68 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December i, 1907. 



these schemes have progressed far enough to be of- 

 fered to the trade, and, totally regardless of merit, 

 these have found buyers. 



It all reminds one of the patent nostrums for the 

 cure of human ailments. There are people with all 

 sorts of real or fancied diseases who seem constantly 

 to be on the lookout for new remedies for them ; the 

 more ridiculous the claims made for any given "cure- 

 all,'' and the less it is countenanced by men learned in 

 medicine, the more apt the stufif is to find buyers. So 

 with the anti-puncture inventions. It appears to us 

 that if any of these schemes had any merit it would be 

 recognized by no one sooner than by the reputable 

 makers of pneumatic tires, who would gladly and 

 speedil}' ofifer to buy them at prices that would make 

 the inventors rich. The best judges of puncture pre- 

 ventives or cures ought to be the men who have made 

 the pneumatic tire an article of so much value to the 

 world. 



THE COMING DEMAND FOR SOLID TIRES. 



THE commercial motor trials in England, under the aus- 

 pices of the Royal Automobile Club, reported in this 

 journal last month, have been followed by events 

 in other European countries which indicate a deep and 

 widespread interest in the practical development of this 

 class of vehicles. In fact, the commercial motor just 

 now appears everywhere to be attracting a larger degree 

 of public attention, relatively, than automobiles of anv 

 other type, which is not unnatural. 



The automobile as first developed, while undoubtedlv 

 of great utilty, is first of all an article of luxury, which 

 has appealed to popular interest largely on account of its 

 connection with sport of a spectacular sort. Its use is 

 limited to the wealthier members of society, and people 

 of at least comparative leisure — classes liable to become 

 deeply absorbed in a new form of recreation for a while, 

 after which it gives way to some other diversion. It is 

 not meant here to intimate that the use of automobiles as 

 pleasure carriages has reached its limit, or shows any 

 signs of coming to an end ; but the growth of such use 

 that has been so marked during ten years past can hardly 

 continue indefinitely at the same rate. 



Like horse drawn carriages, the automobile is for the 

 most part an article of luxury, and the demand for such 

 articles is subject, often without warning, to curtailment, 

 just as now happens, when far-reaching economic 

 changes are in progress in Europe and America alike. 

 'We have seen no reason to describe the situation in New 

 York, for example, as resembling in any way a "panic," 

 but it is conceded, we believe, that the placing of orders 

 for new cars at the recent great automobile shows was 

 less active than in former years, though the exhibits were 

 of a higher type of excellence. The situation is simple- 

 one of greater caution in the matter of spending money 

 for what mav be done without. 



The commercial vehicle, however, belongs to a class 

 wholly apart. As the automobile was first developed to 

 a high degree in Europe, so the possibilities of the self 

 propelled goods wagon were first appreciated there, and 

 the economy of the latter is being studied now as a com- 

 mercial question of the first rank. The same condition 

 is developing in America, where, the makers of automo- 

 biles having brought themselves in line with the leading 

 makers abroad, the construction of practical and econom- 

 ical commercial vehicles is being taken in hand. It is an 

 indication of the new progress that a special exhibition of 

 commercial motors is now in progress in Chicago. 



The difference between these and the pleasure vehicles 

 is that the former are in a broader sense articles of neces- 

 sity. The business man who may feel impelled for any 

 reason to stop buying automobiles, may at the same time 

 decide to buy more commercial vehicles, as an element in 

 the more economical running of his business. And in 

 this class must be reckoned motor 'buses, motor cabs, and 

 the like. It is true that the motor 'bus services of London 

 and Berlin have not realized all the promises made for 

 them, but signs of improvement are in sight, and in Lon- 

 don at least the number of horse drawn cabs on the street 

 has been lessened very materially within a year or two. 



All of which leads to the suggestion of the importance, 

 on the part of the rubber industry, of providing tires 

 suited to commercial vehicles, with no less painstaking 

 than has been shown in the case of pneumatics. The fact 

 that a tire is solid, and therefore immune against punc- 

 tures, does not justify equipping a delivery wagon with 

 cheap, poorly compounded, possibly ill-fitting rubber. 

 Economy in use is the test — the lowest cost per service 

 mile — and while many excellent solid tires have been 

 made, we greatly doubt that the limit of improvement in 

 them has been reached. This is a matter of all the more 

 importance to the rubber trade, for the reason that ulti- 

 mately the demand for tires for commercial vehicles must 

 be many times greater than for any other class of auto- 

 mobiles. 



THE INDUSTRY IN JAPAN. 



/'^UR readers will remember the appearance in this 

 ^^ liajier a montli nr two ago of some views of build- 

 ings of the industrial exhibition held at Tokio 

 during the past summer, together with some notes 

 from a Japanese correspondent on the progress made 

 by his countrymen in many branches of manufactur- 

 ing, including the rubber industry. This exhibition, 

 as was then stated, was purely national, no foreign dis- 

 plays having been invited. Had the few imposing 

 buildings shown in our illustrations constituted the 

 whole exhibition, it would have been no small attair, 

 but this was not the case. We have seen an album of 

 views of all the structures put up for the occasion — 

 numerous, extensive, and many of them architecturally 

 attractive. The mere fact of their existence proved a 



