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been told that fine hard Para as a grade is more stable and 
even in quality than Plantation Para. I feel convinced that, 
if only the natural and artificial amenities existing in the East 
are made full use of, it will not be very long before manu- 
facturers all over the world will have to concede that the 
grade of rubber to be relied on, not only for purity, colour and 
dryness, but also for uniformity of quality above all others, is 
the much criticized cultivated variety. 
The premium at which hard Para has stood over Plantation 
since the latter has been procurable in larger quantities than 
the former has been used as an argument to prove the 
inferiority of plantation rubber; but another point which has 
an important bearing on the question, namely, supply and 
demand, has been ignored. 
For a long time plantation rubber sold on the market at a 
considerable premium over any other kind, but then its pro- 
duction was insignificant compared with present figures. 
Meanwhile, the world’s requirements of rubber have shown 
a steady expansion which the supply of Para, being stationary, 
has quite failed to meet. On the other hand, the rate of 
increase in the production of plantation rubber has been too 
rapid for the manufacturers to keep pace with, owing to the 
short space of time during which they have been able to 
experiment. There can be little doubt that the comparative 
shortage of Para rubber, coupled with the phenomenally rapid 
increase in the plantation supplies, has had’ more to do with 
the differences in price than any inherent difference in quality. 
We now know that all the ordinary articles of commerce 
which are manufactured out of rubber can be and are being 
successfully made from the plantation variety, and consider- 
ing the short period during which large quantities of plantation 
rubber have been available, this is a very satisfactory state of 
things, and it is doubtful whether it could have been arrived 
at without the stimulus and advertisement which the plantation 
product received at the hands of consumers through the dis- 
count at which it was procurable compared with other grades. 
To carry this argument to its logical conclusion, the price 
for plantation rubber in the world’s markets should eventually 
be higher than that for any other kind of rubber, and we have 
already experienced hopeful indications of this, the difference 
in the quotations for Para and Plantation having decreased by 
over 50 per cent. during the past few months. 
To correct what was looked upon as an artificial market 
manipulation all kinds of proposals have been recently made, 
those taking the form of standardization schemes being the 
most prominent. 
It was suggested that a rather complicated system of basing 
