from John McLachlan, late trooper Mounted Police.

from Benjamin Noaks, Inspector of Schools.

from George H. White, Chief Constable, Middelburg.

from Charles Henry Morgan, late Chief Stock Inspector.

from J. J. Strasheim, teacher.

from Maria F. van der Merwe, teacher.

for Government water drills at £2 per diem.

Report of a Commission on Higher Education.

moved that a Select Committee on Native Affairs be appointed, with power to take evidence and call for papers, and that the committee consist of eleven members.

seconded.

moved that the committee consist of twelve instead of eleven members, pointing put that in his opinion the Province of Natal was insufficiently represented. The North was represented, but not the South.

seconded.

said that last year the committee consisted of fifteen members, but that number was found to be too large, and he and his colleagues had agreed that this ear the members of committees should be kept down to a reasonable number. He had thought nine was sufficient, but in order to give all sections a fair chance, had agreed to the increase. He bad taken care to see that a representative of Natal was on the committee. If Natal was given another member, then his friend from the Orange Free State would crave an extra representative. He had discussed the matter with last year’s members, and he could not understand the hon. mover of the amendment making this request on behalf of Natal.

said that there was in Natal a little over one-fifth of the native population of South Africa: besides, the Natal representative really belonged to the Transvaal. (HON. MEMBERS: “No.”) Well, at one time his district belonged to the Transvaal, and there were few natives in that district. He did not, however, take exception to his appointment, but he did say that Natal was under-represented on the committee. He took strong exception to the procedure adopted in the appointment of these Select Committees. Many members, returned by large majorities, were left off these committees, being replaced by gentlemen who were returned by small majorities. He took strong exception to the procedure. He hoped that the Government would reconsider the re-appointment of this committee, not only in the interests of the natives but of Natal.

The amendment was negatived.

The motion was agreed to.

moved that the committee consist of Sir Bisset Berry, Sir Lionel Phillips, Dr. Watkins, Colonel Crewe, Messrs. Bosnian, P. G. W. Grobler, Madeley, Mentz, Sohreiner, H. S. Theron, and the mover.

seconded Agreed to.

To show my reasonableness

The hon. member is out of order.

That a Select Committee be appointed, to be called the “Townships Committee,” to consider and report upon all applications submitted in terms of Act No. 15 of 1909 (Orange Free State) for the establishment of townships within the Province of the Orange Free State requiring Parliamentary approval ; the committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers, and to consist of Messrs. Brain, Keyter, Maasdorp, C. L. Botha. Dr. Watkins, Oliver, and the mover.

seconded.

The motion was agreed to.

in moving the second reading of the Land Settlement Bill, said he would claim the indulgence of the House, because he would like to outline, more or less, the scheme which Government had in mind in regard to land settlement before he came to the Bill itself. There was no difference of opinion, he thought, that the subject was one of great importance. It was merely a matter of degree—not that something should be done, but as to the extent of that something. In their enthusiasm, however, they should not outrun the needs of the country. What they intended to do was, in the first instance, to effect settlement on the land by those who were capable of working on the land, and who at present were not on the land, but in this country. First of all, to take note of all those whom circumstances had removed from the land or who were able without being removed from the land to go on the land with advantage to the community at large Secondly, also, to remember distinctly the want of an increased population for that Land, brought from elsewhere, but as far as possible selected according to the needs of the country ; selected not to make up a number, but to make up the quality of the inhabitants that they had here. (Hear, hear.) They, therefore, from the beginning, would recognise the need there was in this country for augmenting the labour power in the country ; in this sense, that where white men could be found capable of being employed they should encourage them to take to the land for that employment. They trusted they had in this country—they hoped they would find even in large numbers those who either in other occupations or seeking other occupations, would still be able to devote some of their time to working the land. But also they thought the idea should not be confined to those only in the country. There was a cry in this country, and it had been tested how far it really was a cry, for the assistance of white labour on the Land. Well, he thought the Government should, and the Government did intend to, encourage the importation of white labour for those seeking land, so that when a farmer required assistance on the land he should get facilities and also the emigrant should get facilities in the direction of assisted passages if the applicants were willing to come from elsewhere, no matter where it be. If they possessed the power to work on the land facilities should be given to them to come, and they (the Government) should encourage the farmers to take them, and should encourage them to come out, saying that if they fulfilled the objects for which they came and proved themselves able, the hope would be held out to them, not at a long date, of getting holdings, of which they would become the masters in a short time, and in that way to provide labour for the farmers and provide work for the labourers. There was a further development that they had, in looking around, to take note of, and that was the fact that they had still amongst them, but he trusted in the number growing less as time went on and prosperity increased, still, a large number of what were called poor whites. They meant to deal with them not only sympathetically, not by doles, but practically. They would like to try them. If they could not ensure what they would like: the conversion of those now morally degraded ; at any rate they would be preventing a second generation of poor whites growing up. (Hear, hear.) They meant to extend and increase the idea of labour colonies—(hear, hear)—where, in the first instance, they would gather together under the proper supervision of those who would deal sympathetically, but on business lines, with men who might work for a living wage in improving the land ; and by their labour they might be able to become lessees or owners in the long run ; and in connection with these colonies to have such schools as would not interfere with the other schools of the country, but which would give practical training in such a manner as to make the children capable of being either farm labourers again, or assistants on farms ; or to take to one trade or another of value to those colonies. The idea had already been given practical trial in the labour colony of Kakamas. They trusted that the principle would be extended in a larger degree than was found there. In saying that, they would have to get experience which they had not at Kakamas or anywhere else. There was already another colony at Rhenoster River, at Kopjes in the Orange Free State. They trusted within a very short time to be able to place there, as a beginning, about 120 men. Of those, the greater number would be selected from the men who had worked on the irrigation scheme at Kopjes. They would try and develop the idea of practical schools, where they would be taught the elementary practical parts of farming, which, although not equal to the education they would get in the agricultural colleges of the highest order, would still fit them for the life of a farmer, especially on a smaller scale. Having dealt with those who required actual supervision because they had perhaps gone back in the scale of civilisation, they (the Government) meant to provide next for men with a little capital and who would require, in addition to the land, financial or other assistance from the Government ; the men who had either got experience, or, at all events, had been accustomed to manual and hard work and would so be adaptable for farming. They could be encouraged in the second place to lease the land with assistance from the Government, and with a trial to 6ee if they were fit for that occupation, and if successful, have held out to them direct encouragement to become owners of the land on which they had had their trial. They wished to deal with the men with none or moderate capital requiring land on easy terms ; those who having some capital had not enough to carry on farming and wanted something more than those others; those with capital who wanted to increase their stock and would be given land for which they would pay on easy terms. And lastly he would say they were prepared to look out for land for those who wanted to do farming on a larger soale. In all the classes except the first, the poor whites of South Africa, there would be given an opening not only to sons of the soil, but also to those who would become true South Africans, who had shown their intention to become so ; and also those who came from outside and applied to the High Commissioner for land. The terms would be strictly stated, and they would be subject to regulations. What they wanted was those with some experience of farming or those who had some capital ; and they should give them facilities to try their luck on the land and let it rest with themselves whether or no they became owners of the land on which they were placed in the first instance. They wished to provide for the poor men in the country, the men in the country with small capital, the men not of the country—(he spoke in the broader sense and hoped there would be no more misundertanding on that point. South Africans were not necessarily the people born in the country)—to assist them to get on the land and retaining the land for the benefit of themselves and those for whom they had to work. (Hear, hear.) As to the land itself, they (proposed to utilise the Crown land, o ras much of it as may be taken, which they had at their disposal at present, and also, in the second place, land that might be purchased. In regard to the utilising of land at present at their disposal, and that which might be purchased, they had to recognise the fact that, in the past, experience had shown them that to put men on the land, even with some experience, without supervision and assistance, meant to be disappointed in the progress which they would make. They desired to improve the land for the settlers by boring or building up water supplies, to make the Land fit for cultivation ; lit for use immediately the settler took possession of it. In connection with that they hoped to work many irrigation schemes by which water may be obtained by damming up rivers and spruits. Where these were the holdings would naturally be smal1er than they would be in other places where farming might have to depend more on extent than on capacity. He might give as an instance that in a settlement such as the Kopjes scheme, as at present outlined, 6 2/3 morgen of land, under water, would be given, but an opportunity would be given to enable the settler to inrcrease that holding to 10 morgen to be put under water, and in conjunction with that 5 or 10 morgen more for dry cultivation, besides the right to the commonage and other rights of such an estate, the idea being not to give land, giving the people settling on it a bare sufficiency, but more or less a chance of comfortably living. In the purchase of land they would therefore have to bear in mind the three kinds: land fit only for irrigation works, land which was only fit for what was called dry cultivation or farming, and perhaps properties capable of being developed in both ways. Under dry land farming would be included in its proper sense, not only land which was intended for agriculture, but also to allow sufficient for cattle. In certain portions of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State a few morgen would be sufficient, but if they went further west, such as in Bechuanaland, where the climatic and other conditions were different, it would run into hundreds, he would not say thousands, of morgen. They had large tracts of Government land, which, provided they found water, they could utilise ; and it was intended on the vote of Parliament to acquire more land and to develop that land in the first instance, and find water for the intending settlers and augment the supply they had materially. In regard to that he might at once say that the intention was always naturally to appeal to Parliament before any big step was taken, but he might say that it was utterly impossible to come to Parliament beforehand for every particular farm they wanted to purchase, which would be unbusinesslike ; and as the Act would show, while they fully recognised that in any scheme they proposed and in the financing of the schemes they must come to Parliament, the responsibility must rest on the Government for the details of administration, unless they wanted to pay five times as much for every investment as they otherwise should. In regard to that question of settlement it might interest some of those who had not had an opportunity of going into the figures to know that even with the laws as they stood, and as they knew, not specially created nor specially adapted for these schemes, since Union over 900 holdings had been given under what might be called closer or land settlement.

