The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations presents The Pacific Story. This is the story of the Pacific, the drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea, where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This is a documentary account of the situation in the Pacific, of the men and events which are today influencing world affairs for generations to come. Rubber, bell, weather of Malaya. Even before the war ended, while Malaya was still in the hands of the Japanese, we knew in what condition we could expect to find our rubber plantations when we returned. All during the war, intelligence had kept us informed. The Japanese have cut down nearly 2,000 acres of rubber trees to make room for food crops. A number of rubber estates in the vicinity of Singapore have been cut down to provide fuel for Japanese cooking. The Japanese are constructing defence positions in the rubber plantations which provide them camouflage against Allied air raids. The Japanese have cut a 20-foot swab on both sides of the main roads through the rubber groves to minimise the chances of surprise ambush by Chinese resistance forces. We knew what the Japanese had done to the rubber industry in Malaya, but there was no way of knowing the extent of the damage. It would like to be pretty severe, I'd say. Hankins, who had been on our place in Malaya for so many years, used to talk about it. You see, their first interest, cosmic, is to hold Malaya and Singapore. Rubber comes second. Yes. What I'm wondering is, if the plan's been worked out for the rehabilitation of the rubber industry, it'll mean anything by the time we get back. Well, after all, it isn't likely they'd destroy all of the 3,500,000 acres of rubber in Malaya. Unless by so doing they could hold Malaya. We talked like that again and again during those years while we were in India, while the war was being fought out. We'd escaped, luckily, the night before the Japanese had come swarming through our plantations. I had the feeling then that we'd never see our plantations again as they were that night. Hard for me to believe that after all our years of work developing those plantations, they'd be destroyed. That development had taken many, many years, through good times and bad times. Depressions and booms. My family had been part of it for three generations. We had actually helped create the rubber industry in Malaya, for the trees are not indigenous to this part of the world. They were planted here from seeds brought from Brazil with the Kew Botanical Gardens of London between. In Malaya we grew the rubber trees in orderly plantations, the first time they had ever grown this way. But in Brazil they grew wild. And it was 70 years ago that a Mr. H. A. Wickham, who was a planter near Santoré, Montabajos Plateau in South America, shot at a ship in the upper Amazon River. It's three days, we've been laying here in the Amazon now. When are we going to get underway? Cargo's aboard. What cargo? It's no more than half a cargo. It's a lot of cargo, right enough, but we're taking it straight back to England. There's something about this old business, Wickham and all. If it's coffee and tobacco like Wickham says, why doesn't he take a full cargo? Running out of here with only a few bags. That's what I asked the Bolson. Huh? What did he say? That we shipped on a SEMA, not supercargos. The founder. I had lunch when I shipped out of Liverpool on this packet, if something was up. Careful what you're saying. Wickham's back in the cabin with the captain now. I don't care where he is. Well you don't get nowhere. The passage over was all right, the discharge of the cargo was all right. But when we came up here in the Amazon to pick up this two, whatever it is, uh... Hello. What's this? Huh? Oh, boat coming alongside. Hmm. In official and two armed guards. Looks to me like Mr. Wickham and the captain are going to have corners. Looks to me like they're going to have trouble. I think I better go back up and tell the captain. I say it's not a matter of whether or not we've got the space, Mr. Wickham. It's a matter of the law. You need have no concern, captain. Her Majesty's government will straighten out the entire matter when we get to England. But it is against the law to charter a ship in the name of the government of India. Sir, I represent the British government and I command you to take this cargo to England. Mr. Wickham, I am the master of this ship. Your papers are not in order and if it were not that we steamed all the way up the Amazon in this jungle, I'd put your cargo off and... Yes, yes, what is it? It's Bricey, sir. An officer to see you, sir. Officer? From the government of Brazil, he is, sir. Government of... Oh. Come in, come in. The great people of my government, gentlemen. How do you do? Ah, ah, you are, uh, Senor Wickham? I am Wickham, sir. My apologies, please. As a matter of routine, the cargo you are taking out of Brazil, what is it composed? Why, coffee and... Who questions my integrity, sir? I am interested only in the cargo. Here are the manifest for the bill of lading, thank you. