The Linen Flax Industry and its Introduction to New Zealand

Abstract

Although the possibilities of linen flax cultivation in New Zealand were first explored in 1936, it was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries—the flax-producing areas of Western Europe—which caused the British Government in June 1940 to make an urgent request for New Zealand to grow up to 15,000 acres of flax and to arrange for its processing. At that time there was not, in the whole of New Zealand, more seed than would suffice for sowing 2,000 acres; and some 500 tons of seed had to be imported from Great Britain. The paper describes how the difficulties of starting a new industry at such short notice were successfully overcome. The New Zealand Government secured the co-operation of the farmers in preparing the ground, and of the railway workshops in constructing the machinery. Essential materials were in exceedingly short supply, and the author recounts the way in which those responsible for the engineering side of the industry grappled with, and overcame, the difficulties which confronted them, and shows with what measure of success their efforts in conducting the new venture were rewarded.

The paper gives an account of the various processes in the production of linen flax for export, with descriptions of the machinery used, and concludes with a brief outline of the New Zealand Government's programme for 1941–2. Further statistical data relating to the industry are included in Appendixes I–IV, pp. 168–9.