The Rubber Industry.

King Country Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 909, 23 September 1916, Page 7

The Rubber Industry.

Though the rubber industry is not a new one, the advent of motors has bo changed the trade as to make it practically a modern enterprise. Up to 1875, or thereabouts, about 5,000 tons of caoutchouc sufficed for the world's requirements, and this moderate quantity was manipulated and turned into the manufactured articl« by a hundred and fifty rubber factories in Europe and America. Tht raw material came chiefly from South! America, where it was collected from the native forests, and the idea of supplementing the quantity by cultivated rubber existed in the minds of few people. The estimated annual consumption of rubber, owing to the development of the electrical industry and introduction of cycle and motor tyres, is now about 120,000 tons, and to meet such a demand the rubber tree is being cultivated in every part of the tropical world suitable for its culture, as rapidly as can be done. Public companies have acquired and developed rubber estates in Ceylon, Java, Samoa, the Malay States, the Straits Settlement, and Africa. Of late the price of rubber has risen somewhat, after a considerable fall, but as many of the plantation companies have been able to reduce working expenses, the present tendency of profits and dividends i 8 in the direction of increase. The ultimate outlook is that the demand will expand at least as fast as the supply. No substitute, which can be applied equally well to all the purposes for which rubber is used, has yet appeared upon the market, but in any case the margin of profit on natural rubber ought to be large enough to allow of a diminution of price and yet attract capital. The various forms of rubber made are sheet, biscuit, crepe, worm, lace, flake, and scrap rubber. The importation of raw rubber into the United Kingdom averaged for the years 1898 1904 some 450,000 cwt., but the £gurei for 1914 show an importation of 1,352,500 cwts.