662 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August 1, 1919. 



nical matters, the markets and so on, l)ut rather on labor prob- 

 lems and where they are going to land our past industrial posi- 

 tion. There is no doubt that the borrowed money so lavishly 

 paid by all the belligerents to war workers has had a very 

 unsettling effect upon labor, and it seems to me that itiuch more 

 might have been done by speeches or the issue of free pam- 

 phlets to bring home to the people certain of the laws— if we 

 may call them so — of economics. 



The opinion is largely held that if a goverim.cnt can find at 

 once as inany millions as it wants for war time, it may as well 

 go on doing so in peace time and let everybody be well off. Very 

 little has been done to controvert such fallacious reasoning, and 

 in general too much of the talking has been left to the labor 

 agitator. I gather from the article referred to that nationaliza- 

 tion of industries is being advocated in America, so we seem to 

 be in the same boat, though America has this advantage that 

 her labor does not make a fetish of restricted output such as is 

 prevalent in this country. 



BRITISH PETROLEUM. 



It looks as if the petroleum requirement of the rubber trade 

 will soon be satisfied from home stills. The large refinery of 

 the Anglo-Persian Co. at Swansea is nearing completion, and 

 there is a lot of excitement about the government borings in 

 I>erbyshire, where the oil is now flowing in quantity from one 

 of the wells. This oil is not to be distilled in the local sur- 

 roundings where it is obtained, but is to be sent to Scotland 

 for treatment at the headquarters of the Scotch oil shale indus- 

 try. As a solvent I may say that petroleum spirit has never 

 been generally used in our rubber trade, preference having been 

 given to coal-tar naphtha and shale naphtha which have always 

 been available in quantity. 



SYNTHETIC RESINS. 



The paragraph on "Redmanol" in the June issue of The Indi.\ 

 Rubber World is of more interest to the rubber trade, more par- 

 ticularly the vulcanite branch, than is perhaps generally recog- 

 nized. Since the first patents of Bakeland in 1909, a consider- 

 able amount of work has been done in America and Germany on 

 synthetic resin and quite recently research has been devoted 

 to the subject in England. Whether there are any patents that 

 would withstand an action at law seems rather doubtful. There 

 are now, however, a large number of processes based on the 

 original Bakeland reaction of condensing phenol with formalde- 

 hyde. Redmanol, I gather, is formed from phenol and hexa- 

 methylene tetramine, and its physical properties appear to be of 

 a high order. 



The list of uses to which these synthetic resins will be put is 

 undoubtedly destined to be far longer than is at present the case, 

 although they have already replaced vulcanite in many of its 

 applications to quite a large extent. It is a matter of scientific 

 interest how very completely the phenol or carbolic acid loses 

 its distinguishing smell when it is converted into the hard resin- 

 ous body. Under certain conditions of use, however, such as 

 excessive heat and friction, the smell reasserts itself, and I have 

 heard of complaints being made on account of this. Like rub- 

 ber, these synthetic resins can be compounded with mineral mat- 

 ter or other inert organic matters though this has to be done 

 before the material attains the condition in which it is described 

 as being as hard as steel. 



MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN NOTES. 

 PIRELLI CABLE SHIP LOST. 



OX June 17 the cable ship CUta di Milano. formerly the prop- 

 erty of Messrs. Pirelli, of Milan, Italy, and Southampton, 

 England, struck a rock and sank in the Straits of Messina with a 

 loss of twenty-six lives. Am.ong the deaths reported are those 

 of Italo Brunelli, general inspector of Italian Posts and Tele- 

 graphs ; Professor Jona, one of the leading authorities in high- 



tension work, and Signor Pinelli, of the Pirelli staff of experts. 

 Through the prompt assistance of other vessels 101 of the 

 crew were saved. When Italy entered the war the Government 

 took over the Pirelli cableship, and at the time of the disaster 

 Messrs. Pirelli had chartered her from the Italian Navy in order 

 to lay a submarine cable for the Italian Government. 



GERMAN SYNTHETIC RUBBER. 



Early during the war period German manufacturers were 

 overwhelmed with the call for batteries for submarines. The 

 larger types required batteries of 220 cells of 4,500 hours' 

 capacity, weighing 80 tons and costing about 250,000 marks. 

 During 1917 there were placed in service 86 submarines, and 

 in 1918, 10 to 14 under-sea boats were added monthly. With 

 practically no crude rubber, the need was serious, but P. Bayer 

 & Co. produced a synthetic rubber which successfully substi- 

 tuted the genuine gum in the manufacture of battery boxes. 

 This firm produced about 150 tons monthly, at a cost of 37 

 marks per kilo ($3.96 per pound). 



The "Tagliche Rundchau" states that the Bavarian Postal 

 Administration has been experimenting with tires of synthetic 

 rubber on its post automobiles, and has pronounced the result 

 satisfactory, as far as service is concerned, but that the cost 

 of raw material is much higher than that of natural rubber. 

 The material is manufactured in Bavaria exclusively by the 

 clecirotcchtiical industry. 



A RUBBER FACTORY IN CHINA. 



The proposed rubber factory in China will use Malayan plan- 

 tation rubber and Chinese cotton fabrics and manufacture 

 rubber boots and shoes and hard and soft rubber sheets for 

 electrical rubber goods. The manufacture of cycle and motor 



car lubes and tyres is contemplated. 



Regarding the pamphlet entitled "Conditions Governing Singa- 

 pore Standard Qualities," issued by the Chamber of Commerce 

 at Singapore, Dr. A. Van Rossem, director of the Netherlands 

 Government Information Service, states that the following 

 specifications are apparently based upon a superficial examina- 

 tion of the rubber. 



the discretion of ttie 

 ■s Committee. 



Those engaged in the examination of crude rubber on a 

 technical basis have come to the conclusion that the quality 

 of crude rubber cannot be judged by its outside appearance only; 

 on the contrary, in many cases the quality of the rubber can be 

 judged only by vulcanization experiments. 



The best proof is that the producers in Java, Sumatra, and 

 also the Federated Malay States, conduct rubber experiment 

 stations to improve upon the manner of preparation by making 

 technical examinations of the prepared product. Both the 

 Centraal Rubberstation at Buitenzorg and the Department of 

 Agriculture at Kuala Lumpur (Federated Malay States) possess 

 a complete technical installation for the examination of rubber, 

 while the General Experiment Station of the A. V. R. O. S. at 

 Medan. Sumatra, is installing a laboratory for the benefit of 

 the rubber plantations. 



In this connection, a report from E. Baillaud, Secretaire 

 General au Conseil d'.\dministration de ITnstitut Colonial de 

 Marseille, concerning the question how Marseilles could be made 

 a first-class crude rubber port after the war, stated that one of 

 the first steps to be taken is the establishment of a service for 

 the technical examination of crude rubber. 



