ONEKAKA IRON

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1939, Page 6

ONEKAKA IRON

SUPPLIES MUCH SMALLER THAN SUPPOSED BUT INDUSTRY LIKELY TO BE ESTABLISHED. MINISTER t)N PRESENT PLANS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 13. “We have been disappointed over the iron ore supplies at Onekaka,’’ said the Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Sullivan, in an address last night. “We are assured by scientists in the first place that there were at least 100,000.000 tons of iron ore—perhaps hundreds of millions of tons,” he added. “Well, we have carried out very thorough exploratory work —infinitely more than was ever done by private enterprise —and I am sorry to say that the supplies are not there in anything like the quantities we were led to believe." Mr Sullivan said that because of technical progress made during the last year or two—even since the Iron and Steel Bill was passed—it was probable that they would have available to them alternative and supplementary supplies of raw materials that would enable them to have their industry—an industry very necessary to them on the triple grounds of defence economics and finance. Mr Sullivan disclosed the position at Onekaka when emphasising the difficult task New Zealand might have to face in the event of war, in maintaining industrial activity. “If Great Britain found herself unhappily at war with three powerful antagonists (whom I shall not name) this country would for a period of time (which I cannot estimate) be isolated,” he said. “That is nearly as certain as anything in this world can be certain. “The general problem of the supply of war. materials is a most difficult and urgent one in the light of this situation, and the condition of our depleted overseas funds, and it is one that we are making the greatest possible endeavours to meet. “Perhaps the greatest necessity of all is the establishment of the iron and steel industry, because that industry is the basis of the munition industry and the basis of a great many other industries. We are trying to establish that industry, and we have in New Zealand at the moment two of the most competent British experts available in the United Kingdom surveying our resources, and they will report to us very shortly now on the whole proposition.”