SYNTHETIC RUBBER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 15, 10 September 1912, Page 7

SYNTHETIC RUBBER.

A NOTE OF WARNING. We ("Financial. News") have been favoured with an advance proof of "Truth" of its criticism on the prospectus of the Synthetic Products OomI pany, from which we made the folj lowing extracts: — In view of the great names associated with these wonderful discoveries, and with the prominence given to the-m in the Press throughout the country, it was with no small amount of curiosity that I attended last week's laboratory demonstration, and I must admit that if I left the City road-cel-lars—the Itome of the rubber bogy—with precious little respect for the substance Mr Strange was pleased to call rubber, I was not without admiration of that gentleman's marvellous imagination. Although column after column has appeared in the press about this new product, I was assured that the total output of the factory to date did not exceed 21b, and, stranger still, that the product had not been put to a single physical or mechanical test, the experiments so far having been wholly chemical. It appeared to me inconceivable that the product about which so much has been written should not have been compared with natural rubber—say in a .single stretching test; but I was emphatically told that on this point—the chief point so far as commercial value is

concerned—no information was available.

Fortunately, I was afterwards allowed to handle a small piece of vulcanised "pure synthetic," and in face of the unconvincing answers to my questions, I was not surprised, on simply bending the material between my thumb and forefinger, to see it break, readily and cleanly, into two distinct pieces. This miserable substance, which has been trumpeted as "tenacious," "nervy," etc., is no more equal to fine hard Para or plantation rubber than brown paper is the equal of shoe leather. To discuss the cost of the production of such rubbish, and to argue as to the length of time it will take before it competes with natural rubber, is to throw dust in the eyes of the public who are asked to subscribe for s'karcs in the new company. Before going to the public for so large a sum as £150,000, it might have been expected that a respectable quantity of the material would have been manufactured and thoroughly tested by trade experts, and that ii Would have been submitted to the Mincing Lane dealers for valuation. The result of any such test would, in my opinion, ihave proved without doubt that the material is valueless, and that commercially we are no nearer the synthetic production of rubber than w r e were thirty yearsj'ago. . . . ■

The manner in which the names of distinguished scientists have" been used in connection,with this promotion lalwls Mr Strange p§ a dangei-pus enthusiast, and investors will be foolish in the extreme if they entrust the new company with a single penny of their money. .', ~...--, ■ ',£, ~ ->