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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3318, 13 October 1871, Page 2

Although the exhibits of phonnium fibre at the Colonial Museum arc numerous, various, and interesting, they fail to illustrate in any degree the adaptability of the plant for paper manufacture. To that use of the plant, however, considerable attention has been given both at Home and in the, Colonies, and perhaps by none has more interesting information on the subject been elicited than by Mr Edward M'Glashan, M.H.R. for Roslyn. On that subject, and on the subject of utilising in the same direction several of the native grasses, Mr M'Glashan has at different, times communicated with the Provincial Government of Otago and with Home correspondents possessing a practical knowledge of the manufacture ; and the evidence which he will be able to give to the Native Industries Committee will, no doubt, be estimated by them as a valuable contribution to +.be information they may have already acquired as to products of the country which are capable of conversion into marketable paper. Judged by specimens of pulp and paper which Mr M'Glashan has now in his possession, the phormium fibre ia especially adapted for papermaking purposes, and this is not alone a deduction from a merely cursory ex animation of the samples, but the deliberate opinion of those with whom the manufacture of paper from all eligi ble material has been a life-study and a profession. Of two specimens now in Mr M'Glashan's possession, one is of paper made at Kate's mill, near Edinburgh, and another was made in Melbourne, but in neither instance were the circumstances favorable to a fair illustration of the capabilities cf the plant, the flax" used at Edinburgh having been hard, dry, and comparatively unworkable, and the sample made in Melbourne having been from green flax which had been somewhat injudiciously treated in the preliminary processes of preparation. From his correspondents, however, he has received hints which, if accepted by other experimentalists, are calculated to produce a more encouraging result. Such a correspondent is Mr Thomas Iloutledge, of the Ford Works Company, near Sunderlund — a gentleman of large experience in the paper trade, and who, with great perseverance, introduced into England the manufacture of paper from Esparto grass. In a letter to Mr M'Glashan that gentleman says : —

If you put down a half-stuff plant you would as a matter of course work up all tho flax tow, losing, us it will do, 40 to 45 per cent in tho boiling and washing. Reduced thus in bulk, I should think it would pay well to send Homo iv that condition, although, owing to the yellow, shelly outside, which I found difficult to bleach without injuring the fibre, it will not fetch ao much, I fancy, as the fibre you have sent mo (poce Australia) . It is juat possible, however, that if you can obtain the tow freshly treated, you will not find this skin or shelly exterior so difficult to treat as I have done. Should this turn out so, a better material for puper-making cannot well be found.

We may quote, also, as corroborating this estimate, the following passage from a. paper in Mr M'Glashan's possession — a paper on paper-making materials, which was read by Mr Simmonds, in January of the present year, before the Society of Arts, London : —

Forty yeurs ago (says Mr Simtnonda) paper was made of the Now Zealand flax, to print an edition of a work by Mr John Murray, of Edinburgh, on the plant and its uses. The peculiarity of this paper is its tenacity, -which property would make it valuablo for doeurnenta and printings to stand o great deal of wear and tear. No better paper could bo used for bank notes, or for the printing of valuable standard works. The paper obtained from it is the strongest of all.

So far as Mr M'Glashan's own experiments have gone in manipulating the tow into paper stock or pulp, he thinks with Mr Koutledge that there will not be a great difficulty in the bleaching. At all events, in colored papers any specs would not be seen, and in paperhangings and cartridge paper it would not be any serious defect. The experiments made by Mr M'Glashan are, however, chiefly interesting in relation to the conversion into paper of two varieties of grasses which grow abundantly in the Middle Island. Samples of these grasses, in half stuff and pulp, bleached and unbleached, were forwarded by him to Mr Routledge, and in a letter in reply that gentleman thus states his estimate of their value : —

I duly rocoived your letter covering samples of prepared fibre, which is very good, and as you slate, bleaches very fairly. Until made inlo a Bheot of papor, it will be difficult to say that it is superior to the Esparto. It appears to be somewhat ,'stronger, but strength ib not the only charaotoristio of a good sheet of paper. I do not doubt that fibre, prepared equal to your sample, will bo worth £20 a ton laid down in England, and I shall bo bappy to receive all you can sond, up to 500 tons, at that price. I believe, should Esparto keep up in price, that your fibre would fetch £2 to £& more, but it must first be tried on a working Bcale, and introduced to come unprejudiced makers, and then a regular and assured supply guaranteed, before makers would use it. If you can assure yourself a rogular supply, I believe any quantity you oan mauulac-

ture would sell, as paper materials are daily becoming scarcer and dearer. In a subsequent letter, acknowledging samples of another New Zealand fibre, Mi* Routledge says : — I do not think so well of this fibre aa of that previously sent, which appears to me to bo much stronger, and therefore that last aenfc not worth so much, although, should Esparto keep up in price, it might realise £20 a ton. I do not say would, but might. The testimony of Mr Routledge, and Mr M'Glashan's own experience, lead him to believe — and those who' peruse these extracts will readily agree with him — that we possess in the colony a most valuable product adapted to make the finest class of paper, and a product which, from the fact of its abundance, might prove a great source of wealth. In addition to the phormium tcnax, and the two species of grasses alluded to, there are many oilier vegetable productions indigenous to the country adapted for paper-making, and with some of these also Mr M'Glashanhas made successful experiments. But it is tho abundance of the phormium and the grasses which constitute their great value, and it is clearly to the manufacture of such products into paper that encouragement should primarily be given, if it be decided to give to such native industries any encouragement whatever, either by advance or bonus to anyone enterprisiug enough to enter upon the speculation How this might best be done, and why it should be done, are questions to which we may with propriety refer at another time, and, fortified as we expect to be with facts and figures associated with the subject, we shall .have pleasure m quoting them in an early number, believing that, as compared with sericulture or the acclimatisation of foreign plants, the encouragement of a manu facture the raw material required for which exists abundantly in the colony, is a matter possessing far superior claims to consideration.