UNION NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 3 April 1909, Page 3

UNION NOTES.

[This column is edited by the Flaxmills Employees’ Union Executive. All matters for publicat ion under this head must be torwarded to the Secretary of the Union.]

We understand that Messrs Hennessy and Gibbs intend to run right through the coming winter, and that a couple of the Foxton millers have similar intentions, provided they can obtain the necessary supply of green leaf to tide them over the two months during which the Moutoa swamp is closed. * * * Apropos of Messrs Hennessy and Gibbs there is a suggestion for the senior partner of the firm to use during bis forthcoming visit to the Old Country. Let him take a bundle of selected blades of flax, (arrangements for the refrigerating of which could be made easily enough), and a few hanks of carefully chosen fibre. With these in hand he would be in a position to say to textile experts, “ here is the raw material, there is the finished product. Let me have your views as to the best and cheapest method of extracting the latter from the former.” If the answer to that proposition cannot be supplied either by some of the Lancashire cotton-people or by the authorities employed in the Bessbrook Flax Spinning and Weaving Co., near Belfast, we shall be very much surprised. SLAVES TO THE STRIPPER. There;is not the least doubt that when it comes to a question of improvements all our best men are hag-ridden by drum, rollers and beating bar, and the trouble is that the more practical they are the less chance there is of them getting away from the old basis of our present course of preparation. All the time spent upon patent scrapers, patent washing and catching machines —excellent as some of these are —is merely so much time spent in tinkering with symptoms instead of striking at the root of the disease. The salvation of the flax industry lies in the elimination of the stripper, not until we have solved this problem shall we be in a position to work our fibre up to a sufficiently high grade, to unable it to be mixed with cotton and wool in textile work. Until we do this th;re is no such thing as an absolutely assured market for hemp, because more and more every year fibres of the above description are coming into competition with us. Look at the Poisedonia Australis, that marine deposit which a company has just been formed to work. Their product blends beautifully it is stated with the most delicate woollen fabrics. ' Consider what it would mean to flax if our fibre could be spun in conjunction with even the coarser cotton yarns. Even an Award of the Arbitration Court couldn’t blight the prosperity that would set it. IMPROVEMENTS ON PRESENT METHODS.

There are, iu the district immediately round Manchester, an infinity of ideas for improvements upon our present system, pending the departure of the drum. There is, iu our opinion hardly any machine used in preparation of cotton that could not be adapted to the requirements of our trade, and we would again lay before Mr Hennessy the suggestion that he should at all events have a look at them. A call upon the President of the . Manchester Chamber, of Commerce would secure him the entree to any of the “show” mills of the country, and secure for him an experience which would, we are sure, be as interesting to "him as }t might be beneficial to the industry with which he has been so long associated, * •-;< $

A meeting of our subdjrauches at Tokomaru, which was to have been held on Monday last, was postponed on account of heavy rain. It will be held next week, when some members of the Executive hope to get over.

We would remind all our town members that there is a special meeting of the Union to-night, as advertised iu Thursday’s issue. There will be one or two vitally important questions brought up for discussion and we would urge upon each individual member the need for his attendance so that the matters in question may get wellyentilated. E-od hp at eight o’clock to the Union Offices.