THE TRADE COMMISSION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 55, 6 March 1913, Page 6

THE TRADE COMMISSION.

(Per Press Association.) Wellington, March 6. Tho members of the Trade Commission were taken for a drive round tho harbour this morning. Tho Harbour Board’s engineer, Mr Marchbanks, giving evidence, stated that Wellington Port, when the work in contemplation was completed, would have accommodation for ship of ono thousand feet in length, drawing 40 feet of water. The secretary of the Board gave evidence as to the Board’s financial position, which, ho said, was very sound. Tho Board had never been lavish or extravagant, nor yet utopian. It had always kept an eye to the development of the Port, but did not go too far ahead in a way that would make it a dear Port.

Mr J. P. Luke, representing the New Zealand Industrial Association, gave a description of tho iron sand and ore, copper, antimony, and other economical metallic resources of New

Zealand. It would, he said, be suicidal for the people of New Zealand to ship iron ore or iron-sand away, holding that it would be in tho interests of the Empire to have ironworks established in the .Dominion. There was no clas.4 of machinery used in New Zealand that could not bo manufactured in New Zealand; no Government should go outside for locomotives now that these had been so successfully constructed in the Dominion. Witness thought still larger fields would yet bo revealed in New Zealand. He had groat confidence in the extent of the mineral oil, as well as coal, and these would warrant a large number of people being engaged to work them.