In England, the chief markets for raw rubber, wild and plantation, are London and Liverpool. The other principal importers are the United States, France, Italy, Belgium, and Russia. The making of rubber goods is an important industry in all these countries. America is well ahead as the biggest importer and manufacturer. Germany and Austria also have some fine factories, and both were big importers of raw rubber in pre-war days.

Rubber passes through many hands during its long journey to market. First it has to be sent to the chief port of the district where it is obtained. In Brazil this means a long journey by river direct to Para, or to Para via Manaos, with a break of journey at that busy up-country river port. Some of the Brazilian rubber has to be taken 250 miles in open boats, along a course that contains many stretches of dangerous rapids, and is blocked by a number of falls. It then has to go on by steamer for 500 miles before it gets to Para. And some of the Brazilian pelles are made into rafts, which are taken downstream to the nearest point where the pelles can be transferred to a steamer. In Ceylon, the principal distribution depÔt is the port of Colombo; in Malaya, most of the rubber leaves home via Singapore or Port Swettenham. Plantation rubber travels in packing-cases to local ports by rail, by river in little Noah’s Ark boats thatched with palm-leaves, or by road in bullock-carts. Both wild and plantation rubber get a break of journey at some local port, where there are warehouses in which the material can be stored in order that it may be submitted to a searching examination. It has to be weighed, sampled, and sorted according to quality. Plantation rubber can be very easily sampled and graded, because its form is such that it can be easily handled and seen through. But much of the wild product is sent to market in bulky masses. It is hard work cutting through the samples which are selected to undergo the test of seeing whether they are as good through and through as they are on the surface, or whether they contain any makeweight, such as bits of old iron or rope.

When the time comes for the raw material to continue its journey to market, it is put aboard an ocean-going steamer, which takes it overseas to the port where it is to be sold. Here again it is received into a warehouse. Once more it is weighed and sampled. The samples are sent to manufacturers, with a catalogue, stating that so many pounds of rubber, corresponding to such or such a sample, will be sold by auction on a certain date at a certain market. The rubber itself, in its packing-cases or sackcloth covering, is taken down to vaults, where it is stored until it is claimed by whoever buys it at the auction. Vaults are used as storage quarters for raw rubber in order that the material may be kept in an even temperature; for not until that material is within a rubber goods factory is it made climate-proof by vulcanization.

We can stand outside any rubber goods factory and watch the material being taken within its doors; that is to say, we can see big boxes and bulky canvas packages being taken in, and we know now that their contents consist of rubber pelles, crÊpe, sheets, biscuits, or blocks, which were once white milk, and are now a solid material that is yellow, brown, grey or black in colour.

To see what comes out of such factories we need only look around us at the common objects of everyday life. In the streets there are motor-cars, taxicabs, omnibuses, and bicycles running on wheels that have rubber tyres. On a wet day most of the people outdoors are wearing macintoshes, whilst some of them are further protected against the rain by galoshes; even on a fine day, rubber is worn a very great deal outdoors in the form of boot-and-shoe-heel protectors. In the house there are rubber washers on the taps, rubber rings on the stoppers of the ginger-beer bottles within the pantry, a teapot on the kitchen dresser has been mended with a rubber spout, and the children are playing with rubber balls, dolls, and toy balloons. In the hospital the doctors use surgical instruments that have important parts made of rubber, and many of the patients are provided with rubber necessaries, such as elastic stockings, made of rubber thread, for bad legs, and false teeth on a plate of vulcanite, which is chiefly rubber. Travellers take rubber baths and rubber cushions about with them. Golfers play with rubber balls. Machinery would be at a standstill without rubber belting. What an inconvenient world this must have been to live in less than a hundred years ago, when anything made of rubber was a novelty! And there is no telling how much more comfortable and convenient rubber may make life in days not so very long ahead.

Knowing the form in which rubber goes into the manufacturer’s possession, and a few, at any rate, of the many forms in which it next makes a public appearance, we are naturally very anxious to learn how such transformations take place. It is impossible for me to take you over a rubber goods factory, much as I should like to do so. All such establishments keep very strictly to the rule of “No admittance except on business.” There are secrets to be hidden, not from the public, but from a rival manufacturer. You must quite understand that no offence is meant to you personally when no exception can be made in anyone’s favour in case some rival’s friend should slip through.

You need not be very disappointed—enough is known of the way rubber goods are made to satisfy much of your curiosity.

The manufacturer must always bear in mind that he must fulfil two important conditions: first, his goods must serve the purpose for which they are intended, and next, the price which customers will pay has to be taken into consideration, with the idea of producing the best wearing article that can be made for the money.

According to the use to which rubber is to be put, it has to be mixed with certain other materials, to make a material that is neither too heavy nor too light, too hard nor too soft, too tough nor too elastic, to fulfil its purpose. And according to the price at which the goods are to be sold, certain other materials must be mixed with the rubber. It is with regard to the proportions in which such mixings are made that the manufacturers have secrets of their own which they specially want to guard. The compounding materials consist of such things as zinc oxide, white lead, and magnesia. Always to the “dough,” “mixing,” or “batch,” as the compound is called, some sulphur is added to bring about vulcanization. A colouring ingredient is also put into some of the dough, according to the taste and fancy of customers for whom goods are going to be made. The dough is worked smooth, and is then put into moulds shaped like the required articles, or built up into shape and form. The goods are generally vulcanized by steam heat. Much skill, together with great care and patience, goes to the making of all rubber goods; and when such goods have to be canvas backed, or to be made of a material that is bodily a mixture of thread and rubber, the process of manufacture calls for particularly good workmanship.

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