THE KAURI GUM TRADE INTERESTING INFORMATION.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 346, 27 February 1889, Page 4

THE KAURI GUM TRADE INTERESTING INFORMATION.

Oxi: of the most valuable industries of the Auckland province, and one in which a very large number of our setfclcis are intoiested, is the expoifc of kauri girii. It i s now over foifey yea id since the gum was first exported, but it is not much more than half that time since it obtained its present position in manufactuics. Kauri gum is a vegetable fossil resin, and, as is well known to our leaders, is found only in the Auckland pro\ince. It is dug out of the earth a few feet from the surface in pieces of the average size of one's fist, oxidised on the outside md looking somewhat like gravel scone. The gum i-> undoubtedly tho product of the kauri pine tiee, and the generally - accepted theory for its existence is that the trees by the decay of natuio have left their resin sap behind them in the earth, to agglomerate and partially fossilise for ages, while not a ve?tige of the wood remains. It cannot be obtained fiom the living tree, which only produces a pulpy lesin chat, as yet, has no commercial value, though theic can be no doubt that, as time goes on, and the fossilised depo&its become exhausted, it will be made use of. The manufactureis are c\ en now working in that dhedion, as a soft-weak half mature gum, something between the pulpy resin and the fossilised gum, is employed to a small degiee and is of some commercial value. It took some considerable time tor kauri gum to obtain its present position as an article of value in commerce. It is only used in the manufacture of varnish, and of linoleum. Bofoic the valuable pioperties of our gum became known, the reun gums from the tropics were solely used in these mamifactutCb, butbeing dearer and not nearly so suitable, they were soon displaced in favour by thekauii gum, and now to all practical intents and pui poses it ha=; superseded them altogether. From Mr J. L. Walker, a London met chant, who has had about the largest e\psiienceof anyone in the kauri gum tiade, we learn that these is a market for about 7,000 tons of Kauri gum annualty. This consumption is steady, and dirlers very little each year, so that the manufactureis' brokers in New York and in London know exactly how much i-s requiied. This consumption of kauii gum repiesents an -annual production of some five million gallons of varnish, entering, in iact, into the whole varnish supply of the •world. Hitherto it has not been found practicable Lo make u&e of kauri gum in any other manufactures besides those mentioned above, but on the other hand there is no other article chat can replace kami gum in the position it has obtained except manilla gum and animi.

THE OUTPUT. When one conies to think of the small extent of counfciy over which kauri gum is found, how sparsely it is distributed, and with what 1 ibour and difficulty reclaimed fiom the eaith, it is mar\ellou.s that such quantities can be found each year. Year after year the supply has gone on increasing. In the eaily days of the colony, in the times when " Poenamo " and many another early settler weie finding out the wondeis and the qualities of this beautiful land ot ours, kauri gum was only due? by the Maoris who broi>ghb it to the settlements and baiteied ifc for provisions, clothes, guns, grog, etc. But as time went on and the country became settled, and as the gum grew in value as an article of commerce, the European settlers turned their attention to finding the deposit. The digging of gum then (and now also) was of valuable Assistance to the settler in his struggle for evidence when reclaiming his Lmd and biinging ifc nndor cultivation. Then, as our population grew and pioved too numerous for the labour lequirements of the country, kauii gum digging proved a valuable resource for the unemployed. Its value in this iesp : cb was proved last year, when the haidest pinch ot depression was felt in thiscolony, and when it wasestimated that there were fully 10,000 men employed on the gumh'elds digging gum. Though that number is now considerably reduced owing to the brightening of business and the steady increase of stetlement, there are still several thousand men in the Auckland province who gain their living by digging for kauri gum. When the output of gum was but limited and bai'ely sufficient for thereqniiement-s of the manufacturers, a high price was paid for it, but as the output increased so the price steadily declined, until last year, when the climax w r as reached. As we observed before, the number of searchers after the gum then numbered over 10,000, and the result of the labours of such a number of men was prodigious. The zeceipt tor the twehemonth totalled hundreds of tons over those of the previous year, and finally the maiket was glutted, and merchants competed to pay a price that hardly recompensed the diggeisfor their arduous toil. This will, in a pait, work its own cure, for when men aie only making their "tucker"' at gum - digging they are not anxious to continue at it when better - paid work i» to be had. In consequence, with the leturn of Letter times, the numbers of diggero will be considerably reduced, and the production of the article become more consistent with the requirements of commerce. This year there has been a considerable diminution in the returns of kauri giro as compared with those of List year. No doubt this can in a small degree be attributed to the rather better times we have been having lately. The farmers have required labour, and as they paid better wages than could be made at gum-digging, a fair number of the diggers na\c preieircd agricultural woik to their tormcr arduous toil. Still this only accounts for a very small proportion of the diminution. The very best gum is to be obtained from the ranges, but a little depth below the surface, where the rain and sun can affect it. In the dry summer months the ground bakes so hard that it would be madness for the digger to attempt to profitably carry on his diggingoperations theie. He has perforce to remove his. camp to low er levels and see what he can obtain in the gullies. The greater part of the gum obtained in summer i 3 from the swamps, and generally is of a very inferior quality. Ifc happened that just as the diggers were getting on to the swamp diggings this year the heavy rains filled their swamps with water, rendering digging to any great extentimpospible. Thisof itself had had considerable influence on the output of gum. Then there is the fact that the Maoris, who in some parts are the sole diggers, seldom work much in that line in the summer months, preferring to obtain the better gum with less labour when the winter renders the ranges workable.

