THE HEMP MARKET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3149, 29 March 1909, Page 3

THE HEMP MARKET.

A HOME FIRM'S OPINION. A Palmerston North business man wrote to one of the most reliable firms in Lonodn recently to ascertain the' t true state of the hemp market, and has received the following reply: "The quality of Manila hemp has not deteriorated, because there are certain standards which must be held, e.g., best marks, good marks, good current, fair current, superior seconds, good seconds, so on, and as the hemp comes in for classing and baling it is sorted, each quality into irs own standard. The improvement lately established on Ist October, 1907 (referred to in our annual review of 17th January, 1908), in New Zealand, on the other band imparted more confidence in your grading and improved buinesss. The Manila quality against which your good fair competes is 'fair current,' and these are what we always quote in oui review. lntriniscally, the produce of the Philippines is rather better than New Zealand. For example, if a ropemaker has the choice of buying the two—Manila fair current and New Zealand good fair -he would give the preferenre probably to the former at the same price, and certainly if the quotation were Is less; but the New Zealand is liked for binder twine and some few other purposes, but not at any figure worth quoting above Manila as a rule. (It depends on what prices rule.) "The higher prices of New Zealand for some little time above its competitor ia said to be due to a large extent to a speculative account open for good fair New Zealand when prices all round were higher. People who had sold this quality forward at,'say, £2B down to £25, could thus afford to cover their contracts at a relatively high figure, but the conditions ha u e become more normal now, Manila being nominally, is actually done, £23, and New Zealand £24 to-day. The difference in the cost of production, preparing, and shipping is very greatly in favour of Manila, where labour is so very plentiful®and so very cheap. "The production in Manila has been very greatly increased since 1906 as you will see from the table we send you, and there are people hare who know the business well, who voice th2 opinion that if the present conditions exist much longer New Zealand hemp must cease to be an article of export. Whether this is the case or not, we ourselves are not sufficiently well-informed to say, but ic certainly seems that unless | some method of cheapening original cost on your side is found the business will be rather dicffiult to do. "The chief use for New Zealand hemp is binder twine. For this purpose it ia rather softer and itself to. light spinning more easily that the harder Manila, but fcr rope making it is not so good, and neither has it the strength of the Philippine product. Therefore for ship ropes, J j for it has to be avoided, I but when a man buys good fair New Zealand for binder twine he knows exactly by the standard of your grading what he will get, while in buying fair current Manila he must, by the custom of the trade, accept what is packed as such, being granted a certain allowance on what may be found inferior in the bales, but such infer- j ior fibre may not suit him at all, and J so he hau to get rid of it, an alternative! which the allowance granted . may not malce good. And so, if he must make certain of. "even" quality throughout ne has to buy the grade higher. Therefore at the same price for the raw material the binder twine man will always prefer the New Zealand Good Fair, and often at Is or Is 6d ptr cwt more. This is one of the advantages which New Zealand's more correct and reliable grading has secured.