Correspondence, 



72 



[January 1910. 



(4) Hibiscus Manihot root is used for 

 the mucilage. This requires uo after- 

 sizing unless the paper be used for 

 special purposes. 



The preceding three principal fibrous 

 shrubs compose the materials of our 

 bast paper. In this age of machinery 

 and science, the hand-making process 

 seems too primitive and tedious in 

 sympathy with general progresses, and 

 the makers have constant struggles 

 against the force and feel sometimes 

 disheartened to meet the demand for 

 exactness iu every respect. But, for- 

 tunately, whether be it an encourage- 

 ment or simply a force of habit, our 

 Government made it a rule to use the 

 hand-made paper only for their corres- 

 pondence, legal forms and all lesson 

 books for the primary schools, as the 

 paper stands better for children's rough 

 handling ; besides the manifold uses in 

 toilet and hygienic purposes the hand- 

 made paper is indispensable in Japan for 

 some generations to come. 



Mr. Perdinard Fliusch, the famous 

 German paper-maker, who sent his son 

 here some years ago in order to make 

 the bast paper by machinery, bought 

 several tons of the materials and export- 

 ed them to Germany ; but he did not suc- 

 ceed in devising either suitable machin- 

 ery or found the supply of the materials 

 too limited and gave up the attempt 

 since. An English paper firm has been 

 contemplating the same project, but 

 stands still at present. Two Japanese 

 makers contrived machiuery by which 

 copying paper is being made into rolls of 

 about 20 inches width and sold at about 

 Is. 6d. per lb., but the paper is weak as 

 * compared with the hand-made, and con- 

 sumers prefer the latter, so very little 

 business is done in the former. 



There will be a steady demand for the 

 hand-made paper in Japan so long as 

 people write with brushes and Indian ink. 

 It has a porous rough surface and absorbs 

 ink as one writes. The Japanese archi- 

 tecture requires the paper door which 

 gives the light effect of ground glass 

 and imparts warmth to the house. In 

 some stormless parts of the country we 



have houses that have the outside shut- 

 ters made of half wood below and paper- 

 ed upper part. Such paper is usually 

 changed yearly. People pay four or five 

 times higher price for this than for 

 machine-made-paper, yet competition 

 compels the makers to mix 30-50% straw or 

 wood pulp to the detriment of their own 

 interest, and there are worthless hand- 

 made papers on the market. Sentimental 

 people, as we are, must use the conven- 

 tional kind of paper on all occasions 

 of ceremony, but soon as the con- 

 sumer find no goodness in the hand- 

 made paper the industry must go to the 

 wall. Genuine quality of the paper is 

 now getting rare; still fine paper can be 

 made for specific requirements. Such is 

 the state of affairs the makers have to 

 contend with, but nevertheless the de- 

 mand is ever increasing as people pro- 

 gress towards material advancemennt. 

 One can see a part of the trade in the 

 volume of exports of the paper for the 

 year 1908 :— 



lbs. Value Yen. 

 Copying paper ... 684,159 428,186 

 General „ ... 1,584,326 424,146 

 Vellum „ ... 299,768 155,515 



or a rough total of 1,133 tons valued 

 £100,000 at an average price of lOd. per lb. 

 Besides, there are innumerable fancy 

 articles made of the bast paper. I myself 

 have been manufacturing leather paper 

 for wall hanging out of the waste paper — 

 gold embossed decoration with painted 

 back ground costing a shilling per square 

 yard. We exported up to nearly £20,000 

 a year once, but the demand has now 

 dwindled down to about £5,000. 



Knowing nothing about the quality of 

 Bengal paper and domestic requirements, 

 I cannot express my opinion. If the 

 nature of fibre be good and the hand- 

 made paper can command four or five 

 times over and above the value of 

 machine-made paper, the industry should 

 be encouraged by administrative policy 

 or other means to ^revive the art, which 

 otherwise must submit to the force of 

 machinery as is the fate in every branch 

 of industries. 



Yours faithfully, 

 S. IIDA. 



