AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1944, Page 6

AUSTRALIA

SHOTS AT DOCTOR

SYDNEY. November 9

Armed detectives raided a weekend” cottage at a holiday resort near Sydney to arrest two men who were later charged with having shot Dr. Reginald Stuart Jones, with intent to murder him. The arrested men are Horace Clive Robinson (31), mechanic, and Alexander McDonald Jowett (29), labourer. Since the shooting of Jones on November 1 the police have conducted a house-to-house search, at all tourist resorts within 150 miles of Sydney. Four men have now been arrested in connection with the case.

- A second special Court was held at the bedside of Jones, who is now on the way to recovery.

DOBELLS AWARD

SYDNEY, November 8. The suit brought by a group of Sydney artists challenging the 1944 Archibald Prize award to William Dobells for his portrait of Joshua Smith has been dismissed. The appellants were ordered to pay octets. “I find, as a fact, that it is a portrait within the meaning of Archibald’s will, and consequently that the trustees did not err in admitting it to competition,” said Mr. Justice Roner in his reserved judgment, delivered to-day. “The picture in question is characterised -by some startling exaggeration and distortion, clearly intended by the artist, his technique being too brilliant to admit any other conclusion. It bears nevertheless a strong degree of likeness to the subject and is, 1 think, undoubtedly a pictorial representation of him.”

N.S.W. BUDGET

SYDNEY, November 9

The New South Wales State Budget brought down in the Legislative Assembly by the Premier and Treasurer (Mr. McKell) anticipates a surplus of a half million pounds tor 1944-5, compared with an actual surplus of nearly twelve hundred thousand for 1943-44. The two previous financial years also gave surpluses each of more than half a million pounds. Features of the new Budget are: Lotteries receipts in the State lotteries last vear were nearly a quarter mil-> lion pounds higher than the estimate. A further increase of fifty thousand pounds is budgeted for this year. Betting: Taxes from this source yielded eighty thousand pounds more than the estimate and totalisator receipts were £130.000 higher. Further increases are anticipated for 1944-45. State railways surplus of more than half a million pounds is expected compared with an actual surplus of £750,000 last year. The anticipated decline of three million pounds in the railway income is attributed to reduced war traffic,, coal restriction and drought. Mr. McKell said the failure of the Commonwealth’s wider power’s referendum meant that heavy burdens had been thrown back on the States, although the operation of a uniform income tax meant, the State Government had little direct control over their principal, revenue item. It seemed clear that if the States were to deal adequately ' with problems arising out of their post-war responsibilities some revisions of Commonwealth and State financial relationships would be necessary.