August i, 1904.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



397 



CRITICISMS OF THE CONLEY REPORT. 



IN the July issue of The India Rubber World some atten- 

 tion was given to an official report on " Rubber Culture in 

 Mexico," by Mr. Edward M. Conley, of the United States con- 

 sulate general at Mexico City, which report has received a wide 

 circulation through the newspapers and called forth many 

 comments. Several of the rubber plantation companies organ- 

 ized by American citizens have filed protests with the office at 

 Washington through which the consular reports are published, 

 and it may interest some of our readers to present here some 

 specimen letters. The first is from Mr. Louis Kunz, general 

 manager of the Mexican Tropical Planters' Co., and who has 

 been interested in rubber in Mexico for some ten years: 



Williamsi'ORT, Pa., July 23, 19 t. 

 To the Honorable, 



The Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, 

 Washington, D. C. 

 Dear Sir : Under elate of June 14, 1904, your Department published 

 Daily Consular Reports No. 1978, containing an article by Vice and 

 Deputy Consul General Conley on " Rubber Culture in Mexico." 



The avowed purpose of the report is to reply to many letters of inquiry 

 addressed to the American consul in the City of Mexico, on the subject 

 of rubber culture in Mexico, and Mr. Conley, in sweeping terms, con- 

 demns rubber culture and rubber planting companies without distinction. 



The official character of a consular report demands that it be written 

 by some one competent to deal with the subject undertaken, and that 

 the subject be fairly treated ; otherwise, such report would miss its ob- 

 ject, namely, to disseminate honest and reliable information. 



Mr. Conley undertook something which he certainly was not prepared 

 to deal with intelligently. 



It is perfectly true, that there are "fake" rubber companies whose 

 methods cannot be condemned too strongly, but this does not justify Mr. 

 Conley in denouncing rubber planters in general as rascals, and if he 

 cared to go to the trouble to make the necessary investigations, he 

 might easily have learned that some very substantial and reliable people, 

 who are perhaps quite as capable as Mr. Conley of judging of the mer- 

 its of the enterprise, have interested themselves in the planting of rub- 

 ber. 



It is evident from Mr. Conley's report that he depended for bis infor- 

 mation on a report published by the Department of Agriculture in igco, 

 of which Mr. O. F. Cook was the author, and random newspaper 

 stories. 



Mr. Conley failed to note that the Cook report referred to was pub- 

 lished in 1900, and dealt primarily with the feasibility of rubber culture 

 in Porto Rico, where neither Ilevea nor Castilloa is indigenous, and 

 therefore the report could have little bearing on rubber culture in 

 Mexico, and he further failed to note that the Department of Agriculture 

 issued a second report in October, 1903, after having sent Mr. Cook 

 personally to make investigations in southern Mexico and Central 

 America, and that in this later report Mr. Cook expresses himself as con- 

 vinced that, under proper conditions, and with proper management, rub- 

 ber culture will be a profitable business. 



It would not have been difficult for Mr. Conley to ascertain the fact 

 that there are many honest and reliable Americans in tropical Mexico, 

 who began their investigations of the possibilities of rubber culture 

 about twelve years ago, and as a result of their experiments rubber 

 culture has been taken out of its experimental stages, and within the 

 last five years planting on a commercial scale has been going on, and if 

 Mr. Conley had cared to inform himself first handed, I am sure that 

 many of the reliable planters would have been glad to give him or his 

 representative an opportunity to fairly investigate the matter. 



Incidentally, I wish to remark that in Ceylon, where the experiment- 

 ing and planting began at an earlier date than in Mexico, there are al- 

 ready plantations paying larger returns on the investments and are a suc- 

 cess in every way, and this was accomplished in a country where rubber 

 is not indigenous, but the seed had to be imported from the western 

 hemisphere. 



An intelligent investigation of the subject will convince any one that 

 there is nothing mythical about cultivated rubber trees, under proper 

 conditions, producing rubber in paying quantities, and that these condi- 

 tions are not difficult to meet where the tree is already indigenous. 



The experiments referred to consisted in determining how best the tree 

 might be reproduced, whether from seed or from cutting, whether the 

 seed had best be sprouted in nurseries and the young plants then trans- 

 planted, or the seed planted where the tree was permanently to reirain ; 

 whether the conditions under which the wild tree was found growing 

 could be modified with benefit to the tree ; at approximately what age 

 the tree would become productive, and whether the extraction of latex 

 in paying quantities would be injurious to the tree, and the best methods 

 of extracting the latex and coagulating it into commercial rubber. 



It is not my intention to assert that there is nothing more to be learn- 

 ed on the subject of rubber culture, but I do contend that there is suffi- 

 cient evidence to justify the investments which are being honestly and 

 intelligently made in rubber plantations. 



It seems to be Mr. Conley's idea that rubber plantations can never 

 compete with the wild trees. As a matter of fact, just the reverse is 

 true, and if there shall ever come a time when plantation grown rubber 

 and that taken from the wild trees come into competition with each other, 

 the plantations will be able to undersell the wild product. 



With regard to harvesting rubber from cultivated trees, Mr. Conley 

 makes reference to an interview with Mr. Lionel de Pinto, of London, 

 published in one of the newspapers, in which Mr. De Pinto said that up- 

 on the harvesting of the rubber would largely depend the success of rub- 

 ber cultivation. I do not know whether Mr. De Pinto is correctly quot- 

 ed, but in no case can he be said to have spoken for the whole rubber in- 

 terests of Mexico. 



The planters of Mexico are familiar with methods that are economical 

 and entirely successful. All these consist simply in modifications of, 

 and improvements on, the methods in use by the natives of Brazil, by 

 which they have gathered thousands upon thousands of pounds annually 

 for many years. 



Mr. Conley's ignorance on the subject he attempts to discuss is no- 

 where more fully exemplified than when he attempts to call into ques. 

 tion the means available for successfully coagulating the latex. The 

 experimenting along these lines has simply consisted in improving on 

 the methods employed by the natives, but if there were no other means 

 available, the native methods would answer very well. 



In view of the unsatisfactory manner in which Mr. Conley has hand- 

 led this subject, and the injustice he has done to an enterprise in which 

 many thousands of dollars of American money are invested, it seems to 

 me that it would be only fair to your Department to make a proper in- 

 vestigation and correct the erroneous statements made by Mr. Conley. 



As the matter now stands, your Department is in the position of con- 

 tradicting a report made by the Department of Agriculture, with this 

 difference, however, that the Department of Agriculture's report is made 

 by an expert botanist who made his investigations on the ground, 

 whereas the report emanating from your Department is fathered by a 

 man who knew nothing about his subject. 



I beg to apologize to you for this long letter, but having a vital inter- 

 est in the subject under discussion and being a practical planter of 

 twelve years' experience, I felt myself both justified and competent to 

 take your report to task, and I trust you will give the matter the atten- 

 tion its importance entitles it to. Yours very truly, 



LOUIS KUNZ. 



* * * 



A letter bearing upon the same subject, by Mr. Squire 



Garnsey, secretary of the Tehuantepec Rubber Culture Co., is 



reproduced herewith, with the omission of some references to 



recently published details regarding the company's plantation : 



New York, July 7, 1904. 

 To the Honorable 



The Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 

 Washington, D. C. 

 Sir : We have recently had called to our attention a report on " Rub- 

 ber Culture in Mexico," by one Edward M. Conley, of the Mexican 

 Consulate General, which appears in No. 1978 of the Daily Consular 