ITS INFLUENCE. The kauri gum industry has been the maiustay of the Auckland province during the depressed times she has recently passed through, and it has been one of the principal supports to the whole colony. .Either directly or indirectly everyone in New Zealand is interested in the kauri gum trade, and it is bad to think upon what would be the consequences if next week

sellers— to the digger and to the storekeeper who purchased the gum, to the seller in town, and also to the merchant who shipped to his principils at Now York or London. These reports of ours havo always been received as correct gauges of the market, and have never been questioned. In order to make them still more decidedly correct and to give them an oflicial standing with the trade, the gum merchants of the city held a meeting last week. Those present represented tho principal shippers of gum, the Walker Gum Company being the only important business not represented. There were, however, no sellers present ; it was practically a meeting of buyers alone. At the meeting it was decided that Mr Stewai t (of Stewart and Garlick), Captain Webb (of Arnold, Cheney and Co.), and Mr R. Walker (of W. R. Walker) should be a committee to supply each week a report of the sta f e of the gum market to tho press. This decision was by no means a unanimous one, and hearing this a lepiescntativo ot the Staij was deputed to find out if there was anything of importance to the public (who aie so intcrebted in the matter) in the difleiences of tho merchants, and also to obtain any general information he could respecting this industry, thegumfieldfe (suddenly gave out. One has to consider that it is entirely a cash trade, that that cash is all foreign capital, and then to think that some £437,500 was paid into the colony for our valuable product last year, to understand of how great importance it has been and is to the colony. The prices paid for gum "vary considerably with the requirements of tho English and American market*, the state of the stocks at London and New York, and the way the gum is coming in. It has reached as high as i'7o, and it has been as low as £25. Naturally in. these ciicumstanccs it is a matter of considerable importance to the poor digger, far remo\ed from town, to havecoircct infoi mution as to what the results of his labour are woith. Wo have each week published the market prices, and jjiven the letuuib of the gum up to date during the month, and these luue proved of great \a!ue to both bu\ers and

