THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8828, 20 March 1909, Page 3

THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —It may interest your readers to know just what mills are closing clown, ancT their reasons for doing so We understand that the Seifert Flaxdressing Company are about to close down three of their strippers at the Miranui mill. This was done at about the same time last year, and it will also be necessary to follow the same course for the next two seasons, so as to give the leaf the necessary time to mature. The Koputarua Fibre Company will also close their two mills at the end of the present month for the same reason. t Messrs R. Gardner and Sons, of Koputarua, are "cut. out" of green loaf, and will close down shortly. There will not be sufficient loaf for this mill to commence again for the next two seasons.

As usual, Messrs A. Seifert and Co.'s Paiaka mill will closo down until next season. This is found necessary at about the same time each year owing to the shortness of leaf, and also to the risk from floods.

Our reason for troubling you with so detailed a statement is that some detractors of the present scale of wages are holding 'up this closing down of these mills as an illustration of .the crippling tendency which they allege is exercised by the award. Needless to say, this is not so, and it is interesting to note in this connection that Mr James Tennant, of Oroua Bridg6, one of the oldest hands in the district, has just started his mill again, despite the daily cry that with the low price of hemp and the high price of human beings there is "nothing in it." Thanking you in anticipation, I am, etc., PERCY T. ROBINSON, Secretary.