June 1, 1919.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



477 



have been completely destroyed by the bombardments and not 

 a stone has been left standing. As for the others, even if the 

 mam walls still stand, the reserves of raw material, the stocks 

 of manufactured goods, and every bit of machinery have been 

 methodically removed by the Germans. Mills, calenders, mixers, 

 tables, presses, vulcanizers, molds, mechanical and electric 

 motors, generators, were first concentrated at Brussels, and 

 finally taken to Germany, to be distributed among the manufac- 

 turers beyond the Rhine. Except the works of Jenatzky-Leleuz, 

 which by special favor have been spared, nothing to-day re- 

 mains of the other establishments but the four walls. 



"Alas !" said Oscar Englebert during an interview, "the 

 Boches have occupied our factories since the beginning of the 

 war, and God knows how we have had to sufifer from this 

 occupation ! At the outset, when they considered themselves 

 victorious and expected to annex Belgium, their depredations 

 were slight. They contented themselves with occupying the 

 buildings, organizing a storehouse for tires, installing photo- 

 graphic workshops of the army, and creating barracks for tran- 

 sient soldiers, where sometimes as many as 2,000 men were 

 lodged. During this relatively quiet period, the General Stafif 

 was content with ordering the removal from our works of all 

 the stocks of pneumatic and solid tires, as well as tubes. After 

 the repulse on the Marne and the halt on the Yser, all the raw 

 materials were requisitioned, from rubber to sulphur, from the 

 reclaimed rubber and factices to the talc, from the fabrics to the 

 steel wires. Then came the turn of the heavy machinery; mills 

 and calenders, steam boilers and kettles, all were shipped to 

 Germany. To remove these enormous pieces of machinery, the 

 walls had to be broken, the foundations had to be dynamited, 

 so that the factories are at present in a state of complete deva- 

 station." 



The proprietors were not to be spared a single annoyance. 

 The head of the concern, Oscar Englebert, was brought before 

 the Prussian court martial on the charge of having concealed a 

 part of his stocks and thereby disobeyed the orders of the 

 Kommandatur, and it was due only to his rights as Consul of 

 Spain, at Liege, that he escaped deportation to North Germany. 

 Despite these experiences, M. Englebert has lost none of his 

 energy, and is actively engaged in restoring his factory, which 

 he hopes to be able to put in working condition within a few 

 months. 



The same condition is found at the Colonial Rubber Co., 

 Ghent, which used to manufacture tires. The buildings are left 

 standing, but the stocks and machines have disappeared. 



Of the factories of the Societe pour le Commerce et I'lndus- 

 trie du Caoutchouc, the one at Alost no longer exists ; the other, 

 at Brussels, has been deprived of its heavy machinery and all its 

 belting. The smaller pieces, the tools and molds, have been 

 broken up and sent away to be melted. 



The conduct of the Germans with regard to the works of 

 Ghyssel & Co., at Lembecq, was singular. During the period 

 in which they believed that they were victorious, they enlarged 

 the works and considerably developed the manufacture of tires ; 

 but as soon as the tide of war began to turn against them, they 

 hastened to remove all the machinery and implements, leaving 

 nothing but the buildings. 



The structures belonging to the two factories of the Cables 

 Electriques at Brussels and at Huysinghem are intact also, but 

 all supplies and the stocks of copper wire have been removed 

 and a great part of the apparatus has been broken up and sent 

 away to be melted. 



In the midst of all this devastation, the buildings of the Jenatz- 

 ky-Leleuz works at Brussels alone have been left with their 

 machinery intact. 



A very rough estimate places the total damage caused to the 

 Belgian rubber industry by the occupation, the requisitions, and 

 the thefts by the German army, at one hundred million francs. 

 Should not the Huns reimburse this amount? 



URGENT NEED OF RAW MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT FOR THE 

 RESUMPTION OF INDUSTRY IN BELGIUM. 



The urgent need of raw materials and equipment in reestablish- 

 ing Belgian industries is emphasized in a report by Trade Com- 

 missioner Harry T. Collins, Brussels, Belgium. The estimate 

 given in the following abstract is based on the requirements for 

 the first three months of resumption of industry, covering the 

 principal articles of rubber or containing rubber. Materials 

 which are undoubtedly being obtained in Belgium have been 

 omitted. 



Rubber for joints metric fans 15 



Waste for packing 15 



Insulated wire meters 240,000 



Mining cables 100,000 



Rubber belting 18,500 



Glass industry: 



Rubber belting meters 425 



Sheet rubber square meters 54t 



Rubber check valves number 448 



Textile industries: 



Rubber rollers metric tons 3,160 



Paper industry: 



Rubber cloths for machines number 14 



Rubber guide belts meters 70 



Rubber belts 15,000 



Rubber blocks metric tons 6 



Rubber sheets 6 



AVIATOR'S WIRELESS-TELEPHONE APPARATUS. 



Some weeks ago the Secretary of the Navy conversed with an 

 aviator in flight, 150 miles distant from the Secretary's desk. 

 This broke all former records, which were from 40 to 50 miles. 



Section of Transmitter, 

 ^11 l\\I^G Rlbber Parts. 



\ sectional view of the 

 lusirument employed by 

 the aviator shows it to 

 contain a hard-rubber 

 mouth-piece, an internal 

 soft-rubber diaphragm to 

 exclude dust and water 



(.C) Undcr-.cood S- Underv.ood, N. v. ^^^^^ j,^g transmitting 



Telephone Head-Piece. mechanism, and soft- 



rubber cushions bearing against the face of the aviator who wears 

 the instrument held in place by elastic straps, as shown in the 

 picture. By means of a device of this sort, Lieutenant Herbert E. 

 Metcalf delivered President Wilson's cable address 3,000 feet in 

 the air. 



SULPHUR PRODUCTION TO INCREASE. 



The Texas Gulf Sulphur Co. has opened two new sulphur 

 wells at Gulf, Matagorda County, Texas, and is developing very 

 large deposits of sulphur similar to those already operated in 

 Louisiana and Texas. Over 1,000 tons are now being received 

 daily. This makes three sulphur companies producing from the 

 Gulf region : the Union Sulphur Co., which is the original and 

 which developed the Frasche process ; the Freeport Sulphur Co., 

 which has been in successful operation for several years, and the 

 Gulf company, which has just come into operation. 



PHILIPPINE IMPORTS OF RUBBER GOODS. 



Imports of rubber and rubber goods into the Philippine Islands 

 during 1918 are given in recently published statistics as follows: 

 rubber and manufactured rubber goods, excepting tires, $581,559; 

 automobiles and parts, including tires, $3,262,832.50. Attention 

 is directed to this evidence of the buying power of the people 

 oi the Philippines, numbering about 10,000,000. 



