IRON SAND COMPANY.

Opunake Times, Volume V, Issue 211, 11 September 1896, Page 2

IRON SAND COMPANY.

Mr E. M. Smith informed a representative of the Hawera Morning Post that he may find it necessary to go to London in a few weeks to push on the flotation of the New Zealand Steel and Iron Company. Conflicting interests are at work in London to " euchre " his company, the Mokau Jones and Parapara ironworks people being engaged trying to upset it. We were under the impression that it had been successfully floated, but the fact of his anticipating such a hasty departure would indicate that it is in a very early stage of embryo, whea the destinies of £450,000 of capital depend upun his presence. It will be a most unfortunate thing for the Taranaki province, iu particular, and the colony in general, if Mokau Jones should succeed in his euchring tactics, but it would hardly be supposed that such men as the Earl of Kilmorey would pledge themselves bona fide to a large scheme of this kind without first making due enquiries, and once pledged we can hardly credit that any amount of " man in the street" reflections or statements would cause them to swerve from their purpose. Of course there are a number of company promoters in London with highsounding titles who leud their names for the purpose of gilding prospectuses, and who in return get paid up shares for doing the prospectus the honor of appearing oi it. Though a number of high-sounding titles may be on a prospectus, there may not be £1 of genuine capital subscribed, but we sincerely hope that such is not the case with the New Zealand Steel aud Iron Company. We must confess we were a little doubtful of the reported success of Mr Smith's mission when we heard the amouut of capital which had been pledged to the enterprise, as though money is very plentiful in London, a man who would go there, and on his unsupported representations, scoop a pool of £450,000 would richly deserve an Italian marble monument erected to his honor in the Recreation Grounds at New Plymouth, which is said to be one of the handsomest spots in the colony. The statement has been made, certainly by those who are opposed to Mr Smith politically, that the lease of the foreshore had been sent to the Bank in Loudon weighted with a retainer of £IOOO and that any company being floated could lift the lease on payment of the amount, and that when the last mail left L .union it was ati.l secure in the Bank. If the Earl of Kilmorey and his co-directors really mean business it might be reasonably expected that they would have planked down the £IOOO and taken possession of the lease, as such a small amount would have been of lit tie concern to such reputed wealthy men. We sincerely trust that if Mr Smith does go home that he will succeed in getting the company afloat, as there is no ques-' tion of the benefit such an industry would be to the whole colony, and we live in hope even though hope deferred rnaketh the heart sick.