NITROGENOUS MANURES

Taranaki Daily News, 27 July 1929, Page 6

NITROGENOUS MANURES

FACTORY IN AUSTRALIA COST TO BE £2,500,000, SUPPLYING NEW ZEALAND, Sydney, July 18. Great interest has been aroused, by the publication of the fact that the Imperial Chemical Industries Company of Australia and New Zealand, Limited, contemplated building a fertiliser factory to cost £2,500,000, to make synthetic sulphate and other nitrogenous products. The announcement was made by Mr. JB. E. Todhunter, the company’s

Australian representative, when he was giving evidence before the Tariff Board which was inquiring into the subject of fertilisers. The inquiry centres round the question whether fertiliser prices in Australia are fair, and whether duties should bo raised. Mr Todhunter said that the economics of the question depended entirely on output and on the possibility of erecting largo plants. An output of at least 100,009 tons annually would be necessary to enable Jocal manufacturers to supply Australia at anything like world parity prices, after allowing for the protection afforded by freight and landing charges. Only about 20 per cent, of that amount could be supplied by existing producers. A plant involving £2,500,000 would be necessary.

Ho said that Australia, in common with other countries with largo centres of population, was a producer of byproduct ammonia from her gas works and coko ovens. The only outlet at present for this product in the Commonwealth lay in the manufacture of anhydrous ammonia. The balance had to bo converted into sulphate, which was, therefore, a forced production. In New Zealand, his company had been able to attack the nitrogen problem unhampered by tariff restrictions and assisted by lower distribution costs. It was supplying sulphate to New Zealand farmers at £l2 12s a ton (from country depots), against an average price of £l7 a ton under similar condi-

tions in Australia, and its estimated consumption of fertiliser in the Dominion for 1929 had already been exceeded. Ho suggested for Australia a common sales board* for all by-product and imported sulphate, and that application .should bo made to the board for a re■bato on all British imports required in excess of local production. He also suggested that the by-product makers , should receive for a period a price equivalent to the imported landed cost, duty paid, for the time being. The revelations made by Air. Todhunter as to the effects of the tariff are only another instance of how Australia ,is suffering in this direction. It is adi mitted on all hands that the tariff of the Commonwealth needs scientific adjustment, but it is feared by many that the position has drifted right out of hand. New Zealand is often referred to as an example to Australia, but there are thousands who refuse to believe that New Zealand goes far enough. These people are just as convinced that Australia should go further than it does. | They are extremists, and on tariff questions extremists in Australia seem to hold sway.

Figures relating to the largely-in-creased use of fertilisers in Australia and New Zealand during recent years, and the possible demands for superphotphate in the future, was disclosed by the chief representative of the Phosphate Commission, Mr. A. 11. Gaze, before the Australian Tai iff Board recently. Mr, Gaze informed the board that when the British Phosphate Commission took over the phosphate works at Nauru, and Ocean Islands in 1920 the output was 300.000 tons of phosphate rock year-* ly. This output had since doubled and a development plan was being launched to attain an output of 1.000,000 tons ' annually within the next few years. ■