MINERAL DEPOSITS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 133, 3 December 1930, Page 13

MINERAL DEPOSITS

MOTUEKA AND TAKAKA

MINISTERIAL VISIT

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) NELSON, 2nd December. During his visit to the Motueka and Takaka district the Hon. A. J. Murdoch, Minister of Mines, conferred with Mr. G. C. Black, M.P., regarding the mineral potentialities of the Motueka electorate. The Minister also made a tour of inspection of the Tarakohe cement works and the Onakaka iron works. Mr. Murdoch was favourably impressed with Onakaka, in which he sees great possibilities of future development. The Minister was also much interested generally in the mineral deposits in the north-west portion of the island, and made inquiries from local miners in that connection. He intends to take up immediately with the Unemployment Board the matter of assistance of the mining industry by granting aid for prospecting work and otherwise. Mr. Black suggested that to acquire the necessary local knowledge of the areas to which men should be sent out, a conference of all interested in mining in the Collingwood, Takaka, Motueka, Nelson, Murchison, Lyell, Karamea, and Inangahua districts should bo held, and that officers of the Mines Department and of the geological Branch of the Scientific and Industrial Research Department should attend. It is anticipated that such conference will be held in Reefton early in the New Year, and that possibly the Minister of Mines will preside.