DEFENCE IN THE PACIFIC.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 8 January 1913, Page 5

DEFENCE IN THE PACIFIC.

CO-OPERATION URGED. POSITION OF OUR DOMINION. Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) I United Press -association.) (Received 9.55 a.in.) Sydney, January 8. Professor Laoy, interviewed, said the co-operation or New Zealand and Australia in tne creation of an Australasian Navy, wnen first inoo-ed, aroused June interest, because New Zealanders thought tne decision 12 years ago not to join the Federation anally caused suen questions. Recently, however, the leaders of public opinion and tlie press had taken up the subject, but still there was very considerable reluctance to make any step forward in this direction. New Zealand was one of the most loyal parts of the Empire, and people suspected, rightly or wrongly, that Australians were not so much concerned as themselves in the maintenance of tne British connection. They saw what they took to be evidence thereof in the cvictuation of Lord Denman, and the fact that the embryo Australian Navy was not to be passed over automatically in wartime to the control of the Admiralty; also in tne Commonwealth’s refusal to appoint a representative on the Imperial Defence Committee. Personally, said the professor, he favoured co-operation, and it would be still more satisfactory if Australia, New Zealand and Canada joified together in the maintenance of a Pacific Fleet.