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I say, if there is anything questionable here, let us have it out. Could I see the cargo, please? Of course, this way to the hold. By all means, let us go to the hold. Have done with this nonsense. Well, they went down into the hold, the captain leading the way and Wickham and the Brazilian official following. They examine parcel after parcel. And here, you see, this is coffee, too. Yes, coffee. And that bag. That one? I'll slash it open myself. There you are. Mm-hmm. Tobacco. And that is what the manifest says, does it not, sir? Well, uh, yes. Just point to any bag you wish to inspect and I'll slash it open for you. You have nothing but coffee and tobacco in this cargo? What did you imply by that question? The manifest states clearly the nature of the cargo and you have the cargo here before you. Captain, do you wish to inspect the contents of other bags? I am only interested in complying with the law. Very well, then. Only coffee and tobacco, huh? It would be most unfortunate, Senor Wickham, if, by chance, we should have found, shall we say, seeds for the rubber tree. Well, perhaps you know it is unlawful to take rubber tree seeds out of Brazil. The ship sailed down the Amazon across the Atlantic to England. Most of its cargo, the coffee and tobacco, went into warehouses, but some bags went to the Kew Gardens in London. In these were 70,000 rubber tree seeds. The seeds were planted and coddled by expert nurserymen. Seedlings were sent to Malaya and seven plants arrived safely at Kuala Khanjar and were planted in the residency garden. These seven seedlings were the first rubber trees planted in the Malay Peninsula. And together with the trees that were reared in Singapore, these seven seedlings became the nucleus of the Malayan rubber industry. All this I heard over and over again while I was a boy. When I grew old enough to take an interest in our plantations, I used to listen to my father talking to visitors from London. The soil and the climate here are wonderfully suited to the raising of rubber trees. That's principally why we're developing this industry here, as you might say, on the other side of the world. Yes, but it's a great distance from everything. That's true, but against that we have out here abundant supplies of cheap and efficient labor. What I wonder about is how can you out here, halfway around the world, compete with the rubber industry in Brazil? After all, Brazil is a great deal closer to the markets in the United States and England. Closer, yes, but inaccessible. A special kind of man, a strong man who can endure great hardships and who can live a primitive life of malaria about him. Only such men can be used for tapping the jungle trees. And to get to the trees they must go up rivers and into the jungle. And moreover, even these men can only tap the trees near the rivers. So it's a matter of getting the rubber out of the jungle. Yes, yes, that's a good part of it. In an entire season one man can only bring out a few hundred pounds of rubber. Against that, in our plantations here, the trees are easily accessible and a worker can tap much more rubber. I see. Well, so we can deliver rubber in New York for less than it costs to collect and ship wild rubber from the Amazon. And the other thing is that we can assure a regular supply while the collectors of wild rubber are very hard put to do this. By 1905 there were 50,000 acres of rubber tree groves in Malaya. Actually, no one knew much about raising the rubber trees. We learned by trial and error. My grandfather, who was one of the first planters, had worked out his own methods. My father followed these methods pretty well. But every planter had his own ideas. Almost no one would take any advice from anyone else. Something ought to be done about those Malayan Indian planters. They own their own land. They have the right to grow their trees as they wish. Well, look what they are doing. Planting as many trees as their property will hold. Paying no attention whatever to the root diseases, the bark, cancer, or anything else, nor to fertilizing, nor to bud grafting for that matter. That's what I say. And we've got to suffer along with them. When disease wipes out their plantations, it spreads to ours. Well, that's true, but a good many of us are just as bad. We rake the ground clean between our trees, even when it should be plain to everyone that this causes soil erosion and declining yields. But the Indians and the Malays and the Chinese, they don't do this. They plant a cover crop between their trees and their groves that are healthy, produce more rubber than ours. Ah, I've heard that talk too. But they don't plant that cover crop between their trees just to get more rubber. They do it to have food to fall back on when the rubber market doesn't pay out. Nevertheless, if a cover crop will prevent declining yields and prevent erosion, then all of us should put that practice to work in our plantation. Well, I have been thinking about it. What we need actually is an organization of some kind in which we can pool