Where?

I do not want to go into details now, but I will lay the returns on the table. He went on to say that over 1,000 settlers, mostly family men, had been settled on the land. Natal and also the Transvaal had had a fair share ; but the Cape Province was last, because the land laws there were not so adapted for grants of that nature. The settlements in Natal had been most encouraging and had shown what willing hands, who were determined, could do even under difficult circumstances. He had had the pleasure of going through Natal and addressing several meetings, and he had addressed one meeting which was unique under the circumstances. A lot of men who were growing sugar, and were, therefore, farmers in a sense, and apparently getting on well, had not been farmers three or four years before that—they were from the towns, professional men, ex-Civil Servants, and the like, but they had succeeded. The principle which had applied there was one of reserving certain rights to the Government under which these men were allowed to labour, and under which the unsuccessful men could be weeded out. As to the question of financing, he did not intend at that stage to go into details, but would broadly state that a measure would provide for the creation of a Land Bank, and he would leave the functions of that bank in other financial hands to deal with when the time came. There would have to be provision for fencing, agricultural implements, and for that support to which a settler had a fair right to give him a start, and that would bear the stamp that those who received such assistance, except in the case of the poor whites, would not be the recipients of doles, but they would be dealt with on business lines —the Government being the creditor, and security being given by the debtor, which would have to be repaid. To encourage settlers, the conditions would be of the easiest and the interest of the lowest. But together with the encouragement of the men who wanted to work there would also be given power to remove the wasters who would not work. There would be no interference with those who had once been granted the right to work. There would be certain conditions attached to the tenure, but only to secure permanent settlement and to prevent those who were helped from being tempted to speculate. The conditions would thus be easy on the one side, but stringent on the other, in order to prevent speculation. Those who had land already would not receive grants in the first instance until those who did not have land had their wants satisfied in regard to small holdings in particular. In the instance where the Government might not be in a position or might not wish to develop land by a large expenditure, opportunity would be given to those, on conditions to be made, to develop that land where they were prepared to put in a large amount of capital, not to be found by a smaller applicant or by the Government. As to the extent to which that was to be done, they would have to bear in mind first of all that it was a new departure to a large extent and that they were only just recovering from times of depression, that they would have to gain their experience as they went along ; and although there was some risk attached, they would not unnecessarily increase that risk at the start. There might be some disappointment amongst those who were enthusiastic, but more and more would be done as time went on, and the machine was found to work well. It was necessary for the Government to proceed with caution because if it were known that much land was to be purchased the prices would be unduly inflated. There was another difficulty: past experience had shown that they had rushed too quickly into irrigation schemes, and they did not have properly trained men: the risk of failure had been unduly increased ; and there had been the practical difficulty in not being able to find as many men as they wanted to assist them in the schemes they had in hand. For the next five years they would ask Parliament for at least a million for each of these five years. Half-a-million would be used in connection with dry land schemes of settlement, and practically the same amount for the irrigation works in connection therewith and for the granting of loans. He admitted that this was but a sketchy outline, and went on to say that it might be advisable in some cases to buy land by auction, but they would try to work the scheme on a different basis, and not ask from settlers as high a price as those who had made money out of them knew how to do, but to put a fair value on the land at once and let settlers have it at that figure. A man with lots of money could take care of himself ; he was not excluded, but preference would be given to the others. Coming more particularly to the Bill, its object was to secure Parliamentary sanction to the principle of purchase by Government of land required for settlement purposes, and also, in some instances, by the exchange of land. Parliament would be asked to sanction each scheme as it was brought forward, but while they sought for Parliamentary sanction for the principle and the expenditure, they thought it necessary to leave the Departmental control to the responsible Minister. In order to prevent speculation, personal occupation was insisted upon. The next condition was that there must be improvement of the land. The idea was to give the ground under lease in the first instance. This would enable a man to judge whether he was suitable to be a farmer in the first instance, and in the second instance whether a particular farm would meet his requirements. Applicants must give proof of their bona fides, and even then they would only have the ground on lease at first. For the first five years the land would be leased, with the option of purchase at the expiration of that period. Owing to drought or plague, time might be given to the settler to work out his own salvation, and as far as could be prevented, there would be no chance of political jobbery. (Hear, hear.) There would be Land Boards, who would advise the Minister—(hear, hear)––but the responsibility could not rest with the Land Board, but with the Minister and the Government. (Hear, hear.) There had been six cases in the Transvaal and four in Natal in which he had refused to grant land.

