THE RUBBER INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1923, Page 4

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY

\ WONDERFUL PRODUCT. (Sydney Herald). This year iho great rubber industry is lelcbraiing tiio centenary of its birth a- a prohtable eoueorn. Like ;> gourd iu the night it sprang from the humblest origin to bo one ut the largest, most comprehensive, rind must indispensable adjuncts of mtr modern

civilisation. Over 10(1 years ago the inhabitants of llayti were seen by ( olumhus playing with rttblier balls made from the juice of a unlive tree. The Spaniards in Mexico used it lor making waterproof their mantillas and cloaks, but it was not till IMo that, rubber became commercially profitable through its treatment with naphtha by the chemist whose name is immortalised in the .Macintosh coat. Rubber was manufactured two or three years prior to that date, when a pro-

cess was invented for culling rubber into thread, hut the in connection with rubber is the one mimed when Macintosh's firm was established in Manchester, to he materially strengthened shortly afterwards |,y the addition of Thomas Hancock, who invented the. process by which straps of pure rubber were masticated or kneaded into a solid block free from air ami moisture, and the quality thereby considerably improved. Another important date in the his-

tory of rubber is Is fit, when Goodyear made the famous experiment which resulted in t.he discovery of the vulcanis-

ing process by which rubber nnif sulphur were converted at a high temperature into the clastic, enduring, and tempera-ture-defying material now in almost universal tt-e. It took another qttat ter of n century he fore the industry was introduced into Australia, tin- first factory for the manufacture of waterproof garments having been started in .Melbourne in I'-Tfl by the late Rat nett (da-s, -whose firm established the first rubber works at Foot serav, near .Melbourne, in fsps There are now (our such factories in the ('omnioiiwcallh - two at Foolscray and two near Sydney -—which turns out first-class rubber tyres and tubes, and other kinds ol rubber goods, obtaining a fair share of the business ol the Commonwealth, and expert mg rubber goods to the value of about Col HUM if) to Xew Zealand, where the industry has not set

made a start. It' importance to Australia may he gauged from the fact that there arc between 10 anil of) rubber (mostly repairing) mills through, out the Common"onltli, including the factories referred to above, with plant and machinery valued at t(!2o.(K)(i, and villi about 1(1(10 employees drawing over hall a million slerling ill wages am! ilaitc-, while the value of the 1.1, r0m I neatly Cd,000,000. On the o-.h-.v hand v,e import about CC,000,000 M-.it it. bringing in ovi’t L'AOO.IIOO ye.*r in taxation to the revenue, the principal countries from which we impml being the ITiited Stales. Canada, ; the Fluted Kingdom. France and Italy. | IX ALMOST UNIVERSAL FSK. Few people realise how largo a part the waterproof teats i.f the rubber lie? play in their daily liv**-. After sleeping on a rubber mattress they spring out of bed on to a i libber mat, put a rubber plug in the bath, clean their teeth with a rubber brush, and pari their hair with a rubber comb. They then Matter the garden with a rubber Ito-e, keeping their hands dry nitli rubber gloves, drink their tea otti ol a teapot filled with a rubber spout, and doit a rubber apron v hen doing t heir household work". They wear rubber heels, keep llteir tobacco d.y iu rttbb..*i pouches, then money to rubber purges, and motor m bike to their dc-t tun t ion on rubber lyres. The machinery at the lactoiy m here liies "ink is run with rubber belting, the cable through which the managei I'a-he- his message across the ca i*. in-illaled by mean- of rubber. am! iit the elect! ical ap.iliancc. te-e l in hibttsicc ■ ,i well a . ig n,.;.hi al .m-l surgical appiiamc.) rubber [day- an important part. When his daughters go Stirling they pul: on prettily rtthh.gcd caps to prevent their flowing links (whie!l are probably bobbed) irout getting wet. When ihov turn m at night they keep their ln.-i< . wartn "ith lint water in rubber hag... Humid I,he house catch lire when tiles arc asleep the local brigade "ill promptly extinguish the flame. h\ pouring water oil the binning linethrough rubber tubes. Rubber i- u-cd in tt hundred other forms, and bv a recent discovery is about to revolutionise the paper industry, so that the paper of the futinc will lie far stronger, tougher, and more untorpreol than it has been in the past, li f’RRFR INDIGENOUS ,'X A I'STRAI.IA.

