THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21086, 21 January 1932, Page 8

THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

The announcement that the Unemployment Board has concluded an arrangement by which three flaxmills will be reopened and that 100 men will thus be transferred from relief work to full-time productive employment indicates a real achievement. If some means could be found for giving a similar stimulus to the production of kauri gum, there would be the possibility of absorbing still more men for whom work at the present time has virtually to be manufactured. Years ago the gumfields were always a possible resort when employment failed in the towns. The export of the output from them added many thousands of pounds a year to the wealth of the country. The old primitive spade and spear methods, the old nomadic independent life, may be no longer feasible, but there should still be life for the industry. There is certainly no direction in which efforts to provide employment could be more fruitful than by the encouragement of export industries. The trade balance as well as social conditions inside the country would thus be assisted. But if old methods in winning kauri gum arc outworn, it is also a fair question whether any assistance to the flax industry that is not contingent on improved technique is likely to bring more than a temporary revival. Dr. Marsden has sketched the efforts made to find more effective and economical methods of stripping, and emphasised the need to single out the best among the many natural varieties of leaf. These points are important, but, as recent statements have shown, better natural fibre and reduced costs of production are not more important than higher quality hemp in the finished condition. The revival of manufacture and export being engineered by the Unemployment Board needs to be accompanied by concentrated efforts so to improve the methods of working that the industry will be able presently to stand on its own feet and meet the challenge in the world's market by other fibres with a quality that will enable the New Zealand article to hold its own against its rivals.