from J. N. Taljaard, Bothaville, O.F.S., for a gratuity.

against repeal of laws in Orange Free State, restricting and prohibiting the influx of Asiatics (13 petitions).

from European lepers on Robben Island, praying to be removed.

against establishment of a township on farms Verona, Glasgow, and Leeuwriviersdrift, district Ladybrand.

in opposition to the South African Defence Bill.

from I. Willis, late messenger, Stationery Department, Gape Town.

from A. G. Brink, widow of F. Brink, formerly Special Justice of the Peace.

from M. A. S. Stanley, widow of H. W. Stanley, who lost his life at sea while in service of the Naval Reserve Volunteers.

from J. C. Sohietekat, widow of N. H. Schietekat, who lost his life in the same manner.

from Elizabeth G. J. Broad, whose son, B. J. Broad, lost his life in the same manner.

from E. S. Pluke, whose son, H. Pluke, lost his life in the same manner.

Second Report Financial Relations Commission.

read a letter from the Secretary to the Prime Minister, dated the 17th instant, intimating that Hendrik Philippus Serfontein had been elected a member of the House of Assembly for Kroonstad, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Daniel Johannes Serfontein.

moved that Sir Thomas Smartt be discharged from further service on the Select Committee on the Land Settlement Bill, and that Mr. Brown be appointed in his stead.

seconded.

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned on Friday I had dealt with five out of the twenty-two cases of “nepotism, jobbery, and racialism”—(Ministerial cheers)—and I have shown, in regard to these five cases, how much truth is contained in the violent accusations made by the hon. member for Cape Town. I have still to deal, sir, with the seventeen cases which are to prove these allegations, and from which the hon. member has deduced his accusations of muddling and chaos in the Department of Justice. If the five cases I have dealt with have shown to the House how much reliance can be placed on these accusations, I feel confident that these seventeen with which I am still to deal will show even more flagrantly the rabidness of the accusations. The first is the case of Mr. Bredell. The hon. member found fault with this appointment. He does not say on what grounds. I suppose again because he has a Dutch name. (Ministerial cheers.) This gentleman has been secretary to the Transvaal Police ; he is to-day secretary 0f the Union Police. Before the hon. member can bring forward any objection to the appointment, at least it was incumbent upon him to have shown either that Bredell was inefficient or that some other person more qualified for the position should be appointed. Neither of which was done, and neither of which can be done. But what was more flagrant, and more inexcusable, was to stand up in this House and to say that Mr. Bredell had appointed in his office, subordinate to him, an officer who was indebted to Mr. Bredell, and who was paying part of his salary to pay off his indebtedness to Bredell. There is not a jot of truth in this. If. I were to quote the words used in reply to my investigation I am afraid the hon. member would say it is unparliamentary to use such expressions. But I wish this House to understand that the hon. member has made a statement totally without any foundation of truth, and which no hon. member has the right to make in this House without due inquiry. I could ask the hon. member where the racialism, jobbery, or nepotism comes in, but I shall wait until I have finished the list, and then return to this. I next come to the two Miss Boks. Complaint has been made that these two ladies should have been appointed in the department. I suppose their names were mentioned to show racialism. The two are old officers in the Department of Justice—(Ministerial cheers)—able, most efficient officers in that department. The one has been brought down here from the Department of Agriculture, and she was brought down because of a very good reason—because she is one of the exceedingly few—only too few—shorthand writers who can take shorthand notes in Dutch. (Ministerial “Hear, hears.”) For that reason she was borrowed and brought to Cape Town. With regard to the statement about Miss Ball being replaced, the House will be able to judge how much truth there is in what the hon. member has said when I bring the facts of the case before the House. Miss Ball was a shorthand writer in the Department of Justice. (Hear, hear.) She wrote to the department praying that she might be retrenched. (Hear, hear.) She was retrenched. A week ago the brother of Miss Ball called upon me for the purpose of thanking me for the consideration I had shown Miss Ball.

Where’s the jobbery?

Nevertheless, this is racialism. Miss Ball was retrenched because of racialism. I take the case of Van der Kast. He was an old official of the South African Republic—clerk in the Immigration Department, and subsequently in the Postal Department. He made an application to the Advisory Board, and his name was placed on the list of applicants for the Civil Service, and, together with a gentleman of the name of Newnham, was recommended for an appointment by the Advisory Board. Both were appointed, and yet the hon. member for Cape Town Central only singles out Van der Kast, saying nothing about Newnham. The following have also been appointed to the Prisons Department: Miss Burnam, Miss Moon, and Messrs. Pratt, Parker, and Pullen. Yet, in spite of the fact that there is only one Dutch name among these appointments, he singles out that one and calls it racialism. The next is the case of Advocate Brewis. This gentleman was appointed as clerk at Barberton at the princely salary of £15 per month, and, as has already been pointed out, because it is the aim of the Department to try and get as many barristers as possible, in order that we might eventually have efficient magistrates. But, sir, this gentleman was recommended by the Advisory Board, and his name was on the list of applicants. The hon. member for Cape Town also mentioned the name of one Malan, who was given a salary of £5, whereas he drew a smaller one before. I may inform the hon. member that though I have been inquiring everywhere throughout the Union, such a man in the Civil Service cannot be found. (Ministerial cheers.) Will he be satisfied if I say that no such man can be found in the Civil Service of the Union? (Ministerial cheers.) I have received a telegram from the Department of Justice, Pretoria, which reads: “No record of any appointment of Malan as temporary clerk, Natal.” I suppose the hon. member knows better. Then there is the case of one Martin, who was appointed in place of one Bosenberg. The hon. member said that he had been a clerk at Pickford’s, and, he added, so the game goes on. The Advisory Committee recommended Mr. Martin, who was appointed on the 51st August, 1911, at a salary of 10s. a working day. He had previous service in the Law Department in 1905 and 1904, the Foreign Office in 1904 and 1905, and the Colonial Office from 1905 to 1908. His papers do not show that he had any connection with Messrs. Pick-ford’s. (Hear, hear.) And if he had been there, what objection could there have been? It seems to me that the hon. member has been trying to cast a slur on every official in the Department. (Ministerial “Hear, hears.”) In regard to Mr. Beyers, the Attorney-General of the Transvaal. In spite of the hon. member for Gape Town, I may say this, that Mr. Beyers, in his profession, had obtained a high position, had shown ability and integrity, of which he had no need to be ashamed, even when compared with the hon. member for Cape Town Central. Mr. Beyers has been appointed, and, in my opinion, is the best man, under the circumstances, to fill the position, and unless the hon. member for Cape Town is prepared to show anything to the contrary, sir, I think that he, who ought to know what his remark in this House will eventually mean to the Civil Service, should have certainly abstained from it. I shall not deal any further with the appointment of Mr. Beyers ; but I shall only say this, if others in the opinion of the hon. member were better, according to service, entitled to that position—and let me say this, sir, before going further, that I pointed out this last year to the House—that as far as the appointments of Attorney-General are concerned, I shall certainly do nothing by which I am going to bring people under the impression that this position was to be filled from the rank and file of the Civil Service. (Ministerial cheers.) If a man is competent to fill it, and is entitled to it, he should stand his chance—but it must be clearly understood that nobody shall have a right because he is a Civil Servant to lay claim to that position. (Ministerial cheers.) Then, sir, the hon. member referred to the case of Mr. Harris, and asked us to look at the racialism. This man, he says, applied for a month’s leave of absence, but did not get it, while it was a rule in the service that a man could get three months. Well, did the hon. member ever inquire into the facts of that case?

Yes.

I am sorry. I did not go—

May I state the facts again? This man Harris produced a certificate from the doctor showing he was ill. He applied for three months’ leave of absence, but it was refused to him. Another man applied for three months and got it before he produced a doctor’s certificate.

Quite right. There is this truth in what the hon. member said ; rather let me say this, his facts are correct. They are all correct, and still the hon. gentleman had not the least foundation for the insinuation he made. (Ministerial cheers.) I shall give this House the facts. As every other case, this case was submitted to me, and I refused the month’s leave to Mr. Harris and for very good reasons.

On what grounds?

I shall read the facts. Harris was a clerk in the head office, appointed in 1905, and drawing £240 per annum. He has been worrying for promotion frequently, but as no one has been promoted he was not. Then he wanted a transfer to Benoni, where his mother was living, but as we had no vacancy in the R.M.’s office this was not given. He sent in notice of his intention to leave. Then on November 9, 1911, he put in his application for ordinary leave for December, but as leave in contemplation of resignation is forbidden this was refused. He then put in an application for sick-leave, accompanied by a doctor’s certificate. As the chief clerk, who submitted the application to me, reported him as robust as himself and still doing his work in the office, I had to refuse. Mr. Harris then on November 30 abstracted his office file, which he had no right to do, and took it to his house, and never returned to the office. The file was subsequently recovered by another clerk. For the month of December he was really a deserter, and on being called upon for an explanation he put in a new letter asking for his discharge. This request was submitted to the Advisory Committee, who recorded that there was no provision under the Act for discharges, and considered that none should be given in this case. They decided to accept the recommendations, and this was done. It now appears that while still in Government service, he already, from November 30, 1911, held an appointment at £12 per month with the Southern Life Association, which he immediately took up on leaving the service. (Ministerial cheers.) Then, sir, the hon. member referred to the grass racialism shown in the appointment as a J.P. of Attorney Nel, of Calvinia, instead of Mr. Turpin, another attorney of Calvinia. Now, sir, Attorney Nel is 32 years of age, is the leading attorney, and has practised in Calvinia for more than six years, and is the secretary of the Divisional Council. Attorney Turpin is only 25 years or 26 years of age, has practised in Calvinia only about three years, and as far back as September, 1909, the Magistrate of Calvinia had recommended Nel’s appointment. (Ministerial cheers.) Again, I say this is, of course, pure racialism and nepotism, and I suppose Mr. Nel is a relative of mine. (Laughter and Ministerial cheers.) Now, I come to another instance of equally gross misrepresentation—the case of Mr. S J. Hofmeyr. In this case I dealt with the Prisons Board, as I have done everywhere else. The hon. member for Cape Town objected against the appointment of Mr. Hofmeyr, because, as he said, Mr. Hofmeyr was a mere clerk in the office of Messrs. Michau and De Villiers. Now, sir, the facts are these. Mr. S. J. Hofmeyr is a retired Civil Servant. He has spent 18 years in the Native Affaire Department. He is a brother of the late Onze Jan—(Ministerial cheers)—one of the most respected citizens in the Cape Peninsula, although bearing a Dutch name. (Hear, hear.) Instead of the wild allegations of the hon. member for Cape Town that he was a mere clerk in the office of Michau and De Villiers, eighteen years were spent by him—long before Michau and De Villiers were ever established in Cape Town—in the Native Affairs Department. (Hear, hear.) He never served in the office of Messrs. Michau and De Villiers. Now, sir, I come to Mr. Snyman. It was said he had been promoted over the heads of others to a magistracy in the Transvaal. Sir, he has been promoted to a magistracy to which he had every right, and more right than almost any man in the service. Mr. Snyman had been an Assistant Magistrate in the Free State before the war. After the war he was appointed Supreme Court interpreter at Bloemfontein, and held that appointment at Union. When a vacancy occurred owing to the promotion of the incumbent, Mr. Snyman was appointed to that office. Mr. Snyman had service from 1888. He had continuous service, not even broken by the war. He had acted as interpreter in the Orange Free State until eventually his health suffering from the constant going about, he asked to be appointed to some office where he could have a more restful life. Now, sir, I should like to know why this appointment should not have been made? (Ministerial cheers.) Which are the office appointments which prove, as I said, “nepotism, racialism, and jobbery”? Now I come to the office which is stated to be in a condition of chaos and muddle. I have three more cases to deal with. The first is that of Mr. Lonsdale. The hon. member, sir, gave a long account to this House as to why Mr. Lonsdale should have been preferred, for the administrative head, to the services of Mr. Roos, and he entered into the past services of that gentleman. Let me point out, in the first place, that the hon. gentleman by so doing insinuated, or brought the House under the impression, that there is a difference in the status between the administrative branch and the legal branch in the department, of which nothing is true. The legal branch stands exactly on the same footing as the administrative branch, and each office has exactly the same salary fixed to it, except that Mr. Roos draws £1,800 a year, because of the salary which was guaranteed by the hon. member opposite through the South Africa Act. (Ministerial cheers.) If that sum had not been guaranteed, he would have a salary of £1,500 a year, as Mr. Lonsdale has. But this case is far worse than the mere question of salaries. With regard to Mr. Lonsdale, a more amiable, a more courteous, a more hard-working and a better man nobody could ever desire in any office—(Ministerial cheers)—and let me tell the hon. gentleman that seldom have I felt, and seldom shall I feel so deeply, the loss of any Civil Servant as I shall feel the loss of Mr. Lonsdale, for it was four or five days ago when he informed me that he would have to leave the service. But what was done in Mr. Lonsdale’s case when he was appointed? He was an officer who had ruined his health practically in the office in Cape Town—(Ministerial “Hear, hears”)—and when I originally offered it on the accomplishment of Union, he at first did not wish to accept the position, because he thought it would be too much for his health. I persuaded him to make a trial; he did, and after a while he consulted his medical adviser, and upon my asking him eventually how the office would suit him, I was informed that he was pleased with it, and his health was improving. But between the two branches, although they should draw equal pay under ordinary circumstances—work in the administrative branch of that department is of such a heavy nature that I feel positive that Mr. Lonsdale never would, and never could, have undertaken it, even if he had the desire, for his health was not of the best. He was put into the branch which had the least arduous work to be performed, with what result? That, as I have indicated, a week ago he informed me that his health had so suffered under the work —the tremendous amount of work which has to be done in his own department—that he would have to leave the service. Now, I ask the hon. member for Cape Town Central, under these circumstances, had he any right to come and even mention the name of Mr. Lonsdale—and no man more resents his name being dragged into this debate—(Ministerial cheers)—because the first impression that is left upon myself and members of this House is that Mr. Lonsdale is the man who lodged the complaint with the hon. member for Cape Town Central—(Ministerial “Hear, hears”)—and let me say this: that nobody who knows Mr. Lonsdale would, for one second, believe that he would do anything of the kind (Hear, hear.)

