South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1889.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4913, 23 January 1889, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1889.

A flax mill is to be set to work at Waimate. South Canterbury was never so prolific of flax as North Canterbury, and flax milling never became a considerable business here as beyond the Selwyn ; nevertheless years ago there was enough phormium growing here and there to have furnished a good many thousand tons of fibre yearly. The fall in prices came, causing little loss here, and the despised flax has been cleared away as rapidly as possible. Recently a partial failure of the manila fibre crop has given “ New Zealand hemp ” a fillip in the Home market, a sufficient one to make it worth while to take up the work of preparing it again. A great many mills are {now at work in the North Island, and by the distribution of large sums of money in wages they have proved a god-send to the localities in which they are situated. At one time there was a good deal said and written on the possibility of cultivating the phormium profitably. There is no question that the plant' grows more vigorously when cultivated,even in the rudest way. The experience of every settler in flax lands will prove this. The question of its profitable cultivation depends upon prices, in the average of years, —when due allowance must be made for the competition of other fibres—upon quality. There is flax and flax. The North Island natives recognise quite a number of varieties, and that some of these yield much finer, or more fibre, than others. Something may be made of the flax industry yet, by the selection and cultivation of the best varieties,and still more, perhaps, by that system of cultivation which gardeners and florists have found so effective in improving other forms of vegetation, improving, that is to say, in th 6 direction of making them more useful to man. It is not venturing too much to say that if the native flax were determinedly cultivated with that end in view, a variety might be obtained which would be free from the so-called “ gum,” which is admitted to stand so much in the way of the sub-division of the fibre into flossiness. The ultimate fibres, when so separated are also too short in the wild plant. This defect also might be “ bred ” out of it. It is claimed that the gardener and florist can transform any plant into almost any shape he has a mind to, that is to any shape he definitely fixes upon. Let some of them tackle the native flax, and try to lengthen its fibre cells and free it from its gum.

How frequently Press agents throughout the colony wire the fact that Mr or Mrs So-and-so, if “ old and respected ” residents, or “ a man named so-and-so ” if otherwise, “ died very suddenly ” at such or such a time, “it is believed from heart disease.” Is there any use in telegraphing such items P any interest to anybody in it, save to possible friends and acquaintances of the suddenly deceased, who may be by that means the sooner informed of the fact that such a person is dead ? Heart disease is by no means uncommon, and a common termination to it is the sudden death of the sufferer.

Is there any sweating, “ grinding the faces of the poor,” going on in Timaru ? The Otago Daily Times is publishing articles descriptive of this effect of the Oobden doctrine run to seed in Dunedin. Protection may not be a perfect fiscal system, but so far as it tends to enlarge and multiply the fields for labour it does tend to prevent the social and moral dry-rot that flourishes under over competition allowed by free-trade. Political economy teaches not that men should buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, or that men should make their own market of either kind if they can ; but that they ivill do so if no humanitarian checks are provided, by the consciences of the dealers themselves or those of other people. Where freetrade notions prevail in their extreme form, bow can anyone logically object to sweating?