Owns, Resins, 



374 



[Nov. 1906 



" It is often said," Mr. Carey added, " China is a further source of supply, 

 but in actual practice the experience is that men have not much use for Chinese 

 coolies in agricultural work, mainly for the reason that they are not able to speak 

 their language, and to successfully work orientals one must be able to get into that 

 intimate touch with them which can only be done by becoming familiar with their 

 language." 



Proceeding Mr. Carey then made the following interesting statement : — 

 " One thing which I do think is a very important question," he said, " is this 

 suggested, and I believe real, lack of nerve in our rubber in the Straits Settlements 

 and P.M.S. Undoubtedly, without any question, rubber which is extracted from 

 young trees is not so full of tensile strength as that from older trees. The older 

 the tree that supplies the latex, the tougher the rubber ; but that does not in my 

 opinion amount to a sufficient reason for the absence of nerve which our rubber 

 undoubtedly shows. I believe myself that the days of sheet and biscuit and crepe 

 are reaching their end. The reason for that is that we know, in spite of what 

 certain people have said to the contrary, that almost any rubber prepared in a 

 thin form responds to the corrupting influence of the atmosphere and gradually 

 perishes. It is not necessary to expose it to the direct rays of the sun, but if you 

 leave it on your office table you will find as day succeeds day, your rubber becomes 

 less and less resilient : and I put that down to the fact that in our eagerness to 

 secure the most rapid drying, we are placing our goods on the market in the 

 thinnest possible forms, and therefore exposing the maximum surface to what I 

 have called the corrupting influence of the air. At the present moment, I may 

 say, I am having sent home a considerable sample, amounting— I hope — to 2 or 3 

 cwts. of rubber which has been kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. J. A. Mac- 

 Gregor, the Manager of the Anglo-Malay Rubber Company. This rubber was 

 some years or so ago, when in a freshly coagulated form, made up into rough balls 

 of various sizes— owing, as I understand, to a temporary breakdown in the 

 machinery. A certain amount of moisture was expressed by hand pressure, and 

 the balls of freshly coagulated latex were laid down on the cement floor of the store 

 where they were left until recently, when I saw them there. I had one of these 

 big balls cut open, and 1 found it honeycombed in the centre with cells containing 

 evidently putrid moisture, and the rubber itself had got on the outside a thin 

 coating, black and shiny, of obviously cured rubber. The inside was perfectly white 

 in colour— as white as the day it was taken out of the coagulating pans — and it had 

 all the appearance of a perfectly immature product in the centre, as indeed did 

 all on the inside of this slight black rim which was just on the surface ; but on 

 attempting to break even the smallest portion away from this white mass, I found 

 that the tensile strength was so tremendous, it was impossible to pick out a piece 

 even as big as a pin's head, 1 was very much impressed with this because, though 

 I have not the exact facts and details as regards the age of the trees from which 

 this rubber was obtained, I gathered from conversation with Mr. MacGregor it 

 was just the average intake of latex from average trees ranging from 5 to 7 or 

 8 years of age. 



" Though, of course, in the absence of scientific examination by means of 

 mechanical apparatus it was not possible to say what the tensile strength of this 

 rubber was, still to the ordinary observer like myself it was perfectly clear it 

 was very much greater than I had ever seen it in any other form. And the con 

 elusion I came to was that the hardened surface had hermetically sealed the 

 contents of the block within to such an extent that even the evaporation of the 

 moisture had not been possible. Nothing could escape and — as nothing could 

 escape— no perishing influence could get in. I believe we shall find very shortly 



