FERTILISER MANUFACTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23350, 16 November 1937, Page 15

FERTILISER MANUFACTURE

HAWKE’S BAY’S CLAIM PROPOSAL TO ERECT WORKS • From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Nov. 15. An urgent question of general importance about the manufacture of fertilisers was asked in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr H. M. Christie (Govt., Waipawa), in conjunction with Mr E. L. Cullen (Govt., Hawke’s Bay), and the Speaker (Mr W. E. Barnard), as the member for Napier, asked whether, in view of the importance of an adequate supply of fertilisers to the primary producers of Hawke’s Bay, and the prolonged investigations into the proposals for granting of a licence to establish fertiliser works at Napier, the Minister would make an early public statement on the position. The Minister, replying, said that the manufacture of phosphatic fertilisers had been gazetted as a licensed industry under the Industrial Efficiency Act. Several applications had been received for licences to establish new phosphatic fertiliser works, including the proposal to erect works in Hawke’s Bay. The granting of a licence was a matter for the Bureau of Industry set up under the Industrial Efficiency Act, and a special committee of the bureau had visited Napier, Hastings, and Whangarei in connection with the matter. The erection of works in any one district, the Minister said, was not merely a matter of local enterprise, but was one affecting the whole of the Dominion, and it was necessary to consider the matter from that aspect rather than from a purely local point of view. He recognised its importance to the farmers in the Hawke’s Bay district, and hoped it would be possible for a decision to be made at an early date.