September 1, 1917.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



741 



The Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



NOW that we are all in the same boat there is no object in 

 harping upon the altered conditions which war has im- 

 posed upon our rubber trade, as no doubt they have now 

 been reproduced in America. The main feature of the moment 

 throughout England is that anybody who has anything to sell 

 does so at an enhanced price, in many cases beyond what is 

 justifiable. The buyer enters a mild protest, but goes on buy- 

 ing, and if he is in business passes on the extra cost to his own 

 customers. This might form an appropriate exordium to re- 

 marks on the position created by the recent advances in rubber 

 goods notified by the India Rubber Manufacturers Association, 

 but the subject cannot be ventilated in a few lines, and we are 

 exhorted to be careful in the use of paper. 



One of the busiest branches of the trade in non-war goods 

 is the cycle tire department, the cycle having come into its own 

 again in a marked degree, owing to the embargoes on and ex- 

 pense of other forms of locomotion. Moreover, the fine sum- 

 mer which has upset the calculations of the mackintosh and oil- 

 skin makers has been conducive to pleasure cycling. 



An unusual incident of the hot weather occurred during a 

 thunderstorm on July 16, when the rubber works of Broadhurst 

 & Co., Limited, Manchester, were struck by lightning and set on 

 fire. The outbreak was soon subdued by the fire brigade and 

 no interruption to business was experienced, but several work- 

 people sustained injuries from broken window glass. 



SURGICAL GOODS. 

 Naturally since the war began there has been an increased 

 demand for surgical goods of various kinds, including what are 

 generally known as druggists' sundries. In this sort of work, 

 especially in certain classes of surgical goods, the French have 

 always been the principal producers, and British surgeons have 

 been in the habit of insisting upon certain articles being of 

 French manufacture. Until quite recently, I believe, the particu- 

 lar American made articles which are now being sold in Britain 

 were not made in America, and it has been suggested that what 

 have been coming to us during the last two years were really 

 of German origin. It is also said that a good deal of what was 

 sold as of German make in pre-war days was really of French 

 origin. The difficulty with the four or five British rubber works 

 which specialize in surgical goods is to get them to make 

 patented specialties. They say the prospective business is not 

 large enough to tempt them to enter into it, and in such cases 

 as they have undertaken, the prices charged for the manufacture 

 of specialties have often been such as to prevent the patentee 

 from doing anything like a large business. At the present time, 

 owing to diminution of staffs and congestion of work, it is not 

 surprising that delivery is much behind hand on orders that 

 have been taken. One consequence of this — and the same thing 

 applies to various other patented rubber goods — is that people 

 quite outside the rubber trade are seriously considering the feasi- 

 bility of going into rubber manufacture to a certain extent on 

 their own account. This is a development that, when normal 

 conditions return, will probably not commend itself to the large 

 rubber works. They may, of course, console themselves with 

 the thought that the new comers will lose money and be glad 

 to revert to old-time procedure. Though it does not come under 

 my paragraph heading, I may say that an important bicycle 

 manufacturing firm is considering the manufacture of rubber 

 tires. 



THE INDIA RUBBER MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION, LIMITED. 



The outstanding feature of the statement made by J. T. 



Goudie, the chairman, at the annual meeting was the fact that 



the 30 firms which are now members included such large con- 

 cerns as Warne, Silvertown, and Scotch firms which had hither- 

 to held aloof. The increase in the membership and the con- 

 tinually widening scope of its work has rendered the formation 

 of various district and sectional committees imperative, and sev- 

 eral of these sections, notably those dealing with waterproof 

 garments, have been for some time at work. The general com- 

 mittee of management, which was elected at the meeting, con- 

 tains several interesting names new to the association : Chair- 

 man, J. T. Goudie (Leyland & Birmingham Rubber Co., Lim- 

 ited) ; vice-chairman, Hugh C. Coles (Wm. Warne & Co., 

 Limited) ; committee, P. A. Birley (Chas. Macintosh & Co., 

 Limited). W. E. Birrell (Clyde Rubber Works, Limited), J. H. 

 C. Brooking (St. Helens Cable & Rubber Co., Limited), A. Cairns 

 (A. Cairns & Co.), M. Frankenburg (I. Frankenburg Sons, 

 Limited), G. C. Mandleberg (J. Mandleberg & Co., Limited), 

 P. Maclellan (George Maclellan & Co.), David Moreley (David 

 Moreley & Sons, Limited), T. C. Redfern (Redfern's Rubber 

 Works, Limited), Stuart A. Russell (The Silvertown Co.), 

 James Tinto (Irwell & Eastern Rubber Co., Limited). In con- 

 cluding his address the chairman said that it was very gratify- 

 ing for the old committee as it retired to make way for a more 

 widely extended representation, to note that all traces of former 

 friction had disappeared and that there prevailed among the 

 whole of the members an e.xcellent spirit of concord and mutual 

 confidence. 



THE CHEMISTRY OF VULCANIZATION. 



This was the title of a paper contributed by Dr. D. F. Twiss, 

 chief chemist of the Dunlop Rubber Co., Limited, at the Chemical 

 Congress held at Birmingham in July on the occasion of the 

 annual meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry. The paper, 

 which was a long one, cannot be usefully abstracted in the space 

 available and I shall therefore confine myself to noting a few of 

 its items. As a prefatory remark I may say that it is a matter 

 of some international importance to the trade that the Dunlop 

 company, following the lead of the North British Rubber Co., 

 Limited, has abandoned the old established procedure of British 

 rubber manufacturers and has allowed some of its laboratory 

 work to be published and discussed. This is a matter for which 

 the trade will join with the writer in his expressed indebted- 

 ness to J. V. Worthington, technical superintendent and director 

 of the Dunlop company. 



Owing to the difficulties of dealing with a body which is ob- 

 tained chemically pure with exceedingly great difficulty, there 

 remained yet many points, he said, in connection with the rub- 

 ber industry of which the scientific interpretations are contra- 

 dictory, vague, or based on quite insufficient evidence. Never- 

 theless, more especially during the last ten years, extraordinary 

 advances had been made in the chemistry of rubber. 



In the earlier days of the plantation rubber industry consider- 

 able stress was laid on the variability in the rate of vulcaniza- 

 tion of plantation Para as compared with wild Para rubber. An 

 explanation was to be found in the discovery of Eaton and 

 Grantham that if the soft slabs of coagulum are allowed to 

 "mature" for several days before the retained serum is ex- 

 pressed the resulting rubber vulcanizes with unusual rapidity, 

 the effect attaining its limit after a period of, roughly, seven 

 days before washing and crcpcing. The advantage of a uniform 

 supply of such rapidly vulcanizing rubber for special purposes 

 would readily be recognized, said Dr. Twiss, who added that it 

 should be specially marked for sale. In the subsequent discus- 

 sion Dr. Stevens, of London, said the labeling of such rubber 

 was of great importance, otherwise the complaints as to vari- 



