A NEW FIBRE.
HOW many bankruptcies does it take to establish a new industry ? British manufacturers are by all accounts among the most conservative of mankind, and if the name " ramie " suggests anything to a Lancashire cotton-spinner it is the recollection that a great many people have dropped money over this particular fibre. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the British manufacturer will have to take ramie seriously. It is by no means a new invention ; no one can say for how many centuries Orientals have used the fibre, which is found in the bark of a particular kind of nettle, to make themselves rough, strong cloths and nets or lines for their fishing. But as an article of European commerce it is so new as hardly to be counted among our imports ; and, though the plants which produce it have for many years been cultivated under European supervision, it has only been for the purposes of speculative experiment. The plants can be seen growing any summer at Kew; one of them, Rhea nivea, the Chinese variety, flourishes in the open air. It grows like a Michaelmas daisy in a clump of tall shoots springing from a perennial root, and has big palm-shaped leaves, with the under side white, like those of the wild guelder-rose or cherry- apple. If you strip the bark from one of these shoots and fray it with a knife there is disclosed a white, silky fibre, very fine in the strand and extraordinarily strong. What is called China-grass is simply these ribbons of bark carefully decorticated by hand till the fibre is left bare. It is, however, still coarse and hard, and the immensely laborious process of cleaning makes it cost too much to be of any use in general trade. The ramie of commerce, which is to supersede flax, hemp, and all other textile fabrics (according to the true believers), is the same fibre more cheaply and better prepared from a tropical variety of the same species, Rhea tenacissima. This differs from Rhea nivea only in having a green leaf ; but the essential point of the matter is that it is tropical, and will produce at least four crops a year, while the Chinese plant can at most yield two. The intrinsic value of the fibre has for a long time been fully admitted; so much so that the Indian Government twice offered a prize of £5,000 for rhea filaase of high quality produced at a limited cost. The prize was never won. The difficulty lay, as it has lain always, in the production, for which two distinct operations are necessary. First, the stems have to be stripped of their bark, which is done by hand or machinery, though no machine has yet been invented which does the work so well as the cheaply purchased Oriental hand labour. Secondly, in the ribbons so stripped off, the fibre has to be disengaged from the gummy bark, and this is only possible by a chemical process. No mechanical method can thoroughly separate the gum and the fibre, although at least two companies exist which aim at preparing ramie wholly by machinery. Various chemical processes were applied, all of which succeeded in turning out a clean " filasse " of fibre ; but unfortunately when the filasse was worked up into yarns, threads, or stuffs, it was found to perish after a few months. The strong chemicals employed rotted the fibre. This happened particularly with the products of rhea prepared in France, where about ten years ago great interest was taken in the matter. After the French, the Americans took it up and prophesied great things ; but they also dropped money over it. Now it really seems that England is going to step in and
solve the problem. Mr. Gomm, a chemist trained in this country but of Indian origin, has patented a method which turns upon the employment of zincate of soda. A company has been formed, patents taken out all over the world, and a sort of experimental factory is actually at work in London which turns out about two tons a week of ramie ready for spinning.
