March 1, 1919] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



287 



WOULD USE NINE MILLION POUNDS OF GUTTA. 



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 Published 



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Vol. 59. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, F.R.G.S., Editor 



MARCH 1. 1919. 



No. 6. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 

 THE LUXURY TAX ON TIRES. 



WILL the passenger automobile ever live down 

 its unwarranted reputation as a pleasure ve- 

 hicle ? Nothing has ever been adduced to refute the 

 statement of Colonel Colt that only ten per cent of 

 the passenger automobiles of the country are used 

 primarily for pleasure purposes, yet House and Senate 

 conferees have agreed to a luxury tax of five per cent 

 on manufacturers' sales of motor vehicles, tires and 

 accessories. The efficiency of modern business in- 

 disputably depends to a remarkable degree upon the 

 use of passenger automobiles by executives, superin- 

 tendents, managers, salesmen and others. The injustice 

 of levying a luxury tax on commercial vehicles requires 

 no argument. It is difficult to understand what logic 

 justifies the assumption that ninety per cent of the 

 users of motor vehicles and tires should pay a luxury 

 tax that properly applies only to the other ten per cent. 

 Cars and tires have ceased to be luxuries. 



The plan of our Solons seems to be to tax wealth, 

 thrift, and industry. Why not try another plan? 

 Tax the idle, the lazy, the vicious. Put a head tax 

 on agitators, on aliens, L W. W.'s and Bolshevists. As 

 to the last three, make it prohibitive, if that is pos- 

 sible, in the light of their ample funds. 



PROFESSOR Llewellyn Preece, of the Institute ot 

 Electrical Engineers, proposes an elaborate scheme 

 to enable the British Government to possess its own 

 •"All-British round-the-world electric girdle." His 

 plan is a cable 30,000 miles long — 3,000 miles across 

 British America and 27,000 miles of submarine cables — 

 every terminus of which would be on British territory. 



Such an independent system would be of advantage 

 politically as well as coinmercially, and the veteran scien- 

 tist strongly recommends this great undertaking even 

 though the present cable systems cover nearly, or quite 

 all the routes suggested. 



The manufacture and successful laying of 27,000 miles 

 of submarine cable is an immense undertaking. The 

 professor thinks it should cost not over $34,000,000, or 

 if the present Pacific cable were utilized, perhaps $24,- 

 000,000. To prove that this estimate is low it is only 

 necessary to consider one item, gutta percha. 



Practically all the submarine cables are insulated with 

 this valuable mineral. They vary but moderately in the 

 amount of the gutta per mile. The French cable, Brest 

 to New York, contains 396 pounds per mile; the Van- 

 couver-Fanning cable, 340 pounds; the Mackay-Ben- 

 nett, 320 pounds. The Pacific cable has less at deep-sea 

 portions than near land and varies from 250 to 400 

 pounds, with an average of 330 pounds to the mile. 

 Other important cables have 400, 368, 325 and 320 

 pounds per mile. Taking 330 pounds as a reasonable 

 average, 8,910,000 pounds of gutta percha would be re- 

 quired. The cost at the present market quotations, $3 

 per pound, would be more than $25,000,000, leaving only 

 $9,000,000 of Professor Preece's estimate for the entire 

 cost of copper wire and sheathing, besides manufacturing 

 costs, laying and installing. 



Should this amount, nearly 9,000,000 pounds of gutta 

 percha, be needed, where would it come from? The 

 world's annual production is estimated at 5,000,000 

 pounds, but this also includes gutta siak which is useless 

 for insulation. There is practically no gutta percha in 

 the market. Nor is there such amount in stock anywhere 

 in the world to-day, except perhaps unextracted in the 

 trees of the Far East. 



However, although European manufacturers rely solely 

 on gutta percha for insulating submarine cables, Ameri- 

 can manufacturers have successfully utilized rubber for 

 this purpose, and while the longest stretch of such cable 

 is only about 800 miles, it has withstood Arctic cold over 

 land and under water as well as any gutta-protected one. 

 In some short cables it is also claimed that rubber prop- 

 erly applied on tin-coated copper conductors has proved 

 better than gutta percha in tro])ical waters infested with 

 the Teredo. 



Should the British (Government adopt Professor 

 Preece's plan, it is more than likely that the manufac- 

 turers of that nine thousand leagues of cable under the 



