LINEN FLAX INDUSTRY

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23352, 11 June 1941, Page 8

LINEN FLAX INDUSTRY

MORE THAN £1,000,000 SPENT NEW FACTORIES TO BE ESTABLISHED Work is to be started .at once on the erection of six new linen flax processing factories, and on the installation of tank retting equipment in five,of the factories which are already in operation. This work will involve an expenditure of upwards of £500,000, and will bring the total spent on equipment nfid operation of the linen flax industry in New Zealand to more, than £1,000,000. The Linen Flax Committee, set up last year by the Minister in charge (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan), met in Christchurch yesterday to consider the progress of the industry so far, and to make final arrangements for the additional plant that will be required for processing the greatly increased acreage of flax that will be grown in the South Island this year. Mr F. Johnson, under secretaxy of the Department of Industries and Commerce, who is chairman of the committee, said yesterday that it was thought that the first two years’ operations would return payments for-linen flax fibre sufficient not only to pay all running expenses, but to cover a proportion of the capital cost as well. With the establishment of the six new factories at Seddon, Fairlie, Geraldine, Gore, Clydevale, and Woodlands, 17 factories will be in operation in New Zealand. They will deal with the produce of an area of 25,000 acres against the 13,800 acres that were handled this season by 11 factories. It is expected that the production of linen fibre will exceed 4300 tons next year, and that m addition 2000 tons of tow, and 6900 tons of seed will be produced. To separate the valuable fibre from the woody stalk of the flax plant, three processes are used. The oldest is by dew retting, in which a rotting process occurs spontaneously when flax straw is left exposed to the weather for a certain time. A relatively new process is by tank retting, in which the fibre and wood are separated by a .carefully controlled rotting process carried but in concrete tanks. The third process, but one which is so new that it is not yet fully understood by the users of the resultant fibre, is the natural flax process, in which straw is sent to the scutching machines without any retting process at all. Its great advantage, and specially in New Zealand where labour costs are high,! is that it does away with the greater part of the extensive hand labour that the other two processes require. When Mr J. W. Hadfield, director of the linen flak industry, was in Great Britain in 1939, natural flax fibre was attracting great attention, and some of the largest users, including some of the Imperial Government services, were eager buyers of the fibre. When the industry was established here, therefore, provision was made for the production of a big quantity of natural fibre in the total output of the Dominion, and a number of factories have already produced quantities of fibre by this process. Tank-retied Fibre Preferred Since the War began, however, it has been found that users of linen flax fibre prefer an article with which they are thoroughly familiar, and with the Imperial Government’s request for a greatly increased production in New Zealand this year came a request that tank-retted fibre should be given preference to dew-retted or natural flax. Five factories equipped this year only for dew-retting will therefore be equipped for tank-retting next year, beside the six new tank-retting units to be- erected. Only one factory, that at Leestbn, will next year produce natural fibre. Beside producing a considerably more valuable grade of fibre, tank-retting will allow production to be speeded up to a marked -extent, an important consideration in view of the urgent needs of the Imperial Government.

Beyond the statement that it was expected that, the value of the crop in the first two years would pay all running expenses and repay some of the capital expenditure, Mr Johnson was able to say, nothing yesterday on the value of the crop., He said that the value of the fibre produced here, though it was acknowledged by experts to be of good grade, was not so far accurately known, and production costs at the factories were only approximate yet. He said that reports received by the committee indicated that farmers were keen to grow the crop, which had for most growers turned out to be a profitable addition to their farming operations.