Production.

Oversea
firms manu.
facturing

n the
United
Kingdom.

75. Details of the production of rubber manufactures in the

United Kingdom for the last year in which a Census of Production
was taken, 1924, are given in Appendix III. Firms that made
their Returns on Schedules for the Rubber Trade in 1924 employed
39,350 operative staff and 7,215 managerial, scientific and clerical
staffs. Their output was valued at £23,309,000, namely Tyres
£10,382,000; Rubber Sheet and Thread £907,000 (part of which
may have been duplicated in the value of other goods) ; Other
Rubber Goods £9,715,000 ; Waterproofing, etec., done for the trade
(chiefly for merchants) £514,000 ; Goods not of rubber £1,791,000.
In addition waterproof garments to the value of £1,606,000 were
returned by firms engaged in the Clothing Trades, and games,
toys, etc., to the value of £800,000 by firms engaged in the Games
and Toys Trades. The aggregate value of rubber goods of all kinds
(except insulated cables and wires and some surgical and scientific
instruments) made in 1924 was thus between 23 and 24 millions
sterling. The value of production in the rubber industry returned
in the United Kingdom Census of 1907 was £8,908,000. The
rubber industry of the United Kingdom thus increased between
1907 and 1924 by some 160 per cent. As in 1924 the price of raw
rubber was only some 25 per cent. of what it had been in 1907,
the volume of output had probably increased tenfold. Although no
details of production for years subsequent to 1924 are available,
the figures of absorption of raw rubber indicate that in 1928, the
output of rubber factories in the United Kingdom was more than
double that in 1924. Further expansion occurred during 1929, due
largely to the great development in the tyre industry in this country.
The India Rubber Manufacturers’ Association ‘estimate that, in
1928, some 60,000 workpeople were employed in 120 factories in the
United Kingdom. Forty of these 120 factories probably account
for 90 per cent. of the output.
76. The most notable feature of the rubber tyre industry of the
United Kingdom is that, since 1927, several of the more important
foreign tyre manufacturers have set up factories in the United
Kingdom. Those that have already done so are :—
Goodrich Tyre Co.; Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co. (1922),
Ltd., at Brentford; Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Co. (Great
Britain), T.td., at Wolverhampton; Indian Tyre & Rubber
Co. (Great Britain), I.td., at Inchinnan; Industrial Rubber
Manufacturers, Ltd., licensed to make and sell Miller tyres;
Michelin & Co., at Stoke-on-Trent: Pirelli, T.td.. at Burton-
nm-Trent.
These companies are in a position to use their branches in the
United Kingdom to supply Empire markets and those which are