BANK CLEARINGS. SYDNEY, January 1.

Otago Witness, Issue 2808, 8 January 1908, Page 27

BANK CLEARINGS. SYDNEY, January 1.

The clearings of the banks during 1907 amounted to £234,170,000, being an increase of £13j390,000 over those of 1906. MELBOURNE, January 1.

The bank clearings during^ the year just ended totalled £236,500,000, being an increase of £15,600,000 over those of lastyear.

THE NAVAL AGREEMENT. , MELBOURNE, January 3. Mr Deakin has not yet received a reply to the cable he despatched to the Lords of the Admiralty nearly a month , ago

; urging them to reconsider their rejection" of the arrangement which he proposed should be substituted for the existing Naval Agreement. [Mr Deakin submitted to the -Imperial Government a proposal to substitute for thi present Commonwealth subsidy an offer of 1000 Australian seamen, paid by the Commonwealth, for service in the navy on this station, at an estimated cost of £100,000 annually.- The remainder of the present! subsidy would be applied by the Commonwealth to the purchase of submersiblee or destroyers, or similar local defences, and, as suggested at the London Conference, oj two' cruisers of the P 'class, or superior, manned by 400 of -the 1000 Australians, _to be retained on the "Australian coast in peace or war, and the loan of two P cruisers, or 'superior, to be 'maintained by the Commonwealth, for training the local naval militia, at an estimated cost -to fch4 Commonwealth of £60,000 per annunr. Thif proposed amendment is in addition to th< Commonwealth vote this, year of a-quartsx of a million for a naval harbour, and coast defence; and £50,000 for fortification of harbbursj