VALUABLE DEPOSITS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 21 December 1927, Page 5

VALUABLE DEPOSITS.

DEAD SEA SALTS. CONCESSIONS DISCUSSED IN THE COMMONS.

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Dec. 19. In the House of Commons the Undersecretary for the Commons (the Hon. W illiam G. A. Ormsby-Gore) was asked whether, in view of the great value and extensive interests concerned in the Dead Sea. concession the Government would take measures forming an independent British company on the lines of a chartered company for working out this concession. Mr. Ormsby-Gore replied that, in view of the merits of the mandate for Palestine and the Covenant of the League of Nations, it was not practicable to adopt the suggestion.

Asked whether there was any possibility of the Dead Sea salts being handed over to German interests, Mr. Ormsby-Gore replied that in the negotiations an endeavour was being made to arrange that any concessionaires selling outside Palestine should not enter into the* agreement with any one of the three big monopolies without the concurrence of the Government, but it. was very .difficult to sell an article of that kind in the world’s market without some form of agreement with existing organisations. Vsked if concessionaires were not supported by quite independent capital, he stated that they were not in any way connected with any of the present potash concerns.

A further question was put as to when Mr. Novomeysky formally applied for the concession and what were his qualifications. Mr Ormsby-Gore replied that Mr Novomeysky made his first formal application to* the High Commissioner for Palestine, who reported it to the Colonial Secretary in July, 1921. The High Commissioner also reported that Mr Novomeysky had since 1911 been working on the question of extraction of salts from the waters of the Dead Sea. He understood that Mr Novomeysky was a. member of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy as well as being scientifically qualified. Asked if Air Novomeyskv had ever been-an official in Soviet Russia, Air. Ormsby-Gore answered that lie was not even aware that -Air Novomeysky had any Russian connections whatever. He understood that his parents were Polish, but lie was at Palestinian, and he was not aware that he had had any Russian connections since he went to Palestine.