QUALITY AND QUANTITY.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1902, 23 April 1913, Page 5

QUALITY AND QUANTITY.

NEW ZEALAND HEMP. Now Zoaland hemp, said Mr Mabin, President, of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, in his annual report of yesterday, benefited by the bouutiful harvest in America and an anticipated s.hor f age in competing fibres. The advance in P r *c® n( | increase in production would fall largely into the new season s returns. and should swell the Dominion's exports by about £300,000 over the previous year. "I am sorry to say," Mr Mabin went on, "that there has been a serious falling-off in quality of this article according to the grading returns. The useful grade, good, fair average quality, seems to be getting less and less." *

He quoted official figures in support of his charge showing that whilst tne bales graded had nearly doubled, the quantity of g.f.a.q. produced had remained stationary, and the percentage of g-f-aq. had fallen from 46 1-3 per cent to 28 per cent. But this did not, he said, disclose the full fall in quality, for, whereas a large proportion of the 12,583 bales graded fair in 1912 was of high quality fair, he feared a considerable proportion of the large output of 28,891 bales in 1913 was low grade fair; a quality not approved of by consumers. These figures told a tale on market prices, and the matter was of the utmost importance to the trade. There had been a serious blight in the Mamiwatu affecting the leaf this year. Many millers blamed, and probably rightly, the blight for the low quality, but there were millers not in the blight area who failed to produce good fair average. The poor milling was attributed by some to the many ne v and inexperienced millers who ha l entered the trade recently, by others to the independence of the workmen, the raising of the grading standard and various causes, but whatever the trouble the remedy must be found. Under high prices there might be a disposition to dispense with that minute care and attention to every detail which was the essence of successful milling, and which when prices were low, must necessarily be given to the work to avoid loss. High prices, in short, induced a tendency to strive for quantity and not for quality. This tendency must be checked or the industry would be imperilled. It was quite possible that the miller did not cee an immediate return for the extra cost of turning out the better article, but the return wa9 there all the while. Markets were lost because the consumer could not obtain the better grade and could not use the lower. This was amply borne out by recent happenings in America and Australia. Markets were readily congested with poor quality and prices fell. To millers he said: "Keep up the quality. Quality pays. The position of your product at the moment owing largely to the falling off in grade is serious, and demands the immediate attention of each individual miller."