MR J. L WALKER INTERVIEWED. The Hist mei chant waited on was MrJ. L. Walker, head of the Walker Gum Company, a firm that has tor the past thirty or foity yeais been the head and front of the gum tiade in Auckland. Mr Walker has himself been associated with the business tor more than 40 year?, and established as he was> in London and here, has been in- : timately conected with the ramifications, of the whole business during that period. Mr Walker was quite willing to give our iepresentnti\e all the information in his power. In reply to the first question if he approved of the Committee that had been appointed fco the gum trade, and that it vvould be conducive to its good, he said, " While not objecting to the names, I do not see how the report of such a Committee could possibly be an impartial report to suit the requiiements of absentee buyers and sellers. A committee to represent the whole trade should also consist of brokers or other representatives of sellers, that is, absentee sellers ; bnt as the members of Committee named at the meeting are personally interested as buyers, they are in opposition to the lemainder of the trade — to the seller*. Yes, you aie right ; it practically means that if theie should be a committee of the buyeis there should be a committee of the sellers also." Our reporter suggested with a diifidenfc smile that there was no pos.sible chance of that coming about, for how could they get the sellers together, separated over the country as they were? "Precisely so,'' replied the head of the Walker Gum Company. "And the reports thnt. will l>o bnppHod by the Committee must be taken for what they are worth. If there is no broker to lepresent the trade, it will always be difficult to get an impartial quotation. It would be a good thing for each buyer to quote his own price instead ot a Committee doing it. Yes, the prices do differ sometimes. They vary according to the requirements of each house, sometimes to the extent of one to two shillings per hundredweight, a matter of considerable importance to the digger." Our reporter explained to Mr Walker | how we obtained our quotations each week, which quotations he expressed himself peifectly satisfied with so far as they had gone. He was shown how an eHoit was made to obtain prices from each individual merchant, but; such information being veiy difficult to obtain, we were com pelled to go to a single bujer whom we could lely on for trustworthy information. Mr Walker considered that such apian of obtaining information appeared to him to be sa*,isfactory if it could be extended, and he mentioned that we might lely on the Walker Gum Company for n&.-isbance in any such plan. For the reasons above .stated he did not think that the Committee as at present constituted would work. "Now, to show you," he obsened, "their report of to day (referring to the pi in ted figures) was obtained without consulting us and several other large buyers ; therefore it cannot be a report today of the whole trade, or altogether impartial." He then gave our reporter his prices for the day, when ib was pointed out to him that they were the same as those quoted by the Committee. " A happy coincidence," he replied, " that does not alter my opinions generally, or the force of my objections to such a committee." "The New York and London market, ''said Mr Walker in reply to our representative, "are at present over-stocked owing to tho excessive supplies of last year. 1 do not think theie i& any chanco of improvement until these supplies are counteracted by shoiter supplies this year, the consumptive demand being steady. 7,000 tons per annum may be taken as the aggiegate consumption of kauri gum, and any surplus supplies will of course upset the market and render impossible high prices. So far, the supplies this year are about equal to the requirements. They are nob excessive, but the people at home have a large quantity on hand from the excessive supplies of last year. "No; I do not consider that a market with nnceitain prices is to the advantage of the trade generally. 1 believe ib would be to the advantage of the consumers as well as the p: oducers to have steady prices. This could only be brought about by harmony among the agents of tho consumers here. Kauri gum is an article of steady consumption that is very little influenced by its piice." " Therefore,"' chimed in our representative, "I infer that it is owing to the workings of the go-betweens that we have such great connections in price as occasionally occur ?" "Precisely so, to the disadvantage of everybody concerned. Everybody is grumbling. The digger says he cannot got his ' tucker,' and the merchant says he makes a loss, while the consumer does nob thank either of them."

MR GARRETT INTERVIEWED. From Mr R. Garretfc, of Mitchelson and Co., our represenbabive obtained some interesting information. He showed how there were two sides in the market here, the English and fche American, and some-

times one is high and sometimes the other. First the price of gum at New York and then the price of gum at London would affect it, but tho New York market prices rule here generally. He pointed out how hard ib was to control prices, and instanced how some time back the largest shippei s made an effort to keep tho prices up, an ellbrL that it successful would havo benefited everybody ; but some of the sellers stepped in and sent home a quantity of gum, some 300 to 500 tons of low grade black. This gum was it&elf of an interior quality, but the news being cabled that so many tons were on the water, this had tho elTocb of keeping low even the price of good gum. During the conveisation our reporter had with Mr Garrett he noticed some beautifully - varnished panels, and asked Mr Oarrettif these were from the varnish factory at Avondalo. "Yes," he replied "they aio. We have now got there a factory capable of supplying the whole wants of both Australia and New Zealand. The amount of varnish sold in New Zealand in a year is about equal to .010,000, and if we can keep thab in the country and evpend it on our own labour, there is so much gained. Wo cannot do much in Australia on account of tho heavy duty on vaini&h there, and they have established a tacbory of their own, but of comto they have to import their gum irom here. You can sec yourself the quality of this varnish, which is enliroty mado in tho province, and which has been declared by American authorities to be quite equal to tho beftb Amoiican or English • bub the thing is to get over local prejudice. Wo are giadually breaking down this feeling. For instan cc, coaeh-makein' varnish is a veiy important trade in the colony. L'eoplc aie extremely fastidious as to what varnish is put on their carriages, but we find that the local article gives en the satisfaction. Me?si» Cousins and Atkin would not use an article if it was net up to what their trade xequhed, and our varnish is held by them to be equal to the best English, and used accordingly. There is a duty of Is 6d a gallon on the impoited article, and with this slight protection we are able to compote with tho English and Ameiican manufacturers in spite of their name, and tiust yeb to make it preferred beiore the impoited article lor me; it alone. Theie is another matter with respect to this worth noticing. You bee these tins (pointing to a large number of tins round the office and evidently filled with varnish), they are all local manufacture, and our varnish manufactory assists in creating a Aery large industry in these tins, of which we use some six or seven thousand a year. It reacts on other tilings, and keeps in the colony money that would otherwise go to England or America, while we make a large local use of our valuable pioduct kauri gum."

