36 



The Chamber of Commerce finally agreed to the quite inadequate 

 sum of lid per pound, but the matter was referred to the African 

 Trade Section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who in spite 

 of the high price of rubber, and the decision of the merchants on the 

 spot, protested against this tax, and suggested that this extraordinary 

 expense be paid out of the general revenues. Here the matter rests. 

 Our only remedy is — (i) to refuse to grant rubber licenses to the 

 tappers until they have learnt to make biscuit rubber and promise to 

 make no other kind, and — (2) after a certain date to prohibit the 

 export of lump rubber. More especially should this be done as we 

 know that lump rubber is adulterated with the latices drawn from the 

 Iroko, Alstonia Congensis, and other latex giving trees. 



The Provincial Forest Officer of the Eastern Province reports as 

 follows on the methods of collecting and preparing Landolphia rub- 

 ber by the Munchis inhabiting the newly opened out Obudu 

 Districts. 



*' The systems are invariably cut down to within two or three feet 

 of the ground and the Caoutchouc in the laticiferous vessels allowed 

 to coagulate before the stems are cut into foot long pieces and stripped 

 of bark, which is pounded and washed alternately till the shredded 

 bark is almost estimated. The result is irregularly shaped pieces of 

 rubber containing about 20 per cent of shredded bark. The pieces of 

 rubber are then heated in boiling water, softened and pressed into an 

 irregularly shaped ball bound together by thin strips of pure rubber, 

 viz., latex coagulated by salt as it exudes from the wounds in the 

 bark of a contiguous Landolphia. 



The district will not for some time be sufficiently under control 

 to enforce the rules relating to rubber. The producers were impos- 

 sible to get at but the Hausa middlesmen rubber traders were in- 

 structed in the proper way of tapping and preparing pure rubber." — 

 (Report on Forestry and Agriculture in Southern Nigeria, para. 43 & 4.) 



VARIABILITY OF PLANTATION PARA. 



The publication of letters in recent issues of India- Rubber Journal 

 from important manufacturing and chemical firms relating to the 

 variability of plantation rubber from the East has brought forward 

 numerous suggestions and enquiries. It is quite clear that the grow- 

 ers of plantation rubber view with some misapprehension the 

 objections repeatedly raised against their product ; hitherto they have 

 prided themselves upon the proved constancy in chemical composition 

 of their rubber, and have, from the commencement, maintained a 

 reputation for purity which will always stand them in good stead. In 

 fact the standard of constancy in composition has stimulated collectors 

 of wild rubber in Africa and America to work with the ^ame object in 

 view, and already inferior rubbers, known for all time on account of 

 the loss on washing, are being placed on the market as washed crepe, 



