WELLINGTON ITEMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 9173, 5 August 1890, Page 5

WELLINGTON ITEMS.

[By TELEGRAPH.] [from our special correspondent.] WELLINGTON, August 4. SIR JULIUS VOGEL’S CLAIM. About Sir Julius VogeTa claim, there is a report which, I regret to say, is correct, that Ministers have determined to plead the Statute of Limitations and the provisions of the Crown Suits Act. After his great services and the delay due to his position as a Minister of the Crown, it is a hard measure to he barred by a technicality. Very many here are disgusted in consequence. TAILOBESSES’ UNION. The tailoresaes’ requests have been received here by the member for St Albans, and the Labour Bills Committee will consider them to-morrow. About the diningroom, a compromise is being arranged. FLAX. The Flax Committee have been receiving the wildest kind of evidence from a great many people, evidence exaggerated as to the present achievements, and exorbitant about future prospects. There are many people who revel in a dream of costly and beautiful fabrics, all made from the handsome, tough fibre of the Phormium tenax. Mr Dougall, of Auckland, came before the Committee this morning, and made nothing of all these gentlemen. Mr Dougall is an expert in fibres, having had a great deal of experience with the dressing of fibres, with their manufacture, and with the machinery used in the various processes. He hails from Fife, where his experience was collected during many years. Twenty years ago he came to this country and gave an impetus to the industry of phormium by inventing tbo "stripper/’ which has never been superseded to the present day. Mr Dougall had dressed a good deal of the phormium himself, and has watched the manufacture very closely. He told the Committee very emphatically that the fibre is nob good for spinning ; it will always be bard and unkind for that purpose, it will not make fine fabrics, and it is too expensive to make coarse ones. Its destiny is the rope-walk, and the tow ought to have an outlet among the lower manufactures. When told that shirts had been made of phormium, Mr Dougall said he did not doubt the fact—“ You can spin anything, hut will it hold He declared that these shirts, if there are any, would not stand two washings. This opinion I have ascertained to have been borne out by actual facts. As to grading the qualities of the flax at ports of export, Mr Dougall thinks that the lower sorts ought to be prohibited from exportation, otherwise dressers will deliberaiely scamp their work, calculating on the lower prices for their profit. It is a great question.