from Anna M. C. Berry, widow of H. Berry, pensioner.

Return showing: Number of public servants transferred to the Transvaal, etc. ; report of trustees South African Art Gallery ; report of South African Fine Art Association.

I am glad of an opportunity to place the House—and, through the House, the country—in possession of information in regard to the important matter of the Mail Contract and the allied freight question. First of all, I desire to express to my right honourable friend, the Leader of the Opposition, the Government’s sense of appreciation of the help which he and other prominent members opposite have been good enough to afford the Ministry on this subject during the recess. (Cheers.) Moreover, the fact that the honourable members have refrained from putting questions to the Government upon this subject has been construed by Ministers as an indication of a general desire on the part of the House not to do anything which might be detrimental to the interests of the country, having regard to the delicate negotiations now pending ; and for this evidence of support I also wish to record my acknowledgments. Now, the debates which took place in the House last session will be well within the recollection of honourable members. For convenience, however, the records of the debates, with the proceedings at the recent Imperial Conference on the subject of deferred rebates, have been printed in handy pamphlet form, and copies have been distributed amongst honourable members. I would specially invite attention to the proceedings at the Imperial Conference, which give prominence to certain important features of the controversy which were not touched upon in the course of the debates in this House.

Arising out of that statement, may I ask has any arrangement been made for continuing the present contract beyond Septemper 30 of this year?

I am glad to be able to say that, in the opinion of the Government, there is no necessity at the present stage to make arrangements for the continuance of the contract after September 30 of this year. The Government will give all consideration to the proposals that will be made by Sir Owen Philipps’s company, and in the event of the Government not coming to a favourable agreement, one that it can freely and confidently hand to this House that they are quite satisfied in so far as the mail contract is concerned, the present arrangement will last up to the 39th of September. After that the mail contract will not be continued to the present company whilst the deferred rebate system is in vogue.

asked the Minister of Finance: (1) Whether it is a fact that married officials transferred to the Transvaal after the establishment of Union and having their headquarters there, were, during the period they were required to stay in Cape Town in connection with the last session of Parliament deprived of their Transvaal local allowances, and whether such local allowances are withheld from them during the present session ; (2) whether it is a fact that such officials may draw the local allowance during any period which they spend on leave of absence in or outside South Africa, but have to drop the same during their stay in Cape Town on duty in connection with the session of Parliament, and if so, what are the reasons for the differential treatment ; (3) what is the amount of the Transvaal local allowance, to whom is it paid, and for what purpose ; and (4) what is the amount of the subsistence allowance paid to married and unmarried officials respectively during their stay in Cape Town in connection with the Parliamentary session?

(1) Officers who were transferred to the Transvaal from other Provinces subsequent to Union and were afterwards required to proceed to Cape Town for the first Parliamentary session were not paid the Transvaal local allowance during their stay in Cape Town. The local allowance is not withheld during the present session. (2) Local allowance may be drawn during authorised leave of absence. In view of the answer given above, the latter part of this question does not call for reply. (3) I would refer the hon. member to the latter part of paragraph 5 of the memorandum attached to the Estimates of Expenditure, which were laid on the table at the beginning of the session. (4) For the first 14 days: Officers with pensionable emoluments of £600 and over, 17s. 6d. per diem ; officers with pensionable emoluments of £300 but less than £600, 15s. per diem ; officers with pensionable emoluments of less than £300, 12s. 6d. per diem ; after 14 days married men whose families are residing within the Union get half of the above rates. Unmarried men, or married men whose families are not residing within the Union, get half-rates for a further 16 days, and then quarter-rates for the rest of the session.

asked the Minister of Native Affairs: (1) Whether it is a fact that 397,000 morgen of land have been reserved for native locations in the district of Zoutpansberg ; (2) whether it is a fact that he intends to reserve yet more land for locations either by extending the present locations or by demarcating new ones; and (3) if so, whether he will afford the House an opportunity of discussing the advisability or otherwise of such a policy?

(1) Yes ; the extent quoted is approximately correct. (2) I have no such intention at present. If any necessity should arise in future for considering the advisability of further extending location lands or demarcating new reserves, Parliament will, of course, have an opportunity of discussing any proposals in that direction.

moved:

“That the methods adopted by the Government in dealing with the public service of the Union, both in connection with the reorganisation and readjustments of the departments of such service, and in connection with the personnel of such departments, are in conflict with the provisions of the South Africa Act, and tend to cause unrest and discontent among the public servants of the Union.” The hon. member said: Mr. Speaker, the wording of this motion has been very carefully thought out. The meaning of the motion is contained in that wording, and there is no other ulterior motive in bringing forward this motion. There is no necessity, sir, to justify the bringing forward of this motion. If any justification were required, I can assure you, sir, that the floods of correspondence which I and my friends have received since this motion was tabled, communications not merely as to individual grievances, but communications also as to the general discontent in the service, the general chaos in the service, and the general want of confidence in the future of the members of the service—(Opposition cheers)—and these communications have not only come from members of the service—I could understand if after what my hon. friend the Minister of Railways said yesterday, it might be classified as an ex parte statement—but the communications have also come from the general public, and those communications from the general public reflect the general idea throughout the country of the belief that something is required to be done to remedy the present state of affairs in the service. That is really the reason why this motion is brought forward. Because, after all, we are representatives of the general public in this House. It is a very wide subject, and I am anxious that the whole case should be stated as fully and succinctly as possible in this House. I am desirous, as I said before that the Government should treat this subject on the lines on which this motion is brought in. There is a desire that the state of things considered detrimental to the best interests of the country should be remedied, and the only remedy I can see possible is for the Government to change its policy adopted up to now in the re-organisation of the Civil Service. To present the case fully is, I am afraid, beyond my strength, and possibly, if I were to undertake it alone, beyond the patience of the House to listen, so I shall endeavour rather to deal with the general aspect of the question as laid down in this motion, and leave it to some of my hon. friends who have been more in touch with matters than I have—as you know, sir, I have for some time been absent from the Colony—I shall leave the details of proof not only of these grievances, but of this state of unrest, to be verified by some of the gentlemen who will follow me in this debate.

But before I proceed with the task, I should like to remove any possibility from the minds of hon. members of this House that there is any idea of bringing forward this motion to get any party advantage. (Hear, hear, and Ministerial laughter.) Yes, from the jeers of hon. members opposite I see how important it is that I should try to clear up that matter. I saw the day after this return was tabled that in the Government organ —

What is the Government organ?

I am alluding to the “South African News”—the English version of the Government organ—(laughter)—because the Government organs are, naturally, bilingual, and I think it is a translation of the Government organ in Cape Town. I say that there was an indication to the Government that they should treat this motion as one of no confidence in the Government. That is exactly what I want to avoid. Of course, we all know that if this position is adopted by the Government, the whole question I am trying to bring forward will be burked. We knew that the Government would rally its very large majority, and practically rule this motion out ; but I do not believe that this will be done, although the suggestion came from the party organ, which should do its best to support the Government. I was sorry to see from the speech of the Hon. Minister of Education (Mr. Malan), at Durbanville, that he was inclined to adopt the same line. His criticism was perfectly justified that this was a case of constructive opposition and not destructive opposition, which we have always repudiated, which our past actions repudiate, and which our future actions are going to repudiate. (Opposition cheers.) But, fortunately, the Right Hon. the Prime Minister spoke shortly afterwards at Wellington, and what he said was that he welcomed this discussion, that it would profitably clear the atmosphere; that a case would be brought forward against the Government, and that it would have an opportunity of rebutting whatever was brought forward. That was the attitude which I hoped the Government would take, and I am glad the Government is going to take, and I believe that when the Prime Minister said that, he meant it. Well, if the Government welcomes this motion with the object of having a free discussion and having matters cleared up, who could be expected to bring forward this motion? It is a matter of common knowledge that there is discontent in the Service, and I am sure that many hon. members opposite—as many as on this side of the House —know of this fact ; but could we ask hon. members opposite to bring this motion forward? We could not expect the! freest lance on the Government side—the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman)—(laughter)—to initiate such a discussion, and I hope I shall have the powerful influence of my right hon. friend, now that it has been initiated. (Laughter.) We know that not so long ago the right hon. gentleman proclaimed himself a humble follower of the Government—(laughter)—and gave the most contemptuous criticism of the Government. But what was the end? The right hon. gentleman said: I will vote for it. (Laughter.) That was chivalry on the part of the right hon. gentleman—(laughter)—and I know that he has chivalry and that he would not table such a motion as I have tabled. I feel perfectly certain that his well deserved reputation as an advocate of party government will not allow him to sit quiet, but that he will give us his views. (Laughter.) Shortly before I arrived in this country the right hon. gentleman undertook a tour amongst his constituents, and he said then that it was of the deepest moment to the people of this colony that we should have a contented and an efficient Civil Service. (Hear, hear.) In this country, with its small European population, there were, he said, 75,000 people drawing Government pay in one shape or another, and these people were under no kind of control—there had been tremendous changes, and he was sorry to say that there had been a great deal of discontent created. The Act of Union laid down that there should be a Commission appointed ; it was some time before it had been appointed, and he did not think that it gave the maximum of satisfaction…. We seemed to be rapidly drifting into confusion on the one side, and dissatisfaction on the other. He was sure that the had drifted into a condition of great waste of power in our Civil Service, and that it should not be.

We had heard a great deal of the Convention spirit, and some secrets had leaked out, so he thought he might lift the veil just a little—(laughter)—and he could point out that a great many of them in the Convention thought—and were strongly of opinion yet—that the Civil Service of this country should, as far as possible, be placed on the English basis, or as it was in Australia. It should be removed from political influences. At this there had been cheers from the right hon. gentleman’s constituency. We had not (the right hon. gentleman had continued) made the faintest approach to that—(hear, hear)—and although he shut his ears as far as possible, he could not altogether shut his ears to rumours which had reached him, of political influences here and political influences there, which might bring dissatisfaction in the ranks of the Civil Service. It was a disappointment ; and he held that one of the first things that ought to be dealt with was the question of the Civil Service. We are now obeying the behest of the right hon. gentleman, continued Sir Starr Jameson amid laughter and cheers, and as he always does, the right hon. gentleman put his finger on the key of the whole position when he said that there should be no suspicion of political influence, and that the Civil Service should be above party influences altogether. (Hear, hear.) Well, I say that, considering the formation of the present Government, it is impossible that a suspicion of political partisanship should not occur. I do not say that there is any political partisanship. I say that it is impossible that that suspicion should be absent ; and I remember well those early days when I, without success, attempted to persuade my right hon. friend to adopt my views, and to induce the most able and experienced men in this country, men such as himself, to undertake the duty of government. Continuing, he said: I think I am bringing forward this motion as evidence that I was right ; and such was his influence in this country that he might have carried his idea, irrespective of party. But he had formed the Government on strictly party lines—the old artificial party lines of the Provinces. As I said, it is not going to persist, and I see indications at the present moment that there is a little breaking down. My unfortunate party here—(laughter)—lost a seat the other day—(laughter)—and even in the loss of that seat I had considerable consolation. I do not want to increase the power of the people on that bench ; I am not opposed to these people or the people whom they represent, at all. The satisfaction I got was that the biggest shock to racialism occurred at Georgetown the other day, when my hon. friend who is sitting there (Mr. Andrews) was elected. (Labour cheers.) They forgot their racialism, and the hon. member, who made such an able speech here the other day, must have made able speeches at Georgetown that he got the Dutchmen to vote for him. (Cheers.) I say that, in future, the most able men on that side and the most able men on this side should undertake the Government, irrespective of the old party distinctions which we hear so much of. (Opposition cheers.) What happened in France the other day? There was a much smaller crisis than in this country—the Government was turned out, and what took its place? A new Government from rival growths ; and from all the growths two old Prime Ministers were willing to take office under a man who had never taken office before. That was a very good example to this House in support of my argument that in a national crisis the people can rise to that crisis of the country. Well, suspicion was raised: I won’t say it was justified, or rather, it would not have been justified, if the Government had acted, not only in the letter, but in the spirit and in consonance of this Act of Union. This question was foreseen by the framers of the Constitution, and almost in the words of the right hon. gentleman, who argued the point during the Convention. There are no secrets of the Convention now and I believe we can talk about it—we are all free to talk about the Convention. (Laughter.) The framers of the Constitution saw that next to party influence was party partisanship. Clause 141 of the Act of Union states :

1. (1) As soon as possible after the establishment of the Union, the Governor GeneTal-in-Council shall appoint a Public Service Commission to make recommendations for such re-organisation and readjustment of the departments of the public service as may be necessary. The Commission shall also make recommentations in regard to the assignment of officers to the several Provinces.
2. (2) The Governor-General-in-Council may, after such Commission has reported, assign from time to time to each Province such officers as may be necessary for the proper discharge of the services reserved or delegated to it and such officers on being so assigned shall become officers of the Province. Pending the assignment of such officers, the Governor-General-in-Council may place at the disposal of the Provinces the services of such officers of the Union as may be necessary.
3. (3) The provisions of this section shall not apply to any service or department under the control of the Railway and Harbour Board, or to any person holding office under the Board.

The next one is clause 142, which reads: “After the establishment of the Union, the Governor-General-in-Council shall appoint a permanent Public Service Commission, with such powers and duties relating to the appointment, discipline, employment, and the superannuation of public officers as Parliament shall determine.” Then there is clause 144, as follows: “Any officer of the public service of any of the colonies at the establishment of the Union who is retained in the service of the Union, or assigned to that of a Province, shall retain all his existing and accruing rights, and shall be entitled to retire from the service at the time at which he would have been entitled by law to retire, and on the pension or retiring allowance to which he would have been entitled by law in like circumstances if the Union had not been established.” That was foreseeing the possibility of what I consider is the present position we are in, and the framers of the Constitution put in those safeguards, and I believe if these had been interpreted by the Government in the spirit in which they were framed, besides in the letter, I should not have been standing here to-day and bringing forward this motion. (Opposition cheers.) I think every member of this House will agree with me that there could be no more complex and no more invidious task given any body of men than the re-allotment, reorganisation, and establishment of the permanent organisation of the Civil Service of this country. (Hear, hear.) It wanted a strong Commission—(hear, hear)—a Commission that would give confidence not only to the members of the Civil Service but to the whole country. (Opposition cheers.) How was that satisfied by the Government? They appointed a Commission. It says here, “as soon as possible after the establishment of Union.” The Union came into force on May 31 ; the Commission was appointed on August 10. What was the Commission appointed? Three gentlemen, very worthy persons, all three of them good servants in the past, but numerically and in personnel not calculated to inspire that confidence which was wanted. (Opposition cheers.) It seemed to us almost when that Commission was appointed that some of the previous Transvaal ideas were still persisted in—(hear, hear)—what we have often heard called in this country the autocratic ideas of the Minister of the Interior. I know there was a debate in the Transvaal Parliament on this question. I won’t quote the very able speech that my hon. friend made, but he is always perfectly frank, and he went to the point at once. He said in the Convention it was desired to have the appointment of a Standing Commission. He entirely disapproved. He said the responsibility remained with the Minister. I know in the Convention some of us, my hon. friend here who sits on my right among others, were on the sub-committee that dealt with this question, and we fought as hard as we could to get this clause stronger than it had been in the Convention. We failed, but we did not expect that that clause would be read as it has been read by the Government. (Opposition cheers.) I say it gives us a suspicion—I don’t say it is a fact—that the Government desire to keep the strings as much as they can in every possible way. That is exactly what was intended by the clause to prevent. (Hear, hear.) It is true that the clause says that the responsibility for appointment shall rest with the Minister, but my right hon. friend knows, as well as we all know, that the appointments recommended by a strong Standing Commission would not be upset by the Government, except for sufficient reasons, which would be brought before Parliament and dealt with by Parliament. (Hear, hear.) We cannot, again, forget in that connection that there was during the time of Responsible Government in the Transvaal a Commission appointed to deal with the Civil Service ; a very able expert from India was imported for the purpose, but we heard no more. I asked to-day one of the members for the Transvaal: “Was the report of that Commission ever published?” “No.” “Was it laid on the table?” “I am not sure.” At all events, it had disappeared entirely. Knowing what the expert was prepared, at all events, to advise, I can quite understand that it did not agree with the Transvaal Government, as represented by my hon. friend there at that time. Then, take the Commission that we have had dealing with this subject now under Union. As I said, it was not strong enough numerically or in personnel to give confidence to the country. But what happened? Two of the members resigned, one of them because his recommendations were ignored. The chairman resigned, I understand, on the ground of ill health. He was succeeded by a gentleman who is experienced, I am told, in commission work—(laughter)—but he will not, I am sure, object to my dubbing him as a strong and convinced supporter of the Government. (Opposition cheers.) How, then, can we expect, say, the Civil Servant who thinks he has been badly treated, and who happens not to agree with the politics of the Government in power, how can you expect that man not to have a suspicion—perhaps not justified—not to have a suspicion? I give that as one example. The Government by their policy have directly invited this suspicion, against which, if they had only acted up to the spirit of the clause in the Convention, they would have been absolutely defended. There could not have been a better buffer between them and any false change that might be made, if they had appointed a Commission whose recommendations would give satisfaction not only to the Civil Service, but to the whole country. (Opposition cheers.) There was a tremendous task given to this Commission, an infinitely greater task than was given to the Transvaal Commission which we never heard of again, or the Cape Civil Service Commission of 1904, of which we heard a great deal, but, I am sorry to say, we could not carry out their recommendations. (A laugh.) Quite true, and I tell the hon. member quite frankly the reason. In this House we could not pass it. My right hon. friend over there (Mr. Merriman) will tell you the same, that he succeeded us when we were turned out—not for that, but for something else, probably deservedly—but he never attempted to pass those recommendations. But that Commission, remember, was not useless. As far as we could, we adopted all the recommendations.

