FALL IN KAURI GUM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 303, 23 December 1898, Page 4

FALL IN KAURI GUM.

. A question of considerable in-j . Terest agiiaiing commercial circles j ar present is The change That j ;jhas come over ihe gum marker. Fori j The pasr eighteen months There has ; , { been a remarkable activity in kauri | > | gum. and The price in all grades has, ' when minor market fluctuations are j disregarded, been a steadily upward i , j one. Although at the time of the out-1 break of the American-Spanish war a j marked set-back was nnticipated the : demand continued brisk and prices! quickly recovered the check which the I uncertainty of the first few weeks' necessarily entailed. Following quick-! ly upon the time when, although hos-j ! tilities were still being actively prose-; euted. there could be no doubt as to r the eventual outcome of the struggle. !an unprecedented demand set in from the States, and during October and i November gum. in price, touched j about high water mark. A feature of | the demand was thai gum for which' ! absolutely no quotation was obtainable : j previously—the gum known as black j j dust —was quotable at prices ranging' ■up to £20. An immense quantity of | this was lying idle in heaps and was \ I sorted and sold. Such low qualities of j gum were saleable that there is no j j reason to doubt the authenticity of I j the story of a dealer who states' That j jhe received several tons of earth which , ! the would-be vendor wanted £S a ton \ j for. When the merchant wrote expos-; ! minting at having such stuff shipped - lon to his premises he received a j thoroughly serious reply that if he j would take the trouble to examine . | a sample under a microscope he would j] I find that it (did contain a good deal! |of gum. " j j Under such favourable market con-; j ■ditions production was naturally stim-! < I ulated and this/combined with the; ■ ■ ever-growing multitude of Austrians I ( j steadily working on the fields, has;. ! resulted in this year's output being a _ I record. The production to the end of i j December (for IS9S) will not be under; j 10.000 tons. Last year (1597) 6.000 ! \ \ tons represented the output for the 12 '■> , j months, and although the average an- j , I nual production is something over!, | 7.000 tons This year's will be about 20 j \ (per cent, in excess of IS3S, when the . - j previous record of ,8.400 tons was { \ I established. Eighty-eight was a year!----1 when prices suffered considerably j" j through over-production, but some ! j allowance has to be made when jnsti- \. j tuting a comparison as the gum in! < i ISSS was almost entirely high-grade, i j whereas now the greater proportion j . lis low-grade. j ' j A number of merchants have been ■ . | anticipating the fall :hat cable ad- j \ | vices of the past few days from van-!, sous sources indicare. These advices! I are somewhat confusing. In some | leases they indicate an all-round retro-' 1 grade move in price: in others, they 1 2 speak of only the three commonly I l known high quality commercial c grades as being affected: and in vet ; others they convey the impression that f jeven at reduced rates no considerable l \ market exisTs. The advices, however.' x i generally indicate a drop in the three x _ higher grades as follows:—Xo. 1. £105 ] |— £ 100T No. 22. £90—£75; No. 3. £GS. c |to £47. It I For No. 1 the demand of late at the' '- | nominal quotations has not been ac-' z j five, but in all orher kinds prior to ■ n j the London advices of a few days back s j enquiry has not only been steady but a | transactions brisk, while holders' have j * i manifested a tendency to hold out for' ( jan advance. In accounting for the \l--j sudden fall some merchants say That ; a j the bulk of the gum is in the hands! jof the varnish makers and That beinsr! "* i almost without exception fully stock- l' r jed they have practically discontinued . c i buying. Taking into account the fig-! j j ures that we have brought forward j f : the explanation that the increased out-; c ! put is entirely responsible for the fall i in price seems tenable, for there has j , been no evidence to show why an I ? increased consumption should be ex-! s pected unless we assume that the low [ c qualities of gum which have constitut-; c ed the bulk of the export this year ><- have replaced in certain manufactures ; other inferior gums for which good *■ kauri gum was not employed" on I s account of its costliness. On the other \ x hand, the assertion is made that the , c fall is a London market move against i v the direct shippers. I a Whichever explanation may be the ; a correct one, and the. first-mentioned, P despite the circumstances attendant s on the collapse in prices, is the more c plausible, prices must rally—possibly c a. trifle lower — providing that the s' hitherto mystical bogey raised to scare the handler of kauri gum—a substitute for the resin in varnish-making—has E not at last crystallised in fact. Dcs- E pite the aggregate increase for this t< year, consequent on the marketable tc value of formerly unsaleable grades, 1< the fact that kauri gum is becoming si

! scarcer and more difficult to obtain J cannot be blinked, and in this is the J Ibest assurance of steadiness of price, j