Brazil has so far not had any serious competition to fear. It is true that the other producing countries in Central America, South Africa and Asia, send a considerable quantity of rubber on to the market, but this does not affect the Brazilian trade, because, besides being practically all of it of an inferior quality, such extra supply is not sufficient to occasion the harmful effects of an overproduction. It is curious to observe, that even within the last decade, the production of those regions which in 1901 was 21,547 tons increased even so far as to surpass the production of Brazil in the year of 1905, reaching then 35,428 tons; but it diminished as rapidly as it had increased and in 1911 we see it reduced to 23,747 tons. This decrease cannot be attributed to the effects of competition, for instance to the plantations of the Orient, whose production commenced to accentuate itself exactly in the year of 1905 and henceforward. As a matter of fact, competition should bring forth a fall in prices, but however, on the contrary, such did not happen, the quotations reaching in the years of 1909 and 1910 such extremes as had never been seen in the rubber market. It will be sufficient to point out, that the refined rubber of Pará, which is the Standard regulating type of the market and whose average annual price has been 3, 4 and even 5 shillings, went up in those years to 12s/6 per pound. However, a new competitor did appear, which had to be taken into consideration, and which induced the Government of Brazil to adopt some measures tending to protect its great article of export. The considerable and methodical plantations of the =hevea brasiliensis= made in the peninsula of Malacca in Malasia and on the island of Ceylon, commenced to produce rubber, which it was predicted would within a few years, due to the enormous quantity produced at a low figure, get the mastery of the market. These plantations, the initial experiments of which date from the year of 1876, with 70,000 seeds sent from the Tapajóz river, an affluent of the Amazon, by Wickham to the Royal Botanical Garden of Kew, have taken an enormous increment since the year 1896, till to-day, due to the results obtained which indicated beyond possible doubt the advantages of the cultivation of hevea, this in view of the constantly increasing price of the product and the new applications which day after day the rubber industry has opened up. The cultivated-plantation rubber, which appeared on the market with 5 tons in 1901, was represented by 646 tons five years later and at the end of another equal period, by 12,000 tons. It is estimated that if nothing unforeseen happens to the contrary, its production in 1916 will be 70,000 tons, thus reaching the quantity which is at the present moment consumed each year by the necessities of the industry.