from D. Cockayne, who served as engine driver and locomotive inspector.

for railway construction in Kroonstad and Vredefort, O.F.S.

from W. A. Huskins, clerk, South African Railways.

from Agnes MacAdam, late assistant teacher, Railway School, Cradock.

Copies of resolutions by Conference held at Pretoria in November, 1911, on Technical, Industrial and Commercial Education, with report on Technical Instruction in the Union, by Professor A. E. Snape.

Number of sheep brought to Johannesburg market during 1911 ; how many infected with scab ; and how many brought to Cape Town market, and how many of that number infected with scab?

Correspondence connected with appointments of members of Cape Licensing Courts for 1911.

Return of correspondence between the Minister of Education and Provincial authorities, in regard to the control of public education.

Report of Commission appointed to inquire into the conditions of trade and industries, with Minority Reports.

Mines Department statistics for January, 1912.

Papers leading to the prosecution of ex-Staff-Custodian E. McGlade, lately in the employ of the South African Railways.

said the Minister of the Interior had laid on the table returns in connection with the appointment of Civil Servants, but the return excluded the most important part—that was, in regard to new appointments.

replied that he had the return last week, but on looking through it it was clear to him that a mistake had been made through a misconstruction of the motion. Accordingly he sent the return back for alteration. There was some mistake as to what was meant by new appointments.

Prime Minister.

1. (1) That the resolution adopted by both Houses of Parliament on the 17th and 21st April, 1911, approving of the laying out of a township at Poortje (Orange Free State), on condition that the joint purchase price the he farm Poortje and expenses in connection with the laying out of the township should not exceed £6,000, be amended by substituting the sum of £8,550 for the said sum of £6,000, the latter amount having been stated in the above resolution as the amount representing such joint purchase price and expense owing to an error made by the Commission appointed in terms of Act No. 15 of 1909 (O.R.C.) when submitting its recommendations on the application for the establishment of the said township ; and
2. (2) This House approves of the application to establish a township at Naauwpoortsnek, Orange Free State, in terms of, and subject to Act No. 15 of 1909 (Orange River Colony), provided that the owners of the proposed township: (a) transfer to such local authority as may be established, or failing the establishment of any such local authority, to the Government, in trust until such local authority shall have been established, all streets, lanes, and squares, as well as the land to be set apart as a commonage and the balance of the erven as may remain unsold after the owners of the township have been recouped the purchase price of the land and all costs and expenses connected with the foundation of the township, which are estimated at £7,469 sterling, and further subject to the applicants handing over to the local authority or the Government in trust for such local authority, as the case may be, any sum that may be realised by the applicants out of the sale of erven over and above such estimated purchase price and expenses ; (b) transfer to the Government the following land—to be chosen by a representative of the Public Works Department: Two erven for a Courthouse ; two erven for a postal and telegraph office ; one erf for a magistrate’s residence ; one block of erven, not less than 400 feet by 600 feet, for educational purposes ; one block of erven on the edge of the town for a gaol ; two erven for police purposes ; and two erven for municipal purposes (in trust for any local authority that may hereafter be established in terms of any law relating thereto). That the name of the proposed township be left to the decision of the Government.

seconded.

Agreed to.

continuing his speech, said the public were opposed to having Brtish officers appointed over a South African army. Particularly with regard to appointments of lower grade officers, it was felt that they should be made by election of the majority. That was done under the Republic, even with field-cornets. Personally, he thought however that the officers should be appointed by the Minister, as evil had resulted in the past when they were elected by the public. When an officer did not suit in one district he should be removed to another. According to clause 118 people from elsewhere could be trained at the officers’ college, and would then be exempt from service ; he thought that was unfair towards the public. He also considered that the first reserve should consist of mounted men. The Government should provide the mounts, as it was not possible to compel every young man to provide himself with a horse, and experience had taught that infantry were of little value. In connection with the artillery he held that that corps should be the best trained, whilst if they appointed the police to do that work, they would either neglect their work or else fail to become good artillerists. They had enough ex-artillerists in the country to build up a good corps. It could not be expected that every person would become a member of a shooting club. Those between 50 and 60 years old could no longer learn to shoot, and compulsory service should be limited to the 55th year. The hon. member for East London had referred to the question of the Kafirs, but the time was not ripe to include them, though they could be employed as drivers and rear-riders. The whites must protect the coloured people. Objection was taken to clause 93, seeing that the provisions of the English Army Act were made applicable here, though their nature was not known. It created uneasiness. The regulations should be as clear and as simple as possible, and should forbid drinking and the use of bad language on commando. He trusted that the Bill would be so modified that every section of the population would be satisfied with it. The recent war had shown that every Afrikander—and by that he meant everyone who made South Africa his home was a good soldier. But discipline was lacking, and discipline was necessary in a good army. He hoped therefore that the Bill would contain provisions which assured good discipline.

said that although the Bill was a very long one its principles could be put in a nutshell. It provided for a permanent force, a partially-paid garrison force, and an active citizen force, and what to his mind was more important than anything else was that it provided a very large and an active reserve without which any army in the world would be weak. When that scheme reached culmination and worked smoothly he thought the forces of the Union would be sufficiently strong to maintain order in their own territory and defend their shores, or prevent any enemy from crossing the frontiers of their country. The Bill introduced new and revolutionary principles as far as South Africa was concerned, and provided compulsory service and training. With that he fully agreed ; and he was delighted that so soon after Union the Government had a proper conception of its functions and duties. As they were now a portion of the great Empire with a full measure of responsible government, with all its advantages and responsibilities, they could not accept the former and ignore the latter ; and what were the duties of any self-respecting country but that it should provide an adequate force for its defence? The Bill was not a perfect one, but he did not know of any Bill introduced into any legislature in the world which was perfect. It would not press too heavily on the population or materially disturb the trades and industries of the Union, even when all the different forces were called out for training. But he took it that all the forces would not be called out for training purposes at one and the same time. He was glad that the Bill embodied the whole of the Volunteer forces in the citizen force of the Union, and that their services had been maintained, which he thought was a very wise decision. He had been quite alarmed some eighteen months ago when an order had been issued by someone that all recruiting for Volunteer corps of the country should be stopped. He was pleased to see that the Volunteers would be the nucleus of the citizen forces, and would be able to extend their work and usefulness, and when the Bill was in operation he thought there would be no need to put the ballot proposition into operation.

Having retained the services of these volunteer regiments it would mean that they would have an efficient infantry corps for active service. Now he would like to refer for a moment to the memorandum which accompanied the measure. He would like first of all to tell the House that he did not like the name “The Active Citizen Force.” There was no true military ring about such a name. When one asked a man if he bad seen service he would say that he had been an officer in the British Army or the French Army, but when one asked a man of the Active Citizen Force the same question, he would simply say: “I am a member of the Active Citizen Force.” That indicated very little, and he thought an attempt should be made to get hold of a better name. If the Government had any difficulty in finding a suitable name, then he thought a prize of £50 might be offered and presented to the person who was able to suggest the most suitable name. Continuing, he said that there were about 20 regiments of volunteers throughout the Union. By retaining the services of these volunteers he thought that the Government would not have the slightest difficulty in inducing young men to join. Then they had the reserve of the Active Citizen Force. He could not quite calculate the strength of the reserve, but he thought that within a reasonable space of time—say 15 or 20 years—there would be 50 to 50 thousand men in the (a) section. So far as the (b) class was concerned, he did not think it would be called out except in a time of great emergency. He did not think that the National Reserve would be called out. He did not think that the measure would press too heavily on the people of the country. He referred to the case of plucky little Natal, where there had been a Bill of a similar character. It was put in force, but they found there was no necessity to use the ballot. The present strength of the volunteers in the Union was 9,789. That was from the latest reports.

The Cape had 3,371, the Transvaal 3,838, and Natal 2,580, giving a grand total of 9,789, or in round figures 10,000. It was well known that for years the Cape discouraged the volunteers. They decreased their establishment and reduced their capitation grant, otherwise he felt quite sure to-day there would have been at least 15,000 volunteers in the Union. Now, if Natal with a small population could give 2,500 men without enforcing the ballot, surely the Union would be able to obtain 25,000. Let them see, for example, the South Africa Act. According to that the total male adults of 21 years and over in South Africa amounted, in 1904, to 349,857. Now they had a larger population to draw upon, because the Act provided for youths of 17 years and over. If employers of labour met the Bill in the proper spirit the Citizens’ Active Force would be constituted without the slightest difficulty, and no ballot would be necessary. Clause 8 of the Act provided certain penalties for employers of labour, but how about the men who were not in employment—the young men who were seeking employment? It might handicap them in what he might term their first employment. He did not think that the penalties under the Act were severe enough. To his mind, any employer who placed obstacles in the way or discouraged anybody from joining the Citizens’ Force should not be allowed to trade in the Union at all. (Hear, hear.) He (Sir David) was elected by some of the biggest employers of the Union, and he knew he spoke for his colleagues when he said they would give every man an opportunity of joining the force, and any man in their employ who shirked his duty to his country should be dismissed. Now, the Bill did not provide for the compensation that should be given to those who received wounds or who were killed on active service. He thought the Bill should state exactly what a man or his dependants might expect to receive if he was unfortunately wounded or killed while doing his duty. (Hear, hear.) Another point in regard to compensation was, that when the Act came into operation, the men who were in the Active Citizens’ Force would, no doubt, if desirous of insuring their lives, have to pay a little more in premiums on account of the risk they took in being connected with the force. It was, therefore, doubly necessary that the Bill should state what compensation they could receive. He threw out the suggestion to the Select Committee, and hoped they would take it up. (Hear, hear.) In his admirable speech of the other day, the Minister of Defence stated that there would not be a Commandant-General. Well, he thought that they must have one man who would command all the branches of the service, and he thought that man should be thoroughly acquainted with the composition, the training, and with what the various arms of the service were capable of doing in the field. They could only gain that experience in peace time. They must have a head, and he hoped when the Bill went into the Select Committee some clause would be inserted to provide for a Commandant-General of the Forces. (Hear, hear.)