Was that against the advice of the Land Board?

Yes. Providing he explained that two instances were those of old ladies who knew nothing of farming. (Laughter.) The present Government was somewhat more hardhearted than the former Government.

That was very ungallant.

said that in another case two youngsters, aged 14 and 16, applied for land. They were at school, and he thought it best that they should continue their careers there. However, provided a lad had had some practical training in agriculture, he could apply for land at the age of 18. To save his character from the charge of a lack of proper appreciation of the work of the ladies, he did not make a hard-and-fast rule on this subject. Every facility would be given to the widows of those who had had farming experience, especially in those cases in which there were sons growing up. The other cases in the Transvaal which had been refused were more or less of the same nature. The advice of the Land Boards would be followed in every case. On the other hand, he saw the greatest difficulty in giving to the Land Board control to the extent that it would not be directly responsible to Parliament. Parliament should have someone responsible as a final court of appeal. Even where the conditions were fulfilled in regard to permanency of settlement, actual freehold title would not be granted until ten years’ occupation, except in special circumstances. The conditions in regard to improvements were on similar lines. The right to hypothecate interest was subject to the consent of the (Government, on the advice of the Board. Consent would only be given when it was shown that it was not detrimental to the general policy of settlement.

What about improvements? I don’t see the clause.

It is there.

No ; there is not one.

There is no clause here which compels the allottee to make a certain amount of improvement.

assured the hon. member that he would make the clause as explicit as possible. “We want workers, not squatters,” he added. If such a clause did not appear in the Bill, he hoped that the hon. member for Cape Town would assist him to insert it. He was not wedded to any particular clause or idea in the Bill, but only to the idea of doing something practicable with certain safe-guards to a certain extent, and to increase that extent as time warranted. Provision was also made to secure the Government.

Where is that?

Where it says that whatever a man has on the land shall be secured to the Government for whatever obligations he is under.

What security have you if you advance him capital?

said he was not prepared to answer that on account of the experience of others who did the same thing. “But,” he emphasised, It you want land settlement with no risks whatever, you must get it in some other world ; not in ours.” (Ministerial laughter.) Any unfortunate creditor who had a general bond knew that once in a way even the most vigilant business man would be “let in.” Occasionally the Government might be “let in.” The point was, should they risk that occasional loss for the sake of the general scheme? The only other point in the Bill that required touching upon was the principle that prescription should not run as against the Government. He thought it only fair that a man should not be able to acquire Government land simply by squatting upon it. This might, even in such a large country as the Union, interfere with proper systematic settlement. Where a man had been occupying the land beneficially, he was at present given a certain preference. He did not pretend having gone fully into the details of the Bill. It fitted in with other land measures, so as to enable them to carry out that programme on which a certain and, he trusted, an increasing amount would be spent every year. It was designed to increase the number of those who would go to the land on conditions not only for and reasonable, but even liberal, and to draw individuals who would be assets to the country, and not simply those who might be dumped down in numbers, only to increase the number of poor whites. “I would rather,” he continued, “see immigration restricted to 500 or 1,000 persons a year, and see each one progress surely, if slowly, than see 10,000 people come in here, and 5,000 of them become ‘ poor whites.’” If the scheme was not large, there was nothing to prevent it growing. As cautious men, they wanted to try and do as much as they could at the start, and to increase their operations as the business grew—not to restrict, but to enlarge these operations in the right direction. He trusted that the Bill would assist towards that end. He contemplated sending the Bill to a Select Committee if the second reading was carried, and that committee would carefully discuss whether the usefulness of the Bill could be increased. If they could commend to the House better means, they would receive attention. He had no doubt that the Bill would receive sympathetic treatment from all parts of the House, or that, at any rate, it would be acknowledged as an honest attempt to form a settlement scheme. Some might think that they should start on a larger scale, and others that they should go step by step, making sure of what they were doing, instead of having a larger measure simply for the sake of seeing a larger population here. The population he termed valuable was that in which every man was capable of working and of finding work. He hoped that in the larger centres many would see the wisdom of getting out of the stuffy atmosphere of the town into the freer air of the country, where they could create the future generation that was going to build up the country. (Ministerial cheers.)

