llO RAMIE CULTIVATION IN PERAK. 



This third party is the patent holder of this or that process, either a 

 mechanical and chemical process combined, or simply a chemical process 

 such as the " Gomess " process, and as long as ramie must pass througli his 

 hands before reaching tlie spinner the latter will have nothing to do with 

 it, because, first, the price he puts on it is preclusive and, secondly, the 

 fibre produced has not infrequently been irretrievably damaged when 

 coming oiit of the de-gummers' hands, the damage shewing itself only 

 after the weaving into fabrics. A still greater impediment is the fact 

 that this position of go-between creates, in favour of the de-gummers, a 

 monopoly which the spinners are not likely to suffer: for, among these 

 various de- gumming concerns there are many, especially in Fi'ance, who 

 have no backbone at all, they turn out and shew you some beautiful 

 peai'ly white fibres as their product ; they offer to pass contracts for 

 thousands of tons, but, were these contracts taken seriously I have no 

 doubt that, in many cases, as ten years ago in Algeria, history would 

 repeat itself, and when the time came to take delivery of the stems, they 

 would find means to back out of their bargains. I do not say that some of 

 them are not well meaning but their main aim is the raising of money on 

 processes, or selling patent rights. But caveat emptor ! 



As a correspondent of mine, an acknowledged European authority 

 on the subject, puts it, in a recent letter — " II n'existe pas, en France, de 

 de-gommeurs de ramie, il n'existe que des de-gommeurs de capitaux, qui 

 pretendent achetcr des cultivateurs, et n'achetent jamais." 



Ribbons are condemned and we have, I think, heard the last of 

 them ; the spinners will not look at them, and the planter who "goes in" 

 for ribbons must therefore put himself in the hands of the de-gummers, 

 and there he will never find more than £8 to £9 per ton for his product. 

 This, as Dr. Morris points out, means £4 to £5 at the port of shipment; 

 but that is sim})ly aii economic impossibility, and when Dr. Morris sug- 

 gests it I can only conclude, notwithstanding the authority of his name, 

 that ho has not grasped the practical sides of the question, for you come 

 only near the truth in your report when you say — "I do not think that 

 less than §20 could be allowed jier ton of ribbons." You might have 

 gone a good deal further, and I venture to think that if you picture to 

 yourself what it is to turn out one toil of ribbons according to the process 

 referred to you will find it an utter impossibility. 



Kindly allow me to try and draw it out. The yield of dry ribbons is 

 on avei'age 7} per cent of the weight of green stems without leaves. To 

 produce one ton of dry ribbons it will therefore require about 30,000 

 pounds of green stems, and taking an average of six stems (stripped of 

 leaves) to the pound, we shall have to deal with 180,000 stems. You have 

 first to strip the leaves, then to boil 180,000 stems, then take them out 

 boiling hot, strip them while hot (or else the gum hai'dens again) of 

 their bark. " The boiling," say the patentees, " will take a quarter of 

 an hour," I give them four days to do it in, with two men, and then it 

 will not be done. I say nothing of the size of baths required for such an 

 operation, the appliances necessary, cranes, travelling baskets, etc., to 

 manipulate the hot stuff; in fact it is a manifest impossibility. But 

 that will not prevent the patentees from holding to their point, and that 

 in good faith, for they have done it on a dozen stems or so in a tub. 



The bane of ramie is that most of these inventors are Parisian or 

 Cockney cultivators, and they base the whole fabric of the ramie industry 

 on ready made notions sprung out of their own heads without the slightest 

 regard for the material stubborness of a fact. 



