or leased for export and proof of such 

 exportation be furnished by a manufacturer within six months 

 from the time title passes or shipment is made. Articles Nos. 

 42 and 43 define in detail such tax exemption and describe the 

 new certificates required where delivery of the article for export 

 is to be made to the purchaser or his agent within the United 

 States, as also certain changes in the "Proof of Exportation." 



Copies of the revised regulations can be had from the United 

 States Treasury Department, Washington, or from the nearest 

 Federal revenue collector. 



The Rubber Trade in Great Britain 



By Our Regular Correspondent 



riERE IS very little of a cheerful nature to discourse upon 

 this month. Business generally remains in a moribund con- 

 dition, a remark which applies with more force to many 

 other industries than to rubber manufacture which, though 

 depressed in some departments, continues to show decided activity 

 in others. The sales of commodities of all kinds which were 

 announced for January in order to reduce stocks and obtain much 

 needed cash extended to almost all classes of rubber goods. 

 Mackintoshes and rainproofs are offered at considerable reduc- 

 tions and I am informed by manufacturers that they are in most 

 cases genuine bargains and not defective goods or goods made 

 specially for sales as has sometimes been the practice in the past. 

 It is doubtful, however, if the business done will be considered 

 satisfactory because at a time when snow and frost are about, 

 people are more attracted by the lowered prices of woolen goods, 

 a woolen greatcoat ticketed at half the recently demanded price 

 having a more potent influence upon the prospective purchaser 

 than a mackintosh, however attractive the price. 

 WORKING HOURS REDUCED 

 Extended Christmas and New Year holidays have been the 

 rule and even in the middle of January workrooms at factories 

 where proofed cloth is made up into garments have remained 

 closed, with no immediate prospect of reopening. Proofing works 

 are not in such a bad condition and are running for three or four 

 days a week, as a rule. Naturally, the recent wage cuts in Amer- 

 ica have attracted the attention of both employers and workpeople, 

 though I have it authoritatively that there is immediate prospect 

 of the example being followed in British rubber works. So far, 

 the matter has not been considered but it is understood that 

 reference will be made to the subject at the next meeting of the 

 India Rubber Manufactureres' Association. 



MANUFACTURERS CHEERFUL 



In the prevailing trade depression the manufacturer is apt to 

 pull a long face and to indulge in public in gloomy prognostica- 

 tions of impending ruin but probably this is largely a pose. One 

 rubber manufacturer who was working a very short week struck 

 me as being quite cheerful under his afflictions though he was, 

 as he said, losing money. But he went on to say that we all did 

 very well during the war and can stand a period of depression. 

 Among the factors which had served to keep up his spirits was the 



fact of having bought nine months' supply of raw rubber at S^d. 

 a pound. This was probably not the highest quality but it was 

 the quality he wanted and which he had never expected to get at 

 the price. Naturally with raw rubber at its present level the 

 scrap merchants and reclaimers are finding difificulty in keeping 

 up tlieir sales. Reclaimed rubber, however, has its devotees who 

 will not lightly give up its use, even if new rubber is about the 

 same price and there is the disinclination to alter standard mix- 

 ings for proved products. As far as I can judge it is the proofers 

 who have ceased their orders for reclaimed rubber rather than 

 the mechanical goods manufacturers, it being recognized that the 

 present is a good time to get a reputation for a sound rubber 

 proof now that rubber is cheap. The momentary loss to the 

 reclaimer is also expected in the business of the substitute manu- 

 facturer who perforce has had to make considerable cuts in his 

 prices, somewhat overdue, I may add, seeing the fall in the 

 oil market. 



THE DUNLOP COMPANY 



At the time of writing the eagerly awailcd Dunlop company 

 report has not appeared though it is due in a day or two. The 

 market in the shares has shown fluctuations, the new issued at 

 ZQs. and 22.f. 6rf. paid, having touched As. During the slump, 

 there have been few issues of new capital, one of these being 

 250,000 ordinary shares of £\ each offered at 24.r. by W. T. Hen- 

 ley's Telegraph Works Co., Limited, which holds the whole of 

 £200,000 capital of Henley's Tyre & Rubber Co., Limited. The busi- 

 ness both in the cable and rubber works has shown a progressive 

 increase and the new capital is required to finance the increased 

 business and to provide for additions to the works. 



RUBBER MACHINISTS 



Messrs. Stevensons of Canal Foundry, Preston, are now among 

 those who announce themselves as makers of rubber machinery 

 to the trade. The name of the firm may not be as familiar to 

 many in the trade as it is to me. For well over thirty years 

 they have made certain classes of machinery for a large rubber 

 works and it is understood that similar machinery was not to be 

 made for competing firms. What the present arrangement is 

 1 do not know ; the old embargo may have been removed or it 

 may still exist with the liberty to make other classes of machinery 

 for all and sundry. 



