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estate trying as far as it possibly can to get its variation 

 strictly uniform day after day, and I will also suggest by 

 shipping the rubber from certain areas together. By that I 

 mean to say that if an estate, let us say, has stations at large 

 distances from the factory, OT where there are other possible 

 causes of variation such as that young areas and old areas, 

 and so forth that estate of course works its areas in sections, 

 prepares its rubber from this and that section, and keeps it 

 separate in the factory as a rule, but as soon as it goes into 

 the drying shed it is all mixed up together, and the shipment 

 simply consists of the rubber from all those different sections. 

 Surely it would be advisable to make a subdivision of the 

 shipment into parts from different areas, and as far as 

 possible to put each area under one single European, whose 

 duty it would be to see that the processes in the preparation 

 were kept strictly uniform day after day. It is on such lines 

 that the planters in the East must themselves attack the 

 problem. But as I said 1 before, I feel convinced that what 

 we chiefly want with regard to a successful attack on the 

 problem in the East is more information more facts. 



Dr. WARBURG (Berlin) also took part in the discussion. 



The PRESIDENT : If no one else wishes to speak, I am 

 sure you will wish to give your hearty thanks to those 

 who have come here to-day and expressed their views 

 on this very important matter. I confess that if I were a 

 planter I should feel somewhat confused by the results of the 

 morning's talk. I think that it confirms the view that some of 

 us have held for some time that what is needed at the present 

 time, as has been said more than once this morning, is more 

 facts; and those facts are only going to be obtained as the 

 result of a considerable amount of laborious and systematic 

 research. I entirely agree with Mr. Whitby that we also need 

 co-operation among the workers. A very large amount of 

 valuable work which is being done at the present time never 

 sees the light of day; that is, it is not made available for 

 general purposes. On the other hand, I do feel that the time 

 is premature for considering what may be called standard- 

 ization. I am not sure that what I mean by standardization is 

 what some other people mean by standardization, but I cannot 

 see how you can have standardization until you have settled 

 what the standard is going to be, and I think at the present 

 time it is perfectly obvious from what has been said this morn- 

 ing that we are not agreed as to what the standard should be. 

 The first thing to do, therefore, is to settle what our standard 

 for plantation rubber should be, and when that has been done 

 we can put in force some scheme of standardization. Sir 

 Edward Rosling has made a practical suggestion to that end 



