AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 November 1944, Page 5

AUSTRALIA

ALLEGED PILLAGING. SYDNEY, November 1. Ten charges have been preferred against Clifford Maxwell, aged 32 years, who was arrested m the bush at the revolver point by the police, who had searched a house at Sutherland, near Sydney, yesterday, seeking goods suspected of being pillaged from the Railway Department The charges included the causing of fires, having in his possession goods suspected of being stolen; stealing from the Railway Department; and possessing an unlicensed pistol. For some months police have been investigating the disappearance of merchandise valued at thousands of pounds trom the N.S.W. Railways. t 1 , The fires, which were started when a secret dump of stores in the bush were blown up, and a second dump of tyres had been set alight, aitei petrol had been poured over them, burned for six hours, and firemen had difficulty in saving four weatherboard cottages occupied by eldei y women and a number of young children.

WOOL COUNCIL MELBOURNE, November 1. The establishment of a Wool Consultative Council within the Ministry of Post-war Reconstruction is included in plans for encouraging wool research and publicity announced tonight by the Prime Minister, Mr Curtin. It is proposed to spend about £600,000 yearly, which is to be raised by a tax of two shillings a bale on wool, and a contribution of two shillings a bale by the Government. Mr Curtin said the Government was convinced that wool research and publicity was a matter of great urgency if the threat of alternative materials was to be withstood. It was intended that the research work should be divided into three heads: (1) Primary production; (2) the wool textile industry; (3) General national and international economics of the wool industry, and of competing and complementary fibres. REHABILITATION (Recd. 12 noon) SYDNEY, Nov. 2. The New South Wales State Council of the Returned Soldiers’ League has adopted a “blueprint for rehabilitation” submitted by a special committee. The report is regarded as the. most comprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation of Australian service personnel yet compiled. It was drawn up after investigations lasting four months. The main recommendations are a £5OO advance to ex-servicemen and war widows to establish, themselves in business or profession; a £4O clothing allowance to servicemen and servicewomen on discharge; a war gratuity free of income tax and based on the length of service overseas; a weekly living allowance for discharged personnel while they are awaiting employment and during temporary periods of involuntary unemployment. The report criticised the Commonwealth reconstruction training scheme as being “too narrowly and rigidly conceived.”