CONTROL OF RUBBER

Evening Star, Issue 21823, 12 September 1934, Page 3

CONTROL OF RUBBER

SUCCESS OF SCHEME Confidence in the success of the international rubber restriction scheme was expressed by Sir Philip Cunliffc-Lister, Secretary for State for the Colonies, at, the annual luncheon of the Incorporated Society of Planters (Malaya). He said that the outlook for the rubber industry was incomparably better than most of them expected a year or two ago.; They had at last, and for the first time,; an effective scheme of control. He had been an unrepentant apostle of schemes of balanced production for a good many, years past. It was an impossible situation to go on indefinitely producing atj a loss more than the world wanted.! Control meant a certain limitation of] production, but it was a great deal better business for the industry and everybody else to produce 70 per cent, at a profit rather -than 100 per cent, at a loss. Onco an industry was organised on a sound basis control did not mean permanent restriction; it meant that! the industry was better fitted to respond to every increasing demand that came along. The scheme had already, improved conditions in the industry, and he was glad to know that in many, companies that improvement' was reflected in salaries and in conditions on tho estates.' He would regard tho scheme as a failure unless everybody in the industry was going to get benefit out of it. A scheme of this kind was not designed so that things should stand still, but designed, while giving security, to encourage efficiency to the utmost.' There were units in the industry which might bo stronger and more efficient as, tho. result of well-con-sidered amalgamation. Ho did not mean a promoter’s amalgamation, but it was the duty of the rubber industry to take the opportunity of the new sense of security which tho schema offered for those units which were not the most efficient for their purpose, to get together and to see that the industry, both from the individual aspect and as a whole, was as efficient as it could be. The control of a schema which involved the intervention of Governments must be in Government hands. It would be tho object of tho International Committee which was running the scheme not to bolster up inefficiency, but to encourage efficiency to the utmost.