Some idea of the magnitude of the recent fires may be gained from the strain a height of 300 feet. growing timber in this area has been killed, and with successful replanting it will be at least 20 yégrs before the new trees are big enough for milling.
Most of the State's timber mills of native game has been appalling. one fire alone 22,000 head of cattle were killed.
In one case a party of four men, a woman and a child were racing in a motor car along a main tourist highway to escape the fire, which overtook them. The whole party perished in the flames. A number of women and children died in the fires, while, curiously enough, in some instences babies survived hours of tor-nane: ment in the dug-outs where their 1 parents were killed. driven the enemy back to the north bank of the East River.
Unconfirmed vernacular reports stated that a part of the Japanese forces in Samshui and Sainam are retreating in the direction of Canton under pressure of the 12th Army Group. rehabilitate those who lost their homes and all their poss sions in the fires.
Many people also threw open their homes to refugees, and commercial organizations donated supplies and commercial organizations donated provided transport facilities with a promptness and generosity that greatly simplified the organization of Red Cross services.
The aftermath of the disaster has beer less happy. Recriminations are now the order of the day, and a bitter conflict has developed between mill-owners and graziers on the one hand and the Forests, Commission on the other. The Commission has not hesitated to blame graziers for starting the fires to clear the timber country for grazing purposes. The graziers claim thet it is better to have small fires every year than to adopt the Commission's policy of preventing burning-off until so much undergrowth has accumulated that a major disaster becomes inevitable.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.