LINEN INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 6, 8 January 1930, Page 11

LINEN INDUSTRY

GROWING OF-FLAX

PAST EXPERIMENTS

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post.")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

Viscount. Craigavon (Prime Minister of Northern Ireland) has lately in-terested-himself in the flax industry as ho has found it in this country, and in an interview published this week he has suggested that the New Zealand product might be of use to tho Irish cotton spinner, and that the Irish species of flax, which suits the manufacturer so well, might with profit be cultivated in this' country.

A "Daily Times" reporter had a short interview with Mr. Alexander Bathgate on this subject yesterday, and as a result learnt that. both the courses suggested by the noted visitor had already been experimented with in this country, although to very little purpose." Mr. Bathgate recalled tho fact that at the Dunedin Exhibition of 1864 some organisation, either the Provincial or the General Government, had made a display of linen and linen thread, which had been manufactured from the New Zealand flax, phormium tenax. Both of the articles exhibited were of. excellent quality, and it was said at tho time that great things could be expected of the flax industry in Itfbw Zealand. In this direction the matter was given some consideration at that time, but tho difficulty of ridding the fibre of the heavy gum content of New Zealand flax had proved too much for the industry at tho time.

It was stated then that this difficulty alone made New Zealand flax as a source of supply for • the manufacture of linen a commercial nonentity at that time, said Mr. Bathgate. There were a lot of millers in the Otago, particularly in tho vicinity of West Taieri, Kaikorei Valley, Blueskin, and parts of the Lawrence and Waitahuna districts. No doubt the possibility of using flax as tho raw-material for the manufacture of linen, would have received keener attention had it not been for the gradual collapse of the industry in this province. Somehow the bottom appeared to fall out of everything. Most of those engaged in milling lost a great deal of money. Tho fact that stands wero so quickly cut out, leaving as a resul*- a long drag to the mills, had something to do. with the slump, but Mr. Bathgate stressed the fact that the cutting of everything close to the ground had had the effect of killing out many of the plants that would have borne again and again if cut in the right way. All these things possibly prevented the complete exploitation of the new use for New Zealand fibre. He was under the impression that a report on the subject had been compiled about tho time of the 1864 Exhibition, in which the matter of using New Zealand fibre for linen manufacture was fully discussed.

.As regards the second suggestion made by Lord Craigavon with respect to the domestication of the Irish flax in New Zealand, Mr. Bathgato was not very optimistic. He stressed the fact that phormium and linum (Irish) varieties wero totally different in tho majority of respects, but in this connection Mr. Bathgato recalled tho fact that in tho early 'sixties the General Government of New Zealand procured upplies of the linum flax seed, distributing .it free among farmers for experimental. purposes, t"Lo idea being to secure supplies of linseed oil from the seed of tho flax. Farmers, however,wero not very keen, and it was found that the' oil • content of the Now Zea-land-grown linum was not nearly as high as it was in the plant grown in the very much warmer climate of India.

The linseed oil was not forthcoming in payable quantities, though the failure of that experiment was due to low oil content. Mr. Bathgate was of the opinion that it would not be feasible to grow the linum variety with profit in New Zealand, owing to the low wages ruling in Ireland and the even lower rates existent in Russia under the Soviet. If the linum flax could be grown wild in New Zealand after the manner of the phormium variety, without involving any great labour, itmight bo different, but it was not likoly that that would be possible.

Both these matters, howevor, concluded Mr. Bathgate, wore worth investigation, and if Viscount Craigavon were prepared to intorest himself in tliem on his return to Ireland, New Zealand could with profit seriously consider tho whole subject of the development of-its flax industry.