STEEL WORKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 4, 6 January 1936, Page 8

STEEL WORKS

CABINET INTERESTED

MAY COST THREE MILLIONS

(By TeJeg-T'-i— i Jresa Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, January 5.

Proposals to establish steel works, coal distillation plants, and a plant for the manufacture of aluminium have been considered at recent conferences held by members of the Labour Cabinet and heads of Departments, said the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, Minister of Employment, in an interview today. The proposed steel works, he said, might cost £3,000,000 and employ 1000 men. They would be situated at Onekaka, where there were already extensive iron works.

The Pacific Steel Company had already spent some £10,000 or £12,000 on prospecting and assay work in the steel, manufacture project, said Mr. Armstrong, and prospects for the success of a New Zealand steel works seemed good. He had been told the company was confident that the industry could be made one of the biggest in New Zealand, employing up to 1000 men and producirig all the steel the Dominion required. He had been informed by experts that if the new works provide.d only half the steel used in New Zealand they would justify the capital outlay needed for their construction. QUESTION OF CONTROL. Before anything could be done, said Mr. Armstrong, something would have to be decided about the part the State should play in the control of the new works. Some interested persons thought that if it assisted private enterprise in such an undertaking, the Unemployment Board should be entitled to shares in the company, and others with whom he himself agreed thought the Government itself should take over the work. Another industry, the possibilities of which were being investigated, was the extraction of by-products from coal, as well as coal distillation for petrol. Success had been made of these processes in other countries where the coal available was not- nearly so good as in New Zealand. . The flax industry was already receiving Government aid at the rate of £4 for every ton produced, and it was possible more might be done to improve this industry by the Government. This subsidy at present sufficed to keep many of the mills open. Hemp was at a very low price, but it would be unwise to allow the industry to go out. The Government was assisting at present a Wellington engineer who had invented a new stripper which it was claimed would revolutionise the industry. . SECONDARY INDUSTRIES. I Another entirely new industry to which thought was being given was the manufacture of aluminium. The Government had been giving more time and thougnt than had been given in the past to plans for assisting secondary industries, realising , that along this course was the only likely solution of the unemployment problem. A huge public works programme would only postpone the evil. In the meantime, of course, the Government would pursue a more active public works policy.