In the Malay States section of the Wembley Exhibition there
is an exhibit of rubber blocks of a peculiar con- struction by which it is claimed that the problem of street paving is solved. As anyone knows who has the misfortune to motor about London to-day, the amount of time wasted by road repairs is enormous. No sooner has new paving been laid than it seems necessary not only to take it up, but to break up the concrete founda- tion underneath it with those instruments of peculiar torture, pneumatic drills. It is no small thing, therefore, which Mr. J. S. Cowper, the inventor of the rubber blocks, says when he declares that his blocks, being interlocking and watertight, will protect the concrete foundation of the streets from their continual subsidence. A London paved with these silent, resilient rubber blocks would indeed be a transformed city. Many previous attempts at rubber• roadways have, of course, failed for one reason or another, but something may be hoped, apparently, from the present invention since a London Borough Council has decided to lay a section of street with the new blocks as an experiment. We must pray that they will become a practical remedy.
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