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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



(April 1. 1910. 



Interesting Letters From Our Readers. 



FIRST-HAND NEWS OF BELGIAN RUBBER MILLS. 



PROBABLY no man in the world is better known to the 

 rubber trade than Captain Ernest B. Buckleton. His genial 

 optimism and friendly tolerance have not been in the least 

 dimmed by financial sacrifice, by months on the Western Front, 

 by trench fever or by shell shock. Since the signing of the 

 armistice. Captain Buckleton is able to resume business, and is 

 visiting old friends among the European rubber manufacturers. 

 A personal letter from him to the Editor is of such general 

 interest that uv take the liberty of letting his many friends read 

 it also. 

 To THE Editor of The India Rubber World. 



DEAR SIR:— I am now in Italy for a 'few days after a 

 most interesting trip through Belgium and northern France. 

 ] visited Liege first and had the pleasure after four and a half 

 years of meeting 

 Mr. Englebert, the 

 head of the firm of 

 Englebert & Co., and 

 he gave me an ac- 

 count of the in- 

 vasion of the Ger- 

 mans in 1914. He 

 had the pleasure 

 (?) of a visit from 

 two of the lead- 

 ing German rubber 

 manufacturers who 

 took an inventory of 

 his stock and ma- 

 chinery, the former 

 of which was en- 

 tirely commandeered 

 by the Germans and 

 part of the latter 

 dismantled and sent 

 back to Germany. 

 These two gentle- 

 men, both well known to us, told Englebert the German 

 army would be in Paris in three weeks, and when Paris 

 was taken would go to Russia and clean them up. This was 

 the first time that I had heard at first hand of their intentions. 

 Englebert is one of the greatest Belgian patriots and would not 

 work for the Germans, so they took his plant and turned it into 

 a barracks, where they quartered over 2,000 troops during the 

 whole of the war and it was there that the first red flag of the 

 German revolution was hoisted. Englebert, on account of his 

 loyalty, had a most uncomfortable time during the whole of the 

 war. Fortunately, however, for him, he was Consul for Spain, 

 which saved his scalp. 



They left his works in very bad shape, stripped of all raw ma- 

 terials, and it will take several months to replace all the brass 

 parts of his machinery, which they took. In this part of Belgium 

 and Brussels, all the door knobs, knockers and brass plales have 

 all been removed and in a great many places replaced with 

 wooden ones. 



During the German occupation the destruction was very severe 

 and life must have been almost intolerable. You could be out 

 at night only until a certain time ; after that a permit was nec- 

 essary, and if by any chance you overstayed your time five min- 

 utes, you were arrested. What a time these people had ! 

 The price of food in Belgium has been and is very high. But- 



OsC \R EXCLEBERT. 



ler has been $5 a pound, is now $2.50; eggs, 50 cents, now 20 

 cents each ; meat, $3, now nearly $2 a pound ; potatoes, 60 cents 

 a pound; boots, now from $25 to $30 a pair; soap, 75 cents a 

 small cake. 



After leaving Brussels I went through the war zone of north- 

 ern France, which was a good rubber centre. Michel-Jackson's 

 plants at Menin and Halluin were in direct line of fire and 

 nothing remains but the bare walls, two other small factories 

 are nothing but ruins, and from there to Lille three other plants 

 are wrecks. You can picture what this zone looks like if you 

 could picture Trenton after a fire which swept the place from one 

 end to the other, leaving nothing but the bare walls standing 

 I cannot see that this part of France can be rebuilt in this gen- 

 eration. It took me 10 hours from Brussels to Lille and 14 

 hours from Lille to Paris, usually a five-hour trip, and the jour- 

 ney is most uncomfortable. Most of the trains have no win- 

 dows, no heat and people packed like sardines. I had to stand 

 up for eight hours of my trip from Lille to Paris. 



After staying in Paris for a week, I came to Milan and have 

 had a good talk with young Dr. Pirelli, who has just got out 

 of the army. He tells me that economic conditions in Italy are 

 very bad. Very few people know how much Italy has done and 

 how much she has suffered. She has had 480,000 killed and 

 spent more than three-quarters of her wealth. How the country 

 can be reconstructed is a grave problem. It certainly looks as if 

 America is going to have her hands full for a generation in help- 

 ing to reconstruct Europe, and the American business man will 

 be asked to make many sacrifices as his part in this world's 

 war. 



Restrictions must necessarily be placed on imports to all coun- 

 tries in Europe that have taken an active part in the war, and 

 a good many American manufacturers will chafe under them. 

 I am confident they will keep up the good work and continue 

 the good example shown in their wonderful response to the call 

 for charities. I think it will take several j'ears for France, 



The Michel-J.\ckson F.^ctorv Before the War 



England, Italy and Belgium to reconstruct, and during this pe- 

 riod America will help as her part in the three years when she 

 stayed out of the war, which I think you will all admit was as 

 much hers as ours in Europe. 



Yours sincerely, 



Ernest B. Buckleton. 

 Milan, Italy. 



