The eleventh annual general meeting of shareholders in the Chempedak Rubber & Gambier Estate, Ld.. was held on Monday afternoon at the offices of the secretaries and general managers, Messrs, J. A. Wattie & Ca., Mr. A. J. Welch presiding.
In the course of his speech the chairman, after expressiong the deep regret of the Board at the death of their colleague, Mr. Osborne, said The result of the year's working, as you have seen from the accounts, has been a loss of Ts. 2,595.52 In this connexion I_ must point out that, during the latter part of the year, owing to a stagnant market and congestion at the docks London, it was extremely difficult to dispose of rubber, so that stocks accumulated to an abnormal extent and approximately one-half of the year's output was unsold at the end of the year. For the' purpose of the accounts, this stock was valued at 30 Straits cents per pound for first qualities and 20 cents per pound for inferiors. The prices ruling at the present time, I am glad to say, are considerably above this figure. Had we taken the current prices for valuing our stoc'. the result would have been that the year's working would have shown very little loss, if any.
You will no doubt have noticed that in the balance sheet the drafts against shipments appear as_ Ts. 21,870.97, whereas the stock of rubber is only valued at Tls. 9,530.- 15. The position is not really nearly as bad as would appear from these figures as the stock of rubber in London has only to realize a trifle over 1/6 per pound to cover the amount of the drafts drawn against shipments.
The visiting agent in his last report states that he is very well satisfied with the estate, which is in excellent condition, and that. thanks to the progress made in various works during the year under review, the cost' of upkeep should be low in future.
Loss on rice was again a heavy item, an actual loss of $7,717.82 being incurred by the estate. Of this stm, $4,261.54 appears under this heading. and the balance, representing the loss since July 1s distributed proportionately over the various field works.
There is a strong feeling amongst many people that the proper means of overcoming the prevailing sur-felt of rubber is to stop production entirely for several months, and to my mind there is no doubt that this would be the best thing to do, if it was feasible, since the capital of a rubber company is represented by the amount of tappable bark ea its trees, and every time a_ piece of bark is removed by tapping so Reproduced with permis:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.