THE TITANIC IRON COMPANY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 305, 8 December 1877, Page 16

THE TITANIC IRON COMPANY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. Sir, —ln your report respecting the Bill now before the General Assembly relating to the above company, several members of the House of Representatives are credited with statements that have evidently been made under an entire misapprehension of the facts, to use no harsher an expression. The Titanic Company was entitled to 5000 acres of land in the province of Taranaki if they did three things—First, pay ss. per acre for the land ; second, have an actual capital of £30,000; and third, spend £IO,OOO in erecting works to smelt the iron sand. The company have paid ss. per acre, have an actual capital of £30,000, although the late Government said it was technically £2590 short, and they have spent £20,000 instead of £IO,OOO. There was no condition whatever respecting smelting, yet the company have proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the sand can be smelted in an ordinary blast furnace ; but in the present state of the labor market, and the low price of iron, it would not pay commercially : and the thanks the shareholders get from the Parliament of the colony is that through a technicality—admitted to represent only £2590, against which they have expended £IO,OOO in excess of the limit put upon them —they are deprived of a valuable property, a property which they have paid for, which the Government has rated them for, and on which they have paid rates, —and this is justice. I have no hesitation in saying that a grosser case of injustice was never perpetrated in this colony, on any individual or company, than is being attempted with reference to the company I repi-esent. The Taranaki people have drained the company’s funds, and their high-minded representatives, one of whom was actually paid for selecting this land, now stand up in their place in the House and state “ that all the company had done was to place a certain amount of machinery on the beach at Taranaki,” &c. To this and the other statements of Major Atkinson I give the most emphatic contradiction.

The company, through myself, petitioned the Parliament for justice ; but—will it be credited ?—the Public Petitions Committee never called upon me to prove my case, or give evidence in any respect. The chairman of the committee (Mr. Kelly), being the member for Taranaki, for several reasons no doubt preferred my absence. Mr. Travers, with the versatility so characteristic of that gentleman, gave the House a little amateur science, and a vast amount of mis-statement ; his remarks resDecting the action of the company with reference to taking iron ore from his property being absolutely without foundation. If native industries are t© flourish in this colony, justice and fair play must actuate both members of Parliament and Governments; and I say, without fear of contradiction, that had a private individual acted towards another as the late Government did, and the Parliament propose doing, towards the Titanic Company, he would have been scouted out of the community.—l am, &c., D. Anderson, Chairman New Zealand Titanic Iron and Steel Company, Bimited: r ,