Rubber. 41 
To those pessimists who predict an abnormal fall in the price of rubber, the 
following extract from the Economist quoted in the Tropical Agriculturist for 
September, ought, at least, to be re-assuring. 
“These figures cannot be held to point to over-production, since there can 
be little doubt that with lower, and, above all, steadier prices the trade will 
readily absorb double its present supplies in four years’ time. At four or five 
shillings per lb. rubber would soon find its way back to markets from which 
it has temporarily been driven out. Meanwhile the plantation investor has the 
satisfaction of knowing that until the manufacture can afford to dispense with 
half his available supplies, the price cannot go below the figure at which wild 
rubber can be turned out, which must always leave plantation a very hand- 
some margin of profit 
t may be as well to point out that there is no idea prevailing amongst rubber- 
growers, to eventually supersede that grand mainstay of the colony—the sugar 
cane. Rather it is to grow rubber and other products side by side with our 
staple crop, and so ameliorate the danger, which must always threaten a com- 
munity, which depends on one industry and one industry alone, for its pros- 
perity—nay its very existence. 
