Among the impenetrable mysteries of the hour may be safely included the causes which are governing the flactustions in the price of indisrabber, or rather the decline, for movements la an upward direction are conspicuous by their absence, Even those few anthorities who command the reapectfal attention of men actually engaged in the dustry are more or less at a loss to account entirely for the present tendency or to put a limit to the decil This doubtless dae in part to the fact that jodiarabber, while not by any means a new commodity, is being put to many now uses, a circumstance which has very largely altered the conditions prevailing in the industry. Plantation rubber, for instance, is practically a new commodity, j with all the drawbacks and surprises for Manufactarers which that usual il your that one mani turers stating, with all dae impressiveness, that they have never used a pound of plantation grades in their works, bat have confined their purchases to fine hard Para alone. Tyre manufacturers are particularly fond of making this boast, and it mast be confessed that they thooid be able to put the respec varieties of rubber to as conclusive a test s any. For one mapufactarer, however, who has confined himeelf to fine hard Pars, there are a score who have experimented, more or less systematically, with other substitutes likely to prove suitable for the purposes to which Para rabber has usually been pat, It is perfectly trae that the empiricists fare apparently as far removed as ever from discovering an effective substitute for indiarabber, bat there are " good many varieties of that article, some of them being regarded in the trade as tes. Hence stories in trade circles of manufacturers having large quantities of manufactured goods thrown back on their bands s not being up to sample or recognized standard. This is no new phase, bat has eon more or lees in evidence ever since rubber advanced beyond what is regarded by manofactarers as the normal level, and applies particularly to goods for export to out-el-way corners of the! world.
PLANTATION RUBDED, on plantation grades has attracted The disappearance of the premium good deal of attention from manufac-tarers and plantation authorities as possibly in some way holding the key the cause of the downward tendency Many explanations have boon put forward, bat no single one of them seem sufficient, so thet the trac cause is probably to be found io" combina of circumstances, As it is mainly plantation rubber that investors are io-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.