HEMP PRODUCTION

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1932, Page 3

HEMP PRODUCTION

GOVERNMENT’S £lO,OOO BONUS.

UNLIKELY TO BE EARNED.

The Government’s bonus of £lO,OOO for a commercially practicable method or process of effecting major improvements in the preparation and manufacture of New Zealand hemp is unlikely to be awarded in view of the fact that no process giving promise of being accepted has been submitted. Entries were originally to have peen submitted to the Government not later than November 30 of last year, but the closing date was postponed for six months. In spite of this, it is stated that it has been impossible to find a process that complies with the specifications laid down when the bonus was offered in February, 1930. It was stipulated in the conditions that the machine or process in regard to which the whole or any pert of the bonus was to be naid should be recommended by a committee set up by the Government. The £lO,OOO was to have been paid wholly or in part for a commercially practicable process of extracting and dressing the fibre of New Zealand hemp (phormium tenax), whether by machinery or otherwise. There was to be obtainable a greatly improved quality cf fibre, marketable at a higher price, a considerably greater quantity of strong white fibre per ton of green leaf, or a substantial reduction in the cost of producing the fibre. Various other conditions were attached to the award of the bonus, but it is stated that the condition concerning the extraction of fibre from not le-s than 500 tons of green leaf under test requirements has not been fulfilled to the satisfaction of the Government.