our experience and our knowledge for the general betterment of the rubber industry as a whole. No. No, I don't hold with you there. This is a competitive business, and those that don't know enough about it to survive should get out. I shall never forget 1910. That was the start of the first boom in rubber. I remember the excitement. Why? It's fantastic. My father was as excited as all the others. America's clambering for rubber. If I had ten times the acreage I have, I could sell every ounce of rubber I could produce. Now think of it. Every motor car being made in America must have rubber for its weasels, and every new motor car company must be swinging up all over the United States. There simply is not enough rubber to supply them. We've got to acquire more land and plant more trees. We were scrambled for land in Malaya and in the East Indies where the Dutch had gone into the rubber industry. In London, dozens of new rubber companies were organized. We bought more land, planted thousands of more trees. In five years, when our new trees would start to yield, we would be making even more money than now, and our profits now were enormous. We were rich. The crash came in 1920. Our first experience was something which has happened periodically ever since. Suddenly the world was in an economic slump. Production declined. The rubber market collapsed. Rubber dropped from a dollar a pound to fifty cents a pound to twenty cents a pound to five cents a pound to two cents a pound. Our warehouses were glutted with rubber and there were no buyers. Gentlemen, it should be clear to all of us that two things are needed in the industry. A representative of the government counseled with the planters. We need scientific research to discover the best possible methods for the production of rubber, and we need more economic management of our estates so that crises such as this one may be avoided. Mr. Chapman. Mr. Chatham. Do I understand that you are speaking for the creation of an organization like the one proposed here a year or so ago? For a rubber research institute, yes. Well, I was not for it when it was first proposed, and I am not for it now. I should like to point out the need of more economic management, to say nothing whatever, of the need of scientific research. Mr. Chairman, without meaning any offense, I should like to point out again that you are addressing practical planters, men who have spent years learning the husbandry of rubber, while you are, shall we say, a government-appointed theoretical expert. You are right, sir. But the facts are indiscriminable. Even if this postwar slump had not come, we should still have been in trouble now. The simple truth is that we have expanded the rubber industry to a point where production had outstripped consumption. Even before the slump came, we had a surplus on hand which was growing larger by the minute. Now we do not even have normal consumption. There is large-scale unemployment in the United States. In consequence, the Americans are not buying motor cars. Therefore, the motor industry has slowed down and is using less rubber. Mr. Chairman, if I am not mistaken, until now the United States has required 72% of the world's production of rubber. Certainly America cannot now get along with much less than that. 72% of the available rubber some time ago. But this must not be construed to be 72% of an ever-expanding production here, hands in the Dutch, indeed. Let us not mistake it, gentlemen. We have critical need of an organization like the Rubber Research Institute. Mr. Chairman, I am in complete agreement. I have stood for many years for the scientific agriculture of our plantation. Likewise, we need an institute to work toward more economic management of our estate. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chatham? I say again, as I said the last time the institute was proposed, that I will never support any organization which gives the government any kind of control over the plantation. Mr. Chairman, I should like to propose, if it is in order, that a vote be taken on the question of the institute. And that we here and now come to some kind of... The plan for a Rubber Research Institute bogged down. In its place, the plan has agreed voluntarily to try to restrict production. Every plan would cut its production until the market was stabilized. But the smallholders, with little or no reserves, did not conform. With the price low, they went on trying to produce more rubber in order to meet their obligations. And many large estates faced with bankruptcy in the same way also produced as much as they could in order to meet their liabilities. The result was disastrous. Prices continued to fall and distress increased. Let us be honest with ourselves. We are responsible for our own predicament. Each of us has gone his own way. None of us has paid enough attention to scientific cultivation. And all of us have given too much attention to large dividends instead of to economical management. It was just at the close of the slumber, about 1922, that Hankins came to our place. We've been hit just as hard