There was no doubt about it, no force could be designated a force unless it was drilled, trained, organised, and properly equipped. (Hear, hear.) He would refer to the Kimberley siege. He did not do so to revive bitter memories of the past—(hear, hear)—but only to show the difference between being prepared and unprepared. The South African war started in this country in 1899, and, in Kimberley, there were five hundred regulars and about 300 volunteers and police. Then it was decided to raise a town guard of 3,000 men. When this became known, thousands of men flocked to the different recruiting offices to take up arms. They were all anxious to fight and do their duty to their country ; but they were useless. They were simply a motley crowd. They would have been only targets for the enemy, and even if they had died for their country that would have done no good. Then they had half a battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. These men were put to work, and within a month they taught those men drill, musketry, and so on. By the end of October, those men were licked into shape, and became a really effective force. They were very fortunate in Kimberley, because the Republican forces were equally disorganised. (Laughter.) Otherwise there would have been a different tale to tell. It was absurd and ridiculous to say that there was no need for such an organised force as was proposed in the Union. Men said, “I am always ready to come forward,” but they were of no avail without training, discipline, and organisation, and, what was of greater importance, a knowledge of firearms. (Hear, hear.) He would vote for this Bill, for he quite agreed with its principles of compulsory training and service. It would be the means of inspanning the manhood of this country in the Union chariot for the defence and safety of this country. It would have a good effect on the youth of the country, and would do more than anything he knew to bring the two races together, for whoever joined it would be taking part in the noble and sacred duty of the defence of their country. (Hear, hear.) If one day England should be embroiled with a foreign Power—if that time should ever arise, and it was necessary for her to put forth her whole strength to retain the integrity of the Empire, they in South Africa should be in a position to say, “Take every regular soldier out of South Africa: we are strong enough to defend the Union, and to prevent any enemy landing on our shores or crossing our borders.” And until a country could say that it could not boast of its independence.

expressed the view that the Bill was one of the most important which would be laid before the House during the present session, because it went to the heart of every household in the country. A people which in time of peace showed itself unwilling or sluggish in making preparation for war would be ruined by war. They must take measures in time of peace for the protection of their hearths and homes. He had been disappointed at the tone of the meetings held in different parts of the country, as the matter had been treated too lightly. It had been said that as the country was now under the protection of England, England should look after its defence. It had also been said that there was no compulsion in England, and it was asked why compulsion should be applied here. If they were really serious in this matter of defence, there must be no half measures. If they noted the sparse population, the extent of territory, the geographical situation, the strategically important points, the trade routes of South Africa, and if they wanted to preserve their position between a native population five or six times as large, then it was easily seen how necessary it was to provide for an effective system of defence. He did not mean by that that they should fear the natives, who ought to remain the best friends of the whites—(hear, hear)—but foreign Powers who might wish to seize South Africa would make use of them ––a possibility which they had seen realised during the recent war. (Hear, hear.) To leave to England the defence of the country would have a demoralising effect. The people of this country had always been able to defend themselves, as history showed. There could be no doubt as to the necessity for a scheme of defence, and they must therefore take the bull by the horns. In order to make the Bill a success, they must first understand each other. The Opposition must understand the Government party, and vice versa, and each must respect the traditions and opinions of the other, and he regretted to say that that respect was not yet sufficiently shown, especially from the side of the Opposition press. It was vain trouble to create a big defence system so long as newspapers like the “Pretoria News” and the “Star” published articles in which the Afrikander was assailed in à manner which touched his national honour. If such articles continued to be published, there would be no peace in the country, owing to the lack of respect for each other’s feelings. When they examined history it was seen that the cause of all the difficulties had been the contempt of the English for everything that was Dutch. Amajuba was the result of that contempt. The same contempt led to the raid on the Transvaal in 1895. The war which began in 1899 was also a result of the same contempt. It was, they were told, to be a picnic of thirteen days—thus expressing contempt for the military capacity and power of defence of the Afrikanders. Then during the last few days they had had a debate there which also gave evidence of contempt for the Afrikanders. South Africa was indebted to the Prime Minister for the policy of conciliation and co-operation which he had announced after the war, and still adhered to. It was to be regretted that the sacrifices made by the Prime Minister had found so little echo on the side of the Opposition and its press. The Prime Minister stood, as it were, between the devil and the deep sea.

asked whether the hon. member for Pretoria District, South, was in order in referring to a former debate.

ruled that the hon. member was entirely in order.

