THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 8

THE FLAX INDUSTRY.

VISCOUNT CRAIGAVON INTERESTED. AN EXPORT TRADE SUGGESTED. (Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 4. Viscount Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, who ’passed through Christchurch to-day on his way to the West Coast, where he will visit the Franz Josef Glacier, has been interested a great deal in the flax industry since he has been in New Zealand, and yesterday he discussed matters pertaining to the industry with the Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward). He explained this morning that New Zealand flax* was entirely different from the flax used in the linen industry in Ulster. He did not know till he had been round the South Island what the prospects were for the cultivation of suitable flax 'here. 3

" Ulster would much prefer to pay for its raw material inside the Empire than spend such a very large amount in Soviet Russia and other European countries," he said. "If New Zealand could supply our requirements—that is, the raw material—it would be another crop for the Dominion which might carry her through if there happened to be a bad time for butterfat, cheese, wool, and other primary industries." . He added that the development of flaxgrowing in New Zealand would further the interests of two parts of the Empire which were now more analogous than any otherNew Zealand and Ulster. Sir Joseph Ward had been most sympathetic when the speaker had broached the subject yesterday.