FLAX FOR PAPER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2146, 1 July 1920, Page 3

FLAX FOR PAPER.

A THEORY OF THE 'SIXTIES. As long ago as 1800 the demand for paper-making materials had made Xew Zealanders look about for sources of “pulp” in (he colony, though the incentive was perhaps rather business enterprise than the heavy pressure of short supplies. Among some old newspapers recently secured by the City Librarian (Mr IT. Baillie, Wellington) are copies of the Wellington Independent of Tune, 18(10. in one issue, it is Slated That Xew Zealand llax fibre had been made into excellent paper, and a profitable and unfailing market would he found for llax palp it the machinery could he set up. It is remarked that the small amount of capital in the country forbade local speculation of sufficient magnitude. But an English company “might purchase a few thousand acres of our swampy land at ten shillings, and even turn the flax in i(s wild stale to most marketable account. Such a company would find a very profitable Held, for the ■ trilling capital it would he called upon to invest. ' Another issue of the same journal quoted from the Xew Zealand Examiner a comment upon the repeal of the paper duly as not without its important hearing on the interests of Xew Zealand. “Some years ago,” it said, “when the times (London) offered a reward lor the discovery of a cheap substance for making paper, if was discovered hv some enterprising individual that such a substance existed in Xew Zealand in great abundance, and might ho obtained at a very small cost. It was, however, very bulky, so that the cheapest article became the dearest by the time it readied England. Through the ingennMv, however, ol a colonist, the New Zealand fibre, was reduced to a pulp mid pressed into “bricks,” available for paper-making, and the cost of transmission reduced to its minimum. It was, however, decided by the Customhouse officers that the pulp bricks were to all intents and purposes paper. A\ hat made the matter worse, they were foreign paper, which, as our readers are aware, is subjected to a far heavier duly. Another obstacle still remained iu the shape of the Excise officer, who, as soon as the Hiricks, which had paid the duty, were converted into paper, was ready to (-nine down with a demand for another duly on the manufactured article. Our readers will not, therefore, he surprised to learn that the. New Zealand fibre, so well adapted as it is for the manufacture of the finest paper, has nol yet been We- trust, however, that by taking off the restrictions the enterprise will again be entered upon, and this lime with triumphant success.”