OPINION OF AN EXPERT. There are few men in the city better informed on the subject of kauii gum than Mr Macindoe, ior seventeen years with Mr H. P. Barber, so that our representative expected to hear something particularly edifying when he called on him, and he was not disappointed. He had a long and interesting com ci cation with MrF. B. Macindoe, in which most oft he iaets alieady stated vveie recapitulated. Oneof the things particularly noticed by him \\ as how gum incieased in value as it was exposed to the air and to the sun. Taking our j epoi terto a showcase, Mr Macindoe pointed to a beautifully clear piece of transpaient yellow gum ot a longish flat shape, and weighing about three pounds. That he said he called the u Kohinoor," and was the finest piece of gum in existence. Though ho only gave a tew shillings for ib ten yeais ago, it was now valued at I' JO. Further, he stated thab with each succeeding year it had gained in clearness, and looked now. after the lapse of 15 years, ever so much better than ib did when buught. He went on bo state how he had samples taken out years aero that were now far better than any gum he could ever get, and ib was the same with the chips. He was sure, because he had proved it, thab if gum weie exposed in the air and sun for live or six years, it would inciease in value considerably. "Now," said Mr Macindoe, "when you come bo think of bhe enormous expoits of gum we have had lately, I think you must atbiibuteit partly to its cheapness. If ib had been any dearer the manufacbuiers could have nob taken ib. They can geb nothing to replace kauii gum, bub if the pi ice is high they mix a veiy large propoi bion of Manilla gum with ib. The varnish of com&e is nob so good, bub it is produced cheaper. For instance, in 1879 an effort was made in New York to corner gum, and the price went up from I'3B to £70 a ton. Thab year there was. moie Manilla gum used in bhe varnish trade than ever befoie. If ib had nob been for the Manilla gum varnish would biue gone up to almost a prohibitory price. "The best gum is cot in the ranges in winter from May to .September. Ib is what we would call haul fern gum. In summer — or from October to .April— the ground gets haid and baked so that bhe diggers havo to go to the swamps, where the gum is of a very infetior quality. Its value is partly destroyed by the water ; ifc is deteiiorabed j by the soaking. A pile of gum is generally divided into ten qualities. No. 1 first quality ; No. 2, second quality ; then the garblings or pickings, No. 3 ; black gum, bush or new gum, chips, dusb; and then the best of the gum is sorted out, reacraped and iesorted into two or three qualities us the case raav be. "We can pack gum just according to the requirements of the raanufaclmer. A email quantity of bhe gum is sorted at Home ,and only the chips and dust taken out here, (.him packed in this manner only costs 20s a ton for labour, j while the way we generally do ib costs fiom 35s to 40s per bon ; so when ib is classed at home we lose something in labour here. Can wo regulate the tiv.ilic ? No, Jdo nob think we can. Ib would be a very haul mutter to regulate bhe traflic ab all. So much depends on bhe requirements ot bhe London and New York markets. If anyone had told me ten years ago bhab we could produce and send away 8,000 tons of gum like we did last year I would have said ib was impossible. There is one unique feature about the gum trade— it is a purely cash labour trade. If a man brings a ewb. of gum in at the present price lie gets his 355, or if ho brings in a hundred tons his cheque for £3,500 right on the spot as soon as the gum is weighed and taken over. Everybhing in connection with the trade is cash, and that is something of consideration in these times. With reference to an export duty, tho general feeling of the trade is that ib would not answer, as it would be merely a tax on labour. No matter how you tried to make it fall on the consumer, it would directly fall on the digger, and only indirectly (it that) on the consumer. It is not possible for us to regulate the prices. Abteinots have frequently beon made to settle the prices here on a permanent basis, but in all cases the scheme has fallen through. It has been found impossible to control prices."

RETURNS. With reference to the export of gum since 1871, we may quote returns. In that year

they reached 5,206 tons and kepi under that amount for ton years, once being down as low aa 2,196 tons. In 1883 there Avero exported 6,357 tons; 1884, 6,557 tons; 1885, 5,836 tons ; 1886, 4,880 tons; 1887, 6,971 tons ; 1888, 8,341 tons. Since the commencement of the trade some 120,000 tons have been exported. As on an a\erage the value of gum to the colony is £50 a ton, that is including labour and expenses one can appreciate of what immenso, almost incalculable benefit tho expott has been. There can bo no doubt that if we could lessen tho supply of gum the price would go up very considerably. We would send out less of our gum, and yet bring' more money into the maikot — money to the of close on .£40,000 a year. This can only come about Ironi a levivnl of the labour market. When the buildincj and other trades berrin to brighten then the men will come off the I gumticldp, the supplies will les&en, and as, tho demand will be almost the frame tho prices must go up. Thoioisono point, however, to notioe— thai if they go up above a certain point, the point at which it-, use in varnish manufacture to any great' extent is unpioiiljjbJo to the manufacturer,! then tho demand will dcciea^e and higher prices will hardly recompense for the diminished demand.— ," Auckland .Star," February 21.