The point is that, for a much smaller task, we in the Cape in our inefficient way appointed what I call a really strong Commission. We appointed at the head of that Commission, not a political partisan, but a Judge of the Supreme Court—(hear, hear)—who, I suppose, had more experience of the Civil Service than any judge on the Bench in this country, who had been Attorney-General and head of the Law Department for some years. Who did we put with him? As strong a body of four men as we could get, irrespective of party. (Hear, hear.) My hon. friend there did very good work, the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey). And with these four we had an expert, our good example having been followed later by the Transvaal, of some standing, one of the most experienced and high-placed servants in the Indian Civil Service, a gentleman who, I now believe, is appointed Lt.-Governor of one of the largest Provinces in India. That was in 1904, when we dealt with a much smaller problem. That is the kind of Commission we expected that, when this matter was commenced, would have been appointed by the Government. I remember mentioning in that sub-committee that the work of that Commission was quite as important and onerous as the work of the Delimitation Commission. But what was done in regard to the Delimitation Commission? That was a strong Commission. It was put to work at once and everything was put in order by the time Union was accomplished. I hoped such a Commission would have been appointed simultaneously with the Delimitation Commission. I know it could not have been done after the Convention was passed. And, sir, my case is that even at this late hour the Government should retrace their steps, as the only remedy I can see, and appoint such a Commission that will give satisfaction both to the Civil Service and to the country. (Opposition cheers.) Now, as I said, I am going to leave the actual details both of discontent and particular grievances to some of my friends who will follow me, but I think it would be convenient that I should summarise the principal grievances and causes of discontent, and I have tried to do so under four heads: (1) The introduction from outside the service of new officials who had not been in the employ of the Colonial Governments prior to Union, whilst, on the other hand, old and experienced servants are being retrenched ; (2) the promotion of Civil Servants whose claims to large increases of salary and superior positions are not warranted by length of service or special efficiency ; (5) the loss of status, reduction of annual increments, and lowering of the barrier of salary between grades which has affected Civil Servants of long standing, in spite of the definite provisions of clause 144 of the Act of Union—(hear, hear)—where their present and accruing rights are guaranteed to them by the Act of Union ; (4) transfer of officials from inland colonies to the coast, or from one branch to another, to superior positions over the heads of men of much longer service and even higher qualifications, absolutely on account of the large salaries they have enjoyed. (Opposition cheers.) I have studiously not charged the Ministers with any of these iniquities. What I have been trying to put before the House is that it is the system adopted by the Government that is at fault. In favour of Ministers. I would say that, as far as I know, when these people who have suffered from these grievances have been able to get access to Ministers they have been considered sympathetically. For instance, there is the worst case of all, the department of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice, which is acknowledged to be superlatively in a muddle. (Laughter.) A case was brought under the Minister’s notice, and it was most sympathetically considered, and the grievance was redressed. But the point that is made in many of these cases is the difficulty of access to the Ministers. It is a curious thing that the busier a Minister is, the more chaos there is in his department. (Laughter.) As far as I can find, when the rearrangement of Ministers took place there was little com plaint in the office of the Minister of Industries and Commerce. (Laughter.) The reason was that he had no department—(laughter)—but he has now got one I am told, so that he may not get off scot free. But when the Ministers are very busy then the details of their departments are left to subordinates. Nothing is worse for a department in the Civil Service than for a Minister to delegate such duties to a subordinate, however good he may be. Now, in the case of the Minister of Justice, I can quite understand that he has not had much time to deal with the humdrum detail of his department. We know that he is a zealous and enthusiastic man and a patriot, and any other word of that description that you can find. But the Minister, to my mind, is a person who is obsessed by one idea. He is a sort of John the Baptist, in that he has a mission in life, and he has, generally speaking, carried out that mission during the last six months. We heard of his oratorical perambulations, one suceeding the other, all over the country in pursuit of his ideal. His particular ideal we all know—the language question. I am not going into the details of that question, which seemed the idea of building a Chinese Wall round the Union of South Africa, with the motto, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” (Laughter.) We are all anxious to push this country forward, and each of us naturally all doing it in our own way. We each have an ideal, but most of us are practical people, and we are all prepared to give and take. But this is not the case with the Minister of Justice, who I don’t think can be called a practical man. He is an idealist and an enthusiast, and he thinks that if his own way is only carried out, then the Test could go hang. I really think that if he would devote himself to the details of administration of another department, it would be good for himself, and good for the whole country. (Laughter.) There are many reasons why he should take some other course. I don’t like to make personal allusions, but I feel, knowing the general feeling in the country, that I would be wanting in my duty if I did not say something in view of the recent trial at Bloemfontein. I am not going into the details of that trial

Oh, no.

I merely wish to allude to the result of the trial, and quote one sentence of the judgment, that there was not one tittle of evidence against the inspector, and one sentence, when, in answer to the Chief Justice, the Minister said that if he was in the same circumstances, he would do it again. I say that it would be better if the Hon. the Minister of Justice took some other Portfolio, instead of that department, so that the course of justice and law would not be impaired. (Hear, hear.) I said just now that the busier the Minister the worse his department was run. Now, I know it will be a surprise to my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, but I am told that the Agricultural Department is only second to the Department of Justice: but for a very different reason. We all know the enthusiasm of the Prime Minister in the interest of agriculture, and not only of agriculture, but of progressive agriculture. We know his devotion to it ; but there is a limit to what one man can undertake. His is the most complicated, the largest, and most intricate department, I am sure, in the Union, and it requires, certainly, the time of not one Minister, and the Prime Minister is far too busy to look after the intricate details of that Department. It is left to subordinates, and unavoidably so. This entails discontent. I have always been an advocate of the Prime Minister not holding any portfolio at all. I say that it would be worth his salary to the country if the Prime Minister was not at the head of any department, but kept a watchful control over all departments. Not only has the right hon. gentleman had to keep a watchful control over all departments, but, as we know, his duties took him across the water. And what happened when he came back? He could not sit down and get to work, but had to chase the Minister of Justice over the country, until finally he collared him on the platform at Bloemfontein. He has sufficient to do to look over the departments, and I marvel at the work he has to go through, and marvel at the fact that bad though the condition of has department is, it is not worse. I will only now say that we are most anxious that this matter should be treated in the way indicated by the Prime Minister. He will treat it as I hope the whole Government will treat it in that way. If he will answer any argument we will have an open mind on the subject—if he will give an assurance to this House that will satisfy not only this House, but the whole country, that the policy adopted by the Government on this question of the Civil Service will be in accordance with the clauses of the Act of Union, and that there shall be no infringement of present and accruing rights, that where there has been infringement this will be corrected, and that, above all, the service shall be made an efficient and contented service—without content you can’t have efficiency—by the appointment of a Commission such as I have indicated even at this late hour. I will move, sir. (Cheers.)

seconded the motion.

said that the Government had been accused of acting contrary to the spirit, or in conflict with the provisions, of the South Africa Act, but not one point had been brought up to prove that that was the case. His right hon. friend had said that the motion was not one of no confidence in the Government and that there was no intention of that, but he forgot that the newspapers which were his mouthpiece and those of his party—(hear, hear)—had for a considerable time preached that this was a motion of no confidence ; and he wanted to ask his right hon. friend one thing. Was it possible, if the hon. House accepted that motion, for any self-respecting man to remain any longer in the Government? (Ministerial cheers.) If that motion was agreed to no self-respecting man could remain in the Government for one minute longer—(renewed cheers)—for his position would be most unenviable. He believed that what his right hon. friend had said was what was “in his inmost heart,” but they knew very well that he had not set the ball rolling—he had not started this. (Laughter.) Long before the right hon. gentleman had returned to this country the newspapers of his party had stated that the first step that he (Sir Starr) would take when he came back was to move a motion of no confidence in the Government. (Ministerial cheers.) Every one knew that. Now the truth came out from the heart of the hon. gentleman—and everyone knew that he was one of the most intelligent men who sat on the Opposition benches. (Ministerial cheers.) No man, however, could consider that motion except as one of no confidence, and as such he (General Botha) would consider it. He would look upon it as such and would not remain a day longer in the Government if the House accepted that motion. They heard, the Prime Minister proceeded, that the coffin had been made ready—(laughter)—and they had heard how the new Government was to be formed. (Laughter.) That day they saw the pall bearers, but he thought that the coffin which they would carry would be an empty one. (Laughter.) When he listened to the speech he became convinced that there was no seriousness (“ernst”) in the matter. The first parr of the motion was one of no confidence and the other two parts were what were called “rear guard actions.” (Laughter.) If there was one thing which had struck him deeply and hurt him a good deal, it was the motion which his right hon. friend had moved not because he moved a motion of no confidence in the Government, which he was quite at liberty to do, but because he had made a party question of the Civil Service. (Ministerial cheers.) He repeated, from that point of view he regretted it exceedingly. The two parties must stand together to protect the interests of these people ; and if one party fought the other party on that matter it must be at the expense of these unfortunate Civil Servants, who needed the protection of both parties. (Cheers.) There was not the slightest difference between that motion and the motion which had been dealt with and finished the previous day. He advised his right hon. friend opposite to withdraw the motion. He hoped that those who had not heard the speech the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) made the previous day would read it, because not only was he one of the principal men on the other side, but he was the first lieutenant of the leader of the Opposition. He wished to say a few words about the Civil Service. The Government had been formed at the end of May, 1910, and on 1st August it succeeded in appointing the Public Service Commission. It was impossible for the Government to have appointed it before then, because it took a long time to get the most competent men who would be able to serve on that Commission. Several people had been asked to serve, but they refused to do so, and it took some time to get the men. His right hon. friend had alluded to the Bench. No one, however, could be spared from the Bench, and four judges were already serving on the Delimitation Commission. (Ministerial cheers.)

The report was published on the day of Union.

said that the Government in the first place had appointed Mr. Campbell, of Natal, a man who had many years’ practical experience of the Civil Service in Natal, a man who for many years had been head, of departments in that colony—a man who had also been a judge there. His right hon. friend had told them that when he was Prime Minister he had appointed a Commission, on which there was one of the judges of the Cape Colony—if he had understood him aright. But he had forgotten to add that shortly before that, that judge had been the Attorney-General, so that in him they had a man who had been one of his own party.

You make a mistake. He was in the Opposition. (Opposition laughter.)

He was a man who was on the Bench, who had always before that been a party man in the country. Continuing, he said that the second man the Government had selected was Mr. Brown, against whom not much had been said—of course, one could understand why—because he was a party man, and still was at the present day. (Ministerial cheers.) He was a party man—belonging to the party of his right hon. friend. The Government had appointed him because he understood the Civil Service well, and had been the old Treasurer of the Orange River Colony and a member of the Convention. Both these gentlemen had had years of experience of the Civil Service in South Africa, and for those reasons the Government had appointed them ; and to show how little party feeling had to do with the appointment of that Commission, the farming, or Dutch-speaking, section of the people of the Orange Free State had urged that Mr. Brown should be appointed. It was quite clear that party had nothing to do with these appointments, and the Government had appointed the most suitable men. The third man was Mr. Hofmeyr, who was a magistrate of good repute in the Cape Colony, and who had had long experience of the Civil Service—a man of whom no one need be ashamed in regard to work of that nature. (Hear, hear.) They then wanted a secretary, and they selected Mr. Harrison, who had filled a similar position in the Public Service Commission of the Cape, of which his right hon. friend had spoken—a man who had had a great deal of experience in that kind of work. The heads of departments were ex-officio members of the department under consideration, because they would prove of great use to the Commission and accelerate its work. Now they had these criticisms levelled at them as if that Commission were weak or a ridiculous one. He would say that, under the circumstances, it was difficult to get a better Commission than the one which had been appointed by the Government. It was a capable body of men, and quite competent to do the work which had to be done. It must not be forgotten either that the reports of the Commission of the Cape of 1905, and of the Transvaal of 1906, were before the Government, and, to a certain extent, were of service in connection with the reorganisation of the service. The question of the reorganisation of the Civil Service in South Africa under Union was one of the utmost difficulty, and one which was most involved, because the prevailing circumstances were as wide apart as the poles in the four colonies before Union ; and after Union, it was desirable that these different services should be brought into uniformity. That was one of the difficult problems which the Commission had to deal with. The question of economy and retrenchment was one which he thought the House desired the Government to deal with. (Ministerial cheers.) The hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), and other hon. members had time and again urged that for a country like South Africa the public service was too big and cost too much. (Hear, hear.) He thought he understood the feelings of Parliament last year aright that there must be economy in the public service of South Africa. (Hear, hear.) Then there was the question of the transference of officials to Pretoria from the different parts of the Union, which had brought about much dissatisfaction in South Africa, because it was obvious that where they had to bring about uniformity and remove officials from one part of the country to another—from parts where they had lived for a long time, perhaps, and had acquired property and the like—it was difficult for those Civil Servants to leave those places and go elsewhere. People were dissatisfied because they had to leave the old home. When a man was shifted the whole family were annoyed. (Ministerial laughter.) That kind of dissatisfaction, they must remember, would be engendered with every transfer they made amongst the officials. Must such a consideration stand in their way? Had they continued to run the service as in the past the Government would have been under the necessity of submitting the Estimates with no alteration, no economies. He asked them to bring back to mind what had been said on that matter during the last session. After working for one year the Commission had reported on four departments and also produced a general report. The Government had been exceedingly desirous that the fresh Estimates should be submitted on the basis of a reorganised Civil Service, and not repeat the figures of last year. They had done their best to expedite the work of reorganisation. Unfortunately, Mr. Campbell fell ill, seriously ill, and it was therefore impossible for him to continue on the Commission. There had not been the least friction between him and the other members of the Commission. He had been thoroughly satisfied with the whole circumstances of the Commission, but his health did not permit him to keep to the work, and so he resigned. Mr. Brown also resigned. He did so because he was dissatisfied at the Government not accepting all the recommendations made in regard to grading. In this he hoped that his right hon. friend would agree with him, that had the Government accepted the Commission’s recommendation they would have had to accept the Transvaal rate of salary as a basis for the whole Union.

