NEWCASTLE STEEL

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 124, 23 February 1928, Page 10

NEWCASTLE STEEL

HIGHLY PROTECTED INDUSTRY LARGE NUMBER OF MEN EMPLOYED Mr. T. H. Raysmith, of Newcastle, New South Wales, who was for over thirty years president of the local Cricket Association, and is at present a visitor to Wellington, states that probably coal production is not the chief stable industry of Newcastle as it was in years gone by. The greater amount of coal now produced, he says, comes trom the Maitland district, where the Aberdare, Pelawmain, and Cessnock mines continue the trade which at one time' was Newcastle’s, and only a few mines are now worked in and round the city, though it still remains the big shipping port. The largest industry in Newcastle, he explained yesterday, was the big steel works, which manufactured steel from the Iron Nob mine at Broken Hill, whilst the limestone necessary for the production of steel was brought to Newcastle from Tasmania, so that the manufacturing process depended on supplies of material from three fairly well sepal ated places within the Commonwealth. At the present time there were about •1000 hands engaged in the steel works at Newcastle, which, when going nt full blast, employed probably another 1000 men in addition. Together with those employed at the Iron Nob at the limestone quarries in Tasmania, and on the steamers, with subsidiary industries, the total number would probably be not far short of 10,000 men, so it now ranked as one of the big industries of the-Coninionwealth.

When questioned as to why Newcastle steel did not find its way into New Zealand to any extent, Mr. Raysmith said that it was not surprising, owing to the price of the product as compared with that from England or the Continent. In England the wages of ironworkers were round about 6s. tt day, whereas in Newcastle the workers received 18s. a day. lhen the freights between Australia and New Zealand were little less, if any, than those between England or the Continent and New Zealand. In Australia the local product was protected by a stiff tariff, which alone enabled the works to continue. Many subsidiary industries were being developed which manufactured goods from the steel. There was one company which took over sheet steel and turned it into corrugated iron ; another made a drawn wire from the steel bars supplied bv the steel works, and so on. The whole of the steel rails and wheels required by the railways of the Commonwealth were now made in Newcastle, whilst recently an order was received from one State alone for 200 steel carriages, which cost about £3OOO each.