KAURI GUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 21, 26 January 1939, Page 8

KAURI GUM.

BUS Ml ESS FOR-DECEMBER. CHIPS OF HIGH QUALITY SELLING. Official returns put the esport of kauri guin for the month of December at 226 tonj Ocwt, which is a little above the average for the year, and compares with 127 tons shipped during December, 1937. This was distributed among the usual markets, except that Canada has not been taking any • while the St. Lawrence is blocked for the winter, and none lias gone to Japan during recent months owing to import restrictions imposed by the Japanese (iovernnient. In fact the only shipment sent to Japan during the whole year was 42 tons in August, and probably this was only lieenaed because of representations from the mauufac-turers that they could not otherwise maintain the export trade in linoleums which they had built up. The I nited .Kingdom took 174 tons in December, about 7.5 per cent of the total exports, conipar<Ml with about 70 per cent for the whole year, whereas the old preI poiidereni-e of kauri gum trade with the j United States fell to 23 tons for the mouth, and to less than 10 per cent of the whole trade during the year. Australia took 21 tons, and the Continent took 8 tons 9rwt. three tons going to France, five to Holland, and the odd quantity to Sweden. The demand remains active for the better qualities of the low grades, and diggers lhust be again reminded that it would pay them to send in their chips in cleaner condition, for they are jeopardising the market by supplying so much gum of low percentage content. This is inconvenient for the manufacturers of linoleum, as compared with the gum of uniform quality which they can purchase from other countries, and the minimum prices recently mentioned by the Minister of Industries and Commerce were fixed on a sliding scale that would be an inducement to the diggei-s to send in their produet with a higher percentage of gum content. Merchants are willing to give more than these minimum prices for the higher gradings. and this is quite likely to continue when a system of official grading is instituted. However, there is no readiness to buy gum of poor quality, and the Government will not take over any with less than 150 per cent of gum content, as tlieir expert advisers know that this would lie likely to ijijnre the sale overseas. It would appear, therefore, that the diggers have it in their own hands to maintain at a good juice the demand at present prevailing for graded parcels of high gum content, and that it is not a question of inefficient marketing, but of injudicious production, and there are not yet any visible signs that the latter handicap can l>e economically overcome except by the diggers themselves. Production of -the qualities that helped to lift the value of the export to £396.ifi0 in 1023 has now fallen away, and very little white gum is now seen, such as used to realise above £200 per ton. Consequently varnish manufacturers have turned to raw material more readily obtainable in regular quantities, whereas most of the gum now produced is used in the manufacture of linoleum. This largely accounts for the lower value received for a given quantity, the export for December being invoiced at £10,200, which averages only £4.1 1/ per ton.