THE SLUMP IN RUBBER.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1891, 28 October 1913, Page 8

THE SLUMP IN RUBBER.

11 PRICES TOtfCH BEDROCK. «! Recent cablegrams announced that j the robber interests abroad were taking j • joint action with regard tothe minimum price of rubber. The jmoo of rubber i lias dropped remarkably in recent years, and the "Daily Mail" in a recent issuo explains why. "While the cost of living and the price of most raw materials are perpetually advancing, there is one c ' commodity'which has astonished every- 01 one in recent years by the. extfcjit and ? velocity of its fall. Plantation rubber, which in tho days of the great 'boom, little , more than three years ago. was ™ selliiig for 12s. 9d. a pound, has fallen in tho present week to 2s. (This was in September last.) Forward sales liavo ® oven been made at the price of Is. lid. J* There is no parallel for such a figure. « In tho darkest moment of tho crisis oi ,l . 1908, which followed tho great- .Atneri- ri can financial panic, rubber never went a' below 35., and tliis was regarded as it something extraordinary.' Tho present b< fall is the more, serious because of tho ti vast British eapitiil invested in rubber plantations. In 191.0 alone somo forty pi millions was raised in this_ country and b( devoted to rubber cultivation. / ei "Tho fall is undoubtedly due to tho ce great increaso in production which fol- til lowed the 'boom' of 1910. The output oc has advanced inordinately, but tho con- JI sumption, despite the enormous growth bv of tho motor industry, has not kept pace' tli with it. In that fact rather than in any he operations of an imaginary syndicate to 8 j depress rubber lies the cause of tho ui: shareholders' woes. Tho fall'cannot go lv ] much further, for tho simple reason re tbnt a noiiit has now been reached at rG , which it would not pay many of tho y, weaker plantations to _ produce: and j w schemes are already being mooted for f r< raising tho price. That, perhaps, is pa Hot an aim with which motorists and J, ths public generally can be exnected to jj a feel any warm sympathy. The most {.jj promising proposal is for a Central | )U Selling Agency, which shall liavo power to regulate sales, restrict output, and j s oncourage now uses of rubber. In tho ' ■ last direction lies the real remedy." . . ■ i . IIK