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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, or 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 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. Warsure (Berlin) also took part in the discussion. 
The Presrpent: 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. J 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 
