Hobart had indeed completely reclaimed control over Longtail Island at the same time the light bulbs went on sale.
This had to be traced back to early June. The deadline for the third round of rubber purchases had arrived, but the Lord's Manor on Longtail Island cited maintenance of the rubber processing plant's equipment and told the plantation owners to wait before delivering any more rubber.
The plantation owners found this strange. The so-called processing plant only had some furnaces and Iron Pots. Why would it need maintenance?
But they soon learned that it was they who needed "maintenance," because Hobart had begun ordering the collection of debts.
The first people the Lord's Manor pursued for repayment were the speculators.
Several plantation owners had joined forces after obtaining loans from Hobart, traveling to other islands to buy rubber cheaply and planning to sell it to the Lord's Manor at one and a half times the market price.
This was practically an open secret.
Yet Fors, who was stationed on Longtail Island, had turned a blind eye to it all.
It was not until those people transported huge quantities of rubber back to Longtail Island that Fors informed them the Governor's Office would recover their 3,000 pounds in loans early because they had seriously breached their contracts.
The contracts stated it very clearly: the loans could only be used to plant Rubber Trees! In the event of a breach, the Governor's Office had the right to immediately recover the loans.
Those plantation owners panicked. Apart from using the loans to buy rubber, they had poured all their savings into it as well. They simply did not have the money to repay the loans.
So they asked to sell the rubber they had first before repaying their loans.
Fors replied, "We will