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Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 46, 21 January 1843, Page 182

It is most gratifying to us to be able to state that the measures adopted at Wellington to procure a regular supply of prepared flax from the Maories are promising to be in every respect successful. Mr. Partridge and Mr. E. J. Wakefield are exerting themselves to the utmost to secure the continuous i co-operation of the natives in the production of the article in a state fit for exportation, who are arriving, it would seem, without difficulty, at such a view of the matter as will lead them to consider the preparation of the flax as an occupation to be steadily pursued, to enable them to supply themselves with the various luxuries which they have lately purchased from the white men, and which their altered habits and rapidlyimproving state make them now look upon as necessaries. It seems that the flax can be thus prodlfced for the market, at the rate of £15 per ton ; the freight of the flax to England is calculated at the same as that of wool from Australia, viz., £15, making^* £30, at which price it can be laid down in England. Out of the calculation of £15- as the price to the New Zealand merchaW) allowance is made for three-halfpence pw pound to the Maories, their earnings at that rate being stated at about 2s. dd. per head

per diem. It may be supposed that, with more industrious habits, they would produce more than this twenty pounds a day. ff r hether any further increase istfo be calcuted upon on the score of continued practice, or whether the Maories are to be considered as having arrived at the utmost (by them) attainable skill and facility of preparation, after their mode, we do not know. At all events, when English men, women, and children, shall have been taught, in any number, the mode of preparation, there can I 'rc^o doubt that, under the application of a proper system of economy of labour and division of employments, the amount produced per head per diem might be very much increased, and the price correspondingly lowered. Add to this also the consideration that persons having the flax constantly in hand, without any particular theory as to its qualities and properties, will be far more likely to hit upon some simple machinery to assist in' its preparation, than persons ■ who commence to try experiments upon it with some preconceived notion strong upon them, and who are therefore inattentive to and unobservant of any peculiarities which do not come within the scope of the particular class of processes to which they may have determined to submit it. - The greatest credit is due to Messrs. Partridge and Wakefield, and whoever else may be assisting them, for their unremitting endeavours to bring the Maories into this occupation. Independently of the advantage to the colony of having an export so speedily and so easily provided, the civilizing effects upon the Maories will be powerful and permanent. Their ideas of trading in general will be raised by it, and they will get into habits of something like consistency in their dealings, instead of the higgling, chaffing, unbusinesslike manner in which they now manage them. We have no doubt that, in the vast womb of mechanical science, there lies hidden the mould in which shall be formed a machine [ calculated far more cheaply and speedily to prepare this our proper staple for export. Conception may already have taken place ; but,- even should it have done so, as we have no data upon which to found a calculation as to the probable period of gestation, it is far better to avail ourselves of the means which are ready to our hand than idly to await the moment of parturition, however anxiously we may look for it, or however gladly we might give assistance to lessen and shorten the pains of labour.