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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June 1, 1919. 



certainly take some years after the war to procure the necessary 

 rolling-mills, calenders, and special machines and tools, and the 

 despoiled factories will certainly lose many of their customers. 

 Let us know how to profit by this circumstance." 



The avowal is significant, and this document, fallen into French 

 hands at the time of the defeat of the Germans, and brought 

 before the Allied Council by the French Minister of Finance, M. 

 Klotz, shows, without further discussion, that one of the prin- 

 cipal objects of the German cam- 

 paign was nothing but the destruc- 

 tion of French and Belgian indus- 

 try, to the advantage of German 

 industry. This is just what the 

 French Prime Minister, M. 

 Clemenceau, crushingly summed 

 up when he said during an inter- 

 view accorded the American 

 press : "that the war launched by 

 Germany and brought by her into 

 the invaded territories, in the 

 pillage and destruction, was a 

 thorough and well-calculated con- 

 spiracy with the view of exter- 

 minating France industrially and 

 commercially as well as mili- 

 tarily." 



This inventory ordered by the Edouard Bunge. 



German Staff at the moment when cannon thundered at Verdun 

 is, as we said before, incomplete, since, for two years more, the 

 invader was at liberty to complete his work, methodically dis- 

 mantling what the hazards of the bombardments had spared in 

 the occupied towns. Nevertheless, it was as well to quote from 

 it, for the cynical admissions which are displayed in it consti- 

 tute the very best preface it would be possible to find for the 

 investigation with which The India Rubber World has in- 

 trusted us regarding the ravages committed by the German 

 armies in the rubber factories of the occupied regions. 

 BELGIUM. 



Before the war, Belgium represented a double interest, as far 

 as rubber was concerned : it was both an importer of the crude 

 article and a rubber manufacturing center. 



The Belgian port of Antwerp was the place of discharge for 

 huge cargoes of crude rubber, the wild grades of which came 

 from the Congo, while the plantation varieties were shipped from 

 the Netherlands East Indies or the Federated Malay States, 

 where the Belgian capitalists had very large interests. For these 

 two kinds of merchandise, the market of Antwerp was of the 

 utmost importance and ranked immediately after that of London. 



This facility in the matter of obtaining supplies of the raw 

 material, combined with the cheapness of fuel and the abundance 

 of labor, caused the erection on Belgian territory of numerous 

 establishments where practically all articles of rubber were 

 manufactured, from tires to surgical supplies. 



In Antwerp there was a very powerful group of importers, 

 most of them quite well-known in the United States, for instance : 

 Grisar & Co., Bunge & Co., Osterrieth & Co., L. & W. Van der 

 Velde, G. & C. Kreglinger, who in 1913 had received about 8,000 

 tons of rubber coming from Africa and chiefly from the Congo, 

 3,000 tons arriving from the plantations of Ceylon, 1,000 tons 

 from the Straits Settlements, shipments from Borneo, the Ivory 

 Coast, and from Dahomey; in short, about 15,000 tons of rubber, 

 of which a certain quantity was reexported to France, Germany, 

 the United States, and above all to Russia. A considerable part, 

 4,000 to 5,000 tons, however, remained in the country to be con- 

 verted into manufactured products. For a population of 7,500.000 

 souls, this proportion was large, for France with 40,000,000 in- 

 habitants did not consume more than 16,000 tons of rubber, and 

 England, not more than 20,000 tons. This, therefore, shows the 

 industrial activity of the country. 



Under such circumstances, it is easily understood that at the 

 time of the German invasion, which came about as suddenly as 

 it was unexpected, the stocks of crude rubber lying at the docks 

 of Antwerp must have been considerable and may have run 

 into several thousands of tons. Thanks to the speedy and ef- 

 ficient measures taken by the owners, the greater part of this 

 merchandise was removed to England and escaped seizure by 

 the enemy. 



According to information which the Grisar company of Ant- 

 werp has kindly furnished, when the Germans occupied the great 

 I'lemish port, only 632 tons of crude rubber were captured, for 

 which, however, they paid with worthless requisition tickets. 

 This represents a dead loss of about 30 million francs to the 

 Belgian importers. A portion of this material was forwarded to 

 Germany, where the Continentale undertook to use it, and the 

 rest was sent to Brussels, where General von Bissing ordered a 

 military factory to be installed in the Jenatzky-Leleuz works, 

 for the purpose of manufacturing tires and tubes to supply the 

 automobile service of the campaigning armies. 



For the reasons previously mentioned, the Belgian rubber 

 industry in 1914 had attained a very high degree of prosperity. 

 This industry was created in 1852 when Gustave Luyck built his 

 works at Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, just outside of Brussels. Soon 

 after, in 1859, an American, J. G. Stickney, one-time partner of 

 Samuel Colt, uncle of Colonel Samuel P. Colt, of the United 

 States Rubber Co., established himself at Menin, and applied 

 to the treatment of rubber the new processes of vulcanization 

 that Goodyear had just discovered. The increasing popularity 

 of the bicycle and the development of the automobile afterward 

 led to the manufacture of various products in which ruljber was 

 used in a number of 

 ways. Finally Bel- 

 gium, like Goodrich, 

 produced "Ever y- 

 thing in Rubber." 



Next to the house 

 of Englebert & Co., 

 which is one of the 

 largest European 

 firms, were the works 

 of the Cie. Coloniale 

 du Caoutchouc, 

 Ghent ; the Societe 

 pour le Commerce et 

 ITndustrie du Ca- 

 outchouc, Alost and 

 Brussels ; Ghyssel & 

 Co., L e m b e c q ; 

 Hannot at Selessin. 

 Defauw Freres and 

 Latour, Capelle et 

 G o e t h a 1 s, Menin ; 

 Jenatzky - L e 1 e u z, 

 Brussels. At Brus- 

 sels, too, were established the Manufactures des Cables Elec- 

 triques et de Caoutchouc and finally, there was the factory of 

 the Societe des Cables Elcctriques, at Huysinghem. 



Among the concerns of minor importance may be noted Michel- 

 Jackson, Menin ; La Manufacture Beige de Caoutchouc, d' Ami- 

 ante ; the Societe Anversoise, Antwerp ; the Societe Anonyme de 

 Caoutchouc and the Cie. Generale pour la Fabrication du Caout- 

 chouc, Brussels ; Finet Ducobu, Boussu-Ies-Mons : Gevaert et 

 Fils, Deynze, and Lechat, at Ghent. 



In consequence of the German occupation, all these factories, 

 with one single exception, are in such a plight that it is abso- 

 lutely impossible for them to work, and thousands of laborers 

 formerly employed are out of work and penniless. Those fac- 

 tories that were near the firing line, like the factory at Alost 

 and the two establishments at Menin, no longer exist. They 



Major Leox Osterrieth. 