resumed, saying that there was in South Africa first-class material for purposes of defence, but that it required to be polished up. If they understood each other well, there would be plenty of opportunity given to the public to put itself in a state of defence in case of intervention by a foreign Power. In connection with the Prime Minister, he wished also to mention the Minister of Defence, and to scold him a little. When the Bill was to be drafted, the speaker had requested, in order to prevent misunderstanding, that the ex-officers and men of the Republican forces should be asked to give their opinions, so that they could arrive at a correct basis for their system of defence. That, however, was not done. It was true that English officers had been consulted. He did not mean that those officers should have been disregarded, but their own old officers should also have been consulted. But no, they had been passed over, and the national pride of the people was hurt. A few members of the Government party had been consulted, but that was only after the Bill had in principle been laid down. He thought that the Minister should have explained the Bill to meetings of the public, but that had not been done, and also that the Bill was not sufficient for the requirements of the country. When they remembered their dearly-bought experience, they would see that no sacrifices were too great for a system of defence to secure the safety of the country and its peace. The Bill was shaped too much on a foreign model, was too much based on systems taken over from other countries. It had repeatedly been shown that what suited other countries would not answer in South Africa. If a defence scheme were to be drawn up, then it should be one which accorded with the nature of the people. The people were tired of copying everything which came from elsewhere. As to shooting clubs, those were national institutions, and if properly developed, and if the members were taught discipline and drill, they would get a defence force which agreed with the habits of the people. The recent war had shown them, when it increased in cruelty, that many men lost courage because they saw that discipline was totally lacking. Those people were not cowardly, but they saw that everything was left to those who were willing, and under such circumstances they did not wish to fight further. Discipline must therefore be taught. Take Germany. In 1806 it was defeated by Napoleon, but at once began to reorganise and to discipline its army, and the result was the splendid victory of 1870. For nearly 400 years the Swiss had been under the suzerainty of other Powers, but afterwards stood up and created a model military law. For South Africa it was impossible to maintain a standing army, and they must therefore have another system. He would like to see the system of compulsion extended. The public took exception to the drill, the ballot, the £1 system, and also to the use of the corps outside South Africa, but the last difficulty was based on a misunderstanding. It was generally known that drill was indispensable to the learning of discipline. Provisions as to the duration of the training period should not, however, be left to the regulations, but ought to be laid down in the law. At the meetings which he had attended a unanimous resolution had been taken that the training period should not exceed 14 days per annum. He (the speaker) admitted, however, that 14 days’ training was not enough. For recruits it should be at least three weeks. If it was laid down in the Bill that the training period should be for three months, spread over the four years, then it would certainly meet with public approval. Three months was certainly not long enough to obtain a proper discipline, but they must avoid the risk of falling into the other extreme—viz., militarism. Militarism would kill the initiative of the Boers, and it was generally admitted that that initiative had played a great part in days of war. They had won many a battle owing to it. There were many opponents to the ballot system. If there must be compulsion, so it was argued, then let it be general, and abolish the ballot. The Bill divided recruits into three classes, and he (the speaker) approved of that division Judging from his experience, the ballot system would have a destructive effect on patriotism and on personal responsibility. It would extinguish patriotism. He remembered how it had been applied in the Western Province, and how many a hero had fled to the mountains in order to escape service. And yet those people were not cowardly, but their action was due to the system, which undermined patriotism and personal responsibility. He regretted the arrangement whereby the district commandants had to compile the three lists, and from the drafting of that clause it was evident that the Minister himself had foreseen difficulty. The speaker feared that the Minister would be disappointed at the number of volunteers offering, and particularly at the attitude which the country population would take up. The so-called “Penkoppen” would be found ready to serve, but the parents would not permit them to do so. Drill must be universal, and if that was done with tact, the people would speedily recognise that it was necessary to a scheme of good defence. But the Minister had objected that such a system would cost too much. So much money was spent on Commissions and such-like that they might safely invest a little more in the defence of their country. That lost, then everything was lost. They could buy rifles, bullets and cannon, but they could not buy training or discipline. Those must be learnt in time of peace, and he regretted that the Government was not able to go further and make provision for a more extended system. A good deal had been said about the large expenditure on the German army but they never spoke of its good results. The people itself showed the good results. The poor white question in Germany did not exist. The Minister had stated that South Africa did not require a big army. He had never expected such a statement from a capable Minister, who was taking a responsibility on himself which many would be prepared to evade. When the hon. member for Wakkerstroom said on Friday that an army of 300,000 men was necessary for the protection of South Africa, the statement elicited laughter. Those who laughed did not know. To say that 25,000 men, skilled to the extent laid down in that Bill, was sufficient for the defence of South Africa—he said it with all due deference—was nonsense. If it was not the intention to provide solely for an attack by natives or by a third-class Power, the proposed army was entirely insufficient. It might perhaps be sufficient for an attack by a second-rate Power. But they should be prepared for an attack by a first-class Power. And in such a case what did they propose to put in the field against it? They should only consider the possibility of an attack by a first-rate Power, seeing that a second-rate Power would never come to South Africa. And against that Power they would have no more than 25,000 men! Against such a Power every man was wanted to protect his house and hearth. It was true that power did not consist in numbers. A small army should consist of first-class soldiers, and for that the training period was too short. Let them note what had occurred in China in that connection. They should seriously consider the question of universal training, so as to avoid the creation of an insufficient defence scheme. If the ballot remained in the Bill, then the public insisted that the training should take place in the district where the young people lived. If that were done, then in one district there would be perhaps twelve or five men under training, and that would be expensive, because for those few men they would have to appoint a district officer. Moreover, the men would lack in that case company and regimental drill. In such cases it would be necessary to join the young people from several district together and try to form a regiment. That arrangement would give more satisfaction than the removal of a man from, say, Zoutpansberg to Bloemfontein, which might have to be done if the ballot system was adhered to. It was his opinion that the so-called taxing system would not be satisfactory. Volunteers would be few in number, and they would have to go to the ballot. Ballots for rich men should come first, afterwards for the middle classes, and finally for the poor. Then the poor were required to pay £1 per year, and those were just the people who could not spare it. (Hear, hear.) It was not necessary to tax the burgesses of the country, but it was necessary to tax the parasites who came here in order to get rich. Absentee landlords should also be called upon to pay. (Hear, hear.) The Minister had stated that if the £1 system lapsed, then patriotism would be found lacking, but surely if patriotism had to be encouraged by a £1 stimulus then their patriotism counted for very little. In connection with the active citizen force they must take account of the geographical character of the districts, so that in each district the same class of farming operations would be carried on ; the calling up of the men should be arranged to take place at a time when the interests of the district were injured as little as possible. Then they must try to awaken a kind of district pride. Even as in England and Scotland there was a local pride in the local regiments, so should they here be proud of their regiments. Who, for example, would not be proud to have belonged to the Krugersdorp commando, which during the recent war won for itself such a good name? It was in that spirit that the new system should be carried out. He feared that the proposed provisions for artillery would only produce half work. The artillery was a technical corps which required much training, and it could not be expected from the citizens that they would agree to so long a period. The period of training should be laid down in the Bill. The citizen force must, however, be trained as much as possible in the use of cannon. It had several times occurred during the recent war that they had obtained possession of cannon but that no one knew how to handle them. If many men were trained in their use there would always be somebody found who could handle them. He would like to see more infantry in the citizen forces, as experience had shown that mounted men had difficulty in opposing trained infantry. If their horses were killed, the men retreated. Infantry work was heavy, but when they were in sufficient number they could do important work in connection with defence. No provision had been made in that Bill for an aviation corps. Aviation was increasing so much that a special corps for that purpose, however small, should be created. Aviation would undoubtedly play a great role in future wars. It should be laid down in the Bill that manœuvres should be held at least once in three years, as it was there for the first time that the officer obtained Teal experience. It made a big difference whether an officer was handling merely 300 men or 5,000. He would like to see that all the cadets passed through the recruit course, but the proposal to abolish compulsion from the Bill deserved recommendation. The hon. member for East London had rightly observed that there was really an indirect compulsion in connection with the cadet system, seeing that an ex-cadet could get through with less training. The population of the country districts was not partial to cadets or Scouts. The latter were in ill odour ; in the first place, because they usually went out on Sundays. In Pretoria, for instance, they went about the streets on Sunday with music, and even disturbed the church services. That could be obviated by their doing their work on Saturdays. Another objection was that the cadets and Scouts were trained through the medium of the English language only, and the public would like to see Dutch-speaking children trained through the medium of Dutch. Another matter was that the cadets and Scouts were just at that period of their Jives when they were most sensitive to bad influences, and the parents were afraid that their children might come into contact with bad boys. Of course, all those objections could be removed, and the man who stood at the head of the corps should take care that its operations gave no offence. The inclusion of rifle associations in the Bill was a victory for the men who had always pleaded for it. A congress was recently held at Krugersdorp, at which the speaker and General De la Rey were present. General regulations were drafted for shooting clubs, and those regulations might fittingly appear in that bill, so as to be made applicable to shooting clubs throughout the country. Such clubs would assist in maintaining the reputation of South African shots. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his report on the Russo-Japanese war, made mention of the good shots in South Africa, and their reputation ought to be preserved. He thought the Bill should go further. When it came into operation there would be many young men between 21 and 25 years of age who had had no experience of war, and who did not know how to handle a rifle. They should therefore be obliged to become members of shooting clubs. The standing army was to be formed of the existing police, who were a well-organised and trained corps. It would, however, be a pity if in connection with their police work they were split up into two parts and placed under two different heads. Experience had taught them that jealousy would arise between those two heads, and the co-operation which should exist would be Jacking. A commencement would be made with five batteries, each of six cannon, and that service would certainly require 100 men, who should be most capable men. If that were carried out, it would be necessary to give the mounted sharpshooters opportunity constantly to get artillery training. Artillery was constantly changing, and tactics and cannon were being continually improved. In the war Armstrong guns were used against the Boers, but other guns had since replaced them. How could the artillery be sufficiently trained and kept abreast of the changes made, if they were also to do police duty? He did not believe it could be done. The standing army would be so dispersed over the surface of the country that training could only be done in small sections, unless a central place was appointed for that purpose. An artillery section with only two cannon could never train itself so as to remain in touch with other sections. That must be learnt at a central training place. In connection with the standing force there should be a section of artillery such as existed under the Republic, the Staats Artillerie. Those people were well trained, and had shown their value on more than one occasion. They were well disciplined too, and stuck to their cannon till death. Even as with the Staats Artillerie, there should be a central place for training, where every two years, say, 500 men could be drilled, whilst the other men performed police work. The training of an artillerist occupied two years ; experts considered that was sufficient. The Minister had also stated that the standing army must be thoroughly mobile ; but how was that possible when the men were divided over different districts in which they did service as police? When the call came to mobilise they would have to wait for the arrival of the reserve to take over police work, for the various districts could not be left to thieves and robbers. That reserve would consist of volunteers who had left the service. The service period of the reserve would be laid down in the regulations. But that reserve was not organised, and it might be taken for granted that their response to the call would not be very large. Still there must be a sufficient reserve, as otherwise the mobilisation of a standing army was impossible. The standing army must be followed immediately in time of need by the active citizen force, for such a small standing army could do very little, as was shown by the Cape Mounted Rifles in the late war. Good provision was made in the Bill for the coast artillery, though no sufficient provision had been made for men to serve the cannon. In the Cape Peninsula there would be, for example, in time of war seven cannon without men to serve them, and that was a serious matter. Amongst those seven there were perhaps one or two obsolete guns, but the remainder could be used, and they must have men to serve them. At present the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Cape Garrison Artillery had about 700 officers and men, which was insufficient for the different forts. Experts said it was better not to have more than one cannon in a fort, because if the fort were bombarded then the loss would not be so great. In the Cape Peninsula there should be a land force which could be easily mobilised. Experience had shown that forts were never taken by the men from warships. With the exception of the taking of Alexandria in 1882 forts had always been taken by the army, Port Arthur being the last example of that. Say that a foreign Power landed in the Peninsula tomorrow, the forts could do very little, and would be speedily taken. A land force was therefore necessary in order to protect the forts. Mention had been made of the desirability of co-operation between the two corps of Garrison Artillery, which from the information he had obtained did not now exist. Colonel James was really interested in the training of the Volunteers. He visited not only the Drill Hall, but also the forts when practice took place there. It would be necessary to place the Royal and the Cape Garrison Artillery under one head. After a man had gone through his four years’ training, the Bill provided that he could remain for another year. How long they would be willing to remain must, however, be left to them. They would serve as examples for the younger men and assist the recruits. It was not desirable to exclude men after they had spent a fixed time of service. In clause No. 19, sub-section 2, it was laid down that Reserve A had to join the regiment with which it was trained, but it had to wait for men killed or disabled, whose places they would take. So at least he understood. He thought the reserve should constitute a separate unit, with its own officers, so that the reserve could be called up as a body and sent to the field. Clause 20 prescribed that the National Reserve must serve with the unit indicated, though it was entirely unorganised and untrained, and could not be trained within a short period. And where were the officers to come from? If war broke out tomorrow, what would they propose to do with the National Reserve? They could not be added on to the trained troops, as they would only cause confusion. Officers of the National Reserve should be appointed in peace time, and then in time of war they could call their men together. The clause at present was insufficient. He considered it a wise provision to establish a college for the training of officers, but the public would demand that such officer must be able to train men through the medium of the Dutch language. The clause spoke of “so far as possible,” and he did not know what that meant. It must be laid down that for Dutch-speaking men there should be a Dutch-speaking officer. He understood that the Council of Defence would advise the Minister in matters of organisation. He was opposed to such a Council. Under the Republic the Commandant-General and his staff received their commands direct from the Government, and that had worked well. To place another body between the General and the Minister was wrong, as was seen in the war of 1870. MacMahon. had the Emperor on the one side and the Council of Defence on the other, with the results known. The principle of having a Council of Defence was also shown to be wrong in the American Civil War. When war broke out they must trust the General. He hoped that his suggestions would be fully considered. (Applause.)

said he did not speak as a General. He was convinced that it was one of the first duties of the legislator to see that the country was placed in a state of defence. They must not overlook the danger which lay in the fact that the citizens of the country were not sufficiently supplied with arms. At least three-fourths of the inhabitants were without weapons, and if they wished to preserve peace, that point should be at once attended to. The dissatisfaction in the country districts was due to the complicated and vague terms in which the Bill was drawn up, as a result of which he found it necessary, when explaining it to his constituents, to read between the lines and make use of the memorandum. The period of training was by no means clearly laid down in the Bill. His objection against the Bill was principally because it was a sort of class legislation—in particular, the £1 tax. The Minister had stated that he only wanted 6,000 out of the 12,000 men who would be available for service. If all the 12,000 men were ready to serve, then there would be unfairness towards a portion of the population. The young men between 21 and 25 years of age had to take part in the training, but after the age of 25 no further tax was payable. The Cadet Corps would be exempt from certain drills and also from the tax, and as these cadets were mostly in the towns, the result would be that the Bill, after a few years, would press mostly on the country population. Those were his objections. Another objection was that members of Parliament were made exempt. He thought they should be required to do active service, and that not even members of the Ministry should be left off. He hoped the Bill would be amended on the lines of his criticism.

said he regretted that the criticisms of the hon. member for Pretoria District, South (General Beyers), had been marred by the heated words at the commencement of the speech, in which the hon. member indicated his belief that we could never work together in South Africa, because we did not respect each other.

