Cement industry

Press, 26 December 1979, Page 10

Cement industry

Sir. — Compare the growth of the early cement industry in New Zealand to the modern energy intensive industries proposed. Today one finds there is a lack of private initiative by monopoly corporations with the electricity consumer making all the sacrifices. Yet the cement industry in 1910 at Whangarei installed its own power and actually supplied the surplus to private consumers. The cement was made from mostly local raw materials; there was just a pinch of gypsum inported. Some multi-national companies import all the basic raw materials and may close down production when it suits them; this type of development is totally different from the way Britain developed New Zealand in the nineteenth century and our politicians should compare the history of the cement companies to assure themselves that they are not driving industry in the wrong direction when they use subsidised cheap power as a bait, perhaps to catch an industrial shark they cannot control. — Yours, etc., PATRICK NEARY. December 24, 1979.