120 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December 1, 1914. 



Belgium and Its Rubber Trade. 



HOWEVER opinions may differ among Americans in re- 

 gard to the motives and merits of the great Europi 

 conflict — though probably American opinions differ very 

 little ne pi ase ■ t the I 



situation regarding which there is 

 no difference of opinion, and thai 

 is the pitiful estate of Belgium, 

 which, at peace with all its neigh- 

 bors and without any quarrel in any 

 part of the world, has been ground 

 between the upper and the nether 

 millstone and brought into a con- 

 ditio in i d almost total ruin. 



It is hardly neci to draw 



any picture here of the universal 

 distress and misery prevailing in 

 that unhappy Kingdom, as the 

 dailj press has done tins work very 

 thoroughly during the last three 

 months and every tourist who has 

 returned to these shores from any 

 part of Belgium has added to the 

 sad recital. Practically all the able- 

 bodied men among Belgium's popu- 

 lation of seven and a half million 

 people have been drafted into 

 service, and the women and chil- 

 dren who are left behind, man} of 

 them, can find shelter only in the 

 debris of their former homes and 

 have little to subsist upon except 

 the hope of relief from \rm ri 

 rous contributions 



Practically all industries in Bel- 

 gium, for the time being, have bei n 

 destroyed, except such as may be 

 turned into military channels. The rubber industry is no excep- 

 tion. As an illustration of its present condition the case of the 

 Englebert com- 

 pany, of Liege, 

 might be cited, 

 whose New Yi irk 

 represen t a t i v e 

 states that noth- 

 ing has been 

 heard from the 

 factory since the 

 German bom- 

 b a r d m e n t, but 

 through other 

 channels it has 

 become know n 

 that this factory, 

 which before the 

 ripening of hos- 

 tilities was en- 

 gaged in making 

 tires, tubes, ten- 

 nis balls, mechan- 

 ical goods and 

 druggists' sun- 

 dries, has been 



King Albert of Belgium 



Receiving Rubber at Antwerp. 



the other rubber manufacturers in Belgium is difficult to obtain, 



lut it is quite safe to say that none of them are operating 



ep1 those that are being operated for military purposes. 



The rubber industry in Belgium 

 was in a prosperous condition up to 

 the first of August, when the Ger- 

 mans invaded that Kingdom. Bel- 

 man rubber manufacture began as 

 far back as 1852, which was only 

 a lew years later than the begin- 

 ning of rubber manufacture in the 

 United State- In that year a fac- 

 tory was established at Molenbeek 

 St. Jean by Gustave Luyckx, of 

 Brussels. A very interesting phase 

 of Belgian rubber history lies in the 

 fact that the second factory to be 

 established in that country — which 

 began operations in the late SO's — 

 was founded by an American, and 

 quite a remarkable American, 

 Jonathan Gage Stickney, who was 

 born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 

 1819, became associated with Samuel 

 Colt, the inventor of the Colt re- 

 volver and an uncle of the present 

 president of the United States 

 Rubber Co. About the middle of 

 the last century Mr. Stickney went 

 to Europe to establish factories for 

 the manufacture of the Colt fire- 

 arms, but through some misunder- 

 standing with his American prin- 

 cipals, he left their employ and took 

 a pleasure trip to Paris, where he 

 fell in with Charles Goodyear, then 

 making his famous rubber exhibit at the Paris Exposition. Stick- 

 ney at once saw the possibilities in this new industry and under 



Goodyear's direc- 

 tion erected a 

 factory in France 

 for rubber manu- 

 facture. Soon 

 after, about 1859. 

 he built a second 

 rubber factory, 

 this time locating 

 at Menin, Bel- 

 gium, only a few- 

 miles southeast 

 of Ypres, which 

 has figured so 

 conspicuously in 

 the present war. 

 He not only 

 erected the build- 

 ing but he built 

 his own washers, 

 mixers and cal- 

 enders and all the 

 rubber machin- 

 ery, and he did 



seized by the Germans and is employed in the manufacture of it so well that it was still in active operation in the same mill 

 tires for the Kaiser's military motors. Accurate news from 50 years later. 



