AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22544, 11 April 1935, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

POTATOES FROM NEW ZEALAND PROTEST AGAINST ADMISSION CANBERRA, April 10. A deputation of Senators and members of the House of Representatives waited on the Acting Prime Minister (Dr Earle Page) and the Minister of Trade and Customs (Mr T. W. White) to protest against the proposal to admit New Zealand potatoes into Australia. Tile speakers declared that the introduction of even a limited amount of potatoes on a fully supplied market would inevitably depress the market and cause many growers to abandon their holdings./ Dr Page promised to bring the deputation’s remarks before Cabinet. MURDER OF CHILD DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED MELBOURNE, April 10. The Executive Council commuted to three years’ imprisonment the sentence of death passed on Mary Stevens. Since she has been in gaol Stevens has retwo offers of marriage. For the first time for many years in Victoria a woman was sentenced to death when Mary Alice Stevens, aged 23, was convicted of having drowned her 13-months-old baby. It was stated that a young man had agreed to marry Stevens, but refused to keep another man’s child. Stevens said she had no intention of killing the child. She had arranged to have it adopted, but alter waiting for hours for a woman who was going to take it, she became ill and desperate, and could not remember what she did later. The jury strongly recommended the accused to mercy. DEATH OF A CHILD YOUNG MAN REMANDED MELBOURNE, April 10. On a charge of having murdered Ethel Belshaw, Gordon Herbert Knights, aged 19, a builder’s labourer, was remanded until April 17. Bail was refused.Ethel Belshaw, aged 12, who attended a beaeli carnival on New Year’s Day at Inverloch, South Gippsland, suddenly disappeared. Her body was found in the bush on January 2, with her hands tied behind her back, a stocking stuffed in her mouth, and her head terribly battered. Medical evidence disclosed that she had heen outraged and then murdered. The body was secreted in the bush a short distance from the spot where she was last seen. The inquiry following the discovery of the girl’s body was one of the most extensive ever undertaken by the Victorian police.