21 / 
“ DOLLAR SHARE VALUES ” (REVIEW.) 
This is a very handy little work on the Dollar Share Companies of 
Malaya published by the Editor of the Straits Times. The valuation 
of the sterling Companies has been already done by Messrs. Parry 
and Muraour, but the author considers their scale of valuation is 
rather too high and adopts the scale known now as the Sengat scale, 
which, as he says, errs if at all on the side of caution. In the output 
per acre the both scales estimate ioolbs. for the first tapping year, 200 
for the second and 300 for the third. In the 4th and successive years 
to the 7th the Parry scale estimates 400, and the Sengat 300 lbs. per 
acre. In profit per pound we get in the both scales, 1910, 5 /“ P er 
pound ; 1911, 4/- ; 1912 3 /- ; I 9 I 3 - 4 . 2 /“ P er lb : then fro ™ l9 Lt onwar( l 
the Parry scale estimate is 2/- and the Sengat I /- per lb. The cost ol 
collecting, curing, and placing on the market is 1/6 a pound. It is 
assumed that all development is charged to capital, and the net 
profit is the difference between the selling price and the harvesting 
and marketing price, 1/6 per pound. The scale adopted in the hand- 
book, the Sengat scale, is lower than the early estimates often given 
when the rubber boom was at its height, but in many cases the 
estates were originally planted in a loose, unscientific way by Chinese 
owners, and it depends on the way in which these are handled as to 
whether they will come up to the estimates of the Sengat scale, as 
the writer points out. No investor can expect that in a handbook 
such as this, his actual profits can be definitely stated for even the 
next few years. Agricultural investments depend on a good many 
factors the action of which cannot be foreseen. With the various 
improvements in cultivation and preparation that will be made in the 
next few years, the output may be increased and the cost reduced 
much below the 1/6 given as an estimate of production and marketing ; 
but the Sengat scale forms a very reasonable standard by which the 
investor can judge the value of his investment. 
Details of the position, area planted, etc., of each company is 
given often with what may be called critical notes. Interplanting with 
coconuts, gambier and tapioca is condemned by the writer. It has 
always been understood that tapioca among the rubber, unless treated 
with special care, which was seldom the case at least in Chinese culti- 
vation, did retard the growth of the rubber, though at the same 
time in other instances it was really the making of the estate, which 
could not for want of funds at the same time have been brought into 
bearing. Interplanting with coconuts cannot be justified and such 
rubber is excluded, properly by the writer who only values such 
ground by the coconuts. At the end of the book is a scheme of outputs 
and valuation per acre on three scales, the third of which gives the 
lowest basis on which a reasonable valuation should be made, the 
other two are based on the Sengat scale in its entirety and the Sengat 
scale minus the 5/- which was taken as the rate of profit in 1910. 
With these scales an investor ought to be able to readily value his 
investments in an estate. The book will be of interest and import- 
ance to ail who have interests in the Dollar Rubber Companies in the 
Malay Peninsula.— Ed. 