It is most unfair to insinuate such a thing.

I am coming to that, believe me. I’m not finished with that sycophantic informer who poisoned the mind of my hon. friend. There was one case which I skipped, because the hon. member had taken it amongst his wild general charges which he had not the courage to specify. It was only upon pressure, as this House will remember, that the hon. member could be induced to give names. (Ministerial cheers.) If it had not been for the manner in which I insisted upon having the ordinary right of defence, to know what I had to meet, the hon. member, I am afraid, would have abstained from mentioning these names.

You are wrong altogether there (Opposition cheers.)

I leave it to the House to judge in how far I am right. (Hear, hear.) Before I come to the case of Mr. Roos, I would ask the hon. member for Cape Town: Where is your “nepotism”? Is there any one of these gentlemen who is in the least connected with me? Where is your “jobbery”? Where is your “racialism” There have been appointments made in the Civil Service from outside, a great many. In my department, where we have to deal with between 12,000 and 13,000 officers, naturally, since Union, a good many appointments, over 1,000, have been made. In spite of all informers and diligent search, in spite of people culled from all the corners of the Union to come and give information—(Ministerial cheers)—22 instances have been produced, and I have shown what they are like. Let me inform the hon. member that there are many others besides those he mentioned who were taken from outside the service. There was Bateman, assistant Director of Prisons. (“Oh.”) No, I should not give him as from outside the service. But there were the following: Transvaal, Messrs. Murray, Gardiner, Derham, Mintough, Goold, Baton, Hitchcock, etc. ; Natal, Messrs. Henderson, Bailey(?), Miller and Walkhurst; Cape, Messrs. Nicholls, Murray, etc.

All Dutch names. (Laughter.)

Why didn’t the hon. member for Cape Town, if his accusations and his attacks in this House were in the interests of the service, mention these names? (Ministerial cheers.) Did the two Dutch names count for so much as to be more than a set-off against the 22 or more English names? Before going further, I have been asked (on Friday) why appoint from outside when there are men in the service? Really, to any man who calmly wishes to give every consideration to the matter, no such question would ever have occurred. Our redundancies are only dated to begin as from April 1st. Until the Commission had sat and made its report there were no redundant officers, and nobody could say whether there would be any. Vacancies occurred, and these vacancies had to be filled from the various Provinces. In the same way every officer then appointed was appointed temporarily. How can possibly the hon. member for Cape-Town suggest a question such as was suggested on Friday? It was said in regard to two other officers, Van Diggelen and Smit—it was said that men had never in the Cape been promoted over the heads of others. I wish to give a few examples to my hon. friend. In 1877 (“Oh,” and laughter)—hon. members will laugh less when I have finished—two officers were appointed in the service, Bellairs and Hugo, in my department. To-day, I need hardly say—perhaps I should not say that—but let me ask who is at the bottom? Hugo—£600. Numbers of officers have been appointed since that date to higher salaries. Take 1878, there were Scully, Harrison, Marshall, Cloete and Hare, etc. At the bottom to-day of the persons drawing salaries is Cloete—£550. I could go through the list and everywhere you will find, still in 1889, officers drawing higher salaries. Amongst officers appointed in 1880 you will find men drawing £900, £700, and £750. It would be exceedingly unfair from that to draw the conclusion which my hon. friend drew that there must have been favouritism, racialism, nepotism or anything of the kind ; yet men were appointed over the heads of senior officers.

I now come to the last and most painful case which my hon. friend dealt with on Friday. It was the case of Mr. Roos. With regard to that, Mr. Speaker, let me say that one of the most painful things in the statement made by my hon. friend is that he, while quoting from the judgment of the Supreme Court of the Transvaal, should have quoted only that which could be injurious to the character of the man whom he had attacked, stopping short at the very moment—at the very commencement of a paragraph in which the Chief Justice says that Mr. Roos had done everything that could be done by him. The hon. member shakes his head, but I should like to know whether he read that judgment and quoted as he has quoted, because if so the way he has quoted it is a disgrace. (Opposition cheers.) I shall read what the hon. member quoted and then proceed to state what the Chief Justice remarked in the sentences that followed. After quoting what the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, stated on Friday last, the Minister of Justice (proceeding) said the Chief Justice then remarked that it seemed to him unfortunate that no steps were taken to test the accuracy of these statements before a court of law. Gillingham became insolvent shortly afterwards, but there remained the machinery of the criminal Law, and it would have been thought that after the publicity of accusations of this kind that Gillingham would have been placed in the criminal dock, as it was in the public interest that persons making them should be severely punished. But, sir, the Chief Justice goes on to say: “In justice to the plaintiff I must say he was anxious to set the criminal law in motion. He applied to the Attorney-General, but the Attorney-General declined to do so. I shall read the letters written to the Attorney-General by Roos and the reply of the Attorney-General.” I can quite understand the situation is getting a little too hot for the hon. member. (Opposition laughter.) “It may be,” continued the Chief Justice, “that the Attorney-Generad did not see his way to prosecute Gillingham or that the plaintiff did not feel warranted in undertaking what would have been an expensive lawsuit. He applied to Mr. Crawford, who was chairman of the board of directors of the company, but they did not take a view of the matter which convinced them to go forward and share the expenses of a prosecution of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff did not feel he could take up the matter.” But now, sir, I think it is due to an officer in my Department who has been so grossly attacked as Mr. Roos has been, to show to this House the true facts of the whole position, as Mr. Roos has been attacked both with regard to his conduct and also indirectly attacked in regard to his position and his competency to fill that position. In the first place, let me, in regard to this case which has been quoted by the hon. member for Cape Town, state what actually occurred. These papers were submitted to me, and it was specially asked that Mr. Roos should be prosecuted, and the papers were submitted by me to the Attorney-General at the time.

I may say, sir, according to the Acting Attorney-General, that Mr. Roos took every step that reasonably could be expected of him in vindicating his character in respect of the charges brought against him by Mr. Gillingham. “Mr. Gillingham,” proceeded the Acting Attorney-General, “appears to have become one of those persons—who are not unknown in Courts of law—who suffer under a financial grievance, and who obtain a momentary relief from a public appearance in Court and from the notoriety which is obtained by a public appearance there. There is no reason to suppose that any further light would be thrown on the motion not already thrown on it in the case against Mr. Stent, and that no punishment would close Mr. Gillingham’s mouth.” I merely mention this to show how persistently these charges were made, and that it was not only an Attorney-General with a Dutch name who refused to prosecute, but the same thing was done subsequently by the Acting Attorney-General, Mr. Matthews. Now, sir, let me go into this case. It has been fully set forth in the judgment delivered by Sir James Rose-Innes, from which the hon. member for Cape Town Central (Mr. Jagger) quoted. What are the facts, sir? It so happened that Mr. Roos, together with various other gentlemen of high standing—Mr. Hugh Crawford, of Pretoria, who was subsequently, and after all these charges had been thrown broadcast, appointed Chairman of the Legislative Council of the Transvaal—(Ministerial cheers)—Mr. Johnson, who, in spite of all these charges made against him as well as against Mr. Roos, was made Mayor of Pretoria—(Ministerial cheers)—Mr. Chappell and other gentlemen of high standing—these gentlemen were all directors of a certain cold storage company in Pretoria. This company failed. Mr. Gillingham was one of the largest shareholders—if not the largest individual shareholder. Mr. Gillingham, in consequence of the failure of the company, got it into his head that the accounts had been falsified. He based his accusation solely upon a report of a Commission which had sat to inquire into the affairs of the company, and upon nothing else. Mr. Roos was at that time an attorney practising in Pretoria, being one of the members of the second largest firm of attorneys in Pretoria, and having a most lucrative practice.

Mr. Gillingham then published his charges in the form of a pamphlet, entitled “Robbery Under Arms,” in which he charged all the auditors and directors of the concern with swindling. Mr. Roos, who had nothing to do at that time with the office of the Department of Justice, immediately asked the Attorney-General to prosecute Mr. Gillingham. Mr. Gillingham asked the Attorney-General that he should prosecute all the directors and auditors, including Mr. Roos. It would appear from the report of Mr. Matthews that the Attorney-General inquired into the case, saw Mr. Gillingham, and called in an outside independent accountant named Vincent. They went through all the complaints and documents, and he wrote to Mr. Gillingham that there were no facts upon which he could base a criminal charge. (Ministerial cheers.) At the same time, the Attorney-General wrote Mr. Roos that he did not feel it necessary to institute proceedings. In the first instance, it was not even the Attorney-General who refused to prosecute—it was the Public Prosecutor of Pretoria, Mr. Graham, to whom, in the first instance, the accusations were lodged by Mr. Gillingham. The Public Prosecutor refused, sir, to prosecute, because there were no grounds, and it was only because after that Mr. Gillingham again asked and pressed the Attorney-General that the latter went into the case, and came to the same conclusion as the Public Prosecutor. So things remained ; no prosecution was instituted. But then another gentleman came on the scene—a gentleman by this time very well known to the hon. member for Cape Town—(Ministerial cheers)—and let me say this: as the hon. member will find—not to his credit. (Hear, hear.) This gentleman, sir, came in the person of Mr. Vere Palgrove Stent. Mr. Stent had also been a shareholder in this company, or in one of these companies. After the Attorney-General had refused to prosecute either Mr. Gillingham or Mr. Roos, the latter was approached to become the permanent head of the Department of Justice. This he accepted only after six or more months of persuasion, giving up a practice which had brought him in £4,000 a year to serve the Government as head of the Department of Justice. The moment Mr. Roos was appointed Mr. Stent came forward, and he commenced to publish a series of articles, in which he consistently attacked Mr. Roos. Then came an article in which he remarked upon the evidence which had been given by Mr. Roos before a Commission with regard to the advisability of establishing municipal abattoirs. In connection therewith, he said, among other things: “There is a tang of the Koelkamers scandal about the last sentence which will appeal to those who know the whole history.” Mr. Roos, who refused to institute proceedings against Gillingham (who had become insolvent with the failure of the company) immediately took steps and consulted his lawyer, and he called Mr. Stent to account. (Ministerial cheers.) Now, when the case was heard, Mr. Stent—and for reasons which I shall later on revert to—Mr. Stent declared that he had never intended to do Mr. Roos any personal harm, and that he had no malice, and because of that, and because of Mr. Roos, upon question put by the Chief Justice, saying that it was to him not a question of money but of clearing his character because of these two facts the Chief Justice said that he would impose a sentence, or, rather, that he would give only £75 damages. But he said that had he thought that Mr. Stent had beenactuated by malice against Mr. Roos, he would have imposed very severe damages. I mention this because I shall later on, when I shall deal with Mr. Stent, come on to this. Mr. Roos, the very moment he got the opportunity to call to account the man who had accused him of having done anything which was wrong with regard to his directorship, did so, and as I have said, he was cleared by that Court. It is true that the Chief Justice said that he was surprised that no steps had been taken previously. But there is not the least in this judgment by the Chief Justice to imply that Mr. Roos had not then, by doing what he had done in suing Stent, done everything that was required of him to clear himself. The hon. member for Cape Town Central sits there shaking his head. I must say, sir, I am surprised. (Ministerial cheers.) I can understand, sir, a man standing up in this House, and in a moment of heat saying things he might regret later on, but I cannot understand a gentleman of the position of the hon. member, who, after three or four days, keeps to a statement so damaging to any man. (A VOICE: What about Fraser?) The hon. member sits there shaking his head as if he knew the statement to be true. Let me point out who this man is whom the hon. member has attacked in such a manner. Mr. Roos, as far as his college career is concerned, holds one of the very highest places. He passed his final LL.B. examination at the top of all. (The PRIME MINISTER: Hear, hear.) He subsequently came on the staff of the “Argus” and the “Star,” and when he left, it was with the greatest regret of his employers, among others, Mr. Dormer—a good Dutchman! (Ministerial laughter.) He then became an officer of the Cape Parliament, from 1893 to 1897. When he left in 1897, it was with the regret of the Clerk of the House, and during the course of his service—of course, the Clerk of the House was also a Dutchman, of the name of Mr. Noble!—he served on the Jameson Raid Committee. I quote this, sir, because this committee placed on record its sense of the great services rendered by the clerk, Mr. Roos—something which in those days was exceptional in regard to Commissions. He served then on the Industrial Commission, and when the work had been accomplished, a resolution was taken, in which the Commission thanked Mr. Roos for the very zealous and efficient manner in which he performed his duties as secretary and shorthand writer, mentioning the rapidity with which he took down questions and evidence given in the Dutch language. The Commission at the same time recommended a bonus of £100 to Mr. Roos, as his work had been so arduous. This recognition of his services was also something beyond what was ordinarily done. In 1897 MT. Roos left the service, and proceeded to Pretoria, where he became an attorney and where he worked up a large and most lucrative practice. Then Mr. Roos, as I have already said, was appointed head of the Department of Justice. Hon. members here openly accused Mr. Roos of being discourteous to his subordinates, have accused him of having his department in a state of muddle and chaos, and I think it is only right that I should at any rate read to this House what a few of the officers, who have dealt with that department and who have known Mr. Roos, think of him. There is a letter from Mr. Binns, the Chief Magistrate. In a letter of November last he says: “The prison work nere is still”—I may say that this letter was not sent to Mr. Roos, but a friend in the department—“more or less new to me, though I am doing all I can. But I have seen enough of the working of the Act and the regulations to show that the country should thank Mr. Roos for his work.” The speaker also read a letter from Mr. Buckle (Chief Magistrate of Johannesburg) eulogising the work of Mr. Roos. I shall not refer to the work which has been done by Parliament in regard to the prisons, the credit for which is exclusively due to Mr. Roos. I shall not refer to the report—the papers of the country have already dealt with that report—of the Department, which was published a short time ago. I may say, sir, with regard to the accusations of discourtesy, that nobody has had better opportunities of watching Mr. Roos’ behaviour in the office than I have had, and I would like to say, sir, that as far as I am concerned, I am fully convinced that nothing more untrue has been said than what has been said with regard to his courtesy or discourtesy. I feel fully convinced that if the hon. member, instead of having his mind poisoned by untrue information, had taken the trouble to go to men in the service who had known Mr. Roos he would not have made such a statement. Indeed, sir, on the one hand we have the statement of the hon. member for Cape Town Central and the hon. member for Liesbeek. On the other hand we have the evidence of the career of Mr. Roos ; and then we have another gentleman—the gentleman to whom I have already referred—Mr. Vere Stent. Will the hon. member deny that his information was obtained from Mr. Vere Stent? (Ministerial cheers.)

