STEEL WORKS

Evening Star, Issue 22229, 6 January 1936, Page 6

STEEL WORKS

GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATING PROPOSAL £3,000,000 CAPITAL INVOLVED [Per United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, January 5. “ Proposals to establish steel works, coal distillation plants, and plant for the manufacture of aluminium have been considered at recent conferences held by the members of the Labour Cabinet and heads of departments,” said the Minister of Employment (Hon. H. T. Armstrong) in an interview today. The proposed steel works, he said, might cost £3,000,000 and employ 1,000 men, and they would be situated at Onakaka, whore there wore already extensive iron works. The Pacific Steel Company had already spent some £IO,OOO or £12,000 on prospecting and assay work in the steel manufacture project, and the prospects for the success of a New Zealand steel works seemed good. He had been told that the company was confident that the industry could he made one of the biggest in New Zealand, employing up to I, men, and producing all the steel the Dominion required. Be had been informed by experts that, if the new works provided only half the steeljused in New Zealand, they would justify the capital outlay needed for their construction. This outlay had been estimated at £3,000,000. Before anything could be done, said Mr Armstrong, something would have to be decided about the part which the State should play in the control of the new works. Some interested persons thought that, if it assisted _ private enterprise in such an the Unemployment Board should be entitled to shares in the company, and others, with whom he himself agreed, thought that the Government should itself take over the work.

Another industry the_ possibilities of which were being investigated was the extraction of by-products from coal, as well as coal distillation for petrol. A success had been made of those processes in other countries, where the coal available was not nearly so good as in Now Zealand. The flax industry was already receiving Government aid at tho_ rate of £4 for every ton produced, said Mr Armstrong, and it was possible that more might be done to improve this industry by the Government. This subsidy at present sufficed to keep many of the mills open. Hemp was at a very low price, but it would be unwise to allow the industry to go out. The Government was assisting at present a Wellington engineer who had invented a new stripper which, it was claimed, would revolutionise the industry. Another entirely new industry to which thought was being given was the manufacture of aluminium. The Government had been giving more time and thought than had geen given in the past to plans for assisting the secondary industries, realising that along this course was tho only likely solution of the unemployment problem. A huge public works programme would only postpone the evil. In the meantime, of course, the Government would pursue a more active public works policy.