March 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



261 



ticm ; while his next-door neighbor who makes the corri- 

 dor ring all day long with the echo of his voice and who 

 shakes the building- when he w^alks, may not accomplish 

 a decent day's work in the whole year. It is the personal 

 equation that makes it difficult, if not impossil)le, for a 

 stranger, however expert in general office economics, to 

 go into an organization and pick out the useful members 

 and weed out the useless. 



But in the realm of mechanics the situation is quite dif- 

 ferent. The efficiency of machines is susceptible of accu- 

 rate measurement, and in the factory the efficiency expert, 

 more generalh- known as the consulting engineer, has a 

 proper and useful field for his operations. 



The superintendent of a rubber mill in most cases is a 

 man who has arrived at his position through long years of 

 experience in that or in a similar mill. He is a practical 

 man. To that fact his usefulness and fitness for his posi- 

 tion are attributable. He knows how to run the mill be- 

 cause he is familiar with every phase of the mill's opera- 

 tion. The mechanical management — that is, the supervi- 

 sion of the machinery of the mill — he usually delegates to 

 a master mechanic, as a rule a practical man who has ac- 

 quired most of his education in the same way — by years 

 of personal familiarity with those machines. 



It is quite possible that these men may be managing 

 the mill better than any other men could — so well per- 

 haps that no outside man could possibly come in and take 

 their place ; and yet, an outside man might be able to 

 show them how their efficiency could be materially in- 

 creased. Both superintendent and master mechanic are 

 likely in a large enterprise to be extremely busy men ; 

 they have little time to go out into the world of mechanics 

 in search of the new. They are likely too (it is a human 

 trait) to get more and more confirmed in their own ways 

 — which ways may be good, but not the best. Possibly, 

 once they were the best ; but times have changed, and 

 decided improvements may have appeared. 



The consulting engineer may not have a quarter of the 

 practical knowledge of the men who are managing the 

 mill, but he has a different sort of knowledge, a wider 

 knowledge. It is his province to traverse the whole field 

 and keep in touch with the latest developments. He is in 

 a position to make a continual comparison of the effi- 

 ciency of different Inethods and different devices. He 

 ought to be able to tell, after a careful inspection, if the 

 mechanical equipment of a mill is susceptible of improve- 

 ment ; and if so, how to improve it, where to go for the 

 better equipment, wdiat it will cost, and how much it will 

 save. Therein lies the advantage to the factory superin- 

 tendent of calling in from time to time the consulting en- 



gineer to, go over the plant and carefully inspect its ma- 

 chirier}-. 



If is always easy for a manufacturing concern, espe- 

 cially one long established with a reputation gained many 

 \ears ago, to get into a rut. The consulting engineer, if 

 he is properly equipped for his duties, will get the manu- 

 facturer out of his rut. The superintendent and chief 

 machinist who have been in their positions for a long 

 time, niav be following traditions much too closely and 

 there may be new conditions that are a vast improve- 

 ment over these traditions. 



It goes without saying that the consulting engineer's 

 usefulness depends quite as much on his scrupulous 

 integrity as on his kmiwledge, for here is obviously a case 

 where he cannot serve two masters. 



PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE CHEMICAL 

 SCHEDULE. 



AMERICAN manufacturers are doubly interested 

 as to proposed tariff changes ; both as buyers of 

 crude and semi-manufactured materials and as sellers 

 of manufactured products. 



The rubber industry w-ill be much interested by the 

 proposed alterations in the chemical schedule, the 

 principal items of wliicli affecting rubber manufac- 

 turers are dealt witli in another column. The changes 

 are in many cases downward, while in a few instances 

 they represent an advance on present rates. 



American manufacturers are importers of crude and 

 semi-manufactured materials to a greater extent than 

 is generally recognized. Out of imports in 1911 ag- 

 gregating $1,533,067,130 crude material amounted to- 

 $503,901,466 and semi-manufactured material to 

 $287,747,637 making a total exceeding 50 per cent, of 

 the aggregate imports, ^^'hile about two thirds of the 

 materials imported are free of duty, the dutiable por- 

 tion is sufficiently large to claim the attention and 

 earnest consideration of manufacturers in general, and 

 particularly of the rubber industry. 



WHAT BRAZIL WILL DO FOR RUBBER. 



0\\'ING to the passage by the Brazilian National 

 Congress, before closing its labors, of the proj- 

 ect adopted by the Rubber Congress held at Rio de 

 Janeiro in August last, the new law was approved by 



