Gums, Resins, 



30 



from such sources has materially increased the price is bound to react. If a planter 

 only obtained 2s. per lb. for his rubber he would still be making a very respectable 

 profit, while, with the exception of some very low grades, wild rubber would not 

 pay to collect at such a selling price. It will be seen, therefore, that whatever 

 happens, the planter will be practically master of the situation, and that even 

 if the world's output were to be increased to say, 100,000 tons per annum. For he 

 has not only the certainty of a sure market for as much as he and his neighbours 

 can produce each year, but he can, by agreeing to accept a low, though to him 

 still profitable, price for his product, squeeze the wild rubber out of competition 

 with himself. 



It has not been necessary for the planter, as yet, to look so far ahead and 

 to study the possibilities of the market, say ten years hence. But the manu- 

 facturers and users of the material are, it would seem, quite alive to these 

 possibilities, and as many of the articles they produce are more or less necessities 

 for the richer section of the community, they fancy that they will always be in a 

 position to prevent anything resembling a corner in rubber. In other words, they 

 can, by bidding prices for wild rubber of the better grades which enables that 

 commodity to be collected at a profit, practically guarantee themselves with 

 assured supplies, equal at least to their ordinary requirements — and the actual 

 consumers of the products of their factories will have to pay the price. That it will 

 ever be necessary to face such a contingency is deciedly questionable. For one 

 thing, the danger of any combine among the world's rubber plantation owners to 

 squeeze out the wild rubber collectors by reducing the price of the commodity 

 is quite outside the range of practical commercial politics. 



At the same time, in the years to come the supply from the rubber planta- 

 tions might easily equal, and possibly overtake, the world's consumption, and then 

 prices for this commodity would inevitably fall, and possibly fall to the level when 

 it would be impossible to market wild rubber at a profit. But the manufacturers 

 would not suffer — indeed, they would be the gainers, since they would obtain what 

 is admittedly a better article than the wild product at a figure possibly much 

 below that which obtains at the moment for low-grade wild rubber, and at the same 

 time the plantations would not be worked at a loss. 



One or two manufacturers of rubber seem to incline to the belief that in 

 the comparatively near future rubber will be selling in the market at considerably 

 below current quotations. But there is nothing to warrant such an assumption, < 

 any more than there is anything to lead to the belief that the price will go higher 

 either from natural causes or from the operations of any corner. Well-informed 

 men in this business incline to the opinion that for some years to come, even with 

 materially increased supplies, the price will fluctuate within narrow limits round 

 the current quotations, and that unless marked improvements take place in the 

 preparation of wild rubber for the market, this article will be gradually ousted 

 by the better and purer qualities obtainable from the plantations. It would seem, 

 then, that while the manufacturers of rubber are not likely to suffer any hardships 

 through scarcity of supplies or dearness in price, neither are the planters to toil 

 without a sufficient reward for their labours. The folk who may suffer — and even 

 this, be it noted, is by no means more than a mere possibility — are those interested 

 in the collection of wild rubber, especially when great distances have to be travelled, 

 in the first instance, and the entrepots are far removed from the manufacturing 

 centres of the world.— Financier. 