No!

repeated that Transvaal salaries were recommended by the Commission to be taken as a basis. Here again it would have been quite impossible for the Government to defend their position if they accepted this basis, and had made a party score over it, as the Opposition sought to do in the motion. (Ministerial cheers.) The Government had acted in the best interests of the country in disposing of this matter. The Government were solely responsible for what had been done in this respect. They had decided with one voice to accept the present system of grading. Had they accepted the Commission’s scale there would have been no economies, and the Estimates would not have been reduced. Such a position would have been untenable by the Government, and thus in the best interests of the State they had introduced the lower scale. In doing so, it must not be imagined that they had curtailed any official’s rights. The new scale only applied to new officials. Old officials retained their former salaries, even when placed in a grade for which a lower salary was fixed, but the service had been placed on a sound basis. The new grading had been introduced on August 17, and applied only to new officials. It was a matter of opinion whether the Government were justified in adopting it, but surely the Government were entitled to their opinion, and in duty bound they had to act in accordance with that opinion. (Ministerial cheers.) The recommendations of the Commission in the matter of allowances could not be accepted. It was not laid down in the Constitution that the Government were bound to accept the recommendations of the Commission, the Government could either accept or reject them, and in that respect there was no question, of a breach of the Constitution. When Mr. Brown resigned on August 17 the Government appointed Mr. Stockenstrom chairman of the Commission. He was in the Civil Service for many years, and was a member of the Transvaal Civil Service Commission. By these reasons he was fully qualified and competent to fill this position and assist the Government. They had taken on Mr. Bird as a second member. He also had been in the Civil Service. In Natal he had been Under-Colonial Secretary for many years, and indeed he was a man of the widest practical experience. He was happy to say that the Commission had gone forward with their work very assiduously. Although the Government had not yet received reports regarding all the departments, they were framing the Estimates on a reduced basis. The grades and salaries on which the Estimates were based had been determined by the Commission, though not all of the departmental reports had been yet made. That was in outline the history of the Commission. Proceeding, he said that he had listened intently to the charges levelled by his right hon. friend. He charged the Government with having broken the Constitution, and with having caused unrest and dissatisfaction in the Civil Service. In regard to the former charge, his reply was a complete denial. They had never broken the Constitution, either in word or in spirit. (Ministerial cheers.) They had always abided by article 141. The second charge had been exaggerated by the Press controlled by hon. members opposite. It grieved him very much that the Opposition now made a party matter of the public service. He earnestly warned his right hon. friend against persisting in this course. If he made a party question of the Civil. Service, then the demand would be made that the two peoples be placed on an absolute equality in the service. That there was dissatisfaction he admitted, but that dissatisfaction would, he maintained, be increased by such motions as that brought forward by the right hon. member. He had spoken of grades and salaries, but the salaries of existing Civil Servants were guaranteed so long as they remained in the service of the State. The real difficulty—and he had hoped that his hon. friend would have seen it—was that in South Africa, where they had two sections of the population, it was most difficult to give satisfaction all round. Certainly no one had been more sharply criticised than he by the Dutch section of the population. And why? They criticised him because, they said, he did not sufficiently stand up for their rights. On the top of that his right hon. friend came along and said he had unduly favoured the Dutch section. The attitude he had consistently taken up, and from which he had never departed, was that they must act fairly and honestly towards each member of the Civil Service in South Africa, with no party considerations in mind. If the Opposition started to sow dissension in the service for party purposes, they would reap a crop of bitter feeling in the future. Why did dissatisfaction exist in the service? He would given an illustration of the real cause. After Union they had in South Africa four Under Colonial Secretaries and four Directors of Agriculture. Under the Constitution, they had to let three of these gentlemen go in each case. What was the result? The men who were discharged were all dissatisfied. Where did they go to? (A VOICE: To the Opposition.) Yes, they went to his friends in Opposition, and to the newspapers of his friends. These made a great fuss over the matter, despite the fact that those men had been justly treated. He had hoped that his hon. friends opposite would have appreciated the difficulty of his position, and would not have made it a party question. The public service had to be treated with the greatest prudence. He came to another point. There were hard cases. He knew that, and it grieved him deeply. These cases had his deepest sympathy. If there had not been Union there would have been no hard cases, but they were confronted with these hard cases, and the Government had done its best to give compensation to all who had been retrenched. But he (the speaker) was not the only taxpayer in the country. Not a man had left the service who had not been fairly treated. What would be the result of this motion? Its tendency would be to cause deep unrest. It would make the impression that the public service was protected only by one political party. It appeared to him also to be the principal object of the motion to encourage that idea. (Ministerial cheers.) The result of the Georgetown election had been “a nasty bomb” to them, and they now thought to strengthen their commando in another manner. He deplored that exceedingly. If there was one thing he would appeal to his right hon. friend to do—because they regarded him as a moderate man and a man with a great influence in South Africa—it was that he should not try to create discord in the service, not bring it into the field of party politics, for such an impression as the motion was calculated to produce would be fruitful of the most distressing consequences in the service. He said, and that most emphatically, that it was not one party, but both parties, that looked after the interests of the service. If only one party were to be looked to to care for the interests of its members the service would be a wholly impossible one. They could not tolerate the view that the Opposition possessed a monopoly of interest in the service. He repeated that the Government had had an eye to economies. He had learnt that the Government service in this country cost more than in any other country in the world, and that must be prevented. The taxpayers demanded a capable and efficient service, and the Government had acted in that spirit. The Constitution spoke of another Commission that must be appointed. It had been mentioned in the Governor-General’s speech. That permanent Civil Service Commission would be appointed as soon as the Civil Service Bill had been agreed to. Reference had been made to his Wellington speech. Well, what he had said at Wellington he repeated now. He regretted that such a motion had been brought forward, a motion of no-confidence, but he welcomed it in so far as it enabled the Government to discuss all the difficulties in connection with the service, but he maintained that the Government had acted honestly and justly, and tried to keep the Civil Service outside of politics. If they failed in that the friends of the Opposition were to blame. In conclusion, he would say a word about his own Department. He invited the Leader of the Opposition to accompany him around South Africa, and he would then see that never in the history of South Africa had the Agricultural Department been brought to so high a level as it stood at now. (Ministerial cheers.) It was a large and complicated Department, but they had put their shoulders to the wheel and brought the Department to the ideal position in which the country wished it to be, and he looked to its future with the utmost confidence. Notwithstanding the criticisms and the blows and the spurnings dealt out by the Opposition and the Opposition Press they would go forward and improve the Department. Certain newspapers had made various specific charges ; they were all ill-founded, but he would reply on each case when the opportunity was afforded him during the Budget debate. (Ministerial cheers.)

said the Right Hon. the Prime Minister had protested very strongly against the matter of the Civil Servants being made a party question. Certainly there was no desire on that side of the House to make it a party question, and he thought they who spoke for the Cape Colony had a long record of the past history of that Colony, which showed it had never been made a party question. But they had a perfect right, in fact it was their duty, to call the attention of the House to the fact that, at any rate in their opinion, the law had been broken, if not in word, certainly in spirit. Did the right hon. gentleman deny for one moment that there was a vast amount of unrest and dissatisfaction existing in the Service? It was common knowledge throughout the length and breadth of the land. And there had been no propaganda. It arose from the fact that the law had not been carried out. The right hon. gentlemen said it would be an evil day if the Civil Service had to get the impression that their friends existed only on one side of the House. He agreed with him entirely ; but the remedy laid in the hands of the Prime Minister. Let him increase the strength of the Commission and appoint a Commission which the Service and the country would have confidence in. They had a long defence of the Service Commission ; but, after all was said and done, what was the use of a Commission if it did not command the confidence of the country? (Hear, hear.) Would the right hon. gentleman not admit that the criticisms that the Opposition levelled at the Commission were more than justified by the results? The Commission had, unfortunately, been a failure from the beginning. Its recommendations had had to be revised by a committee, and they had been further revised by the Cabinet, so they were justified in the action they took from the first in criticising this Commission. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman said it was difficult to get a better Commission. He did not think he could have considered that point. That Commission was not the strongest that could be got from one Province ; and to say that it was the strongest that the Union could provide was too big a draw upon the credulity of the members of this House. (Opposition cheers.) But he would come to the second point, and that was clause 142, that was the appointment of a permanent Public Service Commission. As the right hon. member for Albany (Sir Starr Jameson) said, when the Convention agreed to that clause being put in, their idea was that they should do the best they could to prevent anything in the shape of jobbery or the like creeping into the service, or dissatisfaction, and naturally everybody expected, certainly he did, that no appointments would be made until that Commission was appointed, and that all appointments in the service of the Union would be made by that Commission. Well, as he would endeavour to point out, that clause had been broken. Appointments had been made in the service since Union irrespective of that clause. (Opposition cheers.) Of course, all this time retrenchment had been going on, as they well knew, and if one of the members wanted proof of the amount of the retrenchment that had been going on it was only necessary to refer to clause 7 of the Estimates, which showed that outside the post and telegraphs, police, asylums, and printing, there had been a decrease in the personnel of the service of something like 1,188. Well, that, he thought, was to a large extent in the clerical staff, and, of course, it was reflected by the very large increase in the vote for pensions, which had gone up by £42,000, making the total of the pensions list of this country £426,000 per annum. Now, every penny of that had got to come out of the common fund, yet, notwithstanding the fact that all that number of men had been put on pension, the Government went merrily on and made appointments from outside the service. (Opposition cheers.) That was their point. Here, while the country was piling up pensions, they were bringing men into the service from outside to take the place of men who had been retrenched. Then he would go further, and say that in the retrenchment itself, notwithstanding what his right hon. friend said about impartiality, there had been favouritism. (Opposition cheers.) He would give a case. One member of the service got, along with a general batch of others notice to leave, but he would not accept it. He knew a thing or two, and he turned out quite right, because he had a brother, a member of this House. That gentleman had been retained and he believed, had been given an appointment which, he believed, was a sinecure. (Cries of “Name.”) He (Mr. Jagger) was also told of other men in the service who were also retrenched. (Cries of “Name.”) I am just going to give the name. The name is Krige, a brother of a whip of this House.

Mr. Speaker, as this is a personal matter, I am entitled to say a few words on the subject.

I have two other cases which have been brought to my notice. Proceeding, he said these men were retrenched along with a batch of others. However, they had friends among the Ministers. Their cases were brought before them, and they were reinstated. That was impartiality. (Opposition cheers, and Ministerial cries of “Name.”) He would give it. That was what he called one of the causes of the unrest in the service. The Government were getting rid of officials at the rate he mentioned ; while, as he said, they went on appointing others. And he would like to say this: that a lot of those men appointed were appointed as a payment for political service. (Opposition cheers.) They were appointed in some cases because they had friends in high quarters, and they were appointed in other cases on purely racial grounds. (Cries of “Name.”) In other words, at the root of some of these appointments there was jobbery, nepotism, and racialism. (Opposition cheers.) He was now going to deal with cases outside the service. Take the appointment of Mr. Dreyer, the gentleman who was so good as to resign his seat at Losberg for the Prime Minister. He had been given an appointment in the service at £400 a year. He was rather fortunate to get it of course. Then take another case. Take the case of the Assistant Inspector of White Labour, Mr. Naude. This gentleman assisted the Hon. the Colonial Secretary in his election campaign. He took an active interest in it, and, of course, naturally, he had to be paid for his services, as they could well imagine. This was the note he had on the point: When advertisement issued calling for Assistant Inspector of White Labour, Naude went round Pretoria saying it was no use anyone applying, as General Smuts had promised him the appointment Advertisement stated salary would be between £350 and £440. Out of 400, Naude selected as Assistant Inspector of White Labour, changed to Superintendent of White Labour on railway, Johannesburg, salary increased to £500. Of course, that was payment or services Tendered to the Colonial Secretary. He was not in the service ; he was a messenger in the Transvaal House of Assembly. But, of course, let him say at once that it was only fair to say that the biggest part of those appointments were made in the Department of Justice. (Opposition cheers.) And he did not think he could go too far or use too strong language when he said that that department was run today on, and reeked to-day of racialism, nepotism, and jobbery. The permanent head of that department—the administrative head—had already been surcharged with the salaries of irregular appointments he had made.

Surcharged?

Yes. Of course, it has to come before this House yet. Proceeding, he said he would just mention some names. He would not give a lot because it would take up too much time of the House. Take first a man called Reitz, of Potchef-stroom, formerly an attorney. He was one of the “Young South Africa Party,” who had fallen out with the Government. Assisted to put up an independent Het Volker for Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp at the Union elections, and acted as his agent. His candidate, by arrangement, withdrawn, resulting in Mr. Neser being returned. Although not a Civil Servant, was given a billet in Mines Department, and now appointed to Resident Magistrate’s Office at Krugersdorp, at a salary of £180 per annum. Now he would give them another. Why should they appoint that man when they were retrenching? (Opposition cheers.) Where was the fairness and justice of which the right hon. gentleman spoke? Take another case, that of Van Diggelen, who was now the Public Prosecutor at Roodepoort. He resigned the service some time ago, but was brought back at a salary of £180 per annum. Within a year his salary was raised to £360 per annum, and he was put over the heads of numbers of men. Take the case of Ten Bergen. He was formerly a law agent at Belfast, and was brought into the service and placed over the heads of numbers of men. Appointed first clerk in the Resident Magistrate’s Office at Middelburg, at a salary of £440 per annum. Then there was the case of a man named Smit, who was formerly the private secretary to Japie de Villiers, late Attorney-General of the Transvaal. He was simply appointed chief clerk at Pietersburg, and shortly afterwards made magistrate at Klerksdorp, at a salary of from £650 to £700 per annum. Numbers of men were qualified for position, but were passed over. Again, there was Mr. Scheepers, a brother-in-law, he believed, of Mr. Roos, Secretary to the Law Department. He was brought from the Cape Province as schoolmaster to the Industrial School at Standerton, and was given an acting appointment pending a permanent appointment as head of the institution.

What is wrong with that?

said that another case was that of Bredell, who was not a Civil Servant originally. When Col. Madoc was retrenched and placed on pension, Bredell was appointed straightaway as Deputy Commissioner of Police. In his office was a caretaker, who had bought a property from him. The man did not pay his indebtedness and had been given the job as caretaker to help him liquidate his indebtedness. Then there was the case of Miss Bok, sister to Dr. Bok, private secretary to the Prime Minister. She was a typist in the Agricultural Department at Pretoria. This young lady was brought down to Cape Town to act as secretary to one of the officers in the Department of the Minister of Justice at a salary of £17 10s. per month. It had been arranged that after the session Miss Ball, of the Department of Justice at Pretoria, who already had received notice, was to be retrenched, and Miss Bok was to return as lady-incharge of the Department. A competent Cape lady typist in the Department had service dating from 1898. Miss Bok’s services dated from the beginning of the Union. Although Miss Ball was to be retrenched, another Miss Bok, from Germiston, was engaged six or seven weeks ago for service in the Department of Justice. Another case was that of Van der Kast, an ex-broker and moneylender, of Cape-Town, who, although he had no particular qualifications, had been appointed to a clerkship in the Prisons Department at a salary of £180 a year. Take another case. Brevis, who was a staunch supporter of the Government, was made Public Prosecutor at Barberton at a salary of £180 a year. Then there was the case of Malan, 21 years of age, who had been appointed since Union to a temporary clerkship in Natal at a salary of £5 a month. This had been increased to £15 monthly, and Malan was now graded as a second-class clerk and put on an equal footing with men with ten years’ service. (Ministerial cries of “Go on.”) The next case was that of Martin, who was appointed to the Prisons Department in the place of a man named Bosenburg. His previous employment was that of an ordinary clerk to Pickfords, the carriers. “And so,” said Mr. Jagger, “the little game goes on. Is my right hon. friend surprised at the amount of disaffection in the Service when happenings like this occur? How can he possibly be astonished at the discontent?” Take the appointment of the Attorney-General of the Transvaal. The Government had four law advisers at the time they appointed a gentleman to fill that post from outside the Service—a gentleman not distinguished for his qualifications. His (Mr. Jagger’s) information was that there were others admirably suited for the position. What was the consequence? One of the Law advisers was told that he would have to go, but the permanent head of the Department had given him five months’ leave of absence. That was the way things were managed with a view to economy, justice and fair play. In his opinion these appointments showed traces of racialism, nepotism and jobbery. How could they be astonished at the pension list growing! He now wanted to deal with the Law Department. It was admittedly in a perfect state of chaos; it was a seething mass of discontent and unrest. Men at Pretoria, valuable officers of long standing and utterly dissatisfied with the present administration, had voluntarily resigned. One of the leading officers, Mr. Cormack, who was well known in Cape Town—(Opposition cheers)—had asked to be retrenched. In the same Department there was differential treatment. Some officers were given three months’ leave of absence before they produced a doctor’s certificate ; others were refused any leave at all, although they brought forward a medical certificate. He did not particularly blame the hon. member who was the Ministerial head of the Department. For some reason or other, he (Mr. Jagger) did not know whether it was incapacity, or whether it was carelessness about the duties of his office, or it might be as suggested by the hon. member for Albany, who always took a charitable view, that he was so busy outside that he had not time to attend to his official duties, but it was a well-known fact that the Minister of Justice did not know a quarter of what took place in that office, or the injustice that was perpetrated in his name. (Opposition cheers.) Instructions were sent out in the Minister’s name when that gentleman was hundreds of miles away. He (Mr. Jagger) was going to make some grave charges. The man who, perhaps, was more responsible than any other man in South Africa for the unrest and bitter feeling prevailing was the permanent administrative head of this department. When Union came about there were two permanent law heads—one in the Cape and the other in the Transvaal. He would give them the record of the man from the Cape. He was born in South Africa and was first appointed to the Civil Service in October, 1881. He had practical experience with several Resident Magistrates of the Cape, and had been an Assistant Magistrate. Altogether he was a man of varied experience, respected by the public and beloved by his subordinates. (Opposition cheers.) But the man with this record was passed over and was only made legal secretary to the department, while the Transvaal man was made the administrative head. The Transvaal head of the department was appointed to the service only on December 1, 1908. “I believe,” proceeded Mr. Jagger, “that that gentleman received his appointment as the reward for dirty work done for Ministers. (Cries of “Shame.”) At the time of his appointment no respectable firm of attorneys in Pretoria would take his word, so devoid of honour and so untrustworthy was he. I am speaking facts.”

