THE HEMP INDUSTRY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 884, 27 August 1910, Page 3

THE HEMP INDUSTRY.

Mr Joseph Ifiggins, in a letter to the Palmerston Standard in respect to the Government granting a bonus for improved methods in turning out hemp, says, inter alia: “The proposal was that Government assist the industry by giving bonuses to encourage inventions to make improvements in the methods of treating flax, and for scientific discoveries of methods of utilising the waste products. All Governments recognise that the fostering of new or struggling industries is a true part of their business, as protectors of the industrial needs of the State. Take, for example, England and Jamaican bananas, Germany and beet sugar. America and Manila hemp, Australia and petroleum ; and so on, ad lib. “ The Association hopes that the new methods may abolish the present crude and barbarous methods of treating flax, and that the new methods may produce a fibre equal to Irish flax. A fibre that may be used in textile fabrics. The bonus offered would induce scientific inventors to discover methods of utilising the waste products which are known to be of great value —probably the most valuable asset of the industry. It is known that valuable gums and dyes are now lost to us ; that the fibre is more capable than any other of taking brilliant dyes ; that alcohol, the demand for which as a motive power is unlimited, can be manufactured from the vegetation ; that waste fibre and tow dust can be, and is, used as leather substitute or cattle food. “ It is expected that the labour requirements ot the industry will be more than doubled as the demand for skilled operations will increase with the new demands of the new industries; and, indeed, on account of that skill high wages may be the order of the day.”