2;6 



the stocks and fluctuations of prices in rubber, compiled from offi- 

 cial statistics for the last 20 years, and we must say the figures 

 rather stagger us. If these figures are to be believed, the market 

 of rubber is liable to strong fluctuations and seems very sensitive 

 to over-supply. Are stocks in Liverpool and London high, then 

 d-»wn go^s the price is. or more a lb. ; are stocks low, then the 

 figures mount up rapidly. Now this is not quite the story which 

 we have been led to believe. We have been told that prices of 

 fine Para are no doubt high, but we have looked on them as stable 

 and not liable to great fluctuations. In January, 1900, the price of 

 fine Para was 4s. gd. a lb. ; in February, 1901, it fell to 35. 6d. ; and 

 in February, 1902, to 2S. lid. Since then it has been on the rise, 

 and touched its highest point in September, 1903, when it was 4s. Sd. 

 These prices are evidently the result of the statistical position. Here 

 are the prices we have quoted — extremes in all cases — with the 

 stocks of fine Para at the same date : — 



Price per lb. Stocks in U. K. 

 January. 1900 ... 45. gd. ... 449 tons. 



February, 1901 ... 35. 6d. ... 1,346 ., 

 February, 1902 ... 2s. lid. ... 1,602 „ 



September, 1903 ... 4s. 8*/. ... 242 



Of course, these are the prices and the stocks of fine Para rub- 

 ber only, in the United Kingdom, but they don't seem to support 

 the idea that any quantity of fine Para rubber can be absorbed by 

 the markets of the world, for directly the stock in the United 

 Kingdom goes up 1,000 tons, down goes the price from 45. gd. to 



25. \ \d. 



The point objected to. — The point that I take objection to in the 

 paragraph is not the wrong reasoning, which is obvious, but the 

 remark in the fifteenth line. " Now this is not quite the story we 

 have been led to believe. We have been told that prices of fine 

 Para are no doubt high, but we have looked upon them as stable 

 and not liable to great fluctuations. " Any reader taking note of 

 that would conclude at once that "another bubble had been burst, " 

 that wrong statements had been made by someone interested, that 

 rubber cultivation was (< a frost," and that, finally, he would take 

 good care not to invest in it. This is not an overdrawn picture, 

 but practically what happened in the case of a man who had taken 

 up the study of rubber planting with the intention of investing iu 

 it. What are the true facts of the case? The prices of rubber 

 are given week by week and often day by day in many papers. 

 We ourselves publish a chart fortnightly showing the prices for 

 the five years previously. No secret has ever been made of the 

 price, and not a year has passed, during the last forty years, but 

 what the variations in the price of fine Para have exceeded sixpence 

 a pound and have very often been a shilling and over. How any- 

 one with even an elementary knowledge co dd conceive them as 

 stable is beyond our belief. 



A table of prices. — Lest others might be led into a similar error, 

 we give on another page in this issue a table of pric es of fine Para 