He never said that.

I do not know anyone on this side who has not respect for the other side. (Opposition cheers.) I may say this, that prior to the war the newspapers were guilty of a very great deal in that direction, but I have not seen in the newspapers that want of appreciation of the opposite side that has been alluded to by the hon. member. If criticism upon the policy of the Government, and so on, is to be put an end to, and to be quashed by the fear of its being called racialism, then we are in a very bad condition.

It was never said.

Surely the hon. member for Pretoria South will realise that that criticism, however severe, does not indicate that we have not the utmost respect for the members on the other side and the people they represent. (Opposition cheers.) If there is one point on which I hail the Bill, it is because it seems to me that it is something which, instead of dividing the country, will bring the Dutch and British together in the defence of the country, as they have never mingled before, and bring about a heart union, which everyone who loves the country desires. Continuing, Mr. Schreiner said the hon. member made an unfortunate reference to Germany, which might be very much misunderstood. The hon. member referred to the difficulty there would be as to who would have to be balloted for. The remedy for that was to volunteer. As to the Council of Defence, it was not intended that that body should give military advice in time of war, but simply to be an advisory body in helping to draw up regulations and putting the scheme on a proper basis.

He had listened with a great deal of pleasure to the masterly and lucid speech of the Minister of Defence. He was specially glad that the Minister had raised the whole question out of the narrow horizon in which it had been bounded before. It was an undoubted fact that throughout the whole country, owing to words uttered on the platform and in the press, an idea had got about that the enemy against whom this defence scheme was being formulated was in South Africa. The natural conclusion was—and it had been said in so many words—that the natives were the enemy. There could be nothing more unfortunate for this country at the present time than that anything should be said to give colour to that idea. He did not believe there was any danger of a native rising, and if the natives were treated fairly and justly, there need be no such fear The urgent necessity of the scheme was not because of an internal enemy, but the possibility of an external enemy. We did not know how soon European complications might arise, which might necessitate our spending our last strength to defend South Africa for the Empire, helped by the British Fleet. He thought the words uttered by the Minister of Defence would do a great deal of good in the world, because there was no doubt that if there were a great war, the nations would look upon South Africa with an envious eye. It was our paramount duty, while trusting to the British Fleet—and he wished we did more to show that we did trust that fleet—if an enemy were landed on our shores, to be able to defend our country, and he had not the least doubt that we should be able to do so successfully. Apart from the regular British troops, there had hitherto been two systems of defence in South Africa, the one consisting of Volunteer corps mainly composed of Britishers and townspeople, and the other the Burgher system, whose chief features were rifle shooting and riding, among the farming population. There was a chance now for both systems, and for Briton and Boer to work together in the same organisation. He would like to refer the House to the attitude the natives took up with regard to this question, and he would quote to the House extracts from the organ of these people. On January 30 that paper, after referring to various statements which had been made with regard to this measure, rightly pointed out that in the past natives had stood shoulder to shoulder with Europeans in the defence of the country. The paper also remarked that it was the height of absurdity for the white portion of the population to inaugurate a scheme against the other section. He hoped that what had been said and would be said in that House would satisfy the organ from which he had quoted, that the Europeans were not using this scheme as a weapon against the native and coloured people of this country. The paper, by the way, was against conscription either for Europeans or natives. He (the speaker) would like to point out that the natives were not in a great state because they were excluded from liability under the Bill, but because they feared that this Defence Force might be used against them. He did not entirely agree with the attitude taken up by the paper against the Bill, for the reason that he believed that such a scheme of defence was of vital necessity. The paper went on to say that “those who engineer these measures don’t disguise their object that they are against the natives,” and added that the Bill was regarded as one of defiance and not of defence. All this showed how very careful the Government and Parliament should be not to allow anything in the Bill which would confirm the fears of the natives. Continuing, the speaker said he realised that it was impossible to expect that Europeans and coloured people should serve in the same corps, but he did not see why special corps of coloured people—he was not talking about the natives now, because he did not think the natives would care much for such things—should not be organised so that they might be of use in time of need. It was the natural right of every human being to defend himself, his home, and his country. They knew that the coloured people, and natives too, had done noble work in the past. These people knew no fear if only they were led by white men. If he was in the position of the Minister—he was glad, by the way, that he was not—he would suggest that special corps of coloured men should be formed even for service overseas in defence of the Empire. He considered that these people should not be shut out of helping in the defence of their country. No sane person would say that the raw native should be formed into corps, but he would like to point out that during war times they rendered invaluable assistance. He pointed out that the Bill said that unless Parliament decided otherwise by resolution the Bill would not apply to those who were of non-European descent. He put the case of a war suddenly breaking out when Parliament was not in session. They might have great need of these people, but because Parliament was not in session they could not be used. He suggested that when the Bill went to Select Committee a clause should be inserted whereby the Governor-General in place of Parliament, when it was not in session, should have the power to enrol natives and coloured people in such capacity and to such an extent as might be necessary. He was glad that recognition had been extended to the Cape Mounted Rifles, which was a most capable organisation. It would be conducive to the success of the scheme which they had at heart. With regard to the existing Volunteers, he was glad to see that they would not be lost, but form part of the Citizen Defence Force, but he thought it of importance that the commanders of these corps should be asked to appear before the Select Committee and assist in making the provisions with regard to this matter as perfect as possible. He was against the great power which had been given the Minister to make regulations, although he realised that in military matters regulations were necessary. It was all very well for the Minister to say that these regulations would be laid on the table ; but he pointed out the difficulty if a member moved to abolish one of these when once they were law. He hoped the Select Committee would come to the decision that these regulations must be laid before Parliament before they assumed the force of law. He hoped that when the Bill came back from the Select Committee it would be modified in such a way that they could unanimously, both sides of the House, delight in passing it into law. (Hear, hear.)

said that most of the criticisms on that important Bill had been based on misunderstandings. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence had been criticised by the hon. member for Pretoria District South because they had not gone round the country to explain the Bill. But the Minister had explained last year how the new army was to be formed, and had since had no further opportunity to do so. The population understood that a scheme of defence was necessary, and that everyone must protect his own home. In his opinion those who joined because they were paid never made good fighters. Compulsion was in his view necessary, and failing it, they might as well abandon the Bill. When the public read the Minister’s speech in support of the Bill they would be satisfied, and their misunderstandings would disappear. He thought that the Bill, apart from the memorandum, gave a wrong impression concerning the period of training, and that was a point which should be made quite clear. Sharpshooting or good riding would be valueless unless they had discipline. He favoured universal compulsion, although he feared the cost would be too great. In twenty years the Bill would have attained its object. So far as the cadet corps were concerned, he was strongly in favour of them, and if the officers were of the right sort, they would see that the young people suffered from bad influences less there than at school. He thought that those who took part in cadet drills should obtain more privileges than were at present given. It would be an advantage to see the British Act, so that they could see what they were undertaking, to do. The officers must be well informed as to the character of their corps, and should as far as possible be taken from the respective districts, but election of officers was quite wrong. (Hear, hear.) The three commandants should be placed under one chief. It was true that the present Minister was acquainted with military matters, but that would not always be the case, and what then would happen in time of war? What were the functions of the Council of Defence to be? If their functions were, in return for a high salary, to consist of drafting regulations, then he was opposed to it. On the other hand, if the Council of Defence were to take active measures in time of war, difficulties would arise owing to the fact that they would sit far away from the seat of war. They had seen the same thing in the Orange Free State when the “Krijgskommissie” acted during the war. The Bill threatened them with the ballot when there were not sufficient volunteers. But suppose the converse of that, what would happen then? He thought the best plan in such a case was to take them all. They would have nearly 100,000 trained men at the end of ten years, so that he did not regard very seriously the criticism of the hon. member for Pretoria District South. He thought the natives should be gratified at their exclusion from the Bill, and in his view they ought not to give a knife to a child. (Hear, hear.) He closed by expressing his agreement with the opinion that members of Parliament should also be required to serve. The Bill was timely and necessary, and would have his support.

