THE GRADING OF FLAX.
While the details of the system upon -which flax should be graded must necessarily be left to the decision of experts, the public at large is fully competent to form an opinion upon the general principles of this or any other classification. For the purpose of grading, in butter, -in meat, in flax, in any article of commerce, is to ensure the highest possible market price for the producers by guaranteeing to buyers that, produce offered to them is not only of the kind it professes to be, but is more or less of the kind they require. It is absurd to grade any produce on lines to which buyers are indifferent. To do this i 3 not only wasted trouble and expense, but exercises a deteriorating influence upon an industry *by fostering a fictitious standard of excellence. The Flaxmillers' Association contends that buyers, both in America and at Home, want clean flax rather than line fibre. If this assertion is correct—and we can hardly conceive that those pecuniarily interested in supplying a market will not know what the market requires—it should dispose immediately of a very vexed question. Auckland Province is a large producer of this article and greatly concerned in obtaining every possible penny for its output; as is every other province in the colony. We may therefore hope that the Government will promptly respond to the Fiaxmillers' petition and take such steps as may be necessary to authoritatively solve the difficulty. For the question is not what graders think or do not think, but what the markets in which we sell may require. By the requirements of these markets the standards of grading should undoubtedly be governed.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12695, 25 October 1904, Page 4
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284THE GRADING OF FLAX. New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12695, 25 October 1904, Page 4
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