PROBABLE PRICE OF FLAX.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 933, 17 January 1890, Page 27

PROBABLE PRICE OF FLAX.

The high price of wool, frozen meat and tallow being fairly assured, the next important question is—Will flax keep up at

a payable rate ? Long ere this we should have had a pile of useful knowledge of its uses from the AgentGeneral, who, however, seems to think that any second-hand information from flax traders is good enough to send out here. All that Sir Erancis Bell has written about planting sisal grass in Bahamas has been known in New Zealand, and a great deal beside. We may tell Sir Erancis that the experiment was tried twenty-five years ago in those beautiful isles, and was a disastrous failure. Recently, however, an American syndicate has leased for 11 twenty-five years largo areas in those islands for the purpose of growing sisal, clearly showing that they believe sisal will keep up in prices for years , otherwise they certainly would not have touched it. The price of New Zealand fiax depends chiefly upon the prices ot‘ sisal or manila. If these two are high manufacturers turn to our flax. Ilf both are low they neglect us. In forecasting probable prices of New Zealand flax we must find out the probable prices of sisal and manila. We know that in Yucatan, the horn© of sisal, exports have been enormously stimulated by the sudden leap of prices ; but we also know that the sisal crop has been getting smallerduring each of the past three years, showing that they have cut it out faster than it grows. Sisal therefore must he iu short supply for several years. The Yueatanese have such a belief in high prices for a long time to come that they are preparing to build railways into the interior for sisal transit. It doea not seem therefore as though there was any fear of a serious collapse in the sisal market, and the lease of Bahama lands for _ twenty-five years, for sisal planting and projected railways in Yucatan support this belief! Manila output has been vigorously stimulated during the last three years by high prices, the latest result being thafe last year about 9,0,000 bales were sboztshipped, that dealers stocks are nearly bare, and that latest advices from tha Philippines show the natives in the interior to have only scanty supplies, and in consequence prices of Manila hemp are hardening, and this shortage-, coupled with a world-wide activity iia business and a generally spread rise, in prices, must mean that Manila will keep up. These are the hopeful signs. Against them must be placed the fact that at any moment a clever Yankee may invent a reaper and binder machine to bind wheat with its own straw —which, of course, would reduce the capacity of one market for our flax. Again, as large quantities of have been bought in. New Zea- : land, those buyers are not competing in the London and American markets, and prices naturally fall. According: to the best information available, New Zealand flax will now fall to aboutt .£25 a tun In London for some time and then rise again. . Elax prices have* .fluctuated greatly in the last four | years. In 1886 the market went down to £24 per toa, rose next year to .£3B, fell to £26 in 1888, but again rose to £3B at the end of that year* went still higher in 1889 and then fell to £2:7. But the encouraging: faQ.tj ia that it has never fallen below I paying prices for the past four yearsc : New Zealand hemp is now used ira many new manufactures where it never entered before. It is largely in request for the backing of carpets and of tapestry, for cordage, rope, and string and binder twine, for matting, and a lot of other purposes, and upon its adaptabilities in so many directions ; the breadth and solidity of the market; depends. It seems as if at £25 a ton in London it would always meet with a ready sale. Though the market will probably be fiat presently, there is every reason to believe it will recover very soon again.

Moreover, ic must be remembered that the output of flax will not increase for a time, because nearly all the flax in the Colony is under crop, and if what remains is milled it will only make up for the short supply of a good many mills which in a few months will find themselves run out of green scuff. After this summer there will be no increase in the quantity shipped away, but ratlnr a decrease. In the South Island every flax field is being worked, and iu Otago even the shortest fla^

is put through. In this province no new mill is starting, and there is only room for two or three more. The Maoris hold very littlo flax m Hawkes Bay, and most of the Auckland flax is being worked. Again, manv of the mills, which have plenty of flax, have cut out their tallest stalks, and will have to put through shorter pieces,' which will lessen their output. The competition of New Zealand flax, therefore, against itself is likely to decrease, and there will bo little chance of a glut of the fibre in the foreign markets, and probably a stiffening of prices will be the consequence.