from the Natal Indian Congress, praying that the Immigrants Restriction Bill be amended so as to afford greater facilities for the movements of Asiatics.

from M. K. Ottley, wife of C. R. Ottley, late sub-inspector, Natal Police.

from the Cape British Indian Union, praying that the Immigrants Restriction Bill be so amended as to leave no uncertainty as to the rights of educated Asiatics passing the education test, of entering and remaining in the Transvaal and other Provinces without being subjected to the registration laws of the different Provinces, and further praying that the protection for their families, as now exists under the Transvaal laws, may he embodied in the Bill.

Regulations for examination in Natal of Indian immigrants for hook-worm infection.

Estimates of Expenditure (Transvaal), year ending March 31st, 1912.

as chairman, brought up the first report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, as follows:

Your committee, having considered Votes 1 to 12, inclusive, of the Estimates of Expenditure for the ensuing financial year referred to them, and having had in attendance the heads of departments concerned, and others, beg to report as follows:

Vote 2 (Senate). Vote 4 (Joint Parliamentary Expenses).—Attention is directed to the high scale of salaries obtaining under these Votes. Your committee consider that these salaries might well be reconsidered, but, in view of the fact that the matter formed the subject of inquiries by special committees appointed by Parliament they are not prepared to, make any specific recommendation thereon. Attention is also directed to the anomaly which exists in that the caretaker of the Houses of Parliament lives away from the buildings. Your committee would recommend that the item “Rent—caretaker’s quarters” should not appear on future Estimates, but that arrangements be made to house the caretaker on the premises.

Vote 6 (Agriculture).—Working of Steam Ploughs (Natal): Your committee recommend that the attention of the Department of Agriculture be directed to the loss of £4,000 on the working of these ploughs, and that in future every endeavour be made to regulate the price so that the loss may be reduced as far as possible. Your committee further recommend that should an opportunity occur to dispose of all or any of the said ploughs at a reasonable price, and without serious loss, such opportunity should be taken advantage of.

Incidental Expenses: In the opinion of your committee it is desirable that the item, “Inquiries into fig-drying in Asia Minor and currant making in Greece, £750,” under this sub-head should be withdrawn from the Estimates pending further inquiry.

Expenses in connection with brandy taken over from the Agricultural Distillers’ Association: With regard to this item your committee are of opinion that the resolutions adopted by the Cape House of Assembly in the session of 1900 might with advantage be rescinded, and the Government authorised to take such steps as may be necessary for the gradual disposal of the brandy still on hand.

Vote 7 (Interior).—Administration: Your committee recommend that the attention of the Government be directed to the expenditure on “Keeper of Archives” and “Allowance to Colonial Historiographer” with a view to steps being taken to co-ordinate those departments under some directing body. Your committee further desire to draw attention to the item “Temporary clerical assistance and acting appointments” on page 51, and are of opinion, from the evidence received, that the Department of the Interior is seriously overmanned.

Vote 9 (Asylums).—It having come to the notice of your committee that services in connection with inmates of asylums which are paid for in some Provinces are not paid for in others, they recommend that steps be taken to bring about uniformity of practice and to secure payment from all who can afford it.

Vote 10 (Printing and Stationery).—Your committee recommend that the Controller and Auditor-General should examine the trading account of the Printing Department and report to this committee thereon during the next session of Parliament.

Vote 11 (Defence).—Your committee recommend that immediate steps be taken for the co-ordination of the duties of the headquarters staff of the Defence Department, without waiting for the promulgation of a general scheme of defence.

Generally.—Your committee direct attention to the fact that all the permanent heads of departments seem, to be graded at the same rate of pay, and would recommend that in fixing the salaries of these officers regard should be had to the importance and responsibility of the various posts and that the salaries should range accordingly. Your committee recommend, for the consideration of the Government-, that it is inadvisable as a general rule to place professional officers on the fixed establishment. Finally, your committee recommend that a system of attendance books be instituted throughout the Service.

Chairman.

March 20th, 1911.

pointed out that no members were in possession of the Bill. He did not object to the first reading, however.

This practice is quite in order. Leave is granted, and the Bill is read a first time as a matter of course.

The Bill was read a first time, and the second reading was set down for Monday.

said that he did not wish to object to the second reading either, but he thought that they ought to be in possession of the Bill.

said that a change had been made in the Bill which would inflict a very great hardship upon a section of the mining world which could least bear additional burdens. He referred to coal mining in Natal. Clause 8 (1) laid it down that “no person so employed underground on any mine shall be a boy apparently under the age of 16 years, or any female.” In debating the clause in committee it was pointed out that a large number of mines in Natal and elsewhere were able to employ boys under the age of 16 with great advantage to the boys and to the employers. The fact that a very large proportion of the natives in certain mines were youngsters under the age of 16, he thought, demonstrated the usefulness of this labour. He moved that “16” be omitted for the purpose of substituting “14,” as in the clause originally.

in seconding the amendment, said he could endorse all that the hon. member for Greyville had said. He hoped the Minister would accept the amendment, and thus put the clause back into the same position as before.

said that the hon. member for Durban had correctly stated the situation. Originally the age limit for underground work was 16 years. (Hear, hear.) Then the hon. member for Queenstown raised the knotty problem of what was the meaning of puberty. Finally, an amendment was moved by the hon. member for Fordsburg, with which he (General Smuts) agreed, that the age should be fixed at 14 years. He believed his right hon. friend (Mr. Merriman) agreed to that. Last time when the matter was before the House his right hon. friend moved that they should revert to the original period of 16 years, and he said that that amendment arose from evidence which he had listened to before one of the Select Committees, and that by the too early employment of these native boys they were damaging their labour resources of the future. He (General Smuts) agreed to accept the period of 14 years as fair under all the circumstances. Ha was still of opinion that they should stick to 14 years. (Hear, hear.) The native boy of 14 years was a boy of very considerable physical development, certainly equal to a European boy of 16 or perhaps 17. They had to keep the native boy’s development, in mind when they came to fix this question, which affected economic questions in this country. He agreed that it would be unfair to recruit piccanins for the mines. He hoped that the House would revert to the limit of 14 years and above, as the age at which underground work on the mines might be allowed.

said he was very sorry indeed to find that his hon. friend was willing to alter this clause. He told his hon. friend at his side (Mr. Currey) that the Minister was going to consent to this. He began in one direction, and before he finished up he was going directly opposite. (Laughter.) That was a very able trait, and one that he only wished he had himself. (Laughter.) Still, it always brought the idea that you never knew where you had that particular member. He must say it was impossible for him (Mr. Merriman) to vote for the reversion to the old clause, after hearing the evidence. These boys were going up to their goldfields, and they were brought up there by people who were greedy for gain., and who got money simply to recruit these boys. It was had enough for men to go there, morally and physically—the atmosphere was excessively injurious to the adult —but it was very much more injurious to boys. If they agreed to fix the age at 14 years then they would ruin the future native labour supply. When he moved the other day that the age should be 14, he did so with the idea of white boys learning. He understood that the white boys would be under the charge of somebody else, but he had found that it was simply owing to the greed for gain that they were going to subject native youngsters to future deterioration and possible extinction. He did not think that that was right.

said that he was glad the Minister had reconsidered the matter. He pointed out that the health conditions in the coal mines in Natal were totally different to those prevailing on the Rand, and congratulated the Minister upon the very practical view he had taken of the matter. He expressed the hope that “14” would be reinserted.