did not suppose there was anyone in the House who had not read the Bill with the greatest disappointment but they had listened to the Minister’s speech with amazement. In a very able speech, the Minister had described an elaborate system of land settlement. He had divided settlers into innumerable classes—poor whites and men with varying amounts of capital. Then he had divided the land into three classes—land that required irrigation, dry land, and larger holdings where people could carry on agriculture, not only by irrigation but also by means of dry farming. These things were outlined in the speech, but there was not a word about them in the Bill. Then the Minister talked in a lordly way of spending a million pounds every year on advances to settlers, to men who had not sufficient capital. There was not a word in the Bill as to the terms on which these advances were to be made. They were expected to give a “carte blanche” with regard to the £5,000,000 he proposed to raise by loan. It seemed to him that the proposal was absolutely preposterous. This was public money which was to be spent. On what terms were these advances to be made? That had got to come into the Bill. The right hon. gentleman dealt with three different subjects—land settlement, closer settlement, and the question of advances to settlers—which, he considered, should be separated and dealt with in separate Bills. They, the youthful members of the House, had come to regard the right hon. gentleman as the father of that august assembly, and yet he came to that House with a crude, ill-formed, and badly-constructed measure. This was a Bill to deal with the question of land settlement, and they had a considerable amount of precedent to go upon. They had had a great deal of bitter experience in this country, and in the Australian colonies also. All had learned by experience. What had that experience taught them? That they must have complicated legislation and vigilant and high-handed control. Where did they find it in that Bill? (Ministerial laughter.) Hon. members on the other side might laugh ; they seemed to look upon this important legislation as a huge joke. There was no better method by which money could be wasted than in this way. If they were going to spend five millions on land settlement that House should lay down how the money should be spent. They could not give the Minister a free hand as to the way in which he was going to spend this money. If they did so it would no doubt be amusing to the right hon. gentleman to give this man such an amount and that man a bigger amount. The House should lay down clearly how the advances were to be made. Dealing with the question of land settlement, he said they had heard a lot from the Government in the past. He would not attempt to answer the many speeches of the Prime Minister or the turgid eloquence of the Minister for Justice. He was not going to claim agreement with the Minister of the Interior, who was in favour of broad principles. He was not going to express approval with the remarks on land settlement by the Minister of Commerce in Natal, except to express regret that the principles enunciated by him in Natal were not to be found in the Bill. Those principles were sound and clear ; perhaps he made a mistake in giving utterance to them. (Laughter.) The Bill presented certain machinery, and they had a considerable amount of precedent to go upon in that regard. He proposed, with the indulgence of the House, to compare certain provisions of this Bill with the Land Bill of New Zealand, which was passed in 1892. That Act consolidated the provisions of no fewer than 50 previous Acts, and it could therefore not be argued that it was not based on experience—experience of a most bitter character. It divided New Zealand into ten districts with District Commissioners and Land Boards. This Bill—the one before the House—stated that the Governor-General might appoint Land Boards ; they might have 50 Land Boards under this Act. In New Zealand Commissioners were paid 10s. a sitting ; in Victoria they were paid £3 3s. No doubt when his hon. friend framed the regulations he would follow the Victoria example so far as remuneration was concerned. (Laughter.) It was true, that members of the Board were forbidden to vote on questions in which they were interested, but all local men were interested in the value of local property. The question of the appointment of Land Boards raised a serious question, for in the Transvaal they were overrun by Boards of all kinds, which, unlike the case of the Cape Province, were paid from central funds. This sort of thing was becoming a scandal, and would, if they were not careful, inevitably lead to the political spoil system. They on that side of the House were going to resist such a scheme ; they said that one Land Board should suffice for the whole of the Union. Then the Minister did not take the trouble to lay down the powers of the Land Boards, but said that this would be done by regulation. In New Zealand all these matters were laid down in the Act. Then the Minister got up and said he was not wedded to the clauses of the Bill ; in short, that he was prepared to throw the measure overboard. It was the first time he (the speaker) had heard a Minister bring in a Bill and say a thing of that sort ; it should be the duty of a Minister to defend the principle of the Bill he introduced to the fast. It was a most painful subject. (Government laughter.) Let them take the question of applications—Clause 14. It stated that applications must be made in writing ; the rest was to be prescribed by regulation. In the New Zealand measure, all those matter were laid down in the schedule—form of application and declaration, deposits and so forth, and what was to be done in event of simultaneous applications for the same land. He could go right through this extraordinary measure, showing how crude it was ; but he would merely tonch on the question of advances, which he thought a crying evil. (Hear, hear.) In clause 15 (e), the Bill said that a settler should have sufficient capital to develop his holding, and then, later on, went on to water this down by saying that the settler could be assisted by the Minister out of moneys granted by Parliament. The point was that the qualification was that the settler should have sufficient capital. Money would be wasted on advances made in this way, and it was essential that the House should lay down clearly how advances were to be made. He went on to deal with the terms of the Victoria Act in this regard to show the way in which the Minister was bound in regard to advances. There were even some limitations in the much-despised Transvaal Ordinance, in so far as advances were concerned, although a new Act was passed later to meet special cases. His point was that these advances should be determined by Parliament, and not by regulations issued by the Minister. The Transvaal Ordinance was much more stringent on the point than this Act. He considered that it was the worst Bill that had been introduced into that House. (Laughter.) There were three fundamental principles on which land settlement should be based, and if the Minister would not accept amendments in the Select Committee, then the Opposition was prepared to fight for these amendments when the Bill was in committee of the whole House. First, legislation in the matter should be complicated, control should be stringent and high-handed. They considered that that principle should be carried out. Secondly, some provision should be made which tended to promote the utilisation of unoccupied and unimproved land. In other words, such land should pay fair taxation. They had already had some idea of the attitude this House was going to take up on that point. But they could not bring in a successful Land Settlement Bill without land bearing its fair share of taxation. At present a man could sit on his stoep and look at his unimproved land, knowing that he had not to pay a penny for taxation. The Right Hon. the Minister had said how could they say they would buy this particular piece of land? As soon as they knew they wished to buy it the price would go up. It was perfectly simple. They should have a compulsory expropriation clause. (Hear, hear.) The third principle they laid down as an absolute essential for a good land settlement scheme was that a considerable amount of money devoted to the purpose of land settlement should be used for the purpose of immigration. The Right Hon. the Minister was extremely sketchy on the subject of immigration. He was not surprised, because they all knew of the difference of opinion in the Cabinet on it. It was necessary to be sketchy. (Laughter.) They wanted to put in that Bill a definite proposal regarding an immigration office in London, assisted passages, and inducements to attract immigrants. Canada and Australia were competing in England for settlers, and South Africa would have to compete with them. These were the three principles they would put forward. He proposed to move the following amendment: “This House, whilst approving of the principle contained in the Bill, is of opinion that no scheme for Land Settlement will be satisfactory unless it tends to promote the utilisation of all unoccupied and unimproved land and considers that before it assents to the second reading a full and expeditious inquiry should be made as to the advisability of extending the scope of the Bill in the direction indicated ; and therefore resolves that to that end: (1) The order for the second reading be discharged and the subject matter of the Bill referred to a Select Committee for inquiry and report ; and (2) it be a direction to the Committee to report on or before the 11th March.” (Opposition cheers.)

seconded.

said the intense indignation with which the hon. member for Turffontein rose found an answering echo on the benches on which he (the speaker) sat ; but that indignation—he thought his words were “amazement” and “disappointment”—was only enhanced as he proceeded. The indignation they felt at the proposals of the right hon. gentleman (the Minister of Lands) was increased by the speech of the hon. member, because one always liked to form some intelligent idea as to the attitudes the various sections of the House might take in regard to any proposals. A great deal of the hon. member’s eloquence was directed against the astounding proposal of the hon. Minister to spend a million of money per annum for the next five years for the purpose of closer settlement.

