KAURI GUM RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22487, 4 February 1935, Page 11

KAURI GUM RESEARCH

PAST OPPORTUNITY LOST USE OF SYNTHETIC PRODUCTS. a " Thirty years ago our deposits of kauri gum meant £500,000 a year to the coffers of New Zealand, but to-day this product is almost unsaleable," stated Professor H. G. Denham, in an address to the conference of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry and the New Zealand section of the Institute of Chemistry' of Great Britain and Ireland. " Thousands of tons of this gum have left our shores for incorporation into varnishes, lacquers, and linoleum, but, secure in the belief that Providence had made the whole world dependent upon us for the supply of this gum, we failed to entrench ourselves when the opportunity offered," he continued. "Failure to invest a fraction of 1 per cent, in research left us open to the attack of a synthetic product. ■ This lack of initiative on our part, coupled with careless methods of extraction and grading, has played its part in stimulating research into synthetic substitutes.'' The professor added that those engaged in the industry had shut their eyes to the lessons taught by indigo and alizarin, and had not believed that scientific workers would slowly but surely wear down the resistance offered by the natural product, revealing its secrets. There was, however, a possibility that a natural product might prove unreplaceable for some specific purpose, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research had given the services of one of its staff to the industry. There seemed reasonable grounds for hope that an industry which would absorb a considerable number of unemployed might again be built up, and New Zealand would be able to meet the competition of synthetic products by putting on the market a very pure and standard gum at a payable price.