The Flax Trade

Manawatu Herald, 7 March 1893, Page 2

The Flax Trade

0 Wk congratulate our readers on the '

excellent portion the flax trade, is in at present Not only is every mill | employed in producing the dressed fibre as hard as they can work, but j the price obtainable is so ranch j better than it was even a few months ago. Verily it is difficult to know how this market will shape, as the end of this monch has generally baen the conclusion of contracts entered into by the spinners for the coming season. Instead of prices falling they are rising and contracts are easily made at prices ranging from £18 10s to £19 a ton at Wellington, and to run up to September. Such orders being received foreshadow aj falling off in some competing fibre : and if it is so prices should improve as the year advances. We do not. preteud to know more than the merchants who are acting as agents for Home and American houses, and they honestly assert they know nothing. It must be apparent that some one is making much money and some are losing much money ; we know not who are making, but we can easily ' spot ' the losers, who are the millers. Good information obtained by an agent in the sole employ of the millers would have been thousands of pounds in the millers pockets by now. Still they are to be congratulated on getting die prices now offering and we trust they will still manifest that care in preparing the fibre which has, since the boom, been noticeable. The greater portion of the flax in the Harbour sheds will be shipped within a week or two, there being two sailing vessels at the railway wharf taking iv cargo. It was a pleasure to notice the appearance of the bales, there beiug only one brand thatcouM be called bad The labelling of the bales is in- many instances lamentably poor, and we are sure that millers would consult their interest by showing more care and taste in this respect. A good label, on a neat bale, lets the purchaser see that the manufacturer is not ashamed of his handiwork but on the contrary desires the public to note whence such a production comes. Some of the little bits of calico hanging half on and half off, with a miserable small stencil-plate letter,' gives the bale a very poverty stricken appearance. A gentleman who has lately returned from a visit to one of the largest twine and rope factories in the Southern Island informs us that the spinners object to sisal for binder twine finding it so difficult to spin evenly, the different lengths not blending nicely. They have, in consequence, decided to use nothing else but our fibre for twine, an' 1 their consumption alone is sorap nin< hundred tons ! It appears as though the sale of the fibre would not be ihe difficulty, but the securing of the raw article, as the swamps around us here are not improving in the growth of gi'O' n flax