RUBBER MARKET.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 6 March 1926, Page 13

RUBBER MARKET.

Motorists generally have little knowledge of the manner of collecting the latex or rubber milk that eventually provides them with durable tyres. In the early days of motoring nearly all commercial rubber came frony the region of the Amazon in South America. It was collected by natives in a very crude manner from the wild, rubber trees in the forests of those regions and eventually shipped from the port of Para, after which rubber was so named. In later years rubber has been cultivated throughout such countries as Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, Straits Settlements and the Malay Peninsula, besides in our own possessions at Papua, and this plantation rubber provides the major proportion of the 480,000 tons of crude rubber which has been used throughout the world during the past year. The rubber tree comes into bearing and can be tapped after from four to six years ’ growth, but does not yield its maximum quantity of latex until it is from 10 to 11 years old. Such a tree can be tapped every other day and will yield from one-eighth to one-half pint of rubber milk each tapping. About one-half of this latex is actually composed of rubber, the balance being a watery fluid or serum, and in the course of -curing the rubber content is obtained by a process of coagulation. Latex is not the ordinary sap of the rubber tree, but is from the inner layers of the bark, and is obtained bv a process of tapping. Cuts are made into the bark and the rubber milk is allowed to drain into small cups. It will thus be realised by motorists that the growing of cultivated or plantation rubber i§ a slow process. Less than two years back rubber was procurable at 7d a lb—less than it cost to produce, and for some years past there has been little or no profit in rubber-growing. The natural result was that there was no encouragement for rubber growers to enlarge their areas under cultivation and little or no provision was made for the presentday huge demand for rubber for motortyre production, which eats up about 80 per cent, of tlie world’s output of rubber.

The Stevenson restriction scheme, which was put into operation for the limitation of rubber output, has resulted in bringing the price of crude rubber back on to a payable basis, so much so that to-day the demand exceeds the available supply and the-re-tail price of rubber is in the region of 4s 6d per lb. Tyre manufacturers are not ‘ ‘ costing up ’ ’ their tyres on rubber based at this price, but the time will come when the effects of present high price buying must be passed on to the user. Motorists will therefore be well advised to purchase any' replacement tyres they are likely to need in the near future without delay and thus effect saving in outlay. As long as the tyres are stored away from light they will be all the better for maturing. It is estimated that 1927 will be a critical year, in the world’s rubber market, it being contended that the demand for rubber for automobile tyres alone will exceed the world’s maximum supply of crude rubber. . /