HEMP INDUSTRY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 501, 7 May 1909, Page 8

HEMP INDUSTRY.

WELLINGTON GRADING APPRECIATED. A large buyer of Now Zealand hemp, Mr. F. Donaghy,' principal of the firm 'of Messrs. Donaghy and Sons' Proprietary (Ltd.), rope and twine manufacturers, Melbourne and Geelong, has boon paying a visit to New Zealand. : Speaking of the waning of tho industry in New Zealand, ho told an "Otago Daily Times" reporter that'it was: difficult to say when the Manila output would slacken off, if it would do so, but until it did the industry/in New Zealand was not likely to improve. Latest advices showed that there were in Manila. 180,000 bales in store, and, further, the finest grades of Manila hemp wero falling in price. In Now Zealand mill-owners suffered a big drawback in having to pay high wages and royalties, which were fixed, when tho' industry was much more flourishing than-now. The hemp .which Mr. Donaghy receives from New Zealand, is dispatched from Wellington, and he expressed himself as being very well satislied with the Government system of grading that prevailed there. It had, he said, been stated to him that- there was likely to bo some alteration in the personnel in connection with the grading, and this, as a buyer, ho very much deprecated. Ho did not mean ,to: say that, a person who graded at one port could not.do'so'at. another, but what he meant to convoy was that it was not in tho.-. best: interests ;• of the ; system to shift tho graders about, for tho.reason that, once established, at a certain depot, they became acquainted -with the miller and his output, to tho mutual advantage of miller and buyer. When a buyer found the grading by. a certain grader or graders to his satisfaction, 'ho could accopt tho ; standard ■ sot : and had no fear of buying,'and in the system of .Government grading it was the. confidence of the buyer that was. most aimed at; and :to bo desired; \ .;.,!.: