Phormiun Tenax.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 5, 1 March 1909, Page 151

Phormiun Tenax.

The head of the flax-grading department has just issued a report which ought to make all interested in this industry weep bitter tears. The tremendous output of Manila of last year is going to be repeated this; there is no hope for the Dominion's phormium unless the millers either reduce the cost of production or improve the quality of the fibre. This was said forty years ago by all the experts and all the Commissions, expensive and otherwise, if there were any that could be classed as otherwise. Since then thousands of tons have been exported and millions of pounds sterling have passed through the flax industry. There comes a check, the old enemy appears on the scene, and lo! it is discovered that we have nothing but the old weapons to cope with him. Now the improvements in the methods of the old enemy being the results of the peace which comes of a strong administration, these methods are come to stay. Therefore the choice between improving quality, or reducing price, or bursting, is looking permanent. The industry is preparing a deputation for the Minister, to get him to do something. We advise them to ask for a Royal Commission, whose order of reference will bar the past, of which we have records enough, and to spare, confining itself to the future; a future big with rewards for invention of efficient methods of dealing with what ought to be the most profitable product of the Dominion's soil. Progress has for .years advocated this course, and feels elated naturally at the approach of some attempt to get away from the bad old traditions which have done so much to throttle the industry.