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Waipa Post, Volume III, Issue 135, 9 August 1912, Page 3

The following motion is to be submitted to the Municipal Conference by the delegate from Palmerston North this week : “ That where ratepayers fail to carry a loan for a supply of water to give a fire service, or which, in the opinion of the local authority, is considered necessary for the health of the inhabitants, the local authority, on receiving the ccmsent of the Minister, may be authorised to raise the necessary loan without the consent of the ratepayers.” Mr F. G. McGee, the representative of the Canadian company, with a capital of £103,000, that is goinn to work the sulphur deposits of White Island, expressed the theory that, with a boring plant, they would be able to make a series of artificial vents which will ultimately reach the source of supply of the whole Island. He describes the sulphur springs as unique. Sicily and japan are the two largest sulphur suppliers in the world, and have the advantage of cheap labour — in Japan 2s a day, and in Sicily iod a day —but at White Island, where thirty men are employed, the wages are. 14s a day. New Zealand imports 4209 tons of sulpuur and Australia 224,000. There is, then, a market at the doors for a considerable quantity of the White Island product. There is, roughly, about fortyacres of rock sulphur ore land on the island, containing about 84 per cent, pure sulphur; but the springs yield 94 per cent, pure. Machinery on order for.the works on White Island consists of a boiler and 16 to 22 h.p. engine.