Absolutely, no, sir. (Opposition cheers.)

Sir, I must say that I am not prepared to accept that.

You must accept the statement.

Well, sir, there are facts that I would like to lay before this hon. House, and then I will leave the House to say whether or not my hon. friend derived his information from Mr. Vere Stent. (Ministerial cheers.) Common report in Cape Town goes to show just the contrary to what my hon. friend has stated. (Cries of “Order.”)

I have nothing to do with common report. What I have to say is that the information which I have in my hand was not derived from Mr. Vere Stent. (Opposition cheers.)

Not indirectly?

Not indirectly.

Or directly?

Or directly.

I quite understand it that the hon. member for Cape Town—that he did not get his information from Mr. Stent. I wish to apologise to him so far that I insinuated that he did get it—this information is information supplied to my hon. friend’s informant by Mr. Stent. (Ministerial cheers.) Of that there is no shadow of doubt in the minds of those who know anything about the matter.

I can’t have anything like that.

Let me read this short paragraph from the “Pretoria Mercury” —I mean “Chronicle”: “A prominent local Unionist has gone to Cape Town with, it is said, a mission. (Laughter.) It is further said that the mission is the (production of a quantity of documentary evidence—(Ministerial cheers and laughter) —dealing with the position of a very well-known Civil Servant in Pretoria, in connection with Sir Starr Jameson’s motion”—(Ministerial cheers.) It is curious —

The papers which I have in my hand were in my possession before Mr. Stent arrived here. (Ministerial laughter and Opposition cheers.)

Of course, we have such things as posts and telegraphs. Of course, it is curious that I have been informed that Mr. Stent makes no secret that he has been supplying sheaves, sheaves—(Ministerial laughter)—of arguments and facts, and I may say that the name of my hon. friend has been mentioned. (Ministerial laughter.)

I can’t help that.

Let me say this, sir. My hon. friend and the members of this House will understand the value of this the moment they know its source. Mr. Speaker, as my hon. friend disclaims any knowledge of connection between these things and Mr. Stent I will not pursue that point any further ; but let me say this, sir, that anybody who knows the vindictiveness with which Mr. Stent has consistently persecuted Mr. Roos—he knows this gentleman has been about Cape Town for days now—anybody who knows these facts which had been brought here on the floor of this House by the hon. member for Cape Town—matters which are thoroughly stentorian—will know where they do originate, and will, at the same time, know of what value these facts and allegations are. (Ministerial cheers.) Now, sir, I have now gone through these allegations upon which, as I said, the hon. member based his charges of nepotism, of jobbery, and of racialism, upon which he founded his indictment of muddle and chaos in the Department of Justice. I ask the hon. member for Cape Town whether, after what has been shown here, this afternoon, in this House, he is prepared to abide by his charges? (Ministerial cheers.) I think the hon. member really is not so hopeless. (Laughter and cheers.) The question of Mr. Roos is an exceedingly serious one. I have felt this, sir, that Mr. Roos, being in the position in which he is, he cannot even as much as write a letter to the paper to defend himself ; he cannot even as much as write a letter to the hon. member for Cape Town, challenging him to say outside what he did say in Parliament. The hon. member knows he can’t even do that. Surely, sir, I think it is due to Mr. Roos, under such circumstances, that the hon. member for Cape Town should make amends for what he has said in this House ; for what has gone forth into the world in connection with a most honourable and most efficient officer in the public service. (Ministerial cheers.) I do not know whether he is aware what the effect of his charge against the head of a department, a big department such as Mr. Roos’, must inevitably be upon all those who are under him. (Ministerial cheers.) From the point of the Civil Service alone it is something which calls either for Mr. Roos’ resignation, or it calls for an apology on behalf of the hon. member for Cape Town.

Have an inquiry into the whole question.

Further, the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Long) had the audacity—(Ministerial cheers)—to follow in that imitating manner the hon. member for Cape Town. I shall excuse the hon. member for Cape Town, and I can always excuse him on the grounds that what he said he said in a moment of heat and passion of debate ; but the hon. member for Liesbeek, after hours of reflection ; after it had been pointed out here what these allegations meant, the hon. member had the audacity to confirm what the hon. member for Gape Town said. He used, sir, almost the identical words. Now, I challenge the hon. member for Liesbeek—(Ministerial cheers)—he has not the excuse that the hon. member for Cape Town has—I challenge him to say coldly and calmly outside the House what he said coldly and calmly inside it. (Ministerial cheers.)

Mr. Speaker, I think (Ministerial cries of “No,” “Sit down,” “Go on.”)

The hon. Minister of Justice has given way, therefore the hon. member for Liesbeek may speak.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister has mistaken what I said. I said, in regard to what the hon. member for Cape Town said, I would say nothing about those particular charges. I made particular charges against Mr. Roos in regard to his position as head of the Department of Justice and in his treatment of his subordinates.

I must correct the hon. member from the report—(Ministerial “Hear, hears”)—I was quoting what the hon. member said—(hear, hear)—(quoting): “Mr. Roos, the administrative bead of the Department, might be clever ; what he denied was his honesty and fitness from the point of view of personal behaviour.” What difference is that, sir?

On another point of personal explanation. That report has been sent to me for correction, and I altered the word “honesty”—(Ministerial laughter)—to “fairness,” the word I intended to use, if I did not actually use it.

Does the hon. member withdraw those words?

I have substituted another word.

Well, at any rate, I am glad to hear it. But these were the words used. I am quite prepared to leave that question there, as far as the hon. member for Liesbeek is concerned. The hon. member also had “proofs” of “nepotism,” or “racialism,” and I don’t know what, but he specified only Mr. Cormack ; and here again I feel myself called upon to give the facts of the case as they are. Mr. Cormack, again, is one of our very best and most capable servants—(cheers)—a man whom I respect most highly ; and any man who meets him must respect him highly. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Cormack has resigned, or is going to leave the Department ; but why does he leave? On account of discourtesy of the Head of the Department? Let me tell the hon. member that I have Mr. Cormack’s assurance that there is not a word of truth in it. (Ministerial cheers.) Mr. Cormack resigned principally and mainly because his health has completely failed. Secondly, Mr. Corraack does not feel himself quite satisfied with the position which, in accordance with the recommendation of the Public Service Commission, will be assigned to him, but that is so little the reason of his resignation that I may tell the hon. member for Liesbeek that when I heard he was going to resign I asked him whether there was anything I could do in the service in order to prevent his resignation and that I offered to supply him with any, or with a magistrate’s position, which would give him every-opportunity of recouping his health. (Hear, hear.) But he thought that his nerves did not allow him to go on any bench in the country, as he had lost all his self-confidence. Now, I ask the hon. member for Liesbeek, how could he, under those circumstances, make such accusations as he has done, or rather, such an accusation, because it is a single one—except in so far as he supported the hon. member for Cape Town Central and so made himself co-responsible with the hon. member. I mention this again to show the flimsiness of all these charges which have been levelled against the Department of Justice, not a single one of which has been, and can be, possibly substantiated and not a single one of which the hon. member for Cape Town Central or the hon. member for Liesbeek took any trouble to, or tried to, substantiate. (Opposition dissent.) Now, sir, I come to something else in regard to the accusations of these two hon. members. It seems to me that they started originally with the full intention of coming to this House to make general, sweeping allegations without particularising ; and it was only upon the insistence of this side of the House to specify cases that the hon. member for Cape Town Central was dragged in to specify. I leave it to hon. members in this House to say how much credence is to be attached to the other general charges made by the hon. member for Cape Town Central when all his specific cases have been swept away in this way? (Ministerial cheers.) There is not a single one remaining which the hon. member, if he were to stand up in this House to make these charges de novo, would reproduce. Then, sir, I hear from the distinguished lawyer of Liesbeek, principles advanced and accusations laid down in this House which no advocate, not the most junior member of the Bar, would with impunity put in any Court in the country —coming here and making these general charges and say: You can disprove them—making general charges of muddle, racialism, nepotism, jobbery and so on. He went on to make charges in general terms against the Department of Justice, but when I asked him to give instances, it was: Oh, no ; He was not going to do so, and when I asked how I was going to meet them, it was: Well, disprove them. (Laughter.) Well, really, I do think that if there are two gentlemen who must feel very heartily ashamed of themselves, of having done what they have done during this debate, it is the hon. member for Cape Town Central and the hon. member for Liesbeek. With regard to the hon. member for Cape Town Central let me say this: that I feel exceedingly sorry that he has allowed himself to be befooled in the manner in which he has been. I do not blame the hon. member so much as I blame the informers who have poisoned his mind. But I must say this once more—I feel that the hon. member is in honour bound to do justice to the man whom he has so grossly attacked without any foundation whatever. My colleague, the Minister of Finance, has pointed out the only course which he can properly adopt ; but I do not in any possible manner want to do more than is necessary to give any pain to my hon. friend, the member for Cape Town. But now, sir, as I indicated at the commencement, the manner of the attack by the right hon. Leader of the Opposition has been such that he has made himself responsible for everything that was done and stated—(An HON. MEMBER: “Ja”)—by his lieutenants in this House. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman opened by saying that he was merely stating to the House in general terms the charges which were being brought forward against the Government, and that his hon. friends would prove these charges by particular instances. (An HON. MEMBER: “Ja.”) Now that being so, the right hon. gentleman having referred to the Department of Justice, having referred to me as being the head of that Department, and saying that it was in a state of chaos; and having said that he relied for his attack and his charges upon proof to be delivered by the hon. member for Cape Town Central, he must take the responsibility, together with the hon. member for Cape Town. I say that the right hon. the Leader of the Opposition, as much as the hon. member for Cape Town, owes an apology to Mr. Roos for what has been said in this House. (Ministerial cheers.)

rose amid Ministerial cries of “Order.”

Does the hon. member rise to a point of order?

Yes.

What is the point of order?

The right hon. the Leader of the Opposition has absolutely —

said he must call upon the Minister of Justice. (+Ministerial cheers.)

That is not the point. I now say the right hon. gentleman formulated a complaint of no confidence against the Government upon grounds of which he knew nothing. (Ministerial cheers.) That is the method; what is more, the right hon. gentleman attacks the Minister of Justice upon reasons about which he knows absolutely nothing—(hear, hear)—and he tries as I have said because of the failure of the coalition scheme, to justify it—upon what grounds? Grounds to be produced by his lieutenants —(hear, hear)—about which he knows absosolutely nothing. Is that the manner of the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition? No wonder that the hon. member for Pretoria West set the right hon. gentleman a lesson in regard to tactics. It seems that the right hon. gentleman goes to war, not even knowing what his powder is going to be, or whether he has any. (Ministerial cheers, and laughter.) It reminds me of a true story of a hoofd commandant, whom I had the pleasure of serving with in the war at the commencement. He was going to attack Kimberley and fire his big guns, but he would not put in ball. (Laughter.) Powder was sufficient ; he was afraid he might injure somebody. (Laughter.) Probably the right, hon. gentleman was afraid he might injure somebody who was not the Minister of Justice. (Ministerial cheers.) Now, sir, I say, whether the right hon. gentleman knew what the particular charges were or whether he did not, it makes no difference, he is responsible. Either he must take that responsibility and he must then, as I said, apologise after what has been brought out as a consequence of his attack and his reliance upon the hon. member for Cape Town, or, I should say, the right hon. gentleman should not be the leader, but the hon. member for Cape Town should be the leader of the Opposition. (Ministerial cheers.) I have tried to lay before the House what I see is styled in the papers “the defence of the Minister of Justice.” The papers are quite right, the papers of the hon. gentlemen on the Opposition benches. They know that what I said at the commencement was perfectly correct. They know as well as the hon. gentlemen opposite and as well as anybody that this whole attack has been nothing else but simply an attack upon the Minister of Justice. (Ministerial cheers.) Now I wish to congratulate the right hon. the Leader of the Opposition on his proof of the muddle in the Department of Justice, of the chaos in the Department of Justice, and I hope, sir, that this will enhance the position of the right hon. gentleman in his party and in the country, and that he will, at any rate, show when he next makes an attempt of this kind that really the strong and the capable men have, or at any rate, some strong and some capable men have, through the failure of the coalition scheme, been excluded from the Ministry. (Ministerial cheers.)

said that his hon. friend the Minister had had a difficult task. (Hear, hear.) He had, he was sure, done his utmost to defend a somewhat difficult case, and if he (Col. Crewe) wanted an advocate he should be inclined to call upon his hon. friend to come to his assistance if he were in a difficulty. (Hear, hear.) But his hon. friend had given him (Col. Crewe) rather a difficult task to follow. He would tell them why. Not because of his case, but because of the fact that the whole of that speech had a racial indication. He was not going to say that there was no provocation. It was difficult for the Minister of Justice, when cases of this kind were brought up, to set aside altogether the racial question, and it was going to be his difficulty in the speech he was to deliver that afternoon. He wanted, first of all, to tell the Minister that there was not a single member on that side of the House who considered for one moment when a man was appointed whether he was a Dutchman or an Englishman. (Ministerial dissent.) He would give them an illustration of that. Last session the Minister of Justice and himself sat for weeks and weeks in Committee en deavouring by every possible means to settle a great racial difficulty, the language difficulty. Whatever may be said in regard to the hon. member for Cape Town, in justice to him, it should be said that he was not a racialist and he was not animated in what he had done by racialism Col. Crewe (proceeding) said he was op posed to the principle that introduced men from outside into the Civil Service, whether they were English or Dutch, and to do so was to inflict an injustice to the English as well as the Dutch. A great deal of matter had been brought into the discussion which had reminded him of the song about the flowers that bloom in the spring. (Laughter.) Much of it had nothing to do with the case. As an instance, Mr. Stent had nothing to do with this case. That gentleman was known as a strong opponent of the Government, and therefore a dangerous man that should be avoided even when met at one’s club. He (the hon. member) was amazed that the Minister of Justice declined to take the word of the hon. member for Cape Town Central. If an explicit denial was given to a statement he thought it should be accepted. But the Minister of Justice had acted in much the same manner towards the hon. member for the Liesbeek Division, who had never shown the least signs of racialism. They could, however, forgive the hon. Minister because he had been given a very warm time lately. (Laughter.) The hon. Minister of Justice had been well briefed in this case. He did not know who had briefed him, but he thought the hon. Minister was a better advocate than a judge. (Laughter.) His hon. friend, quite naturally, attacked people in that House, having been an offender himself.

