September 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



589 



The India Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondeyit. 



THE PEBXrVIAN 

 AMAZON CO. 



IN June the daily and illustrated press had a good deal to 

 say on the subject of synthetic rubber; in July equal 

 prominence was accorded to another and more regrettable 

 phase of the rubber industry, viz., the Putumayo atrocities 

 which, as recorded in the government Blue Book, have stirred 

 the public mind to a degree com- 

 parable with what obtained in the 

 case of the Bulgarian atrocities of 

 thirty odd years ago. The main facts are, of course, well 

 known and need no repetition, but I may be allowed a word 

 or two of comment on the situation. Although the names 

 of the English members of the board of the Peruvian Amazon 

 Co. (now in voluntary liquidation) have not yet been men- 

 tioned in Parliament there is, of course, no secret about 

 them, and several papers have already given them promi- 

 nence. As far as the responsibility of Mr. Gubbins, Mr. Read 

 and Sir John Lister-Kaye is concerned, anyone who knows 

 anything about the average limited company of London will 

 readily believe that these gentlemen knew very little about 

 the conduct of the business, and that they were entirely in 

 the hands of their Spanish confreres. As, however, their 

 degree of responsibility may be a matter for judicial enquiry, 

 I will say no more, except to contradict the absurd state- 

 ment made in the German press that they are naturalized 

 Peruvians. 



In conversation with an English merchant, who acts as 

 vice-consul for Peru in one of our large cities, I learned 

 that he had had rather a troublous time lately. He put the 

 case in the best way he could for his much abused country, 

 and I give one or two of the points he made. It was very 

 unfair, he said, to level abuse at Peruvian rubber merchants 

 generally, as the great bulk of them carried on their business 

 in a reputable manner; though he admitted that the methods 

 of barter and prevalent custom of getting the collectors into 

 debt with the merchants, were not such as would commend 

 themselves to British trade unionists. With regard to the 

 alleged inactivity of the government in punishing offenders, 

 he said the British were apt to overlook the immense diffi- 

 culties contingent on taking punitive measijres against 

 criminals in a densely wooded countr>'. The weekly "Specta- 

 tor," however, says that where criminals can go police can 

 follow, and goes on in a strongly-worded article to suggest 

 the bombardment of Peruvian ports, jointly by England and 

 America, as the only way to bring Peru to a sense of her 

 responsibilities. 



In a good many quarters it was supposed that the Con- 

 tinental Co., of Hanover, was practically the only German 

 maker of this material, and the brief 

 reference in the Indl-k Rubber World 

 of July to the important position of 

 Metzeler & Co., of Munich, in this business, is of interest. 

 Of course the manufacture is bound to become more wide- 

 spread, but at present there are only two firms in Great 

 Britain which have taken it up seriously, viz., the North 

 British Rubber Co. and the Dunlop Rubber Co. The pioneers 

 in a new branch have, of course, more difficulties to contend 

 with than those who come in at a later stage, and those who 

 are now considering the matter have at their disposal a good 

 deal of technical information of quite recent publication in 

 France and Germany. I understand that there are now sev- 

 eral rubber firms in America making these fabrics, though 

 the initiative was given little more than a year ago by the 



BALLOON AND 

 AEROPLANE FABRICS. 



Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. at Akron, the huge gas-bag 

 for the Seiberling-Vaniman balloon made by them being il- 

 lustrated, I may perhaps mention, in the India Rubber World 

 for September, 1911. With regard to the important point as 

 to the life to be expected of such fabric when in use, experi- 

 ments on very similar lines are being carried on at the pres- 

 ent time, both at Charlottenburg (Berlin) and at the National 

 Physical Laboratory, London. Whether America is doing 

 anything in this way, I don't know. From reports to date 

 it is clear that but little of a decisive nature has as yet been 

 arrived at — all the more reason why new firms should be chary 

 of going into the business. 



There will be general agreement with Dr. Frank's (re- 

 marks quoted in The India Rubber World, July, 1912, p. 

 491) as to the importance of preventing acidity derived 

 from the sulphur, and of course the contact of copper should 

 be avoided. Is it really a fact that copper has been found 

 as a constituent of plantation rubber? As up to the present, 

 at any rate, it has not been customary in England to use 

 metallic oxides or other acid neutralizing bodies in balloon 

 fabric proofing, it is obvious that the selection of the par- 

 ticular brand of sulphur is a matter of importance. I read 

 somewhere or other recently that firms which had laid them- 

 selves out for balloon cloth manufacture were seeking to 

 sell excess production for other purposes. A purpose which 

 suggests itself as appropriate is for hospital bandages, one 

 variet}' at least of which is of very similar nature. This is 

 cotton cloth proofed on both sides with pure Para rubber 

 and sulphur, and vulcanized. This is usually sold with a two- 

 year guarantee; the conditions of use being pretty well 

 known, and of course much less liable to variation than in 

 the case of balloon use, leaving out of account altogether 

 any possible deleterious effects due to diffusion of gases. 

 Rubber texture of this sort is also put to other than medical 

 uses, though not on a very large scale, and as the de- 

 mand is easily met at the present time, I don't see that 

 there is any important market for the excess balloon pro- 

 duction. 



A recent event of some importance, and of considerable 

 interest, is the flotation of this old established rubber works 

 as a public limited company; not a 

 private limited company such as ex- 

 ists in the cast of a good many of 

 our rubber works. The capital of the new company is 

 £120,000, and though the names of two of the three directors 

 are probably unknown in rubber trade circles, the fact that 

 the third director is Mr. J. Hancock Nunn. the proprietor 

 and moving spirit of the old concern, argues well for the 

 future. The prospectus naturally draws attention to the fact 

 that this was the pioneer rubber factory of the world, though 

 the present premises in Goswell Road, London, E. C, are of 

 considerably greater extent than the modest building which 

 served as the commencement of business in 1821. Mr. Nunn 

 is a grandson of the well-known Thomas Hancock, and the 

 provision of further capital is primarily concerned with de- 

 veloping the scope of the manufacture. The profits of re- 

 cent years have shown a steady rise up to about £11,000, and 

 I may say that the press notices of the shares as an invest- 

 ment have been mostly favorable; an exception being the 

 "Economist," which considers the cash payment of £SS,000 

 to the vendor rather high, and £4,000 for new working capi- 

 tal too low. 



JAMES LYNE 

 HANCOCK. 



