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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i, 1885, 



MR. J. B. MOENS ON THE POSITION OF 

 THE CINCHONA BARK MARKET. 



From an elaborate article headed " The Cinchona 

 Market in 1884," which has appeared in the Indian 

 3lcrcuri/, a Dutch publication, we are pl-id to observe 

 that our good and valued friend, the Dii-ectir of the 

 Java cinchona plantations, is still to the fore and 

 resident, during his well-earned furlough, at Haarlem. 

 We are the better pleased to receive this information 

 because several books and periodicals which we for- 

 warded to Mr. Moeus, "care of the Dutch iVJiuister 

 of the Colonies," were returned to us, with the 

 inimation that Mr. iVloens was "not to bo found"! 

 That one of the greatest benefactors of the chief 

 colony of Holland, of Holland heraelf, and of the 

 human race, should be so little known or held in so 

 little esteem by his countrymen, is, we conceive, 

 greatly to their disgrace. In connection with the 

 history of the very king of the fever-plants Mr. 

 Moens's name will be honourably remembered ages 

 after the names of the leading atatoameu and war- 

 riors of the Netherlands will have sunk into oblivion. 

 We are glad to notice, that, while absent from tho 

 scene of his honourable and useful labours, Mr. Moens 

 is not forgetful of the product with which his name is 

 so intimately associated. The paper to which we have 

 referred, and which we shall transfer in full to tho 

 columns of the TropiC'il AijrlcnHurUt^ gives good and 

 clear resume of the cironmstoucps whioli have brought 

 the market for quinine-yielding bark and quinine sulph- 

 ate to its present low estate. In less thau a quarter of a 

 century since first the South Americin plants were 

 introduced into Asia, the experiment has been so 

 successful, that the Eastern bark, chictly tho product 

 of Ceylon, has almost closed the market to the product 

 of which the Western world, for many centuries after 

 the diseovery of the virtues of "I'eiuvian Bark," was 

 made, had the monopoly. As is our fashion in Ceylon, 

 we have disregarded the m^y.'m\ fe si ina lent/; and, com- 

 mercially speaking, we have, by going ahead too fas', 

 injured our own interests oidy less than those of the 

 bark-gatherers of the Andean forests. But, as we 

 said, in reviewing Dr. Trimcu's report, humanity is the 

 gainer in having available in plenty the most valuable 

 febrifuge in the world at a price unprecedentedly 

 moderate. We only wish we saw consumption ad- 

 vancing more in proportion to plenty and cheapness. 

 But all in good time. 



Mr. Moens commences hia paper by adverting to the 

 unfavourable influence exerted on the bark market 

 at the ecmmencement of 188-1, by the operation of 

 an agreement by a syndicate of European and 

 American quiniue manufaeturers to limit the mauu- 

 facture of the sulph.'ite, — of all the alkaloids, in 

 truth. The reault for a time was that the pro- 

 portions of value between bark and quiuine 

 were entirely destroyed. Mr. Moeus uses the Dutcli 

 florin to indicate prices, and t'le difference iu value 

 between this coin and the rupee is so small that 

 they are practically the same. Early in 18S4, while 

 the price of manufactured quinine was kept up at 

 /145 per kilogr., the sulphate in the bark went down 

 to /60. The just proportions would have been /1 12 

 to /122. But rings of this kind contain within them 

 the principle of destruction. Had the syndicate per- 

 severed, Mr, Moens is of opinion that the reault 

 would have been the establishment of manufactories 

 in Java, India or elsewhere from which quiuine could 

 have been turned out at /80 per kilogr. But dis- 

 sensions broke up the ring, mainly from the action of 

 one of its members, who in October 1883 had entered 

 into a, contract with the Netherlands Government, It 



was also discovered that the high profit on such sales 

 of quinine as took place did not compensate for the 

 low limit to which sales were reduced. Con- 

 sequently, instead of la ting till May, the compact 

 came to an end early in January. The manu- 

 facturers had done no real good to themselves, 

 while tbey had caused larger losses to those interested 

 in the sale of bark. The immediate effect of the 

 break-up of the ring was not a rise in the price of 

 bark, but a very considerable fall in quinine. Thia 

 fall was only temporarily arrested by the destruction 

 by fire in February of a quinine manufactory in 

 Philadelphia. The speculative oporationsof the notori- 

 ous Milan Manufactory in purchases of bark, chiefly 

 cuprea, continued aud by October bark and quinine both 

 went down until Howard's quinine was quoted at /7 

 and German at/0'50, while bark went down in London 

 to Ihi per lb. unit In August the Milan Company 

 and Mcjer & Co., of London went down, but the 

 bauks interested prevented a crash by disposing 

 gradually of 30,000 bales of cuprca bark and 21,000 

 kilogr. of quinine. The Milan concern had been long 

 in financial difficulties: the shareholders lost all their 

 capital and the creditors are not likely to receive 

 more than 45 per cent of their claims. The Italian 

 Factory is still at work, but, as only 25 kilogr. of 

 .'ulphate of quinine per diem are turned out, the 

 expenses are not covered. 



No. II. 

 Mr. Moeus writes in regard to the Milan Factory 

 that it must have been in difficulties for some time, 

 the liabilities having been stated at/5,000,000 against 

 assets /'•2,280,0 0. Amongst the assets were cinchona 

 plantations in Bolivia valued at /50,000, but of which 

 no title-deeds had been found I The price of cin. 

 chona bark continued to fall until the end of Nov- 

 ember 1884, but then, and all through December, there 

 was a great demand for quiniue and the unit in bark 

 went up from 25 cents (of a florin) iu October to 30 

 ceuts at the end of the year. Mr. Moens, in giving 

 the range of prices for English, German and French 

 quinine in 1884, states his opinion that Howard's 

 sulphate has no superiority over the others in pro- 

 portion to the higher price, but we suspect purchasers 

 have more confidence in tho English drug as unadulter- 

 ated, the very name of the Howard's being a guarantee 

 of genuineness. Whatever the reason, the range for 

 English quiuine wa.s from 82 to 150 Horina or guilders 

 per kilogram ; for French from 67 to 149 ; German 

 (iG'.'iO to 145. The contract rates for the Dutch Colonial 

 Department were from GO to IOS'87. As illustrating 

 the great fall iu the value of bark between May 

 1883 and September 1SS4, Mr. Moens mentions the 

 case of a pircel of bark fiom Java, which was sold 

 in the former month, stored, and then rtsold iu the 

 latter month. Stem hark went down from 40 cents 

 per English pound to 17" cents, branch from 50 to 

 22", and shavings from 90 to 40. Low quality 

 bai'ks were almost unsaleable, and most of the South 

 American kinds were held for better times. 

 The imports of this kind of bark dropped from 

 163,000 bales in 1SS2 to 37,000 in 1884 I About 80,000 

 bales of the 1882 imptirts were cuprea bark, of which 

 description England and France in 1S84 took only 

 12,000 bales. As our readers are aware, the cuprea 

 bark is not cinchona bark at all, altliough possessing 

 similar qualities, and we have seen it stated that it 

 was easier for the chemist to deal with. Siieculative 

 storing up of this pseudo-bark ended in heavy losses 

 when sales were necessitated by the continued aud 

 heavy influx of the superior Asiatic barks, "Cey. 



