NEW ZEALAND IRON.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 May 1919, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND IRON.

INDUSTRIAL HOPES DEFERRED. It is almost tragical to see the frequency with which money is lost in industrial ventures in this and in other countries which promised well at the start. Mr. Will Lawson gives an instance of lost capital in his little hook, "The Marble Mountains," just published. He refers to the unworked Parapara iron deposits, and goes on: "This is the place where great ironworks were to be established to work the deposits of ironstone which are found here, and in larger quantities in the rugged Onekaka mountains behind Parapara. All that remains to-day is to be seen at the head of a mile-long branch road, where a silent paint-mill stands. An industry was started here some years ago by a resident—the industry of making hematite paint The mill is still there complete in every detail. Behind it are stacks of quarried ironstone, from which the paint was made. There is a battery of four stamps to crush it. and all the other paraphernalia required, down to the buggy in the shed and the blacksmith's hummer standing beside the anvil. But there is no sound except the rushing of the creek and the wind and birds in the trees. On a rise near at hand is a pretty bungalow, over-grown with roses, with a large lily pond in front of it. Rushes and weeds have crowded the waterlillies almost out of existence; and here, too, there is silence, for it is deserted too. From the verandah the view to seaward is wonderful; across the shallows, where the Parapara wharf was to stretch out into deep water, the wonderful'sea-lights of the afternoon make the waters irridescent and the sunlight and blue skies are beautiful.

How many dreamers have, in imagination, seen the deep : sea ship lying at the long wharf off Paraf a.ra inlet, loading New Zealand pig-iron? More than' one, for the men oi this country are filled with enterprise which has fov P object the advancement of their distil , and of New Zealand. For all its masses of crude iron in its hills. Parapara is deserted to-day. Yet the time is coming when the industry will flourish. Tt is estimated that there are 04.000,000 tons of ore, yielding 45 per cent, of metallic iron, in the hill faces there, and the experts consider that when the world's first grade deposits of iron are worked out, as thev will he soon, this high-class second grade ore will come into its own."