You won’t say it outside the House.

They are notorious facts. I consider that after what has been said outside the matter should be brought into the House. If I have not spoken what is the truth, then I take the consequences, but what I have spoken is the truth. I will go further, and say this—this man has been charged with grave crimes under sworn affidavit. Further, the man who makes these charges is still at large, and though he repeats them every day in the streets of Pretoria no action is taken against him. It is perfectly true that this man, who is now the permanent head of the Law Department, did bring an action against a newpaper for alluding to the matter, and got the trifling sum of £75 damages. The case was heard before Sir James Rose-Inn es, the then Chief Justice of the Transvaal, who, in the course of his judgment, said: “I may here pause to say that it does seem to me unfortunate that no steps were taken to test the accuracy of these charges by bringing them to the test of a trial at law. It is true that Gillingham’s circumstances—he became insolvent shortly after—made civil proceedings out of the question, but there remained the machinery of the criminal law, and one would have thought, after publishing charges of this nature in the manner which he did, Mr. Gillingham would have been promptly placed in the criminal dock. It appears to me to be in the public interest that charges of this kind, made against men occupying prominent public and social positions, should not be allowed to be published with impunity. If they are true, the public should know it ; if they are not, the author of the publication should be severely and criminally punished.” The man who made that charge (proceeded Mr. Jagger) was still at large at Pretoria, and repeated these charges every day of his life, and if they could take what he said, the man should be placed in a criminal dock. This man, with a record of this kind, was put over the head of the Cape official to rule the magistrates, the police, and the prisons of this country. The whole of his administration was characterised by nothing else than racialism, nepotism, and jobbery. Hon. members had received letters pointing out cases of hardship which had occurred under the administration of this man. His appointment to that position was a disgrace to the Ministry which appointed him. (Hear, hear.) The pity was that the activities of this department spread over the length and breadth of South Africa, and that was the reason why they saw so much unrest and bittreness. Take his appointments of Justices of the Peace. A case had been sent to him (Mr. Jagger) within the last few days. There were two attorneys—Turpin and Nel—in a certain village, who applied to be made J.P.’s. One of the applicants received a letter stating that the Minister of Justice was not satisfied that further appointments of J.P.’s at Calvinia was necessary in the public interest, and regretted that he was unable to recommend the appointment of the applicant. Two or three weeks later Nel obtained a Government appointment. He knew two other appointments that he might mention. In one case a man was recommended by his community, and the appointment was refused on the ground, which was a favourite ground, that he did not know Dutch. He had resided in a Western Province district, thoroughly Dutch; he could speak Dutch, he (Mr. Jagger) dared say, as well as his hon. friend the Minister of Railways, colloquial Dutch: but because he did not write and read Dutch, he was refused. Take another source of jobbery, the case of the Prisons Boards that had been appointed. Take the case of the Prisons Board in Cape Town. It might be thought that persons of some standing, or, at any rate, some experience, would be appointed, but in Cape Town they did not take account of such things as that. Mr. J. S. Hofmeyr had no prison experience whatever. He was a clerk in the office of Messrs. Michau and De Villiers, attorneys, and the only ground of his appointment on the Board was that he was a friend of Mr. Roos and supervised the buliding of Mr. Roos’ house at Camp’s Bay. Take the appointment of the Licensing Board. In the Cape Colony it was the custom for the Department to send out a circular to various Resident Magistrates and ask them for their nominations for the Licensing Board. As a rule, these nominations were accepted. In the same office the same routine was carried out, circulars were sent to Magistrates for nominations, and they were duly received, but that was not all. Certain members on the other side of the House were also asked for their nominations of the Licensing Board, with the consequence that, to a large extent, he would not say absolutely, the nominations of the Magistrates were put on one side and the nominations of members of that House were in many cases accepted. Then again, take another charge, officials removed from one part of the Union to another, in some cases, he regretted to say, to satisfy the whim or perhaps the grudge of some local resident. There was one case where a man was removed at the instigation of the local predikant. (Ministerial cries of “Oh,” and “Name.”) He would not give any name. How did they know what might happen to the man with the record which this Department had? He was not afraid of giving names, but he must have some regard to the position of the men. The organisation of the Department of the Mimster of Justice was, in his opinion, a perfect farce. One of the members of the Commission was a subordinate of the permanent head of his Department. In the Prisons Department the whole plan of regrading was tackled by the Commission on the 12th December last. As a matter of fact, the permanent head had already in October had a plan of regrading sent all round to the prisons, and given orders for it to be carried into effect without waiting for the Commission. He would like to ask the Minister of Railways if he knew, or the Minister of Native Affairs if he knew, about all this, men who had for years been accustomed to clean government? (Opposition cheers.) In the old days when men were appointed no question was asked as to whether they were English or Dutch. He would like to ask the Minister of Commerce if he knew of all the jobbery that was going on in one department or another? He did not think the Minister did know. He would like to allude to his hon. friend, the member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman), who had pointed out that he was only going to support the Government of this country while they carried on a clean administration. Would he say, in face of the facts which he (Mr. Jagger) had brought forward—(VOICES: Facts)—that the Government was carried on on clean and economical lines? If the right hon. gentleman did continue to support the Administration, he should think he (Mr. Merriman) had turned his back on his long record in the past. He ventured to think that, in face of the facts he had brought forward, it had been amply shown that the methods adopted by the Government in dealing with the public service “are in conflict with the provisions of the South Africa Act, and tend to cause unrest and discontent among the public servants of the Union.” (Opposition cheers.)

who rose amid Ministerial cheers, said: I thought, sir, when the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, rose, that the real motives behind this motion would very soon be disclosed. The right hon. the leader of the Opposition spoke with that wisdom and circumspection which we expect from him—(hear, hear)—but the hon. memoer for Cape Town Central, of course, very soon showed that behind this apparently innocent looking motion, as the right hon. the leader of the Opposition described it, there lurked a great deal of racialism. (Ministerial cheers.) I was very much struck by the appeal of the hon. member to Ministers in the present Cabinet who represent the Cape Colony, who come from the Cape Colony and Natal, and his appeal to them and Ms questions to them as to what they thought of all this jobbery and racialism, which was rampant in the service. Evidently the Ministers who come from other parts of South Africa, Ministers from the Transvaal and the Free State, are so corrupt that he does not expect that they would be moved by any other consideration but racialism, corruption, and jobbery (Ministerial cheers.) Well, sir, it was remarkable that the very first case that the hon. member mentioned as a case of jobbery or nepotism, the case of Mr. Naude, related to the Department of the Minister of Railways. (Ministerial cheers.) Let me remind this House of the facts in that case. Mr. Naude had for a number of years been chairman of a society among poor people in Pretoria. To this society many hundreds of the poor community belonged. When the appointment had to be made in respect of these unskilled workers on the railways, applications were asked for, and when they were considered it was decided that Mr. Naude had the best qualifications, because of his knowledge of these people. The Hon. the Minister for Railways consulted me at the time, and Mr. Naude, as far as I remember, was appointed White Inspector of these people, as he was a good man. I hope that when the Minister of Railways speaks, in the course of this debate, he will tell the House of the services rendered the railway service and people of the country by Mr. Naude. I have quoted this case to show the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, that he should not scatter broadcast these charges of jobbery and favouritism. I was very much struck by the list of names quoted by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, and I say, God help this country, and God help the Dutchmen of this country—(Ministerial cheers)—if the hon. member for Cape Town acquires a position of influence over the public service of this country. (Ministerial cheers.)

I should like to explain—I am accused of racialism. I have got 600 people in my employ. (Ministerial dissent.) Many men have laid a bigger charge—(Ministerial cheers)—of injustice. (Cries of “Order.”)

Does the hon. member rise to a point of order? (Ministerial cheers.)

No ; it’s all right, thank you.

I thought the hon. member was rising to a point of order. I am not interested in his private affairs. (Ministerial laughter.) Well, sir, the hon. member seems to have been going about with the object of hounding Dutchmen out of the service. (Ministerial cheers.) Sir, I am not going into these cases. Many of these cases refer to the Department of the Minister of Justice, and I am quite sure, from my knowledge of him, of his absolute impartiality and fairness—(Ministerial cheers)—that he will be able to give a complete denial and complete explanation of these various charges which have been made. I would like to turn to one case which I ought not to allow to pass over, although it is one that has to do with the Department of the Minister of Justice, and that is the case of his co-secretary, Mr. Roos. Mr. Roos has been attacked in a most violent fashion, and in language of such an intemperate character that I have never heard uttered against any gentleman. Mr. Roos is accused of a number of charges, and the hon. member for Cape Town, Central says that he still sits there. Let me refer to these charges. It is a long story, and I don’t want to burden hon. members of this House with all the details. We, in the Transvaal, know all about these things. But I will go into the matter briefly so that hon. members may know all there is to know of these grave charges that have been levelled against him. There was a meat company in the Transvaal. The gentleman—Mr. Gillingham—to whom the hon. member referred, was a shareholder in this company. This company was absorbed by another meat company, and the result was that Mr. Gillingham unfortunately—the shares depreciated in value—lost money and, eventually, found himself in the Insolvency Court. Mr. Gillingham then wrote a pamphlet holding up the Transvaal Government—I may mention that Crown Colony Government was still in force—to contempt, because he alleged that through their actions they had helped to build up a meat monopoly in the Transvaal. The Transvaal Government of the day—the Crown Colony Government—appointed a Commission to go into the matter. The Commission was presided over by Mr. Hugh Crawford, one of the most impartial and fair-minded of men. On that Commission there were also Mr. Advocate Esselen and some other gentlemen, including Sir George Farrar, and my honourable friend. I didn’t know that this Commission consisted of so many brilliant stars. (Laughter.) Well, sir, this Commission held an inquiry into these charges made by Mr. Gillingham, and the report is a Blue-Book which, I think, the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, can get and read. There he will find the report of this most able, most impartial, and brilliant Commission. Well, sir, after that Mr. Gillingham continued to make these charges against Mr. Roos and other gentlemen. My own opinion was that after the report of this impartial Commission no man in his sane senses would have pursued the matter further. Mr. Gillingham had had his inquiry, his charges had been proved to be baseless, and there the matter ended. Of course, if people had wished to go further with the matter and take it to the Court it was possible for them to do so.

What did the Chief Justice say?

What was the use of pursuing the matter further after these charges had been disproved by one of the most impartial Commissions that could have been appointed.

They were only made after his appointment.

Then a newspaper repeated these charges, and Mr. Roos went to Court, with the result that was stated by the hon. member. I have related the story of this matter, and I now leave it to hon. members of this House to judge whether the hon. member was justified in making such a statement. I don’t think I am unnecessarily biassed in favour of the official, but in my opinion—and I speak as a Minister of the Crown—I think he is one of the most competent officials we have to-day in the public service. I do not say one word against the other secretary of the Law Department, because I agree with the hon. member that he is a man of long service, great assiduity, and as good a public servant as we have. But, sir, the hon. member should not make these invidious distinctions, and how the hon. member can make these statements couched in such intemperate language passes my comprehension. The only explanation I can give is that Mr. Roos has, the misfortune to bear a Dutch name. (Ministerial cheers.)

Twenty years’ service!

The hon. member has not said anything about the Attorney-General of the Cape—Mr. Gardiner—who was appointed to the position although he had not previously been in the service of the State. Mr. Gardiner was taken from the Bar at Cape Town and given the appointment.

Who recommended him?

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member for Fort Beaufort to—

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort will have his opportunity to speak: on the subject.

Mr. Speaker, I did not—

He had not been in the service of the State before.

Who recommended him?

Not a word has been said about him. I suppose the reason is that he has the good fortune to bear an English name. (Ministerial cheers.) But the unfortunate person in the Transvaal who happens to bear the name of Beyers should be hounded out of the service of the country because he happens to have that name. (Ministerial cheers.) It seems to me unfortunate that the subject which we are discussing should have been dragged down to the level to which the hon. member for Cape Town Central has dragged it down. Sir, one of the most important questions of this country is that of the Civil Service, and I think that one of the most important questions which the Parliament of this country can deal with is entitled to be kept on the highest level—the level at which I am glad to say the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition kept it. I agree with the right hon. gentleman, and I think the House ought to welcome—although it is true it is in the nature of a vote of censure on the Government—this debate, because, in spite of the charges made by the hon. member for Cape Town Central this debate will help to clear the position, to clear the atmosphere, and so in the end do good. It is regrettable in a way that this matter should have been singled out as a means of attack upon the Government. It is a matter which is of the utmost delicacy, and a matter which so easily assumes a racial aspect, as has been proved by the hon. member for Cape Town Central, that I think we ought to approach it with caution. At any rate, it has been singled out, and I hope the debate will have the effect of clearing away misapprehension, and in the end do good. The right hon. the leader of the Opposition has referred to the flood of correspondence with which he has been overwhelmed since this motion was tabled. He said that the flood of correspondence showed that there was a spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction in the service, and that the flood of correspondence has not only come from the general public but from officers in the public service of this country. Sir, that is one of the difficulties that face me in dealing with matters of this sort, and I wish to speak plainly and frankly. One of our greatest difficulties has been that in certain affairs of the Union there has been a tendency on the part of many Civil Servants to approach members of Parliament. (Hear, hear.) There are proper channels through which their grievances can be remedied, and they can be assured that their grievances, if fully represented, will receive the consideration they deserve. But I can say in the case of the department which is under my charge it has happened over and over again to me that the first I have heard of grievances has been from a member of Parliament, who has been approached with a view to getting redress for some grievance.

I ask hon. members, is that even a decent state of affairs? Is it procedure in the interests of the country that instead of, in the last resort, going to their superior head, as they should do, Civil Servants, when they have grievances, should rush to members of Parliament, and so bring their whole case into the political arena. I am speaking as one who is to some extent responsible for the public service, and I hope that the words I say to-day will be taken to heart and a stop put to this practice, because I fear that if Civil Servants continue this policy of putting their cases into the hands of members of Parliament, I conceive the day will come when the Civil Service will descend to a very low level.

Appoint a Commission and have done with it.

