THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12602, 19 September 1906, Page 2

THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

MILLERS' REQUEST FOR A BONUS

IMPORTANT PROPOSAL BY THE GOVERNMENT.

fBMC—_ TO "THTS rBKSB.") WELLINGTON, September 18. An interesting statement in regard to tho Government proposals for assisting the flax industry was mado by the Minister for Lands at Shannon yesterday. A petition was received by Mr McNaib from a mumber of flax millers, asking that the Government should place on tlie Estimates a sum of £5001) to bo paid in bonuses to the producers of tho first five hundred tons of phormium tenax of G.F.A. quality grown under cultivation. Mr R. Gardner, of Palmerffton North, urged the Government to take into consideration the planting of waste lands with flax. Ho understood tihe Government was .sending flax plants to the neighbouring State of Victoria to encourage cultivation there. This seemed to him to be an unwise thing to do, and he thought the Govern—ient should reconsider its action. Mr McNab, in reply, said the experiments which wore being made in his own forest nursery in the South, showed that by growing flax from seed, one would have to wait, he should say, three years longer than by growing from plants. The Government was not in a position to grant bonuses for flaxgrowing, fcr tho simple reason that it did not know how to start about telling people tho way to earn the bonuses. It did not know which were the best varieties, how they tihould be planted, or anything about them. It could plant, perhaps, a thousand acres for tho amount of the bonus, and yet it might be won by men having only ten acres under flax. Although flax was peculiar to New Zealand, tho scientific men cf {lie State had never touched it The only research in flax had been dono at Canterbury College. If they had asked him to spend £6000 in learning what was to bo learned, he was with them right'up to the hilt, but when they could not even tell people hew to go. about earning the bonus, it would bo unwise to offer ?c. During tho coming season tho different experimental stations wero going to take quantities cf hemp refuse from neighbouring mills and ascertain what uso it could be put to in tho way of manuring and fertilising. Tlio Government was preparing a scheme under which young men who wero going up for the degree of Doctor of Science at our Colleges, could apply the whole of their years of research work to the investigation of New Zealand materials. It fiad been arranged that at any rate one student each year would be engaged in invept'gation of theJlax plant. (Hear, hear). Tlie whole of their work, then, for tho Doctor's or Master's degree would bo applied to that plant, and the information procured would bo tho property of the Government, and would be published. By that means they hoped, within tho next few years, to collect information that would enable thorn not only to introduce better methods, but also to utilise tho byproducts.