+] 
or of 
with 
hat 
pany 
need 
{ the 
1927, 
ories 
oorts 
than 
5yTes 
ater 
ome 
also 
heir 
Tyre 
d to 
ries 
and, 
ular 
ther 
pply 
<ing 
1n- 
—18 
the 
in 
are 
old 
“hey 
aeds 
ater 
sber 
vfer- 
Chis 
h in 
tion 
NI1l- 
for 
ons 
and 
she 
ing 
countries. These figures afford the only means of measuring the 
progress of the rubber manufacturing industries as a whole, whether 
in competing countries or in the world. ~We then compare the 
exports of the most important manufacturing countries, notably 
the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and Germany in 
tyres, ‘‘ mechanical > rubber, footwear and miscellaneous goods. 
Owing to the peculiarity in its statistics the exports from France 
cannot be put in the same mould for purposes of comparison 
and have to be treated separately. We then give further notes on 
the industries in these countries as well as in Italy, Belgium, Japan, 
and Australia, in which the manufacture is of importance but the 
sxport trade is not so large as in those first mentioned. We close 
the survey with some brief notes on labour, standardisation, re- 
search and tendencies in the Rubber Industry. 
IV.—.GROWTH OF THE RUBBER MANUFACTURING 
INDUSTRY. 
16. The rubber manufacturing industry as we know it to-day 1s 
»f comparatively recent growth. It is true that it had its historical 
beginnings in the remote past. Mr. Porritt in his ** Early History 
of the Rubber Industry *’* states, on the authority of the historian 
Antonio de Herrera, that Christopher Columbus, during his voyage 
to the New World between 1493 and 1496, observed the natives of 
Haiti using in their games balls prepared from the gum of a tree. 
Whatever justification there is for the assumption that this was 
rubber, it is certain that the Spanish conquerors in Central and 
South America speedily became acquainted with the local custom 
of coating garments with rubber and of fashioning from it crude 
articles such as bottles and shoes. These uses were not, however, 
introduced. into Europe until some 250 years later when the French 
began to investigate the possible uses of the rubber latex. By 
the end of the eighteenth century, chiefly as the result of researches 
oy French scientists, the general properties of rubber became 
mown but the lack of solvents and suitable machinery prevented 
any considerable use of the material. ven by 1840 the imports 
of crude rubber into the United Kingdom only amounted to 
332 tons. The real beginning of the modern rubber manufacturing 
industry may be said to date from 1845, by which year the standard 
processes for the manufacture of rubber goods had been discovered, 
almost entirely as the result of British invention. These improve- 
ments in processes led to a steadily widening use of rubber, the 
imports of which into the United Kingdom in 1870 reached 
7,605 tons. In 1875, rubber plants were acclimatised in the Kast, 
but the plantation industry, of the growth of which we give an 
* The Early History of the Rubber Industry, by B. D. Porritt, M.Sec., F.1.C., 
F.R.S.E., F.I.R.I., published by the Rubber Growers’ Association, Inc. 
Early 
History.