2/6 
the stocks and fluctuations of prices in rubber, compiled from offi- 
cial statistics for the last 20 years, and we must say the figures 
rather stagger us. If these figures are to be believed, the market 
of rubber is liable to strong fluctuations and seems very sensitive 
to over-supply. Are stocks in Liverpool and London high, then 
down goes the price u, or more a lb. ; are stocks low, then the 
figures mount up rapidly. Now this is not quite the story which 
we have been led to believe. We have been told that prices of 
fine Para are no doubt high, but we have looked on them as stable 
and not liable to great fluctuations. In January, 1900, the price of 
fine Para was 4 s. gd. a lb. ; in February, 1901, it fell to $s. 6d . ; and 
in February, 1902, to 2s. lid. Since then it has been on the rise, 
and touched its highest point in September, 1903, when it was 4s. 8 d. 
These prices are evidently the result of the statistical position. Here 
are the prices we have quoted — extremes in all cases — with the 
stocks of fine. Para at the same date - 
Price per lb. Stocks in U. K. 
January, 
1900 .. 
•• 4 s ’ 9 ^ ■ 
449 ton 
February, 
1901 . 
3^. 6 d. .. 
. 1,346 
February, 
1902 . 
2s. lid. . . 
. 1,602 ,, 
September, 
' 1903 ■■ 
CO 
242 ,, 
Of course, these are the prices and the stocks of fine Para rub- 
ber only, in the United Kingdom, but they don’t seem to support 
the idea that any quantity of fine Para rubber can be absorbed by 
the markets of the world, for directly the stock in the 'United 
Kingdom goes up 1,000 tons, down goes the price 'from 4 s, gd. to 
2s. ud. 
The point objected to . — The point that I take objection to in the 
paragraph is not the wrong reasoning, which is obvious, but the 
remark in the fifteenth line. “Now this is not quite the story we 
have been led to believe. We have been told that prices of fine 
Para are no doubt high, but we have looked upon them as stable 
and not liable to great fluctuations. ” Any reader taking note of 
that would conclude at once that “another bubble had been burst,” 
that wrong statements had been made by someone interested, that 
rubber cultivation was “a Trust, " and that, finally, he would take 
good care not to invest in it. This is not an overdrawn picture, 
but practically what happened in the case of a man who had taken 
up the study of rubber planting with the intention of investing in 
it. What are the true facts of the case? The prices of rubber 
are given week by week and often day by day in many papers. 
We ourselves publish a chart fortnightly showing the prices for 
the five years previously. No secret has ever been made of the 
price, and not a year has passed, during the last forty years, but 
what the variations in the price of line Para have exceeded sixpence 
a pound and have very often been a shilling and over. How any- 
one with even an elementary knowledge could conceive them as 
stable is beyond our belief. 
A table of prices . — Lest others might be led into a similar error, 
we give on another page in this issue a table of prices of fine Para 
