232 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January 1, 



that under reduced prices and the increased mileage guaranties 

 and unlimited guaranties covering materials and workmanship 

 during the entire life of the tire which have recently been 

 inaugurated, a marked stiffening up on adjustments has been 

 possible. Honest users are satisfied with this fair treatment, 

 while the avaricious tire users still make unfair claims. 



The real trouble is that tire users have from the outset been 

 allowed to expect so much that many have come to believe that 

 to neglect or abuse their tires and have the manufacturer stand 

 the expense is their inalienable right. If such persons will patron- 

 ize only reputable concerns they will seldom find cause for just 

 complaint. Tire companies of good standing have a reputation 

 to maintain, both for quality of output and fair dealing, and are 

 eager to maintain it. With them tire manufacture has become an 

 exact science. So carefully are materials bought, so rigid is the 

 inspection of materials and workmanship, so greatly improved 

 are the processes of tire building, that a defective tire rarely 

 reaches the consumer. When it does, the defect is obvious to 

 an expert and will be gladly adjusted to the satisfaction of the 

 user. Practical experience has now been sufficient, however, to 

 show exactly how a tire of any given make, type and construction 

 will wear under all conditions, and prevarication is of little avail 

 with an expert adjuster. 



The relative merits of the mileage and unlimited guaranty 

 have been much discussed. Both have certain advantages, yet 

 the adjustments now being made under both systems are sub- 

 stantially the same. For many years The India Rubber World 

 has asserted that any sort of tire guaranty, aside from the im- 



plied assurance that every reputable manufacturer will stand be- 

 hind his products, is guaranteeing the unguaranteeable, and it 

 still believes that tire guaranties will eventually be abandoned 

 by the trade because from the very character of the service a 

 tire is called upon to perform the duration of that service can- 

 not be foretold. 



It is logical enough to guarantee a watch or a clock because 

 one can predict its normal use and treatment. The same is 

 true of a piano or a phonograph, for example. But a tire has 

 no normal career, and calls for a guaranty no more than a suit of 

 clothes or a pair of shoes. When it leaves the factory a dozen 

 different futures may be open to it, involving good or bad roads, 

 careful usage or abuse, proper repair or neglect through ignor- 

 ance or indifference. It may leave the factory good for 10,000 

 miles of careful usage, yet everything considered, it is humanly 

 impossible to guarantee half or even one-quarter of that dis- 

 tance. Would it not, therefore, be better for manufacturers to 

 make the best tires possible, and without other than an implied 

 guaranty advertise, for example, that they are averaging 6,000 

 miles? It would be a welcome relief to the manufacturers, and 

 they could afford to give the consumer still lower prices. It 

 would tend to make the user more careful of his tires, and 

 would make strongly for general veracity and better feeling. 

 There is always the argument that should one firm adopt such a 

 course it would be playing into the hands of competitors who 

 continue their guaranties, but the time will probably come when 

 most leading firms can agree on such a policy and put it over 

 without loss to anybody. 



Dunlop Rubber Co. Plans to Enter American Tire Market. 



AT .\N EXTRAORDINARY MEETING of the Dunlop Rubber Co., The holders of preferred stock were to have no special rights 

 Limited, held in London on December 2, 1919, the new to the new issue. It was this exclusion of the preferred stock- 

 chairman, A. I. Ormrod, explained to the shareholders holders that aroused criticism, and that seems to have led the 

 the plan for increasing the capital of the company, which was London Stock Exchange to hold up the issue of the new stock 



OF THE English Dunlop at Birmingham, England. Bird's Eye View of the New Mills (42 Acres of Buildings) 



made public at the close of November and caused some un- 

 favorable criticism. 



The proposed plan was to increase the capital to £7,500,000 

 by creating 1,000,000 additional ordinary shares of £1 each, 

 which should be equal to the existing ordinary shares, except that 

 they would draw no dividend that might be declared for the finan- 

 cial year that ended on August 31. The intention was to offer 

 the new shares first to the present holders of ordinary shares 

 on a basis of two new shares for every three old ones; to set 

 aside twenty thousand shares for employes, and if any were 

 left over, to turn them over to the guarantor of the new issue. 



until its requirements are satisfied. No objection seems to 

 be taken to Mr. Ormrod's declaration that a part of the new 

 capital is to be used in a campaign for the American market. 

 It may be recalled that in 1917, when the Dunlop company 

 made its large increase in capital that brought the amount np 

 to £6,000,000, there were rumors that led the chairman of that 

 day to deny there was any intention of competing in the Ameri- 

 can market, and to publish the statement that "There is noth- 

 ing to support the idea that tire makers of Great Britain are 

 combining to fight new foreign competition." Mr. Ormrod, now, 

 after explaining diat £1,600,000 of the amount raised is to be 



I 



