The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1890 The Hemp Trade

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 99, 13 February 1890, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1890 The Hemp Trade

*. The cloud " no bigger than a man's hand," which was seen iv the trade horizon at the very beginning of the boom iv the New Zealand hemp trade, has been day by day gathering magnitude and force until at last it has burst on the devoted heads of tjie hemp-millers, and the amount of destruction it will inflict no man can yet tell. With a blind folly, which seems inexplicable, these men have refused to accept the broad hints, and even menaces, tendered -them by the brokers through the press of England, America aud New Zealand, to the effect that they were spoiling their own market by manufacturing the worst possible material. They were told that they must, to keep faith with buyers, turn out a better quality ; that the fibre should be cleaner ; that more care should be taken in baling ; in fact they were told, in plain words, that they did not understand their business, and the sooner they took the trouble to learn it the better it would be for them. Instead of acting upon this . well meant and kindly advice from men who stand at the head of their profession, the flaxmillers have gone on actuated, apparently, by a blind faith in their good luck, and an equally blind hope that their inferior stuff would be able to rival in the market the output of mills managed by men who were not only practically familiar with the work, but were also continually on the look out to take advantage of every suggested improvement in machinery, or process of dressing the fibre, by means of which they could make their pro•duce more saleable. The inequality of the prices obtained in foreign markets by the Auckland and Wellington brands was — we confess to our intense astonishment — put clown to " iaterprovincial jealousy," and some occult reason was imagined to exist which enabled the firafc-named brand to be the favorite. It never seemed to enter into the minds of the makers of the Wellington brands that Aucklaud millers were not new to their work, but had the experience of years to assist them, and that consequently their products were of a better class. When the news was published not loug ago that English dealers could not buy floating consignments of New Zealand hemp because they were neither "up to sample" nor equal to previous shipments of similar brands, our producers, if they had been as spirited as they ought to have been, would have taken this severe lesson to heart, and used their best efforts and energies to remove such a wellmerited reproach from them ; because, to all intents and purposes, it was a reproach of commercial immorality few really honest men should care to live under. However, "it is never too late to mend," and we sincerely hope and trust that in this case the amendment will be commenced at once, otherwise an industry, which in its infancy promised to thrive into a strong and lusty manhood, will be strangled and utterly destroyed. As it is, immense harm has been done, and it may take many long years to recover the lost ground, or regain the confidence of either the foreign buyers, or manufacturers who work on the raw material known as New Zealand hemp.