78 MOZAMBIQUE 



of Government experiments and reports, it is 

 equally certain that a pioneer who fails injures 

 the cause. 



It is fondly believed by many people that you 

 only have to plant your trees, and that thereafter, 

 when the trees have arrived at the producing age, 

 the business of extracting rubber from them is 

 as simple as tapping beer from a barrel. There 

 recently appeared in a London journal (the India- 

 rubber World) a copy of the instructions that a 

 private owner of rubber plantations in the Feder- 

 ated Malay States issued to his managers and 

 assistants. He was the largest private owner in 

 that country, the greatest rubber-planting country 

 in the world, and his instructions occupied ten 

 columns of the journal. Something of their nature 

 may be gathered from the two following para- 

 graphs, which served him as texts : — 



" The first, last, and only reason for managers, 

 assistants, and coolies being employed on the 

 estates is the production of latex. The one aim 

 and object of all the expenditure of money and 

 labour is the production of the greatest quantity 

 of rubber of the best kind at the lowest possible 

 cost. 



" The arguments put forward above for the 

 utmost well-being of each individual rubber-tree 

 apply with still greater force to each individual 