*"0 lar Australia litis had to tlepetiil mi oilier countries for her mule rubber, most of which comes from Rra/.il. the Straits Settlements, and the Dutch East Indies. ( evlon a,ml Papua also send us a fair quantity, and "e get sente from India, uhtle Xeu Guinea. the l oiled States ol America ami even lb.* Solomon Islands eoiitribtt 1 ' a share. We ini]iort none from Africa, which has gone off as a rub-ber-supplying liebl since the terrible days when Leopold was King, African rubber I icing generally considered somewhat inferior to that coming Iroin Malaya or I’riml. Rut, although Australia has so far imported till her crude rubber, there is no reason svltv she should always do so, lor the rubber tree is indigenous in some parts of tropical Australia, and, like our indigenous cotton, has been officially tested and found to be equal to any commercial product of the kinrl on the market tit the present time. This is known to very fen in Australia, hut I tint itilormcd by a most competent authority that it is a fact all the same, and moreover that rubber can be produced here speedily and economically. and is capable of giving three crops per annum. We may not have slie!i enormous rubber trees as m.tv be seen iu the Mat iot a forests of West *\ I licit, "here they grow to the prodigious height- of 800 feet with a girth of s() inches, hut the quality is declared to he equal to that of the best. The Australian variety is more like a shrub, not that it resembles in any way the famous shrub in Texas and Mexico (tho Gttayule), iu which the rubber is dispersed through the mass of the woody fibre. The Australian species is a true rubber tree, having the latex or milky juice lying between the hark and the in-ide layer ot the tree. Ihe method of obtaining the latex here ditiers from that i’olloM'cd in connection with the "wild" or para rubber of Hrar.il, where tlie tree is simply tapped and the juice runs into dishes in its raw state. l'he process hitherto pursued in connection with the newly-found Australian rubber is similar to that followed in Mexico. The shrub is cut doM'it. leaving the root to supply an-

other crop later on, and the prdouct is taken from the paddock to speeial-ly-eonstrueted machines, where the rubber is crushed out of it like sugar out of the cane. A specimen of Australian rubber unis shown me by the expert to whom ! have referred, and it hud the two principal characteristics of good rubber—mechanical strength and elasticity. When lighted it had the unmistakable rubber smell. In Queensland the rubber tree lias been looked upon .as a pest, and one of the principal northern towns is said to he built upon an indigenous rubber growth. The present supply of raw rubber throughout the world is so large ami the price so low thai there is Hot much likelihood id anyone attempting to develop the Australian product '.ill the market haconsiderably improved. Inti a syndicate iu Western Australia is about to plant sevetal thousand acres uith the rubber tree. This Mould probably he the lievett Erazil leiisis, which proved such a wonderful success when transplanted about 30 years ago in -Malaya and Ceylon that by lar the largest proportion of the crude rubber used tn-day is obtained from thence. There appears to he no reason why Australia should not meet with a similar

R F ISI’.ER WIDFLV 1)1 F FUSED. The latex or milky juice which contains the rubber is tt characteristic of a large number ol trees, shrubs, vines, climbers, and oilier plants in both the tropical and temperate /.ones, belonging to totally different orders. such as nettles, poppies, lotuses, anil the castor oil plant, iu addition to Hie Fuphnrbiaeeae named alter an Altaian physician.) or Spurgeworis, to "hah the I’artt rubber tree belongs, j but only those of the tropical or inter- ! tropical /ones are commercially vutiiI able. The exact inaction pertortned j bv the secretion is not even yet understood. Some regal d it as of no Use to the plant whatever, while others think it mav lie partially useful. At ait,\ rate, ii the rubber tree does not profit In it. man does! (Outa-percha from lun Malar Words meaning gum ami tree), principally obtained from .Malaga, and balata. a kind of gutta-percha, obtained from Rrili'h Cuiatta, resemble rubber tor caoutchouc its the Peruvians call it. in many Mays, except iu being ehi'lie. but they have elhet eharucleristies which make them extremely useful. Rubber is generally called gum In America and in Furopo. but it differs essentially from glim, which is soluble in water, wlierearubber i- not. Ihe Germans succeeded during the war in making tyres or .vniln tie or artificial rid.her ai a I acting- in fb llf tie Id, where, by the way. the famous horses were seen by .Maeterlinck to rap out answers to the most difficult met honmtieal problems with their hoofs. One of these tyres is said in have run over 11‘,0(UI miles, bur -ii far artificial rubber does nol. appear to have been made a ennimor-i-ial success. In another decade or two, what with her wool and her wheat, aided l.y her tot ton, her tobacco. and her rubber -the three last almost entirely new products so far as we are concerned--Australia should, if etdy labour Mere reasonable and our leaders "ere v ise, make a sudden leap forward iu the great career t-u which she is a- -u redly destined in lhe routing linig.