The 13th annual general meeting of shareholders in the Kroewoek Java Plantations, Ld. was held on Monday at the offices of the general managers, 10 Canton Road. Mr. A. J. Welch presided, supported by Mr. W. W. Cox, Mr. J. H. McMichael and Mr. R. G. Macdonald (directors). The number of shares represented was 9,033.
The secretary (Mr. C. L. Stewart) having read the notice convening the meeting, the Chairman said:—
With the incidence of compulsory restriction of output in British Colonies, the year under review closed with much brighter prospects for the rubber industry than have been evident for some considerable time past. It is a great pleasure to your directors to be able to tell you that the company has emerged from the long period of depression unscathed and that, in view of the improved position, they feel justified in once more recommending the payment of a dividend, the last distribution having been made on April 8, 1920, In this connexion it may be of interest to you to know that, in spite of the troublous times we have been through, the company is now in a stronger financial position than it was at the end of 1920, the surplus liquid assets over cash liabilities of the two companies combined being then Tls, 64,052.95, as compared with Tls. 86,327.53 at the end of last year. Your directors, in common with those of the majority of British-owned estates in the Dutch Indies, have agreed to restrict the output voluntarily on the same basis as is being done in the Straits Settlements, and I hope you approve of their action in so doing.
Turning now to estate matters, the information given in the report covers the ground so fully there is very little left for me to say. At the end of the year, 1,295 acres of rubber were in tapping, and 440 acres were either being rested were immature. The bulk of this latter area can be brought into the tapping round as soon as it is desirable to increase the output. The tapping all over the estate is reported to be of a very high order and the bark renewal and reserves of bark are particularly fine, thus demonstrating the care that has always been exercised in the supervision of the work, An index of the yield from individual trees is being kept preparatory to the work of thinning-out by_ selection. In this respect, Kroewoek is far ahead of most other estates in the island, a record of the yield from certain outstanding producers having been kept for many years past and buddings made and planted out from these; the manager has thus collected a great deal of
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