A SERIOUS FIRE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16940, 15 January 1923, Page 7

A SERIOUS FIRE.

IRON AND STEEL WORKS DAMAGED, (PIR Press Association-.) NELSON, January 13. A serious fire occurred at the Onakaka Iron and Steel Works at Onakaka at midnight on Saturday. The engine department, the boiler house, and the blacksmiths’ shops were destroyed and much of the machinery was damaged. The furnace and lift were saved. The origin of the fire is a mystery.

•'Generally speaking, I am glad, after twenty years’ absence, to return to New Zealand’s green fields and English-speaking people,” said Mr Barton Hobbs, to a ’ ; Manawatu Standard” reporter recently, ‘‘for, as you must know, South Africa is almost essentially Dutch, and the proportion of British people there is small. In the schools—at least the majority of them —the children are taught to speak in Dutch, and there are very few English newspapers there. The cost of living i- very high, travelling is very expensive, and from the point of view of the ordinary man it is a hard country to live in. Of course, everyone gets into the habit of living in a more expensive way than vve do here, and every working man has his house servant. However, it is a single man’s country and the married man cannot save. The country has not progressed a.-* far as one might have expected, and there are few towns which have increased in size 'to any appreciable extent although J t must he- admitted that difficult have prevailed . «¥4r since 4h< - Boer Wax.