OUR COAL SUPPLIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 77, 17 August 1912, Page 5

OUR COAL SUPPLIES.

ARE THEY GIVING. OUT? j INTERESTING STATEMENTS OX "'• THE SUBJECT. I By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Thursday. ) Members of Parliament who took j part in the discussion in the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening expressed the opinion that there is a dan-* ger that the New Zealand coal supply' will fail within the course of the next' 1 fifty years. The opinion of many competent to .judge in Auckland, however, seems to be more optimistic. '■ ''During thirteen years we hare ex- -\ hausted approximately C3O acres of coal- ■'' bearing strata for a yield of 1,804,000 ' tons of coal," stated the chairman, of" ' the Taupiri Coal Company during tha. course of his last annual report. "The company holds the mineral rights for 10,495 acres, and presuming that an output of 250,000.t0ns per annum is mainv tained we have enough to last for 220. years; or if the comparatively inaccesA sible country near Ximihia Lake bo omitted, for"200 years. At 275,000 tons ' per annum, the lift of our mines would , be 180 years, and at 300,000 ton 9 per -* annum 170 years." "There is no doubt that in the North good bituminous coal is scarce," said , Mr.; Holdgate, managing director of theNorthern Coal Company, in answer to ~' enquiries. "Up to the present no very extensive deposits of that quality have '; been found. So far as our company is ' concerned, however, there is no uneasiness as to coal resources, but all the »ame our deposits are not equal to the deposits of bituminous coal in the South Island. We know very little yet of our coal resources in the North," for prosp pecting has been limited to the Whangarei and Kawakawa districts. In Wai- ' kato large deposits of coal similar to' ■ Taupiri coal, which Ls an excellent house- -- hold coal, have been found, and promise '. 'to vield well." ;