I shall come to that just now. But I wish to say this word of warning, which is all the more necessary because the matter has not been dealt with upon its merits, that there is a tendency—a very strong tendency —on the part of the Opposition to work up a following against the Government, and to make political capital out of the Civil Service. You can read the organs of public opinion for the last twelve months, ever since we have started Union, and you will find continual statements, misrepresentations, made about the Civil Service, and the state of unrest in the Civil Service, and injustices done to Civil Servants, which must tend to produce a state of unrest. There has been a campaign of misrepresentation on the part of hon. members opposite. Platform speeches have been made during the recess, in which these grievances have been repeatedly aired as a party question. I am sure that behind all this movement of apparent benevolence towards the Civil Service, there dwells a feeling of gaining some party advantage. I was looking a couple of days ago through an elaborate series of articles, which have been appearing in the principal organ of the Opposition in the Transvaal, and I want to read one paragraph to show that behind this stalking-horse of the Civil Service comes party politics. The “Star,” in a series of articles, has these headlines, “The Great Betrayal,” “Trust in Politicians,” "Natal Officials Deserted,” and then goes on to say: “The race for preferential treatment among the Civil Servants is in proportion to the extent of the influence that can be exercised”—(that is the charge of the hon. member for Cape Town)—“and Natal Civil Servants have epitomised the result as: Transvaal, first ; Cape, second ; Free State, third: Natal, nowhere —" (Mr. C. L. BOTHA (Bloemfontein): Put the Free State last!) "Obviously this can be set down as an intemperate view: but it expresses accurately the general feeling among the Natalians in Pretoria. I give them preference in the discussion, because their Parliamentary representatives have been discounted, and they have no opportunity of making their plight known. The Natal politicians, who were in the first place Independents and became Nationalists, share with the so-called Reorganisation Commission the unenviable reputation of having forfeited the confidence of Civil Servants.” What is the charge there? The charge is that Civil Servants coming from the Natal Civil Service are treated worse than Civil Servants from the other parts of South Africa, because a number of Natal members of Parliament have joined the Government party. (Ministerial laughter.) That shows what the charge is, and how this question is being used to obtain a party advantage by fomenting strife. I think that you may go through all these charges scattered broadcast about unrest in the Civil Service, and you will find the spirit is the same as in this paragraph I have quoted. They like to gain some party advantage by making these charges of unrest. In spite of what the leader of the Opposition has said I do not think that this spirit of unrest exists in the Service. I do not want to traverse the whole field covered by him, but there are some points I would briefly touch upon. The motion gives two grounds for censuring the Government, one that in the method of reorganisation the South Africa Act has been broken, and the other this unrest and dissatisfaction which has arisen in the Service. Let me deal briefly with the first point, the breaking of the Constitution. In what way has the Constitution been broken? The matter has been dealt with in more detail by the hon. member for Cape Town Central (Mr. Jagger), and his charges amount to this: He says that under article 141 a strong Commission had to be appointed, and that the Commission that was appointed was not a strong one, and did not possess the confidence of the public and of the Cicil Service. Of course hon. members can understand that this is a question of opinion. I should say even a question of taste, and I doubt whether the hon. member opposite has displayed very good taste in this matter. I think we can very easily do far too much on this question of a strong Commission. We have had two so-called strong Commissions in South Africa. We had what was called a strong Commission in the Cape in 1904, and we know that the strong report of that strong Commission has been pigeon-holed ever since, and has never been carried out. Subsequently in 1906 we had what was perhaps a still stronger Commission in the Transvaal. That Commission also made a very strong report. The following year, in 1907, the Transvaal Parliament had to pass a Civil Service Act —I was responsible for introducing that measure into the Transvaal Parliament—and members had before them the recommendations, the very strong recommendations of that strong Commission.

And you promised us the correspondence and have not produced it yet!

I am not speaking of the Marris report, but the Commission on which Sir John Graham sat. They made a most elaborate report on the Public Service of the Transvaal, but when we met the following year and had to pass a law, both the Government and the Opposition agreed to pass a simpler Act and institute a simpler service than was recommended in that report. You can appoint a strong Commission and get strong reports, but you won’t get it through this House or any other in South Africa.

We will now.

I do not know whether volcanic methods will make any difference in this House. In the Transvaal we could not pass a law embodying such recommendations and, as the Prime Minister has pointed out, the Commission we had was quite competent to deal with the matter. I submit that it was not possible to appoint a stronger Commission, not by us, not by the Government. After two months of trial, after asking hon. members on this side and hon. members on that side of the House, to serve as members of that Commission, we failed in getting a different Commission from the one we got. Men felt that they should not go on this Commission. The attractions of Parliamentary life proved too strong. I do not make any apology for this Commission. I think it was strong, able, and competent, and that the work they have done is entitled to very serious consideration both from the Government and from this House. I think that part of the charge, that we have broken article 141 of the Constitution, falls to the ground. The hon. member said that article 142 had also been broken because we have not established this permanent Public Service Commission. He surely understands that it was impossible to appoint this Commission before Parliament had passed a law for the purpose.

Why?

The hon. member must have forgotten what was the current of ideas in that Convention. We saw that there would be an interim between Union and Parliament, that in that interim there would be a great deal of re-organisation, and the Reorganisation Commission was to be appointed under article 141 to deal with that interim period. After their work was finished and Parliament had passed a law dealing with the public service, it was provided that there should be a permanent commission. What was to happen in the meantime? Could no appointment or promotion be made in the service? Surely the hon. member urges a view which is, entirely absurd and impossible. (Ministerial cheers.) The whole machinery of the Government to be brought to a standstill! No appointments to be made! No promotion to be given No discipline to be enforced! No retrenchments to be effected! Because in the future a Public Service Commission under Act of Parliament had to be appointed. Surely that is the absurdest contention ever heard in this House. (Ministerial cheers.) Then the leader of the Opposition said we broke article 144 of the Constitution because the status and incremental rights of public servants had been interfered with. I wish to assure my right hon. friend that he is labouring under a misapprehension. If there is one point on which the Government has been as careful as it was possible to be, it was on this point, to secure to public servants the best rights they had under the laws of the different Colonies. We have gone so far—further than the Public Service Commission—as to lay down that instead of falling under the grades which have been fixed by the new service in South Africa, if a man serving in the old Colonies was entitled under the old grade to go higher than under the present grade, he is in any case entitled to rise to the highest salary he might do under his old grade.

When did you decide that?

We felt that where moral rights were concerned we should deal with fairness, even with generosity.

Have you announced this?

If the hon. member goes through the Estimates he will see this reflected throughout them. I simply mention this to show the leader of the Opposition that on that point the Government has been most scrupulous to carry out section 144. The charge might be made that we have gone further than we should have gone ; that we have been too generous. But, sir, as I have said, I think that this is a case where, if we err at all, we should err on the side of the Civil Servants, and rather be generous than make men suffer because they hold that they are entitled, morally, to certain rights.

These are not instructions to the Department.

I am very much surprised at my hon. friend. Surely if I myself gave the instructions and saw the thing in writing and issued to the Department, and the Estimates of the country are passed on it, surely he will admit it? I do not think I need go very much further. It is a long and complicated question, and if the House wants me to traverse the whole ground of what has been done in regard to the Civil Service, it will take some time. But the hon. member has referred to the Advisory Committee, and I think to that aspect of the question I might refer, because I have seen, not only in his speeches, but in the public press, charges made against myself. I have seen it stated that the Ministers were on the whole good men, but rather ignorant. (Laughter.) The effect was that the service has really been organised by the committee outside the terms of the Constitution. That charge has been made in the press and has been repeated here by the hon. member. The Advisory Committee was an institution that had been used in the Transvaal ever since the law I referred to of 1907, dealing with the public service. After Union it was found impossible for myself—I am still to some extent responsible for the service—to deal with all the cases that have to be dealt with ; cases of leave and cases of discipline, and cases with the 101 peculiarities which occur in a service such as ours ; and the result was that the Government again appointed an Advisory Board in order to deal with these minor details of the service. Well, that committee went on with its work, and in the meantime the Public Service Commission was appointed. That Commission went on with its work for about a year. In that time they had made reports about four departments, and, I believe, had done some work with regard to another department. Well, it is still fresh in the recollection of hon. members what representations were made in this House last year in favour of economy, and the Government last year gave an undertaking that the new estimates would reflect the reorganisation and retrenchment that would be necessary under the South Africa Act. It is clear that the new method of dealing with the business of reorganisation was in existence. And what we did was this. The Government instructed the Advisory Board to go into the Departments, together with the heads of each Department, and to submit recommendations to the Public Service Commission in order to expedite business for them. They went into the Departments and they helped very considerably in expediting the work of the Public Service Commission, and the result now is, as the Prime Minister said, the estimates as they are now laid on the table of this House reflect entirely the work of that Commission. The new members, after a time, would have been able, with the co-operation of the Advisory Board, to cover the ground in much less time than before, and the entire reorganisation under Union would have been effected. The Act under which that has been done is the South Africa Act. The hon. member does not seem to know that. (Ministerial cheers.) Section 141 provides for the reorganisation of the service, and further that the business of the service will thereafter be dealt with by the Public Service Commission. I do not know how the hon. member can say we have beep acting outside the law. I have heard it stated that the Government has acted illegally, because the Government has acted on the recommendations of the Commission before consulting Parliament. I do not know if hon. members on that side of the House will endorse that charge, but that is the charge. They said the Government should have delayed it and brought all those reports for discussion into this House, and only when the House decided what should be adopted, should action have been taken by the Government on those reports. It is an entirely impossible and unconstitutional procedure. The only way in which it is possible for the Government to deal with the recommendations of the Public Service Commission is to see how much they endorsed, how much they declined to endorse, put the whole matter on the Estimates and let Parliament give its judgment on the Estimates. (Ministerial cheers.) If Parliament thinks the Government has acted wrongly then they should repudiate the Estimates before them. That was the constitutional procedure, and I have never heard it suggested that the details of ordinary Civil Service administration should be discussed except by the Parliament of the country. Surely there is administrative power and legislative power. The Government deals with the matter in the Estimates, and I am sure, if Parliament has gone through the Estimates and seen to what extent we have dealt with the action of the Public Service Commission, they will endorse the action of the Government. Well, I think that all these various grounds of illegality which have been laid against us have fallen to the ground. The Government has not broken section 141, but has acted in the terms of it. Section 142 we have not carried out yet, because the time is not yet. We propose to bring a Public Service Act before the House which will deal with a permanent Public Service Board. Section 144 we have acted on, not only in the spirit and the letter, but more than that. The motion alleges immense unrest and dissatisfaction, which has been caused by the action of the Government. I will not go into the details. I know it is there, because, no doubt, there is a certain amount of unrest and dissatisfaction. Where you have four combined different Colonial services, each existing on entirely different principles ; where you have to amalgamate services like that, and make it smaller, in order to effect the necessary economies—then I think it is unavoidable that an amount of dissatisfaction and unrest should rise ; but I think that, in the grave duties resting on this Government, and in their earnest desire to carry them out, we should have the co-operation of the Opposition, rather than be met in the way we have been met both in the press, on the platform, and in this House. (Ministerial cheers.) I am sure racialism has not entered into the service, and I was very much struck by the fact that in that series of articles which appeared in the Johannesburg “Star” the writer admitted that the charge of racialism could not be sustained. And, sir, these various cases the hon. member has quoted, I think, will be capable of explanation. (Ministerial cheers.) We may have committed mistakes ; but the greatest sin of all is that we did not buy off the Opposition by that coalition suggested. (Ministerial cheers.) And my right hon. friend (Sir Starr Jameson) is always thinking of that great lost opportunity. But we have to deal with the actual situation to-day, and this I can say, speaking for myself and my colleagues, that it has been our inmost and sincerest desire to conduct the service of this country apart from racialism, and apart from all racial considerations. If we have failed I am sure the failure is more due to inherent difficulties, and because they have been almost insurmountable. We have done our best to surmount them, and I hope and think we have succeeded better than any other Government in this country. (Ministerial cheers.) I think we have a fair case. We have kept politics out of the service of this country ; we have kept racialism out, and those very general charges of jobbery, nepotism, and racialism I think he (Mr. Jagger) will find himself unable to substantiate even by those instances he quoted. (Ministerial cheers.)

said he hoped he would be able at least to reply to the remarks made by the hon. Minister of the Interior in a way that he thought he would confess was fair and legitimate. He (the Minister) rather spoiled his speech, he was afraid, by the little sting in the end of it about buying off the Opposition. The Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior knew very well that that taunt was not a taunt that could be laid against the right hon. gentleman who was the leader of the Opposition. (Opposition cheers.) The right hon. member for Albany was perfectly justified in saying that a great deal of discontent was due to the fact that the first Union Ministry was formed on the old party lines. (Opposition cheers.) The South Africa Act included specific provisions for taking the reorganisation of the public service out of the hands of any Ministry, whatever its political complexion was. (Opposition cheers.) It would have been only natural for the Ministry, in view of the fact that it was formed on party lines, to have taken the fullest advantage of clauses 141 and 142 of the South Africa. Act, and to have given the Commission such power and opportunities that the whole responsibility for the reorganisation would have been thrown on the members of the Commission. (Opposition cheers.) If the members of the Government seriously thought that the discontent in the Civil Service had been created by the Opposition for political purposes they knew very little indeed of the public service. (Opposition cheers.) The Civil Servants did not go to the Ministers with their grievances, because they believed that the reorganisation of the service had been put into the hands of an impartial Commission. Ministers would be surprised if they knew the number of Civil Servants who, long before that motion was put on the paper, came to members of Parliament asking them to bring their cases before the House. (Opposition cheers.) The discontent had forced members of the Opposition to bring the matter to the notice of the country through Parliament, that being the only machinery available. The Opposition fully admitted the difficulty which the Government had had in the matter of the reorganisation. In all seriousness, did the Minister of the Interior put forward the personnel of the Commission as being a Commission which in every way fulfilled the requirements of the South Africa Act? The question of the personnel of the Commission was brought up last session. The Minister of the Interior had practically said that if the Commission had been a strong one it would have been impossible for the Government to carry through its report. The reorganisation should have been placed in the hands of men so much above any suspicion of party feeling that no Civil Servant might feel that he had any grievance because his case had not been considered by impartial men. No member of that House was prepared to say that the Commission was so strong as to make every Civil Servant feel that his case had been justly treated, and that he could not cavil at the decision which had been given. The weakness of the Commission was shown by several things in their first report. For instance, by the fact that they recommended right through the service a rigid barrier system, which would divide the service up into eleven different grades, with a barrier at the top of each grade. In the second place, the weakness of the personnel of the Commission was shown by the fact that they recommended the Parliament of this country to allocate positions in the service purely on the salaries drawn by the men. In the third place, the first report showed that they had taken no means to obtain the opinion of subordinate officers of the service as to the re-organisation, and that they had depended entirely upon the heads of the departments. All those points were criticised in Parliament last session, and so seriously did hon. members feel about the matter, so afraid were they that the Government would take this report and make it the basis of re-organisation of the public service, that on the Estimates the Minister was asked to give an assurance that no such action would be taken. His reply was that he could not give an undertaking that would go to such a length, but he promised that they would not deal with important matters contained in the report except by legislation. The fact that this was not the most suitable body to carry out the reorganisation of the public service under the South Africa Act was Droved by the position which was given by the Government to the Advisory Board in the matter of re-organisation. The Minister, during the debate on the Estimates, said that no new appointments would be made, and every vacancy would be filled by a member of the service. The Advisory Board would deal with small matters, the Commission would have to deal with large matters, and its report would not be put into force until there had been legislation. Did hon. members opposite consider that the assurance given to the House Last session had been carried out, even on the account which the Minister of the Interior gave? (Opposition cheers.) Coming to the recess, Mr. Long referred to the issue of Circular No. 28, and the resignations of members of the Commission, and the issue by Reuter’s Agency of a statement in regard to the relative position of the Service Commission and the Advisory Board. The fact that the work of the Commission proceeded very slowly, as the Minister said, was, he thought, proof that the Commission was not competent to carry out the work with which it had been entrusted. (Opposition cheers.) Any man of ordinary common sense, any hon. member of that House, putting himself in the position of the members of the Com mission, would feel it to be a deliberate insult and exceedingly bad taste on the part of the Government for a statement to be issued by the Government, through Reuter’s Agency, like that. What had been the result? Circular No. 28 had resulted in the resignation of Mr. Brown, who threw up the job in despair ; and Mr. Campbell had already resigned. The Public Service Commission of the country then consisted of one gentleman, who was himself a servant of the Government—(hear, hear)—and who was reporting on the future of the other members of the Civil Service, and who were very much senior to himself. He would say that if the Minister of the Interior—and they knew he was the master hand throughout the whole of that matter—had deliberately tried to discredit the Commission provided for under the terms of the South Africa Act, and to get it into the hands of the Government—he (the hon. member) did not say he did—he could not have succeeded more admirably than when Mr. Hofmeyr was left the sole member of the Commission. And at that moment the Prime Minister returned from England ; and if any man had the opportunity of putting the thing right, seeing that the position was a farce, it was he, and he (the hon. member) said It was his duty, knowing what the intention of the South Africa Act was, and what the Commission had been reduced to in his absence—it was his clear and unavoidable duty to say that he must be true to the Constitution and put a stop to that farce ; and appoint a Commission which would deserve the confidence of the public of the country. He went round, however, seeking subservient supporters of his party—(Ministerial dissent)—sought out the hon. member for Heidelberg, and appointed him Chairman of the Commission—although he (Mr. Long) had nothing at all against the hon. member personally—and in Natal he chose Mr. Bird, who might be a very excellent member of the service of Natal, but of whom he (Mr. Long) had certainly never heard—(loud Ministerial laughter)—and he did not believe that a single person of the Cape, or a single public servant who came from the old Cape Colony or the O.F.S., or he would venture to say, even the Colony of the Transvaal, was acquainted with the name of Mr. Bird. (Ministerial “Oh’s.”) Let them look at the position of the Chairman of the Commission, let them look at the position of the new members of the Commission. Either they had to acquiesce in what their predecessors had done, or go off again, because there were only these two alternatives. What he was concerned with was the public service of the country whose future was in the hands of the reconstituted Commission, and what the general public were going to think of the competency of such a reorganised, emasculated Commission. What did the Government itself think of the competency of the Commission? It was perfectly clear from what had occurred that they did not care one iota for what the Commission said.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

