The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2257, 1 August 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1870.

It will be recollected that a few months back, the Flax Commissioners issued an interim report, giving a digest of the information they had gained. Their complete report has been laid before the House of Representatives, and is valuable, as it contains all that is at present known on the subject.The report-itself is a lengthy document of eighteen pages of one of the Government Blue Books, and in addition to it are papers and lectures almost as valuable as the report itself ; so that to print the whole it was necessary to extend it to fifty-eight pages. The Commissioners do not, however, think the information gathered complete. They have not invariably obtained answers to the questions put by them. They state that “ they did not consider it advisable, “ in the state of the Flax industry at “ the time they were appointed, to hold “ official enquiries throughout the <• Colony; because that course would “ have entailed a considerable expense “ without securing a commensurate ad- “ vantage.” Since they were appointed, however, they report that new methods have been tried and others are in course of trial; so that they suggest, for the consideration of the Government, whether or not the Commission should be reappointed or another chosen; and “if so, whether one or “ two Commissioners should not visit “ every district in the Colony, and “ carefully inquire into, on tho spot, “ every process now in operation for “ dressing and preparing flax ; and as “ they go along, impart information “ and give encouragement to all rc- “ quiring the one hr the other.’? They speak with confidence- that such a course of proceeding would be likely to be of incalculable benefit, and there is every reason to think they are correct. Flax dressing is not now the unimportant interest it once was. Its increas ing value may be gathered from a return appended to the Treasurer’s Financial Statement on the 28th June. The worth of the exports of the Colony were in

1866 £096 1867 4,256 1868 8,137 1869 45,246 And for the first quarter of 1870, £39,134. The Commissioners give as a reason why their inquiries were not so successful as they wished, that as a rule “ the parties then engaged in the “ new industry knew very little of the “ matters referred to in the queries, “ and did not feel warranted in com- “ mitting their opinions to writing. •‘There were others who thought that “ they had discovered something which “ they thought new, and which they “ preferred keeping to themselves, and “ for their own benefit.” In a subsequent paragraph the Commissioners condemn the feeling. They say “ it is “ now understood and felt that as « quantity, as well as quality, is wanted “ to enable the demands of the English u market to be supplied, it is the in- “ terest as well as the duty of every “ one in the trade to assist his neighbor “ to produce as good an article and as “ large quantities as himself.” We confess ourselves sceptical as to this proposition, except under modifications. We know there are those who hold to the opinion that it is the duty of a discoverer to impart his knowledge to mankind, and if by study or observation be has hit upon something new, he is not?justified in witholding it. If such a proposition were true—if Society has a right to the use of every msn’s brains —then Society has a right to find him the means of living. But since it is found the better plan to let every man struggle on and make the best use of the faculties with which he is gifted in order to live, if the country is interested in the success of a manufacture, it can well afford to reward anyone who by superior sagacity, knowledge, or even accident, discovers what may forward it. The patent laws are intended to secure this. They have their inconveniences as well as their advantages, and, instead of rewarding, they tax invention. In the Colonies many valuable discoveries are never disclosed, because the inventor is not assured of reaping any reward from his study or experiment. There is a sort of general impression that brain work is not worth paying for, and artists, musicians, and actors, are looked upon as a class of persons who may be asked at any time to contribute the results of years of hard and persevering intellectual labor, gratis to the public. In just the same way the labors of science are not thought worth paying for. An incident connected with this very flax manufacture, presents a case ia point, and is recorded in an appendix to the reports of the Commissioners. It appears that some thirty-five oc forty years ago an attempt was made jo } introduce the New Zee-

land flax into the manufacture of textile fabrics at Home. Mr Charley in his report published in the journal of the Society of Arts, remarks :

I found the objection hitherto urged against the fibre was its extreme brittleness, owing, it was supposed, to the large amount of silica in its composition ; but this brittleness had been successfully overcome by the application of a process invented some years ago by a person named Rums ; but that this process, though successful in its operation, was so expensive as to suit only in the laboratory^. This Mr Burns asked my informant, Mr Herdman (an eminent Belfast spinner), the modest sum of, I believe, £20,000 for the use of bis invention, and shewed on paper a beautiful theory of profits resulting therefrom, amounting to £14,000 a year ! Mr Herdman was not sanguine enough to accept this proposal, and the matter, fell to the ground.

Now, although Mr Herdman might not be justified in running such a risk for his personal benefit, assuming Mr Burns’s discovery to have been what Mr Charley describes, it would be cheap at this moment to New Zealand as a Colony, especially if everyone using the process for his own advantage were to pay a royalty for permission to do so. The effect of the process is thus described. The half of the rough flax has been treated by Mr Burns, exhibiting the extraordinary change effected by his process ; the other half of the same stem (he evidently did not know it was a leaf) being kept unaltered to show the contrast. This process is, of coarse, a secret; but the result is believed to have been effected by the application of some powerful acid on the silica or silicates of the ntm-fibroits portions of the dried plant. The loss to the Colony of such a secret has been incalculable. Had it been known thirty years ago, tens of thousands would have been saved that have been wasted in ill directed efforts, and hundreds of thousands annually would have been received for dressed New Zealand flax. Mr Burns had a greater right to be rewarded for the use of his brains, than a miner has to be charged for the use of the land he works. A man’s intellect is his own, but the laud belongs to the community.