MONTHLY 
Vol- XI. 
COLOMBO, DECEMBER isx, 1891, 
[No. 6. 
THE INDIARUBBER SYjSIDICATE. 
FEW months back there 
was started a project, upon 
which we oommented at the 
time, to form a syndicate to 
obtain complete control ot the 
indiarubber trade both in 
America and Europe. This 
iw oome to grief, and whether 
benefited or have injured such 
rubber trees as has already 
this colony, its possible re- 
wholly and entirely disre- 
interested in the enterprise, 
■, we suspect. We deem it 
if 
even 
attempt has 1 
it would have 
cultivation of the 
been attempted in 
suits may now be 
garded by planters 
few in number no\ 
to have been extremely questionable 
had the scheme been found to be practicable, it 
could have done anything to stimulate increased 
production in Ceylon, and we cannot say that 
we are sorry that another of these gigantic mono- 
polies which have been so injurious to regular trade 
all the world over should have turned out a failure. 
The syndicate in question was originally organised 
with a capital ot 10 million dollars, of which 1 
million dollars was at once subscribed, and another 
million dollars was obtained from other eouroea. 
We now learn that this whole amount has been 
lost, the English banks having snSered to the extent 
of about 1 million dollars. In Brazil the operations 
of the syndicate so stimulated production, collection 
rather, that it would have required more than double 
the capital possessed by the syndicate to hold 
the stocks which it had obtained and to seoure 
the rubber due to arrive on their hands. The 
banks began to be alarmed at the prospect and 
refused further advances, and when the sale of 
the acoumulated stocks became compulsory, prices 
tumbled down to an extraordinary degree, fine 
Para rubber falling from 80 cents to 63 cents per 
pound. Messrs. Baring Brothers are said to have 
been holders of no less than 500 tons of the rubber, 
and altogether the syndicate hold 3,6U0 tons of 
it, nearly the whole of which cost 80 cents and 
more per pound laid down in New York and 
London. The selling prices having fallen, as we 
have stated above to 63 cent;*, it is no wonder that 
collapse followed, and thnt we are likely to hear little 
more of attempts to "corner " the trade in indiarub- 
ber. It is therefore undoubtedly lucky for those 
who have yet continued the cultivation of the trees 
upon estates in Ceylon that the whole scheme 
has collapsed before the operation of the syndicate 
reached the island. It is extremely question- 
able if the syndicate would have o3ered prices 
such as would have induced our planters to have 
gone in for extended cultivation, but the planters 
might have done so if they shared in the hopeful 
anticipations of the syndicate. As it is, the bubble 
has burst before there had been time for Ceylon 
planters to outlay more money on this form of 
cultivation; but if any have collected and exported 
the gum, they have had, at least, to pay a 
certain penalty in the heavy reduction in the 
London market of the prices formerly obtained 
for their production of the article. We 
suspecit that this failure will have a beneficial 
effect in doing away, with this mischievous system 
of " cornering " produce, as to which we have al- 
ways written our view that it was both immoral as 
well as commercially unsound. Our condemnation 
in the last sense has been constantly proved correot; 
for any attempt made in that direction since people 
became alive to the operation and its sequences has 
come to grief. The practice is a sort of trade uni- 
onism without any of the redeeming features of the 
latter. This has a few philanthropic motives— 
at all events professed— to justify it, while theae 
syndicates are nothing more nor lees than attempts 
to convey the money of the many into the pockets 
of the few. Little sympathy we feel, need be 
wasted over those whose imaginary gains have 
been converted into real loss over this rubber 
Bpeoul<)tion. 
The PRoriTs or Java Cinchona Plaktebb. — A few 
years ago a lengthy article (from which we quoted at 
the time) appeared in a Dutch-Indian technical journal 
giving details concerning the cost of production ot 
cinchona bark in Java. In the Preanger district, 
where the largest and the best-managed estates 
are rituated, the wages of labourers in the plantations 
average 3d to 3Jd per day for men, and about 2Jd 
par day for women and children. From these and 
other data figures were deduced which show that 
at a sale unit of 6-7o in Amsterdam (IJ per lb.) 
a well managed estate of seven-year-old trees, 
yielding an average of 4J per cent bark, would 
yield an annual interest of 10 per cent on the 
capital invested. Eight-year- old trees of the same 
alkuloidal richness will pay 10 per cent even at 
a UQit of 5'2a (equal to 15-16thB d. per lb) ; and 
nine-year-old trees yielding 5 per cent quinine 
lulphate, will pay 10 per cent profit at a bark unit 
ol (t qual to Jd pe» \\),}— Chimin an4 DTUffgi$t, 
