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30 THE LEAF-FIBRE OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX.
in the colonial journals as " ratlier highly coloured," with a " singu-
larity of texture," a toughness or tenacity, which suggest its use in
documents intended to stand great wear and tear.* Hence it is ex-
pected to become " a very excellent paper for bank notes and other
special purposes ; while the paper, as sent from Britain, would as-
suredly become an article of commerce, supposing that the cost of pro-
duction is not excessive." The New Zealand Exhibition of 1865 con-
tained various samples of native flax-made paper, and of books, etc.,
printed thereon, as well as " leaf-stutt",'' or other stages in the conver-
sion of the half-fibre into paper. In 1859, an attempt—apparently
unsuccessful— was made to establish in Wellington a manufactory of
paper from New Zealand flax (Stone's) ; and we have already seen that
a paper-mill of a similar kind has recently been erected in Canterbury.
I believe the colonists entertain exaggerated ideas of the value of
New Zealand flax as a paper material. There is no sufficient evidence
that paper manufactured in English paper-mills, from selected samples
of dressed fibre, possesses the qualities required in ordinary paper, and
even were it proved that the New Zealand flax-made paper is of greatly
superior quality to that produced from rags or straw, which are waste
materials, and necessarily both abundant and cheap, or from esparto,
which is also cheap in Europe,— the important question of the comparative
cost of production of paper pulp, or "half-staft"" from New
Zealand flax, remains unsolved. It is obvious that unless " half-stafl',"
or some equivalent from New Zealand flax can be introduced into the
European or Colonial market at a price lower than that from rags or
straw, it has no chance of successfully competing with the latter as a
paper material. The use of dressed fibre is evidently rendered impossible
by its great expensiveness, but in the event of its utilization in large
quantities in the manufacture of cordage or textile fabrics, the waste or
refuse, such as refuse tow from the hacklers, or the waste of rope-spin-
ning, might become available locally for some classes of paper. The
jurors of the New Zealand ^Exhibition of 1865 suggest that it would
be more profitable to export, for manufacturing purposes at home, the
New Zealand flax fibre half prepared, and that it might with greatest
hope of success be used in combination with other less strong or coarse
fil)res. All such anticipations or suggestions are, however, premature,
* ' Jurors' Reports of New Zealand Exhibition of 18G5,' p. 124.