PRESS CONFERENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3218, 16 June 1909, Page 5

PRESS CONFERENCE.

BERLINVIEWS. PANIC OR PATRIOTISM? "UNFOUNDED MISTRUST OF GERMANY." United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright. Received June 15, 8.20 a.m. BERLIN, June 14. Verv incomplete reports of the speeches of statesmen at the Press Conference have been published in the Berlin newspapers, but the unofficial organs are vacillating between the view that Britain is actuated by panic, and is endeavouring f o fright-, en the colonies into making great sacrifices for the Navy, and the opinion that the conference is the prelude to sober businesslike action. A semi-official telegram from Berlin to the "Cologne Gazette" states that Britain is a growr.-up nation, and knows what naval armaments are good for it. The German people object to what underlies these arma-ments-namely, a substratum of unjustified mistrust of Germany; but there is not the slighetst disposition to interfere with the armaments. "So far as we are concerned," says the telegram, "England can build as many Dreadnoughts as she likes, without our feeling any patriotic uneasiness in consequence." DELEGATES VISIT THE MIDLANDS. Received June 15, 8.50 a.m. LONDON. June 14. A party of delegates to the Imperial Press conference, numbering one hundred, visited ..Coventry. The city was decorated for the occasion, and the thoroughfares wtre crowded. The delegates inspected the Daimler works, and thence motored to Warwick, where they were entertained at luncheon in the Castle. Afterwards, in brilliant weather, the party motored to Strat ford-on - Avon, where thay viewed the Shakespeare memorials, and then went on to Bambury and Oxford. New Daimler cars, with Knight silent engines, were used on ttoe journey. Received June 15, 10 p.m. LONDON, June 15. Mr R. B. Haldane, Secretary of State for War, speaking at the Borderers* banquet at London, said that the impression made on the Press delegates was one of relief as to the extent to which army problems had been solved. The fleet stood first in order of necessity, and army organisation was essential in order to make the fleet effective. The Dominions were now recognising that their future depended on Kmpire defence as a whole.