NEW COAL SUPPLY.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1920, Page 5

NEW COAL SUPPLY.

POSSIBILITIES OF THE OHUEA. NECESSITY FOR THE RAILWAY. (By Telegraph.—Special Reporter.) Palmerston North, Last Night. The necessity for the Government being urged to push on with the construction of the Stratford-Okahukura main trunk line was stressed by Mr. A. Morton, president of the National Dairy Association, at the conference to-day. During the year a great deal had been done, he said, on behalf of the dairying industry in investigation work. Factories had sent delegates abroad to obtain all the information possible regarding the further utilisation of the byproducts of milk, and had reported , thereon to the factories concerned. The factories were, however, unable to make practical use of that information, because whatever by-product was manufactured large quantities of fuel were required, and under the present unsettled state of the labor market, it would be folly for them to spend the large sums necessary for the installation i of plant unless they were assured of supplies of coal. There were large coal areas unexplored | and one lay close to the Stratford- ( Okahukura iine, and though It was in i the interests of the Dominion and the t Government itself that these coal areas ( should be opened up, nothing had been ( (lone. This seemed bad business policy. He was referring, he said, to the Ohura coalfields, where there were unlimited areas practically alongside the railway reserve.

This line would also open up to the district large areas of valuable timber, Including white pine, besides providing the dairy industry with cheaper butter boxes and cheese crates, owing to the saving in freights. It would also provide coal to the dairying industry, and serve a large area of country. Though repeated representations had been made to the Government to push the line through they had had no effect. He urged delegates to place the matter before the members of Parliament of their districts.