The process is simple to the last degree. Two things have to be guarded against. First, fermentation of gum in the ramie-ribbons before they come to be manufactured; this is avoided by steeping them in a solution of soda. At present, of course, the preparation of these ribbons is by no means perfect, since no regular market has existed for them. Now, however, in many tropical countries plantations of ramie are being set, and in time planters will learn to send their ribbons carefully packed and cut, with proper precautions against the fermentation which rots them. Secondly, the chief trouble has been to find chemicals which would convert the ribbons into filasse with a sufficiently weak solution. This is what Mr. Gomess has done. The ribbons are first steeped in tanks with a little infusion of nitric acid to soften the gum ; after twelve hours of this they go into a bath of alkaline solution. Then they are boiled in a tank of water impregnated with the zincate of soda, and what comes out is pure fibre ; the gum and epidermis of the bark is completely dissolved. At no stage is anything used stronger than a 1 per cent. solution. The filasse, when washed and bleached, may be mixed with inferior silk, or worked up by itself; and it can be sold at a profit for 3d. a pound. Flax in the same stage of preparation costs from 8d. to lg. Thus the ramie-fibre can be sold almost as cheaply as the cheapest cotton; it has strength suf- ficient for any use, and it will neither shrink nor stretch. It is very light, and as much sail-cloth can be made from six pounds of ramie as from ten pounds of flax; indeed its advantage in this respect has been already recog- nised. The 'Defender's' canvas was made of rhea-fibres, which had to be bought up piecemeal in England and were woven in America. It will take dyes of all shades, and from it are made fabrics resembling damask linen, silk, plush, and tapestry. These were good enough to look at, but all somewhat harsh to handle. It is fair, however, to remember that the manufacture is in its infancy, and that the weavers do not yet know how to use the stuff to the best advantage. But there seems no doubt that in the qualities of cheapness and durability it will be a real addition to the wealth of man- kind. The filasse is naturally so glossy that it seems specially fitted to compete with linen, and Belfast merchants would probably be well advised to look into the matter at once. Silk it will probably never rival, but it might very well sweep off the face of the earth all the innumerable cheap combina- tions of silk and wool, which are used in upholstery and the like; and for towels, dish-cloths, and the whole paraphernalia of washing up it ought to be unsurpassable. These, however, are high matters, too hard for anything but the far-reaching experience of woman. The most interesting point about ramie is that the new industry, when created, may not im- probably solve a very awkward problem in the management of Great Britain's enormous tropical estate.
The West Indies are in a bad way, as every one knows, because there is no price for sugar, and because the sugar- growing colonies have imported coolie labour to an immense extent. Demerara, for instance, has half a million of them. These coolies must, by the contract made with the Indian Government, receive constantly their shilling a day, or else Demerara must pay their passage and expenses back to India. Say that costs 210 a head. Demerara cannot get rid of her coolies without paying a fine of five millions ; she must therefore go on sugar-growing whether she likes it or no. But wherever sugar can be grown rhea can be grown also ; and coolie labour is quite sufficiently skilled not only for cutting the crop and stripping the bark by hand or machine, but also for preparing the filasse. There is everything to be said in favour of employing the Gomess process at the place where the crop is grown. First, a plant which yields four or five crops a year exhausts the soil with great rapidity. The fibrins is only 5 per cent, of the whole, and the other 95 per cent. should go back into the ground,—the leaves as leaf- mould ; the sticks, after they have served for fuel, in the form of ashes. Secondly, the less chemicals used the better; and if the process is applied when the bark is soft and freshly
peeled, a weaker solution will suffice to dissolve the gum Also, out of a ton of rhea-ribbons only 60 per cent. of filasse is produced, so that to import filasse instead of ribbons would save 40 per cent. of freightage. It is not to be supposed, of course, that any casual person can go and make his fortune by starting a ramie-farm. But it does seem probable that much of the tropical soil and cheap labour which cannot be productively employed in growing sugar will be turned to this account. Practically, the question resolves itself into. this,—Can rhea-fibre be produced cheaply ? And does any existing process produce it cheaply without impairing its qualities? It is too early for a final answer. But cloth made from fibre prepared by the Gomess process is two years old by now, and shows no sign of any defect ; nor is there reason to apprehend any, since no chemical of any injurious power is used in the preparation. And as to the cheapness, rhea-ribbons can be bought here for about 212 a ton, leaving a good profit to the grower ; from these filasse can be produced, which will fetch about 250 a ton, having cost in all perhaps 230 to turn out. These are facts which every one would do well to consider who has an interest in the matter. To put the case concisely, ramie is a fibre which can supplant flax and compete with silk, and it can now be
almost as cheaply as cotton. If that is true, as a careful inquiry leads us to believe it is, can the tropical colonies do better than cultivate ramie ?
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