said that he thought every one who was not extreme in his views in regard to the preservation of peace, must recognise with the Minister of the Interior that the world being what it was, this country must put its defences in order. The keynote of the Minister’s speech, and of the Bill itself, he took to be that defence was to be looked upon as a citizen duty, a duty to be performed by every man who exercised full citizen rights in this country In providing for defence, the Minister had put before them the two alternatives of a standing army or a citizen army. The party to which he (Mr. Greswell) belonged supported the idea of a citizen force, out they submitted that, unless the Bill were considerably amended, it would not make this national defence force a really national undertaking. The first essential, he supposed every one would admit, in the success of a citizens’ defence force was that all citizens of the State should feel that they really had something to defend. (Hear, hear.) He was not, in the remarks he was going to make, referring in any way to the probabilities of men not volunteering during times of great national emergency, but he did not think hon. members of that House and the Minister realised—it might be very regrettable—what an increasingly large number of citizens there were in this country—and the number would go on increasing unless other measures were taken—who found the daily grind of life so great that they looked upon their own share of the good things of this country as really hardly worth taking the trouble of defence to defend. As regarded the subject-matter of the Bill, this scheme, he understood, mainly depended for its effectiveness upon the voluntary portion of the force being so large that the element of compulsion would be introduced in the least possible manner. For himself, he was largely inclined to agree with the hon. member for Pretoria South, who advocated that the principle of compulsion should be extended to all citizens, because he (Mr. Creswell) believed, altogether from the defence purposes of such a scheme, the added force of character which was given by the observance of discipline at that stage, was of incalculable use to the character of the nation, but he believed the Minister was right when he said that the people of this country would not accept, and that it would not be possible, even if advisable, to carry through a scheme based on universal compulsory service, and so they were thrown back on the scheme the Minister had put before them. Now, he wanted to put before the Minister one or two points for securing the greatest possible number of volunteers. The active citizen force should be so arranged that all men who were at all desirous of undergoing a military training would be able to do so with the least possible inconvenience and the least possible personal sacrifice compared to those who did not. He thought the key to the whole position in that respect was contained in clause 16 (3), in which provision was made that no members of the active citizen force would be entitled to be paid for their services during peace training, and that they should only receive such monetary allowances as were prescribed. He would suggest that, in regard to the capitation tax of £1 a year, an effort should be made in the Select Committee to graduate this liability, so that it would not be a mere bagatelle to the rich and an intolerable burden to the poor. As to section 8, he agreed with the hon. member for Beaconsfield (Colonel Sir David Harris) that that section wanted tightening up very much. An employer might say to a man that he might go on peace training if he wished, but three or four days after he came back he would find some excuse for dispensing with his services and putting another man in his place. It was a very difficult matter, and one to which he hoped the Select Committee would give earnest consideration. He hoped that the clause would be tightened up by the committee. There was another point which he did not think had been fully appreciated by the Minister. The Minister could have small conception of the bar which had been raised against volunteering as the result of the military force which was used against the miners during the strike on the Witwatersnand. The Minister should realise that it was a great deterrent to men to join the volunteers if there was a possibility of their being used for the purpose of browbeating their fellow workmen and tempting them into acts of violence. The Minister must certainly be aware of the amount of bitterness that had been engendered by the use of the military during the time of the strike. The Minister might say that they had got to have a force, and he thought the only way* the Minister would get these men to join would be by making some safeguard whereby there would be no possibility of these men being used against their fellow-workers. It was a subject of a most important character, and one which he thought the Select Committee might spend some time in considering. He was glad to hear from the Minister that the Volunteer Corps, which had histories behind them, would be retained and allowed to continue their careers of usefulness. So far as the Council of Defence was concerned, he would say that he was in agreement with the hon. member for East London, feeling as he did that every action should be taken to keep this question out of those racial wrangles of which they were so sick. He hoped that there would be such safeguards that not even the most over-suspicious of one race or the other could say that anybody else was having an advantage. It was worth spending a little more time making the scheme effective, so as not to have it knocked about the House in the course of racial wrangles. He hoped that everything would be done to make this Bill worthy, so that military service would not be under such conditions as not to debar a large number of men who would volunteer with good hearts and try to make themselves effective units in their country’s service.

said he had listened with interest to the speech of the hon. and gallant member for Pretoria, and he (the speaker), though he seldom found himself in that position, was going to point out one or two matters on which he did not agree. He thought they owed a debt of gratitude to the Minister of the Interior for having the courage to grapple with one of the most difficult questions that had to be considered in this country, and he was sure they all appreciated the ability and the tact with which he introduced his measure. He (the speaker) did not think he (the Minister) could have offended the most delicate susceptibilities of any member of that House. He hoped his hon. friend would take his criticisms as of a friendly character, and given, as far as he (the speaker) was able, with a view of assisting the Bill rather than of trying to obstruct or suggest difficulties. That, of course, was no sort of occasion for wrangling, for they all had one interest—no matter what race, no matter what the colour of skin, no matter whether a capitalist or a daily-paid man—and that was that South Africa should be a peaceful country and that every man should be able to enjoy the fruits of his Labour, which his hon. friend spoke of, under his own fig tree, without being attacked. He thought they might congratulate themselves on the composition of the House for dealing with this question, because there was hardly anybody in the House who had not had, at some time or other in his life, a shot fired at im—(laughter)—and they had in addition people who knew all the horrors, the miseries, the dangers, and the difficulties of war They had his right hon. friend at the head of the Government, whose name and military reputation were such that it would be an impertinence for him to talk about it. (Hear, hear.) Then there was the Hon. the Minister who had introduced the Bill, who had shown on many occasions that he was a practical soldier as well as an extraordinarily clever lawyer. (Laughter.) They had on the other side many gentlemen of whom much might be said. They had one member of that House—the hon. member for Ladismith—who had seen more carnage in one day than took place during the whole of the South African War, and who, if he chose, could give them some practical views with regard to the question. This Bill would be considered, not by politicians, not by carpet theorists, but by men who had undertaken all the difficulties with which they had to cope in that measure, and, therefore, he had great hope that by the time it left the House it would be something worthy of the country and superior to some of the schemes which had been brought forward in the other dominions of the Empire. They must not underrate the difficulties, some of which were inherent in bringing forward a measure which demanded a certain amount of sacrifice. But the difficulties they had were special to the country with which they had to deal. One of the difficulties laid in the fact that the population was divergent—he was not speaking of race, because it applied equally. The bulk of the people consisted of small landowners, considered yeomen in other countries. There they had material which would be most valuable. On the other side they had the urban population and industrials. Continuing, Mr. Merriman said the difficulty was to get a plan which would bring out the best qualities of the two divergent parts of the population, and it was not an easy thing to do in a Bill. They had also, in addition to that, the great difficulty which was always with them of the fact that five-sixths of the population were not included in their defence scheme. He deprecated strongly the sort of speech that was made by his hon. friend the member for Tembuland. (Hear, hear.) That was a question which they had better leave sub silentio as far as possible, and he agreed with that part of the speech of his hon. friend on the left, when he said that what they had to do was to treat those people as their friends, to govern them well, and then they need not have any fear of them; and he would add that they should be very careful not to hurt those people’s feelings in any defence scheme or stir them up in any way so as to make them allies with any hostile force that landed on our shores. (Hear, hear.) Such a thing was to be guarded against. That was a contingency they always had to bear in mind. It was impossible, perhaps, to find any ready-made solution for it. All they could do was to be careful in their speeches and their government and be careful to treat the natives with justice. Now, of course, there were objections to the Bill. Some of them had been voiced very eloquently by members on the Government side of the House. There was no use shutting our eyes to the fact that there was a certain amount of opposition. His hon. friend said something about newspapers, and mentioned those of one side of the House only. Well, as regards that, he had a paper sent to him that was full of correspondence, in the Dutch language, and very hostile to the scheme ; in fact trying to shelve the Bill altogether. Still, he believed that this opposition to, or dissatisfaction with, the Bill was very much exaggerated. Personally, he had had an opportunity of speaking the other day to a typical collection of what they might term, without meaning any reproach, backveld Boers ; men from the achter veld. He endeavoured to explain the Bill to them, and was pleased with the way in which his explanation was met. They all said “Yes, we know we must make sacrifices to defend the country ; but we are determined the country shall be defended by the people of the country.” That was a good spirit, and it was a spirit in which he hoped they would deal with that measure. (Cheers.) It was no use talking of patriotism and making a nation, if they were not prepared to make sacrifices in this direction, to take the burden on their own shoulders and carry it out in a good practical way ; and he thought that was the feeling throughout the country. He was glad to hear the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) speaking of the democratic class of the citizen army. It was quite true. He thought, if he might say so, some of those objections and difficulties that arose, arose because of the complications of the Bill—perhaps unavoidable complications of a measure of this sort. It was very difficult, even for an old practised hand like himself, to find out exactly what the rule was in the Bill. It was extremely complicated, and rendered more complicated by the introduction here and there of great powers vested in the hands of the Minister. He agreed with his hon. friend on the hack benches who said that in a measure of this sort, which touched everything in the whole country, it was necessary that the Bill should lay down certain fundamental things, and that they should not be left too much in the hands of the Minister. That, he thought, was indispensable. As far as he had been able to see in the Acts of other countries similar to their own, and countries quoted by the Minister, the matters left to the discretion of the Minister were defined in the law, and he thought that was very necessary, and perhaps more so in this country than in any other. He had no doubt his hon. friend, whose tactful speech in introducing this measure gave them every hope, intended to meet the people as far as possible, and as long as he got an efficient defence measure, he would not be averse to accepting amendments, because he must feel as they did, that if they wanted a good defence measure, he must carry the people with him. Probably he would not carry them all, because there were always certain people who would show obstinacy, but he (the speaker) did want to feel that they had the bulk of the people with them. The people did want a measure, and they could establish that measure so as to carry the people with them. As to the need of a defence measure, it was hardly necessary to labour that point. He always felt that that was something of a disgrace to this country, as they had their own Government, and as they had means, almost too large, that they should be dependent upon the British taxpayer, who was overburdened to the greatest extent at present, and that anybody should be found, for one moment, maintaining that they should rely on them to maintain order within their own borders. (Cheers.) It was a different thing when they spoke of a navy, but within their own borders and within their own shores, if they were worthy of men, they should be prepared to take on themselves the burden of the British taxpayer. (Cheers.) Of course, there were some who said they did that. They did that now, as they had the commando system. Wed, that system did well enough in former years, but it would be poor enough a thing against an organised force thrown upon their shores. It had its merits, but it also had its defects. As a matter of fact, it was an English system, because they surely remembered that the people were commandeered by Justice Shallow, and they would also remember how one was let off and another was given benefits, and so they had favouritism ; but he was glad it did one thing, in that it recognised the universal obligation of everyone to turn out. (Cheers.) That was the principle, and it was the common law of the Cape at the present time, although it had become ineffective. They recognised that, and it was no new thing in this country. Of course, there were some good-natured people of the present day, alluded to by one or two speakers, who thought that the time for war had gone by. There was a gentleman who had been writing an extremely interesting book, and who had the appropriate nom de plume of Angell, and who said that in consequence of the commercial interlacing of modern nations, the time for war had gone by and that no one would think of going to war, because his banker would have to suffer Well, he always remembered that some wise man said to Napoleon that no one nowadays would go to war, on account of financial reasons, and Napoleon said: “Can you tell me the name of Attila’s Chancellor of the Exchequer?” If they once got an Attila, they made short work of Mr. Angell’s article about finance and war ; and that was what they had to prepare for. He did not agree with the hon. member (General Beyers) in his reading of history. He thought he misunderstood when he said that Switzerland was 400 years under foreign pressure, and then it woke up land passed its Defence Bill. Not at all. It was true that Switzerland was badly organised, and then, after an heroic struggle in 1798 they lost their independence, and after that they organised. If they put into their heads that there was never any chance of anybody coming to their shores, they would be filling themselves with what an American had called the “valour of ignorance.” They must be prepared to resist the landing of any force on these shores, and to carry on that resistance. He thought the hon. member (General Beyers) made a mistake when he despised a small force, because behind a small force they had the body of the population ; because if they could only train a small force, they could always rely on the body to make the first stand.

