684 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



| September 1, 1915. 



AS TO CONDITIONS IN DUTCH GUIANA. 



To th< i The India Rubber World: 



In youi issue of June, on page 500. appears a letter signed by 

 J. S. Lawton in which the writer emphatically contradicts the 

 contents of mj contribution which appeared in the April issue 

 of your paper under heading "Ti Opportunities in Dutch 



i iuiana." 



I was not in the least surprised to read the statements con- 

 tained in that letter. Certain persons have been endeavoring to 

 inflate local conditions with the object of quieting the minds 

 ut" those people in the United States who have invested their 

 hard-earned savings in a certain enterprise in Dutch (iuiana, 

 and naturally my article would he the means of creating con- 

 siderable unrot among these investors. 



Anj One in the colony can prove that when my article was 

 written the government was sending away balata men by the 

 hundreds monthly, as there was nothing for them to do; and 

 to avoid misery and, perhaps, internal trouble, the government 

 adopted this course. It necessary I can forward consular data 

 in verify the correctness of the statement. Again, the most im- 

 portant newspaper in the colony, "De Surinamer" (copy mailed 

 with this), would certainly not comment so favorably on this 

 article which -Mr. Lawton claims to be "an injustice to the 

 colony" if it were not a truthful statement of colonial affairs. 



Paramaribo, June 24. 1915. J. B. Percival. 



[The article from the Paramaribo journal mentioned above 

 refers with evident approval to Mr. Percival's letter in The 

 India Rubber World and gives no intimation that any of his 

 statements, so sharply criticised by Mr. Lawton in our June 

 number, were incorrect. — Ed.] 



EXPORTS OF BALATA AND RUBBER FROM BRITISH GUIANA. 



January 1 to lulv 15 



1914.' 1915. 



Balata founds 368,969 853,291 



I Unib d Kingdom 729,189 



To United Slates 1J4.1IIJ 



Rubber 665 1,979 



At a meeting of the Board of Agriculture of British Guiana 

 in June it was urged by the Governor of the colony that more 

 enterprise be shown in the planting of large areas of land 

 suitable for rubber cultivation. He stated that rubber could 

 In collected quite cheaply in the colony, but in order to do 

 si i the cultivation should be on a large scale, which would 

 reduce the cost of superintendence. To give encouragement 

 to planting, the Board of Agriculture has reduced the price of 

 rubber stumps to $12 per thousand. 



THE RUBBER SITUATION IN BRAZIL. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE crisis from which Brazil is still suffering began in the 

 autumn of 1913, when coffee suffered a severe fall in 

 price as rubber already had. The country had become ac- 

 customed to an extravagant manner of living, and there- 

 fore continued to import expensive foreign luxuries when 

 the value of its exports had enormously decreased. Euro- 

 pean lin.inr cts It d t "> gre t confidence in Brazil. They 

 overestimated the credit of the country and thus helped it to 

 continue impoverishing itself until the Balkan wars and the 

 Mexican troubles came. The effect of these disturbances on 

 tlte European money market was felt here in Brazil. Euro- 

 pean capital was distributed here with noticeably less prodi- 

 gality. Then, in July. 1914. came the outbreak of the great 

 European war which cut off altogether the supply of foreign 

 gold and accentuated the financial weakness of our country. 

 The crisis was aggravated. 



It must be borne in mind that, though Brazil is a very large 

 country, covering an area of some 3,218,130 square miles, its 

 population of about 22.(100.1100 inhabitants is small for such 

 a great territory, being, in fact, but a fraction more than 

 six people to the square mile. This comparatively small 



population has always been in the way of the development of 

 the natural resources of the country. The scarcity of labor 

 makes its cost very high and this fact directly affects the 

 gathering of rubber which for the past twenty years has been 

 the principal resource of the Northern States of Brazil, and 

 which, together with coffee, represents more than three- 

 quarters of the total exports from this country. 



The constantly increasing demand for rubber increased its 

 price to such an extent that the Far East became interested. 

 The immense wealth rubber was creating for Brazil led to the 

 development of Malayan rubber plantations and the low cost 

 of labor in the Far East created a competitor wdio soon pro- 

 duced more rubber than the Amazons. The price of Hard 

 Fine Para, the standard type of Brazilian rubber, reached 

 12s. 6d. in 1910, but it fell to less than 2s. in 1914. This cer- 

 tainly explains the tremendous decrease in the value of Bra- 

 zilian exports. The government was aroused and took 

 measures to protect its rubber production, but they had little 

 or no beneficial effect. Then the outbreak of the war in 

 Europe buoyed up the hopes of our despairing rubber gath- 

 erers. The unusual conditions created by the outbreak of 

 hostilities caused the price of our Hard Fine Para to rise- 

 to 2s. 7d. and it was hoped that old time prosperity would be 

 at least temporarily restored. But this did not happen. The 

 capacity, facilities and the organization of the Far Eastern 

 rubber plantations were too great. Instead of increasing our 

 output of crude rubber we allowed it to decline, the 1914-1915 

 crop being 6.000.000 pounds or more below the figures for the 

 previous year. An increase in production might have com- 

 pensated for the decrease in value, but for some reason or 

 other Brazil did not follow the general practice and the crop 

 was materially reduced. 



This appears to be a mistake, for the applications of rubber 

 are limitless and a country that can produce excellent rubber 

 in iarge quantities should be able to hold its own against any 

 competition. The efforts Far Eastern planters are constantly 

 making to reduce the cost of production of their rubber should 

 be to us an indication of the proper course to follow, unless 

 we wish to have to mourn the total disappearance of rubber 

 from among our exports. The forests of the Amazons con- 

 tain vast reserves of fine rubber trees. The only trouble is 

 the excessive cost of getting this rubber to market- — the diffi- 

 culty of reaching these fine trees, tapping them, converting 

 their latex into crude rubber and getting this to the world's 

 markets Means of communication are lacking: the donkey's 

 back is a conveyance far too costly under present conditions. 

 The cost of production of our rubber must be materially 

 reduced. 



Conditions have already obliged the people to modify their 

 ways of living. The planting of agricultural produce plants 

 has been resorted to. but the results are not yet sufficient to 

 materially relieve the situation. More organization is needed. 

 Means of transportation must be provided. Rubber can no 

 longer support the exorbitant 18 per cent, export duty now- 

 collected. Moreover the goods essential for the outfitting oi 

 the seringueiros must be subject to more reasonable customs 

 duties. There is no adequate reason or argument for the high 

 customs tariff which affects by 300 per cent, the price of some 

 commodities. There is no reason for protecting industries 

 that do not exist. The adoption of a reasonable tariff, ade- 

 quate for the protection of the industries actually established 

 in the country and at the same- time permitting our rubber 

 industry to survive, is what is needed here. It is doubtful if 

 the government would lose any revenue to speak of. for cer- 

 tainly the effect of a reduction of the tariff would be to re- 

 duce the colossal scale upon which smuggling is here car- 

 ried on. 



We cannot reasonably hope for a rubber boom like that 

 of 1''10 to come with the re-establishment of peace. Condi- 



