JAPANESE FLOUR MILLING.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13278, 6 May 1907, Page 3

JAPANESE FLOUR MILLING.

American millers on the Pacific coast have commenced to take alarm at tlie rigorous strides which Japan is making in flour milling. v The : " London Miller" says : —"Flour mills with a capacity'ranging from ten to fifteen sacks an hour are being built at Kobe, Tikio, and Yokohama, and before the end of the .year those parts of the empire will have a total capacity of something, like 20,009 sacks per wide, and with the mills erected before and in operation, the population will be well supplied. The whole matter of Japanese flour making from foreign wheat hinges upon . the regulations. Japan is a protected country, and fosters home industries. as.sid'uorsly, and in order to help the miller she has put about 4s per sack duty on all flour coming from outside, whereas the duty on wheat is., not quite in. the same category. Pacific coast millers are 'said.. to be rather upset at ths prospect' before them, ! because the* opening up of new markets,, is a very different " and more difficult thing than it was even ten years ago. There is just one thing we are not quits clear upon,and that refers to the disposal of the: byproducts. It is quite true that the Japanese are content with 'a rather .low grade flour, and a goodly portion of the so-called are u&ually incorporat2d in the finished articls, but how the coarse pollard and the bran will be disposed of is a problem yet to be solved, for thb simple reason that Japan is not in any sense a dairying country, and bran, not bang exactly a, waste product, cannot ba thrown away because of the freight and (luty costs entailed upon it. However that may be, we shall bs interested to sea how they manage, for, as recent history has shown, Japanese. both know what they want and also how to get it. • 'What 'is of present importance hairspecial reference to those who havehitherto been< doing thg trade. A further home advantage lies in- the fact that Japan has no special patent laws, and so her imaginative and highly imitative engineers have an entirely free hand in .the matter of. machinery making, . and they may be trusted to us? their abilities' to the' -utmost: advantage and regardless of everything." iiirm