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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August 1, 1917. 



The Rubber Trade In Great Britain. 



Bv Our Regular Correspondent. 



WITH regard to business conditions generally there is no 

 change of note to record in the situation, wliich may lie 

 summed up in the statement— great activity where govern- 

 ment contracts are concerned and slackness amounting in cases 

 to depression in general home and export business. The bogey 

 of dearer rubber has been scotched by large arrivals and there 

 is now no rush to provide for anticipated needs. The topic of 

 the moment is the price of cotton rather than rubber, and 

 there seems little doubt that a more or less prolonged era of 

 short time or knocking off of a certain number of looms, which 

 amounts to the same thing, is in store for Lancashire. 



.\ sensation of the first half of June was the rapid apprecia- 

 tion in the market value of the Parent Tyre Co., Limited, 

 (Dunlop) on account of the anticipated combination among 

 tire manufacturers which at the time of writing has not yet 

 matured, or, at any rate, been announced. 



With regard to the market premium on Brazilian Para rub- 

 ber this is really to-day a greater compliment than it was five 

 or six years ago when the premium was the same, and this be- 

 cause it is generally noted in the trade that the loss in washing 

 is higher than it was, vi:., 18 or 19 per cent more against the 

 old figures of IS or 16 per cent. This is put down to the greater 

 rapidity in getting the rubber in the market and the consequent 

 decreased loss of moisture by evaporation. 



RUREER-F.XCEn CART) CLOTHING. 



A branch of the rubber industry which has been hit by the 

 war is that of rubber-faced card clothing for use in textile 

 mills. Not only is the export trade disorganized but the regu- 

 lations with regard to the sale and purchase of the steel rods 

 from which the wire joints are made are such as cause difficul- 

 ties and embarrassment in the manufacture. This business is 

 carried on in various factories in Lancashire and Yorkshire, 

 specially devoted to it and not in what may be termed rubber 

 works proper. Some of the card clothing is made with vulcan- 

 ized rubber and some with pure rubber and the old rubber from 

 the latter, always of the best quality, is constantly in demand 

 by reclaimers. 



RUBBER RECLAIMING. 



This leads me to refer to the fact that a new reclaiming 

 works has been started at Fielding Mills, Middletown, near 

 Manchester, by Stead-Hunt, Limited, which, if my memory 

 serves me rightly, was a name associated with the artichoke 

 synthetic rubber business which commenced its short-lived career 

 at Handforth four years ago. The new reclaimed rubber is 

 called Russam and is said to be made by an entirely new and 

 original process with the use of acid or alkali. Of course, a 

 good deal of rubber has been reclaimed in the past, and is no 

 doubt at present, without the use of acid or alkali, but it will 

 be for the astute rubber manufacturers to determine whether 

 reclaimed made without acid or alkali is superior to that made 

 with these auxiliaries, and the matter can safely be left to 

 their judgment. It has surprised many readers on this side to 

 see in a recent number of The India Rubber World a refer- 

 ence to a legal decision regarding the alkali patents. Presum- 

 ably the explanation is that patents have a longer life in America 

 than they have here, any extension of a patent over its 14 years' 

 span being very rare with us. With the expiry of the Mark's 

 "alkali" patent in England four years ago there is now no ques- 

 tion of any litigation among the three or four concerns working 

 the alkali process in England. 



Delivery of rubber machinery to orders which are readily 

 quoted for and taken is still a matter of great delay and un- 



certainty and is the main reason for the slight progress made 

 with regard to projected developments. 



.\ niRTiin.w HONOR. 

 Sir Frederick H. Smith, Bart., has been created a baron of 

 the United Kingdom and has taken the title of Lord Colwyn, 

 from the resort on the North Wales coast, where he has a 

 residence. Although a commercial magnate of varied activities 

 and business associations, he is, of course, best known to the 

 rubber trade as chairman of the Charles Macintosh Co., Limited, 

 and some of their subsidiary undertakings. Better known in 

 Lancashire than in London, it was not altogether surprising that 

 on one occasion a few months ago, when his name became 

 prominent in connection with the report of a tariff committee, 

 some of the London papers confused him with Sir Frederick 

 Smith, the Attorney-General. The latter, who is a Unionist, 

 does not see eye to eye with the new peer, w'ho belongs to the 

 opposite camp. So, no wonder certain leading writers were be- 

 wildered at what seemed a very rapid change of opinion even 

 in these days of chameleon procedure. 



DIS.\STROUS FIRE. 

 On June 13 a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred at the 

 works of the Hooley Hill Rubber & Chemical Co., about seven 

 miles from Manchester, with the result that the works were 

 entirely destroyed, the managing director, H. S. Dreyfus, being 

 among the 41 persons killed. The death roll was added to by 

 persons in the vicinity of the works at the time of the explosion, 

 a great many of those employed in the works having managed 

 to get into safety when the alarm of fire was given. Mr. Drey- 

 fus, no doubt, could have saved his own life had he not re- 

 mained to see that others had warning and assisted in the at- 

 tempt to subdue the fire. It was at this works that the experi- 

 ments with accelerine (para nitroso dimethyl aniline) were 

 carried out and a part of the business of the works recently 

 has been the manufacture of this accelerator for sale to rubber 

 works. 



DUNLOP INCRE.\SES ITS STOCK. 



At a meeting of the shareholders of the Dunlop Rubber Co., 

 Limited, London, on June 22, the capital stock was increased 

 to £6,000,000 by the creation of 3,000,000 new 7 per cent prefer- 

 ence "C" shares of £1 each, 10 shillings per share to be called 

 up at once and the balance not for a year at least. The borrow- 

 ing powers of the board of directors were also increased from 

 i300,000 to £3,000,000. 



So rapidly has the business of this company been growing, 

 particularly in the new mill completed May 1 for the manu- 

 facture of solid tires for army transport, that last November 

 £1,000,000 in 6}4 per cent cumulative "B" preference shares were 

 created in order to double the stock of raw materials as a war- 

 time safeguard and to finance the manufacture and sale of solid 

 tires. Raw stocks were, however, increased to over £2,250,000, 

 an excess of £720,000 over and above the £750.000 intended for 

 that purpose. This must be deducted for the fresh capital, and 

 the balance, roughly £500,000 after the payment of expenses, will 

 be used to finance greatly increasing normal business. 



In his address moving these increases, Acting Secretary A. 

 Cunningham referred enthusiastically to the cotton mills and 

 rubber estates of the company, both of which investments had 

 been made at a particularly fortunate time and had proved an 

 unqualified success. The profits and savings of the mills had 

 equaled their initial cost and equipment, and the profits of the 

 estates, embracing 27,000 planted acres, were now approaching 

 the profits made a few years ago by the Parent Tyre Co.„ 



