NEW FERTILISER WORKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26627, 25 November 1947, Page 6

NEW FERTILISER WORKS

COMPANY FORMED IN SOUTHLAND LOCAL CAPITAL AND CONTROL Special to the Daily Times INVERCARGILL, Nov. 24 The registration of the Southland Co-operative Phosphate Company, Ltd., with a capital of £350,000 in £1 shares, is announced in the Mercantile Gazette. The subscribers are Mr Adam Hamilton (Invercargill) 200, Messrs A. C. Gormack (Invercargill) 200, H. G. Pinckney (Waimatuku) 200, A. H. Hall (Thornbury) 200, J. F. Grant (Croydon) 200, G. A. Hamilton (Lowther) 200, D. Macpherson (Waianiwa) 150, N. H. Jefferies (Morton Mains) 200, E. A. Cameron (Wendonside) 200, and G. Stevenson (Dacre) 200.'

The object of the company is to erect a modern fertiliser works in Southland. Mr Hamilton, who is chairman of the provisional directorate of the new company, said to-day that Southland had developed to the stage where it ought to be able to find capital for and control any new industries for the province, such as fertiliser or freezing works. “We are grateful to Dunedin companies for the help they have given in building up industries in Southland, but the time has now arrived when we can handle our own affairs,” he said; “There is no doubt that Southland requires fertiliser works to provide for the needs of the province. It must be uneconomic to bring all the superphosphate from Dunedin when raw phosphate could be landed at Bluff and treated in Southland. “ There is room in Southland for only' one fertilizer works,” said Mr Hamilton, “and we think that for the protection of the farmers of the future these works should be owned and controlled largely by farmers’ representatives. Phosphate is essential to the soil requirements of Southland, both for grasslands and cropping, and it is not in the best interests of the province to have their works controlled by outside interests.” It was reported last March that detailed plans and specifications for an up-to-date fertiliser works near Awarua, on the Bluff road, had been submitted to Kempthorne. Prosser and Co.’s New Zfealand Drug Company, and the Dominion Fertiliser Company Ltd., by the designing engineers and architects. The plans provided for ar, initial unit with a manufacturing capacity of 65,000 to 75,000 tons of super, or a total capacity in super reverted and mixed manures of over 80.000 tons. A substantial amount of the capital, it was stated, would be raised by an offer of shares to consumers and the investing public in Southland.