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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 8 (December 1, 1928)

The Gold Mines, the Factories, the Farms

The Gold Mines, the Factories, the Farms.

Tuesday, 30th October, was a day of varied industrial spectacles and demonstrations ranging from gold-mining activities and iron and steel working to scientific treatment of butter-fat. A gloriously fine morning and an excellent breakfast at Waihi, given by the local Borough Council and Chamber of Commerce, put everyone in cheerful trim for the long day's programme. First there was a motor spin through some of the auriferous country and on through farming lands to the Waihi seabeach.

Returning, the visitors were taken into the surface-workings of the great Waihi Gold-mining Company. Here they learned that 800 tons of ore were brought up from the depths each day, and approximately £1,300 worth of gold and silver extracted from it.

The quartz-crushing and gold-treating battery at Waikino was the objective of another call. Then a move onward was made by rail to the Thames. The hosts there were the Borough Council and Chamber of Commerce, and an unusual experience was a sight of a steel mill in full blast. Mr. W. Bongard, Mayor of the old goldmining town, humorously apologised for the tide being out. He hoped the visit of the Auckland page 35 land business train would be the forerunner of others, perhaps for more distant parts of the Island. Dr. J. B. Liggins, President of the Thames Chamber of Commerce, told the guests that the town was being put on the map again by the recently-settled magnificent dairy country in the Thames Valley and across to the Piako, and lands which were now being opened up. The travellers had a glimpse of that country. The now famous Hauraki Plains, once, like the Rangitaiki, a vast fenland, the haunt of ducks and eels.

The processes involved in the manufacture of cast steel by the Bessemer process were illustrated in a quite dramatic fashion in the large workshops of Messrs. A. S. G. Price, ironfounders and engineers, the builders of a very large number of locomotives for the Government Railways. (It was mentioned that 123 Price cranes were at present in use on the Dominion lines.) The furnaces, the huge receptacles containing molten metal, the pouring out of the metal into moulds on the foundry floor, every detail of the demonstration was watched with the greatest interest. The Mayor told the travellers that the town at present, to a considerable extent, depended on these most useful foundry works being kept going.

On the fringe of a great N.Z. Kauri Forest. Trounson National Park, North Auckland.

On the fringe of a great N.Z. Kauri Forest. Trounson National Park, North Auckland.

Aboard the “home on wheels” once more, the party moved on up the Thames Valley to the Morrinsville Junction, stopping on the way to visit the N.Z. Co-operative Dairy Co.'s dried-milk factory at Waitoa.

Morrinsville gave the tourists a treat by taking them in motor cars through the good farming country around the town, and hospitably fed and toasted them at an official dinner. The Mayor of the Borough, Mr. W. McPherson, said that there was much truth in the tuneful statement that “the more we get together the happier we shall be;” the tour was sure to have the effect of improving the pleasant and mutually beneficial relations between town and country.

Mr. A. H. J. Wyatt, speaking as a banker with twenty years’ experience in country districts, said that Morrinsville was more prosperous than any other district in New Zealand; it produced more butter-fat to the acre. One of the numerous speakers, Mr. C. E. Clinkard, representative of the Auckland Advertising Club, congratulated the Publicity Department of the New Zealand Railways on the high standard of its work.