STATE VENTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26540, 15 August 1947, Page 6

STATE VENTURE

NEWSPRINT MILLS PLANS BEING CONSIDERED DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING PLANT P.A. ROTORUA, Aug. 14. The establishment of extensive State paper and pulp manufacturing works in the forest reserves about 42 miles from Rotorua, at an approximate cost of £7,000,000, is being planned by. the Government, and it is expected that Cabinet approval for the necessary expenditure will be sought during the present session of Parliament. Included in the construction will be the erection of a dam on the Rangitaiki River for electric power and continuous water supply purposes. One of the main objects of the mill will be to provide newsprint from the heavily-timbered pinus radiata plantations in the area, following the successful tests carried out recently in Tasmania,. when New Zealand pulp was converted into newsprint. Between Murupara and Kaingaroa is a 300,000-acre pine forest, scarcely touched, and the largest in the Dominion. So vast is the whole State forest area, which embraces the Kaingaroa Plains, that unless some use is made of the fully-matured pines they will age and become lost. This is the view expressed generally by forestry officials. It is not expected that the Government will be able to start newsprint production for about five years, owing to the difficulties of obtaining all the necessary machinery and the number of laboratory tests which have to be carried out.