AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1924, Page 5

AUSTRALIA

iAuntr&Han and N.Z. Cable Association.

’ WELCOME RAIN. SYDNEY, September 11. Useful rains are falling over the greater part'of the State, and will greatly benefit the growing wheat.

MARRIAGE BILL. SYDNEY, September" 12. The Assembly read a third time the Marriage Bill, with the aid of the closure by H to 23. WHEAT ESTIMATE SYDNEY, September 12. The Government . Statistician reports that the estimated area sown in.wheat for the current season is 19,137,000 acres of which 3,400,000 can be harvested for grain'. An increase of 5,256 acres has been sown compared with 1923.

BENALLA ~ MURDER. SYDNEY, September 12.

In connection with the EnwriglL murder, the police have discovered part of a man's clothing and a tor *

paper on the window ledge, . also a' empty cartridge case of twehty-tiyi calibre. The bullets in the body have not yet been closely examined."

MURDERER’S APPEAL ! , SYDNEY, September 11. The prisoner Simpson is again appealing against the death sentence passed on him on September 2, for the I murder of Constable Clift. At ( t)ie " trial Simpson, in a statement from the dock, claimed that Clift and Constable Flynn were his best’, friends and their deaths were accidental. They received fatal wounds in trying to prevent him from committing suicide.

NO CHURCH UNION.

SYDNEY, September 12.

The committee’s report bn Church Union between the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational >

Churches of Australia was presented to the Presbyterian Assembly. It stated, inter alia, that the fact that there was such a divided state of feeling and opinion among office bearers and people of the Presbyterian Church, over bringing about an organic union makes it inadvisable for the present to press forward to organic union on a common, basic of doctrine and policy at the risk of serious division and fresh separation. The committee therefore recommended that the negotiations be suspended.

a'nzac day.

SYDNEY, September 11.

A deputation representing the Churches, patriotic associations,, and women’s organisations, asked Chief Secretary Oakes to legislate for stricter observation of Anzac Day, and place it on the same footing as Good Friday and Christmas Day by closing hotels and prohibiting races. They complained that under the existing conditions the day was desecrated and made a day of pleasure and excess, instead of sacred memories, by wholesale drinking and unlimited sports. Mr. Oakes said that the Government intended to act, along the lines suggested, including the .issue of a proclamation forbidding the opening of hotels or the holding of race meetings. . ’ . , . . .V .