PARTIES ON WARSHIPS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 23

PARTIES ON WARSHIPS

PROTEST TO MINISTER

DANGER OF ESPIONAGE

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, July 25

Mr. Tom Collins, a member of the House of Representatives, has written to the Minister of Defence (Mr. Street) demanding that cocktail parties on naval ships should be banned.

"The practice is wrong and should be stopped immediately," said Mr. Collins. "Nowadays spies are everywhere, and unfriendly people may be within our gates, ready to seize information. for a potential enemy In these uncertain times a warship is no place for a cocktail party. As we read from time, to time of trouble on submarines and merchant vessels, our anxiety is increased. "Moreover, ratings cannot be expected to feel happy when officers are giving cocktail parties and the men are denied some little concession or privilege they may be seeking from the authorities." Naval officers contended that the danger of espionage and disruption in the Navy had been exaggerated. "In j most cases the ship is the officer's] home—the only place where he ought to return shore hospitality," said an j | officer. "The naval officer in his ship j has to pay for the entertainment of his guests like anyone else. The public do not have to pay. Nor would the ratings expect tne public to pay for their entertainments on snips. Their friends and relatives come aboard on Saturdays and Sundays. They organise dances, which are held on the quarterdeck, where officers' dances are held. Officers appear as a matter of routine at the dances conducted by the ratings. The men know how to entertain and how to enjoy themselves." •

"I have no objection whatsoever to dances or children's parties on warships," said Mr. Collins, in reply.'"but cocktail parties are in a different category. At cocktail parties, particularly big ones, there are people who are unknown to the hosts, and, despite what the naval people say about sentries, I think that unauthorised persons at these parties could see things they are not supposed to see. In America recently we have seen the activities of foreign spies, and I think that in Australia we are far too complacent in this respect and feel 'it can't happen here.' It is my considered opinion that cocktail parties on warships are not only unnecessary but dangerous."