Apr. 27 NorwitkstanpixG the lower] prices now ruling in the rubber market the Financial Times'? has this week advised shareholders in plantation companies not to sell but to hang on to' their shares. It is comforting advice to those who have seen their investments drop by quite a considerable figure since the beginning of the year, a drop corresponding closely to the movements of the rubber markets in Singapore and London. At the beginning of the year, January 24 to be precise, the raw material reached the highest level attained in recent months, 65 cents being quoted in the Straits and almost on the same day 1/64 in London. Shares had responded, and except for signs of nervousness among some of the manufacturers in the United States, everybody was happy. This week Singapore is down to 54} cents and. London to 1/3}, and so the Financial Times " has considered it a fitting moment to say, words of optimism, doubtless much needed by the less confident of the shareholders. Its view is that until the Restriction Scheme has been at work for some time producers will find loopholes enabling them to export more rubber than the percentage laid down,* while it lays emphasis on what it considers generosity in the matter of production allowed to native' plantations. This latter argument is followed, for the amount produced by no means readily by these small native holdings is so small as to have little appreciable effect on the market.
The plantations in question are
man shows. Consisting of a fi what might be described as
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.