AUSTRALIA'S NAVAL CONSTRUCTION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 1 August 1913, Page 8

AUSTRALIA'S NAVAL CONSTRUCTION.

COCKATOO ISLAND DOCKYARD

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.

(Received August 1, 12.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, August 1. The closing of Cockatoo Island is due to a recommendation of the Naval Board, following the report of an expert that the boilers were unsafe. Mr Millen states that when the idfa of costructing vessels for the Australian Navy lit Cockatoo Island was proposed it. was stated that Fitzroy Dock was capable of doing ,the work, and the Fisher Government placed a render for a cruiser and three destroyers tyith the !<!e\Y South Wales Government, which then owner] the dock, but friction arose | between the dockyard authorities and ' the Naval Board. The latter reported that matters were in such a ; ondition that there was grave risk of the failure of New South Wales in completing the vessels. The Fisher Government therefore decided to take over the dockyard a^ the only solution. Much of the machinery is'good, <fiut a great deal of it i"s obsolete, and the plant _ generally largely requires reconstruction, which wilf seriously delay the completion of the vessels. Mi- Millen adds that the Commonwealth made an extremely bad bargain.