KAPOK AS A TEXTILE. 
Hitherto Kapok has been found to be unspinnable as the fibre 
is too short and brittle, and consequently has been only used for 
stuffing pillows. Now it is reported that the Germans have dis- 
covered a process of spinning it into yarn, as they have the equally short 
fibre of Calotropis procera, Mudar fibre. Why do not the English 
people discover and secure as the Germans have done so many pro- 
cesses such as these which would bring wealth to the nation ? It is 
probably due to the well-known contempt for scientific research in 
our nation. 
“ By means of a process evolved by Professor Goldberg, of Che- 
muitz, the brittle and fragile fibre of the kapok tree is treated in such 
a way as to render it easily spinnable and yarn up to 12 English is 
now being spun from it. The yarn is of fine quality and of very soft 
silky tenacious character. The process in question does not neces- 
sitate the employment of any new machinery, but is based entirely 
on a novel and somewhat complicated system of preliminary pre- 
paration and spinning. 
The process is, of course, a secret one ( Queensland Agricultural 
Journal, April 1910, p. 174.) 
Kapok lis common here and of no great value up-to-date, but 
this discovery may make it a very paying crop. 
1 he Australian journal quoted finishes its article by saying : 
Kapok, sisal, and cotton thrive well in Queensland but the high 
wages demanded by the white labourer are such a serious handicap 
that it will probably pay the Australian manufacturer to import the 
raw material produced by cheap black labour than to encourage 
agricultural enterprise in this direction in any of the States of the 
Commonwealth.” Australia has a large area of tropical country 
which cannot be properly worked by the white labourer and what 
tropical work can be done by him costs out of all proportion to the 
profits. As long as Australian socialists talk about white labour in 
tropical Australia, she will have to buy the tropical produce she 
requires from other countries instead of producing it herself, and her 
valuable land will be almost worthless. Another example of the way 
not to do things. 
RUBBER m QUEENSLAND. 
1 he same journal gives estimates for opening up rubber estate> 
in Queensland by white labour. White labour costs there £8. 4s per 
month, and opening up a 500 acre block of rubber to the sixth year 
would cost £33,872, or £67. 15s an acre, that of New Guinea under black 
labour £10,500 or £21 per acre while the same acreage in the Malay 
Peninsula is given at £10,500 or £21 per acre. The cost of Papuan 
labour is given at one pound a month. 8.57 dollars. 
