THE SOUNDS SCHEME

Hokitika Guardian, 14 February 1929, Page 7

THE SOUNDS SCHEME

GOVERN*! ENT SANCTION REFUSED. WELLINGTON, Feb. 11. Disappointed mildly expresses the feeling of the directors of New Zealand Sounds Hydro-Electric Concessions, Ud.' They are disappointed with the Government's attitude towards a scheme for the extraction of nitrates from the air and the manufacture of aluminium under cheaper and better conditions, they claim, than are possible anywhere else in the world.

Air A. Leigh Hunt, managing director of the company, in a statement to the “Evening Post,” said:—“Here was a proposal which meant a saving of £90,090,000 to the producers of this country. Tt has been turned down. Tt meant the employment, of 500 men on tunnel work and ultimately of 2000 men. It lias been turned down. It represented rentals from water now running to waste worth £IO,OOO to the Government. Tt meant an income tax from the company to operate the works of over £300,000.” AH Hunt explained that tlie company had been successful in securing the financial support of a London group prepared to invest £0,500,000 in tlie establishment of great hydro-elec-tric works at Deep Cove, Doubtful Sound; The power was to be derived from Lake ATanapouri, tlie water being brought to the work site in the Sound by a tunnel six miles long, and from waters in the immediate vicinity of the works site. The enterprise was emphatically of Imperial importance and was Imperial in character. It was estimated that the nitrate requirements of New Zealand in fifteen years would be 500,000 tons per annum. This could all' be made in tlie Dominion and would bo made at the tiroposed works. S'T Douglas Mawson in August lust cabled that a substantial firm of underwriters in. London would provide the £0,500.000 required and would advance it to the company to bo ertablWied provided the Government advanced to the company a sum sufficient to ensure payment of 5 per cent interest to shareholders durimr five years, the period of construction, such advance not to exceed in tin* aggregate £700.000, secured over tlie whole undertaking and -repayable by the company in six and a half and almost seven years.

Tlie security, continued Air Hunt, would be .CIO for every £1 advanced, but Hie chief advantage to the Do minion would have been that Hie farmers of New Zealand would have had at their doors supplies of fertilisers, Ll*e price of which was not to exceed the wholesale f.o.b. price at any port in the world. The company gave an undertaking to that effect, and at no time during the sixty years’ currency of the license would llntl price have been exceeded. This concession woujo represent to farmers a saving of l'' per ton on the official estimate of requireinents, and over a period oi sixty years this would represent a direct saving of £90,900,f0t).

“The proposal was brought beloiv Air Coates,” said Mr Hunt, “but a general election was then pending ami lilting attention could not be given to it. It lias been brought before the present Government, lull the company lias been officially informed that Hie Government is unable to entertain the proposal. We have now instructed Sir Douglas Alaw.xon, as commissionoi in London, to proceed with the notation of the company upon other lines.’