Si 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
o 
PARA RUBBER. 
The Editor, 
The Agricultural Bulletin. 
Singapore. 
Sir, — J have read with much interest, tempered with regret, Mr. 
Burgess’ “ Report on a visit to Great Britain to investigate the 
India Rubber industry in its relation to the growth and prepara- 
tion of raw India Rubber in the Malay Peninsula” published in 
the December Bulletin. 
My regret was occasioned by the perusal of paragraphs n and 12 
“Quality of plantation rubber/’ 
Like Mr. BURGESS, I was in England last June “ investigating 
the rubber industry in relation to” etc. etc., and though not sup- 
ported by such distinguished introductions, met a good many people 
interested in the industry. Amongst them, I am glad to sav, I did 
not find that there was any uniformity of opinion unfavourable to 
the quality of our rubber. As late as last August, the Managing 
Director of a manufacturing firm, whose name is a household word 
in the rubber world, speaking of a few small lots of rubber they 
had bought from this estate, said that they had not discovered any 
inferiority up to that time. If there is any inferiority, he added, 
it remains to be found in the lasting proportion of the manufactured 
article. 
The late Dr. Weber has been described as “the greatest Rubber 
Chemist ” the world has ever known ; and one would like to learn a 
little more than Mr. BURGESS tells us about the Silvertown test, before 
discrediting the reports of such an authority. A general statement 
that test had proved the inferiority of plantation rubber in tensile 
strength is somewhat discounted when one considers the nature of 
the evidence which Mr. BURGESS find sufficient to condemn its 
keeping quotation. 
I submit that the lasting proportion of manufactured rubber 
cannot be ascertained by keeping sample of the crude product in 
air-tight jars. Such a test can have with practical value unless it is 
proposed to use rubber in a crude form or unless there are any 
planters who may desire to store their rubber for a few years. 
Even as a test of the keeping qualities of crude rubbers, it would 
be necessary to know that chemicals detrimental to the- rubber itself 
had not been used in its preparation. 
I believe that in 1902 and 1903 the use of certain acid to assist 
coagulation was general but I have before me as I write, a slab of 
rubber — three quarters of an inch in thickness — which has not been 
in contact with chemicals. 
-rfco 
