NO GERMAN CAPITAL IN THAMES ORE CO.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 82, 28 June 1927, Page 9

NO GERMAN CAPITAL IN THAMES ORE CO.

AN EMPHATIC DENIAL 'T'HAT any German capital was invested in the company which proposes to exploit the huge ore deposits at the Thames, was emphatically denied to-day by Mr. E. Langguth. “Why this cry should be raised I do not know,” said Mr. Langguth, who is a naturalised British subject of 43 years’ residence in New Zealand, “unless it is to create bad feeling.” As a matter of fact, he said, it was impossible for German capitalists to directly invest in such an enterprise in New Zealand. “And I can assure you,” he said, “no German money has been invested in an indirect manner. All the capital in the company is New Zealand money.”

The expensive machinery for the Thames ore deposits has not yet left the United States and Germany where it has been purchased. Precisely when a start would be made in the search for base metSls Mr. Langguth could not say.

Negotiations were now in progress with a British shipping company for the transhipment of the ore to Germany where the metals would be extracted by a secret process in which the Germans had become so proficient. It was quite possible, said Mr. Langguth, that an occasional German ship might call at the Thames. “But as far as we can see now,” he added, “freight by the British ships will be less expensive.” The reason that the Thames ore was destined for Germany was because that country offered a much greater sum per ton. “This is a commercial undertaking,” declared Mr. Langguth, “and, naturally, we must sell in the best market.”