Gums, Resins, 



392 



[May, 1912. 



of Africa are still meagre, and rubber 

 statisticians, amongst others, either fight 

 shy of the subject of the rubber produc- 

 tion of that Continent altogether, or 

 content themselves with a few figures 

 carelessly garnered and of the com- 

 parative value. The difficulty lies in the 

 bewildering number of territories and 

 spheres of influence into which the 

 Continent and adjacent islands have 

 been divided by the Powers. Figuies, if 

 they are to be had, must be collected 

 from so many sources that the task of 

 gathering full particulars of the rubber 

 output appears to present even greater 

 difficulties than it really does. As a 

 matter of fact, nearly every Colony and 

 Protectorate possesses a fairly efficient 

 statistical service, but the figures for 

 the whole of Africa, though published 

 separately in obscure Government 

 reports, have never been collated and 

 made really accessible to members of the 

 rubber trade. For one reason in parti- 

 cular, a more or less exact knowledge of 

 the output of rubber from the African 

 Continent is at present desirable. Africa 

 furnishes, next to South America, 

 the largest proportion of the world's 

 rubber supply. The collection of wild 

 rubber in the Africau Forest is, with 

 some notable exceptions, principally a 

 native industry, and is not organised 

 and financed by Europeans or persons of 

 European descent to the same extent 

 that it is on the Amazon. The rubber is 

 collected under great difficulties, and the 

 collectors, year by year, are forced to go 

 further and further afield and open up 

 new areas. The destruction of various 

 rubber-producing vines and trees, if we 

 are to believe reports, proceeds apace, 

 and recent reforms will, it is said, have 

 the effect of reducing the incentive to 

 the native to undertake this parti- 

 cularly arduous work. The price factor 

 is, of course, of considerable and even 

 overshadowing importance, and if rubber 

 quotations slip back very much further, 

 it is probable that these anticipations 

 will be confirmed, On the other hand, 

 with rubber at or around its present 

 price, it would appear that smaller out- 

 puts from one district may be off -set by 



increased outputs from others, and the 

 present total of the whole Continent 

 maintained. To some extent, how great 

 cannot yet be estimated, the provision 

 of modern machinery for crushing and 

 extracting rubber from the vines may 

 contribute to this result. How im- 

 portant this whole question is to those 

 engaged in the production of plantation 

 rubber and to the manufacturer of 

 rubber goods, may be gathered from the 

 fact which we are now able to state, 

 that the production of African rubbers 

 amounted last year to some 22,000 tons, 

 obviously the reduction of this supply 

 to, say, one-half of its present amount 

 would, with the threatened disappear- 

 ance of such low grade rubbers as the 

 Guayule, have a considerable influence 

 on the future of the rubber industry. 

 Such a result would be received by 

 planters with complete equanimity, but 

 though completely off-set by a large 

 increase in the supply of plantation 

 rubbers, the disappearance of a large class 

 of African rubbers would not perhaps 

 be equally pleasing to manufacturers. 



The chief territories producing and ex- 

 porting rubber are the Colonies and 

 Protectorates of the British, the French, 

 the Germans, and the Portuguese and 

 the Congo State. The French Colonies, 

 including Madagascar, come easily first a,t 

 the head of the list, and are followed by 

 the Congo State— for the present a good 

 second— and the Portuguese Colonies. 

 The British and German Colonies produce 

 a lesser amount at present. Contrary 

 to what is perhaps the general im- 

 pression, a considerably larger amount 

 (21,462 tons, as against 19,113 tons) was 

 exported from the above areas in 1910 as 

 compared with 1909. Production was of 

 course greatly stimulated by the high 

 prices ruling for rubber. The following 

 figures for the French Colonies have 

 been compiled in this office from the 

 official returns and checked and found 

 correct by the French Minister for the 

 Colonies, whose courtsey in this matter 

 we here acknowledge ;— 