said that when the House rose he had just put a question to the Minister of the Interior bearing on the Estimates, as far as they affected the Civil Service of the country. That hon. Minister was not in his place, so he would put the query to the Prime Minister. What he wished to know was: whether the Estimates before the House, applying as they did to the re-grading of every department of the public service, were based on the report of the re-organised Commission? As the hon. Minister could not say, he could only assume that such was the case—he took it that the Estimates were based on the report of the reorganised Commission, and carried out the report of that Commission in every case. They might assume, he thought, that the recommendations of that Commission were before the Ministry when these Estimates were framed. He now saw his hon. friend the Minister for the Interior in the House, and asked him to be good enough to reply to the question that, in his absence, he had addressed to the Prime Minister.

Yes, sir. The position is this: The reorganised Commission has not been able to make full reports, but has prepared schedules of the whole service.

Thank you. Continuing, the hon. member said that this fact put hon. members in a difficulty, because they had not got the report or the schedules, only the general report of the first Commission. There was no reason, however, why he should not compare the proposals of the Government with the proposals of the first Commission. He wished to deal with the point that the Government had reorganised the service on the advice of the reorganised Commission, and that when the Estimates were passed they would indicate —they would amount to legislation—the positions of these servants for the future. He had read to the House the assurance of the Minister in regard to the first Commission. They thought that when the Minister gave that assurance, the Civil Service Bill—the legislation in such a case—would pass through all the stages of legislation, and that there would be an opportunity of amending if necessary particular points in committee. He now found that the legislation referred to by the Minister was the Estimates for the ensuing financial year. Of course, there might be other important matters to which the Minister referred which would have to be included in a Civil Service Bill, but he would ask the House what more important matter was there than the re-grading of the public service. In the Estimates before the House, all these grades were laid down. An officer was allocated to one of these grades, and the future of the public servants of the Union was fixed by the grades in which they were placed in these Estimates. He could not imagine a more important thing than the re-grading of the service, for upon the way it was done depended the future of the servants of the Union—their salaries, prospects of promotion, and how each of them would be affected. The complaint had been made that members on his side of the House had made this a party question. He thought the opposite was the case. The Government had done so—first by making it a vote of no confidence, secondly by dealing with the future of their public servants in the Estimates. It definitely went and fixed the responsibility of the future of the Civil Servants of this country on members upon the Ministerial side of the House, by driving through these Estimates. If he were wrong and the Government did not intend to use its majority to force the Estimates through ; if the Government were prepared to accept amendments ; if they were prepared to accept a debate on the Estimates as to whether the grading system was right or wrong in principle, then he apologised to Government, and especially to the Minister of the Interior. But he would submit that once the grading system of the Civil Service of the country was included in the Estimates it became a matter of detail, and it was only possibly to alter it on matters of detail ; and as far as the general principle was concerned no debate was possible on the desirability or the undesirability of the grading system as a system. That justified him in saying that the responsibility for the future of the public service of this country did not lie on the House but on hon. members who supported the Government in taking such an unprecedented course. How did it affect the future of the public service of this country? In the first place, if the Treasurer’s Circular No. 43 of 1911 was still in force—and they were rather in the dark as to that matter—it was the intention of the Government to divide the junior public servants of this country into three grades. In accordance with the general recommendations of the first Civil Service Commission, the grades would have been :—Third class clerks: £120, rising by £15 a year to £180 ; second class clerks: £200, rising by £20 a year to £280 ; first class clerks: £300, rising by £20 a year to £380. There was a barrier to each of these grades. Circular 43 said: “In connection with the reorganisation of the public service and the introduction of new rates and scales of salary, the Government has decided …, etc.” There had been an alteration made in the rates of pay, which now read: Third class clerks, £100 to £160 ; second class clerks: £180 to £260 ; first class clerks: £280 to £360. Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior had assured this House that there was no interference with the existing or accruing rights of any Civil Servant who had come into Union. Supposing they had a Civil Servant who was drawing £320 per annum ; the great majority of such clerks would be put down to £260 and made second class clerks. This man was drawing £320, and he was drawing now £260 as salary, because that was the maximum salary under the Cape scale which second class clerks could draw, and what was called a pensionable allowance of £60 per annum. And he also entitled the next year to come up another £20, bringing him to £340, which was the head salary for second clas3 clerks under the old Law Department scale in the Cape Colony. The Government was proceeding on the assumption that what was called the Law Department scale of the Cape applied to all the departments, instead of only three. That scale was, for a first-class clerk, £450 ; for a second-class clerk, £320 ; and for a third-class clerk, £180. His point was that not only in other departments of the service, but in the Law Department itself, the barrier under the Law Department scale was not a real barrier. That scale was not rigidly observed. Here was the case of a Cape officer, who, in July, 1908, drew a salary of £440 and was, therefore, a first-class clerk. He received an increase on July 1, 1901. of £25, which brought him up to £465. In the same way here was a gentleman who, in July, 1898, drew £415. In July, 1903, he received an increase of £50, bringing him up to the same figure. He need not labour that point, because there was no doubt to anybody who knew the Cape service that what was called the Law Department scale in the Cape was not the rigid barrier system which now applied. Take the case of a man drawing £320. His maximum salary was £260. He could not get an increase on that salary, which was the maximum second grade salary. He could not get past that barrier until there was a vacancy in the first class, and, even in the first class, he had to wait until his salary reached £340, and then his maximum as a first-class clerk was £360, which was only an increase of £20. That was to say, that with regard to hundreds of second-class clerks who were drawing more than the maximum salary as second-class clerks and were having the excess accounted as pensionable allowance, it would be years before they could get any real increase of salary. He had shown there was no barrier in the Cape service. There was nothing to prevent a man getting an increase.

How far?

Up to anything, because there was no barrier. The Minister was quite right ; it was a very extravagant and wasteful system. (Hear, hear.) Proceeding, he said he quite agreed that to say that the existing and accruing rights would entitle a man to go beyond the barrier which was supposed to exist in the Law Department scale was wrong. But what he would say was that they were here putting a bar in the way of the progress of good, promising, able young men in the service ; that this grading system meant an absolute stop upon merit as a qualification for promotion ; that they gave no opportunity to a man who had worked for ten or fifteen years in the service and who for years had had to go without an increase of salary because of the circumstances before Union, and therefore had suffered in this way through no fault of his own—they gave no opportunity to an able young man to show his merit and get up into the higher grades of the service, which opportunity would alone make a man an efficient and contented member of the service ; and there he thought the Government had made its great mistake. (Opposition cheers.) He quite agreed that the grading system was necessary in the junior branches of the service, because otherwise they got that pernicious thing they had in the Cape, where a man might go on doing irresponsible work year after year and getting automatic increases of salary ; but to do away with the other effect —its paralysing effect—of the grading system they must alleviate it by giving a junior man some chance of getting up into the higher departments of the service without merely waiting for a vacancy in that department.

Favouritism?

I cannot see there is any reason for favouritism, because the Act of Union has provided in clause 142 that there shall be a permanent Civil Service Board. (Opposition cheers.)

How then?

Why, surely it would be perfectly possible for the Civil Service to be arranged in a way in which there should be some test of a man’s ability for a responsible position. Proceeding, he said that a test should be arranged on lines to be laid down by the Civil Service Commission, and that Commission should have the right to say to any man discontented in the service that there was an opportunity for him. He could come before them and pass that test, and if they found he was qualified he would have the opportunity of getting into the higher grades of the service without going through all the lower grades. The Government should bring in a Bill to organise the Civil Service on a system that gave a man a chance to get up into the higher divisions. He believed that would do away at once with all this discontent. The reason for it was that men said that owing to the proposals of the Government they had had to serve for years in this country without ever having a prospect of reaching the emoluments to which they were entitled. But there was the point of local allowances. The hon. Minister did not tell them of the effect of the local allowances. Take a man with a maximum salary of £260—a second-class clerk—and the other £60 drawn as a pensionable allowance. If that man went to Pretoriane got a local allowance which was calculated on his salary. It was calculated in this way: 25 per cent, on the first £100 of salary, 20 per cent, on the next £100, and 10 per cent, on every succeeding £100, with a maximum local allowance of £100 per annum, so that this man, if stationed in Pretoria, would get £260 salary, £60 pensionable allowance, and a local allowance of £51. But as the Prime Minister told them, that man was entitled under the old Law Department scale to go up to a maximum of £340, and that next year he would get an increase of £20, bringing him up to £340. But that £20 would be taken off the local allowance which he drew as stationed at Pretoria, so that although it was true, as the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior said, that the Cape men could go up to the maximum of the old scale, every increase they got on that scale was only an increase on paper, because each increase would be deducted from the local allowance which they were en titled to while they were stationed in Pretoria. As to local allowance, then, the Government had seriously departed from the recommendations of the first Civil Service Commission, which recommended the following local allowances: On salaries from £120 to £399 it recommended local allowances of £60 for all Transvaal stations and £30 for the Orange Free State, Griqualand West, Bechuanaland, and certain districts of the Cape Province and Zululand ; for salaries between £399 and £700 the local allowance was £90 for the Transvaal, and for salaries from £701 to £1,000, £120. The rates were half for the Orange Free State and the other districts mentioned. There was a serious difference between that local allowance and the present one, or the one coming into force on April 1. The Commission, with regard to the marriage allowance, had recommended that when a Civil Servant was transferred to an up-country district, and that when he had been married before Union, and had never contemplated living in more expensive places than Cape Town or some places in the Cape Province, these men should receive the marriage allowance. It declared that it had no desire to revive the marriage allowance, as the State was not concerned with the private domestic affairs of its Civil Servants, but that an exception should be made to that rule in that instance. That recommendation, as he understood, had been ignored by the present proposals of the Government, and there again it had seriously departed from the recommendations of the Commission. It had also recommended that the allowance given for the position taken by the Cape man in the Union service should not be calculated altogether on the salary that was drawn at the time of Union, but that at least one increment should be added, so as to put them on a level with the Civil Servants of other parts of the Union who had received increments while the Cape Civil Servants had not. That recommendation, which he thought was a just one, had also been ignored. Proceeding, the hon. and learned member said that on general lines the Government had actually adopted the recommendations of the Commission as to principles, but as to the details, included in those lines, they had accepted the pernicious part of the report, and the other parts had been minimised and whittled down.

The Government adopted all the good things. (Laughter.)

My view is that they adopted all the bad things ; and that is the difference between us. (Laughter.) The House should, he continued, realise what the results of the Government policy had been and were. There had been and was dis content in the service as the Government had not carried out the duties imposed upon them under section 141 of the Act of Union. In the Department of Justice—and he must bear out what had been said by the hon. member for Cape Town Central (Mr. Jagger)—the whole power had been given to the permanent head of the department, and he was not speaking without his book. Evil results had flowed from placing too much power in the hands of Mr. Roos.

What are the evil results?

If hon. members knew the state of the Department of Justice at the present moment, and understood to what an extent the personal influence of the administrative head of that department has been exercised to the detriment of the public service, they would be appalled—

What are the facts?

I’m telling you. In the Cape Colony members of the Civil Service have been accustomed to be treated: by the head of their department, at any rate, with some kind of courtesy and some kind of confidence, and to say what they like—so long as it was respectful—and they were treated as men. But I make the statement—and I am not speaking without my book—that not only with regard to the English-speaking members of the Department of Justice of this country, but equally with regard to the Dutch-speaking members, there is almost universal resentment against the personal behaviour of the head of that department.

Give me facts. These are statements.

I’m giving you facts. Continuing, the hon. member said that he would give the Minister a case. He gave him the instance of Mr. Cormack, who was an officer of the greatest efficiency, a man who had always been noted for efficiency. That man, owing to personal differences with Mr. Roos, due, he ventured to say, entirely to the way he had been treated by Mr. Roos, had had to apply for his pension.

Why has he never approached me?

Does the Minister know what goes on in regard to his own department? Proceeding, Mr. Long said that he was speaking of what was notorious in the Department of Justice. He was not speaking without his book. The mere fact that the Minister of Justice was able to say that these things were not true showed that he did not know what was going on in his own department. The fact was that the administration was left entirely in the hands of the administrative head of the Department. (Opposition cheers.)

That is not true.

These things are openly said not only in the service—

Produce facts. (Ministerial cheers.)

These things are not only said by English-speaking members of the Department of Justice, but by Dutch-speaking Civil Servants of the Department of Justice, and this pernicious influence is going on, by means of the Magistrates’ Offices, all through the country. It was a poison, he went on to say, permeating the whole of the country. It had been openly said by Magistrates who had Dutch names, that the only way in which a man could hope for promotion in the Department of Justice was by playing the part of a sycophant to the administrative head of the department. He gave the Minister of Justice credit for not knowing these things. (Opposition laughter.) He wanted to say nothing about the charge of nepotism or racialism, which had been brought by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger). Mr. Roos, the administratives head of the Department, might be clever, all he denied was his fairness and his fitness, from the point of view of straight and honourable behaviour, to be administrative head of the most important part of the Union service. The mere fact that the Minister was ignorant of these things showed how clever Mr. Roos was. The Minister, last session, told them that, in regard to the relations of the two races of this country, it was better to have the whole thing out and that hard words would have to be said. That was the reason why the hon. member for Cape Town, Central—(Ministerial cries of “Oh,” and interruption.) Again, they could not have it both ways. The Minister could not have that maxim applied to his side without having it applied equally on their side. These things were not brought out from a malicious point of view. That House was the best means of dealing with the matter. These things were not brought out from a racial point of view. (Ministerial cries of “Oh,” and interruption.) They were brought out in order to show the results of the action of the Government in leaving the re-organisation of the service to particular heads of the department, instead of to the impartial Commission which the South Africa Act intended. (Opposition cheers.) The Minister of Justice could deal with these cases merely by laying on the table the papers referring to these appointments, with a memorandum showing the reason why these new appointments were made at a time when considerable retrenchments in every department of the service were taking place. The Prime Minister had referred to the fact that they always had the racial factor in matters of this kind. He (Mr. Long) quite acknowledged that in these matters there was no doubt that great pressure was liable to be brought to bear upon the Government from the point of view of equalising the appointments in the public service as between the two races in this country.

