There has appeared a letter in the "Straits Times" which at one point seemed about to offer comfort to those who having invested heavily in rubber plantations are now wondering what will happen to their dividends. It was from the pen of one "D. W. D." of Malacca, and where the comfort seemed about to come was when he described the present reaction as not being an unmixed evil, and expressed the view that the net result could not be unfavourable to Malacca, He then proceeded It will have taught people not to pin their faith entirely to rubber. Attention might get diverted to the produc tion of food crops such as paddy. The spirit of gambling which boom days greatly encouraged should have 1eceived a wholesome check. Business might cease to be considered as the only pursuit worthy of capable young men. Higher education and technical training would become more attractive, Literature would compete with Mammon for votaries, ad a good many of those who solely by reason of their long purse, long through' no special foresight or business capacity but as the result of a series of reckless gambling speculations, are now so much in the eye of the public, would perhaps come to be assessed at their true value.
An admirable thought, no doubt, but when a worried shareholder takes up such a letter hoping that it will show him dividends in the future and finds only 4 moral discourse it must be disappointing in the extreme. Furthermore, it might be pointed out for the benefit of the writer that innumerable people who have anything to do with literature are usually found expressing a wish that they had had a somewhat closer acquaintance with Mammon. It would have made literature an infinitely more attractive pursuit,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.