26 1 



THE LABOUR SUPPLY. 



At the price of 5/ or even at 4/, there are few industries which 

 promise a more brilliant return on capital than the planting of 

 Hevea brasiliensis, the Para rubber tree, in Ceylon, provided the 

 soil is judiciously selected and the enterprise honestly, carefully, 

 and competently managed. The question of obtaining labour is 

 not a difficult one ; there is an inexhaustible supply of coolies in 

 India, and the journey to Ceylon is not much more than crossing 

 the English Channel. As the climate suits the coolie, there is 

 every chance of labour being forthcoming when wanted, and 

 wanted it will be during the next few years, and more still when 

 the trees now being planted are ready for tapping. The importa- 

 tion of coolie labour from India to Ceylon was 4,568 in January, 

 1905, as against 1,1/5 in 1904. What a source of human energy, 

 ready to work at the locally current and acceptable 6d. per day, 

 for those who are willing to sit at home and do the organizing and 

 financing of the industry employing them. The question whether 

 the supply of wild rubber is likely to increase is not an easy one 

 to answer. Those best able to judge, viz. : the editors of the 

 "Indiarubber Journal," the American "Rubber World," and most 

 English and continental rubber merchants, are afraid of the price 

 going still higher on account of the shortness of the supply. That 

 well-informed and careful journal, the American " Rubber World" 

 of January I, 1905, says, in a leading article on " The Natural 

 supply of Rubber" : — 



"The fact that rubber has so long been obtainable is due to the 

 enormous original supply. But this supply has not been increased 

 or even kept up to the original limits, by any process of nature, 

 and the rubber situation to-day is comparable to a private fortune 

 of fixed limits, which is diminished in proportion as its owner 

 draws upon it. He may spend twice as much this year as last, 

 but this does not make him twice as rich ; it only hastens the time 

 when he will become bankrupt. It is quite possible that, some- 

 where or other, more rubber may be produced next year than this. 

 It is out of the question to say in what year the highest output of 

 rubber will be reached. Possibly higher prices for rubber than 

 have been known hitherto are yet to be experienced. But there is 

 no room for uncertainty on two points : (l) a continued increase 

 in the industrial demands for rubber; and (2) the hastening of the 

 extinction of the natural supply by every addition to the yearly 

 production." 



THE BAR TO EXCESSIVE PLANTING. 



How much is likely to be planted ? The great bar to excessive 

 planting is the long period of waiting before the first in-gathering 

 (six to seven years). Good land, also, is not plentiful. Soil must 

 be very carefully selected. If not, there will be failure. There is the 

 further fact that until the pioneers have made fortunes, others will 

 be slow to follow (and the wiseacres' fortunes will not be made for 

 quite eight or ten years from now), and, moreover, however great 

 a boom in rubber planting is attacking Ceylon, planting can only 



