The recent increase in the price of rubber as a
result of what is known as the Stevenson plan to limit the rubber output in Malaya has, of course, excited the attention of American importers. America owns 90 per cent. of the world's automobiles, and the rise in the price of rubber from 18 cents a pound, as it was in 1920, to 30 cents a pound, will cost the American users of tyres anything between three hundred and six hundred million dollars annually. We have this situation there- fore in the English-speaking world. In America the increased price of rubber is naturally regarded with misgiving by every owner of an automobile—and remem- ber that there are eleven and a-half millions of them— while in the British plantations in the East the increased price has meant salvation to many thousands who were faced with bankruptcy. The Stevenson plan, by a sliding scale of export taxes, restricts the production of rubber under the British flag to 60 per cent. of the 1920 crop until the price passes one shilling and three- pence a pound ; a series of adjustments will permit of full production only when the price reaches three shillings.
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