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"DOLLAR SHARE VALUES" (REVIEW.) 



This is a very handy little work on the Dollar Share Companies of 

 Malaya published by the Editor of the Straits Times. The valuation 

 of the sterling Companies has been already done by Messrs. Parry 

 and Muraour, but the author considers their scale of valuation is 

 rather too high and adopts the scale known now as the Sengat scale, 

 which, as he says, errs if at all on the side of caution. In the output 

 per acre the both scales estimate 100 lbs. for the first tapping year, 200 

 for the second and 300 for the third. In the 4th and successive years 

 to the 7th the Parry scale estimates 400, and the Sengat 300 lbs. per 

 acre. In profit per pound we get in the both scales, 1910, 5/- per 

 pound; 1911,4/-; 1912 3/-; 1913-4, 2/- per lb : then from 1914 onward 

 the Parry scale estimate is 2/- and the Sengat i/- per lb. The cost of 

 collecting, curing, and placing on the market is 1/6 a pound. It is 

 assumed that all development is charged to capital, and the net 

 profit is the difference between the selling price and the harvesting 

 and marketing price, 1/6 per pound. The scale adopted in the hand- 

 book, the Sengat scale, is lower than the early estimates often given 

 when the rubber boom was at its height, but in many cases the 

 estates were originally planted in a loose, unscientific way by Chinese 

 owners, and it depends on the way in which these are handled as to 

 whether they will come up to the estimates of the Sengat scale, as 

 the writer points out. No investor can expect that in a handbook 

 such as this, his actual profits can be definitely stated for even the 

 next few years. Agricultural investments depend on a good many 

 factors the action of which cannot be foreseen. With the various 

 improvements in cultivation and preparation that will be made in the 

 next few years, the output may be increased and the cost reduced 

 much below the 1/6 given as an estimate of production and marketing ; 

 but the Sengat scale forms a very reasonable standard by which the 

 investor can judge the value of his investment. 



Details of the position, area planted, etc., of each company is 

 given often with what may be called critical notes. Interplanting with 

 coconuts, gambler and tapioca is condemned by the writer. It has 

 always been understood that tapioca among the rubber, unless treated 

 with special care, which was seldom the case at least in Chinese culti- 

 vation, did retard the growth of the rubber, though at the same 

 time in other instances it was really the making of the estate, which 

 could not for want of funds at the same time have been brought into 

 bearing. Interplanting with coconuts cannot be justified and such 

 rubber is excluded, properly by the writer who only values such 

 ground by the coconuts. At the end of the book is a scheme of outputs 

 and valuation per acre on three scales, the third of which gives the 

 lowest basis on which a reasonable valuation should be made, the 

 other two are based on the Sengat scale in its entirety and the Sengat 

 scale minus the 5/- which was taken as the rate of profit in 1910. 

 With these scales an investoi* ought to be able to readily value his 

 investments in an estate. The book will be of interest and import- 

 ance to all who have interests in the Dollar Rubber Companies in the 

 Malay Peninsula.— Ed, 



