LARGE EXTENSIONS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 101, 23 January 1936, Page 12

LARGE EXTENSIONS

English Steel Corporation Big extensions to the Vickers works of the English Steel Corporation at Sheffield have been announced by Mr. A. B. Winder, a director and general manager of the corporation. The directors, he said, had accepted the recommendations of the Sheffield management to expend an additional £750,000 for further reconstruction and extension of the works. This would make a total of more than £2,000,000 to be spent by the corporation in Sheffield in just over three and a half years. In anticipation of still further demands for large forgings, the corporation was considering four-furnace ingots < f at least 220' to 230 tons weight. The order books were full, and there was every prospect of the corporation being busy for some time. The number or employees at the Sheffield works had risen by 40 per cent, in the last three years, and the wages bill had increased by 79 per cent. Issued capital is £2,511,669, comprising 2,228,889 7 per cent, non-eumulativc preferred ordinary and 252.780 deferred ordinary shares of £1 each. Commander Sir C. W. Craven is chairman and managingdirector.

Sulphide Corporation

The balance-sheet of the Sulphide Corporation, Ltd., for the year ended June, is this year expressed entirely in sterling, to effect which the directors have used £138,087 of specific reserves, reducing the total to £89,882. Net profit, as published in a cabled summary on December 5, was £92,347, after providing £15,785 for amortisation and £38,751 for maintenance. At Broken Hill, the mill treated 140,661 tons ore, compared with 143.477 tons the previous year, for a production of 1.415,0790 z. silver, 15,761 tons lead, and 17,570 tons zinc. Ore reserves are estimated at 568,220 tons, and 4500 tons developed on the lower levels. At the Cockle Creek works, near Newcastle, the report states, improved results were obtained as a result of a better demand for the products which include cement, sulphuric acid and superphosphates. Besides specific reserves, the corporation has contingencies reserve £38,000, and accumulated profits used in the business £68,454. Investments are chiefly British Government securities, £201.473. against £148,691 the previous year. Cash balances are £337,527, against £312,047.

As the New South Wales Government is making an actuarial assessment of the liabilities of the Broken Hill companies under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the directors state, the question of capital reorganisation will await determination of the corporation's liabilities.

New Canadian Wheat

A recent report from Winnipeg states that as the result of intensive study and close co-operation between the plant breeders and cereal chemists of Canada, including the resources of the Dominion’s experimental farms and the prairie universities, the claim is now confidently made that a rust-resistant wheat has been produced. Thousands of Manitoba and Saskatchewan farmers whose crops were ruined last year by rust are being assured that within a very few years the scourge will be overcome. The Manitoba Government has purchased 5000 bushels of a rust-resistant wheat grown on a Southern Manitoba farm, and is making arrangements for it to be grown under the most suitable conditions. This particular wheat was produced by the University of Minnesota, the situation with regard to rust being more or less similar in that State, which lies immediately south of the border, to those in 'Western Canada. The wheat in question will be grown near Lethbridge, Alberta, on irrigated land, to eliminate all danger of loss from drought.