THE TUNG OIL INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23690, 23 December 1938, Page 8

THE TUNG OIL INDUSTRY

Those who have invested capital in plantations in the North Island, with the view of establishing a tung oil industry, have just cause for complaint if the damaging report which has been published in the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture is based on investigations that were not recently made. It is to be gathered that certain of the plantations have offered such little prospect of success that they have been abandoned. But, though failure is admitted in some instances, it is claimed that the results in other plantations are regarded by the companies concerned as satisfactory. A percentage of failure must have been anticipated. It would be absurd to suppose that all the areas that were planted would be equally favourable to the cultivation of the trees. The report in the Journal of Agriculture, which, because .it is official, might be supposed to bear the stamp of authoritativeness, would, however, convey the impression that the whole effort to create a tung oil industry has been futile and that the capital that has been invested in it has been wasted. It is very unfortunate and, indeed, mischievous if the enterprise shown by the companies in their extensive planting of the areas selected for the purpose should be damned in a Government publication upon information that is misleading. There may be conflicting views, as no doubt there are, with reference to the commercial soundness of tung oil concerns in New Zealand at a time when the labour costs must be high, but there can be no room for a difference of opinion as to the need for the exercise of special care in the preparation ol official reports, circulated, in a Government publication, concerning the practicability of the production of tung oil in the Dominion.