September 1, 1914. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



647 



Plantation Rubber Supplies. 



How Mixed Consignments May Occur and How the Difficulty Can Be Overcome. 



By E. L. Kiilick, London. 



THE statcnifiit is not infrequently made by or on behalf of 

 a few American consumers of plantation rubber that in its 

 passage from the producer in the East to the consumer in 

 the West the commodity is intercepted in London, that the best 

 j^rades arc taken out and that the balance, very much mixed, is 

 then forwarded to New York. .MthouKh it is no part of my 

 purpose to whitewash those who handle the rubber in London, 

 for I hold no brief for anyone engaged in the trade, such a 

 sweeping statement as the foregoing forces one, however un- 

 willingly, to take up a defensive attitude on behalf of the agen- 

 cies in London concerned with the handling and distribiuion of 

 the product. 



Nor is it any part of my object to get behind the view said 

 to be held in America in this matter and seek, by imputing ul- 

 terior motives, to belittle the charge. Doubtless there are wheels 

 within wheels, and certain it is that a purchaser does not usually 

 e.xtol the goods be wislies to liuy. The question is rather as to 

 whether such a view as that already cited is in reality enter- 

 tained in these days by manufacturers of the highest standing 

 and experience in the United States. The business acumen of 

 the American manufacturer is held in too high repute in this 

 country to render possible a lielief that he would tolerate for 

 any length of time such a state of affairs as that under discus- 

 sion. But where there is smoke there is fire, and it would, 

 therefore, be too much to assert that the complaint in question 

 is absolutely baseless and unjustifiable. However flimsy or re- 

 mote, there must be some kind of foundation for the story. In 

 the first place it is plausible, and it must be admitted the con- 

 ditions at present ruling in the plantation rubber industry lend 

 it color. On this account alone it may have become a sort of 

 fetish to be hugged and handed on from one to another. 



Now as to the origin of what at this juncture must be re- 

 garded as mainly fictitious : In the early days of plantation 

 rubber, when no single estate had reached maturity and no in- 

 dividual property was producing in bulk, the commodity came 

 to market in small consignments as numerous as they were va- 

 ried in character. Ceylon was the first producer in the Middle 

 East, hence all plantation rubber, much of which Ceylon would 

 be ashamed to own, was dubbed "Ceylons." Some of it may 

 have been Uuntumia. or Ceara liiscuits from African estates, or 

 Rambong from the Dutch East Indies. It is not suggested that 

 buyers in .\merica were ignorant of the actual source of their 

 supplies. The term was simple and comprehensive and was no 

 doubt no more than a trade name. Nevertheless the term was 

 unfortunate and without doubt has done inuch to injure the 

 reputation of plantation rubber in general, apart from the slur 

 cast upon the Ceylon product and the sin of omission in regard 

 to British Malaya. 



The plantations of the Orient, which in the minds of some 

 at least signified Ceylon alone, were thus identified with all the 

 rubbish ma,squerading under the name of plantation rubber. 

 .•\nything but the accepted and familiar brands of wild rubber, 

 however ill-prepared, whether Ceara, CastiUoa, Funtumia, Fi- 

 cus or Hcvca was credited to the estates of the Middle East, or 

 more particularly to Ceylon. But this was not all. Just as all 

 plantation rubber was termed "Ceylons" so all sheet rubber 

 came to be known as "Highlands." The story is still being re- 

 tailed here that a certain .American consumer once observed 

 that he obtained all his supplies from that well-known Ceylon 

 estate Highlands & Lowlands. This is assuredly a libel, for 

 evervbodv knows that Highlands is one of the leading estates 



in the Malay Peninsula. Doubtless "Highlands" was merely a 

 trade term like "Ceylons," nevertheless, its use gave rise to 

 much misconception here — misconception of a kind that was 

 scarcely advantageous to American consumers. To this is no 

 doubt due the statement that at about the time of the Rubber 

 Exhil)ition in New York something like 100 per cent, more 

 "Highlands" rubber was being received than the entire estate 

 produced. Such a state of affairs cannot be described as fraud- 

 ulent. Dealers had merely adopted the term chosen by their 

 customers for plantation sheet. There was apparently no guar- 

 antee that such supplies were the actual product of the High- 

 lands & Lowlands estates in Selangor, Federated Malay States. 



It is not suggested that there is less knowledge of the com- 

 modity displayed by American than British consumers. Abys- 

 mal ignorance is occasionally exhibited by users of plantation 

 rul)l)er in this country. If asked what the product actually is 

 and how and wdiere it is obtained, there arc individual buyers 

 who would be entirely at a loss. My point is, however, that 

 the terms used by the trade in America gave rise to false im- 

 pressions on this side, with the possible result that certain un- 

 scrupulous dealers taking ignorance for granted, attempted to 

 foist upon their American customers supplies of plantation rub- 

 ber that were not what they purported to lie. But these matters 

 are in the main things of the past. All the same, prejudice dies 

 hard and plantation rubber proper has much to live down. The 

 unfortunate terms applied to the product by the trade in .Amer- 

 ica have, however, unwittingly been responsible for much of the 

 harm done, 



Wlien plantation rubber first came to the market it was the 

 product of certain tea plantations in Ceylon where Hei-ea had 

 been intcrplanted. Preparation to a common standard was at 

 that stage oliviously impossible. .Supplies ditTered widely. Con- 

 signments were small and usually arrived in tea chests. The 

 .American consumer who had been accustomed to receiving fine 

 hard Para in 3]4 hundred-weight cases, objected to the tea 

 chests of, may be, 50 pounds of plantation rubber. He asked 

 for the product to be bulked. Henceforward his plantaticm rub- 

 ber came to him in larger cases, the contents of which often 

 showed considerable variation, for in those days a consignment 

 of, say, five tons had to be collected from dozens of small lots. 

 Here I think we have the origin of the belief said to obtain in 

 .'Xmerica today that consumers stand at a disadvantage in that 

 their supplies are very much mi.xed and not up to the standard 

 they require. As originally shipped, every separate consign- 

 ment was traceable to its source, for its history was written on 

 the case. By bulking together in London all individuality was 

 lost, and the only good purpose served was to give the Amer- 

 ican consumer his supplies in larger cases. Here again we have 

 to go back to ancient history to find the origin of views that are 

 still in circulation. 



For the rest, I submit that the charges made are not infre- 

 quently due to misconception on the part of consumers. Let 

 us assume that an American manufacturer, who buys to type, 

 requires five tons of type No. 15. Now this particular type may 

 be a variety that is something midway between what are known 

 as tree scrap and earth scrap. It is tolerably obvious that if an 

 order for such a nondescript variety is to he fulfilled by a uni- 

 form material it must be obtained from one particular estate. 

 The odds are, however, that no estate produces more than two 

 or three per cent, of such a grade. What then is to be done? 

 The five tons required must be made up of consignments from 



