Evening star., 1928-11-08
BY A. M. SMITH.


Written exclusively for The Star and North
American Newspaper Alliance.
PARA, Brazil, November S-An out
line of economic conditions affecting
the Ford rubber enterprise on the
Tapajos River would be incomplete
without mention of the concessionaires'
traditional method of paying labor as
contrasted with the Ford method OF a
straight daily wage.
"CobocloS," or native laborers, have
been engaged by concession owners 70
gather lateX-milky fluid of rubber
which flows from the tapped bark of the
trees in certain assigned areas OF the
concession.
These tappers, "seringeiros," process
the latex, coagulating it by adding a
small dipping gradually to a turning
paddle held in dense smoke. These balls
of rubber are turned in by the Seringe1ro
to his foreman, and the forelnen deliver
the crude rubber to concession head
quarters. The seringeiro is credited for
his product according to a scale OF per-
centage of the market price Of rubber.
This piecework system is an adequate
basis of pay to the seringeiro, provided
the price of rubber is high enough, the
foreman is honest and the concession
policy is strictly Just.
Operation OF system.
It is obvious that whatever the price
of rubber, the concession owner cannot
operate without profit. Unfortunately.
it has been the general custom of these
operators to hold remuneration to the
seringeiro down to what is. nominally,
a trifle more than the actual cost OF
living. The seringeiro has no means
of disposing of his rubber by any other
chaJ1nels of trade and transportation.
Moreover, it is the rule of the con-
cession owners. generally, to require the
Seringeiro to purchase all store supplies
from the concession stores. Against
these purchases is placed the credit
allowed the Seringeiro for rubber
turned in. With rubber prices low, as
they nave been most Of the time for the
past IS years. the net result of labor
has been merely an increasing debit on
the books of the concession stores.
The longer the Coboclo gathered rub
Der for the concession company, the
deeper he found himself in debt.
The working people of Amazonia have
thus been held in condition of quasi
slavery, for the same system obtains
in the production Of Brazil nuts, the
second chief trade article.
There have been frequent complaints
to the government from the SeringeiroS.
sistance The concession owners have
had considerable political influence.
They maintain that they are paying the
top price to the Seringeiro on the basis
of the rubber market. The best the
state governments could do has been
to aid debt-burned and penniless Serin-
geiros to move to some other quarter
where. the chance of livelihood was
better.
There arrived in Para recently the
second delegation of striking workmen
from a rubber concession. These men,
2o0 in number, connlandeered one OF
the river steamers of the company and |
got out, with the formal permission of !
the company to borrow the boat, since |
the number of strikers seemed to indt- |
cate this as the only safe way around |
an impending scene of violence.
Under order of Gov BenteS, the |
"poiicia" of Para met the boat on its |
arrival and took the strikers to police |
headquarters, not under arrest, but to !
feed them until some solution of their |
predicament might be found.
Some of these men said they had |
worked on this rubber concession for |
Is years, and in that time had rot !
received one penny of wages in coin. |
They said that credit for their work. on |
the connpany's books had not been |
sufficient to provide them with shirts, |
pants. straw hats and groceries. They |
were heavily in debt to the company.
Ford's Cash Plan.
Since the beginning of the rubber !
industry in Amazonia, this system has |
prevailed. The Ford Motor Co. is the |
first of any commercial or industrial
importance to enter the field with the |
policy of paying better than living |
wage in coin and selling store goods to |
laborers at cost.
Official Para, and Official Brazil, have |
not been insensible to the suffering and |
low economic status of these thousands
of Coboclos. Latin Americans are all |
quickly sympathetic toward suffering. |
The coming of the Ford Motor Co. with |
a program for rubber production on a
large scale, and with humane policy |
toward laborers. seems to Brazilians the |
sunrise of a new economic era.
The method Of operation of the Ford |
plantation is to conserve the heavier |
bearing wild rubber trees producing |
good quality of rubber
These trees will average about four to |
the acre throughout the lands of the |
concession, making a total of approxi- |
mately 100000 trees. But it Is about |
30 miles across the concession in either |
direction, the lands forming a rough !
square. It will be some time, therefore, |
before transportation facilities can open |