( 228 ) 



Further, as each plantation would mark and seal its cases 

 of rubber, the reputation and standing of the estate would soon 

 be sufficient guarantee of its purity. 



The second objection of insufficient washing or subsequent 

 contamination can only be a transitory one, to be removed 

 directly the evil is pointed out. 



The rubber planters and producers in the East are quite 

 willing to make any change and improvement in preparation 

 which will tend to the production of purer rubber or an article 

 in any way more fit for use by the manufacturers. The interests 

 of the producers and manufacturers do not conflict, and any 

 suggestions which tend to improve the preparation of the raw 

 product will be warmly welcomed. At the same time it must be 

 pointed out that the use of some machine on large estates which 

 have had experience of the advantage consequent on the use 

 of a washing machine for preparing raw rubber are so convinced 

 of its value, that to abandon it and revert to the old system of 

 hand labour and petty coagulation in pots and pans, the tedious 

 and troublesome drying, and all the evils which follow in the train 

 of an accumulation of rubber sheets saturated with a putrefying 

 solution of gums, sugars and albuminous matter, to go back to 

 these conditions is impossible, and such a retrograde movement 

 would be detrimental to the best interests of the planter or the 

 manufacturer. These views, however, I have already expressed 

 publicly, and I do not wish to merelv repeat what 1 have 

 already said before, but that the interests of the planter and of 

 the manufacturer cannot conflict I am convinced, and any 

 apparent difference is due to imperfect knowledge each has of 

 the other's province. I have quite recently arrived in England 

 from the Malay Peninsula on a special mission, of which one of 

 the principal objects is to bring into closer touch the East and 

 the West, the producer and the manufacturer. To do this one 

 must have a knowledge of the conditions and a knowledge of the 

 details of the work at each end, and, while in England, 1 wish to 

 see personally those who control and conduct the manufacture of 

 rubber goods, so that I may perhaps put more clearly before 

 them the real condition of the cultivation and preparation of the 

 raw rubber in the East, and at the same time learn from them 

 their views and requirements, and some knowledge of the 

 reasons underlying them, by seeing the main outline of the 

 processes through which the "rubber passes in the course of its 

 manufacture. 



The absence of such knowledge has been felt in the Malay 

 States, and its influence has been all on the side of retarding 

 the development of rubber planting, that industry in which 

 the possibility of abundant future supplies of raw rubber 

 so largely depends.— " India Rubber Journal," April io, 1905, 

 p. 366. 