said that it was an injustice both to the parents of young natives and to the farmers, who wanted them, so badly, that piccanins should be taken away to work in the mines at too early an age. He would rather move that the minimum age should he 18 than that it should be reduced to 14.

said that this was a matter which concerned the natives, and he thought the House had a right to look to the Minister of Native Affairs for some guidance.

said it would be a scandal if the House sanctioned the employment of youths under the age of 16 years in any mine. The hon. member (Mr. Wiltshire) had spoken of the Natal mines as if they were the only mines in the country; but this clause applied equally to underground working on the gold mines on the Witwatersrand. He admitted that the danger of miners’ phthisis was not so great in the case of the Natal coal mines as in the case of the Rand gold mines. His strongest objection to this clause was that youngsters were to be kidnapped from their fathers and mothers, and he was surprised that anyone professing himself to be a citizen in a Christian country would connive at, or help forward, any such movement. He thought that 16 years was altogether too early an age for a boy to work underground, considering the circumstances of the country. In the case of the coal mines in England, the circumstances were entirely different. There the bays accompanied their fathers, but here the native youngsters were to be sent hundreds of miles away from home, and exposed to all sorts of dangers and temptations.

supported the age being fixed at 16 years. He disagreed with the Minister that a native boy at the age of 14 years was of the same physique as the European of 16 years. If they sent native boys under the age of 16 years to the mines they would undermine the future generation of natives, because they became infected with all sorts of diseases and vicious habits. The official vital statistics were incomplete, because many young natives went back to their kraals to die of complaints contracted in the mines, but no record was kept of those deaths.

said he had moved the amendment to insert “14,” because “16” was moved out of the clause in committee before he was aware of it.

He was very glad to see that 16 was put back, and he would cordially support it.

said he took it that the object of the clause was to prevent children from being employed in underground work. The legislation in other countries was all in this direction. He thought that on this occasion the Minister, in his anxiety to meet the mine owners, had misinterpreted the feeling of the House.

said that the Select Committee on the Native Labour Regulation Bill had unanimously taken the view that young natives under the age of 18 years should not be recruited for work underground. The evidence all pointed to the desirability of this prohibition from all points of view. A clause had, therefore, been inserted in the Native Labour Regulation Bill which left it to the discretion of the Magistrates to refuse to attest any contracts made with boys apparently under the age of 18 for underground work. Of course, that did not necessarily interfere with the clause now under discussion, since it applied only to recruitment, and not to boys who went voluntarily to the mines, or to Europeans.

said no information had been put before the House which would justify it in receding from the position taken up before. How could a boy of 14 appreciate his position under any contract which he might sign?

said there was Provision that Magistrates should approve of contracts, so that it was ridiculous to talk of kidnapping, and that sort of thing. He could not see that there was any reason for preventing youths of over 14 from doing light work on the mines.

said that in the Transvaal, so far as he knew, none of these young boys were employed underground, though a great many were employed on the surface, at the sorting tables and so on. He understood that in Natal these boys were employed in, the collieries, but that the work they had, to do was absolutely healthy. He was quite indifferent as to which of the two ages was put in the Bill—14 or 16—because they knew it was extremely difficult to get the true age of a native boy, and they had to judge from appearances. He therefore thought it would be better to give the officials under the Minister discretion to determine as to the age of a boy and his fitness for the work.

said it had been shown that work in the collieries of Natal was not harmful to these youths. He saw no reason why they should interfere with the conditions under which the industry had been working.

said that in Natal no native who was too young to be taxed could be recruited. That meant that the minimum age was 18.

said he would prefer to see the age raised instead of lowered.

said he was astonished to see how many members were prepared to sink feelings of humanity in favour of those of profit. He had seen youths under 16 working in the mines, and they were nothing but skin and gristle.

The amendment to reduce the age from 16 to 14 years was negatived.

in withdrawing an amendment to clause 11, of which he had given notice, expressed the hope that the Bill would be recast, and that there would be introduced into it a great deal of the matter which the Minister of the Interior proposed to deal with by regulation. (Cheers.)

The Bill was read a third time.

moved: That the Order for the second reading of the Irrigation Bill be discharged, and that the subject matter of the Bill be referred to a Select Committee for consideration and report, the committee to consist of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, Sir Thomas Smartt, Sir Henry Juta, Messrs. Merriman, Oosthuisen, Schoeman, Neser, Clayton, Becker, Heatlie, Brown, King, Oliver, General Lemmer, and, the Minister of Lands, the mover to be specially exempted from service thereon.

seconded.

regretted that in that matter the Orange Free State had been ignored, and said that there was not a single member from the Orange Free State on the proposed committee, with the exception of the Minister of Lands. Be hoped that this would be remedied.

said that although not much had been done for irrigation in the Orange Free State, that was all the more reason why they should have better representation on the committee. The Cape Province or the Transvaal would not like to be treated as the Free State was treated. Again, there was something to be said against the composition of the committee, because four of its members represented contiguous constituencies in the Cape Province. His constituents had not had any opportunity either of considering that matter. He must strongly protest against the way in which they were treated in that matter.

hoped that such an important matter would not be considered from the Provincial standpoint. So long as certain hon. members counted the number of members from each Province on a committee, they did not have a proper idea of what the Union of South Africa, meant. The reason why four members came from a certain portion of the country, was because they had practical experience of irrigation, and the only object had been to get the best possible men on the committee. (Hear, hear.) He was prepared to increase the number of members, but in the Free State people were not, generally speaking, experts ion irrigation. Moreover,: hon. members should not be obsessed by the consciousness of representing one particular, Province.

said if it would aid the Minister in settling the matter, he would be most happy to stand down in favour of a practical farmer representing the Free State. (Hear, hear.)

said; that the Orange Free State and Natal hack not had that experience of irrigation as the other Provinces, and so it was only right that men who had practical experience of the subject should be appointed on the: committee.

said that he would have preferred that the second reading should have been taken first, and the principles of the Bill discussed, before it was referred to the Select Committee. (Hear, hear) He would not, however, object to the personnel of the, committee.

said that if the hon. member for Vryheid went round the Orange Free State, as he had done, he would find out that there were men who knew a great deal about irrigation. Such a measure affected the rights of a large number of people, and it should be seen to that those rights were not interfered with. He agreed that the Free State should be more fully represented.

hoped that an opportunity would be given for evidence to be taken by the Select Committee, especially in connection with such a very important subject as irrigation, in which every district was interested, and on which many people would wish to be heard. It was a dangerous proceeding not to give the committee power to take evidence, and was a had principle.

also spoke, but his remarks could not he caught in the gallery.

said that the Minister would not get his Bill through that session, and he might as well withdraw it now. (Laughter.) There was no more intricate subject, and one which took a longer time to discuss, than an Irrigation Bill, as the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. Smartt) well knew from actual experience. (Laughter.) Four or five amended Bills had had to be sent to hon. members on that occasion. (Laughter.) He was afraid that the Minister of Lands would have the same experience.

said that he was sure that all hon. members hoped they were getting at the end of the session—(cheers)—and no useful purpose could be served, he thought, by referring the Bill to a Select Committee, because from what he had gathered, the subject matter of the Bill would lead to a long and acrimonious discussion. They would not, therefore, finish it that session. He hoped the Minister, having placed the Bill on the table, would consider the question of giving an opportunity to members and the country to consider this important Bill, so that when they came back another session, they would be able to go fully into the matter. He would appeal to the Minister to accept an amendment which he (Mr. Orr) now moved, that all the words after “discharged” be omitted from the motion of the Minister.

seconded.

put the question that all the words after “discharged” proposed to be omitted stand part of the motion. On the voices, he declared that the “Ayes” had it.

