Melbourne, Thursday 2 February 1939

[Mr. Gowans]: You are a grazier and you live at Mansfield?
Yes.

Since 1910 you have held a Crown Forest lease in this neighbourhood?
Until 3 years ago.

Why did you cease to have it 3 years ago?
The conditions got too dangerous under the present system of managing the forests. It was not safe to have 500 or 600 head of cattle in the mountains, because in a year like this the lease would have been burnt out.

Is it the common view around here that the condition of the forests is such that it is dangerous to hold forest leases?
It is the opinion of every experienced man in the mountains through Gippsland and the north-east.

It is impossible to prevent fires. All kinds of things cause fires. Mostly they are caused by careless people, and by careful people with insufficient knowledge.

The idea is to go back practically to the cattle man's methods that were in use prior to 1926. We do not advocate and have never practiced burning the whole forest at once, either in the autumn, the spring or any other time.

We practiced burning a proportion of each run each autumn; on a 10,000 acre run we might burn 3,000 acres, and the next year 1,500 acres, depending on the season and the conditions. That area would not burn in the following year. In that way we always had the country practically safe, and the proof is that we never burned anybody out and never lost any lives.

Your suggestion is confined to burning on your own property?
Mine is not a suggestion. It is a proved fact that the practice was followed from Wangaratta right through North Gippsland, from the Snowy Plains to Mount Wellington.

Was the practice confined to your own run?
A man simply burned on his own run, but all his neighbours were doing the same.

Would you burn your neighbour's run if necessary?
He would not growl if you did, in the autumn.

We burned for 25 to 30 years. We were told by the Forests Commission that we were ruining the forests, but this year three mills have been put into the country that was said to be ruined, and they have 50 years timber to cut.

Is it your view that it would not matter if some [mountain ash] saplings were damaged [by your autumn burning]?
It would not matter. The fires that have gone through the forests this year have ruined more timber in 2 hours than all the cattle men of the East ruined in 50 years.

The Forests Commission has fallen down on the job in this year, at any rate. If I had a manager and he had three bad crashes in 13 years, I think I should sack him.