300 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June i, 1910. 



that The India Rubber World start a crusade against 

 a company that is selling much stock to exploit a 

 process for "making rubber." According to expert 

 tetimony it is an extraction process. Aside from some 

 statements in the prospectus which are inaccurate 

 technically — which happens often in the soundest of 

 propositions — it is impossible to say positively that 

 the company cannot accomplish what it claims. In 

 all fairness to everybody, therefore, it behooves the 

 editor to wait for proof and say nothing. 



ON THE ROAD TO TARKWA. 



SITUATED about seven miles by good road from 

 Tarkwa is "a virgin rubber estate" comprising an 

 area of about twenty square miles, for which the native 

 chief of the district, under date of April 2, 1910, granted 

 a lease for a period of 99 years direct to an English com- 

 pany at a rental of $175 per year. The directors of the 

 English company "are advised that the soil is in every 

 way adapted for the cultivation of rubber and also cotton 

 and other profitable crops." 



[Wild oats not mentioned among the profitable crops.] 



The side of the earth on which Tarkwa stands pro- 

 duced in 1908 some 14,000 tons of wild rubber, and "it 

 is estimated that the output for 1909 will have been 



found to have been 15,000 tons The price of wild 



rubber, well cured, is invariably higher than plantation 

 rubber, and where resiliency is required, such as for 

 motor tires, the makers of which pay the highest prices." 



[Tarkwa is in West Africa.] 



The road to Tarkwa has been well surveyed. But this 

 by some may be regarded of less importance than rubber 

 and cotton, "both of which, as a fact, are indigenous to 

 the soil." Wherefore "it is intended to plant the true 

 Para rubber tree" and the New Tree Cotton Plant, 

 neither of which is indigenous. Of course, if rubber and 

 cotton species are found native seven miles from Tarkwa, 

 other varieties must prove more profitable. And a com- 

 pany has been incorporated in London, under the Com- 

 panies (Consolidation) Act, 1908, to permit the public to 

 share in the profits from holding the Tarkwa property 

 under the "exceptionally favorable rental" already named. 

 "The shares of this company are all of one class." 



The labor proposition here is that a good supply of 

 "boys" can be secured at $5 to $6 a month, "The Chief 

 himself being responsible for their work and conduct." 



[Whether his Majesty George V will be responsible for the native chief 

 when the march of empire starts toward Tarkwa is a point overlooked in 

 the prospectus.] 



Profits are to arise from three sources, to wit: 



(1) The sale of tires made by a company registered in 

 London, December 11, 1908, with £5,000 capital. 



(2) Collecting wild rubber from the leased property 

 and buying rubber from neighboring natives for resale in 

 London. 



(3) Later, from planted rubber, and from other crops 

 "to be grown simultaneously between the trees." 



It was proposed to tax the public only £50,000 to share 

 in this opportunity on the well surveyed road to Tarkwa. 

 No doubt the offer was gladly accepted, especially in view 

 of the fact of the soil being of a "red ferruginous type." 

 But why should anybody trouble to lease lands from an 

 African chief as a basis for selling rubber planting shares 

 in these days? Didn't two ancient spinsters who recently 

 inherited a decrepit sawmill near Para sell the same in 

 London as a rubber estate on the representation that Para 

 is where all the good rubber comes from? 



When rubber was selling at only $i a pound certain counter- 

 feiters were tempted to exploit artificial and synthetic sub- 

 stitutes. Now that rubber is three times as valuable, and 

 ten times as much in evidence, what a tremendous pressure 

 of temptation these counterfeiters must be under! And 

 why are they silent? Surely never was time so opportune, 

 money so plenty, cr innocents so abounding. 



There are those who put the blame for the notable increase 

 in the price of crude rubber upon the automobile tire, and 

 it is without doubt the enormous expansion in that line that 

 has caused the advance. Millions of dollars worth of rubber 

 have gone into tires, tires that are to-day in use or in store, 

 and that rubber is therefore withdrawn from all other manu- 

 facturing possibility. Such withdrawal, however, is only 

 temporary. In one, two or three years 90 per cent, of all 

 this rubber will come back to the manufacturers through 

 the reclaimers. It will not be "shoddy" by any means, but a 

 high grade recovered gum that can be used in almost any 

 ordinary rubber work as safely as the better grades of crude 

 rubber. And it is on this great aggregation of stored up 

 rubber that manufacturers can count, to obviate not only 

 a further increase in the price of crude rubber, but a perpet- 

 uation of the present abnormal condition as well. 



The prospector for gold, for copper or iron has for years 

 been a familiar figure. He was in a class by himself, a 

 seacher for hidden earth products, scientifically equipped for 

 his calling, employed by corporations whose continuance 

 depended upon large supplies of raw material. To this 

 class to-day is added the rubber prospector. Trained forest- 

 ers, botanists, and chemists who are hetcheling the tropical 

 and subtropical forests for rubber. Trees, shrubs, or vines 

 annual and perennial are being discovered, examined and 

 reported upon. The outcome is sure to be a notable increase 

 in crude rubber, and perhaps the utilization of new sources 

 of supply as valuable and spectacular as was the advent of 

 guayule rubber. 



CULTIVATION OF GUTTA-PERCHA. 



IN a review, in De Indische Mercuur, of Mr. Henry's article 

 *■ on ''India-Rubber in the Electrical Field" [see The Indi\ 

 Rubber World, January 1, 1910 — page 119], Professor A. H. 

 Berkhout writes : 



"Many years ago the writer [Dr. Berkhout] considered it his 

 duty to warn against the cultivation of gutta-percha, inasmuch 

 as this substance is principally used for insulating submarine 

 cables, for which purpose india-rubber could not be used at 

 that time. The writer expressed his apprehension that a method 

 for likewise making the latter material proof against the action 

 of sea water would be discovered, and that there would conse- 

 quently be a sharp decline in the price of gutta-percha. The 

 foregoing article shows this apprehension to have been well 

 founded." 