Business was suspended at 6 o’clock.

said that before the right hon. the member for Victoria West proceeded with his speech he wished to rise to a point of order. He had not described the force as a small striking force. What he wished to convey was that he would like to see that force strengthened.

Well, it is not a very vital matter. My hon. friend now says he wants a big striking force. We won’t follow that. Proceeding, he said that when the House rose he was trying to point out the absolute necessity for a Bill of this description and for organising our defences accordingly. Trouble might come at a time when we least expected it. Now he wished to deal with the Bill placed before the House by the Government. That Bill provided, in the first place, for a permanent force, the reorganising of a permanent force. As far as he followed his hon. friend (General Beyers), he rather took exception to what was proposed now in regard to the permanent force. But he (Mr. Merriman) did not see how they could do anything else. They were our police, first of all ; defensive force only in a secondary sense. It would be almost impossible to have a different force in every Province upon a different basis and a different organisation. Fortunately, we had had some admirable forces in this country He endorsed every word said by his hon. friend and others about the excellence of the forces we had got. The Cape Mounted Riflemen, the Natal Police, and the Cape Police, he could speak of from personal knowledge, and he would say that very few people appreciated what those men were doing and had done in the past. He had no doubt the Transvaal and the Free State police were just the same. He had had no opportunity of seeing them. The loyalty of these forces could not be equalled. The Cape Police were put through a very severe trial during the war, and carried out their duties in a way that was beyond all praise. In regard to the co-ordination of those forces, with which he entirely agreed, there was one point which would require looking into, and that was as regards the appointment of officers. As he read this Bill—whether he had read it right or not he did not know—it gave leave to the Governor, who was, of course, the Minister of the Interior, to put officers upon half-pay. That, he thought, was a good thing, because promotion in these corpse had been very slow indeed. He had always been of opinion that places might be found in the Civil Service for many of these officers and had tried to carry that view out in the old Cape Parliament with the object of getting rid of this difficulty. But then it said that the Government might appoint officers. He thought that ought to be hedged round, because officers in the Cape Mounted Riflemen and the Cape Mounted Police had been taken from the ranks. People had an inducement to work up, and men had worked themselves up in the force to the highest positions. He should be very sorry indeed, if, by the terms of this Act, it was found that what were called, in a sense, outsiders, were put into this force, which would create discontent in the force. That was a point which he had no doubt his hon. friend would address himself to when he got into committee on this Bill. The real crux of the Bill was when they came to the non-military portion, which was to create what the Hon. the Minister called a citizen force. He did not see any harm in this being called a citizen force. Now, as regarded universal military service, he thought his hon. friend on his left (General Beyers), who gave a very admirable criticism of the Bill, appeared to go miles further than the Minister of the Interior. He was in favour of carrying out universal compulsory service to the fullest extent. Could this country stand that? It was an admirable thing in theory, first-rate, and in countries like Germany and France, where it was carried out, no doubt it had a very good effect upon the stamina of the men and upon the morale of the men, too. But universal military service in both these countries had been found to be an almost intolerable burden, and the tendency of modern times, as far as he could read them, was to shorten that military service as far as possible. In Germany, he thought, it had been out down to two years, in France the same, and there was a movement in France now to still further shorten that, and very much in the direction that we should consider by-and-by. It was too expensive, and he thought it would give perhaps too military a character to the whole of our society if they had military service and the whole thing Above all, they should be very careful, in avoiding the Scylla of inefficiency, that they did not fall into the Charybdis of militarism, which would be a very great mistake indeed for this country. He did not wonder that his friend the Minister of the Interior went to Switzerland for a model, because that was a perfect model of a democratic army, for it was effective, of the people and governed by the people, and the people submitted to the most enormous sacrifices and disabilities in order to keep that army in a state of efficiency. That was a true example for us. They were a very thrifty people, a very industrious people, yet they spent one and a half millions upon their army. More than one-quarter of their whole expenditure was spent upon their army, so important did they feel this question of national defence. That it was very effective was, he thought, beyond question. It was rather a remarkable thing that the Emperor of Germany had announced his intention of attending the next manoeuvres of the Swiss Army. Now, these people, a small people, with only three and a half millions of inhabitants altogether, could put 140,000 trained soldiers into line, thoroughly equipped in every respect, with artillery, with infantry, and all the rest of it. His hon. friend would also be glad to find that they paid enormous attention to the shooting part of the business. (Hear, hear.) Every man who passed through the ranks up to, he thought, the age of 50, was obliged to go and fire off so many cartridges a year. They had got something like 4,000 shooting associations in that little country, and they had got 228,000 members of their shooting associations. Now, if we were in earnest, there would be no need to use incentives to induce our people to do that, and he regarded the use of the rifle in this country as being the great question of the country—(hear, hear)—because what made the Republican forces in the last war? It was the use of the rifle. There was a tendency for that to be lost. (Hear, hear.) He heard somebody say something to the Minister of the Interior, who said they must not fire away their ammunition on game. Heavens! if they could get game he should like to see them fire away all their ammunition—(hear, hear)—because that was first of all what gave the Boer his extraordinary mastery of the rifle. It was not firing at a mark, but it was his extraordinary quickness in firing at a moving object. They must have the spirit of the people with them, and every means must be taken to induce people to become handy fellows with their guns. We were not prepared to put the whole available number of men under arms. He did not think it would be possible to do that ; it would be extremely expensive, and he did not think the circumstances of the country made it possible. There was a fault in the Bill which should be corrected, for it did not say how many men were to be brought out. It was the function of Parliament to say how many men it would in any year put into the line. He did not know that the ballot was altogether the system that would give us the best results. They might ballot the weaklings and the men they did not want to get. In addition to that the Minister proposed to put a tax on those people who were not balloted for. Surely that would be a great injustice. It might be said that the impost was a trifling one. A pound was trifling to members of Parliament, but when he (Mr. Merriman) put on a tax of 10s. it was found to be a monstrous impost. (Laughter.) The impost was unfair, because the people who were subject to it were subjected to a far grayer impost—that was the prospect of being called out in the event of a disturbance. One might pay one’s pound for eight years—

Twenty-four years.

That is worse still. On the twenty-third year you are called out for active service, and you have to go just the same. Another point, continued Mr. Merriman, was that there was no difficulty in getting mounted men in this country, but when they came to getting infantry, who required far more training in this country than mounted men, then this question of balloting and the impost would be found very irksome and would raise dissatisfaction. As he read the Bill, the period of training was indeterminate, and was in the will of the Minister, and so might go up tremendously. Would it not be better, seeing that universal military service was out of the question, to imitate some of the other Dominions, and to have a force enlisted as in Australia, and face the question of paying them? What was the only Volunteer Corps that our military men had reported favourably upon? The Cape Garrison Artillery, which was a partially paid force on which we had some hold. Consequently it was a thoroughly efficient force. He was not there to throw stones at our Volunteers, but if the confidential reports of the military were placed before the House hon. members would see what a broken reed the country was leaning on in the Volunteers. How could men meeting together in a casual fashion ever discharge their duties when it came to a real infantry force—

They have done so in this country.

Against people armed with gaspipes. I am contemplating when you have a first-class military force landed on these shores, and then you require trained infantry men to stand against them. I believe no difficulty has been found in Australia, and certainly not in Canada, in getting men for this purpose.

They pay them.

