The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1918. NEW ZEALAND IRON WORKS.

Taihape Daily Times, 3 September 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1918. NEW ZEALAND IRON WORKS.

(With which is Incorporated The Tftihape Post and Walnmrlio News)..

A telegram from New Plymouth yesterday, focusses attention on a glint of economic light that reveals some immense industrial possibilities. It is stated that the metallurgical problem in New Zealand is regarded as settled, and the future assured. The subject of the messags was iron, and it stated that the smelting works at Moturoa were now turning out excellent grey iron of uniform quality. This opens up a vista of blast furnaces, puddling furnaces and rolling mills, with all the other attendant works,, having iron as the basis of their operations; of incalculable magnitude, value and importance. Whether a New Zealand iron industry flourishes and becomes one of prime importance will depend upon the supply of raw material, and, we understand, that is almost without limit; coal must be available in large quantity near where the iron is made. If this does not exist and new mines are undiscoverable, then the iron ore will have to be ‘shipped to where the coal is, at least, that is the experience in all iron producing countries. It is natural that people who discover iron round about them, should want to have the furnaces and mills built there for working it, but the iron could only be produced at a disadvantage, and at a high cost if coal had to be continuously railed long distances. Even now, the newly started furnaces can only work till this week-end owing to want of coaI # Matters of this kind arising in the early stages of an industry are causes of considerable delay; but of such incalculable importance is the iron industry to any country that ,Wc trust the New Zealand Government will promptly remove .every obstacle that may arise ,to defer the making of iron for even one day.. Iron, is power; Germany is, to-day, one of the largest producers of iron in the world, but only fifty years ago every bit of iron and most articles made from Iron had to be imported. Those countries producing iron in large volume are the foremost countries of the world. Britain owes much of her greatness to iron; America has risen to a topmost place among nations on iron; Germany could not have soaked Europe with human blood only through her ironworks. In fact, we cannot over-esti-mate the value of iron in forging a nation’s greatness. It is next to impossible for any country to become a notable exporter of manufactured goods if it has no ironworks and no coal pits', but with an amplitude of both, the manufacture and export of everything from a tin tack to a steamengine or a man-of-war immediately comes into the realm of practicability. This country’s metallurgical problem has been solved, states the telegram, which means that the almost pure iron found here in flakes has, by the discovery of essential fluxes, or fettling, as it is called by Old Country puddlers, become workableits purity- has been reduced ~,b.y an amalgum that binds it together into that ductile mass as we see it in the blacksmith’s hands. Not a minute should be lost in exploiting this metallurgical triumph, for in the Pacific alone there will continue to be a demand for iron diat New Zealand, from any works it

•nay erect, cannot supply. Moturoa is the port of New Plymouth, only two miles distant; it is the scene of the boring for petroleum, and it is here the first successful iron-making furnace has been erected. Coal may be shipped to the iron ore, but all expertence shows that much more ecbnomlc working is secured by shiping or railing the ore to the coal. New Zealand has, however, much to be thankful for if the reported solving of the iron oroblem is so far confirmed as to rendor the making of commercial iron on a commercial basis practicable.