WAR ITEMS

Grey River Argus, 31 October 1942, Page 6

WAR ITEMS

SYDNEY, October 30.

Sir Thomas Gordon, representative in Australia of the British Shipping Ministry, has been appointed Director of Shipping in Australia. Announcing the appointment, the Shipping Minister (Mr Beasley), said that Sir Thomas Gordon’s advice and experience would be most valuable to the Government in all the preparatory work of co-ordinating all activities connected with shipping.

8.0.W RUGBY, October 28. The first meeting took place to-day of the Commonwealth Supply Council, which has been established to meet the need for co-ordinating arrangements for supply throughout We Empire. The Minister of Production (Mr Lyttelton), is chairman of the Council, which also includes the Secretaries of State for the Dominions, for the Colonies, and for India, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Minister of Works. New Zealand, Australia and South Africa are represented by their High Commissioners. Because of her special position in relation to North American production. Canada will not take direct action in the work of the Council, but will keep in touch with its proceedings.

Although the death rate in Britain from all forms of tuberculosis rose 13 per cent, last year, compared with 1938-39, it fell in the first half of this year, according to a statement to-day by Sir William Jameson, Chief Medical Officer of’ the Ministry of Health. Fewer people were killed on British roads last month than in any September since the war began. The total of 553 is less than half the number killed in the first’ month of the war, and, among pedestrians, the decrease is as much as 75 per cent. 8.0.W. RUGBY, October 29. Reports of serious bomb attacks in Warsaw have reached the Polish Government in London. On October 24, bombs exploded in cafes reserved for German officers. One cafe was completed demolished. / Several German officers were killed and a score were wounded. Next day, the. Gestapo took 50 hostages from a Polish cafe threatening their death, if further outrages occur.

A meeting of protest against the German persecution of Jews was held in the Albert Hall, under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

General Sikorski said that the Jews in Poland were being persecuted and exterminated" ruthlessly, and in the mass Jews were herded ' into the ghettos of Warsaw. Lodz. Cracow, Lwow and Vilno. Driven east under appalling conditions, and treated far worse than herds of cattle, they were exterminated in tens of thousands. As a soldier, he warned the German torturers that they would not escape retribution for all the crimes committed.