STATE IRONWORKS.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 12975, 14 December 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

STATE IRONWORKS.

SUGGESTED ACQUISITION OF

PARAPARA.

(From "The Colonist," Dec. 10.)

The following letter, lias been received from the Premier, by Mr. Joseph Taylor, pining, engineer, . of Nel- | son, in reply' to a letter in which the I latter urged that the Government I should take over the Parapara Iron Leases, after compensating the'syndicate now ho.ding them, and should -Start State ironworks:—. '"I "3m" in receipt of 'yburT-fetter 'of the 10th November, in which you urge that the Government should undertake the establishment of ironworks as a State concern, for the manufacture of iron and steel, from hematite iron ore deposits at Parapara. I desire to. say, in reply, that I have read with interest the representations you have made on the question „and appreciate your having communicated to me the correspondence forwarded with your letter, for which I am objiged." In the eourße of *»is letter to tie Premier, Mr^ Taylor had said : "As an admirer of the skill with which you have so long handled the finances of /this Dominion, and have promoted industrial and social developments, may I be permitted to congratulate you on taking in hand so energetically the Government scheme for developing elec-, trio energy from the water power that has hitherto practically gone to waste, and may I further suggest tha£ ypu might do as much good, if not confer a still greater boon upon the Dominion, by taking in handj with similar skill "and energy, the matter of founding ironworks as> Sftate concern for the I manufacture of ■ iron and steel from the massive hematite iron ore deposits of the highest quality, which abound at Parapara, near Colhngwood, in the Nelson provincial district. . . It is simply a disgrace that aft enterprising country like New Zealand, possessing such vast and certsijb natural supplies of iron ore; should be regularly paying away to outsida countries about £4,000,000 a year for Iron and stee]> two-thirds- of- which'; could be manufactured from materials lying on tie [ surface and under our very nose. The rate at which the cost of iron and steel imports is increasing may be gathered from the fapt that, whereas we paid away in the year 1898, £1,720,739 for iron and steel in finished. and unfinished forms, the cost in 1908 had gone up to. £3,671,138. Such figures should , be eye-openers ; and they serve to show that the iron resources of .'the Domin-: ion, as well as j;he now wasting waterpowers/should neither be left unutilised, nor be aiowed to fall into the hands of private<monopolists. lam quite aware that a difficulty stands' in the way of the ogvernmen*r taking this matter up, seeing that the Parapara iron leafies hare for eomo time been leased to a private syndicate, nevertheless, as the syndicate has held these leases now for a number of years without actually starting ironworks, and as they are at present little, if any, nearer being able to finance the concern than they were, say in "August 1896, when they represented to the Government that they were about to set to work vigorously with a; Subscribed capital of £650,000, the true and just solution of the. problem, I beg to suggest, would be for the' Government to *ake the leases out of the syndicate's hands and adequately compensate, them for what they have already spent in endeavouring to float a company to work the deposits. This would only be recognising the same principle as was acted upon-in connection with the Midland Raijwfy Company in the South Island'; and it would set the Gpvernmsnt free' in an h'<?n<airSl}]p manner .to run ironworks ap a State eoncorn, and thu» Jargejy avoid draining the Dominion's financial Jjfe-blood- . Nothing would so much facilitate tho 'construction of the country's needs—' roads and raUvfaysr-and nothing (not ev^n water power development) would contribute 30 niucli tp iJie Dpminion's commercial and social progrese in gon•«»!."i:' ; ; ' ;! ; ; '' " v - ! .:-•■,-.■■ .■ ;: .-.'..