104 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January i, 1906. 



some cases natives have been treated with harshness and 

 injustice, strives to absolve the state authorities from 

 direct responsibility for any wrong. No doubt many of 

 the reports of cruelty have been exaggerated ; it is diffi- 

 cult anywhere to gain the exact facts in regard to any oc- 

 currence, and this difficulty is increased when so many per- 

 sons, remote from the Congo regions, each biased by some 

 particular interest — philanthropic, political, or commer- 

 cial — have been ready to lend a ready ear to every rumor 

 that seemed to support their preconceived views with re- 

 gard to conditions there. 



But the Congolese natives have gathered immense quan- 

 tities or rubber, as all the world knows ; began all of a 

 sudden to gather it, to the practical exclusion of every 

 other interest, and in the face of increasing difficulties in 

 the way of gaining a given amount in a given time ; and 

 without any sort of tangible return, such as might be sup- 

 posed to tempt uncivilized natives, not before addicted to 

 industry, to change their natures in this regard. What 

 made them do it ' Compulsion, the report admits. At 

 whose hands? The traders', operating in the Congo only 

 with the consent of the State, which shares largely in the 

 profits as the price of granting trading monopolies. 



Can you, the reader, buy rubber in the territories ex- 

 ploited under concessions ? Can any native sell the pro- 

 duct of his labor to any but a couie<.sionaiie trader? Can 

 any native refrain from gathering rubber if he prefers to 

 go fishing ? Does the native get for his rubber the means 

 to clothe himself better, or procure better food, or make 

 his home more comfortable than before the rubber traders 

 drove him into the woods to work for their benefit ? The 

 commission's report affords no affirmative answer. The 

 Arabs no longer sell the Congolese into slavery, the report 

 does assert, but is the slavery of rubber gathering any 

 better? Money has been spent in improving means of 

 transportation, but is this for the uplifting of the native, or 

 for the primary interest of the trading companies. 



But discussion of these questions will not check the 

 reckless exhaustion of the Congo rubber supply, which 

 may be expected to continue until consumers of rubber 

 must look to other sources to meet their demands. When 

 that time comes the traders will have made enough money 

 to enable them to retire on comfortable fortunes, and the 

 State, despoiled of its greatest natural wealth, will prob- 

 ably not be thought worth contending for— at least until 

 many more eligible regions have been more fully devel- 

 oped. 



LARGE YIELD FROM PLANTED RUBBER. 



OTRANGE as it may at first appear, the actual pro- 

 ductive capacity of no rubber yielding species has yet 

 been subjected to tests sufficiently accurate or compre- 

 hensive to lead to a determination of this really very im- 

 portant question. But it must be considered that the 

 greater part of the world's supply of rubber hitherto has 

 been extracted from forest trees, in regions remote from 

 centers of scientific research, by native races having a very 

 limited intelligence. Why should a Brazilian Indian or a 



Congolese negro care to note the yield of a particular rub 

 ber tree, even if he had the capacity to register it, which is 

 doubtful ? .^nd why should the buyer of rubber, at a dis- 

 tant trading post, care to know what one tree could be 

 made to yield ? Both the gatherer of rubber and the 

 trader who has him in subjection cares only for general 

 results. 



It is different with the planter of rubber as a commer- 

 cial proposition. But the rubber culture is yet in its in- 

 fancy, and with a few exceptions only very young planted 

 trees have been available for experimenting. It was nat- 

 ural at first for planters to adopt the practice, with regard 

 to the different rubber species, by which various native 

 races have obtained so many millions of pounds of rubber 

 in the past, but of late some of the planters, of an investi- 

 gating turn of mind, have been looking further into the 

 matter, and already with surprising results. 



k notable contribution to this subject appears elsewhere 

 in our pages, from the pen of Mr. Ivor Etherington, of 

 Ceylon. It appears that within two years, on one estate, 

 the average yield of young Hevea trees has increased from 

 less than i pound — then regarded as a fair leturn — to 

 more than 5 pounds. But it is not reasonable to suppose 

 that the limit of productive capacity has increased in any 

 such ratio : the increased yield has been due to better 

 methods. But returns from certain older trees are even 

 more surprising. Think of an average of 16 pounds from 

 trees less than 13 years old — pointing to a money profit 

 of $20 per tree, capable of being planted 150 to 200 per 

 acre ! Another result of better tapping methods than were 

 at first practiced. These figures will have further weight 

 when we mention that The India Rubber World has no- 

 where found a record of 16 pounds of rubber yielded in 

 one year by the oldest Hevea trees in the Amazon valley. 



It does not follow that an equally large yield can be ob- 

 tained everywhere, even from Hevea species ; still less 

 does it follow that these results can be duplicated witn 

 any other species. But what we want to point out is that 

 by continued and intelligent experimenting the Ceylon rub- 

 ber planters are obtaining much more rubber than by any 

 method formerly used. And this fact, it seems to us, 

 should suggest to planters of other rubber species, in other 

 regions, that perhaps they have not yet found the means 

 to obtain from their trees the maximum yield of which 

 they are capable. 



WASHED RUBBER FROM THE FAR EAST. 



T^ HERE seems to be a diversity of opinion as to the wis- 

 •*■ dom shown in preparing rubber as it is now coming 

 from the Far East — that is, rubber in what is known as the 

 " washed" form. To-day the market receives two kinds of 

 washed "Para" fromCeylon andthe Federated MalayStates, 

 one of which is known as " crepe " and the other as " worm " 

 rubber. The physical shape of these two types is due to the 

 machines through which the latex passes in the process of 

 coagulation and in getting rid of the water. The special 

 objection that importers and brokers have against rubber 

 in this form is their fear that the manufacturer will look 



