TWELVE THOUSAND POUNDS FOR AN IDEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3099, 6 August 1913, Page 7

TWELVE THOUSAND POUNDS FOR AN IDEA.

PROBLEMS OF THE FLAXFIELDS. A DUNEDIN COMPETITOR. The £12,000 Government bonus for improvements in flax-dressing machinery was the subject of a recent advertisement by the New Zealand Flaxmillors’ Association, whose headquarters are at Palmerston North. It matures next November. There are at present at least five separate groups of experimenters striving busily to achieve . the required improvements, but at least two of these claim to be aiming at bigger game than the bonus. The live groups referred to are Messrs Hubert Bockcn and Co., Germany, operating at Tokomam ; Claydon and Maud, Christchurch, experimenting at Foxton ; Maddron Bros., Christchurch; Tait. Dunedin; and the N.Z. Flax Machines Co., of Palmerston. North. Extraordinary secrecy is being preserved by most of the groups, but it is generally "conceded that they have one common aim—improvement in quality and the elimination of paddocicing. “In the ordinary stripper-dressed fibre,” said a representative of one of the groups, j “you get a large percentage of gum ! tangled up with the fibre, and rod, green, and brown juices discolour it. No amount of bleaching in the process of glorified haymaking can -remove the stains. Another injury is done by the stripper, which beats it 15 or 20 times to the inch. A blind man told mo ho could toll hemp from nianila by the indentations thus caused.” “No,” he added, “wo are not after the bonus, and if it means surrendering our patent rights we shall not claim it. £12,000 wouldn’t pay us. Why, the inventor who dispensed with the ‘glory hole,’ wherein an individual in a big hat sat beneath a shower of vegetation guiding the leaves of flax, gets several thousands a year royalty now from the Manawatu district alone. One firm pays him £SOO a year. The inventor who can dispense with the expensive paddocking and save the contract charge of 32s 6d per ton will make a fortune.” A mos: interesting personality is Mr Bookcn. of another group. Ho is a well-known engineer, being the inventor of the Corona sisal-dressing machine. Though born at Cologne, on the Rhino, he is a Brit : sh subnet. a graduate ot ‘bo Royal University of Ireland, and a tact student of Black roc-g College, Dublin. He is a manufacturer of colonial machinery, and is connected with two of the biggest spinning mills in Girin any. ‘‘l oarnn here,” ho said, “because the New Zealand millers, pushed on probably by the big prices, are, by reducing the quality, ruining their reputation abroad. Quito 60 per cent, of the hemp that reaches the merchant is wasted and turned into tow during the process of spinning through the faulty dressing here. There are some varieties of the phormium plant, which, like that in Hawke’s Bay. give a brilliantly white fibre of uniform strength and length. These should l>e encouraged and trio others eliminated Another trouble is the accumulation of gum, vegetation, and water, which now pollute your rivers to a groat extent.” “We have had lawsuits over this.” observed the reporter. “Your Prime Minister, Mr Massey, - ’ continued Mr Boeken, “ told me that if I can cure this trouble it will be a great help to him. because he is afraid he may have to handicap the millers, as he has to protect also the interests of the riverside sot tipi’s.” “ What is your process, then, for dealing with the vegetation?” the reporter asked. “ practically the same as that in use for sisal refuse iu lvn-t .Africa, where now the vegetation is prepared for use as fuel and the water from the liquid matter for the boilers. Mr Poeken docs not believe that bacteria pl-iv any part in the bleaching process. “ The bacteria of the paddocks,” he gavs. “are more likely to do harm than good. In the paddocks you rely oh the sun drying the impurities end the wind blowing them away.” He believes bo can adapt the sisal process to obviate the paddocking cnlirclv.