AUSTRALIA'S NAVY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 197, 9 January 1913, Page 5

AUSTRALIA'S NAVY.

CO-OPERATION WITH NEW ZEALAND. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Sydney, January 8. Professor Laby, interviewed on the co-operation of New Zealand and Australia in the creation of an Australasian navy, said that when the idea was first mooted it aroused little interest, because New Zealanders thought the decision of twelve years ago not to join the Federation had finally closed such questions. Recently, however, the leaders of public opinion and the press had taken up the subject, but there was sti'.l very considerable reluctance to make any steps forward in this direction. New Zealand was one of the most loyal ryirts of the Empire, and people suspected, rightly or wrongly, that Australians were not so much concerned as themselves in the maintenance of the British connection. They saw what they took to he evidence of this in the eviction of Lord Denman and the fact that the embryo Australian navy did not pass automatically in \v<tr time under the control of the Admiralty, also in the Commonwealth refusa'i to appoint a representative on the Imperial Defence Committee. Personally he favoured co-operation, and it would be still more .satisfactory it Australia, New Zealand and Canada joined in the maintenance of a Pacific fleet.