AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 26 March 1936, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE

SEVEN MILLIONS TO BE SPENT THIS YEAR THIRTY*THREE RECONNAISSANCE PLANES NAVAL CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME > Ciwced Press Association— By Electric ■ Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 26th March, 11.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The “Herald’s” Canberra correspondent says the Australian Ministers who, it is expected will visit London next year for the Coronation, will confer with leading military, naval and air force authorities from Great Britain and other Dominions on a co-ordination plan of defence for the whole Empire and Imperial trade routes. Ihe “Daily Telegraph’s” Canberra correspondent says that £7,000,000 is to be spent on Australia’s defence plans between new and the end. of December. , Details of the revised programme disclosed by preliminary estimates are now before Cabinet. Features of the new plan include the purchase of thirty-three reconnaissance ’planes at a cost of £1,067,000, and a secret programme of naval construction, aimed at defence against destroyer raids. Further gun emplacements will' be constructed at Sydney Heads. Rottnest Island, Fremantle, will be fortified and a proposed Australian airmail factory will be. developed under private enterprise to a self-sufficient