British Miners to Benefit from Carbide Works

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 46, 24 February 1939, Page 10

British Miners to Benefit from Carbide Works

LONDON—Many a sparsely provided me in the depressed coalmining iighbourhood of I’ort Talbot in South Wales, and in the tract of crofter hold.jajs about. Corpach in the West Highnds of Scotland, has been cheere.. bj ; recent announcement that state-aided ialcium carbide factories are to be set > in these two localities. It has long been recognised that ,me such factories would have to be Provided to enable that hitherto im sorted product to be made in Britain 3ut so determinedly has the question ol the location and the layout for thf necessary works been disputed, that the British Government last April set up • committee to examine the competing schemes. That committee now has reported and the Government has approved its proposals, which include an immediate £1,090,000 plan for Souti Wales and a later on of £3,000,000 foi the Highlands. South Wales has both the labour and the minerals close at hand, but must produce the requisite electrical power from coal-burning engines. In the Highlands cheap water power is available, but both labour and raw material have to be brought from elsewhere. The South Wales factory, which is to be begun immediately, is to be on Moria Moors, an undeveloped seaboard tract to the south of Port Talbot Docks.

An Act of Parliament is to be introluced to enable the Highland schemt to go through later. This scheme is to derive its power from hydro-electric works near the western end of the Caledonian Canal.

Britain at present imports the bulk !>f its carbide supply from Norway, Czechoslovakia and Germany. It has long been held that a product so widely used in time of peace and of war as carbide should be made at home. The Government’s rearmament plans have jonverted this general view into actio*.