and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



487 



have no desire to discuss the prospects of this 

 or any other synthetic rubber invention other 

 than in the way such an invention, if shown to 

 be commercially practicable, is likely to affect 

 the position of the Plantation Rubber share- 

 holder. We have never attempted to deny that 

 the artificial production of rubber is possible; 

 indeed, if our memory serves us aright, we 

 have shown that in laboratory practice such 

 production is possible. But we have consistently 

 denied, and we think the excerpts from the 

 above-mentioned company's meeting is proof (if 

 any were needed) of the correctness of our con- 

 tention, that a Commercial synthetic rubbor 

 ha3 yet to be discovered. We notice that Mr. 

 Wigglesworth remarked that he had hoped to 

 be able to put a block of rubber on the table 

 and say that his company could produce snch a 

 commodity as Is per lb. Well, let us assume that 

 he could— or can. Will he ask us to believe 

 that rubber so produced has the tensility, the 

 wearing power, the manufacturing adaptability 

 of rubber either from the forests of Brazil or 

 from plantations in the Middle East ? Surely 

 not. And further, we would ask him to remem- 

 ber (and with him those who are willing to stake 

 further capital in synthetic investigations) that 

 this year and in the years to follow the big pro- 

 ducing companies in the Middle East will be 

 able to market an infinitely superior product at 

 considerably lower cost than his ideal average of 

 production ! Further than this, from the in- 

 vestor's standpoint, it is not necessary to go, but 

 were it so, there are numerous other points we 

 could readily adduce to show that so far as 

 plantation rubber is concerned it has nothing to 

 fear from the finest of synthetic dicoveries. 



Wild v. Plantation Rubber. 



It will be recalled that a short time ago Mr 

 Harrington Edwards addressed us an interesting 

 communication dealing in the main with costs 

 of producing " wild " versus cultivated rubber. 

 This letter adduced a retort from Mr. K. 

 Dingwall (which appeared in our issue of Monday 

 last), and to this retort Mr Harrington Edwards 

 (who is a director of the Galvez Rubber Kstates, 

 Limited) replied under date March 31st as 

 follows: — "A paragraph in your issue of the 

 29th inst. has just been brought to my notice, 

 in which Mr K Dingwall comments on a letter 1 

 wrote, and, whilst he appears to accept the propo- 

 sitions I made that 'native' rubber was of better 

 quality than plantation rubber, and that, having 

 regard to the amount of moisture therein, it 

 fetched better prices than the plantation rub- 

 ber, makes certain comments as to my third 

 statement as to the cost of production of the 

 'native' and plantation rubber. In my original 

 letter I stated that I believed in one or two 

 cases plantation rubber companies had brought 

 their rubber to the market at a less cost of 

 production than any of the largest indigenous 

 rubber companies, but I went on to state that, 

 it an average were taken, I was confident that 

 the average cost of collection of the indigenous 

 rubber would work out at considerably less 

 than the cost of plantation rubber. I think 

 that if Mr Dingwall had read my letter carefully 

 he would have seen that in selecting one parti- 

 cular plantation rubber company and comparing 

 it with the cost of the production of rubber of the 



Galvez Rubbor Estates, Limitod, the comparison 

 might not apply, as I was dealing with the 

 question of ' native ' and plantation rubber 

 generally and not of any particular company. 

 However, J have no objection to giving Mr. 

 Dingwall the information he requires, and 

 stating that the cost of production to arrival 

 in the London market by the Galvez Rubber 

 Estates, Ltd., has been Is 8d per lb, during the 

 first year's working, whilst I know of no planta- 

 tion rubber company thatbringsits rubberto the 

 London market at under Is 6d per lb. 



" To return to what is more important to your 

 readers— namely, the general question— I should 

 like to observe that the total amount of capital in 

 English companies invested in plantation rub- 

 ber in the Indian and Malay Peninsular amounts 

 to about £250,000,(100, whilst the money invested 

 in 'native' rubber companies amounts to under 

 £5,000,000. The total production, however, of 

 rubber for 1908 from Ceylon and India amounts 

 to only 1,800 tons, whilst the amount of rubber 

 that came from the Amazon Basin alone in 1906 

 amounted to 38,000 tons. What I wished to 

 suggest was that the cost of production per ton 

 of the 1,800 tons was more than the cost of 

 production of the 38,000 tons ; nor can this 

 statement be disproved by merely quoting one 

 particular plantation rubber company that hap- 

 pens at the present time to be producing rubbor 

 at a very low price. 



"In connection with this question of the price 

 of production, it must be remembered that in 

 Bolivia, Peru and Brazil most of the labour is 

 by contract, and the price of the contract for 

 the production of the rubber varies with the 

 price of rubber, so that if rubber is high the 

 expenses are high ; but if rubber is low, the ex- 

 penses are low. Any one acquainted with the 

 large fluctuations that occur in the price of rub- 

 ber will appreciate how important this is, and 

 how it would enable the indigenous rubber com- 

 panies to sustain a fall in prices much better 

 than an ordinary plantation company." — 

 Financier, April 2. 



COCOA INDUSTRY OF BAHIA. 



H.M. Consul at Bahia (Mr D R O'Sullivan 

 Beare] has forwarded a memorandum on the 

 cocoa industry of the State of Bahia, from which 

 the following particulars are taken :— 



It is difficult to estimate, with any exactitude, 

 the acreage actually under cacao cultivation in 

 the State of Bahia at the present time, since no 

 official data are available. It is possible, how* 

 ever, to arrive at an approximate estimate from 

 a consideration of the following data, viz. : — the 

 total output of cocoa from the State during the 

 1907-8 season amounted to about 25,000 metric 

 tons ; the average yield of each mature cocoa 

 tree, per season, may be taken to be 2J kilos of 

 dried beans ; the number of cocoa trees planted 

 per hectare may be taken to average 625. Cal- 

 culation based upon these data would go to show 

 that the total area under cocoa cultivation in 

 the State at the present time amounts to some 

 16,000 hectares, equivalent to some 40,000 acres, 

 and that there oxist some 



