04 
traders,  or  start  collecting  rubber  on  their  own  account.  Yet  I 
believe  it  is  absolutely  necessary,  if  a foreign  company  is  to  be 
successful,  that  it  should  import  labour  from  outside,  for,  in  my 
opinion,  it  is  impossible  for  such  a company  to  succeed  with  Bra- 
zilian labour  only. 
The  reason  is  really  a very  simple  one.  When  a man  or  a com- 
pany buys  an  agricultural  estate  or  other  landed  property  in  a 
foreign  country,  such  as  Spain  or  France,  or  even  Mexico,  the 
produce  of  that  estate  belongs  to,  and  is  the  property  of  the  owner, 
be  he  a private  person  or  a company.  In  the  rubber  regions  of 
Brazil  the  produce  does  not  belong  to  the  owner  of  the  estate.  It 
belongs  to  the  collector,  the  rubber  cutter  who  sells  it  to  the  owner 
for  cash  or  goods  at  a price  a little  below  the  market  price  at  the 
nearest  centre,  whether  Para  or  Manaos.  If  a rubber  cutter  goes 
to  a store  on  the  estate  and  does  not  find  in  that  store  what  goods 
he  requires,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  sell  his  rubber  to  outsiders'  and  he 
cannot  easily  be  prevented  from  doing  so.  If  he  owes  money  to  the 
company,  and  the  company  tries  to  wipe  ofT;  the  debt  by  reducing 
the  cash  or  quantity  of  goods  given  in  exchange  for  the  rubber 
delivered,  the  collector,  if  he  can,  will  certainly  sell  his  rubber 
elsewhere,  where  he  will  get  the  full  river  value  for  it  without 
deductions.  In  the  writer’s  experience,  goods  advanced  on  credit 
to  the  collectors  beyond  a certain  small  amount  by  a foreign  com- 
pany are  never  or  very  rarely  paid  for,  the  advances  might  almost 
as  well  be  written  off  as  soon  as  made,  d'he  Brazilian  Rubber 
Trust,  which  took  over  the  properties  of  the  Rubber  Estates  of 
Para,  inaugurated  a “no  credit’^  system  which  was  fairly  success- 
ful, the  liabilitit's  of  the  cutters  and  tenants  when  the  company 
decided  to  lease  the  estates  being  only  about  £500,  whereas  pre- 
viously, under  the  old  system,  they  had  amounted  to. near  £6,000 
or  /^8,oOo  at  the  end  of  each  season.  But  the  company  found  it 
impossible  to  do  away  altogether  with  the  credit  systenj,  as  it  could 
not  get  sufficient  men.  I believe  that  the  properties  now^  owmed 
by  tlie  Brazilian  Rubber  Trust  have,  since  they  w^ere  worked  by  an 
English  company,  produced  on  an  average  nearly  as  much  rubber 
as  the  Visconde  de  Sao  Domingos,  the  Brazlian  owmer,  obtained 
from  them,  that  is,  about  250  tons  per  annum.  But  the  English 
proprietors  have  never  got  more  than  60  tons,  and  the  average  is 
only  about  50  tons.  What  has  become  of  the  balance,  the  200 
tons?  There  is  little  doubt  that  something  like  that  amount  of 
rubber  each  year  was  sold  to  the  rubber  pirates.  Consequently,  the  | 
Brazilian  Rubber  Trust,  though  directed  wdth  some  knowdedge  has,  ; 
like  all  the  other  foreign  companies,  failed  to  succeed.  i 
What  is  the  remedy?  I am  afraid  there  is  none  so  far  as  the  foreign 
company  is  concerned,  except  foreign  labour.  The  Brazilian  owner 
, will,  after  due  w^arning,  promptly  shoot  the  first  rubber  stealer  of 
river  pirate  he  comes  across.  He  may  not  do  the  shooting  himself,  | 
but  the  thief  will  be  shot  all  the  same,  and  nothing  wdll  happen. 
If  the  representative  of  a foreign  company  were  to  follow  this  ex- 
ample, that  gentleman,  and  perhaps  some  of  his  staff,  would  be 
pretty  certain  to  spend  a few  years  in  prison,  'even  if  worse  did  not 
