June i, igcS.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



293 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE FISCAL 

 QUESTION. 



A SECTION of the American press appears to accept with- 

 out reserve the claim made by some English papers that 

 the result of the recent notable by-election in Manchester 

 sounds the death knell of Free Trade. Those on the spot know 

 that this is by no means the truth, and that if free trade had been 

 the principal issue before the electors 

 instead of being relegated by the Union- 

 ist candidate to the back seat the result 

 would probably have been very different. At the same time, the 

 topic has come up for renewed discussion, and I have been asked 

 how it is viewed in the rubber trade. My reply has been that 

 unanimity of opinion does not prevail, and that we find partners 

 in the same firm in opposing political camps. It certainly seems, 

 however, looking at the more important Lancashire rubber works, 

 that Tariff Reform lias the greater number of adherents, espe- 

 cially among tire makers who are an.xious to see some restriction 

 put upon the free importation of French and German tires. 

 Though not exactly apropos of this topic, but not altogether 

 foreign to it, I may mention that an advertisement of the Con- 

 tinental Tire and Rubber Co. in a British trade journal came 

 up recently as the subject of a question in parliament, Mr. 

 Evelyn Cecil asking the president of the board of trade whether 

 he was aware that the advertisement contained an illustration 

 of a motor tire in conjunction with two British flags. The 

 answer was to the effect that the department were considering 

 whether an offence had not been committed under the merchan- 

 dise act. Mr. Cecil, it may be mentioned, is member for Aston 

 Manor, where tlie Dunlop company's works are situated, so that 

 it is possible that he was not acting entirely on his own initiative. 

 A ST.\TEMENT which has appeared in print that this company 

 is being voluntarily wound up. and the creditors requested to 

 send particulars of their claims to the 

 CO., LIMITED. liquidator, has given rise in some quar- 



ters to a misapprehension of the posi- 

 tion of the company. I may point out that the winding up is 

 merely for the purpose of capital rearrangement so as to more 

 fully protect the interests of those who have become associated 

 with the business of late. The sole license for the manufacture 

 is now in the hands of the British Insulated and Helsby Cables, 

 Limited, at whose Helsby works the manufacture and trials have 

 for some time been carried on by Mr. L. Johnstone, b. sc, who 

 has been associated with the Radax cycle and motor tire since 

 business was first commenced at Blacklej', near Manchester. The 

 cycle tire has been abandoned, but from persons who have had 

 the Radax motor tire fitted to their cars I gather that it has 

 proved in every way satisfactory. 



The appointment of a treasury committee to inquire into 

 the work of this comparatively new institution was the direct 

 THE NATIONAL outcome of the strong protests made by 



PHYSICAL professional bodies such as the Institute 



of Chemistry that the laboratory was 

 going outside the charter of its foundation and competing in 

 analytical and ordinary routine testing work with professional 

 men who had not the advantage of being backed by public funds. 

 To my mind the protests were amply justified, and the report of 

 the committee, though it will not be considered entirely satisfac- 

 tory by professional men, must assuredly lead to the laboratory 

 confining itself more closely to the purposes for which it was 

 founded and endowed, viz. : the standardization and verification 

 of scientific instruments. The evidence given by Mr. R. K. Gray, 

 of the Silvertown rubber company, is interesting, as it was not 

 generally known that Dr. W. .^. Caspari's researches at the 

 laboratory on gutta-percha and balata were carried out at the 



instigation of the Silvertown company. The work was paid for 

 to some extent, at any rate, by the firm, and the results were 

 eventually published for the public benefit. But it is easy to see 

 that cases might arise where if a firm paid for an investigation 

 they might object to its publication for the benefit of others. 

 Complications are bound to arise if work of investigation for 

 private firms is carried on under the laboratory's present char- 

 ter. Mr. Gray expressed himself in favor of the scope of the 

 laboratory being widened so as to include ordinary routine test- 

 ing, which is of course absolutely outside the objects of its 

 foundation, and strenuous opposition is certain to be made to 

 any application of public funds to this end. 



Ad\'ertisements in The India Rubber World and some recent 

 correspondence have directed my attention to this product, 

 which in England is know-n chiefly as an 

 ELATEEITE. interesting mineralogical specimen, and 



is rarely to be met with except in mineral 

 collections. Its principal place of occurrence in England is in 

 Derbyshire, where, especially in old lead mines, it has been 

 known, though it does not appear to have ever been mined and 

 utilized as is the case in the United States. Chemically it is 

 merely a variant of the more liquid bitumen, which is by no 

 means uncommon in limestone strata, considerable variation 

 being shown in the elasticity of samples obtained from different 

 districts. A letter to The India Rubber World of March I 

 says that elaterite is the only hydrocarbon "capable of being 

 treated by a process of destructive distillation prior to being 

 subjected to the action of solvents or mechanically fluxed with 

 any other material." There appears to me a general vagueness 

 about this sentence. I do not agree that elaterite is the only 

 hydrocarbon which can be destructively distilled, but the 

 statement quoted may only apply to some particular process, 

 which is not specified. With regard to the expression "mechan- 

 ically fluxed" would it not be more correct to say "mixed," or 

 "chemically fluxed," whichever it may happen to be? But scien- 

 tific details apart, it is decidedly interesting to hear of a use on 

 the large scale for elaterite ; this and other bitumen products 

 seem to be more highly in favor in American rubber works than 

 in those of Great Britain, though to judge by the attention which 

 Weber and others gave to the methods for estimating pitch in 

 rubber goods a layman might have thought that it was a com- 

 mon compound of rubber goods. Stearine pitch has of course 

 had a large application under the name of bitite as a cable in- 

 sulating material, but this has been apart from the rubber goods 

 manufacture. 



There is nothing of particular novelty to report in this branch, 

 though the firms making the different products seem to be mak- 

 .„._„_„ ing good progress. This observation 



SUBSTITUTE Will not perhaps be endorsed by the 



BUSINESS. shareholders in New Pegamoid, Lim- 



ited, as the last report was not particularly satisfactory. The 

 upholstering of motor cars has brought a welcome accession of 

 business to firms in this branchy and I understand that a large 

 part of the output of Velvril is used in this connection. It has 

 not, I believe, been previously mentioned in this paper that the 

 Velvril Co., with which the name of Mr. Walter F. Reid has 

 been associated from the first as patentee and shareholder, is 

 now amalgamated with another concern making an analogous 

 article, the firm now being known as The Velvril-Bounaud Co., 

 Limited, of Norfolk road. Ponders End, London. This company 

 own all the Velvril patent rights except that for the manufac- 

 ture of belting, which was sold some years ago to the Gandy 

 Belt Manufacturing Co., of Seacombe, Cheshire. As velvril 