up in our country as you have here. Hankins, I have the feeling that there's a growing tendency toward cooperation among the planters, in spite of all the trouble we've had. I'll tell you what it's got to be. We must first have a restriction of rubber production on an empire basis, that is, all over the British Empire. Then we must work on restriction of production on an international basis. That's long-range thinking, all right. But where do we start? The first thing is to reach some agreement on the Rubber Research Institute. The talks for the Institute were resumed. And by 1924, five years after the idea of the Institute was first advanced, there was a general agreement for the need of the Institute. It took another year before a board of directors was named, but by this time we were entering a new boom time. The world's pedigree is only upswinging America. Everyone's buying motor cars in the U.S. The motor car industries are using all the rubber they can get. The government never wants it to demand for rubber. America's trying for it. It's the same old thing over again. What do you mean? We've had some lean years, haven't we? Quite enough, but if everybody's going to start expanding again, we're going to have another disaster like the one we've just come through. Well, we've got to get it when we can, don't we? I hope cars have got the Rubber Research Institute will be able to stabilize the situation. Well, the Institute is open now. At least there's something we never had before. Most of these planters are saying that now that there's such a demand for their rubber, there's no need for the Institute. During the next several years, the industry rose high. None of us had ever seen such prosperity. Some of us who remembered what happened in 1920 watched the expanding industry with concern. More acreage was cleared, more trees planted, more Indians and Malays and Chinese put to work, more thousands of tons of rubber shipped. It's astounding, Cosmic. Most of the planters are completely indifferent to the Institute, and yet it's the one thing that can keep it on an even keel. Reports of what was happening in America were common talk in Singapore and up and down the Malay Peninsula. Now they talk about two motor cars in every garage. Yes, and that's only in the motor car industry. They say nothing of the rubber requirements in all the other industries. They say that money's flowing like water in America. That's what I've been saying. The natural law of supply and demand is scared of everything. Wait a minute, wait a minute. There's never been such prosperity. They've got more money in America than they know what to do with. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Listen to me. Listen. What did you say? Listen, listen to him. He's got something to say. The stock market in America has crashed. The stock market? Crashed, you say? Yes. The bottom's fallen out of business. Well, after all, all that means... It means we're ruined. The slump came in 1930. It was the old story all over again. Over expansion, over production. Warehouses fogged with rubber, the market flooded, enormous losses, unemployment and disrepair. In the face of this, the opposition to restricting production gradually dwindled. We have to have this second slump to convince some of these diehards of ours that the only answer to the entire problem is international restriction of production. Rubber production everywhere. Not only in Malaya, but also in the Dutch Indies, in French Indochina, and in India must be restricted. Else we will suffer the same thing over and over again. By 1934, the planters throughout Southeast Asia were ready to enter into a restriction agreement. In Malaya, the Netherlands Indies, France and Siam mutually agree as follows. New planting is prohibited. The export of rubber seeds is prohibited. And replanting for the next four years will be limited to one-fifth of the acreage of each estate. A basic quota was assigned to each country, but although the agreement brought some stability to the industry, it held profit at a level which discouraged the smaller holders. It is no longer worthwhile for us. All we can do is sell out to bigger estates. Slowly we pulled out of the slump. By 1938, production had leveled off. But this was the year of Munich. War was coming. Who knows what it will do to us, and just when we are getting back on our feet. The next year it came. With all we had gone through, we knew that we would have to draw together, all of us in the industry. The international rubber agreement was renewed for five years. And before the end of 1939, we could see that we were in for a new boom time. Production was increasing in the United States and in Britain. This time we are going to know what to do. This time we are going to make a fortune. Yes, we are getting more for our rubber, but look, insurance costs have skyrocketed. Freight rates are up 50%. There is only one answer. We will have to get more money for our rubber. The big thing is to get our rubber to the consumer. Have you any idea what submarines and bombers are doing to our shipping? Ah, the important thing is now we have got a mark only if we can deliver our rubber. In Britain, rubber stocks dwindled, and after the great loss of rubber materials at Dunkirk sank to a dangerous low. By December 1940, the Ministry of Supply had to stop buying rubber for three months. There was no cargo space. By the spring of 1941, rubber was a priority, and the cry was for all the rubber we could produce. Keep that rubber moving. Bring it in. I say if I had ten times the production I have got, I could sell every ounce. Come on here. