OIL PROSPECTS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16610, 6 December 1919, Page 2

OIL PROSPECTS.

INTERESTING COMPARISON, BETWEEN ENGLAND AND NEW ZEALAND. If! lILEUEAPH OWN COEBBBPONDENI. WELLINGTON, Dec. 5. The recent opening up ot oilfields in Derbyshire and the possibility of finding oil in New Zealand were discussed'in an interview with Lieut.-Col-onel A. A. Corrigan, who has lately leturned to New Zealand, He met on his travels, he states, an American oil expert who was a member of the staff of the company to which Lord Oowdray' assigned the search for oil in England. For years efforts to find- oil in England in payable quantities had failed until Lsrd Cowdray forced the Imperial Government to take up the properly and invoke the aid of American os* ports. The result was to locate < and tap oil in such quantities as to hearten the authorities as tb the future. It is now evident, he says, that sufficient oil can and will be tapped in England to place a very different complexion on the coal difficulty, and already many boats are being converted into oil burners. /

The experience of England and Wales in this direction demonstrates, Colonel Corrigan suggests, that the New Zealand Government should nowremove from the speculator the destinies of the Dominion’s oil industries. He drew the attention of the American expert to the geological charts in the New Zealand Year Book, and a comparison of these with the English geological charts gave- at least as muco promise of oil in New Zealand as in England and Wales. That, at any rate, was the opinion expressed by a man capable of expressing an opinion.