May I rise to a point of order? What I said was that what I stated about Mr. Gunn I was prepared to say the same outside the House. (Ministerial cheers.)

said the hon. Minister was getting mixed in regard to cases referred to. He was not alluding to Mr. Gunn, but to the careless evidence on which the two inspectors had been dismissed. They on that side of the House had been asked to sift the evidence connected with these cases very carefully. Well, he had listened most carefully to the hon. Minister in his defence of those against whom serious charges had been brought, and he would show to the House that most of them stood in the same position as when the charges were first made, and he hoped he would not be charged with racialism in doing so. The service was open to both races, and they on that side of the House were determined to maintain the Act of Union in its entirety. (Opposition cheers.) They were determined not to have its principles whittled away. The fact remained that these charges had not been controverted one iota. It was not his intention to bring any fresh cases into the present discussion, because the hon. Minister had already spent three hours in replying to those already brought to his notice. There was, however, the case of Mr. Firth, in the Agricultural Department, which he would bring forward at a future stage, and he hoped when the time came the papers relating to it would be laid on the table so that all might see them. He was not going to attack Mr. Roos, but it was well known that the whole of the service was afraid of him, and dare not bring their cases before him. The Prime Minister, they all knew, was a busy man, having to chase the Minister of Justice about the country. (Laughter.) Then there was the hon. member for Victoria West, who frequently went on the warpath and required attention. (Renewed laughter.) There were many other cases of departmental discontent which might be mentioned. The Post Office, for example. (Cries of “No, no.”) Well, they were holding meetings all over the country. Then there was the Customs Department, for whom that strong man the Minister of Commerce was responsible, also in a state of discontent, as was also the Railway Service. But, as he had stated, it would not be fair to start a set of new cases ; therefore, he would confine himself to those already mentioned. The Opposition had not had the returns it had asked for with regard to new appointments in the service. That would have helped the Opposition enormously, and then they would have had something definite to go upon. He had had one or two cases brought to his notice. In one case of extreme hardship, concerning an Englishman, he (Colonel Crewe) sent it to the Minister of Justice, who was only too glad to attend to it and to give it redress. (Hear, hear.) But he had brought cases to the notice of another, and had secured no redress whatever. He would say this for the Minister of Justice, that if cases were brought to his notice he would endeavour to put them right. (Hear, hear.) During the course of the debate, it had been asked: “Why do Civil Servants take these matters to the Opposition?” The answer was fairly obvious. The Cape Government, which was in office in 1904, had to carry out more retrenchment than any other Cape Cabinet had to do. It was fairly done. And from 1908 to 1910, the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) took special interest in the matter of retrenchments. There were no complaints in Parliament, for the work of retrenchment was fairly done, and no serious injustice was felt throughout the service, and the House was not troubled with any case of importance. But now, people in the Union service believed they were unfairly treated, and they came to members of the Opposition and put their cases before them.

Quite right.

said he wanted to go over some of the speeches that had been made. Last Thursday, the Minister of Education said: “Why don’t you move for a Commission?” He (Colonel Crewe) thought that the leader of the Opposition, when he replied, would say that he was not wedded to the actual words of his motion, that what he desired to get was redress for the Civil Servants, and safety for them in the future. The Minister of Education had stated that there was racialism in the Cape service, and had left an impression which would be unfortunate if it were allowed to remain. With his (Colonel Crewe’s) knowledge of the Cape Civil Service, obtained when he was Colonial Secretary, he could say that the question of race never once entered into that or any other department. (Cheers.) There were tar more Englishmen than Dutch in the Cape service, but when it came to promotion, very often a Dutchman was preferred to an Englishman because of the former’s knowledge of Dutch. The Government of the right hon. member for Albany (Sir Starr Jameson) wanted a man in London to look after the commercial interests of the Cape. The man selected for the post was a political opponent of theirs—Mr. Chiappini—land was a Dutchman by birth and extraction. Then Mr. Hofmeyr was selected for an exceedingly difficult task, and right well did he do it. Again, a Dutch Reformed Church minister was appointed a missionary to organise the education of the people of the North-western districts. During the thirty years prior to Union, the Bond had controlled the administration of the Cape for no less than twenty-two years. If there had been any injustice done in the Cape Civil Service, surely his hon. friend opposite would be the first to say “that it could have been done only in the eight years the Unionists had been in office.” But the Bond could have put it right in twenty-two years. They had no cause to shout racialism at the Cape. What was done then, was to consider the service first and racialism afterwards. The speech of the hon. member for Ermelo could be summarised thus: “You object to any Dutchman being appointed to the service.” On the contrary, they welcomed Dutchmen, provided they came in at the front door, and not at the back—(Opposition cheers)—and they welcomed Englishmen in the same way, but don’t let there be any attempt to open the back doors for anyone. The race to which a Civil Servant belonged did not matter so long as he was competent, but the Opposition did object to men being turned out and other men put in their places, and that was the gravamen of the whole of the charges made by the hon. member for Cape Town. The Minister of Justice had admitted that he had gone behind the Civil Service Commission, but said that on April 1, certain members of the service would be redundant. In that case it would have been better to wait until April 1 to see whether some of these redundant men could not be appointed to other positions rather than bring in men from outside the service to fill those positions. (Opposition cheers.) One suggestion of the Prime Minister’s was going to occasion a good deal of alarm throughout the country. He had asked what would happen to this country if the appointments were half and half throughout the Civil Service. Anything of that kind was most unfortunate; not because one objected to half and half, but surely the whole question was a competent, thoroughly reliable, well-trained service. The hon. member for Cape Town Central had made a statement—a courageous statement. (Ministerial cheers and counter-cheers.) It was courageous because he laid himself open at once to the charge that came with marvellous rapidity from the other side, racialism. At the Durban Conference a statement was made by a prominent Unionist, urging that certain things should be done, and warning them that when they were done they would be charged with racialism. The real answer was provided by the Prime Minister himself, from one of whose speeches he quoted, “And if Dr. Jameson, who is unfortunately ill, had been present to-day he would bear me out in what I say. From him personally and from the party which he leads I and my party have received the strongest support and assistance in banishing racialism from South Africa, and that is why during the last session of Parliament we have been able to solve the most difficult problem, that of the two languages.”

That was before the Durban Conference.

That was in a speech in London.

That was before the Durban Conference.

The moment this resolution is tabled he charges us with racialism.

A new policy was started from Durban.

There have been so many policies. (Opposition laughter.)

agreed with the hon. member for Fort Beaufort that there had been a good many policies on the other side, but his party had stuck to the one. The resolutions passed at their Unionist Durban and Bloemfontein Conferences were almost identical, the main difference being that at Durban it was laid down that the time had come, owing to the condition of affairs, owing to the journeys of the Minister of Justice, owing to the passage of certain legislation in the Transvaal, owing to doubts, natural doubts, in their minds, the time had come for more active opposition to a Government that had been losing the confidence of the country. The right hon. member for Victoria West supported them ; he dare not vote for them. Everyone would admit that the Prime Minister had a task of considerable difficulty in harmonising the four different services of the Union, but at the first moment he had thrown away his great safeguard—a real, live, trustworthy Civil Service Commission. The Minister of the Interior said that persons from both sides of the House had been asked to join that Commission. But they could not find a single individual on their side of the House who had been asked to join it. They knew that the member for George was asked and his would have been an excellent appointment. But he (the speaker) could not conceive that it was impossible to obtain the services of more eminent men than Messrs. Campbell and Brown. In their own interests the Government would have been far better advised—and there would have been no necessity for this motion—had they appointed a really strong and trustworthy Civil Service Commission. They were taunted with having made this a party question. It was not their fault if it became a party question. Why did the Government not try to find some means to satisfy the service of the country rather than let it go forth that all was right in the best of all possible worlds? It had also been said that when a Civil Service Commission was appointed by the Government of the Cape, they appointed a party supporter, Judge Graham. Judge Graham had been and had not been their supporter. He was a moderate supporter of the Unionist party. The Commission was absolutely impartial, and consequently they had never been challenged at all. But to say that the present Commission had not been challenged before now was to say what was not correct. Last session it was challenged, both as to its personnel and its reports. To his mind, the Government was in a difficult position in regard to this Commission. One minute they said they took responsibility for the appointments in the service, at another they said it was a strong and good Commission. If it was so good and so strong, why not carry out its recommendations? If it was a poor Commission, why was it appointed? That was the position in which the Government found itself. They had done a thing that was wrong from every point of view. It was a weak Commission ; it was not a Commission that could be split up, sent round the country, and so save time. The chairman of the Commission did not command the confidence of the Civil Service, and never did, from the time that he took the chair. His hon. friend knew the Teason. It was no wonder that there was unrest in the Civil Service, and that it was felt that the new Commission was no stronger than the one that had gone before, because the chairman was a strong supporter of the party opposite. Surely the Government could do something which would restore confidence in the Administration. His right hon. friend dealt with the Agricultural Department, and said that it had never been better. They had had an outbreak of East Coast Fever in the district of East London. For months and months and months the Government was told that East Coast Fever would come, and it had come. What was the position? There were 41 tanks in the East London district—all of them privately owned—but not a single tank in any native location. The consequence was that, while they could deal with the farmers’ cattle, the same could not be done with the locations. Then they had lost Mr. Palmer, one of the best agriculturists who had ever stepped into South Africa. He had gone to Rhodesia, so they had not quite lost his services. He was the finest agriculturist that ever went into the department. What was the state of affairs with regard to the Scab Act? They on that side who represented farming communities were inundated with letters. Mr. Morgan went; Mr. Davison went, but he had had to be taken back.

I have not got the right of reply.

If my right hon. friend says he did not go I will accept his statement at once. Continuing, he said he would press the point on the Estimates, when they would have an opportunity of discussing the matter. Proceeding, he said he was prepared to accept the statement of the Minister of the Interior that Mr. Naude did not assist in his election, but he admitted that Mr. Naude was brought from outside and that was one of the cases quoted by the hon. member for Cape Town Central. After discussing the motion, the speaker said he was sorry the Minister of the Interior was not in his place, as he would like to address him personally with regard to his statement: “God help Dutchmen—(Ministerial cheers)—if the hon. member for Cape Town gets into power.” I can only say this, that to his (the speaker’s) knowledge the hon. member for Cape Town Central was one of the most just men he had ever met. If they were to say God help Englishmen while the Minister of Justice was in office, then that House would become a pandemonium, and the country would ring from one end to the other. They did not say it. The Minister said it. Nobody must say these things and nobody was going to say such things, he hoped. When the Minister for the Interior got up and said a thing of that sort he could quite understand the Englishman who cowered on the other side of the House.

His name?

said that he must say he would have used a little more caution than the hon. member for Cape Town did if he had delivered such a speech.

You drop the charge of racialism? You drop it?

If the hon. member had been in his seat at the beginning of my speech he would know that I deprecated anything that tended to racialism. His hon. friend was blessed with a marvellous power of interrupting. His hon. friend had made his speech, and could keep his magnificent orations for another occasion. So far as the coalition suggestion of the Minister of the Interior, he would leave that to be dealt with by the right hon. gentleman himself. He (the speaker) was surprised that in all his experience as Minister of the Interior and in the Government of the Transvaal and subsequently in the Government of the Union, he (the Minister) had not yet discovered that there were certain persons who were unpurchaseable. After all, what was the motion before the House? The support that the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) gave to that motion, carried, as they all well knew, no vote whatever, because the hon. gentleman himself was a firm, warmhearted supporter of the Government party. Then there was the member for Ladismith, a strong Government supporter, and they respected him for it; but he did say a word for the Civil Servants who had been to him. But the right hon. member for Victoria West was not so firm and warm-hearted a supporter of Ministers as Ministers might think. He was a firm and a warm-hearted supporter of the party that sat opposite. What did the right hon. gentleman say? He said the Commission was a weak one ; that there had been favouritism, that there was no remedy, that it was no use going to the head of a department, and that access to Ministers was most difficult.

I did not say anything about that.

You said weakness of Commission, no remedy, no use going to head of department, and access to Ministers difficult. I think it is one of the strongest indictments in this House against the Government. Proceeding, he said the hon. gentleman had brought up two cases. He just wanted to remind the Minister of Education that he was chairman of the Select Committee. When anything was done in those days and a suggestion was made that anything was done wrongly, Ministers had a curious way of accepting the having of it sent to a Select Committee. His hon. friend was one of the committee himself, and he found that Mr. Ussher did not come from Johannesburg at all.

He went there.

