STRICKEN AREAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1939, Page 7

STRICKEN AREAS

TOUR BY THE VICTORIAN PREMIER

BUSH FIRE DEATHS & DAMAGE.

INSURANCE & RELIEF FUNDS.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.

MELBOURNE, January 18.

The Prime Minister, Mr Dunstan, intends to tour the bush fire areas of south-eastern Victoria, where the total oi deaths is 68. An unofficial estimate of the claims against insurance companies is £300,000, involving upward of 1000 dwellings which were either destroyed or severely damaged. Public relief funds at present total nearly £lOO.OOO.

BRITISH SYMPATHY.

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY. January 17

The Dominions Secretary, Mr Malcolm MacDonald, has telegraphed to the Governor of New South Wales and the Commonwealth Government, expressing his sympathy at the loss of life, suffering and damage to property caused by the heat wave and the bush fires.

BRAVE REFUGEES

RETURNING TO HOMES TO START AGAIN.

DO NOT WANT TO WASTE ANY MORE TIME.

MELBOURNE, January 18.

The courage and independence of the bush fire refugees who want to return to their destroyed homes and make a fresh start is actually, providing relief organisations with '-a new problem. While the fires were sweeping the countryside and their homes being devastated refugees poured into central safety points and the relief organisations concentrated on getting supplies of food, bedding and clothing to these points. If the refugees now wander away, the relief task, already heavy, will be increased. Some of the refugees from Wood’s Point, who were provided for and accomodated at Seymour military camp have already left. Many of them, chiefly gold prospectors, are walking back saying that the fires will have cleared the undergrowth, making it easier to obtain gold. They do not want to waste any more time. So efficient has been the relief organisation that all pressing temporary needs have now been met, even to the extent of sending train loads of fodder to starving stock in the burnt-out areas. Measures of permanent rehabilitation are now under consideration. These will be more difficult as the policy must be determined, because some mill settlements are unlikely to be re-estab-lished because of forest destruction.

The relief fund is still growing and at least £70,000 is in sight, apart from possible Government grants, .. Tents have been supplied to many farmers who have erected them on the sites of their former homes and are carrying on as usual, milking the cows and farming generally.