Protest in Commons Against Government Monopoly London, July 26.
first sight the figures for an rubber production for June (51,569) tons) constitute a convincing answer to those persons wha maintain that Malaya could not produce a 90 per cent, quota, says the "Financial News" to-day.
It is dangerous however, continues the newspaper, to attach too much importance to the latest figures as. while those for the large estates are reliáble, those for the smaller estates are not producti n figures but sales figures of small holders of rubber.
The "Financial" News declares that it is patently absurd to suppose that the production of smaller estates has increased by 140 per cent compared with May. There was clearly a heavy clearance of stocks from small holdings, owing to the threat to cancel export coupons which had not been used by June 30-and, as the stocks on these small estates are not recorded, it is impossible to say what the true native output really totalled in June, except that it was almost certainly less than 24,000 tons.
There is no justification for assuming from these figures, adds the paper, that Malaya can produce more than 100 per cent. of her basic quota, nor yet is there any decisive evidence of her ability to produce the 90 per cent, quota.
The paper says that recent statistics, however, have undoubtedly been extremely suggestive and have caused opinion io veer round to the view that the 90 per cent quota will in fact be produced, although some slight doubt must remain for a little time to come.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.