MORE WORK.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 269, 24 May 1889, Page 2

MORE WORK.

♦ We are pleased to find that our remarks re the working up the of waste product of the hemp mills, the tow, has borne fruit, and outsiders have arranged to turn it into money by hackling it. The industiy at first sight appears superior to flaxdressing, as there is but little machinery to provide, and no harrass as to the state of the weather, as the whole operations can be conducted under cover. It has been shown that tow can be hackled from £7 to £10 per ton of finished material, that the tow can be obtained at a very low cost, and that when so treated and baled, the product will realize within a pound or two of dressed hemp. If this be correct, and we believe it to be so, anyone can work the matter of profit out for themselves. That this should be tested on a proper scale is of the utmost importance to the district, as the preparation means an expenditure on labor in even a greater portion than is expended in dressing the green leaf, and that is nearly all labour. In a very short time the succes or otherwise will have been determined, as Messrs Bacon and Spiers, the energetic builders and millwrights, are starting in a few days on a large scale. They have secured suitable premises and will employ twenty-five hands, whom they will board in premises obtained on the Moutoa road. This should represent something like an extra output of thirty tons of prepared tow, worth on the spot, say £18 a ton, or an increase to the wealth of the town of over £6000 a year. This of itself would be extremely gratifying, but fortunately others are doing likewise. Mr Toomath, at Moutoa, has obtained premises, and will work up the refuse from the mills about there, and the millers are also talking of doing likewise for their own tow. If this should come to pass, this labor will represent employment for one-third more men than are now at work, thus affording another instance as to how easily money can be made or lost by management or the want of it.