NEW INDUSTRIES

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12751, 6 January 1936, Page 4

NEW INDUSTRIES

LABOR CABINET BUSY

PROPOSED STEEL WORKS

AUGHT EMPLOY 1000 ArEN COAL DISTILLATION PLANTS

'Press AssoeiaLon.j CHRISTCHURCH, Jan. 5

Proposals to establish steel works, coal distillation plants - and a plant for the manufacture of aluminium, Have been considered at recent conferences held by members .of the Labor Cabinet -and heads of departments, said the Hon. 11. T. Armstrong m an interview to-day-

Ihe proposed steel works, he said, might eost ,£3,000,000 and employ T 00,9 men and. they will be situated at Onakaka, where there are 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, he said, and prospects for the success of New Zealand steel works seemed good. He had been told that the company was confident that the industry could be"V made one of the biggest in New Zealand, employing up to 1000 men, and producing all the steel the Dominion required. He had been informed by experts that if the new works provided only half the steel' used’ in New Zealand, they would justify the capital outlay for tlieir construction. This outlay had been estimated at £3.030,000.

Before anything could be done, said Air Arrntrong, something would have to be decided about the part the State should play in the control of the new works. Some interested persons thought that if it assisted private enterprise in such an undertaking, the Unemployment Board (should be entitled to. shares in the company, and others.- with whom he himself agreed, thought the Government should- itself take over ihrwerks.

Another industry, the possibilities of which were being investigated, was the • extraction of by-products from coal, as well as coal distillation for petrol. Success had. been made c t these processes in other countries where coal was available not neanv so good as in New Zealand.

The flax industry was already receiving Government aid at the rate of £4 for every ton produced, said Mr Armstrong, and it- was possible (hat more might be done to this industry by the Government. This subsidy at present, sufficed to keep many of the mills open. The hemp was at a very lew price, but it would he unwise to allow' the industry .to go out. The Government was assisting at- present a Wellington engineer who had invented a stripper which it was claimed would revolutionise the industry. Another entirely new industry to which thought was lieing given was the manufacture of aluminium. The Government had been giving more time and thought than had been given in the past .to plans for assisting secondary industries’. realising that along this course was the only likely solution o.< 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.