Yes, that is just it. That is always the case with my hon. friend, he is not always quite right. He even did not take the trouble to read the report of that committee, because it entirely exonerates mo. Proceeding, the hon. gentleman read two telegrams regarding the appointment of Mir. Ussher, one of which read: “If you think Ussher is as good as we can get and are satisfied, and the Civil Commissioner is also satisfied, please minute,” and said that showed they even went so far as to consult the Civil Commissioner in regard to the appointment of Mr. Ussher to carry out the registration of voters in Cape Town. But Ussher had done a registration before—two years before. His right hon. friend very shortly afterwards had a registration to do, and he also appointed a person from outside. In spite of the report of the Select Committee and the row he had made, he appointed Advocate Roux. He (Colonel Crewe) quite agreed with him. They did not quarrel over it. They knew Mr. Roux was a strong party supporter, but they knew it would be satisfactory, and he was satisfactory, and they did not level charges against the hon. member for Victoria West. He (Colonel Crewe) always wondered how the right hon. gentleman reconciled his votes with his principles. (Opposition cheers.) It must be an extraordinarily difficult task. He indulged in the most strong denunciations, and he noticed his right hon. friend the Prime Minister looking positively anxious, but he need not be afraid; his vote was quite safe. (Laughter.) His hon. friend for Pietermaritzburg (Mr. Orr) had something to say about him (Colonel Crewe) the other day. He did not know why he should have attracted his attention. He need not have suddenly jumped in before practically any defence had been made by the Minister of Justice, and show what an enthusiastic and warmhearted supporter of the Government he was, as he Did when he came and made his speech before the Minister of Justice had even replied to the charges. He knew perfectly well that the Natal service was seething with discontent, and that affairs there were as serious as anywhere His energies had been misdirected. (Opposition cheers.) However, he was a faithful ally and was a trusted friend, and deserved some reward from his friends on the other side. (Opposition cheers.) The Treasurer had a good deal to say also on Friday; something on British methods and so on. Well, he could assure him that whenever they wanted to hit the Government, they would adopt British methods, and fight straight and say what they had to say. Other members of this House wished to bring cases forward, but would not owing to the fact that the Minister of Justice was silenced, and knowing that it would be unfair to do so. The Treasurer had something to say about the Markham case. It was that a reputable business firm had been attacked in the House of Commons, and had been libelled. There was nobody there to defend them, and they were in no way servants of the State, and Captain Markham was challenged to make his statement outside. He did so, and was subsequently mulcted in damages. That was a very different case. Where were charges against Civil Servants to be made? Where were statements, against heads of Ministerial departments to be made, if it was not in this House? Was it that they must go to Courts of Law and there obtain redress? No, the proper place was in this House, where they were face to face with one another, and where there was a Minister to stand up and defend them, and his hon. friend had done his best for Mr. Roos. That was the proper place—where a Minister could get up and put right what was wrong, and deal with these cases; and this was the place where those charges would be made, if ever made, and he hoped they would not try in Law Courts to put right this Civil Servant or that. That would do a great deal of harm in the Civil Service of this country. (Opposition cheers.) He wanted (the hon. member proceeded) to! clear up one point. It had been stated in the House that there was a desire on his part of the House that the Civil Servants of the former Republics should not be properly treated, that they had laid an embargo against their employment, and that it was a very hard case. Let him refer to the debate of July 22, 1908, in the Transvaal House of Assembly, when Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, member for Pretoria, South Central, speaking on that question, asked the Government to make provision for these Civil Servants, so that there would be no charges of racialism made. The hon. member had said on that occasion: “Let them come in under the same terms as the others … put them in the same class, with regard to pensions ; and let their past services count …," and the Colonial Secretary, the present Minister of the Interior, had replied, “It costs too much.” As to the speech of the Hon. the Minister of Justice, it was not an easy speech to deal with because he had endeavoured to justify himself —he had not endeavoured to defend every case, but, on the whole, left the impression upon him (Colonel Crewe) that a great many people had been imported into the service from outside; and that was the whole of the gravamen of the charge; that, and that people had been reduced in status, were the motives of the motion introduced by the right hon. member for Albany. The hon. member went on to say that he had received communications from two Civil Commissioners, one of whom was English and the other Dutch ; and they were both in very much the same terms. The one stated: “The fact of the matter is that everything is being made to accord with Transvaal procedure and Mr. Roos is allowed by General Hertzog to do exactly as he pleases. …” The Dutch Civil Commissioner wrote: “I know only too well that it is utterly useless to represent anything … the country is being run by an army of clerks at Pretoria … and we, who are the real administrators, are the slaves … I don’t like to write to members of Parliament, but to write to Mr. Roos is like writing to destruction. …”

Will you lay the letters on the table?

My hon. friend need not shout or cry. I will tell him what I will do. It is not fair to the Minister of Justice and the other Civil Servants to show that letter, but I am perfectly willing to show the whole of the correspondence to the Minister of Native Affairs, with the greatest pleasure.

I rise to a point of order ; and I want to know, Mr. Speaker, whether the hon. member is justified in reading a letter or correspondence (or part of it), which he is not prepared to lay on the table?

The rule is that if an hon. member reads from a leeter he should quote the whole, as in the case of evidence in a Law Court, so that the House may be in possession of all the facts.

On a point of order, may I ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker? Last session the Minister of Railways and Harbours read a telegram, but not the whole of it, and you did not order the whole of it to be read.

said that during the last session the hon. member for Pretoria East (Sir Percy Fitzpatrick) had quoted extracts from letters from him (Mr. Creswell). He asked whether he could at that stage—at that date hour—ask that the whole of that correspondence should be —

Of course, Mr. Speaker, I shall bow to your ruling, but I do not think that it is generous or wise of my hon. friend to press that point. I want to point out to the hon. member that I have offered to show it to a member of the Government, and I am perfectly well prepared to include the Prime Minister, if he wishes it. If I quote from a typewritten copy, I presume I am not quoting from a letter. (Ministerial dissent.)

May I insist upon the letter being laid on the table of the House? I think it only fair over against the heads of my Department, that, at any rate, I should be in a poistion to see it. There was an offer to show it to the Minister of Native Affairs.

said there was a pernicious habit growing up of quoting from documents. (VOICES:“Order.”)

said that when he rose it was thought that the hon. member for East London quoted from two letters. One was a letter from a Dutch magistrate and the other a letter from an English magistrate.

You want to get their names to persecute them? You want to follow them up.

When I am on a point of order, I am not going to argue on irrelevant interruptions. We ought to have these letters.

Why?

Because if you don’t do that, the rule ought to be repealed.

said he had referred to the letters. One of them was not even signed. The whole of the correspondence and a great deal more that he had was at the disposal of the Prime Minister, because he knew he would not allow it to in any way recoil on the Civil Servants. There was a man named Firth (Col. Crewe went on to say), who had been for a number of years a Civil (Servant in the Transvaal and was employed as inspector of fencing. On March 24, 1910, prior to Union, he received a letter from the head of his department, signed by Mr. F. B. Smith, Director of Agriculture, in which he said that Mr. Firth was a zealous and capable officer, but the Minister was of opinion that the post he now held should be filled by a gentleman who was better acquainted with the Dutch language. He remained in the service until Union had taken place. On December 51, 1910, Mr. Firth received another letter from the Acting-Secretary for Agriculture, saying that he was directed to inform him that the Prime Minister had, in view of the reorganisation of the Department in consequence of Union, decided to retire him from the Public Service, and, accordingly, his services would not be required by the Department after the 31st prox. “I am to express General Botha’s satisfaction,” the letter went on, “with the manner in which you have carried out your duties while employed in the Department.” He was retrenched because he had not sufficient knowledge of the Dutch language. He (Col. Crewe) would lay that letter on the table. He said that he would now come to the speech of the Minister of Justice. He lost sight very largely of the gravamen of the charge which was, in the words of the resolution, “that the methods adopted by the Government in dealing with the public service of the Union, both in connection with the reorganisation and readjustment 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.” He would take the question of personnel first. If he remembered rightly, last session the Minister of the Interior said that all the appointments were acting, because they had not received the report of the Civil Service Commission, and they were told, at that time, that the personnel was a matter of consideration for the Civil Service Commission. They had been told since then that the question of the personnel had nothing to do with the Civil Service Commission. But there could not be a shadow of doubt that members of the Civil Service in the Cape Province, to his knowledge, had suffered by being de-graded in status, by having their increments altered, and by having a barrier put where no barrier existed before. That was the real gravamen of the charge. There was no doubt that some of the cases mentioned by the hon. member for Cape Town Central had been supported by the Minister of Justice, and he (Col. Crewe) was going to deal with the cases one by one. Take the first case, Naude’s case. He might be the very best man on earth, but the question was whether he should have been imported into the service from outside, and the Minister of the Interior admitted that he was brought from outside. As far as that case was concerned, the charge of the hon. member for Cape Town Central stood absolutely. Then there was Reitz’s case. The question that occurred to him (the hon.member) when the Minister of Justice was replying, was whether Mr. Reitz, who might be a most admirable person, probably was, whether Mr. Reitz, who was formerly an attorney, and whose appointment was made from outside, had passed the Civil Service examination, or whether he was merely introduced from outside without anything at all. Rules were laid down for the introduction of people into the service from outside.

I said he complied with the Transvaal law.

Not the Cape-Colony law.

Also the Cape Colony law.

He is in the service of the Union, and surely there should be some common ground upon which anybody should be admitted. It might be said (the hon. member proceeded) that Reitz was recommended by the Advisory Committee. After all, the chairman of the Advisory Committee was, he believed, Mr. Roos, who was head of the department. It seemed to him that here was another argument for having the strongest possible Civil Service Commission.

Not Mr. Roos; Mr. Gorges was head of the committee.

said there was the case of Mr. Scheepers, who might consider himself a fortunate man. He was taken from the Cape Province and appointed schoolmaster at the Industrial School, Standerton. The question was, were there no other persons more entitled to the appointment? Then they came to the case of Miss Bok, and he had yet to learn that it was necessary to travel about the country to get a typist. (Cries of “Dutch.”) They had a number in Cape Town who knew Dutch that were unemployed or could have been promoted. The principal trouble was that the Minister of Justice not only constituted himself an arbiter, but also a judge as to whether their Dutch was good enough. Then they came to the case of Van der Kast. The hon. Minister himself had admitted that this gentleman had broken service. The fact that the hon. Minister had pointed out the preponderance of names in his department were English did not make the case any better. They had no right to introduce from outside persons to fill appointments in the service, whether they were English or whether they were Dutch. (Cheers.) The case of Harris, which was brought forward by the member for Cape Town, who applied for three months’ leave on account of ill-health, was refused for the reason that he was said to be in robust health although he had a medical certificate to the contrary. The reply he received from the Department was: “I regret that the Minister’s instructions do not permit of the granting of sick leave for neurasthenia when the officer is at his work.” The doctor considered that he was unfit, but the Minister considered that he was fit. The Opposition absolutely accepted the statement with regard to Mr. S. J. Hofmeyr which had been made by the Minister of Justice. He (Colonel Crewe) was sorry that the hon. member for Cape Town was not aware that the initials of the two gentlemen were absolutely identical. However, it came to this, that in all these cases there was one in which the hon. member had been led astray by a similarity of initials.

As to the officer who had been promoted from the post of Court interpreter to magistrate, they knew other Civil Servants senior to him who were entitled to that position.

Who were they?

said they now came to the case of Mr. Roos. The Minister of Justice had led the House a little bit astray when he said that Mr. Lonsdale and Mr. Roos were on equal terms. They were not on equal terms as regarded salary, Mr. Roos receiving £1,300 a year and Mr. Lonsdale £1,500. Men with Transvaal salaries had been transferred to the Cape and put over the heads of men with longer service, because Transvaal men were drawing more salary than the Cape men, and so the question of salary settled the point of seniority. Mr. Lonsdale’s greatest capacity was his marvellous administrative abilities, and the Minister would have done far better to have selected Mr. Lonsdale to be head of the administrative branch of his department rather than to be head of the legal branch. (Opposition cheers.) Nobody could be more grieved than they were to learn that Mr. Lonsdale’s health had caused him to retire, and they endorsed every word said by the Minister as to that gentleman’s long and honourable services to South Africa. (Hear, hear.) It was therefore an ignoble thing to suggest that he had written to the hon. member for Cape Town; with the traditions of the Cape service, that would have been the last thing he, would have thought of doing. The Minister had admitted that a great many of the appointments in his department were made from outside. The Minister went back to 1877, but why did he not tell them of the recent introductions into the service?

Then the Minister of Justice had given a long dissertation on the Gillingham case. He (Colonel Crewe) had not followed that, but it did appear to him that Mr. Roos did not feel inclined to go to the expense of a prosecution. It was an extraordinary thing that he did not take every step to clear his character entirely from imputations. After all, what had the House to do with cold storage companies? Certainly some hon. members had lost money over these concerns. (Laughter.) It had been said that Mr. Roos had given up a practice worth £4,000 per annum to accept a salary of £1,800 a year. That was an admirable example of loyalty, and they were most fortunate in having a servant who would do such a thing. That was practically the whole of the Minister’s case. As to the Minister’s attack on Mr. Stent, he (Colonel Crewe) would only say that Mr. Stent was an open opponent of the Government ; he had nothing to hold back, and when he had anything to say against the Government, he did it in an unmistakable fashion. That, no doubt, was the reason why the hon. member was a little bit annoyed with Mr. Stent. The Minister of Justice had quoted from the judgment of Sir James Rose-Innes in the Roos case. But there was a further quotation from another judgment, in which Sir James Rose-Innes said that the fact remained that the most damaging and violent charges made by Mr. Gillingham were allowed to remain unanswered in the eyes of the public. Sir James added that he did not think it was right that heavy damages should be given. That (proceeded Colonel Crewe) was the reason why the damages against Mr. Stent were so small. He would impress upon hon. members that they were not actuated by racialism—(Ministerial cries of “Yes”)—but no charges of racialism would prevent them from doing their duty. (Opposition cheers.)