A division was called for with the following result:

moved that the committee have power to take evidence and call for papers.

seconded.

The motion was agreed to.

moved, as an amendment, that the committee should consist of 17 members, instead of 15.

seconded.

The motion to omit “15” and substitute “17” was carried.

said that the hon. member (Mr. Keyter) could give notice of the two additional names.

The fifteen names mentioned in the motion and the motion itself were agreed to.

said that when they switched off this subject ten days ago, there was a complaint made that the House had not before it either the railway statement or the details of the Loan Bill, which the Government intended to introduce. Ten days had elapsed, and they were now about to continue the discussion on the financial affairs of the country without having any statement of the railway financial position. He had hoped that the Government would have taken the opportunity of putting the railway financial position before the House, but to-day he found that the Minister of Railways had given notice to lay the statement on the table a week hence. That was a most inconvenient procedure. This week they would be discussing one half of the finances of the country, and next week they would be discussing the other half, and consequently it would be impossible to say now what the real position was. With regard to the Loan Bill, there was even less excuse. When the Minister of Finance made his financial statement he indicated that a Loan Bill was to be introduced. He indicated what the amount was to be, but they had not yet the details before them, and, consequently, they would be discussing the financial position of the country without knowing what the Government intended to introduce with regard to railway development and loan proposals. When the House adjourned, he was endeavouring to put before it some idea of what the real position of the country was. He maintained that the Minister of Finance had not kept his promise, made only a few months ago, that there would be laid before Parliament a comprehensive survey of the finances of the country and the policy of the Government. The Minister had given no indication of any policy of that kind. As far as he remembered, he asked the House to consider what the financial position of the country was, because they were a poor country. They were poor, because their resources were undeveloped, because they had only just begun to develop them. They were dependent entirely, almost entirely, upon their mineral wealth, and he wanted them to keep in mind the fact that their 116 millions of debt was debt which had been incurred in this country because of their mineral wealth. Without their minerals they should not owe that debt, because they would not have been able to borrow it. Out of the total products of this country which were exported, four-fifths were the products of the mines, and approximately one-fifth were agricultural products. He thought they should keep that fact in mind, as well as the fact that the products of the mines were necessarily of a temporary character. They might get various estimates as to the lives of the mines. He did not think it was necessary to go into that, but it was necessary to keep in mind that this source of wealth which they now enjoyed was going to stop. However long it listed it would, and must, eventually come to an end. It was not a source of revenue which the country could regard as permanent. Today, four-fifths of their revenue came from the mines, and their whole scale of expenditure was only possible to-day because of the wealth taken from the mines. But that was a source of wealth that was going to cease, and that was what he wanted hon. members to keep in mind. His complaint against the Minister of Finance was that apparently, so far as his statement showed, he had not realised that position, and had made little effort to begin to meet that position. Their mines gave a magnificent opportunity, and they would be very foolish, indeed, if they were not grateful for such an opportunity, and did not take proper advantage of it. What was the proper advantage? He ventured to submit that the mines gave them a magnificent opportunity for development of the resources of the country, and if they were only wise enough to take from the mines the wealth which they gave them, and! spent it on development, then they and posterity for all time would reap enormous advantage If they neglected that opportunity, and allowed this wealth to pour into their coffers, to be poured out again, and dissipated in extravagance, then they would find themselves in a worse position than if they had never had mines at all. They had two courses open. They might either do as he suggested they might increase the production of the country by prudent development, and he believed that if they did so persistently and prudently they would put the agricultural industry of this country on a footing which would enable them to make up any loss that might accrue to them through the extinction of the mines—or they might pay off their debt. In his opinion, the House would be wise to follow these two alternatives, and spend more and more on development, and at the same time reduce their debt. He did not agree with the policy of the Minister of Finance when he actually proposed to cut down the present amount which was devoted for the reduction of debt. The Budget seemed to him to make vary little provision for what they might call development, and that he very much regretted. The Prime Minister had told the country of the great development policy of his Government. He had told the country that he was going to bring before Parliament large irrigation and land bank schemes, and that generally he was going to push development. Well, he (the speaker) saw very little signs of that policy in this Budget. He took irrigation, and only found an amount of £122,000 for that purpose. He also found that in the Loan Bill there was only £350,000 for irrigation purposes. He sincerely hoped the Prime Minister would insist on his excellent ideas on development, which he put before the country, being adopted by his Cabinet, end embodied in measures. Now, where did they find their money going to? If they searched the Estimates they saw very little evidence of the existence of a policy. On the other hand, they found a readiness to pay out money which was simply alarming. They found that the minimum salary which was being paid to the head of any department in the Union was about £1,500 a year. There might be departments to the heads of which it was necessary to pay that enormous salary; but these departments were very few. It was a preposterous sum to pay to the head of any State department in this country. It was beyond their needs, and they could not continue to pay such sums, It was wicked extravagance, and if they continued it a policy of development would be hopeless, for the reason that they would not have the money for it. Several Bills had been brought forward which were going to add considerably to the cost of administration. They were going to do what was a most dangerous thing for this or any other country to do: they were going to pile up the cost of administration and starve the expenditure on works of development. They had already had evidence of how recklessly money was being spent on administrative work. They found the other day that they had a large number of clerks —in the office of the Minister of the Interior, he believed it was—who were checking the accounts four times. First, the accounts were checked in the office from which they came then in the Treasury, then in the head office of the Minister for the Interior, and then by the Auditor-General. Well, of course, the thing was preposterous. It was an utter waste of money. He had no doubt to-day hundreds of men were doing this quadruple checking work and drawing substantial salaries. It was folly to spend money in this way when the country wanted it for works of development. Proceeding, Sir Edgar said the Minister had shown what he must call a bogus surplus of £478,000, which the Minister manufactured toy taking more from the railways than he required for his ordinary deficit. He would remind the House that last year the Minister said there was only one thing to do with surpluses, and that was to pay them into the Sinking Fund in order to wipe off the debt. Well, the Minister had not done that. He proposed to take this money and another £350,000 from the Railway Department for a fund for public works. Well, he (Sir Edgar) was not sure whether that transaction was strictly in accordance with the South Africa Act. The Minister had not taken this money from the railway to pay off the deficit. He had taken more than he wanted to pay off the deficit, in order to make up a fund for public works. Well, while on the point of public works, he hoped that before long the House would be able to see a list of the works which were proposed. Be hoped, too, they would be of a useful character, and not on the lines of the Pretoria public buildings. The latter, he thought, indicated the line on which the Government proposed to proceed with their expenditure, unless checked by the House. Of course, the Minister had to put up public buildings in Pretoria, but he thought that it would be found that the country had wasted a million on these buildings. That was to say that the works would cost the country a million more— the eventual cost, he meant—than they need have cost—that they would have got all the provision they required in Pretoria for their public servants for a million less than they were going to spend. What good was the country going to get out of that expenditure? They had got a lot of embroidery and a beautiful structure—the sort of thing that a millionaire who had gone a little off his head might take some pleasure in building and looking at— (laughter)—but for a Government to take this money out of the taxpayers’ pockets, which had tremendous claims upon it for useful works, and to throw it away like this was almost inconceivable. Here was this money wasted in one thing when it was urgently needed for another. This way of handling public money must be stopped. Then he found, on going through the records of the Minister’s (Mr. Hull’s) administration before Union, that the Minister had done some extraordinary things. He found the Minister lent an official of the Government a large sum of money to buy a farm It was improper to lend the money under any circumstances, but it was doubly improper to lend it to an official of the Government who was supposed to give all his time to the service of the State. Then they found a loan to another official of £l,850, to pay off a debt; a loan of £400 to a gentleman described as a confectioner, to start business in Johannesburg, and an advance of £100 to the same gentleman since. He supposed the Minister would go on subsidising this man’s business. Then there was a pension of £505 improperly paid to an official as a pension, and further there were large items paid as extra remuneration to officials, and instances of officials being improperly and illegally appointed. The Minister seemed to take these things lightly, but he could assure the Minister that Parliament was not going to do so. They were not going to have money dealt with in this loose way; they were going to do their best to keep the Treasurer of the Union within the four walls of the law in the handling of the public moneys. (Hear, hear.) Proceeding, the hon. member said the Minister, who was always fond of scoring off the Cape, told them last year that the revenue balance from the Transvaal was one and a quarter millions. This year he told them this balance was only £876,000. If they looked at the Auditor-General’s report they would find that of this sum £600,000 was specially earmarked for certain expenditure, so that the real revenue balance from the Transvaal was £200,000. The figures given by the Minister were absolutely incorrect and misleading. Then the Minister, in speaking of the various balances handed over to the Union, said that the Cape had taken credit for a balance of £163,000 on its revenue account, but the fact was that it had had to borrow £3,635,000 to do this, so that it really brought up a deficiency on its revenue account of £3,472,000.