No, no.

Well, then I really think the hon. member’s indignation was rather thrown away, because it is perfectly open to this House, in committee of the whole House, to very much increase the safeguards which that Bill proposes. Proceeding, he said he thought that on the second reading the main principles to be debated were the principles of the Bill, and in committee they dealt with the various proposals. And so far from it being any justification of the indignation of the hon. member, he recollected up to a few months ago the report of the Select Committee appointed by another place was held up to them as the last word of wisdom in national land settlement. Proceeding, he quoted the first clause of the recommendations contained in the report, and said that when the Minister of Lands began his speech, he told them clearly that he proposed to go considerably beyond the immediate proposals contained in the Bill, and sketched for them what were the ultimate designs of the Government on the matter of land settlement. He thought it very unfortunate that their business should be conducted in a way which made it necessary to challenge the policy of the Government at haphazard. At the close of last session he urged on the Government and the House to adopt the procedure of the House of Commons, by which the debate on the Address gave an opportunity for challenging the policy of the Government. He thought that would be a very much better way of proceeding with the business of the House. As this was the only way of challenging the principles upon which the Government’s Land Settlement policy was based, he would offer no apology for moving the following amendment: “That the second reading of the Bill be deferred until a measure is submitted to the House conforming with the principle of the taxation of the unimproved value of all land within the Union.” He said that he would have liked to add to the amendment some affirmation of the necessity of including in such a Bill as this provisions giving Government powers of compulsory expropriation ; but he recognised that at the committee stage this could be discussed and divided on. He agreed with what the hon. member said: that no measure of this kind could possibly be successful unless it included a power to the Government for the compulsory expropriation of land. Before dealing with the question of unimproved land value taxation, he would like to make that question clear to the members opposite, who represented large land-owning people. In all discussions they had always been met with the final argument that they bought the land or inherited it, and to deprive them of it would be robbery. (Hear, hear.) He would show them why they looked upon that land as not carrying with it the absolute ownership, as was the case with other property. Had hon. members ever considered what was the position of those who did not own land? Had they considered that every man born into the world land who lived in South Africa, required access to the land? They could not live in aeroplanes or in the water. Continuing, the hon. member said that whether they were miners, mechanics, or business men they had to live upon someone else’s land, and the greater the need for land the more they had to pay for the use of it. Therefore they said that the possession of land was a distinct privilege that a few enjoyed, and that these must recognise their responsibilities to the disinherited many who had to contribute to the revenue of these landowners. The principle was no new one, and in the old feudal days land-ownership was always accompanied by the great responsibility of those days of having to supply fighting men. In the present day they contended that the same responsibilities should be applied to the landowners, and justice demanded that the taxation of land should be in accordance with the privilege the ownership of land entailed. The hon. member went on to speak of the meaning of “unimproved land values,” and said that if the whole of the Houses of Parliament were demolished and not a stone remained, yet the land on which the Houses had stood would still have a certain value ; that was the unimproved value. That unimproved value was the measure of the people’s need to use that land, and the measure of the privilege of the landowner. He wished to remove from the minds of hon. members opposite that it was intended to impose any additional burden on the people. What they said was that there was a fairer way of raising revenue than there was at present. In every other country where the policy he was advocating had been carried into execution it had been found that the general prosperity of the country had so increased that those who had been most opposed to that form of taxation had received the most benefit from it. What they wanted was to remove taxation on improvements, and they wanted to put it on the unimproved value of all land—not only agricultural, but also mineral and urban. That being a just principle, they claimed that it should be adopted in connection with any scheme of land settlement, and then good results would follow just as they had followed in other countries, and just as bad results had followed where wrong and inequitable principles were, in force, or the ownership of land was not accompanied by proper taxation. What did untaxed land mean? It meant that there were large areas which were being held but were not being used. If hon. members who had visited the Transvaal had extended their visit to Pilgrim’s Rest they would have seen a part of the country capable of being developed, but locked up. Such a question must be dealt with on the principle of taxation of unimproved land values, and instead of a landowner waiting for a boom there would be some pressure put upon him to see that the land should be put to some use; or if he did not want to use it himself he would be rather anxious for someone else to take that property off his hands. One-fifth of the acreage of the Transvaal was in the hands of limited liability companies, which held it for speculative purposes. The position of a limited liability company or a speculator holding land might be compared to the highwayman of the olden days, and before anyone was able to use that land they would be able to take money out of people’s pockets. He did not think that taxation of land would stop that altogether, as it usually at first so increased the productive capacity of the country as to send up the value of land instead of decreasing it. But it tended to diminish speculation. Hon. members might say that these ideas with regam to the taxation of land might be all very well for Australia or New Zealand but that in South Africa we had different ideas. Do not let hon. members lay that flattering unction to their souls. South Australia and New Zealand were colonised on principles that would have rejoiced the heart of the Prime Minister, who had deprecated the raising of the rate of wages on the railways because that might attract labourers from the farme. It was the very fact that South Australia and New Zealand were colonised on such retrograde and ultra-Tory principles that it was better for people to work for the large Landowners rather than for themselves that led eventually to the people of New Zealand looking into these land problems and figuring out for themselves a Teal land policy based on a proper appreciation of justice. These principles the Labour party had very much at heart, and they were very glad indeed that the party on the left of the Chair had recently adopted a motion in favour of the taxation of land, and the Labour Party hoped to have a very clear expression of opinion that this really meant the taxation of the unimproved value of all land. (Hear, hear.) The object of the Bill was to enable people to settle on the land—an admirable object with which they entirely sympathised. But the Bill was not going to do anything to increase people’s opportunities to acquire wealth with which to enable them to settle on the land, the price of which was too high. What was the Bill going to do to induce a natural stream of population on to the land? The proposal to spend five millions on the acquisition of land ought to be greeted with pæans of joy from the Landowners’ Association, which met within a few yards of Commissioner-street. (Hear, hear.) The Bill ought to be a god-send to them. How many hon. members must not wish to goodness that they were landowners and not members of Parliament.

