OUR OIL INDUSTRY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3348, 14 October 1911, Page 2

OUR OIL INDUSTRY.

BRITISH COMPANY INTERESTED. PREPARED TO SPEND A MILLION. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 13. Mr G. S. Engel, representing the Shell Transport and Trading Company of Great Britain, the British rival .'f the Standard Oil Trust, for the 01! supremacy of the world, is at preset - in Wellington in connection with the urge interests held by his Company in me New Zealand oil fields. In an interview Mr Engee said hie Company was prepared to spend a large sum of money in developing the New Zealand oilfields providing the conditions were satisfactory. He mentioned an amount over* a million sterling. The great- difficulty his Company had to face, however, was that the mfiling laws of New Zealand had reference to reef mining, and not to sinking for oil. If the Government thought the oil industry worth fostering some alteration in the laws would be 0 necessary before ' companies would venture much capital in the business. Mr Engee intends to approach the Government on the subject of increasing the 10,000 acres, the area that may be held. His Company is interested in the Kotuku fields, which he proposes to visit, and lias also large concessions in the North Island. They believed in the future of the oil industry in New Zealand, which on the opening of the Panama Canal would become of importance.

PROTECTING THE CAPITALIST. LEGISLATION NECESSARY. (From our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 13. In the House this afternoon Sir Jos. Ward stated that one of the Bills before the Labor Bills Committee, namely the Mining Bill, should be proceeded with this session, as it did not -contain any very contentious clauses, and was necessary in connection with the- oil industry. There were distinct signs that under workable conditions the industry would prove an important one, and one that would give employment to a large number of people. At present under the Law there was no proper protection for those who were boring for oil, and their claims could- be jumped by boring near at hand to- a deeper level than that at which the oil was first found. A circle would' have t-o be defined within which protection should be enforced. Unless something in this direction was done the investment of large sums of money in connection with the oil industry in New Zealand would be prevented. Proceeding, Sir Joseph Ward! said he understood that the tendency was for oil to move , downwards on an inclined grade, and people who spent money boring to -from two to four thousand feet might have their wells, tapped by adjacent wells bored a couple of hundred feet deeper. Such action might actually prevent the discoverer from getting any oil- at all. People investing then money must get a guarantee that it would not- be lost in this manner. 'The industry was going to be a good tiling for New Zealand in many respects, for steamers, if assured of a supply, would use it as fuel, and generally it would cause an enormous employment of labor. In addition there. were areas of land of very little use lying idle, upon which there.was a prospect of obtaining oil in payable quantities'. (From many points of view it would pay tlie country to help this industry.