Quite right.

said that a more grotesquely wrong statement was never made by anybody who could add two and two together. And not only did the Minister say that, but immediately afterwards he published a book, in which he proved himself to be wrong. In another book was published a comparative statement of revenue and expenditure in the various colonies Now the net deficit of the Cape was £53,194. That was from the Minister’s own statement. How the Minister arrived at 31/2 millions was by taking a few very had years, which happened before Union, and lumping them together, not taking into account the good years. Now, as regarded the debt, he was sorry the Minister did not make a comparison between what was re-productive debt, which paid its own way and the non-reproductive debt. The total debt of the Cape was £52,761,000, of which £38,000,000, or 73.5 per cent., was reproductive. In the Transvaal £18,000,000 was reproductive, equal to 55 per cent. Natal had a total debt of 22 millions, of which eight millions were reproductive, and the Free State had a total debt of eight millions, of which five millions were reproductive Of our total debt, 80 millions might be taken as reproductive, and 36 millions a: non-reproductive. Ho thought the Minister of Finance would have great difficulty in funding the debt, and would complicate the position if he attempted to go to the London market with the sort of scheme he had placed before the House All efforts at debt conversion had not been satisfactory, and he did not think Mr. Hull would find it very profitable. We had (proceeded Sir Edgar) public money invested in a way never done before, there being very large sums in banks, and in some cases without any security. He could not regard the position as satisfactory, and it should be altered at the earliest possible moment. (Opposition cheers.) We should have an Investment Board, and then the present position would not be continued very long. Mr. Hull was going to endeavour to introduce Loan Bills twice over in that House. He (Sir Edgar) did not see what good that was going to do.

Sound finance.

I should call it rather stupid finance, and rather cumbering the work of Parliament. (Hear, hear.) When Parliament has given its sanction to a loan, that should end it. You get no protection from the public by coming to Parliament a second time. On the other band (proceeded Sir Edgar), suppose a 20-million scheme, of which only a portion was to be carried out at first, was presented to Parliament, difficulty would be experienced in raising the first portion of the money, as the London money market would know that a further sum would have to be raised later on. Was it the real intention of Government to introduce proposals to reduce taxation on the Transvaal and Free State mines? Mr. Hull was in error when he stated that the Cape mines paid no contribution to the State; as a matter of fact, the Cape diamonds had been contributing for some years past. If the taxes on the Transvaal and Free States mines were reduced, the general taxpayer would have to make it up. He could not see that there was any justice in the request that these taxes should be reduced, because—as he understood it—the Transvaal and Free State mines commenced to work on the understanding that Government would have a certain share. To summarise what he had said, he would repeat that there was no financial policy on the part of the Government to be discussed. There was an absence of policy which was dangerous, and he urged the House to use its influence on Government to see that there was a definite financial policy carried out, that there was economy exercised in the expenditure of public money, that as little as possible was spent on administration, and that money should be saved for the necessary works of development without which this country would drift on to ruin. (Cheers.)

rising after a pause, said nobody seemed inclined to address the House. He supposed the matter was of so little importance that it was hardly worth while talking about it. (Laughter.) To his mind that was one of the most important occasions on which they could raise a discussion—(cheers)—because it was the only opportunity hon. members had of bringing matters affecting the general welfare of the country before the notice of the country, because the Union Parliament had followed the custom of the Cape Parliament, and did not have a debate on the Reply to the Address from the Throne. Debates of that nature, although some people thought they took up a good deal of time, did enable members to bring forward their wants in connection with the general policy of the country. (Cheers.) There were many topics of what he thought were of vast importance and interests, which were only conspicuous in their discussions by their absence—such matters as the condition of the poorer class of the white population. (Hear, hear.) During the last election that topic was freely discussed, and a feeble attempt had been made to bring the matter before the House. It had, however, judiciously been burked, and it stood No. 19 on the order paper, and, of course, nothing would be done, or attempted to be done, in connection with it this session. They learned from the press, but from no other place, that the Prime Minister—accompanied by two Ministers— was going Home to England. They did not know, though, what policy he was going to adopt there. Nor did they know what his policy was to be on the most vital point of preference. He might pledge us to millions on preference without our knowing, and without the House having given him the slightest indication in what direction it wished him to go. He brought that subject forward, not for blame, but to give the Prime Minister an opportunity of laying his policy before the House, and to enable the House to express its opinion on the policy which he was going to advocate in the Imperial Conference.

interpolated something, to which

Only after it had appeared on the other side of the water. He thought, he continued, that it was of sufficient importance to be discussed in that House, or it might go by default, and they might find themselves pledged to a thing which was totally in conflict with the views of the majority of the people in the House or in the country. They had once got themselves pledged like that to preference, against the wish of the majority expressed in the House; against the solemn promises of the then Prime Minister that he would not introduce it. If the Prime Minister said he would not move preference he would give him his most cordial support. They had given preference to Australia, and how had she rewarded it? By trying to stop their products, and putting a tax of 5 per cent, on their dynamite, where they allowed Nobel’s in free. The sooner they did away with that ridiculous nonsense the better it would be for them. He merely mentioned these things as being of the greatest importance, and there were many others which they had no opportunity of discussing at all in the House, nor had the Government elicited the views of the majority on them. They went on their way, and if they stumbled into a pit they would have some difficulty in pulling themselves out; and perhaps they would be a little besmirched on the back. (Laughter.) He wanted to say also that he cordially agreed with Sir Edgar Walton that it was extremely inconvenient—and he was sure that no one felt it more than the Minister of Finance, he (Mr. Merriman) having been a Treasurer himself—to discuss the finances of a country when half the finances were not before them; he alluded to the railways. And he would take that opportunity of saying that he agreed with Sir Edgar Walton in that respect; the great inconvenience of having two Budgets: one a Railway Budget dealing with half the expenditure of the country. Such a thing could never go on long. Now they were booming in railways, but there had been a time in South Africa when no railways were booming; and if anything so happened, or if an accident was to happen on the mines—and accidents had happened on the mines before—or if anything happened to the diamond market, he told them that instead of coming down and supplementing their revenue from the railways, the Minister of Finance would have to ask to find money from the general taxes to keep the railways going and to pay the debt. It seemed impossible to discuss only half a Budget.

