NEW ZEALAND FLAX AND GRASS. 97 



our shipping;, that every possible encouragement 

 has been given to render it an article of commerce 

 from Australia, and by admitting its importation 

 free of duty, before the removal of the duty from 

 European hemp, the legislature endeavoured to 

 rouse the Australian settler to this branch of com- 

 merce with the parent country. The culture of the 

 phormium tenax has been pursued in Australia, and 

 some of the prepared fibres are occasionally imported 

 thence, but as yet more as an object of experiment 

 than as a useful article of export. A much greater 

 quantity is received through Sydney from New 

 Zealand ; but however the missionaries may encou- 

 rage the collection of this valuable plant among the 

 natives, the supplies obtained from an uncivilized 

 people must of necessity be very precarious, since no 

 uniform industry or co-operative design for any 

 continuous period animates them to lengthened ex- 

 ertions, or actuates them in the pursuit of any one 

 object. The quantity imported into this country is 

 therefore so small and fluctuating that it has hitherto 

 been wholly out of the reach of private individuals, 

 and very insufficient for the contracts which the 

 government is desirous of making for a supply of so 

 valuable a material in the rigging of ships. There 

 is now, however, every hope that it will be obtained 

 more abundantly, and we notice that a factory for the 

 manufacture of cordage from the phormium tenax 

 is already established at Grimsby in Yorkshire, on 

 the race-course of which place, on May 11, 1831, 

 the first stone was laid of a series of buildings for a 

 manufactory of rope and canvas from this material. 

 The establishment is to be conducted on a very 

 extensive scale, and when in full operation, will, it 

 is said, give employment to from two to three 

 hundred workmen. While it has been a subject of 

 much interest to obtain the phormium from the 



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