Have they done it?

We say they have done it. We say they need not have done it, if they had only followed the course prescribed by the Union Act. We do not say they have intentionally done it. Proceeding, Mr. Long said that in the old Cape days there never was any question at all in the public service of the Cape as to whether a man was English or Dutch. (Opposition cheers.) The right hon. the member for Victoria West would support him when he said there never was any suspicion in the public service of the Cape that the prospects of any Civil Servant depended on his race or his political leanings. It was recognised in the old Cape Service that that promotion depended entirely upon a man’s abilities.

That is not so.

I am astonished at the Minister of Education making such an assertion. I was formerly in the service myself, and I can assure the Minister that the racial question was never raised in the office where I was employed. Proceeding, Mr. Long said he had never heard any question raised by any of them—whatever their race—whether a man was Dutch or English. The avenue to the public service of the Cape was perfectly open—(Opposition cheers)—to all races, the entry examinations being conducted by a Board against whose absolute impartiality there had never been the slightest accusation. The reason there was such a small percentage of Dutch-born men in the Cape Service was that they did not care to go in for it. He appealed to the hon. member for Ladismith (Mr. Becker), who had been a member of the Cape Service, to say whether there had been any question of racial feeling in that service. Everyone knew that the Cape Service was conducted without the smallest regard to racialism. There was no possible reason why that should not be the case also in the public service of the Union. He believed that it would have been so if the Government had carried out, in the spirit as well as in the letter, the provisions of section 141 of the South Africa Act. That was why he supported the motion of the right hon. member for Albany.

said it was absolutely impossible to say what was in the speech of the hon. member who had just addressed the House—a speech that had occupied about an hour and a half in delivery. He would not say it was a nonsensical speech, because that would be unparliamentary. (Ministerial laughter.) He was sorry that the Leader of the Opposition was not in his place, as he wanted to have a word with him. The right hon. member (Sir Starr Jameson) was the last member of the House who should have brought forward a motion of that kind. He (Mr. Vosloo) did not think the grievances referred to were as bad and as serious as were those of the Cape Civil Servants during the time the hon. member for Albany was in office. The right hon. gentleman was the last man who (should speak on this subject. And the same with regard to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Sir E. H. Walton), and the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smartt). The hon. member for Capo Town used to pull the strings too. The hon. member for East London (Colonel Crewe) was bad, but not so bad as the others—(laughter)—for he helped him (Mr. Vosloo) once. The Union Ministry had carried out the resolution of the House with regard to the salaries of the Civil Servants. But in 1904 the Cape House passed a resolution regarding the salaries of Civil Servants, but as soon as the members went home, the Government started cutting down the salaries of Civil Servants to the tune of £413,000. And now these gentlemen accused the Union Ministry of breaking the Constitution. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Sir E. H. Walton) was Treasurer at the time to which he referred. The increments of the Cape Civil Servants were stopped.

What has that got to do with this case?

I am giving you a comparison. The discontent in the Cape was absolutely worse, and now you come and throw stones here. Continuing, the hon. member said he knew cases in the Cape of young men who were good for twenty years’ more service who were put on pension, and afterwards other young fellows were put in their places. And now hon. members opposite complained that the pension list was swollen. He regretted that the hon. member for Albany was not in his place. His advice to him was to withdraw the motion, and he would remind him that people who lived in glass houses should not throw stones.

speaking as a former Civil Servant, could not help feeling the greatest regret that the service had been brought into the arena of party politics. (Ministerial cheers.) It was all very well for hon. members below him to disclaim any intention of doing this. The mover had confined himself to generalities. Why? Because he knew nothing of this discontent. He had left it to the scavengers of the party to hunt about for details. (Ministerial cheers.) The other day the hon. member for Albany chastised the members of the Labour Party for their audacity in bringing forward railwaymen’s grievances. But what had they done that day? No, this was not a motion to do good to the Civil Service. This was part of the grand conspiracy that began in Durban last year—(Ministerial cheers)—where the younger bloods of the party gathered together and forced on their leader a spirited policy. This spirited policy was not to be carried out in the usual way by the responsible leader of the party moving a vote of no-confidence in the Government, but the leadership had been most effectually placed in commission, and they had dribbling votes of no-confidence moved by leaders and sub-leaders, lieutenants and sublieutenants. (Ministerial laughter and cheers.) This was all part of a well-organised scheme. Bunty pulled the strings. I mean the member for East London. (Laughter.) He thought that before Union came into force a temporary Commission should have been appointed to devise means to get the service into working order on Union. The suggestion was made, but found impracticable. The heads of departments were to blame. Acting with too great an access of zeal, they had been in too great a hurry to centralise at Pretoria, with the result that the departments got into a somewhat chaotic condition, and owing to that chaos the Civil Service was suffering to-day. But the Commission was sitting and had made certain reports. It was to be regretted, in the interests of the Civil Service, that there should have been a long and painful period of delay from the date of Union till the present. The Government, so far as he read the Act of Union, must take their share of the responsibility in saying how the service was to be manned. The Minister of Finance must certainly have a say, because he had to provide the money. Although it might seem hard on the Civil Servants at present that their expectations had not been fulfilled, he put it to them whether it was not better in these early days to go slowly, thoughtfully and prudently, so that after some years when the system was regularised, if Ministers found that the financial position of the country would stand it, there was no doubt that Civil Servants would get their first consideration. In regard to the speech of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, making an attack on one of the heads of departments, he thought the hon. member should withdraw. Unless an attack like that could be brought to a clear issue, where it could be tried, it should not be made without the man concerned having an opportunity to clear himself. (Ministerial cheers.)

What about the Chief Justice’s judgment?

said he did not consider that the motion could carry the support of the House. No reason had been given by the mover why it should be passed. That the Service was discontented and had been discontented they must all admit. But the Government’s task had been an enormous one, and instead of votes of censure the heads of departments who had been faithfully helping Ministers in the work of reorganisation should receive a vote of thanks when the Commission’s report was tabled. (Ministerial cheers.)

thought that as an old Civil Servant who had served for seventeen years under the Cape Government he ought to speak. To say that there was no discontent in the Service at present was to say more than was actually the truth. There was a great deal of discontent. Many of these men had put before him grievances that they had suffered at the hands of the Government. The right hon. gentleman had said that he had been flooded with correspondence. He could assure the House that he had had communications not only during the recess but since the House had been in session. (A VOICE: Since the motion?) No, since the House had been in session. He did not wish to associate himself with the motion. He thought that it was more due to the Government that they should bring these grievances home in a spirit of assistance rather than in a spirit of criticism. The Government had done well, but that did not remove the complaints. For instance, one complaint was that the Commission did not inspire confidence. What further led them to distrust it was the fact that the head of the Department concerned in the inquiry was always present to assist the Commission in the reorganisation of his own Department. What was the result? Many men who wanted to ventilate their grievances thought better of it. They said they could not do so, because they would immediately have been marked men in the Service. He thought they were wrong in doing that. They should have acquainted the head of the Department with what they required.

Their chief complaint at the present time was the Advisory Commission as appointed by the Government. They complained that this had led to favouritism, that it had led to men being selected for good posts, and that there was absolutely no remedy for it. It was no good going to the head of the Department, and they also complained that access to the responsible Minister was very, very difficult. (Opposition “Hear, hears.”) It was a great pity. He for eighteen years was in the Civil Service, and during that time he had been able to get into touch with the Minister if he wished to see him. He did not for a moment say that this complaint, so far as he was concerned, was justified, but it was a complaint, and he thought it only right that the Minister should know of this. These were facts that had been brought to his notice. For many years in the Cape Civil Servants not only received no increment, but were subject to the 5 per cent. deduction. That continued practically up to the time of Union and when Union was brought about many of these men found that they were being treated on the scale referred to by the hon. member for Liesbeek—the so-called scale of the Law Department—and that that scale gave them absolutely no opportunity of promotion. (Hear, hear.) He referred to the case of a Magistrate who got £600 a year, and could not receive an increase, and was also subject to the 5 per cent. deduction until 1908. Union came, and after Union he was transferred to a larger station. He had £600 a year, and on his transfer he received a salary of £600 a year, which included a house that was valued at £50 a year. According to the grading scale on which the Estimates had been based, this Magistrate was at the top of his grade. He could get no further until such time as a vacancy occurred. Yet he had been transferred to a bigger post with no prospect of increase unless a man in a higher grade should happen to die, when he would get promotion. This was why the Cape men were complaining. The hon. member for Somerset had said that there were complaints in 1904. He (the speaker) was then a member of the Civil Service, and during that time, with the authority of the head of the Department, he circularised the public servants in the law branch for grievances and suggestions. He appeared before the Commission, and he could assure the hon. member for Somerset that though at that time the deduction was still in force there were very few complaints. (Opposition “Hear, hears.”)

There were.

You said the service was seething with discontent, and I deny that.

It was.

It was not. Continuing, he said he did not think that the Minister of Justice had been fairly attacked, and he did not agree with the way in which the hon. member for Cape Town Central attacked him. He pointed out that all this trouble had not been due to the Secretary to the Law Department. He was sorry the attack had been made by the hon. member for Cape Town Central, because he did not think it would do the Civil Servants any good. He did not even think that Civil Servants would be grateful. They should be guided by the recommendations of the Commission, and he thought no action should be taken until that report was before the House. He did not associate himself with the motion, but as one acquainted with facts he thought it his duty to tell the House what he knew. (Cheers.)

said he was quite sure that his voice would be unwelcome on that question to certain hon. members. He had come to the conclusion, first, that nothing was so bad that a Dutchspeaking Minister could not do it ; and, secondly, that nothing was so bad, low, or so vile that an Englishman had not already done it. (Laughter.) He had come to the House with the idea and hope of doing some real, serious work, but he found that the House had been practically turned into a Japanese laundry, and the hon. members on that side of the House (the Opposition) were turning the handles. If they on the cross-benches had taken up as much time as was then the case on that debate, they would have been told it was a scandalous waste of the country’s money and time. The right hon. member who moved that resolution told them the warding of it had been carefully thought out. It seemed to him a very great pity that the writer had not taken the trouble of ascertaining the thought that the words were intended to have. It appeared to him to mean nothing. The gist of it was that the methods adopted by the Government were in conflict, and so on. He had not heard five seconds taken up in dealing with any methods which the Government might have adopted. But it was the old story over and over again. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. (Opposition laughter and Ministerial cheers.) And it would pay the hon. members far better to put on clean linen and go straight away and do clean work, rather than defile the atmosphere of that House as a Japanese laundry. Yesterday they were told of privileges. He had tried to find them. What were they? He joined most heartily with the hon. member who said that the speeches of to-day had been the most miserable exhibition of the most miserable, damnable, and dominating trait in the country—and that was racialism. Why were they trying to make out a case? Because the eyes of the whole country were turned on the rabble and rout, and they must do something to turn their attention somewhere else. The right hon. gentleman told them he tried to induce the formation of a Government of the most able and experienced men, and the Minister of the Interior intimated that the grapes were sour ; that because the hon. members on that side of the House (the Opposition) were not taken at their own value ; because they were not regarded as the best men—“I won’t play in your backyard.” (Laughter and cheers.) Supposing that coalition had been brought about, what standard would have been applied? They were told that all the cream of South African intellect was gathered together at the Convention, and they evolved that which as time went on would show its imperfections more and more, and would be reconstructed. The Minister of the Interior hoped that the time would never come when Dutchmen would be at the mercy of those on the other side.

He never said that.

said that the right hon. gentleman (Sir Starr Jameson), with his usual generosity, said he did not want to increase the strength of the Labour party. Continuing, Mr. Haggar said that they must not measure the strength of the Labour movement by the number of men sitting on the cross-benches. The movement was the most vital and the most constructive in the country, might he say? Those who were allowed to voice the feeling of the great silent mass—who could not speak there—were there by right ; and they would do their duty to the fullest extent, irrespective of the sneers of the right hon. member. He also referred to the state of affairs in France, and said that it was a good example for them to follow in the formation of the Union Ministry. He was sorry that the right hon. gentleman was not there, or he could compliment him on that statement, for would room be found here for two of the most brilliant Socialists, as had been the case in the French Cabinet? It had been said that the clause read in such and such a manner, but something else had been intended. That was a nice confession for the “cream of South African intellect” to make! The Government had been patient quite long enough, and he did not want them to take a step either one way or the other ; but he wanted them to march, conscious of the great opportunity they had. In that country they had no right to know of race, class, creed, or blood—(hear, hear)—but what they did want was to create a deep sense of citizenship, and to have a state of affairs where the best citizen was regarded as the best man. The right hon. gentleman had stated that it was not the Government, but the system, which was at fault ; then the motion should read: “That the methods adopted by the system in dealing with the public service …” (Laughter.) They were told that the Prime Minister could not sit down to the details of his department, but was a Minister expected to do that? They had not allowed that in Natal, and if the Minister attended to all the details, they would soon want to know who attended to the principles. What did the motion mean, if it meant anything? It either said too little, or it said a great deal too much When the meaning of a collection of words depended on the construction of the man who handled it, it meant nothing. His complaint was that the Government and the Government departments, so far from leaning too much to their own side, did not lean sufficiently in that direction. (Ministerial cheers.) He was not a Dutchman ; he hoped he was as good and true a loyal Englishman as they could find. But let them have fair play. He supposed—taking even an over-estimate—there were 25 per cent. of Dutch-speaking people in the Civil Service. Then there must be in the service 75 per cent. of English-speaking people. This should be the proportion in retrenchment. The motion said that “these methods tend to cause unrest and discontent.” He would like hon. members who hailed from the Rand just to think of the conditions of unrest and discontent there. He would like these hon. gentlemen just to turn their attention for a little time to the conditions which caused unrest and discontent and the most awful agony that men could know. Let them think about the shambles of the Rand, which were winked at. It was all very well to say that there was a sanatorium now. That sanatorium was one of the blackest and biggest condemnations. He did not like discontent, but when they got Satan rebuking sin it was time to stop. (Laughter.) But that he felt the hollow hypocrisy, aye, and almost the blasphemy of what they were doing, he would not have spoken. In regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Liesbeek, he (Mr. Haggar) thought it was a pity that those who wrote the words of the motion knew nothing about the meaning which they might assume those words were intended to convey. He knew there was discontent and had told the Minister of Railways so, and then he had been told that he was making ex parte statements. They had been told that the cause of discontent was due to adopting the old party system of government. Another cause was not accepting the Commission’s report, while yet another cause, they were informed, was that the Civil Servants had no chance to rise. These old washerwomen’s squabbles were altogether un-becoming and undignified and a disgraceful waste of time. (Ironical cheers.)

Mr. SPEAKER was about to put the motion, when

said he bad hoped that before the debate closed they would have had a further statement from the Government side. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member for Maritzburg (Mr. Orr), while admitting the charges indulged in ribald abuse of the Opposition for bringing them forward. Well, those who made the best of both worlds were envied by many. (Laughter.) He (Mr. Duncan) was sorry that the introduction of the motion had been put down to the old charge of racialism, although one might have expected it —

Why?

Because it is the only answer you have got to it. (Hear, hear.) As soon as anybody on the Government side of the House says that a motion is not brought forward on its merits but because of racial feeling, they know they will be supported by the cheers and votes of those who sit behind them. That is why the motion is put down to racialism. Proceeding, Mr. Duncan said it was asserted that the Opposition detested the idea that anyone who did not belong to the race should ever get an appointment in the Civil Service. The charge was too ridiculous. (Hear, hear.) That was to bring the debate down from the realms of principle to abuse.

Who brought that charge?

The Minister of the Interior was the first. (Ministerial dissent.) Proceeding, he said the hon. member for Cape Town (Mr. Jagger) had brought the charge that certain appointments were made on racial grounds. But that did not mean that they objected to members of a certain race getting appointments, but to them getting those appointments because they belonged to a certain race.

That is surely racialism.

It is the negation of racialism. It is racialism which makes those appointments—it is the absence of racialism which objects to those appointments.

