AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 September 1944, Page 5

AUSTRALIA

DOCTOR’S FATAL ERROR.

MELBOURNE, September 13

By direction of the Judge at Bendigo a jury acquitted Dr. Gerald Russell Fetherston on a charge of having unlawfully killed Rev. Walter James Ding, a Baptist pastor, who died on June 21 from peritonitis, following an operation performed by Dr. Fetherston. The prosecution alleged the operation had been carelessly performed. Addressing the jury, Judge Maclndoe said that to prove criminal negligence against the doctor it must be shown beyond all reasonable doubt that what the doctor did was of such a criminal nature as to deserve punishment. The evidence heard appeared to reduce to the very short compass that the doctor had undoubtedly made a mistake. On the medical evidence it appeared that any skilled medical man might fall into the same error in diagnosing the condition of the bladder or the rigidity of the stomach. It would not be safe to allow the jury to run the risk of finding him guilty.

INDUSTRIAL PEACE

SYDNEY, September 13.

Not a single industrial dispute has occurred in any New South Wales coal mine for a week. Not only are all mines working, but the rate of production at several pits has. been stepped up considerably. All records have been broken in the last two weeks, and it is expected that new production figures will be set during the present period. To-day is the eleventh successive day in which the State’s northern field, the storm centre of the recent disputes, has been free of strikes. TRADE WITH N.Z. (Rec. 10.25 a.m.) MELBOURNE, September 14. Mr Heany, Secretary of the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce, said to-day that his hopes for a better basis for post-war Australian—New Zealand reciprocal trade had been considerably raised by the ment of the forthcoming meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Ministers, for the purpose of implementing the, recent trade agreement. It was hoped that the meeting would result in some adjustment of the £4,500,000 trade difference. There was no justification, he said, for assuming that there ‘ was undue discrimination by New Zealand

against Australia in the matter oi tariffs. In fact, if the tariff schedule were taken as a whole Australia received, the same favourable treatment as Canada, and, by reason of the trade agreement, was better off than South Africa. He hoped that in trade matters the Australian Governments, both State and Commonwealth, would recognise the Dominion, as a sovereign State with full rights to decide its own destiny.