We may be both.

said that if the Ministry were successful in settling only, say 800 families on the land in the first year, the result would be to send up the price of land all over the country, and when the Minister came to spend the next half-a-million, he would be able to settle only 500 families. The Minister was asking Parliament to sanction the spending of public money to increase the barrier which prevents people getting on to the land. The Minister represented a party which, in the main, was the landed interest, and they reminded him of the saying, “How hardly shall a rich man enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” They knew that the proposals could not be carried out without powers compulsorily to expropriate land if it could not be obtained at a fair valuation. It was the Labour Party’s duty to protest against Bills like the one under discussion. He knew it might be said to the people by hon. members on the Government benches: “Here, this Labour Party which you are joining in increasing numbers”—(laughter)—“is standing in the way of a scheme which would enable you to settle on the land.” The people would know perfectly well that that was not the case. The Bill was a fraud—he did not mean to impugn the Minister’s honesty—for while it purported to be a Bill which would help to break down the barriers which existed between the landless and the land, its effect would be to increase those barriers. Then they would have hon. members on the Opposition side accusing the Minister of giving land away to their own section of the community. (Cries of “No.”) Then if the day came—which he hoped Heaven might avert—(laughter)—when the party now on the left of the Chair were in power for any protracted period the same accusation would be raised against the Government of the day. The Bill was to be recast in a Select Committee, but before that they wanted to see a measure passed affirming the principle of the taxation of the unimproved value of all land as an integral part of the whole scheme. (Hear, hear.)

seconded.

thought that no one maintained that this was a perfect measure. In some respects it was severe, in others not severe enough. But surely it was not beyond amendment. In listening to the speech of the hon. member for Turffontein, it struck him that there was no honest attempt to meet the Government and to make this a practicable measure. Those were the very people who, during the recess, had spoken so much about immigration. Then on the very first attempt to bring in a Bill to deal with the matter, what position did they take up? They tore the Bill to pieces. Nothing in it was acceptable. One could only come to the conclusion that this was in accordance with the resolution passed at Durban, that whatever measure the Government brought in must be opposed. (Ministerial cheers.)

Where is that resolution?

Was that an honest position to take up? They had gone about the country saying that the Government was against immigration.

Only some members of the Government.

They had never been against immigration. What they did not wish to see was people gravitating back to the towns and forming the unemployed. “The Bill,” he continued, “is not so bad that it cannot be amended in some shape or form.” (Laughter.) What assistance had the Government obtained from the Opposition? He himself would also criticise the Bill, but when the time came he hoped also to assist the Government in making it a practicable measure. As regarded the first portion of the Bill, dealing with Crown lands, he thought that the old Cape Act was certainly better. He spoke with experience and with some authority on the question. The old Act had worked well in Bechuanaland, where they had established one or two successful settlements. He had a grievance against the Minister of Lands. It was that when he came into office he brought in his new policy, and did not continue the policy of the old Cape Government, which was to have a portion of the land surveyed every year and given to the people. The Minister’s new policy was to bore for water first, and then give out the land to the people. But that new policy of his led to nothing. He predicted that unless the Minister changed his policy, this work would lead to nothing in the future. Practically nothing had been done, and in five years’ time, when the Minister left office, nothing would have been done. This had aroused great dissatisfaction, for many people, impatient of the delay in getting land, went off to Rhodesia and elsewhere, and were lost to the country. The Bill was not sufficiently clear, and did not state the size of the holdings. They must have some limit as to area. If a man got a large and expensive holding, and had two bad seasons, the land would be thrown on the Government’s hands. There was no country in the world where farming was accompanied by so many drawbacks as in South Africa, and in the matter of land settlement it behoved them to go very carefully indeed There were two excellent provisions in the Bill. The first was that anyone to whom land was allotted under the Bill must understand farming. That was essential, as experience in Bechuanaland proved. They were often referred to what was being done in New Zealand and other countries. His experience, however, was that the people who made these comparisons so readily understood nothing about farming.

Nonsense.

repeated his last remark. He insisted that the Minister of Lands must take the greatest care in taking people from the towns.

