Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 8999, 12 November 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

IT is satisfactory to find that one native industry can exist and flourish without the assistance of a protective tariff to keep it alive. We refer to the manufacture of binder twine, which is carried on by several firms who find it possible to compete on equal terms with the imported article. At first sight it would seem strange if manufacturers i in the country where the flax is grown from which the twine is I made, could not boat out of the market those who have to pay freight first on the raw material and then on the finished goods, but wo have learnt to expect little from the efforts of our infant industrises and therefore it is pleasant to find one that can stand alone. Wool, like flax, has to pay freight from and back to New Zealand, but our woollen factories, even with the aid of a heavy duty, cannot make headway against imported goods. At the present time the imports of binder twine are less than ever before, and in 1906 were valued at only £959. , The next stage will bo the growth, of a large export trade, though this will mean meeting-hostile tariffs in Australia and America. Unless tho demands of the workers grow too "exorbitant thero seems no reason why in the future the export of raw flax may not become a thing of the past and an enormous trade be developed iu working up the flax into twine and ropes of various kinds.

THE most interesting point in tho Public "Works Statement was tho announcement that notice would he givou at once to tho Manawatu Railway Company that the line would he taken over in twelve months. A considerable change in the railway service will he the result of thisaotion, as the WellingtonNapier trafflo will then go via Palmerston, since the distance hy that route is shorter than by the Wairarapa line, and tho Rimutaka incline is avoided. The statement that the Main Trunk Line would he completed by Christmas, 1908 was again repeated, and there seeerns no reason why the through communication should not he opened by that date as the work is well in hand and even ba'l weather cannot impede it very seriously.