been told that fine hard Para as a grade is more stable and 

 even in quality than Plantation Para. I feel convinced that, 

 if only the natural and artificial amenities existing in the East 

 are made full use of, it will not be very long before manu- 

 facturers all over the world will have to concede that the 

 grade of rubber to~be relied on, not only for purity, colour and 

 dryness, but also for uniformity of quality above all others, is 

 the much criticized cultivated variety. 



The premium at which hard Para has stood over Plantation 

 since the latter has been procurable in larger quantities than 

 the former has been used as an argument to prove the 

 inferiority of plantation rubber; but another point which has 

 an important bearing on the question, namely, supply and 

 demand, has been ignored. 



For a long time plantation rubber sold on the market at a 

 considerable premium over any other kind, but then its pro- 

 duction was insignificant compared with present figures. 

 Meanwhile, the world's requirements of rubber have shown 

 a steady expansion which the supply of Para, being stationary, 

 has quite failed to meet. On the other hand, the rate of 

 increase in the production of plantation rubber has been too 

 rapid for the manufacturers to keep pace with, owing to the 

 short space of time during which they have been able to 

 experiment. There can be little doubt that the comparative 

 shortage of Para rubber, coupled with the phenomenally rapid 

 increase in the plantation supplies, has had more to do with 

 the differences in price than any inherent difference in quality. 



We now know that all the ordinary articles of commerce 

 which are manufactured out of rubber can be and are being 

 successfully made from the plantation variety, and consider- 

 ing the short period during which large quantities of plantation 

 rubber have been available, this is a very satisfactory state of 

 things, and it is doubtful whether it could have been arrived 

 at without the stimulus and advertisement which the plantation 

 product received at the hands of consumers through the dis- 

 count at which it was procurable compared with other grades. 



To carry this argument to its logical conclusion, the price 

 for plantation rubber in the world's markets should eventually 

 be higher than that for any other kind of rubber, and we have 

 already experienced hopeful indications of this, the difference 

 in the quotations for Para and Plantation having decreased by 

 over 50 per cent, during the past few months. 



To correct what was looked upon as an artificial market 

 manipulation all kinds of proposals have been recently made, 

 those taking the form of standardization schemes being the 

 most prominent. 



It was suggested that a rather complicated system of basing 