When earlier this afternoon during the course of this debate the Minister of Education asked for Mr. Speaker’s ruling on the question as to whether the hon. member for East London (Colonel Crewe) was in order in quoting extracts from letters which were not in the possession of the House, and whether the hon. member should not lay these letters upon the table, I pointed out the inconvenience to the House where members adopt the course complained of. I now wish to state the position somewhat more clearly. In the first place, a distinction is drawn in the House of Commons between documents quoted during the course of a debate by Ministers of the Crown, and private letters or documents referred to or quoted by private members. The position in regard to documents quoted by Ministers of the Crown was clearly stated to the House in rulings from the Chair during last session and the present session. The Chair has no authority to order papers quoted by private members to be laid upon the table of the House; but I would like to emphasise that where members quote from documents in the manner indicated, the House is quite unable to form a correct judgment upon such partial extracts. In the absence, however, of a Standing Order, no rule except that of good taste can govern a matter of this kind, and, under present conditions, the hon. member concerned must take the responsibility.

thought that the motion was well informed. Although it looked very simple and innocent on paper, in reality it meant very much. He was more surprised at the speech of the hon. member for Cape Town Central. That speech was not well informed. He assured his hon. friend that the consequences would be far reaching outside the walls of the House. He had set fire to the grass, and it would take hard work and a long time before the names were subdued. He was even more surprised at the attitude of the hon. members opposite during the debate. They started making very serious charges. They made a few wild statements, but produced nothing to substantiate them. On the contrary, by undue pressure, they had forced the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Justice to make explanations and prove their innocence. Whether that was just and fair he would leave to the House. Coming to the blunder of the Government—if it could be called a blunder—in the appointment of the Commission, he took it that if the Government blundered they blundered on quite different grounds from those assumed by hon. members opposite. Hon. members must not forget that that appointment took place before the Durban Conference, and when conciliation was in the air. If they took the white population of South Africa they would see that roughly there were two Dutch-speaking to every one English-speaking. (Laughter.) That being so, if there was an injustice, the injustice was at the cost of the Dutch-speaking. (Ministerial cheers.) There were two English-speaking men on that Commission and one Dutch-speaking. No wonder that it turned out a very weak Commission. (Ministerial laughter.) If they had appointed two Dutch-speaking to one English they would have had a strong Commission. (Laughter and Ministerial cheers.) Let the Government take a lesson, and act fairly and justly to both sections of the community, and remember the Dutch saying, “Ontdank is de wereld’s loon.” (Ingratitude is the world’s reward.) Were there not grievances of the same kind in England at present? These grievances could all be settled by approaching the Government. Many of the present grievances, they must not forget, were manufactured. In the early days of the Orange Free State, those old backvelders when there was only a handful of English-speaking people, passed a law in their Volksraad that some of the officials who came into contact with the public should know both languages. Let hon. members opposite take a lesson from those old backvelders, how to deal out justice and fair play to both sections of the community. The speeches uttered during the past few days would not tend to make Union a success, or to make South Africa what it ought to be. Hon. members must learn to tolerate one another. He would go further, and say hon. members must learn to respect themselves and to respect one another, and respect one another’s language more. Then only would the country be the prosperous home of a contented people.

welcomed the motion, as it would serve to clear the air. For the past eight or nine months the minds of the public in South Africa had been inflamed by appeals to racialism.

By whom?

By the members of the Opposition, in the Press, and also on the public platform. Proceeding, he said they had been told in the Press and from the platform that Englishmen were being discharged from the public service, and Dutchmen being put in their places. The hon. member for East London had said that in his presence at a meeting held in Newcastle, but when asked by him (the speaker) for the name of a single competent Englishman who had been so discharged, he had to admit that he could not tell of a single case. He (the speaker) had seen no instances of racialism on the part of the Government. It was rather a curious motion. In the first place the Government was charged with contravening the South Africa Act, and in the second place the Government was charged with having caused all the unrest in the service. There had been no evidence to support the first charge. The only evidence the right hon. member for Albany brought forward was that a strong Civil Service Commission had not been appointed and it seemed to him that the reason why the Commission was a weak Commission was because it was not exclusively composed of Cape men. (Opposition laughter.) If the hon. gentlemen would only study the records of the members they would find that it was an admirable and strong Commission. He pointed out that the two Commissioners who had resigned had been admirably suited for the task, and said that no man was better fitted to act than the gentleman who was last appointed. This was the only evidence —if it could be called evidence—that the Government had contravened the law in respect of the Civil Service. He was convinced that the Government of the country must be run on economical lines. It would not be long before direct taxation was on them. He was sure that the House would not submit to additional taxation unless it was certain that the expenditure on the Civil Service had been reduced to a minimum. The fact that the Government had moved in this direction, and had not adopted all the financial recommendations of the Commission, was a point in favour of the Government. He admitted that there was unrest in the Civil Service and that the Government was to blame for it to a small extent for the reason that there had been over-centralisation. It was possible that the Government could allay some of this unrest, which, owing to Union, was inevitable. The Opposition in supporting the motion had spoken with two voices. (Ministerial cheers.) They had had the right hon. the member for Albany speaking in a mild manner as though it were not opposition to the Government but in reality a game of bluff, and that he was laughing up his sleeve all the while. They were asked to vote against the Government on the ground of a suspicion that the Government were determined to keep the balance of political power in its own hands. He had never heard the mover of a vote of censure on a Government supporting his case with such flimsy arguments. He also thought the House had cause for complaint because of methods employed to support the motion.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

said the Opposition, in speaking of this motion, spoke in two voices. The right hon. gentleman who was the mover said there was only a suspicion of partisanship and they heard only faint cheers. But when the hon. member for Cape Town (Mr. Jagger) got up and used language with more bite and sting in it they heard more tumultuous cheers. (Ministerial cheers.) The hon. member for Cape Town said a lot of these men were appointed as payment for political services, in other words: “At the root of these charges there was jobbery, nepotism, and racialism … and that the whole of the Minister of Justice’s Department was characterised by nothing less than jobbery, nepotism and racialism.” That, of course, was the real charge made against the Government. He did not know if the right hon. the mover knew exactly what his colleague was going to say. If he had made out a prima facie case, he (Sir Thomas) for one would have voted for a Committee of Inquiry, because he felt convinced that the public of this country had been so excited and inflamed by the false representations regarding the public service that it was in the interest of the country that the truth should be known. But no attempt was made to prove the cases. The hon. member for Cape Town told them he had shoals of correspondence and quoted 22 cases, which, according to his way of quoting, were cases of racialism, nepotism, and jobbery. But, as the Minister had shown in every instance, he had a complete answer to the charges. (Ministerial cheers.) He (the speaker) also had correspondence from Civil Servants and others who imagined they had grievances, but before coming to Parliament to make charges against the Government he thought it only common sense to make inquiries, and found in each case that there was no cause for complaint. (Ministerial cheers.) What surprised him was that the hon. gentleman should have so lost his head as to come into the House and make those gnave charges in such a way as to almost, if not quite, ruin his reputation as a politician. (Ministerial cheers.) There was nothing in any single instance to substantiate the charge of nepotism. As he understood the word, it meant to put relatives in place and power. (Ministerial cheers.) Then, with regard to the jobbery, there was absolutely no truth in it. The hon. member stated that for his proof he was relying on these facts—he called them facts. He, first of all, invented his facts, and then proceeded to argue upon them. (Ministerial cheers.) If he did not invent them, he was unbusinesslike enough to allow some other person to invent them for him. (Ministerial cheers.) As far as regarded nepotism, he only heard the other day that a brother-in-law of the Prime Minister, who was one of the Natal Native Commissioners, and who was drawing £800 a year, had been retrenched. He hoped they would be able to find another appointment for him. (Ministerial cheers.) The hon. member for East London (Colonel Crewe) wanted, of course, to divert attention from the attack made by the hon. member for Cape Town. (Ministerial cheers.) But he did not succeed very well. (Ministerial cheers.) He told them that the Opposition did not mind whether a man who was appointed was an Englishman or a Dutchman ; all they wanted was a good man, fit for the post; but then he went on to support the member for Cape Town by traversing the statements made by the Minister. (Ministerial cheers.) Of course, the answer to the denial of racialism on the part of the supporters of this motion was the fact that the hon. member for Cape Town did not quote a single instance where a Britisher had been appointed, but quoted 22 cases where Dutchmen had been appointed. (Ministerial cheers.) Of course, the answer to that was most crushing. They were shown that only two Dutchmen were brought in from outside and given appointments in the Department of Justice, whereas eighteen Englishmen were brought in. (Ministerial cheers.) In fact, he had been twitted the previous year with having sat on the fence until he had found the right and proper side—(laughter)—and after the exhibition which bad been made by the Opposition over that proposal, he felt inclined to get down on his knees and be thankful that he had not joined them. (Ministerial cheers.) But the hon. member for Cape Town Central must, of course, feel it to be his duty to withdraw the reckless and unfounded statements which he had made, and he (the hon. member) would appeal to him to do so, because he had not adduced any proof whatever and had made these statements relying upon information given to him from tainted sources—(Opposition dissent)—without any inquiry. He thought that the hon. member would rise in the estimation of (the House if he would withdraw—(Ministerial “Hear, hears”)—and he would put it that there were a number of fair-minded men on his side of the House—he would not say on the back benches, because they were all fair-minded there—(laughter)—but members like the hon. members for the Border and Durban Central, who could not vote for the motion after having heard the answer which had been given. He could not understand any fair-minded man supporting the motion ; of course, if a man were bound hand and foot to the Opposition he could understand him doing so, but not otherwise; and there was no justification for supporting the motion. He wondered if it were realised by the British section of the population what enormous pressure must have been brought to bear upon the Government to make appointments from the Dutch-speaking section of the population. (Ministerial cheers.) The Prime Minister and some of his colleagues, as they knew, had taken a prominent part in the late war, and had been surrounded by men who were officials of the late Republics—able men and well qualified to fill public positions—who were now out of employment. They had been comrades in arms, and so it was the most natural thing in the world that these men would clamour for appointments—men who had taken the field and been through the campaign—and he could imagine that it had been with the utmost difficulty that the Prime Minister and his colleagues had been able to resist that pressure. He (the hon. member) heard a Dutchman who had gone to Pretoria some time ago say that it was filled with Englishmen. (An HON. MEMBER: Ja.) He had often wondered that the Government had not at the time given way to the tremendous pressure brought to bear upon it. There was another temptation which the Government had to put people of Dutch extraction into positions, and that was that they all knew that the English Civil Servants, as a rule, at the last election had not supported the Prime Minister and his colleagues—(Ministerial “Hear, hears”)—and men of smaller natures might have tried to get a little of their own back ; but he was glad to see that the Prime Minister and his colleagues had resisted that temptation and were strong enough to run the country on non-racial lines ; and he confidently believed that the Prime Minister would go down to posterity as “the great conciliator.” (Ministerial cheers.) The passion which had been roused by that campaign and the misrepresentation undertaken by the Opposition: the feelings which had been aroused even in that House: indicated a dangerous state of affairs. He knew that in his own constituency there was very much more feeling between the English and Dutch speaking sections of the population than there had been a year ago, and that was mainly owing to the mendacious misrepresentations made by the Press as well as by the Opposition. Concluding, he hoped that not only would the Government keep a steady head, but that every member of Parliament would do his duty, and set a tone to his constituents and use his moderating influence. The best way to kill racialism in the country and to get rid of the feeling of unrest which permeated the country was to support the Government—(Opposition laughter)—which was carrying out the government of the country on honest and non-racial lines. (Ministerial cheers.)

said that it had not been his intention to speak in that debate, but it had descended somewhat from the high level at which it had started. He felt that a certain note had been sounded on both sides of the House which might go forth to the country and do a great deal of harm indeed, and therefore it was his intention to bring forward an amendment, which he trusted would be accepted by both the Government and the Opposition. He hoped it would alleviate those passions which, he feared, had been aroused by certain speeches which had unfortunately been made in the House. He did not think that anybody was more competent to judge more carefully than the man who had been returned as an Independent, and who had declined to become the pawn of unscrupulous wire-pullers. (Laughter and Opposition cheers.) They felt themselves absolutely free. He wished to dissociate himself from the speech which was delivered by the hon. member for Cape Town Central. (Ministerial cheers.) They as Englishmen prided themselves on their fair play. (Hear, hear.) He had been a member of Parliament for six years, and never before had he heard a Civil Servant attacked by name in Parliament. (Hear, hear.) He wished to dissociate himself entirely from that. He believed that it was done unconsciously, but it was a cowardly act. He thought if the hon. member really believed that the information he had was correct, he would go outside that House and make this statement to enable the gentleman, whose hands were tied behind his back, and who was being punched all round the ring with his hands tied, to defend himself. (Ministerial cheers.) He would ask the hon. gentleman, being just, as he knew he was, what would his feelings have been if that side of the House had been in power, and if the other side had been in Opposition, and such an attack had been made upon an English official? (Ministerial cheers.) Not only the criticisms from the leaders of the Opposition, but the criticisms from the Opposition Press, fell flat, for this reason, that little or no credit was given for the good acts which were done by the other side. Now, the criticism of the hon. member for Cape Town Central would have carried much more force if he had given credit to Mr. Roos for the many good works he had done. Let him mention the Prisons Reform Act, which he (Mr. Silbum) had no hesitation in saying, from the reports he had read of the Washington Conference, was going to be a model for all the Prison Reform Acts of the world. He was responsible for that Act. He was responsible for the principle of indeterminate sentences.

They bad it five years ago in the Transvaal.

I know who is responsible for it—Mr. Roos.

He was not there five years ago.