criticised the view that the measure should have been associated with one for a tax on unimproved land values. How could they expect the Minister of Finance to bring in such a measure when he had a surplus as at present? This thing could be carried through without taxation at all. When the time for taxation arrived, when there was a deficit, they might have something to say about land values, but he thought that it would be extremely unwise to link up such a measure as this with taxation when they wanted to go ahead with it at once. He thought all of them were disappointed at the Bill. They welcomed it as a step in the right direction. As they knew, there were thousands of acres of land in the country awaiting cultivation. He saw they had imported £195,000 worth of butter, £145,000 worth of cheese, and £400,000 worth of condensed milk. In other words, they imported three-quarters of a million pounds worth of things that could be produced on the land. Then they imported £27,000 worth of peas and beans, £57,000 worth of eggs, and even a large amount of vegetables. These things could all be produced on the land if they had more small farmers in the country. They could go upon the experience of other countries, notwithstanding what me hon. member for Bechuanaland had said about Australia and New Zealand. This policy of putting people on the land had been productive of good results in other countries, and the same thing could be done here. The policy was started in New Zealand, and £5,000,000 had been spent, with the most beneficial results. One thing complained about in regard to the Bill was that there was no yearly limit to expenditure ; in Australia it was £500,000 ; in New Zealand £500,000. There was nothing definite in regard to that: the Minister could spend a million if he liked. Parliament would know where it was if this point was defined in the Bill. He pointed out that the oversea policy had resulted in an enormous increase in the products of the soil ; the products of the land in New Zealand had doubled since 1890. In Australia the same state of affairs prevailed. South Africa exported 80 per cent. of minerals and 20 per cent. of products of the soil ; in Australia the case was just the reverse of the position in this country. They wanted to attain the same position. They were bound to do it in time, for the mineral resources of the country could not last for all time. He would take the case of Natal. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member for Zululand in 1904 brought before the Natal Assembly a Bill to provide for closer settlement on waste and uncultivated lands, and though at first the scheme did not seem to work very well, he learned from the 1910 report of the Land Board that things had changed for the better. He went on to quote from the report to show the farms available in the different districts and the number of applications that had been made for these lands. He ventured then to show that if this scheme was carried out they would be deluged by hundreds of applications from people who were in the country at the present time. He only quoted the Natal report to show how they would be deluged by applications. They would have farmers’ sons going on the land ; there was even a tendency on the part of commercial men in the cities to send their sons on the land. It would also provide an outlet for young men whose fathers could not afford to buy farms for them. Now they had to go out as managers of farms. Then there were the men of the labour colonies. He pointed out that at Kakamas, when a man had done remarkably well, he could not sell and leave the place. If a man could get compensation for improvements he had effected and get a piece of land outside, another settler could occupy his land at the colony. So the stream would go on from year to year. They (the Opposition) were strongly in favour of the policy They believed it necessary and that it was good, and that they had hundreds of young men whom they could get to go on the land who could not buy on the ordinary terms. But what they did say was that this Bill was not a satisfactory measure ; he did not think that the Minister could have given it very much thought. It was drafted in a very casual sort of way. He had the honour to make regulations and generally the running of the Bill was left entirely to him. He (Mr. Jagger) objected to that sort of thing. The principal points to be considered were the management of the scheme, the purchase of land, division of the land into allotments, means of payment, and the advances. In other countries management was left to the landlord. He agreed with a good deal of what had been said by the hon. member for Turffontein about boards. Under this Bill the Minister had the power to appoint boards—as many as he liked. He (Mr. Jagger) wanted to see one board for the whole of the Union or at any rate one for each Province. There should not be more than one for each Province. In New Zealand these were made up of Government officials, and he should like to see the same sort of thing here. So far as applications were concerned he thought these should be dealt with by the Land Board so as to prevent the possibility of charges of undue preference being levelled. As the Bill stood at present the constitutions of these boards was left to the Minister, and not a word was said about the qualifications to be possessed by these members. In the New Zealand Act these points were clearly laid down, and he might say that this was also the case in the Natal Act. The hon. member pointed out the fact of changes of Government and said that if these matters—such as applications and the like—were left to be dealt with by the board there could be no talk of undue preference. Above all, the board would be able to carry out a continuous policy instead of the scheme being left to the whims of a single man. They would get continuity of policy, which was what was essential if success was to be achieved. He went on to deal with the insertion of a compulsory sale clause, remarking that the experience of other countries had tended to show that this was most necessary. They could not work a scheme of this sort in a satisfactory fashion without a clause of this character. This had been the experience of land legislation in New Zealand, Victoria, and even Queensland. Under this Bill there was no compulsory purchase at all. It was simply left to the Minister to purchase whatever land he thought fit, and also, at the same time, to purchase by public auction. That, to his mind, was a very dangerous principle to be drafted into a Bill. Also he did not like the Minister being able to buy secretly. In Victoria they did not do that. They invited anyone to send in offers of land ; but the land offered could not be withdrawn or sold for nine months. They did not allow a Minister to go and buy any pieces of land he liked. In New Zealand every land purchase had to be laid before the House, and in New South Wales, he thought, it had to be confirmed by the House. To allow a Minister to go about the country and buy whatever land he liked without alteration was, to his mind, an unheard-of thing. Of course where land was bought compulsorily, naturally the man was allowed to keep his homestead. In New Zealand before a man could be given an option to sell he must have land valued at £50,000. It was only in the big areas where they sold land. And, of course, he was allowed to keep his homestead and a certain amount of ground around it. Then again, they got the full market value to be settled by arbitration, so that no injustice was done to any man in any shape or form. Then there was nothing said in this Bill about the size of the ground. The Minister could just divide up the ground as he saw fit. In the Natal Bill they divided the ground into three classes under clause 33. The land had to be cut up into allotments, according to its quality. The first class was cut up into small areas for sugar, tobacco, and so forth. The second-class land was divided into agricultural allotments, from 50 to 500 acres in size ; and the third-class land was reserved for afforestation in lots of 2,000 acres each. It was also the case in other countries. In this Bill, however, there was absolutely nothing laid down, and the Minister could just please himself as to the size of the allotments, and the price, and so forth. That should be altered. They could not allow anything of that sort to go through this House without alteration. Then there were the conditions under which the men should get the allotments. It was quite right that the men should reside eight months in the year on the land ; but there were absolutely no conditions at all except that they must maintain their improvements. That was absurd. What were they going to put men there for? For two reasons: They wanted to get men on the land, and wanted to improve the produce of the country. Now, if a man was only going to maintain the improvements, they might as well leave the land to the original owner. In Natal it was laid down under clause 24 that the men shall be required to make improvements valued at 3s. per acre in the first year, and maintain that during the rest of his time. And in New South Wales they laid down that a certain amount of improvement must be made from year to year. Here nothing was said of that sort. They had to lay something down, that the men must make a certain amount of improvement. Then there was also the selection of the settlers. It was laid down here very clearly what kind of settlers should be taken, and he certainly did not find much fault with it. But in clause 15, the idea was that the selection of these settlers should be in the hands of the Minister. If he wanted to get rid of any amount of complaints that were bound to come and any amount of allegations of undue preference then he should let the selection be by an independent body. Then, again, every holding was leased for five years, with the option of purchase: but nothing was said in the Bill regarding what was to be done if a man did not purchase. A man might be turned off or allowed to stay on. And certainly the rent charged was very low. As a matter of fact, it would pay a man better to keep the land on lease than to take it over by purchase. Well, that was a departure from any other scheme he had seen. Of course it might be to the advantage of the man ; certainly it erred on the side of assisting the man as much as possible. The man was allowed to do what he liked. In the scheme in Natal a man had to take a lease for 33 years or 99 years. In New Zealand it was 99 years. But he had not seen any scheme which laid down that a man could have the land for five years at a very low rental, and then do what he liked. Next he came to the advances. He agreed with what an hon. Minister said the other day on that subject. Under this Bill the Minister could advance whatever money he liked to any man. There was no restriction as to the amount of the advance ; no restriction as to the improvements that must be made on the farm before the advance was made. The matter was left entirely to the Minister. It was very unsatisfactory, and he would fight that clause tooth and nail in the committee stage. There ought to be in this Bill the principles on which they were going to advance the money: how much for improvements ; how much on each allotment ; but to leave it to the Minister—well, he would be very sorry to leave it to any man. Then he wanted to call the attention of the Minister to clause 9. So far as he understood it, under this clause, his right hon. friend could purchase a farm for anybody. There was no restriction as to the size of the farm. The only restriction was to provide that the Minister must get the consent of the Land Board, and the applicant must pay one-fifth of the price. Apart from that, the Minister could buy any farm from the wealthiest farmer in the House, and only make the applicant pay 4 per cent. of the money, and the rest in instalments ranging over 20 years. There was no limit to the size of the farm, and no limit to the means of the applicant. A man could come along and apply to the Minister for such and such a farm, offer his one-fifth, and the Minister could then buy the farm. But, to his mind, the Government was not called upon to do that. What they wanted the Government to do was to assist small men. He had tried to show that there was no hostility to the Bill ; but he wanted to see it go through in a proper form. He had, he thought, shown that the Bill had not been well thought out. His hon. friend the Minister of Lands had had years of experience from other countries, which he had not taken advantage of. In New Zealand they had worked for years on the subject. Even if he went only as far as Natal, he would have got a better Bill than this. But he had simply evolved a Bill which, to his (Mr. Jagger’s) mind, was simply thrown together and his idea was that before they took the second reading, the Bill should go to a Select Committee, where it could be put ship shape. Any amount of alterations could be made to it. Nearly every particular item wanted altering, and therefore he would certainly support the resolution of the hon. member for Turffontein.

