May 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



365 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO. 



No. 15 West 38th Street, New York. 



CABLE ADDRESS: IRWORLD. NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 46. 



MAY 1, 1912. 



No. 2 



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 Entered at the New York postoffice as mail matter of the second class. 



TABLE OF contents ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



RUBBER plantations AS CONSERVERS OF 

 HUMAN LIFE. 



<<T~'VERY ton of rubber costs a human life" is an 

 •* — ' adage that has met with general acceptation 

 for many years as referring to the product of the 

 Amazon country. Like most accepted adages, this has 

 commended itself rather by reason of its epigrammatic 

 form than because of its mathematical accuracy. The 

 country of the Amazon produces about 40,000 tons of 

 rubber each year. It is hardly thinkable that each 

 year's product should cost 40,000 lives ; that certainly 

 would be an appalling slaughter. But on the other 

 hand, in view of the known conditions of that region, 

 it must be admitted that these figures are in all prob- 

 ability more than half true. It is quite likely that each 

 year's output of rubber from the Amazon costs 20,000 

 human lives, perhaps more. This extreme mortality 



J is attributable to a variety of reasons — primarily to 

 the climatic conditions, which render it almost impos- 



> sible for a white man to live in that region ; to the 



swamp fevers ; the dreaded beri-beri; the wild animals, 

 and still worse the poisonous snakes of the jungles; 

 to the unescapable pests of mosquitoes and other insects ; 

 to the extremely unwholesome food and worse drink, 

 the typhoid-producing water; to the feeble preventive 

 measures so far taken and the inadequate remedial 

 agencies hitherto employed. All of these combine to 

 create conditions under which human life is well-nigh 

 impossible. 



Over against this compare the conditions that ob- 

 tain in plantation countries, and especially in those 

 sections where the largest and most prosperous plan- 

 tations have been started. Here the laborers, or the 

 greater part of them, live under the most sanitary con- 

 ditions possible in a tropical climate. They are whole- 

 somely fed, and given pure water to drink. They are 

 adequately sheltered; they are protected as far as 

 possible from mosquitoes and other disease-bearing 

 insects; they are kept under expert medical surveil- 

 lance and given prompt medical attention ; with the 

 result that they enjoy better health than laborers en- 

 gaged in other occupations in the same community. 

 In other words, in a large plantation district, rubber 

 gathering instead of being destructive of life is a 

 preserver of health, and a conserver of life. 



If some captious critic should remark that this is 

 not an evidence of humanitarianism but that these 

 sanitary precautions are taken for purely commercial 

 reasons ; on the ground that a healthy coolie is more 

 valuable than the same coolie in a continual state of 

 incapacity, this does not alter the situation in the 

 least. It is not necessary to make a nice analysis for 

 the purpose of detecting just what percentage of this 

 fortunate situation is attributable to the working of 

 the planter's heart and how much to the operation of 

 the planter's head. The fact remains that a planta- 

 tion of rubber is as free from human sacrifice as almost 

 any line of human endeavor. 



Conditions in the wild-rubber countries, particularly 

 along the Amazon and in Africa, are improving with 

 each year, and the aphorism that "every ton costs a 

 human life" is becoming a constantly less accurate 

 statement of fact, but necessarily, from the very condi- 

 tions under which wild rubber is secured, it wili never 

 be possible to render them as immune from hazard 

 to health and life as the conditions on the plantation. 

 The constantly increasing proportion of plantation 

 rubber therefore not only makes for the commercial 

 .stability of the whole rubber industry, but for its 

 humaneness. 



LIBRA? 



KEW YO 



BOTANtC 



QAROkU 



