SPYING IN AUSTRALIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1938, Page 7

SPYING IN AUSTRALIA

CHARGES BY QUEENSLAND PREMIER FORMATION OF DUMMY COMPANY ■ IN INTERESTS OF FOREIGN i POWER. By Telegraph—Press Association Copyright, j (Received This Day, 11 a.m.) BRISBANE, This Day. ? The allegation that a “dummy” Aus- ( tralian company had supplied informa- ? tion to foreign interests about Aus-ij tralian mineral resources, depths of■ water along the North Coast and places < where seaplanes could land, was made, by the Premier, Mr Forgan Smith, in I Parliament. He said he had statutory. letters, photostats and documents in ; his possession to prove his allegation; and he had supplied details of this information to the Defence Department. Mr Forgan Smith said the company,. ; purporting to be Australian, proposed to engage in mining iron ore, lead, wolfram, copper, tin and all metals useful for armament purposes. The company had applied for leases in Queensland and, in consideration of tnese leases being obtained, certain people, as a beginning, were to get £20,000. Correspondence, which he had,’ disclosed that the company was merely a dummy and the real company was in a foreign country. Interviewed later, Mr Forgan Smith declined to say which foreign Power’s agents his Government had discovered. “We have to be so careful these days,” he said.