36 
The Chamber of Commerce finally agreed to the quite inadequate 
sum of lid per pound, but the matter was referred to the African 
Trade Section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who in spite 
of the high price of rubber, and the decision of the merchants on the 
spot, protested against this tax, and suggested that this extraordinary 
expense be paid out of the general revenues. Here the matter rests. 
Our only remedy is (i) to refuse to grant rubber licenses to the 
tappers until they have learnt to make biscuit rubber and promise to 
make no other kind, and— (2) after a certain date to prohibit the 
export of lump rubber. More especially should this be done as we 
know that lump rubber is adulterated with the latices drawn, from the 
Iroko, Alstonia Congensis, and other latex giving trees. 
The Provincial Forest Officer of the Eastern Province reports as 
follows on the methods of collecting and preparing Landolphia rub- 
ber by the Munchis inhabiting the newly opened out Obudu 
Districts. 
“ The systems are invariably cut down to within two or three feet 
of the ground and the Caoutchouc in the laticiferous vessels allowed 
to coagulate before the stems are cut into foot long pieces and stripped 
of bark, which is pounded and washed alternately till the shredded 
bark is almost estimated. The result is irregularly shaped pieces of 
rubber containing about 20 per cent of shredded bark. I he pieces of 
rubber are then heated in boiling water, softened and pressed into an 
irregularly shaped ball bound together by thir strips of pure rubber, 
viz., latex coagulated by salt as it exudes from the wounds in the 
bark of a contiguous Landolphia. 
The district will not for some time be sufficiently under control 
to enforce the rules relating to rubber. The producers were impos- 
sible to get at but the Hausa middles nen rubber traders were in- 
structed in the proper way of tapping and preparing pure rubber. 
(Report on Forestry and Agriculture in Southern Nigeria, para. 43 & 4-) 
VARIABILITY OF PLANTATION PARA. 
The publication of letters in recent issues of India-Rubber Journal 
from important manufacturing and chemical firms relating to the 
variability of plantation rubber from the East has brought torward 
numerous suggestions and enquiries. It is quite clear that the grow- 
ers of plantation rubber view with some misapprehension the 
objections repeatedly raised against their product ; hitherto they have 
prided themselves upon the proved constancy in chemical composition 
of their rubber, and have, from the commencement, maintained a 
reputation for purity which will always stand them m good stead. ln 
fact the standard of constancy in composition has stimulated c Sectors 
of wild rubber in Africa and America to work with the same object in 
view, and already inferior rubbers, known for all time on account ot 
the loss on washing, are being placed on the market as washed crepe, 