And so they ought. You cannot get an efficient infantry man with only 12 days’ training every year. Continuing, Mr. Merriman said that with our Volunteers, if their best girls wanted to go to the theatre, or it was a wet evening, they often did not turn up to drill. (Laughter.) They could not have a sham defence force, as, he was sorry to say, most of the Dominions had, for if ever the day of peril came the sham force would go to pieces. To have an efficient force the men must be paid, and have proper training. In Canada the men were paid 2s. a day and their rations, while in Australia the pay was 4s. a day. With regard to the mounted force, it was a totally different thing. We had men who lived on the land—English and Dutch alike—who rode well, knew how to shoot, and every one of them was a born soldier. But they had to be taught discipline. (Hear, hear.) At the same time, he would be sorry to see them trained like cavalry soldiers, because then they would lose the great strength and force they had now. Some years ago General Cunynghame remarked that the people he had seen up country would prove the best Cossack soldiers in the world. And so they had proved since. They must not depend upon horse soldiers if they were really going to defend, this country, because the horse soldier who had to fight on foot was hampered by his horse, and if he attacked he looked over his shoulder to see that his horse had not gone. (Laughter.) What was needed above everything was a force of infantry. Little as he wanted to increase the financial burdens of the country he would be prepared, to pay the men. They could not expect men of all classes to leave their work for 65 days without pay; that would be too great a sacrifice. He thought Australia had a special provision with regard to employers who got rid of their men because they were called out for military exercises, and in countries like Norway and Switzerland, where men had to go out for an extended time, there was no difficulty on this point. Nothing was more remarkable than the effect of discipline on the untrained people in this country in the last unfortunate disturbance. The Minister of Justice had given him some interesting accounts of the raw recruits he obtained in the Cape—although he would have been hanged if he had been caught. (Laughter.) In a few weeks they were turned into different men, and nobody would have said that they were undisciplined when they laid down their arms at the end of the war. His hon. friend had talked about cavalry and artillery. He could not pretend to follow him into all aspects of these subjects. There was, no doubt, much in what he said about studying the best models. As far as his books told him, the French at present had the best artillery in the world The Swiss had Maxims attached to their cavalry, which probably combined the two things—mounted forces and artillery. He would leave the men now and come to the officers. It was an extremely difficult subject, because they had to harmonise the democratic feeling in this country in these matters, and at the same time secure efficiency. He thought they would find that the only plan was to lay down the rule that every officer must pass through the ranks, and in that way they would combine democracy and efficiency. It certainly would not do to bring in officers, or very many officers, from outside. Another matter that had been objected to in the Bill was the question of the Council. His hon. friend for Pretoria District South was very much down on the Council. He thought that he was labouring under a misapprehension. The Council was not supposed to be a body that would direct operations in the field, like the Aulic Council that the Austrian generals had when they were fighting Napoleon. It was an organising body, and he did not know how they would obtain continuity or efficiency unless they had something like this Council They might have, as they had now, an extremely able Minister of Defence. But they might have a man chosen simply because he could make a smart speech in that House. (Laughter.) Why should his hon. friend object to the Counoil? Let him quote from the Swiss law—and Switzerland was the most democratic country in Europe. “The Commission of National Defence is composed of all the commandants of the Army Corps, of the Chief of the Service of the Staff, and of the Chief of the Service of the Infantry, deliberating under the presidency of the Chief of the Military Department" –– he supposed that was the sort of Council his friend had in his eve—“upon the all-important question dealing with the defence of the country”—but now followed something which was not in our Bill, and which was a remarkably good thing: “When the general is named” —because they named a general whenever a war took place—“when the general is named, the Commission ceases to operate.” That meant that they simply concerned themselves with the organisation of the Army. When it came to a question of using the army, we must trust the general ; we must trust the man at the helm. We must get the best man we could, and trust him, and must not have a Council of Defence interfering with operations in the field. He could not find that a single one of these schemes of defence, in any of the colonies, had not got a Council. In New Zealand it was formed of the Minister, the Chief of Staff, and the Finance Secretary, and the Minister had the power to call in another. In Canada there was also a Council, appointed by the Governor, very much like what was proposed in the Bill. He did not very much like that. In the Commonwealth of Australia the Council was constituted by the Government, with a Military Board and a Naval Board. In every place there was a Committee of Defence, and unless we were able to throw up some Carnot, an organiser of victory, he thought the Council was a most excellent thing. Another objection was raised to the Bill. That was the ballot. Other countries had also adopted it. New Zealand adopted it It adopted it one year, gave it up the next, and instead of that they took what he thought was a valuable provision, that was, if you cannot fill up your ranks by voluntary enlistment, take power to draft into the ranks from your men liable to service and by way of a stimulus—there were plenty of ways they could do it! It could be obligatory, but they could also take away a man’s civic rights if he declined to do his duty. (VOICES: “No.”) His hon. friends did not like that. He would come now to the Reserve, which constituted practically the whole body of citizens. One thing in the Bill could be amended. They had not classified the reserve. Other countries classified the reserve in the order in which they were to be called out, always beginning with the unmarried men. First, they took the unmarried men from eighteen to thirty. In Australia they trained their permanent force, and others were liable to be trained the minute the Governor issued a proclamation, but before he did that he had to lay the matter before Parliament. When the citizen forces were called out they proceeded to take the people in the different classes. They went down to old gentlemen of fifty-five. “Fortunately for some of us,” he added, “they cannot go low enough to catch us.” (Laughter.) Heavy though the Swiss law might seem on the public, it was voted for by a referendum. Originally the Swiss training was only for 47 days; that was by the law of 1874. In 1907 they deliberately raised it to 65 days, by a huge majority of the people. That showed the spirit of a people who were in earnest in this matter. He thought the Bill ought to provide for the organisation of a branch to look after war material In this country, situated as it was, much depended upon having an adequate supply of war material, and as they were so much in favour of Colonial industries he thought the Government might well turn their attention towards some industry by which they could provide these things in the event of war. Excellent dynamite was manufactured here, and perhaps the same gentlemen might manage to manufacture ammunition. Then there was the financial side of the business. They must be careful. An adequate, thoroughly efficient force, even if had to be paid, would be worth the money ; but to waste money on a sham army which in time of need might break down would be a terrible mistake. He did not think that the scheme, as adumbrated by his hon. friend, would be quite so cheap as he thought. Still he felt perfectly certain that the House, the country and" the Treasurer would not shrink from finding a sufficient sum of money to place this scheme on a proper basis. At (present the taxpayers of England were spending one and a half million pounds, not to keep us safe, but to give us an idea of safety. We were not going to spend that amount, but he hoped we would spend a sum to undertake the defence of this country thoroughly. The safety of this country was before everything else. (Cheers.) We had got responsibilities, but we had taken these responsibilities cheerfully upon ourselves, and we must see that we discharged them. It would be a call upon our patriotism, and it would require much calm deliberation. They must never forget that they were not going to save South Africa by an Act of Parliament. The spirit of the people was what they must ultimately rely upon and they must do everything to foster that spirit. Therefore he wanted the Bill so shaped that it would not set the spirit of the people in an opposite direction, and so that they would be proud of their Defence Force. Might he quote a passage which he thought they might well lay to heart. General Langlois in his history of the war in South Africa, after describing what constituted the strength of the Republican forces, said ; “This makes us understand that with modern armaments instructions and morale are factors always increasing in importance as against mere numbers. A nation has nothing to fear from a more populous neighbour if she makes the necessary sacrifices for her army and if she gives to all her youth a manly education tempering their characters with strength.” That, after all, was at the bottom of all their defence, the spirit of the people and the education of their youth. These two things could be aided by a judicious Bill, a Bill which he felt perfectly certain the Committee would turn out. They had an arduous task before them, because there were many cross issues which would have to be thoroughly thrashed out. He hoped they would succeed in their task. Such poor assistance as he could give would be cheerfully given, because he desired nothing more than to see this country a self-defending and self-reliant country. (Cheers.)

said he thought every hon. member would agree that the objects of the Bill were all that could be desired, and he thought that hon. members in that House intended to pass the measure that session. He would like to congratulate the Minister on the able manner in which he had dealt with this important question of the defence of South Africa. No doubt the question was surrounded by many difficulties, but he thought that the Minister had overcome all these difficulties in a most successful manner. He thought they were all at one with the Minister when he said that they must have a permanent force which would be able to strike at a moment’s notice, but the Minister had also said that this body would be called upon to do a certain amount of police work. In theory that sounded well ; in practice it was found impossible to carry out in an effective manner. He referred to legislation of a similar character which was passed in Natal. There they had a force of six hundred police, and it was decided that two hundred of these should comprise a small striking force, ready to move at a moment’s notice. But when they put that idea into practice they found it almost impossible. That might be looked upon as a detail, but he thought it was a detail that should receive the serious consideration of the members of the Select Committee. Referring to the active citizen force the hon. member said that the Minister had estimated that there world be 12,000 young men available, but he thought that if they attempted to train all these young men the country would have to face an enormous expenditure which he did not think people quite realised. Supposing—and it was quite likely that such a thing would happen—that all these 12,000 came forward voluntarily. He took it that if such a thing happened the country would be bound to tram these men If the country was prepared to do that then he thought it was their bounden duty to look carefully into the financial aspect of the scheme, for the reason that they would find the cost bigger than they thought at the present moment. He also considered that there should be no exemptions, for it was his idea that every man who was able to do so should be liable to come forward at a time of need. There was one other point. The Minster had stated that he was prepared to take over volunteer regiments that existed at the present time, and he would like to draw attention to one fact. Some of these regiments had to fill up before they would come under the provisions of the bill. Now nothing was said in the Bill about the uniforms of these recruits. No capitation grant was to be provided, and he asked what was going to happen to these young recruits so far as uniforms were concerned? It was a small point, but there was nothing, in the Bill which dealt with the subject In regard to serving inside and outside the boundaries of the Union he commended the Minister for the clause he had inserted bearing on the subject, and said that if such a clause were absent then the Bill would not be workable. Continuing, he pointed out that with regard to cadets it was proposed in the Bill that they should be started at the age of 13 years. Now in Natal the age was ten years, and he thought that the limit might be decreased in this measure. He pointed to the fact that in many cases boys left school at the age of 14 years. In the cases of those youngsters they would only get a cadet training for a year if they commenced at the age of thirteen years. He knew there was a great deal of feeling against the cadet system, but he could not tell the reason why. It must be on sentimental grounds, for there was nothing better than to train a boy to serve his country in the future. Continuing, he said he thought that the Government was inclined to deal with too many things by regulations. Now regulations were all very well in their way, but there must be a limit. There was also necessity for adequate compensation for the relatives of those who were killed and wounded while serving their country at a time of need. He hoped that the Select Committee would give this matter its attention. Regarding the financial side of the scheme, the Minister said that this force would cost £1,172,000 per annum. But they were paying at the present time £852,000 for the present force, leaving £320,000 to complete the new force. But he did not give them any details or tell them what amount he expected from those who were looked upon to pay £1 each. He thought the country had a right to know what difference that sum would make to the cost of the scheme. The Bill was going to a Select Committee, and he hoped it would not be dealt with from the party standpoint ; but would be dealt with on its merits, and that both sides of the House would try to make it the very best Bill it was possible to make it, so that they could have something to guide them and prepare them for the defence of this country that belonged to them. (Cheers.) The way to prevent a war was always to be prepared. (Cheers.)