I beg your pardon ; he was responsible for it, sir, and I will go further than that and I will say this, that Mr. Roos is responsible for the Prisoners’ Aid Association. I say if the Opposition had been honest they would have given credit where credit is due, instead of trying to blacken the man’s character as they have done. (Ministerial cheers.) Proceeding, the hon. member said that he condemned the Government for evading section 141 of the Act and for ignoring section 142. (Opposition cheers.) But the Government, he would grant, were in a difficult position. They had to deal with new machinery. There was no doubt in his mind that the Government last session should have brought forward a Civil Service Board. When the Civil Service Commission was appointed the Government evaded the terms of the section by appointing an extremely weak and inefficient Commission. (Hear, hear.) Not only did they do that, but when the majority of the Commission had resigned, they appointed men who were quite inefficient. That may have been due to ignorance. Speaking as regarded Mr. Bird of Natal, he might say that, while he was a most able official, he was quite incapable of being a Commissioner. He was a most excellent Civil Servant, but as a Civil Servant he was bound to obey the behests of any Minister in office. He would, therefore, move as an amendment, to omit all the words after the word “That,” and to substitute: “(a) This House is of opinion that the Government should without delay strengthen the Civil Service Commission appointed under section 141 of the South Africa Act; and (b) that the Civil Service Board provided for under section 142 of the South Africa Act be appointed before the end of this session of Parliament.”

who seconded the amendment, said he had listened to the debate with interest and considerable distress. When the motion was put down some time ago by the leader of the Opposition it was freely announced by the independent Press, which supported the Opposition, that that was to be the first attack of a fighting Opposition. (Cheers.) At first the Labour party thought the motion was one to which they would give their support. When he heard the speech of the leader of the Opposition there passed through his (Mr. Creswell’s) mind the rather cynical remark of Disraeli’s, that there were three essentials to a successful speech. The first and most important essential was the man who spoke, the second was the manner of speaking, and the third and least essential was what he happened to say. (Laughter.) The first two essentials were admirably filled. In the first place, they had a statesman who was held up to them as one who combined the sagacity of Walpole with the personal magnetism and dash of Palmerston. When they came to the substance of the speech they were told by the leader of the party, which boasted of being the British party, that the motion—the terms of which accused the Government of not acting in conformity with the South Africa Act—was not a vote of censure on the Government. Hon. members opposite would excuse him (Mr. Creswell) for saying that he was an Englishman, and he had some recollection of the constitutional fights that had taken place in the Old Country. It appeared to him that the principle which British Parliaments had striven for for many years was that the executive should not have power to go beyond the law. Yet the leader of the Opposition asked the Government not to regard the motion as a vote of censure at all. That was all rubbish. The right hon. baronet having put a vote of censure on the table wrote upon it—like Lord John Russell—“No Popery,” and ran away. They on the cross-benches, they were possibly so irreconcilable that they looked upon a fight as a fight. When the attack of the Opposition was developed they had that same old cry of racialism raised by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central. (Ministerial cheers.) Again, the Opposition arranged its attack very badly. A lieutenant having been put up to conduct a racial attack, the hon. member for East London proceeded to disclaim, on behalf of the Opposition, any sort of desire to do that. (Ministerial cheers.) The first fundamental of the Labour party was that it would have nothing to do with these old racial quarrels. He asked hon. members on the Government side to adhere to a party, not because it belonged to the same race as themselves, but simply because it held the same political principles as they did. (Opposition cheers.) When they reflected upon the unhappy events of recent years it was marvellous how they had worked together. Just here and there possibly there was a tendency for billets to be given to one race more than another. That happened in every field of employment. In the case of a Cornish mine manager, through ordinary clannishness the mine became filled with Cornishmen. Similarly, a Scotch engineer firmly believed that there were no good fitters outside the Clyde and Aberdeen. The whole question was whether the Government had given free rein to that in their conduct of the public service. They must consider the tremendous pressure that had been put on the Prime Minister. He did not say that mistakes had not been made, but he had done his very best to prevent the public service being allotted on the system of the spoils to the victors. He described the remark made by the hon. member for East London, that racialism was not in their political stock-in-trade, as the rankest of rank hypocrisy. (Ministerial cheers.) In season and out of season, their “kept Press” was doing its best to appeal to the British population to stand by the Unionist party. The hon. members for Langlaagte and Pretoria East also harped on this in their speeches. The Labour party maintained that South Africa would not advance while wrangling over the dry bones of a dead controversy. They eschewed racialism and fought only on the great questions of the day, and refused to be drawn into the Opposition’s latest edition of their old racial cry. (Ministerial cheers.) At first they were inclined to think that they ought to support the motion because they thought that the measures taken by the Government were in conflict with the South Africa Act. Under section 141 it was intended that something stronger than the present Commission should be appointed. It appeared that in the Convention, the leader of the Opposition had tried to get the re organisation out of the hands of the executive into the hands of the Commission, and that he was over-ruled. So that it appeared to them (the Labour party) that this vote of censure was directed equally against certain members of the Convention. It appeared that besides the Reorganisation Commission, an Advisory Committee, consisting of heads of departments, had been appointed. He did not think that was contemplated by the South Africa Act. He thought that the proposal of the hon. member for Durban (Point) should commend itself to the House. If the Minister of the Interior were less attached to keeping power in his own hands, and considered more what the views of the whole country were, he would have the Public Service Commission strengthened. He dissociated himself from the derogatory remarks passed on the hon. member for Heidelberg. They had heard a great deal of discontent in the service. It was real, it was genuine, and greater than was imagined. Partly, this was unavoidable, when they brought the services of four Provinces together. It was the unavoidable part that the Government should reduce to a minimum. A certain amount of the feeling was as much due to fear and suspicion as to cases of hardship that might afterwards transpire. A great deal was due to the suspicion that was engendered in their minds by the delay in the appointment of a Commission. That might be enhanced by articles appearing in the Unionist press throughout South Africa. The cure for that would be to secure the appointment of that permanent Commission as soon as possible. He did not think it was asking the Government too much to say that before this session ended that Commission would be appointed. They would then have had two years to carry out the requirements of the South Africa Act in that particular. He asked the hon. member for Liesbeek—the feature of whose illuminating speech was the fact that he kept to the point of the Civil Service—whether it was not fair to say that it had been the troubles of the higher-paid members of the service that claimed the attention of the Opposition, and not the greater number of less-paid men? In the postal service there was a great deal of unrest and a feeling of insecurity; the Minister, in spite of his admirable sentiments when he was in Opposition, still refused to recognise the Postal Association, which was the best means of getting at the views of the men. In the Department of justice the police were also in the same condition. They felt they did not know where they were. What he said was: get the Public Service Commission appointed, lay down rules for admission to the service, and the Minister would relieve himself of all possibility of such wrangles as had taken place in the House during the last few days. He did not think that Ministers should oppose this resolution ; let them go above party lines. They (the Labour party) refused to be drawn into these little racial battles on either side. They were not going to be drawn into the net, and if they did censure the Government, it was not to be implied that they had any confidence in the Opposition. He hoped he had made that plain to hon. members, because they knew they would be told they refrained from giving effective support to the Opposition in this matter ; but the effective support they gave was in trying to effect something They were not in accord with the Opposition. They were doing the best service to this country by doing their best to induce the Government to accept this amendment, which would do more than anything else to set the Civil Servants on a sound basis, and put a stop to the unrest prevailing. (Opposition cheers.) They had nothing to do with the motion. If it were carried, it would do nothing but merely put the right hon. gentleman who moved it in power for a brief space. He commended the amendment to the House. (Hear, hear.)

said it seemed to him that the main question had been lost sight of in the course of the debate. The first question they ought to ask themselves was this: Is there unrest and dissatisfaction and discontent among the members of the public service of this country? At the present time it had been admitted in the newspapers that such was the case. It was even in the Government organ, and it had been admitted by speakers on both sides of the House. Well, if that was the case, who was the proper party to bring such a state of affairs before the notice of Parliament? Would members of the Government bring it forward? It was not likely. Would the supporters of the Government bring it forward? He was afraid not. The only people left to do so were the men in opposition to the Government, and if the Opposition gentlemen did not do that sort of thing they were not doing their duty to the Government, which he thought hon. members on the Government side would admit. (Opposition cheers.) It seemed to him that there was no cause for complaint against the Opposition for bringing this question before the House. The other day the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) brought forward a similar motion. It was not looked upon by the Minister of Railways and Harbours as a vote of censure or as any racialism ; yet they said this motion had been brought forward for purely party purposes. The right hon. gentleman the leader of the Opposition, in bringing it forward, dealt with the matter in an extremely cautious and moderate way, and distinctly stated that the resolution was not a vote of “No confidence,” and he thought all of them who knew him would admit that when he said a thing of that kind it should have some weight in that House. But unfortunately the Prime Minister pleaded at once that this was brought forward for party purposes, and it should be looked upon in no other fight. (Opposition cheers.) The motion had been couched in very moderate and careful language, but he noticed that whenever a member of the Opposition brought forward any charge against the Government there was at once a cry, “What is the use of bringing forward general complaints? Give us details.” Very well, the complaint was that the leader of the Opposition was too general, and when one member followed him with specific charges then the complaint was shifted. They were told it was brought from pure racialism, bad feeling, and so on. (Opposition cheers".) It seemed to him the Government could not have it both ways. The state of affairs in the Civil Service was causing harm to the country generally. The Opposition had stated their case, that a great deal of that unrest had been caused by the non-observance of articles 141 and 142 of the South Africa Act. The speakers on both sides of the House completely proved the case of the Opposition. His hon. colleague for Durban, Point (Mr. Silburn), also admitted that the Government was wrong in many instances. He heard a few minutes ago the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) say that all this unrest, dissatisfaction and discontent was caused by the speeches of the members of the Opposition on the platform and in the House. The hon. member knew as well as he did that this was not so. It was not the cause of the unrest which had been going on for some time. He (Mr. Henderson) believed that a good deal of this discontent in Natal was due to the hon. member himself. Before Union and the referendum was taken in Natal his hon. friend spoke to the Civil Servants a good deal and gave them promises and told them things that had not come true, He was a member of the Convention, and should have known better than to have made those statements. (Opposition cheers.) The hon. member for Dundee had also stated that if the Opposition had been wise they would have proposed a committee of inquiry ; but was it at all likely that if that had been done it would not have been considered even more a vote of censure than the present motion? He regretted that he could not see his way to adopt the amendment moved by his hon. friend the member for Durban, Point, which did not really seem to be an amendment to the question at all, but simply asked for something which the Opposition had already asked for, and putting it in different words ; and, therefore, he did not think that there was any room for that amendment. He approved of the country being run on non-racial lines, and he rather regretted that the hon. member for Cape Town Central had introduced that word into his speech. (Ministerial cheers.) He thought that much more good would have been done if he had left that matter out. He knew for a fact, in support of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, who had been much traduced, that his motives were absolutely pure. (Some Ministerial dissent.) Very few members of the House would have had the courage to stand up in the House like the hon. member had done, and give names and facts, because they might have been turned against him. (An HON. MEMBER: So they have.) The hon. member had made out a fairly good ease of the subject, and had proved, as the admission of the Minister of Justice had shown, that men had been taken out of the service, and others had been put into the service from outside, over men who were already there. If the debate had had no other effect, it had called attention to these facts, and if the effect was that the Minister of Justice’s intentions were carried out it, would have done a great deal of good. In conclusion, the hon. member said that he would vote for the motion.

said that the debate had developed, so far as it concerned hon. members of the Opposition, into more of a mud-slinging competition, in which the hon. member for Cape Town Central had led by a long way—Ministerial “Hear, hears”)—and he merely rose to repudiate certain statements made by the hon. member in connection with a brother attorney. He (General Beyers) had been practising in Pretoria for a number of years, and the statement he referred to he repudiated. The hon. member for Cape Town Central was reported to have said: “I believe he (Mr. Roos) received the appointment as a reward for dirty work done for other Ministers.” As regards Mr. Roos, he thought that all such men were above dirty work. (Ministerial cheers.) As regards the statement made by the hon. member: “At the time of the appointment no respectable firm of attorneys would take his word … so devoid of honour was he …" his (General Beyers’) silence might have been misconstrued, and for that purpose he rose to say that in his time he had had professional dealings with Mr. Roos, and that he had always found him honourable and straightforward, and straight in all his dealings; and that, as an old resident of Pretoria, he would have heard complaints had they been true. (Ministerial cheers.)

who, in replying on the debate, was received with Opposition cheers, said: I will begin with what I am sure will be pleasant news —that I am going to be very brief ; and my task has been made much easier by the very able, and by the very long, speech of my hon. friend the member for East London (Colonel Crewe) —(Ministerial laughter)—who traced this debate from the beginning to the end, and left only a few points for me to dwell upon. First, I would say—which I think the right hon. gentleman opposite will expect me to say —that I am very much disappointed by the way in which he met my case. This is not a vote of no-confidence in the Government—for two reasons. The first is that we should be beaten on a vote of no-confidence, whether it was direct or indirect ; and the second is—I want to be perfectly frank—I want to say that if we could succeed, at the present moment I do not know that we could even improve upon the present Government —(Ministerial cheers)—and supposing we were to turn the present Government out to-morrow, in the present circumstances of the case, I do not think that any Government we could put in would do any better. (A VOICE: That’s right.) Quite frank and quite true. Then, sir, being frank again, this motion is strongly worded—severe diseases require severe remedies—and I did not expect that the Government could accept the motion as set down on the paper here, but I tried to explain our position, which was that there was a serious evil existent—a serious state of discontent within the whole of the Civil Service—discontent that was increasing day by day. I also pointed out that, in my opinion, a discontented service could never be an efficient service—(hear, hear)—and as discontent increases, efficiency decreases ; that it was entirely due to the system adopted by the Government in dealing with the service, which, in my opinion, was contrary to the spirit of the Act of Union. Therefore, what I hoped was—in fact, what I stated was—that the Government, in consequence of this motion, would give some assurance that might satisfy, not only members of this side, but the whole of the House, that there would be a change in that system, conducing to a contented, and, therefore, an efficient, Civil Service. That was our belief.

Now, sir, the debate went on, and my hon. friend here, the member for Cape Town, Central, has not had a pleasant time during the last two days. Well, he did use very strong language. As the Minister of Finance said, he is an impulsive man. I would rather, like my hon. friend who spoke just now, that the word “racialism” had never been mentioned in this debate. (Hear, hear.) I am sorry my hon. friend (Mr. Jagger) mentioned it. I am sorry that any word ending with “ism” was used at all. I tried to explain at the beginning that our charge was not a charge of any “ism” against individual Ministers, that our charge as brought forward in this motion was a general charge of departing from the policy laid down in the Convention. That being so, knowing my hon. friend here, as my hon. friend the member for East London has already said, I do not believe on either side of this House that there is a single member who believes that my hon. friend here was actuated by any but the most honourable motives. (Opposition cheers and Ministerial dissent.) Racialism—he has been a follower of mine during four years when we were in office.

With great difficulty.

I found when there was a division that he as often turned his back upon me as he voted on my side. (Ministerial cheers.) Why? Because he is an impossible member really on purely party lines, because he is an independent politician who is doing his best for the country—(Opposition cheers)—who may occasionally say things that are impulsive, but with the most honest motives. Then we had the speech of the Minister of the Interior. I must say I was not merely surprised. It is the first time I have seen the Minister of the Interior recognise that he had such a bad case that he would adopt the usual method of a lawyer for the defence when he has no case, and abuse the plaintiff’s attorney. (Hear, hear.) That is really the attitude the Minister of the Interior took up. But what grieved me much more was when, having no case, he turned dramatically round to those gentlemen who sit behind him and said, “This is a case of racialism.” The word, used in the way the Minister used it, was infinitely worse than anything said by my hon. friend (Mr. Jagger). Then what was the rest of the speech of the Minister of the Interior? He took up one case. I am not going into detailed cases. I said at the commencement that I was not sufficiently au fait with detailed cases to deal with them, but what I did say was that these detailed cases would be merely used to illustrate the complaint that was made in the motion.