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. It went on like this until the war spread to the Pacific, and the Japanese took over. I don't know how many times Hankins and I studied the plan for the rehabilitation of the rubber industry after Malay and Singapore had fallen. But when we returned from India, we found a different picture from what we'd expected. The Japanese had cleared plantations for food crops, cut down groves for firewoods, destroyed some for airfields, cut swaths on both sides of many roads going through plantations. But no more than five percent of the 3,500,000 acres of trees had been destroyed. Some of the plantations were in bad shape, overgrown with bracken and scrub. Some machinery and buildings had been destroyed. But the gravest situation was that of labor. The Japanese diverted the labor for war work, a lot of it to the Bangkok Moon Line Railway. Many of these died. Within a month after the close of the war in the Pacific, representatives of the Robbers Growers Association arrived in Singapore with a plan for rehabilitation. Our first purpose will be to make a rapid survey of the European-owned estates and to direct planters and machinery to those areas that will ensure a maximum early production. A Ministry of Supply Unit arrived at the same time. Our task will be to purchase and export stocks with all possible speed, to encourage native production, and to bring in necessary supplies. Almost immediately, rubber started moving out of Malaya to the world trade. In a deal with the British Rubber Cartel in June 1946, the United States agreed to buy 145,000 long tons of rubber during the last half of 1946 at 23.5 cents a pound. That's robbery! How are we going to meet costs at that price? How are we going to get industry back on its feet at 23.5 cents? It must be recognized that America was not a very willing buyer at 23.5 cents. It was thought that the 145,000 tons was about half the production of the Malay plantations, but the price of 23.5 cents per pound flushed out more rubber than anyone knew existed in Malaya and stimulated still more production. A good deal of Indonesian rubber must have found its way into the Malayan market. Because of the confused political situation in the Indies, it has been impossible accurately to estimate current rubber production. Apparently from nowhere, rubber began showing up in the warehouses. A party representing the industry went to Washington. America has agreed to take up 200,000 long tons of rubber from Malaya at 20.25 cents per pound. 20.25 cents a pound? That's three and a quarter cents less a pound than they paid last June. It's an unavoidable condition. The market will not pay for rehabilitation costs, but only for production costs. Today, nearly a year and a half after the close of the war in the Pacific, the rubber industry in Malaya is on its way back. We've lived through three boom times, two slumps, and the war. Now the bracken and scrub are cleared from our plantations. New plantings have been made for those destroyed. New machinery has been brought in. New bungalows built. And rubber again is flowing into the world market. The prospects are bright. The estimated consumption is well above the expected supply of natural rubber for the next few years. But facing up today is a development more formidable than ever before. Synthetic rubber. What this will mean to us in Malaya, we have still to learn. Music You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations, to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific Basin. The Pacific Story is written and produced by Arnold Marquis. The music was scored and conducted by Henry Russell. The principal voice was that of Jane Avello. And here, with a word that should concern all of us, is Eddie Marr. The war has been over for nearly a year and a half now, but it's still not over for 199,000 veterans and GIs who are in hospitals. For some of these fellows, the war will never be over. And in addition to these, there are a million and a half men in our armed forces. All of us have a responsibility to these men. And the bridge between us and them is the USO. USO Camp shows and the many USO services provide cheer and hospitality to all men in the armed forces and in our hospitals. They still need USO. And USO is you. The American Army's National Broadcasting Company Programs in this series of particular interest to service men and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood and is heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company. Thank you.