Hear, hear.

They had a Budget containing a revenue of 15 millions and an expenditure of 16; and those figures were equal to the Budgets of many respectable Kingdoms.

What if they are?

Sweden had a revenue of only 12 millions and an expenditure of 12 millions. Did hon. members know that the revenue of South Africa was almost on the same scale as that of the Netherlands, which had a revenue of 16 millions, and an expenditure of 17, or pretty nearly the same as ourselves? That old historic country, of which every man who loved freedom was justly proud, was able to satisfy itself with that expenditure, and had a population of five or six millions; while they in South Africa, with a beggarly population of 1,250,000, had that monstrous expenditure. The Netherlands also needed some of that expenditure for the State railways. There was Denmark, with a revenue of £5,200,000 and an expenditure of £5,600,000, and he wondered whether they did as much for agriculture and education as Denmark. Now the total Budget, if they confined the railways and the harbours to the general Budget, as they ought to be, because they were their railways and were all the property of the State, while the State was responsible for them—came to the gigantic figures of a revenue of 27 millions, and an expenditure of 26. Well, that ought to give matter for thought to everybody when they looked to their population and their burdens. They had apparently a combined surplus of £472,000, but if they came to inquire into it, it might be entirely altered, from such figures as they had. Betterment came to £550,000, and equalisation of rates to £70,000, which totalled £620,000, and left a deficiency of £148,000, which agreed with the Budget of his hon. friend, although it was put in a rather different way. He did not know whether it was so satisfactory when they considered those gigantic figures, and whether it did not cause them to look upon that matter with a considerable amount of apprehension. The right hon. gentleman went on to read a quotation from “a very good, sound economist,” and advised hon. members, when they went into that Budget, that they should think these words over, because if ever they were true, they were true now and all over the country. The quotation stated that there was always need for criticism of public departments, because in a public department there was no responsible person who was pecuniarily interested in keeping down expenditure, or making sure that the public got value for their money. … The more the burdens of the people were reduced in times of peace, the greater would be their strength when time of trouble came. That (said Mr. Merriman) should come home to everyone, because now they had peace and prosperity, but the time of responsibility might come down on them any day, and their situation, with that enormously inflated expenditure, would be very grave indeed.

Cigarettes.

Oh, the cigarettes; well, I’m-coming to the cigarettes. Then, he continued, there had been that beautiful sentiment about provincialism. They agreed with the Treasurer on that point, but before or after he uttered that sentiment—he could not remember just when it occurred—his hon. friend entered into a little provincial discussion as to what amount the Transvaal brought into Union. (Laughter.) Then he had sneered at the Cape income tax.

Oh no.

Excuse me.

No, no.

Well I took at as a sneer, anyway. Continuing, he said that a, little later his hon. inend was cheered by hon. friends round about him when he said he hoped that an income tax would be put on in this country. (Laughter.)

No.

Well, it was punctuated with cheers, any way. (Laughter.) Continuing, he said that he thought to himself that times had indeed changed. He had never been able to get anybody to cheer him (Mr. Merriman) in the days of the Cape Parliament, when he put on an income tax. (Laughter.) He could go on—

Go on.

I could go on. (Laughter.) Continuing, he said there was a difference between sentiment and actual facts. Continuing, he said that he would not venture to trespass on the patience of the House by going minutely into all these details, but he did wish to go into this balance business. The Treasurer thought that he could: dispose of the matter by a wave of his hand, and told the House that there were some people who were so foolish as to talk about earmarking. He implied that it was a ridiculous thing altogether. He (Mr. Merriman) thought he had heard something about earmarking, and so he sent for the Hansard of the Transvaal Assembly, which showed, by the way, what a wise thing it was to have a Hansard—(laughter)—though he did not think the Treasurer would be so ready to put down six thousand for it again. Proceeding, the speaker quoted from a speech of the Treasurer, in the Transvaal House of Assembly, on April 1, when the latter discussed the financial position of the Transvaal on entering Union, and the matter of balances. He pointed out that reference was made in his speech to earmarking. He showed that the Treasurer then stated that the Transvaal would enter Union with a sum of one and a quarter millions, part of which would have been definitely ear-marked for public expenditure in the Transvaal. That was just, said Mr. Merriman, what they in that House had been saying. He (Mr. Merriman) and his hon. friend the member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), spent many sleepless nights, and burned much oil, in trying to trace these things, and they traced them only to be sneered at as foolish fellows. The Treasurer said one thing in the Transvaal, and 18 months later he said something else. What were they to believe, and where did they get to in regard to these balances? Even now they had not got a proper account of these balances. They were still waiting for the auditor’s statement to give a plain, actual statement of what the funds were, and, what was more important still, the commitments against those funds, because among these commitments was a sum set apart for the Union buildings, and that was the only item that had ever been brought to the notice of any Legislature. Continuing to refer to the sum set apart for the construction of the Union buildings, the hon. member said that it would be wrong of him to enter into the constitutional side of the question. He only wished to raise his voice—as he would always raise his voice— against the evil example of Parliament breaking its own laws, because the law said that they must not spend without the sanction of Parliament. In this instance the concurrence of Parliament was not obtained; though five months had passed, those responsible had not even attempted to get the Concurrence of Parliament. They did not know what was done, and he said that that expenditure was wasteful and extravagant, and against the interests of this country. Applications for small amounts from members were refused, because of the state of the finances, and at the same time they had this large amount of money deliberately wasted—a million and a quarter of money for the housing of a thousand Civil Servants. No people out of Bedlam, no Parliament out of Bedlam, would ever do such a thing. He was perfectly certain that the Transvaal Parliament would not have given its sanction had it known the amount that would be involved. Every person knew that if a large sum of money was spent, it would have to be made up from somewhere else. That was the point which they had to consider. Let hon. members go to the next room and look at the plans. There was a room as large as that chamber for bicycles, another room for motor-cars, and a dining-room for Civil Servants. Parliament would never have sanctioned anything of the sort, and he said that it was most unfair, unjust, and evil that this Parliament should have been pledged to a thing of that description. Now, let him come back to the Treasurer’s speech. In one breath the Treasurer told them that he was going to pay off the floating debt— (hear, hear)—and in the next breath he said he was going to barrow to put back that money. It was good business to use loose cash for the purpose of taking up Treasury bills but that the Treasurer should not boast about it when he was going to borrow in order to put it back. But he pointed out that though the Treasurer might gibe at the Cape, he must remember that he had not given any account of the liquid assets that were brought into Union. He pointed out that the Cape and the Transvaal brought in large liquid assets, and the Orange Free State and Natal smaller amounts, and yet no account of these had been rendered. The Cape brought in a large amount of bonds—part of the liquid assets—that could be sold at their face value at any time. Altogether there was a sum of about three millions in liquid assets—absolutely liquid assets. The Treasurer never told them of these assets, though he was continually throwing the deficiency in the faces of the Cape members. He also alluded to the fact that the Cape had had in the past to put aside large sums in interest, because of the railways, and if things were balanced up, it would be found that the Cape Railways owed the Cape revenue about two millions. He said that it was unjust and unfair of the Treasurer to talk of the Cape’s finances in the way he did, and to take no notice of these liquid assets. The same applied: to the Transvaal, only that Province had been fortunate enough to have a revenue balance. It was of vital importance that they should know all these things before they went borrowing money. He was only going to allude to two things in the Estimates. One referred to the Department of Agriculture, and in regard to that he said that too much reliance was placed on the Government. He did not think that that was right. It was an unpleasant thing to say; perhaps it would be more pleasant to ladle out the money. But it was not the best way of doing things. Denmark, in agriculture, was an example to the world, and they did not do that sort of thing there. He did not think that agriculture in the Cape Colony ever advanced so much as during these two and a half years of bitter depression, when the Government had no doles to give, and the farmers had to rely on themselves.

