184 COCONUTS AS AN INVESTMENT 



reward of those who acquire interests early in sound 

 propositions. It is not within our province to 

 institute a comparison between the investment 

 merits of rubber, or any other commodity, and 

 coconuts, but the facts fully justify us in saying 

 that, both economically and financially, the latter 

 to-day presents a prospect that has seldom been 

 equalled and never surpassed in the history of 

 commerce. 



Owing to the imperfect manner in which British 

 official statistics of this industry have been compiled 

 complete details are not available, but it has been 

 estimated by experts that the total value of the 

 coconut and oil palm together aggregated in 1912 

 over 70,000,000. The world's gold output in the 

 same year came to 100,000,000, and rubber 

 accounted for 50,000,000. Both gold and rubber 

 are outside the scope of the present discussion, and 

 we merely quote these figures in order to convey 

 some idea of the relative importance of each 

 commodity to the other. 



Finally, at the risk of being thought redundant, 

 we venture to recapitulate the salient points which 

 should enable the investor to form his own judg- 

 ment as to the future of this great industry. These 

 are : 



1. The demand for the coconut is now enormous, 

 and is daily increasing by leaps and bounds. 



2. Over-production, as we have previously 



