THE FLAX INDUSTRY

Otago Witness, Issue 3957, 14 January 1930, Page 13

THE FLAX INDUSTRY

POSSIBILITIES OF DEVELOPMENT. EXPERIMENTS OF THE PAST. Viscount Craigavon (Prime Minister of Northern Ireland) has lately interested himself in the flax industry as he has found it in this country, and in an interview published last week he has suggested that the New Zealand product might be of use to the Irish cotton spinner, and that the Irish species of flax, which suits the manufacturer so well, might with profit be cultivated in this country.

Our representative had a short interview with Mr Alexander Bathgate on this subject on Tuesday last, and as a result learnt that both- the courses suggested by the noted visitor had already been experimented with in this country, although to very little purpose. Mr Bathgate recalled the fact that at the Dunedin Exhibition of 1864 some organisation, either the provincial or the general Government, he was not sure which, had made a display of linen and linen thread, which had been manufactured from the New Zealand flax, phor-

mium tenax. Both of the articles exhibited were of excellent quality, -and it was said at the time that great things could be expected of the flax industry in New Zealand in this direction. The matter was given some consideration at that time, but the difficulty of ridding the fibre of the heavy gum content of New Zealand flax had proved too much for the industry at the time. It wins stated then that this difficulty alone made New Zealand flax, as a source of supply for the manufacture of linen, a commercial nonentity.

At that time, said Mr Bathgate, there were a lot of millers in Otago, particularly in the vicinity of West Taieri, Kaikorai Valley, Blueskin, and parts of the Lawrence and Waitahuna districts. No doubt the possibility of using flax as the raw material for the manufacture of linen would have received keener attention had it not been for the gradual collapse of the industry in this province. Somehow the bottom appeared to fall out of everything, and most of those engaged in milling lost a great deal of money. The fact that stands were so quickly cut out, leaving as a result a long drag to the mills had something to do with the slump, but Mr Bathgate stressed the fact that the cutting of everything close to the ground had had the effect of killing out many of the plants that would have borne again and again if cut in the right, way. All these things possibly prevented the complete exploitation of the new use for New Zealand fibre. He was under the impression that a report on the subject had been compiled about the time of the 1864 Exhibition in which the matter of using New Zealand fibre for linen manufacture was fullv discussed.

As regarded the second suggestion made by Lord Craigavon, with respect to the domestication of the Irish flax in New Zealand Mr Bathgate was not very optimistic. He stressed the fact that phormium and linum (Irish) varieties were totally different in the majority of respects. But in this connection, Mr Bathgate recalled the fact that in the early sixties, the General Government of New Zealand procured supplies of the linum flax seed, distributing it free among farmers for experimental purposes, the idea being to secure supplies of linseed oil from the seed of the flax. Farmers, however, were not very keen, and it was found that the oil content of the New Zealand-grown linum was not nearly as high as it was in the plant grown in the very much warmer climate of India. The linseed oil was not forthcoming in payable quantities. Though the failure of that experiment was due to low oil content. Mr Bathgate was of the opinion that it would not be feasible to grow the linum variety with profit in New Zealand, owing to the low wages ruling in Ireland and the even lower rates existent in Russia under the Soviet. If the linum flax could be grown wild in New Zealand after the manner of the phormium variety, without involving any great labour, it might be different, but it was not likely that that would be possible. Both these matters, however, concluded Mr Bathgate, were worth investigation, and if Viscount Craigavon were prepared to interest himself in them on his return to Ireland. New Zealand could with profit seriously consider the whole subject of the development ot its flax indnstrv.