NEW ZEALAND OIL-FIELDS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1032, 23 January 1911, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND OIL-FIELDS.

VISITING EXPERT'S VIEWS. (By Telegraph.—Special Correspondent.! Auckland, January 22. Mr. J. D. Henry, an authority an£; author on the subject of colonial oil, ifit paying a visit to Neiv Zealand to investigate the prospects of the Dominion's petroleum as a competitor in the world's markets. In the course of an inter-, view he said: "I have two objects in coming to the Dominion. First of ■ all I am here to represent quite professionally certain important financial interests in London; and in the next place 1 ant interested in the subject of British coloj nial oil as an author, and in that coiw neetion everything associated with tho history and present-day developments of the oil industry here will be of interest to me. As to the feeling in London oa matters of oil production in the colonies, I can assure you that it is better now. than-it has ever been in the history of the industry." Do you mean that there is a financial interest in the industry? "There .15, I am well aware, and th# fact is well known in the oil district's over here that London finance concerned in oil-field operations in different parts of the, world is starting to take a keen and practical interest in what has been achieved by local enterprise in New Zealand up to the present. Obviously if the investing interests are properly treated, and assuming that those interests are really good and influential,- nothing but advantage can result to the oil- business- generally in New Zealand." Do the New Zealand fields stand well in the estimation of the British investor? Mr. Henry replied emphatically in the; affirmative. "The' subject of oil fuel for the navy," he said, "is one of great importance in the case of New Zealand oilfields particularly. At the present time when there is a reasonable hope of Auek-. land shortly- becoming the, naval base of the' South Pacific, it is not open to doubt that British .war vessels stationed in these waters will burn liquid fuel in years to come, and the British Colonial Office and the Admiralty, never slow to encourage the opening up of new oil-fields, will do everything in reason to assist New Zealand oil men. A naval need of the times is a permanent All-British supply Of liquid fuel up to the standard §&- manded by the authorities." Mr. Henry added that the Taranaki. oil men had sent over a large quantity of local production to be tested in London. It was, he said, too early to express an opinion as to what the result would be, but he mentioned the interesting fact that there was every prospect of'the Neir Zealand battleship burning oil fuel pre duced in the Dominion.