x THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



the efforts now afoot in both Ceylon and the Malay 

 Peninsula to manufacture fine hard smoke-cured rubber 

 to compete with the Para product. For the Brazilians 

 it is absolutely necessary to reach an intelligent appre- 

 ciation of the complete revolution in the rubber situation 

 created by the development of the Eastern industry 

 with the very important factors of cheap labour and 

 efficient and enterprising direction. 



The amazing incidents connected with the rapid pro- 

 gress of the rubber industry in Ceylon and Malaya since 

 1908 partake more of the character of a fairy tale than 

 the plain facts of a nineteenth-century ordinary com- 

 mercial undertaking. From the position of a constant 

 struggle for a bare existence, owners of plantations 

 advanced suddenly to an era of most unprecedented 

 prosperity. Poverty gave place to wealth, and in all 

 directions the conditions of life were transformed with 

 an almost incredible swiftness. 



The period of fabulous dividends has passed ; the 

 large increased production has brought into play the 

 natural result of a regulation of prices on the basis of 

 demand and supply. Lower values do not necessarily 

 imply any serious injury to properly-managed plantations 

 as industrial undertakings, but rather an adjustment of 

 the administration and costs of production to a standard 

 allowing a fair profit on the invested capital. The wild- 

 cat flotations brought out during the period of inflation 

 between 1909 and 1911 will be reorganized or disappear, 

 and the rubber industry of the Orient will settle down into 

 a sound, vigorous enterprise with every prospect of re- 



