Chums, Renins, 



206 



East Coast African.— Zanzibar, etc., has decreased: prices have ruled 

 very high, showing id, to 5rf. advance. Nyassaland much less and very dear. 

 Mombassa sent more Lamu, and got good prices. Uganda has supplied small 

 but increased quantities, and though part rather softish it sold well. 



Madagascar in small supply, and has been in very active demand at 

 advancing prices ; all fine, clean lots very dear. Rangoon less. Assam more 

 and sold readily higher; good red is. to 3s. 9cZ. Some clean plantation 



sold as high as 5s. per lb. Penang rather increased 629 tons, 600 in 1904, 300 

 in 1903, and much mixed of undesirable quality was difficult to sell; clean 

 lots sold readily. Java only shipped small lots, they sold well, and we expect 

 plantations there will produce nice quality. From New Guinea very small supplies 

 sold readily. Borneo much larger supply and high prices for good. French 

 Cochin China and Tonkin greatly decreased supplies ; clean red 5d. dearer. Ponti- 

 anak has been abundant at times, and speculation maintained values to a high 

 standard ; closing price £17 15s. c.i.f. 



Balata continued in good supply, but with large demand, prices improved, and 

 close at the highest of the year. Block, good, Is. »\d. to Is. OtZ., sheet 2s. to 2s. 0\d. 



Gutta Percha has continued to sell at moderate prices, but more readily. — 

 The India-Rubber Journal. 



The Ceylon Rubber Exhibition. 



The following circular letter has been addressed to rubber manufacturers 

 and gentlemen interested in rubber in Europe and America :— 



Royal Botanic Gardens, 



Peradeniya, Ceylon, 

 February, 1906. 



Gentlemen.— I am desired by the Committee to inform you that a " Rubber 

 Exhibition," under authority of the Ceylon Government, will be held in the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Ceylon, from the 13th to the 27th September, 1906, and 

 to invite you to contribute. This will be the first exhibition of its kind ever held, 

 and should mark an epoch in the history of rubber. 



2. You are probably aware, from seeing the market quotations and from 

 reading the technical papers, that rubber is now being cultivated in Ceylon and the 

 Federated Malay States, and though the exports as yet are inconsiderable, they are 

 doubling annually and will, in about seven years' time, probably reach ten or fifteen 

 million pounds and increase rapidly after that, in fifteen years from now probably 

 exceeding the exports of Brazil. 



3. Plantation rubber is cleaner and purer, and is at present selling at 7d. to 

 lOd. a lb. more than that from Para. It is important that manufacturers should, as 

 early as may be inform themselves as to "plantation rubber from the East," the 

 modes of preparation, the cost of production, possibilities, and disadvantages, for 

 the future lies with it, and wild rubbers will be driven off the market, excepting, 

 perhaps, the Para rubber of Brazil, for which there is likely to be some use and a 

 remunerative price for a long while yet. 



4. Hitherto, owing to the small supply of cultivated rubber upon the market, 

 two things have happened. Manufacturers have not made any special machinery to 

 deal with it, but have mixed it with the dirty wild rubbers they have been in the 

 habit of using, and planters have not adopted any special form in which to send it to 

 market, but having started with the singularly inconvenient form of biscuits have 

 gone on with these, though it is evident that they are absolutely unsuited to prepar- 

 ation on the larger scale which the expanding trade requires. To deal with the latter 

 first, the planter must adopt some less cumbrous and expensive mode of preparation. 



