I 3 6 



the place it deserves there will be no more Cotton famines, cur- 

 nering, gambling and the like curses. 



To conclude if you will appoint an agent here to investigate tin 

 possibilities I am prepared to convince him, and Mr. BAXENDALE 

 will deserve well oi his shareholders if they start the Ramie indus- 

 try. Please reprint this and eirculate it as you have kindly done my 

 other letters and may I suggest you appoint a Committee to '"nvs- 

 tigate the possibility of starting the industry on Commercial lines 

 1 have offered my service or. "the cure no pav' term.-. I repeat 

 Florcat Ramie. 



Yours, &c, 



I). Edwards Radcliffe. 



Please send a copy of this in .Mr. Ba x EN DALE Cuttings per 

 same post. 



JUGRA ESTATE, 



Selangor } April yth, 1904. 



In reply to Mr. EDWARDSr M ADC LIFFE'S letter of February 20th, 

 1904, to Secretary to High Commissioner, ! beg to make the fol- 

 lowing observations: — 



2. Ramie spinners have frequently told me thai they have 

 costly machinery fitted up out when 1 produced my China (bass 

 (produced by Fau re machine) the best quotation was /17 a ton. 

 This allowing for a reasonable loss in degumming work^ out to 

 less than half the value of the best cotton. 



3. Mr. RADCLIFFE says he can treat, brown ribbons. The Com- 

 pany with which he was associated in 1900 said the same thing 

 and did, 1 believe, lilasse and spin one bale which was highly 

 reported on but the treatment of brown ribbon appeared to become 

 a lost art, for when we offered them several bales as a present 

 they replied that the stuff was useless to them. 



4. I did not say 1 "expected" success when 1 tried Flax 

 methods, as I was fully aware at the time that every similar expe- 

 riment had failed. I did it at the earnest request of a friend who 

 was interested in flax spinning. If 1 was to blame for wasting up- 

 time over this, I was equally to blame for producing Ramie in any 

 shape 01 form as up 10 the time I started no case had been 

 recorded of any European planter making a success of it. 



5. I do not see that, my remarks anent gas mantles are neces- 

 sarily misieaciing because Mr. RADCLIFFE knows factories with 

 orders booked 6 months ahead. I have heard that there are mills 

 in England which think 2 tons a month quite a large order. 



6. I grant that 400,000 plants compare poorly with the magni- 

 ficent acreage we read about in story books written by Company 

 promoters ; but in real life it took time and cost a good deal of 

 money to get them together; and, at any rate, a small fraction of 



