EXPERIENCE OF AN OLD FLAX DRESSER.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7384, 9 August 1889, Page 2

EXPERIENCE OF AN OLD FLAX DRESSER.

" Yes " said an old manufacturer. " I have had my turn at flax, and aui now at work at it again, "bat I cannot say that I feel any positive assurance as to the big things generally expected. I have seen many ups and downs in the flax trade. I remember once getting mV account sales of flax, £51 per ton in London. I was just starting off to England to .get some improved machinery ; and went home quick by the P. andO.; but by the time I reached London the price was down to £16 per ton, a fall of £35 per ton. I was making £10,000 a year when I left New Zealand, and losing £5000 a year when I reached London. Then followed the collapse of the flax industry, and prices ranged very ow for many years, but there was occasional spurts to about £32 and a fall again to £20 soon after. If you a*k mc straight what I think of the present prospect I say that I feel assured that the price for decent flax, when the market has recovered from the inevitable fall which the quantity of badly-dressed flax now being shipped must entail, will steady down and rule higher than during the last fifteen years, as flax can now be used for many purposes, euch a* binder twine, tyine up grapes in vineyards, etc., which channels were not open to it in 1871 and subsequent fifteen years or so. As to the cost of manufacture—flax, like many other things can be made to pay splendidly on paper; bnt I have found that it takes an expert in the business and a considerable capital outlay in buildings and proper machinery, to make good flax with steam power, and deliver it in London, including sale charges, at much under £23 per too. A man working with insufficient plant or not thoroughly up to the work cannot produce an inferior article even at £5 per ton more. My advice to people, thinking of going into flax here, for the first time, is to wait till the inevitable fall takes place and then decide what to do. Any man starting now must hit the lowest market wfth his ftrsfc shipment. After then It may, and I trust will, recover; though not to the abnormal extent which late prices have indicated."