Some of those cases, I will be frank and say, have not been proved up to the hilt, but sitting through this debate, the vast majority of the cases brought forward by my hon. friend here (Mr. Jagger) have been. (Ministerial dissent.) We leave out the “isms.” The gravamen of the charge brought forward by my hon. friend was that people were brought in from outside and placed over members of the Civil Service. The Minister of Justice smiles. He is quite satisfied with his explanation. I will come to his speech presently, and deal with his explanation. Then we had the speech of the Minister of Finance. I think the Minister of Finance scarcely did himself justice, but, then, I think, really he got up to leave time for the Minister of Justice to prepare his case, and so, therefore, the Minister of Finance was not quite prepared, because, dissecting his speech—an eloquent speech, as it always is—there was the abuse of my hon. friend on my left (Mr. Jagger), and there was a charge hurled across the floor of the House, which has been hurled across the floor several times, to “say it outside.” (Ministerial cheers.) I don’t know whether the hon. member is going to “say it outside” or not. (A VOICE: He won’t.) All I say is that, if it is to be said outside, of course, the House, on the initiative of the Government, will probably adopt the suggestion of the Minister of Education. (Hear, hear.) He got up, not once, but several times, to demand that full information should be given to the House, that full authority should be given to the House. (A VOICE: Certainly.) He also interpolated that a Committee of Inquiry should be moved for by this side of the House. I assure you that we on this side of the House would be most happy to vote for that with both hands.

said that, on a point of personal explanation, during the speech of the hon. member for Fordsburg he said that the hon. member was attacking a Civil Servant. He then interpolated that, if they wanted to attack a Civil Servant for anything he did as a Civil Servant, the right course was to move for a Select Committee to give that Civil Servant an opportunity of stating his case. If they were not prepared to do that, they must attack the Minister. In the case of Mr. Roos, the charge made by the hon. member for Cape Town Central referred to something before he was a Civil Servant, and not anything that he did as a Civil Servant.

What he says in effect is that if attacks are made on Civil Servants the proper thing is to move for a committee. I suppose the Minister will agree that such attacks have been made.

No attack has been made as a Civil Servant.

What!

It was the work of Mr. Roos before he was a Civil Servant.

The Minister of Education always helps us. He says no attacks have been made upon Civil Servants.

said that the attack made by the hon. member for Cape Town Central was on Mr. Roos, on his character for something which he did before he was a Civil Servant. That must be brought outside.

The Minister of Education has missed the whole point of the debate. We don’t care in the least what has been done by Mr. Roos ; it is merely mentioned in history, because he was appointed a Civil Servant. The attack has been made upon a Civil Servant because he was a Civil Servant, and the Minister of Education made an interpolation that the proper course was to move for a committee of inquiry. I hope he will take the advice of the Minister of Education and will call for an inquiry into all these detailed cases. I think that would be the best method of clearing up this matter. I thank the Minister of Education for his suggestion, because there will be no reflection on the Government at all. It will be the best thing possible for Government to have a court of inquiry to clear the atmosphere. (Ministerial cheers.) The Minister of Finance made the most extraordinary statement that the Civil Service Commission had nothing to do with individuals. Surely the Minister does not maintain that now clause 141 has to do with the reorganisation of the service. That is point No. 1. Point No. 2 was that it was impossible to appoint a permanent Commission until this House had dealt with the question of the Civil Service by legislation. His third point was with regard to individual cases. He made rather a laboured defence of these individual cases. As far as I could gather from what my hon. friend here (Mr. Jagger) said was that notice of retrenchment was given in several cases, and was acted upon, but that in one particular case was not acted upon. The Minister said it was not a charge of retrenching but of unfairness, of dealing differently with one individual as against others. But the Minister of Finance did not offer to put the papers on the table, and did not deny that the gentleman referred to had received notice.

He did not receive notice.

The Minister of Justice made a very long speech—a very dramatic speech, which keeps up its interest to the end, but the substance, I think, could be put in a very small parcel. There was a strong attack on myself in the middle, there was an even more venomous attack on myself at the end, and in the middle we also had the 22 cases referred to dealt with individually. All I can say is that the Minister of Justice did not deal in any way with the motion before the House. (Ministerial laughter.) A very able speech had been delivered by the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. B. K. Long) on which the Minister of Finance very justly congratulated him—because if there is one member who knows the whole Civil Service question, it is my hon. friend behind me. I think we can call him “the Civil Service Member.” The Minister of Justice laboured the point that I also was responsible for every detail that he was controverting. I think those details were very effectively dealt with by the hon. member for East London (Colonel Crewe). (Ministerial laughter.) Now, therefore, I can limit myself to the Minister’s personal dealings with myself. I was surprised. It was this unfortunate question—not of a coalition Government, but of a Government composed of the most capable men in the country, breaking away from party differences. But I am not quite sure that the first time this idea occurred to me was not when the light hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) made a speech on the top of Table Mountain at the time of the National Convention. It was after luncheon, but I think it was the atmosphere. (Laughter.) The right hon. gentleman wondered how we should be able to go back and continue on the old party lines. This seemed to rankle the Minister of Justice, and he made a very unjust charge against me, and suggested that I hoped the result of this motion would be that I should be installed in the lofty seat now occupied by my right hon. friend (General Botha). Really, does the Minister of Justice believe that? Then, what certainly gave me regret, was that he seemed to imply that it was quite possible that the reason of the failure of that project was that the leaders of the people in the Free State had not been consulted. Well, I need not say much about the vanity of the Minister. Does he really believe that if he had been offered a seat in the proposed new Government he would have refused it because his vanity had been touched through his not having been consulted earlier? What happened, notwithstanding the apparent ignorance of the Minister of Justice, was that President Steyn was consulted on this subject, and we look upon him —

When was he consulted?

I do not know the dates, but some time before I made the speech in Cape Town referred to by the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman). I should say two or three months before. President Steyn was consulted, and it is strange to me if the Minister of Justice did not hear any rumour of it. (Opposition cheers.) Very strange, indeed! But really the Minister of justice, after his late tours, I am afraid, has got rather—I would not like to use the old word “swollenheaded”—but what “swollen-headed” indicates, because I put down on my note this afternoon that he said that really this was not an attack upon the system of the Civil Service, that really what it was was an attack upon the Hon. the Minister of Justice! (Ministerial cheers.) I do not know whether the Minister of Justice was present, or, if he was present, whether he was asleep when I made my opening speech —then the Minister did not believe what I said, just as he does not believe now that the Free State through President Steyn was consulted. Was that what was in the Minister’s mind? As a fact of the matter I am really beginning to revise my opinion of the Minister of Justice. I think I shall revise it again by to-morrow morning and feel as I did before he made that speech this afternoon, and that was, that he was obsessed with a certain idea, and a very noble idea, a patriotic idea, but he was so obsessed by it that he could not see right from wrong. We know the history of the Education Act in this House. I know the words of the Minister of Justice that if what afterwards became the Majority Report went through—I tell you why I know that, because the words were spoken to myself—that he, the Minister of Justice, would willingly go throughout the Free State and advocate it. Is that what the Minister of Justice did?

Yes!

Advocated the Majority Report?

Yes!

I leave it to this House.

Can you show any instance to the contrary? (Opposition laughter.)

I will show you the Minister of Justice’s speeches. I will show what was adopted in lieu of the Majority Report at the Bloemfontein Congress, in deference to the wishes of the Minister of Justice. I know that the Minister of Justice is obsessed with this language question? He cannot see or remember what he undertook at the time of the Convention. The Minister of Justice knows that he wished for more than what was passed in the Convention. He accepted what was passed, but afterwards, in attempting to pass the Minority Report, he was going back on what he passed at the Convention. However, I am going to try to put it down to obsession, and nothing else. But in his speech during the debate, the Minister of Justice announced in this House that he was not going to put in any post anyone who did not know Dutch. That is practically what it came to, and not only that he had a right to do so, and he was to be judge whether à man’s Dutch was good or not. The hon. member who sits behind him quoted the fact that there are 86 per cent. of Englishmen against Dutchmen in the Civil Service. I believe this is true, or the hon. member would not have quoted these figures, but does the hon. member want to remedy this in 24 hours? What will be the result if he does? The reason that there is so much larger a number of English Civil Servants in the Cape is because the Dutchmen did not come up for the examination. (Ministerial cries of “No.”) Can anyone go into the Cape service except through examination? It is news to me if they did. But I will give you a point. It is quite true that these examinations are imitations of the English rather than the Dutch. We had the ideal—I have often said it before—of a unilingual nation. I do not think that even the hon. member for Uitenhage will deny that, other things being equal, unilingualism is better than bilingualism. It was only, as I said before at the Convention, that we recognised what the attempt to get unilingualism meant. It was not merely a question of language, as President Steyn said in that admirable speech he made, it was a symbol to them of inferiority, and I think anyone who was at the Convention will acknowledge that we unanimously admitted the theory of bilingualism on that account It is expensive to run, but rather than alienate half the people in the country we thought it better to pay the expense, but surely it could not be done suddenly. It should not, as President Steyn said, be forced down the throats of the people. In fact, that would bring the very end of equality of language and justice. We know that if you feed a child on jam in moderate quantities he will like it, but if you shove a pot down his throat he will probably never eat jam again. That is what is sought to be done by the obsessed mind of the Minister of Justice. I do not say that against the Government at all, but against the Minister of Justice. It is true that 86 per cent. of the men in the Civil Service are Englishmen. It is an enormous disproportion. There are as many Dutchmen as Englishmen in this country, and of course there should be as many Englishmen as Dutchmen in the Service. We quite agree that there should be, but it is a question of gradual evolution, if the good government of the country is not to suffer. I will leave the Minister of Justice, and I come to two speeches which were not critical, but were in favour of the motion now before the House, not strictly the motion itself, but of the ideal behind the motion. In his speech, the hon. member for Ladismith, who was a highly esteemed Civil Servant himself, who knows the wants, of the Civil Servants, who is in touch with the Civil Servants, said he could not deny that there was discontent and, I think he said, increasing discontent, in the Civil Service. But he said, and very naturally, after the speech of the Prime Minister, “I cannot associate myself with this motion.” He is a loyal follower of the Government, and he gave his case honestly, and would have voted for the motion but for that difficulty. I think it might have been removed if the right hon. member for Victoria West had helped him out. The right hon. member also made a speech in favour of the idea at the back of the motion. He nobly responded to my call on him for help. Of course, he made the most powerful speech in favour of this motion, at least three-quarters of it was. Of course there was a preface. The right hon. gentleman generally gives us a preface ; it generally consists of that with which he wants to impress the House. It is a kind of political nest egg. He was in a difficult position. He has put himself in a difficult position. It is a difficult thing, sir, to cover up your tracks when you try to damn both sides. That is the position of the right hon. gentleman. I was sorry to see that my unfortunate speech still rankled.

Why unfortunate?

Probably because it was not a good speech. (Laughter.) Let me assure him that I was speaking the truth, and let me assure him, as he knows very well, that there were no personalities, and that what was personal was merely put forward as representative of his policy. The right hon. gentleman, as he generally does, gave us a story that is very often told, the story of King Charles the Second and the Duke of York. It crossed my mind that the character at tributed to me, James, Duke of York, really fitted himself. (Laughter.) He ought to have put me in the position of a smaller individual, the father-in-law of James Clarendon who told his son-in-law: “If you want to get there you must change your religion.” You put policy instead of religion, and that was my position. (Laughter.) Then the right hon. gentleman gave the cue to the Minister of Justice that it was a vote of no confidence. The right hon. gentleman knew very well that he was putting up coconuts and knocking them down at the expense of the Opposition. The very fact that it was brought forward by a weak Opposition does not mean that it is not a vote of no confidence. It does not say that the Opposition is not honest. The right hon. gentleman, as he has often done before, sneered at the Opposition for its weakness, and want of capacity. I grant it ; and I would be glad were the right hon. gentleman to take a seat here. But there are other things besides quantity in an opposition—there is pluck in their conviction, backed up by their votes. An amendment has been moved. That amendment practically expresses our ideas. (Ministerial laughter.) If the Right Hon. the Prime Minister will take the trouble to read the speech I made at the opening of the debate he would find that what I asked for was a strong Commission, and what I further went on to say was if the Government was not responsible for this discontent it would remove suspicion. That is what is asked for here. The second part of the amendment is that the Permanent Service Commission should be appointed during the present session of Parliament. We have not heard from the Government what are its intentions on the subject. There are at least four months before us, and it is nothing much to ask the Government to appoint the Commission. Then the Civil Service Bill must go through.

It was in the Governor-General’s Speech.

I am glad to hear it. Then there is no need for the second part of the amendment. (Opposition laughter.) We have had from the Minister of Finance, from the Minister of the Interior their desire to have the strongest possible Commission and their inability during two months to find three stronger men than they had. If they can’t find these men I will be happy to assist the Government to nominate, within 24 hours, a strong Commission that will act. It is possible that the Government may accept the amendment. That is the view I had, that at the end of the speech of the right hon. gentleman he would move some such amendment which the Government would have accepted, and which we would have received gladly. Whatever happens, I don’t think this debate has been futile. I believe that it will be extremely useful. I feel, sir, that Civil Servants will look back to this debate as having helped them ; I believe the Government, whether it accepts the amendment or not, will strengthen that Commission. I believe Ministers will look more carefully into departments. I believe they will not leave all to that Advisory Board of which the Minister of Justice talks. Advisory Boards may be good, but a good strong Commission is far better than a Board, which can never give satisfaction to the whole body of the Civil Servants. I believe this debate will do good, and I am sure that after this the Government, looking more carefully into the facts of cases where infringements have occurred, will give these matters their attention.

put the question that all the words after “that” proposed to be omitted stand part of the motion.

The vote was declared in favour of the Noes.

called for a division, which resulted as follows :

thereupon put the substitution of the words proposed by Mr. Silburn.

said that the amendment and the original motion had both been negatived, and the only thing that remained was the word “That.”

The result was received with Ministerial cheers.