THE KAURI GUM TRADE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10137, 7 November 1910, Page 5

THE KAURI GUM TRADE.

ENTIRELY DEAD. (By Telegraph—Press .Association.)

' DARGAVILLE, Last Night. In the course of an interview with a North Auckland Times' reporter, Mr Dell, manager of Harding and Company's Northern Wairoa gum business, stated that the market is entirely dead. The middleman in Auckland will not touch kauri gum, the chief reason being the depression in America. To show how bad things are, he stated that last week he bought at 70s gum which last year he paid 120s for, and even at that reduced figure he cannot get an offer for it in Auckland. Another seriou* menace is the substitutes for kauri gum in the shape of South American and South African gums and China oil. Manufacturers prefer kauri, but if they cannot get it at a price they use substitutes. /^* s ferring to the layers of ,ed gum at considerable deptf . .r Dell said that there was no 'reason to doubt that gum, and very good gum, might be found in the lower stratum, but he did not think it would pay to recover from great depths. It was not like gold. Ee very much doubted whether there were five hundred British diggers, £.ll told,- on the

whole of the field?, and he conit only a matter of time '"' when there would be none at all. British diggers did not work systematically like and they simply could not make a living as prices now are.