Good.

It would be good if it were economically spent. Proceeding, he said that in Germany, where the people, he supposed, were nearly as well educated as the people in this country were—(laughter) —they spent 6s. 8d. per head. In Great Britain they spent about 8s. per head. His hon. friend who said “Hear, hear” would not be so ready to say so when he got the following instances. He would take the higher education of this country. Well, it was not high, God knew, but it was called high. He took what was spent upon the Colleges. There were 1,131 pupils in the Colleges of this country. They were conducted at a cost to the State of £57 per head per annum.

Oh!

You may well say “Oh!” Proceeding, he said that when they inquired into the facts, the position was more alarming. In Huguenot College, where they had 58 pupils, they spent £2,580. They did not spend that; that was what the State spent—£44 per pupil per annum. In the Transvaal, with 103 pupils, the cost was £100 per pupil. In Natal, with 104 pupils, the cost was £61 per pupil. The Grey College—and he asked his Free State friends to listen, because they would see that they were not so badly treated after all—with 74 pupils, Cost £129 per head. The South African College, with 326 pupils, cost £52 per pupil; the Rhodes College, with 138 pupils, cost £52 per pupil; and the Victoria College, with 371 pupils, cost £30 per pupil. (Cheers.) Now, in the face of these facts, did it not strike anybody that there was something lacking in the coordination of their higher education? (Hear, hear.) They had these isolated institutions all over the country, professing to teach higher education, and he said it was a most uneconomical way of doing things, and one which he had hoped when a Minister of Education appeared on the scene would have disappeared, and that there would have been some attempt at co-ordination. Berlin. University, which was one of the most remarkable Universities in the world—a University at which he dared say many of his friends had probably been educated—(laughter)—had 13,000 pupils, and the cost to the State was £12 per head, compared with the £129 per head in the Free State. (Laughter.) The University in Vienna, with 1,632 pupils, cost £15 per head. Now, they spent £95,000 on agricultural education in this country. He did not know how many pupils there were, but he thought they would be spending at the rate of £100 per head, and whether they got £100 value he did not know. He did not profess to be an expert in these matters, but nothing had Struck him so much for years past as the fact that their education was not the kind best suited to this country. (Cheers.) Well, he had just wanted to draw attention to these two things in the Estimates—things of vast importance—education and agriculture—on which they were spending vast sums of money without, he believed, getting value for it.

said that if there was one thing more than another which had disappointed the ardent supporter of Union, it was that there had been no economy in the cost of administration. One great point invariably held up before Union was that there would be a great saving when the four Governments were merged into one. Yet they found that in 1908-9 the cost of administration of the four Provinces was £14,037,000, whereas the total expenditure provided for in the present Estimates was £16,255,000. Under Union, therefore, the expenditure had increased by £2,200,000. Deducting the considerable increase in the matter of buildings, roads, and bridges, deducting also the amount formerly paid by the railways to the Redemption Fund, and now paid out of revenue, and making the fullest allowance for other expenditure not strictly administrative, the result was the government of this country was being carried on at a cost of something like £1,200,000 more than it cost under the four separate Governments before Union. Well, he would like to point out to the House how this money was being spent. Now, excluding the railways and post office, which were business concerns, and taking the administrative, police, and defence branches, he found that the number of white employees in the service of the Union to-day was 16,969, or one to every 73 of the white population of South Africa. These employees were paid altogether £3,374,000 a year in salaries alone. The cost, in allowances, was £242,000, and of travelling and transport £251,000. There were 6,200 natives, mostly in the police, costing £214,000. In salaries, allowances, and transport this country was paying out a little more than four millions every year. He was sorry that the Minister of Commerce was not in his place, for he would be interested to know that his was “the most expensive department. And he did not hesitate to say that a more useless office than that of the Minister of Commerce was never created. (Mr. MERRIMAN: “Hear, hear.”) That office required three men to administer it at an average salary of £1,768 each. The average salary at the Prime Minister’s office was £555, and in the Supreme Courts £676. The salaries of the Provincial Administrators and auditors ran out at £1,535 a-piece. The reason for this extravagance was that they had started the government of South Africa on Transvaal lines. He did not wish, however, to say one word against Transvaal lines or methods in themselves. The Transvaal as a colony was extremely wealthy, and could afford luxuries which the other parts of South Africa could not. The evil was that that system had been extended to the rest of South Africa. There was only one goldfield in South Africa, and apart from the Transvaal and Griqualand West, South Africa was a poor country— in fact, the land itself was poor. The South African Ministry was the highest paid in the world except that of Great Britain. (Hear, hear.) Considering South Africa’s population and revenue we had a more extravagant administration than any other part of the world. He did not remember the Treasurer in his Budget speech saying anything about economy, but he did talk about finding some other source of revenue. But in times of prosperity and with a rising revenue most Treasurers talked about reducing taxation. Had anything like reasonable economy been exercised in the administration since Union we could have paid our way on the general revenue without calling upon the railway for a single penny.

Hear, hear.

referred to the expense of higher education. We had 1,100 students, and the cost of the office of the Minister of Education worked out at something like £2 13s. per student. Of course, the Minister had a staff, and the cost of that with other expenses came to £6,200. The Minister and his staff made the cost something like £5 10s. for every student.

There are two other offices.

I am not taking the administration, but confining myself to higher education and your own salary.

Why confine it to one department?

I will deal with the others. (Laughter.)

