The Government of the United Provinces has issued a communique about the recent incendi: forest fires in the Kumaun division.
Tt states that of the 400,000 acres of forest in this division, 250,000 acres have been burnt, the provective measures having broken down owing to the efforts of local incendiaries. who repeatedly lit fresh fires as the others were extinguished, There is ample evidence that the, villagers were incited to this whole-wanton destruction by agents of the Non-Ca-operation Party as a direct challenge to the Government to relax its control over the forests. As a result of the destruction, the large population employed on forest work will lose their means of subsistence. The communique concludes: "It is impossible to understand the perverted mentality of those who can see any connexion between acts of this kind and the attainment of Swaraj "Home Rule."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.