546 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June 1, 1917. 



The Macintosh pncuiiiatic tire is this season being sent out 

 with a new tread which I hear highly spoken of. This tire is 

 marketed locally by the Astra Rubber Co., 231 Deansgate, Man- 

 chester. 



The bicycle is e.xperiencing a revival, owing to the petrel 

 restrictions, and special attention to bicycle tires is being paid 

 this season by several makers. In this connection the heavy 

 high-grade tandem mottled tire, made by W. A. Bates, Limited, 

 St. Mary's Mills, Leicester, and bearing the legend "All-Weather," 

 may be mentioned. The new prices are, wired-on cover lis., 

 tube Si'. 



The Moseley motor tire is put before the public this season 



without any advertised improvement on its established merits. 



The new prices are : 



Grooved Cover. Tube. 



Size. £ s. d. £ s. d. 



760 X 90 millimeters 3 6 16 3 



815 .\ 105 millimeters 4 18 6 12 3 



880 X 120 millimeters 6 7 9 110 



The Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Co., Limited, of Kingsway, 

 London, has been busy establishing provincial depots at Bir- 

 mingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Bristol and Dublin, 

 while a more recent American competitor for the British trade 

 is the Firestone tire, which has already aroused considerable 

 interest. 



P. D. Saylor, managing director of the Goodyear Tyre & 

 Rubber Co., (Great Britain) Limited, is now a captain with the 

 Canadian forces in France, in the medical division. Mr. Saylor, 

 who formerly was a physician, proffered his services early in 

 the war, but they were not needed at that time. When the offer 

 was repeated recently, the authorities accepted it and gave him 

 a commission as captain. 



THE RUBBER GROWERS' ASSOCIATION. 



AT the annual meeting of The Rubber Growers' .Association, 

 at the Cannon Street Hotel, London, England, March 30, 

 Sir Edward Rosling was elected chairman for the ensuing year, 

 and Sir John .\nflcrson, vice-chairman. Nineteen ordinary 



members of the 

 council of the As- 

 sociation were then 

 elected as follows : 

 Charles Emerson, .'\. 

 A. Allen, M.P., Sir 

 A. Sharp Bethune, 

 Bart., L. T. Bou- 

 stead, A. Bryans, A. 

 O. Devitt, W. For- 

 sythe, Norman W. 

 G r i e V e , H. Eric 

 Miller. T. C. Owen, 

 The Rt. Hon. Sir 

 West Ridgeway, 

 G. C. B., G. C. M. G., 

 K. C. S. I., T h o s . 

 Ritchie, F. A. Rob- 

 erts, J. Alec Rob- 

 erts, W. Shakspeare, 

 E. B. Skinner, The 

 Hon. C. H. Strutt, 

 Sir Frank A. Swet- 

 tenham, G.C.M.G., 

 C. E. Welldon. 

 The Association will be represented on the general committee 

 of the Rubber Trades Association of London by the following 

 members : J. M. AUinson, F. W. Barker, Charles Emerson, Sir 

 Edward Rosling; and on the Panel of Arbitrators of the Rub- 

 ber Trade Association of London by the following : Sir A. 



Sir Edward Rosling. 



Sharp Bethune, Bart., Charles Emerson, Norman W. Grieve, 

 H. K. Rutherford and Noel Trotter. 



According to the eighth report of the Council the membership 

 of the Association has increased 105 since the issue of the last 

 report and now totals 767, consisting of 489 companies and 278 

 individuals as follows : 



Acreage 



planted 



or inter- 



Authorized Issued planted 



Companies capital. capital. Acreage with 



No. operating in £ Sterling. £ Sterling. owned. rubber. 



273 Malaya 25,697,792 22,531,828 896,012 502,766 



87 Ceylon 14,977,428 12,345,159 357,074 131,725 



34 Sumatra 6,493,250 4,980,767 320,834 89,480 



30 Java 5,373,850 4.469,602 668,587 75,127 



22 S. India and Burma. 2,211,316 1,862,182 103,372 37,739 



21 Borneo 2,730,000 2,094,297 176,974 31,248 



2 Other countries 84,000 84,000 5,000 2,060 



469 57,567,636 48.367.835 2,527,853 870,145 

 9 Trust companies 4,452,260 2.631,067 



62,019,896 50,998,902 



Note. — Tliere are also 11 company members not owning rubber estates. 



In his address the chairman, Charles Emerson, made the 

 following interesting statements regarding the 1916 rubber pro- 

 duction, the 1917 estimate and future prospects generally : 



The world's output increased in 1916 by some 27 to 28 per cent, 

 an increase due mainlj' to the additional production of planta- 

 tion rubber ; which rose by nearly 42 per cent as compared 

 with 1915. The approximate production of the world for 1916 

 was 201,598 tons, of which plantation claims no less than 152,- 

 650, Brazil 36,500 and other kinds a modest 12,448. Of this 

 amount the United States took 115,609 tons. Great Britain 

 consumed 26.812 tons, but we imported 75,240 tons, of which, 

 therefore, 48,428 were exported again. Of the plantation pro- 

 duction the United States took 85,531 tons and Great Britain 

 imported 57,095 tons, a great deal of which was, of course, re- 

 exported, but there appear to be no figures to show what the 

 actual consumption of plantation in this country was. It is 

 estimated that the value of the plantation rubber which went 

 into the United States during the year was no less a sum 

 than i25,000,000. At the present time when large exports to 

 America are of first importance, this figure is significant. Our 

 commodity is an extremelj' valuable national asset, and when 

 one remembers that as recently as the year 1910 the total plan- 

 tation production was but a paltry 8,000 tons, one may, I think, 

 describe the rapid development of the industry as one of the 

 romances of commerce. We owe a great debt of gratitude to 

 the men in the East, who, despite all difficulties and a somewhat 

 alarming shortage of assistants, have supplied the world with so 

 largely increased a crop. The estimated world's production for 

 1917 is 242,000 tons, say, 192.000 plantation, 37,000 Brazil and 

 13,000 other sorts. 



I shall say but little as to the future. My predecessor, like 

 the cautious Irishman he is, declined the role of prophet, and 

 I do the same. Suffice it to say that, so far, demand has kept 

 pace with supply, and one hopes that it may continue to do so. 

 But of the immediate future it is, I am afraid, safe to say that 

 our difficulties must increase progressively till the end of trie 

 war. The problem of transport is a serious one ; the problem 

 of arranging for leave for men in the tropics must before very 

 long become acute ; and there are other elements of embar- 

 rassment which it would serve no useful purpose to detail. That 

 the difficulties and perplexities which confront us may be met 

 and surmounted is our earnest hope, and we may perhaps take 

 heart of grace from the fact that, up to the present, we have 

 come through far better than in the fatal month of August, 

 1914, the most optimistic of us could have dared to anticipate. 



NIPPLES AND TRANSPARENT GOODS. 



The Peerless Seamless Rubber Co., Limited, of Richmond, 

 London, claims to have been the first British firm to establish 

 a nipple and valve department after the war broke out. For 

 over two years the company has also turned out large quantities 

 of the finest high grade transparent goods, which have found a 

 market both here and abroad. It is hoped to establish this in- 

 dustry so firmly as to make it impossible for German producers 

 e\er to rule the British market again. 



The Russian rubber factory, "Prowodnik," will issue 180,000 

 shares of a par value of 100 rubles, which are offered at the 

 rate of 163j^ rubles each. 



