THE COOK STRAIT MINES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 51, 28 February 1918, Page 4

THE COOK STRAIT MINES.

LAID BY A MINE LAYER. c NOT THE WORK OF AMATEURS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The following statement has been issued by the naval adviser to the New Zealand Government, Captain P. H. HallThompson, with reference to the discovery of mines in New Zealand -waters:

"Tn order to allay various rumours as to the origin and the type of the mines, it is pointed out that they are of a known and distinctly German type and origin. They were firmly moored in position, and it is only under very exceptional circumstances that they would drift. They are not such as could be manufactured locally, nor could any amatesura deal with them, and it may be safely assumed they were laid by a vessel properly fitted for the purpose by the enemy. It is practically impossible for them to have been laid surreptitiously by any neutral or other vessel which visited New Zealan37"or other British ports, as the concealment of the mines themselves, and the necessary structural apparatus for launching them, would be practically impossible. It seems clear, therefore, that they must have been laid by a hostile enemy veauel, properly commissioned and organised for the work."