The U.S., whose stockpile of natural rubber is down to a scant 100,000 tons, got good news from Wallace Ellwood Cake, U.S. Rubber Co. official. He arrived in Manhattan from Sumatra, where he had been a Jap prisoner, with a first-hand report on Far Eastern rubber. Said Cake: 1) the Far East has 250,000 tons of rubber ready to ship; 2) production next year may reach 550,000 tons.
Damage to trees and plantations, in general, was small. In Malaya the British estimated that only 5% of the trees were destroyed. But on its $38-million plantation in Sumatra the U.S. Rubber Co. lost 1.8 million trees out of 10 million. The Japs cleared the land to raise food.
More serious loss to plantation owners is the labor needed to produce the prewar peak of 1.3 million tons. The Japs rounded up thousands of natives, sent them into Burma to build airstrips and military roads. More than half, said Cake, are believed to have died from ill-treatment. He estimated that it would take three to five years to get production back to normal.
On the basis of Cake's report, the outlook for tire makers was brighter than they had expected. The U.S. will probably get 400,000 tons of the Far East's 1946 production, which will be blended with synthetic to stretch the supply. Estimated passenger tire production next year: 66,000,000.