THE LITHGOW IRONWORKS

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 285, 10 December 1907, Page 4

THE LITHGOW IRONWORKS

Thbbe are some big issues involved in the crises which has led to the closing of the Sandford iron and steel roller mills at Lithgow. William Sandford is a remarkable man of whom it may be said that the "iron has entered into his soul." For many years he has been struggling along at Eskbank, Lithgow, that marvellous coal and iron and lime and cement valley in the heart of the picturesque Blue Mountains. For long his works used scrap but a British expert erected a blast furnace, and it has been making iron and steel out of the native ore of the great Iron Duke Mountain at Oarcoar, with the coal and fluxes alongside the works. In 1901 the present company was registered, William Sandford, Ltd., and at the end of 1905 a seven years' contract was entered into with the Government for the supply of iron and steel rails from native ore. The Commercial Banking Company, a great New South Wales concern, had advanced £135,000 to carry on, and when the company found itself still in difficulties it asked the Government to advance £70,000 at 4 per cent—£4s,ooo of which was to be expended in new plant to carry out the seven years contract. Parliament agreed to make the advance tut the leader of the Labor Party, Mr McGowan, secured an amendment that the whole £75,000 and not the capital £25,000 of it shonld have priority to the Bank's mortgage. Thereupon,, as was anticipated, the Bank objected, and so

steam is off—and Lithgow in despair. For many years the Bulletin Vias preached a crusade for Australian ironworks, but public felling was not enough alive to supply the capital asked for before Government was approached. Certainly it would be a national calamity if the ouly iron works m Australasia were to close.