FI.AX.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 2562, 20 December 1924, Page 9

FI.AX.

BETTER PRICES REVIVE INDUSTRY But Grading Anomalies Cause Concern ESTIMATED ANNUAL LOSS £50,000 YELLOW LEAF REAPPEARS. There has been a welcome revival in the flax industry during the present season. A groat deal more hemp has been turned out not only in the Manawatu mills, but in all the Dominion flax areas. The price has improved considerably during the past four or five months, with (he result thAt a number of mills have started to handle flax that would have been unprofitable while the price was low. It is anticipated that there will bo a very considerable increase in the Dominion output for the year. Serious Grading Changes. Just when the industry is beginning to see in tiie better tone of the markets a return to profitable working after a period of lean prices and disease in the leaf, an unexpected obstacle has arisen which is causing serious concern. The grading returns have shown that there has been a decided falling off in the highest grades with a corresponding increase in the hemp graded “low fair” and “common.”

It is understood that the graders allege that this is duo to some sort of carelessness in milling and the use of inferior leaf. The millers, on the other hand, are insistent in claiming that the increase in the percentage of lower, grade fibre is solely due to an alteration in the standard quality for each grade. The matter is a serious one for them and they are making urgent representations to the Government with the object of getting an impartial, investigation into the whole system of grading. To realise the full effect of the decrease in the percentage of high grade hemp, it has to be remembered that many millers are. under contract to supply certain quantities of “high point fair” monthly', and unless they get a normal percentage of this grade a great deal more fibre has to be milled with a consequent loss to the miller. Oversea buyers in Australia and America will not take low grade hemp. Through so much fibre being graded "common” and “low fair” an extraordinary amount of these qualities is being placed on the London market, while the amount available for the other and more profitable markets is naturally restricted. A competent authority in the industry estimates that the alteration in the grading is causing a loss of at least £50,000 a year to .the millers of the Dominion. Yellow Leaf Reappears. The yellow leaf disease, which it was thought the flax had shaken off. has made its reappearance this season and has been more destructive than during the two previous years. This deadly' enemy of the industry has come back in some blocks where there was only slight evidence of it in former years, while other blocks which had the disease badly now seem to be immune. At one time it was considered that the methods of cutting might have something to do with the disease, but so far as can bo ascertained there is no difference in susceptibility between side leaf and the old method of cutting. As a result of the recent floods 5n the flax area some of the millers have got behind in their contracts.