500 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



April 28th. 



Dear Sir, — Mr Hugh Tomlinson's interesting 

 letter re Java's premier estate shows what 

 Java tea estates can do at a high elevation. 

 1,082 lb. per acre over 2, 124J ; acres make one's 

 month water. Stake planting evidently is a 

 great success and getting 1,108 lb. per acre in 

 the fourth year from such planting was never 

 heard of in Ceylon. 



The management, which includes V. A. and 

 Agency charges, i presume, comes to 2"60 cento 

 per lb., not so very high; but if it was a Ceylon 

 estate, which seldom gives more than 550 lb. 

 per acre, and the management charges for such 

 a bearing are not much less than that giving 

 that high average would run the managing 

 expenses to about 5"50 cents per lb. being high — 

 I take the guilder as being equivalent to 82 cents 

 (Ceylon)*. All I can say is if many other estates 

 in Java are run on such lines and there is land 

 and labour available, the output of tea from 

 this great Dutch Colony will astonish us in four 

 or five years to come. — Yours, PLANTER. 



THE MALAY RUBBER GROWERS' 

 ASSOCIATION. 



Mb, W. W. Bailey Reviews the Proposals. 



Sir, — I have read with interest two editorials 

 and several letters on this subject. 



I was quite surprised to see the editors of two 

 of our leading papers writo articles which ap- 

 peared to be more suitable to appeal to the Social- 

 istic Unemployed than to a body of well edu- 

 cated Britishers, in many cases from our best 

 schools and Universities, who I hope have come 

 out here to fight the hard and long battle which 

 aiono enables one to climb the ladder of success, 

 rung by rung. 



Their education will soon show those with 

 grit the impossibility of jumping three or four 

 rungs at a time, which many tried to do during 



THE TWO LAST YEABs' CRAZE TO OPEN UP RUBBER 

 AT ANY PRICE. 



The object I have in writing this letter, is 

 not to slang the good-for-nothings whom one 

 finds in every class ; but to give some praise to 

 many who are full of honest grit and hard work, 

 and who have fought a hard battle against 

 competition for labour, sickness, bad luck in 

 burns, bad advice from scientific departments, 

 etc. 



Out of the large number of Managers that I 

 have reported on, nearly half deserve the above 

 praise. 



Of the bad reports that 1 made, none of them 

 were bad enough except one ; and that one, 

 though true, showed that Manager and Assist- 

 ant did their best struggling against fever and 

 consequently shortage of labour. Now about 

 all these letters that have been written I must 

 just say a few words. I was a youug planter 

 and I worked on a small salary for many years 

 when I first came to Malaya, though 1 left 

 Ceylon drawing over £1,000' a year, having the 

 visiting of five of my brother-in-law's estates. 



* No. 12 guilders to the £, each Is 8d j or 

 Hi -25 eacli.-Ep, 



The salaries are now twice as good as they 

 were then, even taking the difference of ex- 

 change into consideration ; and planters of all 

 classes have three times the opportunity to 

 make money. Never was there a better pro- 

 duct for planters, or one showing such a chance 

 of making a rapid fortune, than rubber; but 



IF THE GOOSE IS ONCE KILLED 



the eggs in future will be light in comparison 

 to the fine heavy golden ones they should be. 



The papers state that they are not responsi- 

 ble for the opinions of their correspondents. I 

 wonder are they responsible for their own. 



Anything more calculated to injure the 

 planters, both young and old, and the rubber- 

 enterprise of Malaya as a whole, than the 

 editorials by the Malay Mail and the Pcnang 

 Gazette I cannot imagine. And what a fuss has 

 been made about nothing. 



What is the Rubber .Growers' Association? 

 A combination of Directors and owners of 

 rubber estates, naturally frightened at the enor- 

 mously increasing expenditure on the working 

 of estates, who, wishing to do their best for the 

 shareholders to whom they are responsible 

 (mark you the planters here own more shares 

 in Rubber Companies than they have any idea 

 of) issued this so-called " Private and Confiden- 

 tial Circular, " no doubt with the very best 

 intentions. 



I shall now 



REVIEW THE DIFFERENT CLAUSES IN THE 

 CIRCULAR. 



Junior Assistants.—" Each" company with 

 80u acres or more, etc." That a man is to be sent 

 out whether there happens to be a vacancy or 

 not seems to have given great offence even to 

 the managers, for they say that these men are 

 taken on so that the Companies can replace the 

 managers with cheaper men. 



I do not believe that the men responsible for 

 this circular meant anything of the sort, nor do 

 I agree with the Editor of the Malay Mail that 

 these men can learn their work sufficiently well 

 within three or four years to become good 

 managers. To my mind it takes a long life ; 

 even towards the close of it I feel that I person- 

 ally have plenty to learn. 



During the last two years young fellows have 

 been pushed ahead too rapidly. In many cases 

 they have accepted any offer (so long as the pay 

 was higher than what they were getting) regard- 

 less of the loss and inconvenience to their for- 

 mer employers. In the end they have not bene- 

 fited themselves as their Jack of experience has 

 resulted in disaster and their dismissal, and 

 consequent lack of confidence in them by the 

 man in the street ; though these same men, had 

 they been content to go slower, would have in 

 many cases been a success. 



THE PREMIUM SYSTEM WAS A ROTTEN ONE, 



for young fellows were pushed ahead before 

 they knew their work simply to make room for 

 another jjremium payer. 



"A second -class passage out and a salary 

 from date of arrival of §125 per month for six 

 months, etc," 



