TARANAKI.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 4, 27 July 1910, Page 5

TARANAKI.

Taranaki Petroleum Company. A deputation representing the Taranaki Petroleum Company interviewed the Minister for Mines last week, with a request for financial assistance. They stated that the company considered success was within sight. Present prospects were good in all three bores. .In nine months the company considered it would be at the end of its funds. The company suggested that ten acres of prison area, over which it had boring rights, should be leased to it for twenty-one years, with perpetual right of renewal, and that the Government should lend it £ 10.000 to erect a refinery, the Government to take the property as security. The company would have to win 1,300.000 gallons of crude oil before it could obtain the Government bonus, and it suggested that a bonus of threepence per gallon be paid on the first 800,000 gallons won after the erection of the refinery. The Minister, in reply, admitted the possibilities of the industry. The company had been working under big handicaps, and he thought it would be legitimate to give them financial assistance, but he did not say the Government would do what the deputation urged. The Government would not allow a foreign company or combination to exploit coal or oil to the detriment of the people of New Zealand. In conclusion the Minister asked the deputation to put its request in writing and bring it before the Minister for Finance.