Valentim Boucas, amiable financial adviser to President Getulio Vargas, was in Washington last week. He concluded an agreement which raised the price of wild Amazon rubber and shifted to the Brazilians the responsibility for producing it (TIME, Feb. 28). Also on his mind was the dubious postwar future of Amazon rubber.
The present price of high-grade Brazilian rubber is 60ยข a lb., which is not far above the cost of gathering it from the scattered wild trees of the jungle. Far Eastern plantation rubber is much cheaper. Synthetic rubber may eventually prove cheaper still. Apparently the only...
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