Gums, Resins, 



414 



[May, 1909. 



nomic and improved methods in the 

 cultivation of rubber. 



The industry is still yielding excep- 

 tionally handsome profits, and such 

 questions should be considered and ex- 

 perimented without delay. Recent 

 history has shown us that in the case 

 of other tropical agricultural indus- 

 tries the desire to practise the most 

 approved methods of cultivation, 

 and the cheapest way in which to 

 carry them out, came only with a drop in 

 profits. Cultivated rubber in Malaya 

 pays a handsome profit on money in- 

 vested, but that seems to be no reason 

 for not being constantly on the look- 

 out to find in various directions methods 

 of saving in cost of production and 

 improved cultivation. 



To carry on a rubber estate or any 

 other agricultural enterprise for a num- 

 ber of years, paying large profits, but 

 without any alteration in the manage- 

 ment of the estate, the details of culti- 

 vation or the preparation of the pro- 

 duct for the market, must be considered 

 as curious and discreditable, since it 

 shows that experience and knowledge 

 has in no way helped to improve 

 methods or economic working. 



The rubber market was in common 

 with all other trade affected to a large 

 exteut by the financial trouble in Ame- 

 rica. It is the custom of manufacturers 

 to keep in stock sufficient unvulcanised 

 pure rubber for six months' operations, 

 it is therefore possible for them to 

 continue to work for some time with- 

 out purchasing new stocks. The stock 

 in England and in Germany was conse- 

 quently increased and the price very 

 greatly affected. At the beginning of 

 the year plantation rubber was sold at 

 5s. 9d„ which quickly dropped to 5s., 

 recovering in July, but after that time 

 dropping, quickly and steadly, till in 

 November, the lowest price then record- 

 ed for best plantation rubber before, 

 viz., 3s. 4d,, was reached, being a drop 

 of 100 per cent, from the price of IS 

 months previously. That this drop in 

 prices was to a very large extent due 

 to a financial and not to ordinary 

 "supply and demand " causes is admit- 

 ted by those who have largest ex- 

 perience of the fluctuations of market 

 prices. The price will recover and pro- 

 bably vacillate about 4s. It is satis- 

 factory to remember that even the 

 lowest price yet reached for plantation 

 rubber is more than 100 per cent, above 

 the cost of production. 



Over-Prod uction and Synthetic 

 Rubber. 



The tear of over production which 

 bulked very large a year or more ago 

 has, owing to more accurate knowledge 



of the world's demand for rubber and 

 the amount produced, to some extent 

 subsided. 



The drop in prices, while having the 

 effect of reducing the amount of rubber 

 planted, may also to a great extent 

 reduce the output from Brazil, where 

 the margin of profit is much less than 

 in cultivated rubber. 



This also should lead not only to a 

 consideration of cheapening of methods 

 of production, but to the possibilities 

 of increasing the demand for rubber. 

 No product lends itself more to mea- 

 sures for improving and widening the 

 market. The almost endless possibilities 

 to the economic uses of rubber, and the 

 small proportion of the purchasing 

 population of the world which at present 

 knows and uses rubber, both demon- 

 strate the fact that measures taken to 

 provide new outlets for rubber are much 

 more hopeful than in the case of food 

 or textile products like coffee or copra, 

 which have a comparatively limited 

 number of uses. 



It is not to the interests of cultivated 

 rubber that the output of the Brazilian 

 product should decrease very rapidly. 

 There is not yet sufficient cultivated 

 rubber or wild rubber from other sources 

 to supply the increasing demand. 



Those who look forward to a future 

 with immense areas of cultivated rubber 

 in suitable climates, of which the 

 Malaya Peninsula can claim to be the 

 best, believe that cultivated rubber will 

 in time satisfy all manufacturers in 

 regard to its physical qualities and 

 will be produced in sufficient quantity 

 to meet the world's requirements. 



It is not easy to foresee the future 

 demands for rubber, but a substance 

 which has made itself so indispensable 

 to all civilised races must be required in 

 increasing quantities, and the fear of 

 over-production may be cancelled, by 

 the quite as likely possibility of the 

 supply not meeting the demand and the 

 consequent resort to other substances 

 as substitutes for rubber. 



The question of what are termed 

 "rubber substitutes" has been much 

 discussed, and various scares of im- 

 portant discoveries have made the flesh 

 of those interested in rubber creep. 

 That various substances can be used 

 instead for rubber for various purposes 

 is acknowledged, just as cotton can be 

 used for silk, or paper for cotton, but 

 that is a different question to the pro- 

 duction of a substitute for rubber which 

 will possess the physical properties of 

 rubber to which all its commercial 

 value is due. In this direction the year 



