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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April 1, 1917. 



Interesting Letters from Our Readers. 



RUBBER PACKING SUGGESTIONS FROM AN 

 EXPERT. 



To THE Editor of The Ixdi.x Rubber World: 



DE.AR SIR — I read with great interest in your issue of Jan- 

 uary 1, 1917, the advice given by The Rubber Club of 

 America, Inc.. about plantation rubber packing, and 1 am quite 

 sure that the suggestions will be useful. Of course it stands 

 to reason that the suggestions made by the manufacturers deal 

 only with the manufacturing side of the question, and it will 

 be impossible for many growers to deal with some of tbem in a 

 practical way. 



Allow me to give you my views on the subject. 



No. 1. Experience has proved that in the tropics neither paper, 

 cloth, straw nor dry leaves should be placed inside a package 

 to contain crude rubber, either wild or plantation. Therefore, I 

 cannot agree with suggestion' No. 2, viz., tliat rubber should be 

 packed in muslin. It is suggested in Xo. 3 that bo-xes sliould 

 be made to hold 200 to 300 pounds. It is quite impossible to 

 ask rubber growers to make a general rule of this ; it is a 

 question of transport. The best weight to adopt is what the 

 average adult coolie can handle somewhat by himself. On the 

 other hand, too much rubber in a parcel brings a pressure' on 

 the stufT, which for some grades is not at all benelicial. The 

 size adopted by the Venesta chest is practical, and meets most 

 of the requirements. It is both light and very strong. 



In Xo. 17 1 notice that some species of tropical woods are 

 suggested. 1 am of the opinion that some of our tropical woods 

 are of a too hard and breakable character. 



No. 21 is very good advice indeed, viz., "store away from the 

 boiler." Init 1 should add "and the su)i." 



Talc or soapstone should be freely used in chests when plac- 

 ing the rubber inside. 



The great enemies of crude rubber, either plantation or wild, 

 are : The tropical sun, a bad warehouse, defective packing and 

 bad curing. G. V.-\n den Kerckhove. 



London, February IS, 1917. 



AMERICAN CAPITAL IN EASTERN PLANTATIONS. 



To THE EniTOR OF The India Rubber World; 



DE.VR SIR— Like the United States, as recounted in The 

 adverse views expressed through the columns of newspapers 

 here on the so-called "American invasion" in the field of rubber 

 production in the Malay Peninsula. But few, if any, editorials or 

 written opinions I have seen so far have apparently considered 

 what such a vast and permanent improvement as the conversion 

 of thousands of acres of waste jungle lands would be, not to 

 mention the great expenditure of foreign gold this conversion 

 would require. It w'ould be outside foreign capital not earned 

 nor coined in the Far East, but voluntarily expended here in 

 wages and materials ; also the extra capital it would take to 

 operate the plantations for all future time, which would mean a 

 large and continual expenditure in payrolls for the employment 

 of labor and upkeep, wliich, in a measure, would mean continued 

 prosperity. 



The sale of the product of the present plantations w-ould not be 

 disturbed, as the demand of factory consumers of the world, 

 and especially in America, keeps apace, indeed, if not in advance 

 of the production. In the interim between planting and matur- 

 ing the trees to bearing, this locality would have the use of the 

 large sums so expended in the project, which in itself would 

 mean a degree of prosperity. 



Do the inhabitants of this most (rubber) favored spot on earth 

 realize how much America has contributed to their prosperity? 



Do they realize what is the cause of the .Xmerican demand for 

 rubber? Are they expressive of appreciation for the unbroken 

 stream of gold flowing from America into their exchequer and 

 thus making many millionaires liere? 



Let me direct attention to the year 1910. The most accurate 

 figures obtainable at this time show there was probably an excess 

 of 160,000 tons of plantation rubber produced in the Far East, 

 most of it on this peninsula. Seventy per cent, or 112,000 tons, 

 was consumed by America. This is 250.880,000 pounds. It was 

 marketed (conservative estimate) at 60 cents gold "all in" per 

 pound, for which America paid $1,50,528,000 gold— over £30,000,- 

 000. Is there any thinking citizen opi)osed to her further contri- 

 bution and building up in permanent improvement portions of 

 this peninsula, where man-eating tigers and crocodiles now reign 

 supreme? 



The cause of the demand for rubber by America is the auto- 

 mobile, where 83 per cent of the world's supply is manufactured. 

 Yet the British Government has passed recently laws so levying 

 taxes against American automobiles as to hamper if not dis- 

 courage their importation into portions of its dominions and 

 dependencies, and gives as a reason the discouragement of 

 luxurious extravagance of its citizens during war times. I am 

 informed in the dependency of India further importation of 

 American automobiles is prohibited. The result cannot but be a 

 discouragement of America's rubber purchases which the tabooed 

 automobile encourages. Is it not. indeed, an indirect expression 

 of uuappreciation of what .'\merica has done and is doing for the 

 rubber industrj- and the Malay Peninsula? 



Singapore. January 7. 1917. Jesse E. L.\ Dow. 



KLINGERIT SUBSTITUTES IN ENGLAND. 



To the Editor of The India Rubber World: 

 r\E.AR SIR— Like the United States, as recounted in The 

 ■'--' India Rubber* World of March 1, 1917, England and France 

 felt the need of Klingerit high-temperature steam packing soon 

 after the beginning of hostilities in Europe which cut off the 

 source of supply in Austria and Germany. Our asbestos firms 

 had undertaken its production many years ago with considerable 

 success, but none of the rubber works had been able to compete 

 with the imported article. Exactly what success those rubber 

 firms who took up its manufacture two years ago have attained 

 does not yet seem to have become common knowledge. A great 

 difficulty was the analysis, which was difticult and, indeed, by 

 many chemists considered impossible. 



A few months ago, however, I was interested to note that 

 M. Dubosc in "Le Caoutchouc & la Gutta-Percha" gave the re- 

 sults of an analysis of Klingerit as follows : Asbestos, 80.46 per 

 cent; flax. 2.24 per cent; rubber, 5.19 per cent; balata, 11.97 per 

 cent; sulphur, 0.13 per cent. The rubber and balata form the 

 agglutinant whereby the compound layers of asbestos mixed with 

 flax fibers are held together. The interesting point about this 

 analysis is that rubber and balata figure separately with the 

 meticulous accuracy of the second place of decimals. I do not 

 wisli in my ignorance to throw any doubt on the analyst, but I 

 always understood that no method was available by which the 

 balata content of a rubber compound could be accurately de- 

 termined. When it is known that they occur together — and that 

 they do so in Klingerit is generally understood — it has been pos- 

 sible to give a rough approximation of the amount of each, but 

 Weber's statement that our knowledge does not permit us to 

 separate them is generally accepted, though of course rubber 

 analytical methods have made great advances since Weber's book 

 was written. A Rubber Student. 



London, March 15, 1917. 



