ROMANCE OF RUBBER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 30 April 1926, Page 13

ROMANCE OF RUBBER.

HOW-BRITISH• GR-TT ESTABLISHED GREAT INDUSTRY'. America, crying out against the .pried of rublior/ probably .does not realise, that,. had it not boon for the foresight and initiative of three Britons. she would have had to seek far for iho material .wherewith to . tyro her multitides of. ni.icor-c.vr.-i.' The story 'of the " Plantation, Cultivation, ami Curing of Rain Indian. Rubber” is told by Suit./A. Wickham. It is a real romance, showing hew 'tic trees were introduced into the Eastern tropics from those of the West. To Sir Henry Wickham, now in his Sill id year, the world may be said to owe us rubber. And Sir Henry, with his groat, cavalry mmisrache, piercing eyss ar.d Orel mmi.dy broad shoulders, tan sometimes be induced to retail the incidents in i lie adventure which brought it all about, and pieced together it forms a complete tulo—in three gripping parts. THE PROLOGUE 'thus begins the prologue. Back in the ’sixties the monopoly of rubber was practically hold by l'ara, in South America. • Two things were against its development elsewhere—-natural attitude of the American authorities who guarded their wealth with tho watchfulness of Beefeaters guarding the Crown Jewels in the _ Tower,] and, secondly, the short-lived vitality of tho dedicate hovea rubber seed. At this time there was a young'Englishman, Colonel Wiekliam, who believed that somehow, by means yet undiscovered, the great task of transporting the seeds could be successfully undertaken. Yet ho was a voice crying in the wilderness. No one listened to him or encouraged him, till one day lie met the mail whoso geuuis was making the gardens at Iveiv the botanical centre of tho world. This was Sir Joseph Hooker, and shortly afterwards young Wickham was given a roving commission, a free hand, to set about his great task.

A TWIST OF FATE. For a long time nothing happened. Wickham was planting for Imnsclt near Santarem, on the lapajos Plateau, a lonely-spot where the few white men.lived on the borders of the Treat uncharted forest. Even if he managed to get the precious rubber seeds down to Para, what chance was there of getting them past the authorities on to a slap, and then scant liopol of them ever reaching England. \ "When tilings looked at their blackest an untoward event occurred wiucli rturlled the iiitlo colony. One morning there suddenly appealed on tho great river an ocean liner, the s.s. Amazonas, ,tlie first venturing vessel of the Inman Line to South America, Hospitality on a lavish seado was extended by the captain and the two representatives of tho firm to the handful of English residents—and tlie ship passed np tho river. Thou occurred’ one ot those lincxpectod twists of fate which give life its piquancy. News came that tlie- finenew liner lav with empty holds, iwtk no voyago m prospect. Displaying a touch of the characteristic British en- * tcrprisc, yijjuig -(Wickham humed JWptjd 5 down' to,the Captain, and commissitmqd, tho vessel in thegnamegot the. .Govenj^ Then camo a racfeHtg’ainst tims/sWiilt a few trusted Indians ho plunged into the- mvsterious depths of the greatest forest in the world, where lio knew tho finest kind of hcvea trees to ho growing. For days the only night that reached .thp.pa.rty.camo in the difiused greenish sunlight* "that' permeated tlife mass.-of foliage far overhead. Working fit teen 'hours on end, they"made a careful selection pf tho best seeds and packed them into panniers, which they earned on their backs. Then, when they had reached their limit, they plunged back in their tracks to the river bank. ■ At a native 1 village they stopped, and tho local maidens repacked the seeds between layers of dried wild banana leaves. Carefully the ntHo panniers were placed at night in an Indian canoe, arid Wickham, with Ins precious burden, set on the lust part of his adventurous journey homo. Safely, stowed on board, everything seemed snug, but Wickham realised that bv law the ship had to stop for examination afc Para,* dipcoveiy of the seeds would have been latal to tho enterprise; what was to bo doner Again Wickham was equal to tho occasion. ITo ordered the ship to bo ■ anchored far out in Hi© stream, and with the captain ho set out in a rowboat to pay their compliments to the Portuguese don at the . castle. Ileie they offered ceremonial greetings, snbtlo flatteries, and an explanation of their ship being anchored in midstream. , , , ~ Part of their speech should take its place in the history of Empiro building. They declared that the urgency ot their departure was duo to the fact that they had on board “exceeding y delicate botanical specimens especially destined for Her Britanic Majesty s own Royal gardens at Kew.” Their flatteries succeeded, and they wore allowed to proceed on their voyage, a vovage which in itself is a story of thrills, for they escaped tho bad weather which ought to have meant death to the seeds by mere hairbreadths. _ , , He left the ship at a French port, hurried to London, and arranged for a special conveyance from Liverpool to Kew, and in Juno, 1876, the feat for] which he had waited patiently for yearn | v.as at last accomplished. . j The orchids were turned out ot their glass homos in the gardens, and in their places were sown tiers upon tiers of tho rare lievea plants in the glasshouses. , . . , c Tims the epilogue to this talo oi a great Empire builder’s prowess. Sir Henry Wiekliam sits in his Loudon I home" while untold wealth"lias sprung from the seeds he ,had brought home. With the subsequent events he seems even more modest. Ho does not tell >,rni that the survivors of those plants at Kew are now in Ceylon and Singapore- that the descendants aro scattered in interminable forests across tho map of ihe Continent of Asia; that in Malaya and Borneo, that in J breadneedle street and Mincing Lane, 'in thousands of homes, fortunes of every dimension are bring made; that Jus •successors the other ‘ builders ol Kipling’s lines—aro millionaires. Over £1.000,000,000 of British capital alone has been invested in fhose seeds and Sir Henry smiles at it all. ■ “Isn’t it rather a strange feeling to have done all this?” he was asked. “SI range, feeling,’ he replied, I dnn’l kilim- what you mean: it is all verv ancient history to me—just an adventure, and good fun at ihe tune “\n adventure” —and on such adventures has the British Empire been built.