AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

Otago Witness, Issue 4026, 12 May 1931, Page 29

AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

DEATH OF A PRIEST. NEW YORK, May 4. At Los Angeles Joseph M’Donald, a Roman Catholic priest from Australia, died last week, and on Monday complaints were issued charging two Indians with murder in connection with his death. At the inquest the accused admitted having struck M’Donald. TIMELY’ TREASURY’ WINDFALLS. NEW YORK, May 6. The State Treasury, which had a deficit of £4,000,000 recently, will end the fiscal year with a handsome surplus composed of windfalls and inheritance taxes from the estates of Mrs Whitelaw Reid and Mr George Baker. The estate of the latter will pay 10 per cent, on about £10,000,000. ECONOMIC DISTRESS. WASHINGTON, May 5. Breaking a two-year silence, Mr Andrew’ Mellon (United States Secretary to the Treasury) said that to-day tffisolution of the present economic distress would be found in individual initiative, and not by “ surrendering the management of business and industry to a Government or to any board or group of men.” He made this statement in the course of an address at a luncheon given to foreign bankers. VIEWS OF ENGLISH BANKER. LONDON, May 6. It lias become known that informal discussions were held at the House of Commons between Mr Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, and a group of Labour members, who . expressed the opinion that the remedy for the depression lies in central banking action aimed at the restoration of price levels. _Mr Norman is understood to have denied that there was any royal road to prosperity via currency regulation. He said that banking circles held that the main hope lies in a reduction in manufacturing costs, not only in the basic industries but also in the more prosperous trades, particularly in sheltered industries, which hitherto resisted the depression. In these costs are included soaring overhead charges aud high taxation. CRIMES WITH VIOLENCE. NEW YORK, May 6. An exceptional number of murders and sensational homicides are included in today’s lists of crimes with violence, which have been reported from all over the nation. A 20-year-old gunman killed a policeman and a dance hall girl, and then robbed a bank, and is believed to have shot his 16-year-old sweetheart. A man and a girl were found killed in New Jersey, but there was no clue to the murderers.

From Akron, Ohio, is reported the murder with an axe of a little girl by a woman who is apparently insane. At Westfield, Massachusetts, the police arrested a respected church organist for the brutal “ life insurance murder ” of a friend. The bodies of five persons were discovered in a Mississippi farmhouse, the victims prsumably being killed by the father of the family. A negro servant killed a banker and his wife in the same State. A young girl was unaccountably shot on a Cincinnatti street and died to-night. The police of New York shot two criminals, and two gangsters killed one of their companions.