BONUS OFFERED FOR MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURE OF PHORMIUM FIBRE.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XL, Issue 3, 20 March 1930, Page 218

BONUS OFFERED FOR MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURE OF PHORMIUM FIBRE.

The following notice was published in the New Zealand Gazette of 13th February, 1930, over the name of the Hon. G. W. Forbes, Minister of Agriculture:—

Subject to the conditions hereinafter appearing, the New Zealand Government hereby offers to pay £lO,OOO as a bonus or bonuses for major improvements in connection with the extraction and dressing of fibre from the New Zealand hemp-plant (Phormium tenax). . ■ ■

(1) The machine or process in regard to which the .whole or any. part of the bonus is to be paid shall be recommended by a committee set up by the Government, and shall be approved by the Government. .

(2) The £lO,OOO will be 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, whereby there shall be obtainable—(a) A greatly improved quality of fibre marketable at a higher price ; (b) a considerably greater quantity of strong white fibre per ton of green leaf; (c) a substantial reduction in the cost of producing the fibre: Provided that in determining the amount of the bonus to be paid for any such process due regard shall be had to the rate of any royalty required to be paid by millers for the use'of such process, and no bonus whatever will be paid(i) Unless it can be satisfactorily demonstrated that the improved process submitted in comparison with the best of present methods will enable the net returns from an efficient flax-mill to be increased by at least 15 per cent; or (ii) if the amount of any such royalty will absorb the whole or substantially the whole of the increased net return above referred to. .. . .

(3) Any applicant for the bonus or part of the bonus must have fulfilled the following conditions at the time of application : (a) The machine or process in question must have extracted the fibre from not less than 500 tons of green leaf ; lb) The fibre extracted from the 500 tons of green leaf must have been graded by a Government Grader, and not less than 90 per cent, of such fibre must have reached a grade not lower than “ good fair.”

(4) Applications for the bonus must be addressed to the Director-General, Department of Agriculture, Wellington, and must reach him not later , than noon of the 30th November, 1931. They must be enclosed in an envelope clearly marked “ Application for Phormium bonus.”

(5) Each applicant shall state what royalty, if any, would require to be paid by millers for the use of his process during the currency of his patent rights.

(6) As soon as possible after the expiry of the time for receiving applications for the bonus (30th November, 1931), the Government will appoint a committee of not less than fiveof whom two shall be New Zealand hemp-millers—to open and examine the applications, to investigate such of the competing machines or processes as it considers worthy of trial, and to make recommendations to the Government as to the payment of the bonus, having regard to the. amount of royalty, if any, specified in such applications. .

(7). Each applicant must give, at his own expense, such reasonable demonstrations of the working of his machine or process as shall be demanded by the said committee, and such demonstrations shall take place in New Zealand.