SECONDARY INDUSTRIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21910, 20 September 1934, Page 15

SECONDARY INDUSTRIES

Sir, —In reply to Mr. Kelly, I should think that the' time for New Zealand to concentrate on what she can produce most efficiently is now, and not when her population reaches the 20million mark, perhaps a century or two hence. By developing her potential hvdro power at rates of, say, £lO to £2*o per kw., installed at site, energy can be supplied at site at from one-thirtieth to one-fifteenth of a penny per unit, as in Scotland, Sweden, Norway, etc. These are rates at which no steam plant could compete, and cheaper than American hydro-power, which before the war cost over £4O per kw. installed at site. Given cheap and abundant power, favourable conditions are created for cheap production of secondary industries in the vicinity of existing primary industries, the one to utilise the products, and the waste byproducts, and the idle labour of the other, and this co-operation would cheapen production. I agree entirely with Mr. Kelly that the flexible steel bridge decking he proposed is much to be preferred to rigid reinforced concrete construction, at any rate, for situations liable to serious earthquakes and periodical floods, for the reasons previously stated. Why cannot New Zealand make this steel decking herself, and why the prevailing pessimism regarding the practicability of secondary industries in New Zealand, which has more abundant and cheaper hydro power than Australia, and more regular rainfall, too? Fearless, farseeing, constructive statesmanship is the need of the hour, and the destiny of countries may well be safer in the han,ds of its engineers and scientists than in those of its politicians.

Thomas A. F. Stonk, 8.E., A.M.I.M.E