NEW ZEALAND.

Shannon News, 14 February 1922, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND.

ITS INDUSTRY AND ITS WATER POWER.

(By “DUSTIE.”)

(Specially written ior Shannon News.) Our heritage of birth is 66 million acres. From the snow-clad peaks of the mountain range to the plains that skirt down to the sea, we are the potential masters. From the garden of nature where the’ rangiora and rata tint the wild flourish of the untrammelled growth, where the rimu springs unnurtured to a splendid maturity, from the cultivated lands where the homestead nestles, to the glare of the city’s furnace and the throb of the out-hound “tramp,” we are the lords of creation.

And “we” comprises one million' minds, which think in one million ways, and develop one million ideas. In the realms of the future lies the possibility of an 8,000,000 population.. It portends a neighbouring Australian Empire. It belongs to the era of f he flying machine, taking 13,000 miles hi its stride. It means intensive cultivation, the manufacture of our textiles, a greater rapprochement of and interchange of commodities between Pacific shores. Above ail, we stand at the threshold of a century or advanced science, and the possibilities of PJO years are inconceivable. With the growth of a colony the railways are the routes along which the settlements grow. They tap the interior and open out its areas. This Dominion has passed tlinugh the processes of national development. •Those processes call for the opening out of manufacture in its broader sense as the st%el rails open out the country. And, in the glory of our island home, so rugged and elemental, we hold a vast hydro-electrical potentii 1, which will prove of priceless value as the key to industrial enterprise. The power is so flexible in its uses. It can be employed in over one | hundred ways to the need of the fanner. Electric motors will lessen the hardships of cultivation. The swamps, *the fields which are subject to flood, and the land of the drougnt can be made productive with the help of the electric pump. The creation ot a large energy will stimulate the erection of factories. Its application to electro-chemical and electro-metallur-gical purposes will lay a foundation to these industries. It can be employed to the sawmill, to the coal-' mine and to the gold-mine, to the freezing works, to the slaughter house, to the woollen mills, and to the flax , mills, to the warehouse, to the tram-1 way and to the railway, to the liar-j hour front, and to the household. j Let us turn lor the moment to the i l enterprise of other countries. Can we • conceive in our wildest dreams the j possibilities that' lie behind the mar-j shalling of our forces In Scandina- \ via the waters of Lake Mosvad fall to the Baltic in three cascades of 900 leet. ! Where once reigned the solitude of ■ Nature’s fastnesses, manufacture has usurped the field. Each cascade is bar- j | nessed and into the furnace of two single factories, 315,000 horse-power is! i being consumed, a potential thirteen ! times as vast as the proposed scheme of the Wellington province. The sole, | purpose of the colossal undertaking is to capture nitrogen from the air we. breathe. The single line of products, , the nitrates, is poured into the European market at the rate of 100,000 tons per year. Calcium nitrate is a valu- ; able plant food. On the one hand is ! Australia, with the problem of the future settlement of her wide domains; on the other hand are the smiling plains of ourmwn country.- The cry of the future will be fertilisation, and the fertilisers are the nitrates of Lake Mosvad, the product of the air we j breathe.

-In • both Islands a commencement has been made on a scheme to supply present needs o! electric potential, in the North Island, levy is to be made on the waters of three sources— U 6,000 horse-power at Arapuni, 40,000 at Waikaremoana, and 24,000 at Mangahao. In the South Island, Coleridge’s 8000 horse-power is to link up with the 7300 of Waipori, and both are to he augmented. Lake Monowai, with a possibility of 20,000 horse-power, is under construction. These schemes have been influenced by the length of transmission, according to the centres of population they are supplying. They will constitute the nucleus of an ! important development. Their result ( will be far reaching. But over and j above them will be the dormant power j of our more inaccessible mountain : rivers and lakes: Lake Te Anau with j 750,000 horse-power, Wakatipu with j 50,000, and Manapouri with 420,n0n j Each horse-power will save ten tons of coal per year, to be conserved for the future demands of our growing sea trade.

We come in our mood to the gates of industry. We see our wool going abroad and returning as the woven article. For the most part we walk on the leather of foreign production. . The

forests of Canada pour their products of the wood-pulp industry into New Zealand markets, and our own growth stands idle. Eight million matches are consumed daily, and we have not captured the market. 66,000,000 tons 01iron ore is the annual world’s demand, and the iron ores of Nelson and the iron-sands of Taranaki are not in flic field. We know the processes of Iron manufacture—the pig iron, the cast iron, the wrought iron, and the steel. We see them a thousand times a day. Every form of locomotion which we employ contains Uiem. Foreign furnaces are blazing through the night to supply our machines, our rails, and the component parts of our numerous structures. In the. Scottish Highlands, a power of 30,000 horse-poAver is devoted to the extract -of aluminium from, the native clay. We, in New Zealand, ship our ores abroad, our copper ores, 'our chrome ores, our manganese ores, and our tungsten ores. The gift of electric smelting is bequeathed to other hands. 'The steam locomotives which pound day and night up the gradient are running on half efficiency. Electric haulage will pull twice the load. And so our country is like the engines of the Rimutaka. It is working on half efficiency. However, the master hands are beginning to model their day. The song of the future will-be the song of an advancing age. And so the waters of the peaks that disgorge to the plains will be tuned to the turbines, AA'hile Industry herself will sit in the musician’s chair. And so in the future cities of our national groAvth, the Mauretania will be berthing at the quay.