Bamboo, Considered as a Paper-making Material / With remarks upon its cultivation and treatment. Supplemented by a consideration of the present position of the paper trade in relation to the supply of raw material.

by Thomas Routledge

The complete exhaustion of the plant is proceeding very rapidly in Spain; and as it is estimated by the best informed authorities that it will take, even with the greatest care and under the most favourable conditions, at least fifteen years to reproduce it from seed (a system not very likely to be pursued in that country,) at no very remote period this valuable paper-making material appears doomed to extinction.

During the last few years a large and increasing supply of "Esparto," or as it is there called "Alfa," has been received from Africa; and although the quality of African Esparto is not valued by the paper-trade as high as the Spanish, still it meets with a ready sale, being used to mix with, or in substitution of the latter.

As much as 60,000 tons were imported last year (1874) from Algeria, and great inducements by concessions and otherwise, are offered by the French Government to induce railway communication with the interior districts of that country, where the plant is said to abound on some of the mountainous plateaux, and thus for some little time the market may be supplied, but the difficulty of procuring labour, and the cost of railway carriage for such long distances, will add considerably to the present charges of transit to this country.

Within the last two or three years, the Belgian and American Paper-makers have commenced using "Esparto," and so latterly have the French, and as our main sources of supply will now be Algeria, (a French colony,) any material reduction in prices can hardly be looked for.

"Esparto," like other commercial products, is amenable to the law of supply and demand; and thus, as the demand is, and is likely to continue in excess of the supply, its cost has enormously increased, the price it now commands in the market being nearly double that, at which I sold many thousand tons during the early years of its introduction.

The Paper-manufacturers are thus again experiencing the same difficulty recognized by The Lords of the Treasury, and by The Board of Trade in 1854, and which more recently was considered of sufficient importance to induce the appointment of a Select Committee ordered by The House of Commons in 1861:

"To inquire into the Duties or Prohibitions in Foreign Countries on the Export of Rags used in the Manufacture of Paper in the United Kingdom, and their effect upon that Manufacture."

The Committee reported: "That the production of paper in this country is in excess of the supply of the material of which it is made, and the paper manufacture is in consequence dependent for a large portion of its supplies on foreign Rags, amounting to about 15,000 tons per annum, which is by estimation a fifth of the whole quantity of Rags used for the manufacture of white paper in this country, on nearly the whole of which heavy export duties are paid."

Another paragraph of the Committee's "Report" states: "That the Committee have directed their especial attention to inquiring as to the possibility of applying any New Fibre as a substitute for the refuse material now in use for Paper-making purposes, and find that great efforts have been made to discover some material of this nature, but as yet with little success; and although they see no reason to doubt that Straw and other fibrous substances may form a supplementary part of the material for paper-making, the great comparative expense of chemically reducing these Raw Fibres presents difficulties to their becoming a substitute for the refuse material now used."

Since the above "Report" was published, the position of the Trade has materially altered. The export duties in some countries have been abolished, in others reduced; Rag material has increased in quantity and diminished in price; "the difficulties of chemically reducing Raw Fibres" no longer exist; and the "15,000 tons of Rags" estimated by the "Committee" as the requirements of the Trade have been more than "substituted" by the 150,000 tons of "Esparto" and other Raw material, now annually imported, while the development of the chemical trade keeping pace with the introduction of "Raw Fibres" has materially facilitated their employment.