Do you mean the whole Ministerial salary?

said that in the Agricultural Department alone there were one secretary, four under-secretaries and one assistant secretary, costing altogether £6,000. In fact, there was a regular crowd of highly paid officials. He agreed with Mr. Merriman that there was no other Agricultural Department in the world which gave as little value for the money it cost as ours did. Then the Minister of the Interior had a secretary and four under-secretaries who cost £5,300. We had no fewer than 30 judges, who cost £73,000 a year. He knew of no other country in the world where such an expensive staff of judges was maintained. Was it to be wondered at that the cost of the administration of justice was £88,000 a year more than it was when we were separate colonies? Although the Ministry must have known that the administration of justice could be carried on with a smaller staff, three new judges had been appointed since Union. Again, the cost of the Ministry of Native Affairs had gone up something like £58,000, as compared with the expense prior to Union. The Secretary for Native Affairs, when he was in the Cape, received £900 a year, and he (Mr. Jagger) did not think that gentleman was underpaid then; but he was removed to Pretoria, and his salary was increased to £1,500. Where was the slightest justification for that? He mentioned this because this was a characteristic case. Was it to be wondered at that the cost of administration had gone up by leaps and bounds? It was absolutely irrefutable that not only were we paying higher salaries, but there was also very grave over-staffing, and especially was that the case in the higher ranks of the service, and yet no efforts had been made by the Ministry to remedy that in any shape or form.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

said that no effort in any shape or form had been made by the Government to reduce that over-staffing. He went further, and said that the Government had followed the other course. They had brought new men into the service, men who had no claim at all— except as political supporters of the present party in power. The hon. member mentioned the case of the Secretary of the Education Department, who, he said, had been brought in from outside, and had been given that large salary, when there were a number of men in the Civil Service who were as qualified, or better qualified, as the gentleman in question, to fill the post, and against whom he had not the slightest personal feeling. It was an injustice, not only to the people of the country, because it was extravagant, but it was also an injustice to the Civil Service. There was another case—he was only mentioning cases which had come within his own knowledge. Take the case of the Secretary of the Provincial Council for the Cape. The Government had allowed the Administrator of the Cape Province to appoint a gentleman from outside to that position—a man not connected in any shape or form with the Civil Service of that or any other colony. It was considered necessary that a man should be appointed with a knowledge of both languages and a knowledge of the law. To his knowledge, two or three men in the Civil Service of the Cape of Good Hope could have been found to fill that post, as they could fill these requisites very well. No; they had been overlooked, and that man had boon brought in. He said it deliberately that that appointment was absolutely a “job” of the first water, and they had had to find a billet for a man who had been a supporter of the present party in power. (Hear, hear.) It was an absolute scandal. He would like to ask, in the face of facts like these: where was the economy, or an attempt at economy, on the part of the Government?

said he rather thought the Treasurer had set himself up as a target to a strong Opposition by bringing in two Budgets within so short a space of time. But they had been told by the Treasurer that after so successful and prosperous a year as that of 191011, he would be faced with a deficiency in 1911 12. He wondered what those gentlemen who gathered in the National Convention —who brought about Union for economic considerations—would have said had they thought that the Treasurer, in his second year, would be faced by a deficiency. The fact that there was to be a deficiency was all the more extraordinary when they considered the revenue which the Treasurer expected. Proceeding with an analysis which he had made, the hon. member said it was startling to find that, exclusive of railway expenditure, exclusive of public debt expenditure, and exclusive of provincial expenditure, their salary vote for the Union was about five millions sterling. The trifle for the travelling expenses of civil services came to something like £282,000. Though they were going to spend five millions on salaries, they were going to expend on the services of the Union an amount of £5,150,000. Continuing, the hon. member dealt with departments, and observed that the salaries to be paid in the Agricultural Department totalled £581,000.

said he viewed to-day, as he did when the Estimates were introduced for the ten months, with the greatest possible concern, the fact that the Minister’s Budget speech revealed no apparent desire or attempt to check the enormous expenditure which was taking place in this country, and he was obliged to agree with previous speakers, who had pointed out the dangerous lengths to which they were going in this connection. It was quite true that under the South Africa Act the railways were separated from the general revenue and expenditure of the country, but although that was the case, he considered the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) was perfectly correct in making up Budget Estimates which included the railway figures, because, after all, they were portion of the general revenue and expenditure of South Africa; and when the Minister informed the House, at the beginning of the session, that he had decided, in accordance with the Act, to do away, in the course of the four years, with the profits made from the railways, he (Mr. Phillips) had hoped that the Minister would have found means, if not entirely of making up that deficiency, to meet it to some extent by a decrease in the expenditure. But the only comfort the Minister gave them was that he proposed to supply the diminished revenue, due to renouncing a certain portion of the railway revenue, by the imposition of fresh taxation. He must say, however, that that made one apprehensive. He thought that the first essential under Union in fulfilling their debt obligations was to reduce their expenditure, and the next essential was that there should be a broadening of the basis of taxation. He believed that they would never get their taxation down in this country until the Treasurer found a means of placing a large portion of the taxation in the hands of the local people, who themselves had to contribute in a considerable measure towards that taxation. If people wanted a new road in a certain locality, and they had to pay a portion of the expense, of making that road, they began to consider whether it need be quite so long or quite so wide as it must be if it came out of the general funds. (Laughter.) That applied also in the case of railways. He did not see how they were going to arrive at a satisfactory position in respect of the building of new railways unless they made the people of the areas in which they were built responsible for some portion of the expenditure involved. (Ministerial cries of dissent.) He did not for one moment say that if they were going to build a line into some uninhabited part of the country, that they should expect owners of land in that uninhabited part of the country to contribute in its then condition, but assuming that the part of the country in which they put a railway was somewhat sparsely populated, they would, by building the line, be enhancing the value of the land in that particular locality, and while he did not advocate the taxation of the people living there at the time the line was built, he certainly thought it would be legitimate for the State to exact something when sales of the improved land took place there. That, he thought, was a proposition, to which no one reasonably could object. The same thing applied to public works and irrigation. Now, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Sir E. Walton) had said they must be cautious about using the mining revenue, because the asset was being exhausted. Well, he (Mr. Phillips) agreed with the Minister of Finance when he said there was probably still on the Witwatersrand alone 2,000 million pounds’ worth of gold to be extracted. He thought they need not be apprehensive of the sudden death of the gold-mining industry. Besides, he thought that it had been the general experience that mines lasted much longer than was expected at the time of their being started. Coal mining had gone on in England for the last two thousand years, and he had no doubt many other discoveries of minerals would take place in South Africa. He did not think they need be very apprehensive that their revenue from minerals would fall very severely.

said that they on that side of the House quite realised that agriculture was the back bone of the country; and they hoped that it would prove strong enough to bear the burden which the Government was so anxious to impose upon the country. The Minister of Finance had told them at an early stage of the session that he was in favour of introducing uniformity of taxation. He had now had several months In which to tackle that matter, and the only effort he had made was in regard to a small tax of £45,000; and even then he would probably take out of one pocket what he put into another. They had had no Bill in Parliament to arrange for the repeal of that tax, and they had nothing but the words of the Minister of Finance himself. They still found that £100,000 was put down in regard to the poll tax of (Natal; and the Treasurer had the effrontery to come with a surplus of £500,000, and still ask for the poll tax. He was even going further than the old Natal Government had, gone, because the Hatter had given poor people plenty of grace to pay up; but now 300 summonses had been issued in Maritzburg already. Many of the people did not like to go to a Magistrate and say they were unable to pay. Then the railway rates had been altered; there were now in Natal no weekend cheap fares or concessions to teachers; and they were further threatened with a new tax in the shape of a cigarette tax. Farmers in Natal had been encouraged to grow the better classes of tobacco; and the farmers would have to bear the brunt of the new tax. The Treasurer, he thought, would gain little in the end by that tax, because what he might gain by that tax he would lose in Customs receipts, A tax on manufactured tobacco would be better., and would not fall on a small class, but on the smokers of the country as a whole. In the Estimates the Treasurer seemed to expect less than he did the previous 12 months from Post Office, Telegraphs, and) Telephones; but surely he had not estimated for the additional amount that would come in from handing over gold and ostrich feathers to the country for carriage, under the Post Office Bill. The Minister of Posts and Telegraphs had informed them that he was going to send ostrich feathers by parcel post. He supposed that he had made arrangements with the Imperial Government to handle these big cases of feathers, because otherwise there would have to be a very great expenditure upon sheds, and labour for the storage and handling of these goods. The present system was that these ostrich feathers were shipped to Southampton, and re-transshipped by the shipping companies. How did the Minister propose to send these ostrich feathers to other countries? Was he going to send them to Southampton first?

