THE HEMP INDUSTRY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 446, 5 January 1909, Page 4

THE HEMP INDUSTRY.

Excessive Royalties!

Mr P. T. Robinson, Secretary' of the Maimvatu Flaxmills Employees' Union, publishes the following loiter in the N.Z. Time under date December 31st: — Sir,—Your laudatory sub-leader in Monday's issue regarding the action of the Government in eonreding all grading charges upon fibre at piesent prices would appear to be a trifle misleading. The concession thus made will amount to a reduction in cost of, say, is per ton, and with the market in its present state that will do veiy little towards “placing the hemp industry on a more stable basis. The grading charges have never stood in the way of a satisfactory state of things in this trade, and until the Government are prepared to take action in the matter of excessive royalties such unsubstantial 1 elutes are practically useless.

ll is an absolute fact that the discontent now existing amongst millers is principally due' lo the short-sighted actiou of many owners of green leaf, whose charges are nothing short of extortionate. We have m this district one estate which, in the hands of the Assets Realisation Board, supplied millers with leaf at 3s 6d per ton, prices for “good fair ” running from to 10s during their term of holdidg. The present owners, at the height of the last boom were charging £1 2s 6d per ton lor leaf from the same property, and even with the industry in its present precarious position these gentlemen still demand £4 to £4 10s per ton, in addition to a tax of ,£3OO for the “right to cut.” This is paid by any miller taking their leaf when he first starts, and by a careful manipulation of this imposition the owners of the estate netted £Tso within a few mouths for nothing! Freights are down, wages are paid ou the minimum scale allowed by the Court, the grading charges are remitted, but the millstone of unearned increment hangs as heavily round the miller’s neck as ever.

The foregoing is only one among many similar cases of excessive royalty now existing in this district, but even this isolated instance moves one to wonder when the Flaxmillers’ Association will put to the Premier Tweed’s memorable query, “ What are you going to do about it ?”