A PACIFIC NAVY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 531, 8 January 1913, Page 5

A PACIFIC NAVY.

CO-OPERATION URGED. " Received January 8, 9.55 a.m. Sydney, This Day

Professor Laby, interviewed concerning the co-opira4ion of New Zealand and Australia for the creatio i of an Australasian navy, said when the idea was firßt mooted, it aroused little interest because New Zealanders thought the decision twelve years ago against joining the federation had finally closed such questions. Recently, however, leaders of public opinion and the presß had taken up the subject, but there was very considerable reluctance to take any step forward in this direction. New Zealand was one of the most loyal parts of the Empire, and people suspected, rightly os wrongly, that Australians were not so much concerned as themselves in the maintenance of the British connection. They saw what they took to be evidence thereof in the eviction of Lord Denman.and the fact that the embryo Australian navy passed automatically in war time out of the control of the Admiralty. Also in the Commonwealth's refusal to appoint a representative on the Imperial Defence Committee. Personally, he favoured: eo operation and it would be still more .satisfactory ,if Australia, New Zealand and Canada joined in the maintenance of a Pacific fleet.