THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



765 



News from British Guiana and Trinidad. 



special Correspondence. 



FRANK Daphne, the solicitor to the Essequibo Rubber & 

 Tobacco Estates Defence Committee, has issued the final 

 report and audited accounts to the subscribers to the fund. 



There was complicated and protracted litigation and the wind- 

 ing up of the company was not completed till 1919, but in the end 

 the subscribers to the fund, about 300 in number, have received 

 a return (including an interim distribution in 1915) equivalent 

 to 7s. in the £ on the amount they paid for shares. They are 

 to be congratulated, for unfortunately proceedings of this kind 

 rarely terminate so satisfactorily. It should be added that only 

 shareholders who subscribed to the fund benefited from the ef- 

 forts of the committee. 



The company was registered in Georgetown, British Guiana, on 

 April 6, 1910, with a nominal capital of £100,000 in five-shilling 

 shares, to acquire the benefit of four licenses granting the right 

 to collect rubber, balata and like substances over an area of 200 

 square miles of the Crown Lands in British Guiana and to de- 

 velop the land as a rubber, tobacco, and general produce estate. 

 The licenses were granted to J. M. Ho-.\-Hing on June 5, 1906, 

 for a term of 10 years at an annual total rental of $80, and a 

 royalty of two cents on every pound of rubber or balata collected. 

 The nominal promoter of the company was the Industrial Selec- 

 tions, Limited, who received i4,500 for preliminary expenses but 

 the actual promoter was Joseph Chansay, the beneficial owner of 

 practically the whole of the issued capital of Industrial Selec- 

 tions, Limited. The first directors of the company were Sir 

 Henry E. Dering, Bart., J. P., Sir Henry Seton-Karr, C. M. G., 

 Captain W. J. M. Hill and William O'Malley, M. P. 



Captain Hill resigned on June 30, 1911, and P. Halcrow was 

 appointed in his stead on February 7, 1912. On February 23, 

 1912, Sir Henry Dering tendered his resignation which was ac- 

 cepted on March 4. 



The 400,000 shares comprising the nominal capital of the com- 

 pany \vere offered for subscription at par by a prospectus dated 

 April 13, 1910, and published by the "Financial Outlook," which 

 unhesitatingly recommended the company. 



The company's affairs were ordered to be wound up on June 

 25, 1912, on the petition of six shareholders (1,480 shares) suj. 

 ported by 28 other shareholders (5,185 shares), presented i: 

 May 4. The statement as prepared by the directors disclosLil 

 a deficit of £68,992.4.j. Sd. 



The property of the company was sold at auction in August, 

 1912, when a private offer of $16,800 by W. L. Seymour, the rep- 

 resentative of an English syndicate, was accepted for the Liberty 

 Island Estates held under a 99 years' lease from the Government. 



A prominent British Guiana journal, dealing with the above, 

 recently said : 



The announcement that the subscribers to the Essequibo Rub- 

 ber & Tobacco Estates Defence Fund are to receive a dividend of 

 "is. ill a pound recalls the rubber boom of almost a decade ago, 

 when British Guiana was to share in the fabulous wealth then 

 being won from this industry. Enthusiasm ran so high that the 

 Department of Science and Agriculture went to the expense of 

 producing a brochure informing the world that there were some 

 nine million acres available for rubber cultivation in the colony 

 and that the rubber grown here was equal to the best product 

 of the East. Several companies were formed and so confident 

 was everybody in the colony that we had a rubber industry that 

 we even had the temerity to exhibit at the Rubber Exhibition 

 in London. That the boasts of the Department of Science and 

 Agriculture as to the quality of British Guiana rubber were not 

 idle was borne out by the fact that the colony carried off two 

 cups. Unfortunately many of the companies that were formed 

 were sponsored by busy speculators, who were far more anxious 



to grow rich quickly than they were to make money honestly 

 by the development of an industry that had the best of prospects 

 —and still has. 



The boom soon collapsed and the rubber industry of British 

 Guiana became such a minor affair as to be forgotten for all 

 practical purposes. It had not altogether died, however, for in 

 1918 the exports reached the total of 23,854 pounds. This was 

 not a great contribution to the world's supply, it is true, but 

 still sufficient to justify the assertion that the industry is alive. 

 In the long run it will probably be found a good thing that the 

 foundations of the industry were not laid in the treacherous 

 quicksands of a boom. When it does take its proper place in 

 the industrial economy of the colony it will not at any rate owe 



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its very existence to an abnormally inflated price of I2s. 6d. a 

 pound, and the time may come when this colony will be able to 

 sell its rubber in the markets of the world at the world's price. 

 At present, according to the representative of one of the largest 

 rubber cultivators in the colony, owing to labor shortage and 

 leaf disease, it is not possible to tap the colony's rubber trees 

 at a profit. The price in London to-day is ruling at only 2s. 3d, 

 a pound, and it is held that with the high price of labor it is 

 impossible to compete with the East. 



It is interesting to glance for a moment at the progress made 

 in Trinidad, which was also to become a "rubber country" a 

 few years ago. Trinidad has not become a rubber country, but 

 its industry has developed better than ours and there seems to be 

 a little more optimism about it than there is here. The ex- 

 ports in 1919 amounted to 41,000 pounds and the industry evi- 

 dently had sufficient life in it to he worthy of discussion by the 

 excellent Agricultural Society that looks after these things in 



