RUBBER INDUSTRY BILL. (Hansard, 21 December 1932)

§ Mr. KIRKPATRICK

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for contributions by rubber manufacturers in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland to the Research Association of British Rubber Manufacturers for the collection and application of such contributions; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. A similar Bill was read a Second time in this House on 30th March, 1928, and was committed to a Standing Committee on 10th July of the same year. Again a similar Bill was read a Second time in this House on 30th January, 1931. The Bill which I now beg leave to introduce, although redrafted and altered in form, is similar to the two Bills referred to, except that the definitions of "rubber" and "manufacturer" have been amended with a view to meeting some objections which were raised during the Debate on the Second Reading of the earlier Bill in January, 1931. An Amendment has also been made to the proviso of the original Clause 7, now Clause 4, to meet a point which was raised before the Standing Committee in 1928. I will not take up the time of the House beyond briefly explaining that the object of the Bill is to secure the continuance and development of scientific and industrial research into the problems arising in the manufacture of rubber. 1092 This work is being, and has been, carried out since 1920 by the Research Association of British Rubber Manufacturers. This well-equipped organisation and this Bill have the support of such widely known and nationally important, industrial, trading and commercial bodies as the Rubber Growers' Association, the India-Rubber Manufacturers' Association, the Institution of the Rubber Industry, the Rubber Trade Association, the Rubber Research Association of British Manufacturers, and a great majority of the public interested in and engaged in the production and manufacture of rubber and of the increasing number of articles in which rubber is a constituent part.

Hitherto the Research Association of Rubber Manufacturers has been supported by voluntary contributions from industrial manufacturers, and by grants from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The latter grants were from the £1,000,000 fund provided by Parliament in 1917 for the encouragement of co-operative industrial research. This practical support by the most important organisation and industrial concerns in this country interested in the rubber industry, and by the Government, has been given with a view to create and maintain what is indeed in these times, more than ever, essentially work of national urgency and importance. These contributions, both State and voluntary, have established what my Bill will regularize. The Bill is intended to put rubber research on a sound and practical basis, in line and comparable with that of the Rubber Research Institute of Malaya, and the Ceylon Rubber Research scheme, both of which within my knowledge most effectively and efficiently provide for the scientific needs of the plantation rubber industry.

The proposals in this Bill are based on the Cotton Industry Act of 1923, which provides for the maintenance of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, and on the same principle involves a payment of a contribution by all rubber manufacturers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Bill provides that this contribution shall not exceed one twenty-fifth of a penny per pound in respect of all rubber used in the processes of manufacture, as such, and in the form of latex. On the basis of 1093 present consumption, say 75,000 tons of rubber per annum, the contribution would represent one forty-fifth of a penny per pound. The Bill limits the aggregate contributions to an average sum of £15,000 per annum. The operation of the Bill is in itself limited to five years.