FIBRE INDUSTRY

Southland Times, Issue 23026, 21 October 1936, Page 6

FIBRE INDUSTRY

Need For Revival Emphasized VISITING AUTHORITY’S VIEWS (United Press Association.) Wellington, October 20. “I see no reason why a crop of 50,000 tons of phormium should not be harvested within 15 years, but certain changes would have to be introduced,” said Mr Alfred Wigglesworth, of London, an authority on the fibre industry, who is visiting Wellington. Mr Wigglesworth, who is intimately connected with sisal production in East Africa, has been invited by the New Zealand High Commissioner in London to investigate the flax industi-y. Thirty years : go, he said, New Zealand exported some 30,000 tons of phormium, but to-day the figure barely reached 4000 tons. By way of comparison, East Africa in 1921 shipped 8000 tons, but last year the quantity reached 120,000 tons, due to a complete remodelling of the industry. “I can find no evidence of similar technical progress in the phormium industry which apparently stands approximately where it stood 30 years ago,” he said. “Indeed the leaf employed appears to have deteriorated seriously, producing so small a percentage of good quality that only the dregs remain to be exported. All the good fibre is required to produce binder twine to harvest home crops. It was satisfactory to observe the research work of considerable value conducted at Massey College, where certain strains yielding fibre of a quality that should permit a return to the high grades of past efforts may well be applied to the production of superior fibre for export. Spinning machinery has recently . undergone profound changes, and in this direction lies the economic success in the production of improved phormium as a substitute for Italian or Hungarian hemp. Attractive coloured mats can be woven from phormium, but it is doubtful whether New Zealand would not for the present be well advised to concentrate on the production of a large crop of superior fibre, reserving experiments in manufacture for later years. By modernizing the fibre industry a valuable indigenous craft would be revived, yielding a substantial income and finding employment for many men.”