Export Of Ironsand

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29206, 17 May 1960, Page 14

Export Of Ironsand

The Cabinet sub-committee’s refusal to' allow a hundredweight of West Coast ironsand to be exported for experiment is strangely inconsistent with the programme of industrial development about which the Government never tires of boasting. The decision will seem even more strange in ’new of the much-canvassed plans to help the economic recovery of the West Coast The GovernorGeneral’s interest in the West Coast led him, during a visit to suggest sending a sample of its ironsand to a friend in England for assay. The suggestion was taken up by the West Coast Composite Coal Committee, which sought a licence to export a hundredweight of ironsand. Upon being refused a licence on the grounds that the export of ironsand is prohibited, the committee approached the Minister of Customs, who passed down the information that a Cabinet sub-committee on economics had decided that not

even a sample of ironsand could be exported until investigations

in New Zealand were complete. Although the Government has been remarkably secretive about its plan for the development of an- iron and steel industry in New Zealand, it is known that ironsand is expected to be used. Thus, as the chief partner in the proposed iron and steel industry, the Government has good reasons for an interest in the country’s ironsand resources. But even the strongest of such reasons should not blind the Government to the value of independent investigations—and perhaps, eventually, to competition in exploiting them. Ironsand is plentiful on New Zealand's coasts; there are 3000 million tons in what are defined as the ironsand areas, and losses are replenished by the sea. Since there can be no question of the Government's company going short of supplies, it might be expected that the Government would welcome the interest of overseas concerns, if only to confirm or question the conclusions of its own advisers about the industrial potential of one of our abundant raw materials.