281 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



"RUBBER PROBLEMS." 



The prevailing depression in Stock Exchange 

 business would o£ itself be almost sufficient to 

 explain the dulness of rubber shares ; dulness, 

 that is, compared with the boom prices in the 

 spring. Otherwise, the rubber quotations would 

 seem very £*ood, but in the light of that incident 

 prices look weak.. ..The man who is investing, 

 or who has invested, in rubber shares is often 

 foolishly excited about fluctuations of a few 

 penoe in the price of rubber as recorded by 

 Mincing lane, but what he has to face is the 

 prospect of a reduction to, say, 6s. per lb., 

 against the present prices of about 9s. This 

 consideration it is which has a great deal to 

 do with keeping the market down, because 

 buyers of rubber shares are accustomed to 

 think of their holdiugs, and to work out thair 

 probable profits, on the basis of something 

 like the higher figure for rubber, although, of 

 course, in every decent prospectus of the many 

 which have been published this year, a sub- 

 stantial reduction in the price of rubber during 

 ahe next few years has been provided for. Were 

 tubber to fall straight away to 6s. per lb., 

 there might be a slump in the rubber share 

 market, but it would certainly have salutary 

 effect in the long run, and might even do 

 less harm than would be caused by a gra- 

 dual sagging away of the price a few pence 

 at a time. No doubt it may be thought pes- 

 simistic to suggest that rubber will fall to any- 

 thing like 6s in the near future, but in these 

 quiet days the operator is inclined to look on 

 the duller side. 



THE DEMAND FROM AMERICA, 



audits supplies of rubber, are variously described 

 by different authorities, but speaking generally, 

 while the demand for pleasure cars may decline 

 heavily, the demand for commercial motors 

 should increase steadily for a long time to come. 

 In the United states and in Canada future pur- 

 chases of motor-cars must necessarily depend a 

 good deal upon the result of the harvest; and 

 the dismal estimates which are supplanting the 

 rose-coloured forecasts of the early part of the 

 year, with regard to the probable output, find a 

 natural reflection in the rubber share market. 

 Even taking rubber at 6s per lb., an enormous 

 profit can be made by the plantation companies 

 and by the various undertakings which rest 

 upon them for their prosperity, but people have 

 got so much into the habit of treating rubber 

 upon a 9s a lb. basis that a return to the lower 

 figure, or the prospect of the material getting any 

 where near that price, naturally makes for depres 

 sion at a time when most of the other markets 

 in the Stock Exchange are the reverse of strong. 



Partly as a result of high prices, partly owing 

 to the rich man's passion for motor-cars, there 

 has been a tendency for more and more of the best 

 qualities of rubber to be absorbed by a single 

 trade—the tyre trade. Other industries have 

 had either altogether to dispense with the lub- 

 ber they would like to employ, or have to de- 

 pend upon some form or other of " scrap " or 

 "reclaimed." There is now a-days remarkably 



LITTLE WASTE 



in the rubber trade ; the nipe-stem or baby's 

 feeder have usually passed through a good 



many transmutations before they come to 

 these uses, and the worn-out galosh has still 

 some history to see before it returns to dust. 



What, then, are the supplies which may be 

 looked for from the plantations of the Middle 

 East, which are likely to afford the bulk of any 

 future increase ? The following table comprises 

 an ostimate of the planting already completed 

 before the current year. It may be premised 

 that the figures are based on very inadequate 

 returns, and are probably underestimated : — 



Year. 



Malay 



Malay Ceylon and 



Total. 





Peninsula. 



Archipelago. 



India, 





1905 and 



Acres. 



Acres. 



Acres, 



Acres. 



earlier. 



64,000 

 50,000 



6,00) 



74,0 



144,000 



1906 



18,000 



37,000 



112,000 



1907 



55,U0U 



32,000 



53,000 



140,000 



1908 



63,000 



42,090 



38,000 



143,000 



1909 



60,000 



50,000 



24,003 



139,000 



This gives a total planted area of 676,000 

 acres. Of the planting done in 1905 and earlier, 

 by far the greater proportion was in the 

 very be3t planting districts of Ceylon and 

 Malaya, and it will certainly be inside the mark 

 to assume that these 144,000 acres will be pro* 

 ducing an average of 200 lb an acre next year ; 

 300 lb in 1912, 4001b in 1913, and 500 lb 1914. 

 Of later plants a proportion are situated in dis- 

 tricts not yet fully proved, nor would it he safe 

 to say that the same technical stardard of work 

 could in every instance be taken for granted, 

 as in the case of the older plantations developed 

 on a smaller ecale, and in a more leisurely 

 fashion. To be well on the safe side, it may 

 be assumed that the land planted after 1905 

 will, on the average, yield 50 lb. per acre in the 

 fifth calendar year after it was planted, 1251b the 

 next year, 200 lb the next, and 250 lb. the next. 

 On this basis we should obtain the following 

 figures of future production : — 



Tons. 



1911 .. .. 15,300 



19U .. ... 28 600 



1913 .. .. 46,700 



1914 .. .. 68,000 



By 1914, as a matter of fact, the planting done 

 during the current year will have begun to tell, 

 and for this no allowance has been made. Nor 

 has it been possible to give any estimate of the 

 acreage under cultivation in British and Ger- 

 man Colonies in Africa. The latter, however, 

 will not, at any rate, during the four years 

 covered by this estimate make any material 

 difference to the totals, which mean, as they 

 stand that whereas the output from the planta- 

 tions will probably afford under 13 per cent, of 

 the world's supply during this year, it should 

 most likely supply more than half in four years 

 time. These figures cannot beheld to point to 

 over-production, since there can be little doubt 

 that with lower, and, above all, steadier prices 

 the trade will readily absorb double its present 

 supplies in four years' time. At four or five 

 shillings per lb. rubber would soon find its way 

 back into markets from which it has tempora- 

 rily been driven out. Meanwhile the plantation 

 investor has the satisfaction of knowing that 

 until the manufacturer can afford to dispense 

 with half his available supplies, the price cannot 

 go below the figure at which wild rubber can bo 

 turned out, which must always leave plantation 

 a very handsome margin of profit. — Economist. 



