While fully assured that the flax industry can be established in the Common- 
wealth on a sound and profitable basis, the Flax Committee considers that the 
most-effective.means of doing so would be a continuance of the present system of, 
Commonwealth control. A recommendation, therefore, has been made by the; 
Committee to the Government that a guarantee of £5 per ton for standard flax 
be given to growers for a further period of three years, and the matter is now 
receiving Ministerial consideration. 
INVESTIGATIONAL WORK NECESSARY. 
The flax industry is relatively new to Australia, and the Committee was not 
long in discovering the lack of exact knowledge of this crop, and the existence: 
of many misconceptions and prejudices. : 
_ For instance, the most suitable methods of cultivation, the fertilizer require- 
ments, the system of rotation cropping best suited for flax, had still to be: 
STACKING DEW-RETTED STRAW. 
In the foreground can be seen the straw spread out for “ dew-retting.” 
determined; while on the manufacturing side no definite data was available 
as to the factors governing the yield of fibre and the cost of production. 
It was recognised that, without definite and exact information. the result of 
carefully conducted tests and investigation, the industry would rest on an 
empirical basis, and would be unable to compete with the highly organized 
fibre industries in other parts of the world. 
Representations to this effect were therefore made to the Commonwealth 
Government, and in consequence a grant of £1,000 was made to the Committee 
for experimental work. 
With this sum available, the Committee has been enabled this year to institute 
a series of experiments in all the States, in most cases with the co-operation of 
the State Agricultural Departments, and while the results obtained from one 
year’s experimental work cannot be expected to he entirely conclusive, they should 
determine many points on which definite information is at present lacking. 
It may be stated that the Committee noted with some surprise the compara- 
tively primitive plant and machinery used in flax treatment. 
365 
