Nickel May Become

Valuable Industry

Hopes are growing in the Solomons tha a valuable nickel industry may be de veloped soon on Isabel by the Southerr Mining and Development Company. Thi< company appears to be an offshoot of the world-wide corporation known as INCA and which is represented in the Solomon: by the well-known Mr. Paddy Laine, now a resident of Noumea.

The company has been prospecting in the BSIP for four years. It found sub stantial nickel ore on Choiseul. But it was not rich enough, so it moved over to Isabel, and a party of three or four Euro peans and 40 natives is at work there now.

Although, in local parlance, "they hold their cards very close to their chests" it is generally believed that they now have something good on Isabel.

"Why should they have spent all that money in four years' prospecting if they don't expect something good?" ask the

Honiara observers.

Rwr.