We know all about it.

I am glad to hear that, but we have heard very little from the hon. member about it. (Hear, hear.) The first charge against the Government (proceeded Mr. Duncan) was that it did not take the step it was intended it should take when the Constitution was laid down—a step which alone could prevent the Civil Service being dragged into the arena of politics. It was humanly impossible almost that the work that the Government had to do could be done without this happening. In order to prevent that those who framed the Constitution said that an impartial Commission should be appointed, which should remove, as far as possible, the Government from the liability of such charges as these. They did not want the Government to have their difficulties added to by every Civil Servant who left the service saying he had been unfairly treated. The Oppositions first charge against the Government was that they had not adopted that safeguard. The Minister of the Interior had told them how the Parliament of the Transvaal thought it impossible, in framing a Civil Service Act, to carry out the excellent provisions laid down by Commissions there. That had been found impossible, because there was an overwhelming majority at the back of the Ministerial party, who steam-rollered all these excellent suggestions. The principle the Opposition contended for, and which was rejected, was that the Civil Service should be recruited, not at haphazard, but by impartial examination by a Board, and on the candidate’s ability to fill the place in the service. That principle was rejected, not accidentally, but as part of the policy of the Government. The Civil Service Act of the Transvaal, in so far as it laid down any restriction on the appointment of candidates, might just as well not be on the Statute Book. It was deliberately made useless by the Ministers who passed it. It was with that experience in their minds that members of the Convention tried to prevent a repetition of that state of things in the Union ; that they failed to do.

The Government were to blame if this suspicion had arisen—he was far from saying that all of it was justified, but they failed to take advantage of the only provision that could have protected them from such imputations and such charges. He did not wish to say anything against the personnel of the Commission, except that it was not a personnel that could make the Commission what the framers of the Constitution—on that side, at any rate—thought such a Commission should be. (Opposition cheers.) It was not strong enough to stand between the Government and these imputations. It was not a Commission that could carry the respect of South Africa as whole, and the Commission that took the place of the first was no better. Indeed, it was presided over by an active party man. That was enough to deprive the Commission of its most valuable attribute. The Government could not see so much power go out of their own hands in regard to appointments. That was a temptation every Government was subject to, but it was a temptation that must be curbed. The Opposition’s charge, in the first instance, was that the Government were not able to withstand pressure to keep the patronage of the service entirely at their own disposal. He was surprised the other night when the Minister of Railways spoke about the American system, the “spoils system.” He said that perhaps there was a great deal in what that was based on, namely that a party did not like to work with Civil Servants of another camp. He was even more surprised when the hon. members behind him cheered. If that was the principle the Government were going to introduce they would raise up a monument by which posterity would know them, and not to their credit. Countries that had fallen into that system had struggled long and in vain to get rid of it. The second charge made by the Op position was that the Government were not altogether innocent of giving way to cases of unfairness or partiality. That charge had been deliberately made in that House, and no contradiction had been offered. The gravamen of the charge was that when vacancies occurred for lucrative posts, instead of a man competent for promotion being appointed, somebody was got from outside, because of political influence. (Op position cheers.) That charge had been made by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, and had not been repudiated He knew from his own experience on the Rand that on Government Boards, licensing courts, hospital boards, and so on in every case where appointments fell to be made they were made on strictly political lines. (Opposition cheers.) That was a system which was going to lead up without any hope of rescue to the most disastrous results. The Minister of the Interior, in defending a certain official from charges made against him from outside—the charges which he (the speaker) did not intend to enter upon—made a statement which rather surprised him. The Minister gave it to the House as a conclusive defence that a Commission had sat, a Commission appointed by the Crown Colony Government.

The Minister said that the Commission had gone into the charges and found them baseless and, therefore, he asked the House, with all confidence, to accept the statement that these charges were false. He had heard that with surprise. It was stated that the Commission was appointed by the Crown Colony Government, of which he (the speaker) was Colonial Secretary ; but the House might be surprised to learn that this Commission did not investigate the charges against this official, that the charges were not referred to that Commission, and that these charges had not even been made at that date. He had no desire to add to the charges brought against this or any other official, but he did say that when a case was seriously put by a responsible Minister the House was entitled to believe that it was founded on facts. It was very serious, indeed, to bring officials of the public service on to the floor of the House and make charges against them because they were not there to defend themselves, but there were times when the circumstances of the case necessitated such a course.

Then move for a committee.

What will you do? Will you agree? We’ll move it straight away.

asked what response they would get from the other side if they moved for a committee. He asked for facts. They (the Opposition) gave facts, and expected facts in return. Painful as it might be to bring charges against officials in that House, there was no doubt that what had been said on that side of the House in regard to a particular official did merit inquiry. Apart from the charges that had been made, the Opposition said that the provisions of the Constitution had not been complied with. They did not accuse the Government of breaking the law, because it could keep within the law. They did not say that the Civil Servants could bring actions against the Government, but they said the Government had not carried out what was agreed upon in the Convention in the spirit in which it was agreed upon. They said that certain appointments had been made not on the ground of merit, and that they were, therefore, not justified. Until these statements had been proved to be false they were doing no more than their duty, however much they might be accused of racialism and such things, in bringing these matters to the notice of the country. And to those hon. members who said they were dragging the Civil Service into politics, he would say, that until those charges were shown to be wrong they (the Opposition) were justified in saying that the people had taken the first step in dragging the Civil Service through the mire of politics who had done that act. (Opposition cheers.)

said that when changes of the kind that had been made by the Opposition were put on the floor of the House and believed on such flimsy evidence, apparently there was anxiety on the part of some gentlemen opposite to believe them. There was suspicion in the air, and it made them believe that members on his side of the House and Ministers had been actuated by racialism, whereas he believed there was no good ground for anything of the sort ; and he thought that spirit of suspicion should be banished from the country because there was no ground for it. (Ministerial cheers.) He wanted to call attention to the extraordinary contrast which there was between the feeling exhibited by the hon. members opposite and the feeling exhibited in the past by the members on that (the Government) side of the House in parallel circumstances. What happened when his right hon. friend (Sir Starr Jameson) was in office. He appointed one of his supporters to the office—

Who?

The facts are these, and of course if I am right in saying that the right hon. gentleman stated the facts erroneously this afternoon, I know he did so without intending to do so—on June 8th, 1904, the Civil Service Commission was appointed. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort said the Chairman of the Commission was not a member of Parliament. Well, I have just taken the trouble to write down what the instructions were.

I said the Chairman of that Commission was a Judge.

Well, you were wrong there. I shall call no less an authority than yourself. Proceeding, he said the document said, “To the Hon. Thomas Lynedoch Graham, K.C., a member of the Hon. the Legislative Council,” and ended “(signed) Walter Hely Hutchinson, Governor. By command of His Excellency the Governor, T. W. Smartt.”

What is the point?

The point is this: That you appointed as Chairman of the Civil Service Commission a political supporter of your party.

No ; absolutely no.

Well, you were wrong in the first place. I will prove you are wrong again. Mr. Graham was appointed judge a month later, on July 15, 1904. Apparently the gravamen of the charge laid against the Prime Minister was not that he had appointed Mr. Stockenstrom chairman of the Civil Service Commission, but that he had not made him a judge. Mr. Graham was at the time a strong party man. In 1905 he was a member of the Upper House, and he voted nine times for the Progressive party and twice with the South African party. Also, he was nominated at the general election in the Progressive interests. Mr. Graham had not been a peaceful, harmless member of the party like his hon. friend (Mr. Stockenstrom)—(laughter)—but soon after that he had gone to Observatory-road, and at a public meeting there had fallen upon a personal friend of his (Mr. Fremantle), who had evidently aroused his ire ; and Mr. Graham had called him “a jackal, and not satisfied with that had added that he was a “neurotic nincompoop”—(laughter)—they might call that a full-blooded party man. (Renewed laughter.) Mr. Graham had been returned to the Upper House by a party vote, but had not been at the head of the poll. Dr. Petersen was at the head of the poll, and to show the spirit of the time, the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thos. Smartt) was conducting a campaign and during the course of that Colonel Schermbrucker, one of the leading politicians of the party at that time, had said that anybody voting for Dr. Petersen was a traitor to his country. (Ministerial laughter.) Nobody objected to Mr. Graham’s appointment, because everybody considered that when Mr. Graham was conducting his campaign he was a good party man, and when he was conducting judicial business he was a good Judge ; and there was no suspicion at all. The right hon. gentleman had been-wholly mistaken in what he said that afternoon,” and the whole grievance of the charge against the Prime Minister was that Mr. Stockenstrom sat on that side of the House and not one word of criticism had been said against him personally. The right hon. member had been so carried away with the recollection of his own generosity when he said that he had appointed the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey) to the Commission that he had forgotten to mention that he had also appointed a member of his own party (Mr. Bailey) to that Commission. The Prime Minister had simply been following the example of hon. members opposite; and one which was thoroughly understood ; if he had done anything wrong it was that he had appointed only one member of his party instead of two. (Laughter.) The charge had broken down altogether. He most heartily welcomed the speech of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), because he thought that after that they knew the worst. (Ministerial laughter.)

Complaint had been made that the charge made by the hon. member for Cape Town Central had not been immediately answered. This also showed an unreasonable spirit, as it was impossible to answer charges of the kind, however baseless, without investigation. He ventured to state with confidence that a full and satisfactory answer would be made to-morrow. After the exposure they bad from the Minister of the Interior yesterday he was not going to believe in a hurry chargee made in that House. A great deal of ill-feeling had been sown broadcast, not only in this country, but over the water by hon. members opposite (VOICES: “No.”) Who had sown it?

Your side.

It is ridiculous to charge this side of the House with producing this feeling. Proceeding, he said that a correspondent oversea had written to him stating that the impression prevailed there that this was no country for an Englishman. (Hear, hear.) Well, then, let them have it out. That was the real point of the debate. If hon. members opposite could substantiate these charges, then he would not hesitate to vote against his party. He was convinced that there was nothing of the kind. When the right hon. member for Albany (Sir Starr Jameson) became Prime Minister in the Cape, fifty years after Parliament was established, during most of which time his friends had been in office, he said that the condition of the Civil Service was like that of the Augean stable. Now, because he thought that the Civil Service of the Union was not in perfect order eighteen months after the amalgamation of the four Colonies, he introduced a vote of censure. He (the speaker) knew well enough, as hon. members opposite knew, that the country believed that a charge of this kind was only made for party purposes. There was a tendency, which he deplored, to bring a charge of this kind against the Government on the ground that they were not following the behests of a Commission or not taking power away from themselves and putting it in the hands of some board which was in the air and which was responsible to nobody. He would like to see Ministers wholly responsible for the government of the country, so that if there was any case of mis-government, they could be held responsible, instead of having a Board which no one could control.

What about clause 142?

You want to read into that what is not in it. Clause 142 gave the Commission such powers as Parliament assigned it, which, as Ministers explained, would be done in a Bill, whereas the Opposition wanted the Government to have only such powers as the Commission left it. Great proposals had not been put forward by the Commission, which had not been very venturesome. Yet the Government was attacked for not blindly following it. All the Opposition wanted was some handle with which to attack the Government. Apart from the specific charges of the hon. member for Cape Town, they had had nothing definite at all. If the charges of the hon. member for Cape Town were disproved, there was no charge against the Government at all. He wanted to state some reasons for having listened with incredulity to the charges made by the hon. member for Cape Town. He knew the hon. member too well to believe that he would have brought a single charge of that kind without believing that he was thoroughly justified, but the hon. member’s judgment was not always a safe one to follow. (Laughter.) But in the first place those stories bore a suspicious family resemblance to stories which used to be conveyed to him as editor of a newsapper by junior reporters from the streets of Cape Town, and such stories needed much checking. His hon. friend, with his anxiety and itch for believing something to the detriment of the Ministry, had lent his ear too readily to the chatter of the streets. (Hear, hear.) Secondly, the Ministry had been in office for months without any check, without estimates, and without Parliament. The Auditor-General’s report for this period had recently been issued, but it contained no disclosures regarding the Government such as were now alleged, and its silence was most eloquent. He was glad that the, charges of racialism had been made, because he was sure they would be disproved; This was not the first time the country’s ears had been tickled by such charges. Under Crown Colony Government in the Transvaal Lord Selborne was engaged in reducing the service. The hon. member for Pretoria East and his friends went to the Governor and implored him not to retrench, but to wait for Responsible Government.

I have never heard of it.

He has forgotten. I looked it up this afternoon. The hon. member and his party went to the Government and asked them to stop re trenching, so as to throw the whole burden on the Prime Minister.

Quote your authority!

I shall quote it as soon as I can. I have not got it in my hands here. Does the hon. member deny that these representations were made?

Not said by me.

Does he deny it? Like Louis Quatorze, he thinks the State is himself. (Ministerial laughter.) It was of no great importance whether he was there or not. The representations were made by the party of which the hon. member was a leader. Proceeding, he said that Lord Selborne would not listen to these representations. He was too loyal a public servant. Then in London the hon. member spread exactly the same stories as the hon. member for Cape Town had been producing. Did he deny that?

Absolutely.

I happened to be in London shortly afterwards. I must have been misinformed by some of the leading men in English politics.

But you are misinforming the House. I was not even in London at the time.

You went to try to prevent the passing of self-government. They had alleged that the Dutch party could not be trusted with the Civil Service. The hon. member, following up his journey of the previous year, wrote letters saying that the charge had been substantiated.

I say that this is deliberate and malicious invention.

I don’t know if that is a Parliamentary expression, but—

It is not true.

It is not malicious, nor is it an invention.

It is.

These are facts I have heard from men in England, whose word I would take even before that of the hon. member. These charges were made. The hon. member will surety not deny that charges of racialism were made, and made by him and his party?

I—

You deny it?

Get on ; go on.

asked if his hon. friend would deny that members of the House of Commons were put up to ask questions on the point. Sir Gilbert Parker—who inspired him? Whatever the hon. member might say, these charges were made, and made repeatedly against the right hon. gentleman. They were proved to be groundless. The facts were—

Are these the facts? (Laughter.)

pointed out that between March 4, 1907, and July 24, 1908, in the Transvaal, 329 Civil Servants with English names and 227 with Dutch names were appointed. These were facts given officially in the House of Commons that had not been denied. He said that the charges of the past had been proved to be false, and so, he thought, would the charges brought that day be shown to be groundless.

said that the Leader of the Opposition had almost succeeded in convincing him that the motion had been brought forward with the best intentions. The right hon. gentleman had stated that other members of the Opposition would go into detail. Well, those examples had been given, but in a manner such as convinced him that Ministers were not to blame. The speech of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, was full of racial hatred, as were also his speeches at public meetings. History showed that complaints such as those made by the hon. member were entirely baseless. He (the speaker) feared that the hon. member’s speech would do enormous mischief. Amongst the Dutch-speaking people in the Transvaal there was a general feeling that the Government, out of an exaggerated consideration for the English section, had excluded Dutch-speaking persons from the Civil Service. When they came to examine the appointments which had been made by the present Government, they found that the bulk of them were English. That was why the Dutch Africanders made a fuss about it. They trusted that the Government had done that in the true interest of South Africa. And yet, whenever an official with an Africander name was appointed, they found there was usually a terrible row made about it, sharp letters appeared in the newspapers, and the Government were charged with racial feeling. The hon. member for Fordsburg had even dared to accuse the Government of giving preference to Africanders when making appointments. When that hon. member was himself a member of the Government, many officials were appointed who all belonged to one section of the population. If there existed so much dissatisfaction at the action of the Government, how came it that whenever there was a vacancy there were so many applicants for it? That showed that there was no fear to work under the Government. He positively could not see why the service should consist only as to 25 per cent. of Dutch-speaking Africanders, and for the remainder, 75 per cent. of Englishmen. If murder and fire were called out every time a Dutchman was appointed, then they had the right to do the same when an Englishman was appointed. If that were to continue he thought the best thing would be that the Dutch people stood up for their rights and demanded that for every Englishman who was appointed there should be also a Dutchman. Then perfect justice would be done. (Hear, hear.)

moved the adjournment of the debate till to-morrow.

The motion was agreed to.