THE HEMP INDUSTRY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1749, 6 November 1917, Page 4

THE HEMP INDUSTRY.

EXAGGERATED STATEMENTS. Exception is taken by several Wellington district flaxmillers and exporters to a paragraph relating to the industry published by the Otago Daily Times (says last night’s Post). The paragraph appeared in The Post on Wednesday. It was stated that prices for treated flax have advanced 200 to 400 per cent, on pre-war prices. This is objected to, the position being that the average basis quality, high fair, is worth to-day £SO per ton, f.0.b., as against £25 to £27 per ton, pre-war rates. It was also stated by the Dunedin paper that flax has not been commandeered by the Government, and prices were not fixed. This also is incorrect, as prices are fixed by the Imperial Government on all fibre arriving in the United Kingdom. The wages of casual hands and boys are stated by the Otago paper to be 30s to 35s a day for men, and 12s to 15s a day for schoolboys. This again, the millers point out, is contrary to fact. -The rate for casual flaxmill man labour is 13s a day. Piece-workers make more, but that depends upon themselves. Millers have no desire whatever to entice men from farm work to the mills by paying the wages stated by the Otago Daily Times —at any rate not in the Mahawatu. Wages were recently raised, not as the result of the price of flax, but in order to help the men cope with the increased cost of living. Finally, it is stated that the flaxmilling industry is non-essential. In answer to that, exporters point out that the Imperial Government has recognised its importance as material for binder-twine for harvesting, by requesting shipping companies to make special shipping prevision for lifting 5,000 bales monthly from New Zealand. The millers, whose views are here given expression to, feel bound to put their position before the public in view of the statements made by the Otago Daily Times, which they characterise as erroneous.