SPYING IN AUSTRALIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1938, Page 6

SPYING IN AUSTRALIA

ALLEGATIONS BY PREMIER OF QUEENSLAND ATTITUDE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NO FURTHER ACTION CALLED FOR AT PRESENT By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) CANBERRA, This Day. The Attorney-General (Mr R. G. Menzies) referring to the charges about a dummy company made by the Premier of Queensland (Mr W. Forgan Smith) said the circumstances were known last March. After considering the whole of the information, the Government had no evidence of any breach of the law having occurred, and it was satisfied that no further action was called for at present.

A recent cablegram from Brisbane read: —

The allegation that a “dummy” Australian company had supplied information to foreign interests about Australian nrineral resources, depths of water along the North Coast and places where seaplanes could land, was made by the Premier, Mr Forgan Smith, in 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 these 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.