Ramie Process May Be Lost

To N. Guinea

BUNGLING by the Department of Com merce may result in Australia and New Guinea losing a process which could revolutionise world textile produc tion.

Five years ago the Australian Govern ment gave some encouragement to a local patent for the treatment of ramie.

Sponsors of the scheme claimed that ramie could be grown extensively in Aus tralia and New Guinea and that, if treated by their method, it could produce cloth that would replace cotton as an essential textile.

Recently, some sections of the Com merce Department have lost interest and the holders* of the patent are considering exploiting their formula elsewhere. Former American ambassador Butler was so in terested in the process that he made a special air trip to experimental plantings of ramie at Lismore, and negotiations are now in progress between the Aus tralian sponsors and certain American in terests.

Latest development is a report from Georgia (in the heart of the US cotton country) that as a result of tests there it is considered that “ramie holds re volutionary possibilities for southern states cotton growers.”