FACING FACTS.
Of course, if comparison were made with the high prices of a year or two ago, the fall would be very much greater, and it is scarcely surprising that rubber shareholders should be feeling disconsolate at the turn of events and should be wondering what is to be the end of the matter. Then is a pretty general feeling that were Restriction to be suddenly and completely abandoned, the price of rubber would suffer a further severe fall, but perhaps the more common-sense view of the matter is to carefully keep in mind one or two salient and undoubted.facts. The first is that the investigation will undoubtedly be an impartial one; second is that un- questionably the views of rubber experts will be taken ; and the third is that the Committee will obviously have as its chief object the safeguarding of the interests of the rubber industry in our Empire, and that means, therefore, the interests of rubber shareholders, the greater part of British capital having been invested in such companies.. Unquestionably the responsibility laid upon the Committee is all the greater by reason of the fact that many millions must have been placed -by British- investors in rubber shares on the faith of the Stevenson Restriction Scheme and the expectations encouraged of stable prices in rubber for many years to come. The whole question really which has to be determined is whether, in the face of the extent of rubber production in countries not affected by the Stevenson Restriction Scheme, it is possible to make the Stevenson Plan in any material degree effective.
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