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values on chemical analysis should be instituted, but as this 

 appeared to be unworkable it was abandoned. 



Manufacturers and buyers will always insist on basing their 

 prices according to their own ideas of value arrived at by 

 expert examination, and in this connection statements made 

 recently by a chemist employed in one of the biggest rubber 

 works in the world are appropriate he gave it as his opinion 

 that the best way of ascertaining the comparative values of 

 different rubbers is by the trained eye. 



To sum up, I am convinced that the producer of cultivated 

 rubber in the East possesses all the conditions necessary to 

 produce rubber more stable in quality than any other, provided 

 his organization is perfected to such an extent as will ensure 

 proper supervision being carried out in every department of 

 collection and preparation. 



Dr. SCHIDROWITZ : Mr. President and Gentlemen I think 

 the first thing we must ask ourselves with regard to the 

 question of variation, or variability, is : How do we define 

 variability? It is quite true that wild rubbers vary, but the 

 variation that exists in them is fairly obvious from their appear- 

 ance; whereas plantation rubber is all of much the same 

 appearance, and you may have grades which seem the same 

 as regards colour, etc., but which in, the process of manufacture 

 turn out very differently. That, I think, is the specific differ- 

 ence between the variation of plantation rubber and of wild 

 rubber. 



We have had some very interesting evidence from Mr. 

 Williams regarding the nature of the variation in the factory, 

 and I am glad to see that he confirms the view which I ex- 

 pressed some time ago a view, I may say, which was based 

 on a great deal of experimental evidence that the most 

 important factor in regard to variation of the product is its 

 rate of cure. Now in some particulars I agree with Mr. 

 Williams, and in others I dissent from him, and I would ask 

 you not to regard it as entirely presumptuous on my part to 

 differ from an eminent manufacturing expert, because we who 

 are not actually engaged in factories get into more factories, 

 and see more of the general operations in various factories 

 than a specialist who is attached to one individual factory. It 

 is my experience, and I am sure it is the experience of every 

 technologist, that one manufacturer will say that a thing is 

 black, while the next manufacturer will say that the same thing 

 is white; and yet we poor scientists, or technologists, or what- 

 ever you like to call us, are told that we know nothing of 

 the practical aspect of affairs, though when we go into the 

 factories of practical men we hear opinions expressed which are 

 diametrically in opposition to one another. 



