October 1, 1915.; 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



35 



The India Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



I-OREIC.X TIRE niPORTS. 



A MATTER which is attracting considerable notice in 

 our press, from such staid publications as the "Quar- 

 terly Review" down to the half-penny daily, is the 

 increased importation of American motor cars and also tires. 

 It is with the latter that we are mainly concerned in this 

 journal, though, of course, the car business is the more im- 

 portant. There is no need to emphasize the fact that German 

 and Austrian tires are unprocurable and that French and 

 Russian are much restricted in their supply. It should, however, 

 be said that before the war tires were imported because of 

 various business interests and not because they could not 

 be obtained of home manufacture. At the present time, as 

 our rubber tire works are all busy on government require- 

 ments, no doubt private customers experience delay in the filling 

 of their orders and this has certainly been to the advantage of 

 sellers of American tires, who have been energetic in pushing 

 their wares and have established a series of important dis- 

 tributing depots up and down Great Britain to supplement 

 the selling organization which sufficed for the pre-war 

 business. 



I am not going into the matter of the American exchange 

 here, but as we are continually being exhorted to buy as little 

 from foreign countries as possible, it is obvious that this 

 applies to the purchase of home-made tires. Patriotism, 

 however, frequently fails to rise to the heights demanded of 

 it, and in this respect the tire manufacturers find it necessary 

 to advocate an impost on foreign tires, and to judge by the 

 tone of the utterances of erstwhile large tire dealers, it 

 would not be surprising if something were done in this di- 

 rection, though the main move will be directed at the more 

 important car, of which the tire is only an accessory. It is 

 understood that this matter will come up for early considera- 

 tion on the re-assembling of Parliament. With regard to 

 the contract for American tires placed by makers of Ameri- 

 can cars in England, I am authoritatively informed that the 

 intention was to place the order in Great Britain, but that 

 prompt delivery could not be guaranteed. 



Leaving this topic, I may say that one or two recent oc- 

 currences in which journalists have come within the mesh of 

 our war laws indicate that contributors to foreign papers 

 must walk or, rather, write warily. I must bear this in mind 

 while also remembering that every column I write helps to 

 reduce the adverse balance of untold millions which is 

 troubling our financial experts at this time. Some day, per- 

 haps, the world will have the history of our anti-submarine 

 warfare and this is not the time or place for premature dis- 

 closures. I think, however, it is a safe assumption that the 

 recent fall in the price of rubber is largely due to the official 

 statement from the Admiralty that the submarine menace 

 is well in hand, the natural deduction being drawn that the 

 arrival of supplies from the East is pretty well assured. 



As far as government orders are concerned, both for our 

 own services and for those of our allies, there is at the time 

 an absence of the rush and excitement of twelve months ago, 

 which means that the manufacturers have the situation well 

 in hand. Indeed, in some quarters it is asserted that the 

 easing off of this business is due to the placing of orders in 

 America, though I have no satisfactory evidence of this and 

 am much inclined to doubt it. In concluding this paragraph 

 I should like to mention the appreciation with which the 

 editorial in the August issue of The India Rubber World, 

 headed "Shall We Keep the Faith?" has been received by 



British subscribers. As the judgment in the "rubber or gum 

 Prize Court case has not yet been delivered I must defer any 

 comments until next month. 



ER.ASING RUBBERS. 



In my last notes I made reference to a substitute for eras- 

 ing-rubber and in case an impression should be created that 

 the genuine article is being superseded, perhaps I may be al- 

 lowed to say that rubber erasers are being made by our rub- 

 ber works to a much greater extent than before the war, 

 owing to the cessation of German and .Austrian imports. For 

 instance, the North British Rubber Co., Limited, have been pay- 

 ing particular attention to school and stationers' rubbers, with the 

 view of putting on the market a line of goods to replace the 

 many varieties which in recent years have come in large 

 quantities from the continent. The North British list com- 

 prises fourteen brands or qualities, each with a distinctive 

 name, the number to the pound in weight being an index to 

 the size; the prices varying from l.f. 8rf. per pound in boxes 

 to 3s. \d., this latter price referring to a special quality for 

 erasing pencil marks from tracing paper in drawing offices. 

 THE WICKH.^M H.\RD CURE PROCESS. 



The report of the Dunlop Rubber Co., Limited, with regard to 

 plantation rubber cured by this process (see The India Rubber 

 World, March, 1915), which is the property of a British 

 limited company, will necessarily prove disappointing to 

 those financially interested. Presumably this report is to 

 be taken as a House of Lords' decision, from which there is 

 no appeal, though of course we all know the prevailing ten- 

 dency of rubber manufacturers and experts to arrive at con- 

 trary conclusions. The virtues of creosote per se and the 

 retaining of moisture in the rubber have proved to be based 

 on unreliable ground. The result in effect is to support the 

 opinion long held by a good many of us that the high tensile 

 strength of the Brazilian product is primarily due to the age 

 of the trees rather than to any magical result of the smoking 

 process, efficacious though this may be in some respects. As 

 the age of the trees is one of the things that the great scien- 

 tific resources of the Eastern planters cannot in the nature 

 of things alter, the Brazilian need not fear that his supremacy 

 will be taken from him. 



TR.'\DE PROFITS. 



Many of our prominent rubber works being private enter- 

 prises or private limited companies which do not publish 

 their balance sheets, the public has no means of arriving at 

 their profits or losses. As all the rubber companies of any 

 standing have, however, on their own showing been extremely 

 busy during the war, it is only natural to assume that the 

 private concerns have done equally as well as those whose 

 balance sheets are published in the papers. In the case of 

 the Leyland & Birmingham Rubber Co.. Limited, we note an in- 

 crease of SO per cent, for 1914-15 over 1913-14 and over 100 per 

 cent, as compared with 1912-13. The customary dividend of T/i 

 per cent, is increased for this year to ll'/z per cent. This 

 absorbs £33,532, and it is notable that unusually large al- 

 lowances have been made for depreciation, reserve for dis- 

 counts, bad and doubtful debts, and that £10,000 is carried 

 to reserve, which now stands at £45.000, as against an issued 

 ordinary share capital of £268,257. With regard to the 

 profits made lately by rubber companies it must be borne in 

 mind that the price of raw rubber has not only been at a 

 moderate figure, but there has been an absence of violent 

 fluctuations — conditions which are favorable to the manu- 

 facturer. 