said that hon. members who criticised for the sake of criticism were apt to fall into exaggerations. The Minister’s speech was a masterpiece, laying down a policy of amortisation extending over more than a generation. He was opposed to fresh borrowing for the purpose of extinguishing debt. He would prefer systematic retrenchment lest dry rot should set in. (Laughter.) Too many officials were in receipt of extravagant salaries and pensions. The Public Service Commission had said that many officials could be spared and should be retrenched. Though this was a constitutional commission, fresh billets were being created continually, thanks to the new Bills they passed. If reductions were moved, he was prepared to support them on every vote, unless cause for the contrary were shown. He applauded the large Agricultural Vote, but he opposed large Government irrigation schemes as being too risky. In the Cape all works of that description had resulted in failures, except at Kakamas, which had a market in the vicinity. In the Orange River Colony the Crown Colony Government had initiated vast schemes. What was left of them now? Nothing but monuments of folly. No less than £80,000 had been wasted on one scheme, and there were other white elephants. He feared that the large scheme at Kopjes would not succeed either. At Rouxville there was co-operation, between the Government and the Dutch Reformed Church, and there they were managing irrigation works economically. Government always paid 75 per cent. more than private people did for the same services. Smithfield was progressing wonderfully now that the Municipality had obtained a Government loan with which to build a reservoir. Poor whites had been assisted, and the place resembled a garden. Near Bethulie a farmer, called Joubert, had dammed up the water no more than a foot; though the expense had been trifling, the man had had water for four years, and the dam would continue to render good service. Work of that kind should be taken as an example to be emulated, because it supplied irrigation for 1,600 acres of ground. Government should subsidise enterprises of that description because they were capable of extension, and as private management was more economical than Government administration, it afforded the means of coming to the aid of a large number of people. Proceeding, the hon. member referred to many potential industries which only required the magic wand of Government encouragement to spring into being. There was a good deal of raw material in the country containing tannic acid, which allowed of a vast quantity of hides being treated within the Union, in addition to which some of it might be exported. Protective duties on the manufactured article were required. Wool factories should be started, and this could be done if bonuses were given. Diamond-cutting was practicable in the Union if they placed a heavy tax on the export of uncut diamonds.

said he could not help thinking that certain hon. members had been too hard upon the Minister of Finance in connection with his Estimates. It did not seem to be sufficiently realised what little time the Government had had in their preparation for the first session of Parliament. At the time of Union there was no co-ordination between the several Governments and the Union Government as to how Union should start, and how the different parts should be arranged. He thought it should be remembered that the Government had had little opportunity for preparation, and for arranging matters on a new basis. As to the charges of swollen expenditure in the first year of Union, it should be borne in mind that up to the year 1908-9 there had been a period of great depression, during which expenditure was out down to a minimum in the several Provinces. Then, in the year before Union, revenue began to improve by leaps and bounds, and the several Governments, not knowing what was before them under Union, made haste to spend the money which came to them. It was wrong therefore, in his opinion, to blame the present Government for increased expenditure, which was largely due to the expenditure which they had inherited from the various Provinces. Now, the Minister of Finance had made proposals which, he thought, on the whole were more conducive to strict Parliamentary control of expenditure than any proposals hitherto framed by a Minister in South Africa, and which contained much that was more admirable. The Minister had referred to the balances which he brought into the Union, and he had shown that included in these balances were various sums amounting to £444,000, which were known in the various Colonies as advances. These balances represented sums in the hands of the Treasury for various purposes. These advances had been excluded from the balances brought into Union. What did the Minister of Finance intend to do with those balances? Then there was the question of the application of revenue balances for the extinction of debt. No sounder application of those balances could be made, provided that those balances were real. It was a great pity that the Treasurer should wish to devote this year’s surplus to other purposes—(Opposition cheers)—more especially seeing that we were at the high water mark of our prosperity. Mr. Hull said it was a sound thing to take money from balances for erecting buildings. Better far, however, defer these buildings than depart from a righteous principle. What was the position with regard to the Loan Acts appropriating the loan balances of the various Colonies to certain purposes? He regretted that the Treasurer had stopped making a contribution to the Sinking Fund. In his opinion no statement was more dear as to the finances of the country than the Budget statement of the Minister of Finance—(hear, hear)—but he was hound to say that the carping words as to Gape methods of finance should have been left out of the memorandum accompanying the first of the two papers. He would also like to say a few words as to the question of the Treasury itself. Parliament found it extremely difficult—and they all knew it—to control expenditure. They might appoint committees and ask questions, but they found they had very little control; and it was only in times of depression, when increased taxation threatened them, that, they could exercise any control, and then they only did it in a haphazard kind of fashion.

said that the Government’s detractors had almost entirely confined themselves to violent and destructive criticism. The Vote for Agriculture had been singled out for attack. The small increase was easily accounted for by special circumstances, however. The right hon. member for Victoria West was inconsistent, quoting only such facts and figures as suited his line of argument. Denmark had not one tithe of the pests and tribulations of South Africa What would become of the country unless Government fought those pests? It used to be a favourite complaint against farmers that they refused to accept the teaching of experts, but now that Government were engaged in educating them hon. members objected to the expense. It looked as if they were bent on obstructing the business of the House. The right, hon. member for Victoria West held that farmers should be self-reliant, but what would be have said had the Government neglected to take action in regard to cattle diseases and matters of that nature? It was only too clear that certain Cape members felt sore because their financial expectations of Union had not been realised. The Transvaal knew all along that it would have to make sacrifices in entering the Union, and though they might be disappointed in that Province, it was not on account of monetary considerations. It had often been alleged that retrenchment was inspired by racialism. To-day, the same critics complained because there was no wholesale retrenchment. He applauded the Government’s gradual policy. There was a good deal to be said about the expenditure under the heading of Repairs to Buildings. The system was far too expensive on account of over-centralisation, which caused extravagant travelling and subsistence allowances in respect of trifling repairs. There was too much red-tape and too little local authority. Magistrates should have more discretion in small matters. An official was once sent from Pretoria to Ermelo to report on a lock— cost, a couple of shillings! Proceeding, the hon. member referred at length to what had happened in connection with the erection of police barracks at Ermelo. Its construction was by no means all that could be desired, and the building was a blot on the centre of the town. They had used corrugated iron, but in the country districts a large expense was incurred because the Department refused to erect wood and iron buildings. Generally speaking, the Department of Public Works was far too expensively run because it systematically ignored local advice.

moved the adjournment of the debate.

seconded.

The debate was adjourned until the following day.