said that there was a consensus of opinion on both sides of the House with regard to closer settlement, but he found that when they really came to look into it, the cry for closer settlement in South Africa arose from this: that they did not know what to do with their young men. He had always been advocating men going back to the land, and advocating closer settlement, but he said that they must proceed with caution. It seemed to him that the question of closer settlement, like everything else was one of evolution—closer settlement was going on every day—and he asked whether they were not putting the cart before the horse when they were going to create a huge department and spend large sums of money, when they should really be opening up markets, for the want of proper markets was the cause of the lack of production in the country. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member for Cape Town Central (Mr. Jagger) had referred to the thousands of acres lying waste in the country, and the large amount of articles which were imported, but the fact was that farmers could produce those things, but owing to distance could not send their products to market or get a sufficient price for them. Under those circumstances, were they wise in inducing men to come into this country, when they ought to be opening up their own markets first? They should certainly induce young men to go on to the land, but not where they would make a failure of it, because if they did turn out failures, they would be throwing unemployed men on the towns, and making life much more difficult there. Why so many drifted to the towns was because they found the conditions much more easy there and more enjoyable. He could quite agree with what an hon. member had said that a labouring man felt he wanted something to fall back upon—something he could turn his hand to when he fell out of employment, and to use the land as a standby. But the matter had so many phases that he did feel alarmed, when millions of money were going to be spent, knowing as he did the conditions of life in South Africa. He saw the whole matter was to be run by a Land Board ; and he did think that they must use very great caution in that matter, because experience had shown them that they must be very careful in the selection of their Land Board, because a great deal of nepotism had gone on. (Opposition cheers and Ministerial dissent). He must say that his experience of Land Boards had put him, in a way, against them. He had another objection against the Bill, which was that when a man applied for a certain piece of land the Board might grant it to someone else ; and he thought that the Land Board should have to give its exact reasons why land was granted to such and such persons. He was not pleased with the way in which the responsibility of the Boards would be shifted, and he thought that they should make the Minister solely responsible for the allotment of the land ; in an atmosphere away from the scene where the land had been applied for, he would be in a better position to decide to whom the land should be granted. They had to proceed with very great caution, because under that Bill they were not only legislating for the present, but they were legislating for what was going to be the foundation of their Land settlement. They must be very careful that abuses should not be allowed to creep in, for they knew that they must be very flagrant before the House stepped in. Section 8 gave the Minister absolute power to go Into the open market to purchase land ; and he would have to stand the racket if he had acted wrongly ; it was easy to obtain an option for the land for some time, and there would then always be time to go to Parliament. There was a Waste Lands Committee, which had done their good work in the old Cape Parliament, to which this question of land could be referred. There was another provision in the Bill which he thought was a dangerous one, and that was the provision giving the Government the power to “swop” land for land which they thought might prove suitable for closer settlement. The Cape Parliament had jealously guarded against any provision which might leave an opening for jobbery in our land matters ; our administration had been very pure hitherto, and he hoped it would continue so, but they were legislating for the future, and should be very careful not to open the door to abuses. As to one of the clauses dealing with stone found upon a person’s property, the hon. member said that it was a drastic provision, and surely they did not consider limestone stone for building purposes ; and if a man had a quarry he might find it would pay him better to remove the stone. He thought they ought to confine that section entirely to minerals. Another point they ought carefully to go into was the question of prescription (clause 58), and it should be clearly defined what was meant by that. The Bill would have to be very carefully considered, and he hoped that they would not go into the question blindfold. In conclusion, the hon. member said he felt very strongly on the question of water prospecting areas. Men should be allowed to prospect for water in the dry areas in the North-west. This had been tried in the Kenhardt district with satisfactory results, twenty men settling on the land. Where possible, Government should bore for water, but, at the same time, our young men should be enabled to go into the country, and if they found water, let them settle on the land. On the other hand if they were going to wait until all this country was opened by Government boring, that would mean a delay of ten or twelve years. While he was not opposed to the Bill, he was going to treat the matter with very great caution.

expressed surprise at many of the criticisms advanced on both sides of the House. Perhaps many of these were due to misunderstanding. Of course, it was not to be expected that every one would be satisfied. He thought that the Bill was a good beginning. They must remember that there were various kinds of settlers, and that the amount of materials and number of cattle advanced to him must vary according to his circumstances. There was the man with a certain amount of capital who they simply had to put down on the land and see that he improved it properly. The hon. member for Fordsburg would remember that under Crown Colony Government, a number of such people were given farms, and had been quite successful. That kind of settler they had in article 50. Under article 40 they had another type. He had to be put on the land and supplied with stock, materials, and even food to begin with. In the Transvaal, at Potchefstroom, Delmas, and Vlakfontein, such settlers had succeeded fairly well. As the distinction between these two classes was not very dearly shown in the Bill, it may have led to the misapprehension which the hon. member for Turffontein betrayed in his speech. Continuing, the speaker referred to the practice in Australia, especially in Victoria, in regard to the expropriation of land. In regard to the size of the allotments it was impossible to determine the area in the Bill, as the size must vary according to the fertility of the land. In one place 200 morgen might be large enough, but in another 2,000 morgen would hardly suffice for the settler. The Minister must be allowed to use his judgment, and they must repose confidence in him. In reference to the criticisms of the hon. member for Calvinia, he thought that one Advisory Board for each Province was sufficient. He urged the Minister to make provision in the regulations for the appointment of an inspector to supervise the settlements. Such an official should go round and give advice to the settlers. Unless the Minister secured the services of such a practical man he feared that these schemes would give him great trouble. In conclusion he emphasised the desirability of absorbing under the settlement scheme poor whites in the towns. It would be absolutely essential for these people to be given advances on a liberal scale. It was the duty of the Government to help those poor people.

The debate was adjourned until tomorrow.