December 1, 1914.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



159 



The India Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



CAPTURE OF GERMAN TRADE. 



THIS subject 1 note is attracting considerable attention in 

 America as well as in England, and it is obvious that the 



tw untries are engaged in serious, albeit friendly, 



rivalry. As I m [ndia Rubber World is quite open as to 

 America's aims and aspirations there is no reason why I should 

 not be equally frank in referring in a general way to what is 

 being done or aimed at on this side. One principal difficulty 

 seems to lie in the objection to imitating German methods, with 

 regard to which mi nation we have been brought to task time 

 after time by our consular service. 1 refer more particularlj to 

 the employment of travelers speaking foreign languages, the 

 issue of price lists in the language and currency of the foreign 

 countries, the supply of cheap qualities where better good 

 not desired and better credit accommodation. Whether the busi- 

 ness is worth having when these points are considered is a matter 

 on which much doubt exists in the minds of individual manu- 

 facturers, and it is they who have to decide, as, although the 

 Board of Trade is very active at present in its Intelligence De- 

 partment, this activity extends no further than the obtaining and 

 pa sing on of information. 



One of the latest bulletins issued by the board relates to the 

 export trade of Germany and Austria-Hungary in rubber goods 

 in neutral markets. This shows that the maximum amount of 

 trade which might be diverted to British manufacturers from 

 their German and Austrian rivals amounts to £870,000 ($4,350,000) 

 in the United Kingdom market and £2,819,600 ($14,098,000) in 

 Colonial and neutral markets. These figures, I must add, do n< I 

 include machinery belting, toys and tires for motor cars, motor- 

 cycles and bicycles. It is said that 75 per cent, of the solid bus 

 tires used in London are of German make, showing what an im- 

 portant opportunity exists for the expansion of British trade. 

 It would be interesting to know wdiat is the state of affairs in 

 the large German towns with regard to British tires — probably 

 it is much more in favor of the home country. 



On a previous occasion I referred to steam jointing materia! 

 such as Kling* rite as a material which had been largely imported 

 from Austria and Germany. Special efforts are now being put 

 forth to make this in England. The difficulty, however, is the 

 general lack of knowledge of the details of manufacture. I have 

 seen two or three advertisements lately for foremen who know 

 the details required, but I don't suppose it will prove easy to 

 get them. Even if such advertisements penetrated to the Con- 

 tinent and caught the eye of some workman not "called up" the 

 odds arc that if he managed to land in England he would speedily 

 find himself in an alien enemy detention camp. It seems difficult 

 for the general business man to understand that the knowledge 

 of how to make this, that or the other is not universal nor is it 

 often to be acquired from text books. Many people seem to 

 think that, given capital and better banking facilities, we can 

 forthwith if we choose make for ourselves almost everything in 

 manufactures that have hitherto been imported. '1 hey overlook 



the fact that many g Is are made behind closed doors and that 



the details of manufacture are by no means common property. 

 I don't know the exact position of the American works with re- 

 gard to this article, but, of course, they have long been to the 

 fore in steam packing material made otherwise than with sheet 

 asbestos as a base. 



With regard to the rubber toy branch, I have not heard of any 

 active steps being taken, by our rubber manufacturers, and it is 

 noteworthy that the Hammond Toy Manufacturing Co., Limited, 

 brought out in London in October, announces that at present it 

 does not propose to make rubber toys. 



iHE WAR AND RECLAIMED RUBBER. 



I he fact that reclaimed rubber and scrap have been lumped 

 with raw rubber on the conditional contraband list has naturally 

 been .i Mow to reclaimers, as a good deal of business is usually 

 doni with Germany. Strong n ations have been made to 



ii torn and excise authorities with a view to the obtai 



of licenses where the buyer in a neutral country guarantees that 

 the reclaimed will not leave his works. The matter has been 

 before the Privy Council, but the decision is adverse to the re- 

 claimers. 1 know of a case where a consignment of scrap 

 so-called scrap, to Rotterdam has led to the detention of the ship 

 at a British port other than that she sailed from, and at the 

 time of writing the situation is somewhat acute. 



It does not seem to be generally known that there are several 

 and by no means unimportant rubber factories in the Scandinavian 

 countries, and there is nothing necessarily suspicious, therefore, 

 about shipment of raw rubber and reclaimed to, say, Christiania, 

 not many miles from which capital are situated the Norske Galoge 

 Fabrik of Mjondalen, near Drammen. It might be thought that 

 reclaimers could make up their export losses by increased home 

 business owing to large government contracts being given out; 

 but here thej are hit again, and badly, because the government 

 specifications all put an embargo upon the use of reclaimed rub- 

 ber. These are the old established specifications, and it is officially 

 announced that they must be strictly adhered to even in this time 

 of rush and stress. Moreover, with the present price of raw 

 rubber there is little inducement for manufacturers to turn to 

 nis of the higher sort, if they were disposed to take the 

 risk of disregarding the regulations; and common qualities would 

 almost certainly be detected. Other business where reclaimed 

 rubber is often largely used is very quiet, both because of the loss 

 of export trade and also on account of the depressed state of 

 the cotton industry. The fact that recent specifications for in- 

 sulated wire in Germany forbid the use of reclaimed rubber has 

 also been announced. 



SOME RECENT PATENTS. 



In the October issue of The India Rubber World an interest- 

 ing detailed notice is given of French patent No. 460,273 for re- 

 claiming fabric impregnated with rubber. The subject is one 

 which has received a good deal of attention in the past in Eng- 

 land at the hands both of scrap dealers and reclaimers, 

 particularly with regard to waterproof fabric cuttings. No busi- 

 ness success, however, can be recorded, and the destruction of 

 the fabric is the universal procedure of reclaimers. One of the 

 difficulties has been the labor involved in sorting the woolen 

 the cotton fabrics, as in the case of scrap the recovered 

 cotton is valueless while wool scrap can always find a sale in 

 the district of Yorkshire associated with the "shoddy" industry. 

 The dealers, however, stipulate that the recovered fabric must 

 be absolutely free from rubber, and though this appears to have 

 been successfully achieved, the difficulty of obtaining sorted 

 woolen scrap at a reasonable price led to the abandonment of 

 the proposed enterprise. I notice that the French patent has 

 special reference to the reclaiming of fabric such as vulcanizing 

 cloths which contain but very little rubber. The rationale of the 

 -s is to soften and loosen the rubber by immersing the 

 fabric for two or three days in xylol. With regard to the use of 

 this solvent, the article mentioned above states that its price is 

 oxer a dollar a gallon and that it is now unobtainable. This, 

 however., is not the case in England, where tar distillation is 

 carried on on such a large scale. Leaving pure xylol out of ac- 

 count, it may be said that for any rubber solvent purposes or- 