thought it might sound presumptuous in a member who was not a military expert to speak in a House such as that was constituted. But the Bill was one which concerned everybody in the Union, and touched the personal freedom of every white inhabitant. It was therefore necessary that everybody concerned should understand and agree to the necessity of sacrificing in the general interest some part of his individual freedom. If the citizen did not agree to it, if he was not convinced of its necessity, then they would have the greatest difficulty, and would perhaps even find it impossible, to carry out the terms of the law. The people of the Transvaal and the Free State had been accustomed from the earliest days to be called up to defend their country, so that they would not be likely to be against the Bill on principle. They must confine themselves therefore to consider the manner and the methods of the Bill. Whatever differences of opinion there might be, they must do something, especially when they remembered what had recently occurred in the East. Many objections would disappear on a careful explanation, but some amendments would still be required. Persons of non-European origin were, according to Clause 7, excluded from service. He would be the last person to recommend that they should arm the natives, but still they had as much advantage from a state of peace as the whites, and should not they be called to contribute something? They should have no illusions in this matter, for a scheme of defence would cost a great deal. The Bill said nothing about foreigners who lived here for their advantage, and why should not they pay something? The same with regard to people who owned property here and lived elsewhere. Why should not they pay a war tax, as was formerly done under the law of the South African Republic? Clause 12 should be modified so as to make provision for more cannon, and especially for more mountain batteries, which were so necessary in a country such as this. He considered that 2,500 men for the standing army were too few, as they would also have to do the work of the mounted police, and there were even now too few mounted police in the country districts. The provision made in Clause 14 for borrowing troops from the Imperial Government should lay down how many were required and for how long. Had they not artillerists of the late Republics who understood big guns of complicated character, and was it really necessary to import men from elsewhere for that purpose? Clause 14 should be made more clear, so that burghers should know that they were to be drilled in their own districts, and not sent to the towns. If necessary, they could join the men from two or three districts together, and drill them alternately in the several districts. As regards the Royal Naval Volunteers, Clauses 21 and 22 referred only to a “body,” without specifying how large that body should be, and seeing that the Union would have to pay for it, and that it would be used in the service of Great Britain, its strength and its cost should be definitely laid down. In Clause 24, sub-section 2, mention was made of service outside the Union, which should be qualified by saying that it should be within South Africa. All doubts should be removed from that point, and although it was no doubt the intention of the Minister, the Minister’s intention had not been clearly expressed. No reference was made in Clause 26 dealing with the number of persons who would constitute the Council of Defence, as to what sort of persons they would be, or as to their functions. That should be made clear. He desired to ask the Minister to amend Clause 27, so as to make it clear that the country officers would be appointed from the people of their own district. They had quite sufficient men who had shown their abilities during the recent war, and if such people were not appointed, it would arouse great dissatisfaction. It was satisfactory to learn that officers were to be appointed from the ranks, but how was a beginning to be made before they had any ranks, and why should those officers have to work for nothing and all the others be paid? There should be in every district a district commandant, and he should have a reasonable salary. Clause 28 made mention of the officer or officers in supreme command, and when that was read in conjunction with Clause 79, it would appear that that officer or officers would take the place of the Commandant-General. The Minister had in fact said as much in his opening speech. But if that was so, why was there any mention of more than one officer? Was it intended to appoint more than one Commandant-General? He could not believe such a thing from a Minister who had had practical experience. History showed clearly that it would only cause disunion and disaster. He would like to see in Clause 34, after sub-section (b), an addition made enabling ex-officers of the Republic to be appointed. He had no objection to marks of distinction and uniforms referred to in Clause 40, but thought that the burghers should not be required to wear uniforms. Nothing was said in Clause 61 of the annual period of training, and he thou ht it should be laid down in the Bill, and that it should not be more than 14 or 20 days in a year. That point should not be left to regulations, as they might later have a Minister who would prescribe a period of six months per annum. As the Bill concerned the personal freedom of every citizen, it should contain nothing that was ambiguous. He considered also that no training should take place on Sundays, that the character of the training should be laid down, and that it should chiefly consist in horse riding, sham fights, manœuvres, shooting and the handling of a rifle, and that they should not import into this country all kinds of European customs. What they wanted was horsemanship, shooting and obedience. He was glad that the Minister was prepared to meet the difficulties in connection with cadet training, by giving the parent or guardian the right to exempt his child when he so desired. He was grateful for that concession. There was continual mention in Chapter VII. of the Army Act of Great Britain and Ireland, and he asked why those provisions were not made a schedule to the present Bill. The public did not know in what those provisions consisted, and he hoped they would be published, so that everybody would be made acquainted with them. He agreed with what had been stated by the hon. member for Pretoria District South on the subject of the £1 contribution, but the hon. member had misread the Bill when he thought that one district would have to supply another district when the number of its recruits was short. Every district must provide its own men. But suppose in a particular district there were more volunteers than were necessary, would they be obliged to pay £1 per annum? He thought it better to abolish that £1 proposal, and to let everybody serve for the annual training. He also thought that such training should be so arranged that the education of their children should not be hampered. The training period could be arranged to take place during the holidays. No provision had been made with regard to young men who went to Europe for purposes of study, and although they should not be freed from their obligations, some provision ought to be made, as it would be injurious for the country to prevent them from going away to study. He entirely disapproved of the proposed system of balloting, which would simply bring into the army the weak and the less fit. The Minister had stated that the scheme would cost no more than £1,172,000, but surely that did not include the cost of purchasing cannon and rifles? The hon. member for East London had stated that more Englishmen than men of Dutch origin should be appointed as members of the Council of Defence, which plan would prevent the Government from making, blunders. To put it very mildly, that was impolite. If they consulted the pa3t, they would see that blunders were not solely in one of the camps. With regard to the principle of compulsion in the Bill, that should be abandoned. The Bill should be accepted, and the Minister should put into operation all the clauses in connection with the standing army, the Garrison Artillery or Coast Defence Force, the Royal Naval Volunteers, and the shooting clubs, but universal liability to serve should be postponed, so that hon. members could make the Bill plain to their constituents. When once their constituents knew that they would not be required to serve for longer than 14 days in a year, there would be no further objection to universal compulsion. They would lose nothing by the delay, for they had still got to organise, to buy rifles and ammunition, and they would then win the satisfaction and the co-operation of the public, which were so vitally necessary in matters which concerned the personal freedom of the citizen.

said he thought it was desirable for every member of the House who had any views on this subject to express those views before the Bill went to the Select Committee. He considered that this measure was the direct consequence of Union. It was one of the fruits of Union, to which many of them had been looking forward. At the time of Union all spoke about the building up of a great South African nation. They spoke of building up a nation worthy of the traditions of South Africa and worthy of the traditions of the two great races inhabiting this Land. How was this ideal to be realised, how was this nation to be formed, unless this Parliament were prepared to give the people an opportunity through the machinery provided in this Bill to rise to the responsibility and show their patriotism? Now, if this Bill became law, he considered that it would be one of the foundation stones of the future development of the true South African spirit. The Minister of the Interior had spoken about the great material assets of our country. Apart from those material assets we heard a great deal about the corner-stone of the Convention contained in Clause 137, where the mutual rights of the English and Dutch speaking sections were guaranteed. What would become of those sacred rights of the people, unless they were prepared in case of danger to defend those rights? If they considered the relations of the Great Powers in the world at present, who could deny that it was the duty of that Parliament, by way of this Bill, to provide the country with the machinery to be prepared in any eventuality? He was glad to see that, notwithstanding unfavourable criticisms in the country, they as a Parliament were prepared to rise to the occasion and to bear their responsibility and give a lead to the country. Looking at the Bill as a whole, he would say that the tendency of the measure was to extend, to develop, to build up the existing systems of defence in South Africa. In the first place it proposed co-operation with the Imperial authorities of South Africa. Then it proposed to develop and encourage the existing permanent striking force that we had in the country. It also recognised and encouraged the volunteer corps, the cadet corps, and the rifle associations. He thought the Minister had done wisely in following that policy. He did not agree with the hon. member for Pretoria South when he said that the Minister should have taken as his basis the rifle clubs of the country. They were bound to take cognisance of all the existing systems if they wished to make a success of the measure. He was somewhat acquainted with the volunteers and cadets and rifle clubs, and he was pleased to see that these three systems of defence were properly acknowledged in this Bill and by the Government.

Cadet Corps had done a great deal of good in the past. In the Stellenbosch and Paarl districts, where the farms had been cut up and the game had disappeared, there was very little scope afforded young fellows on these farms to become efficient shots. Personally, unless he had had an opportunity of belonging to a Cadet Corps, he would not be in the position to handle a rifle that he was to-day. It must be remembered that although one shot at a target, one was not necessarily unable to shoot at a moving object. The circumstances of the country were such that we were bound to recognise these Cadet Corps as bodies which young fellows could usefully join and take an interest in. He was very pleased that the Minister was prepared to take the Boy Scouts into consideration. This movement had become popular with all the big schools of the country. The South African Teachers’ Conference, representing the Dutch-speaking teachers of the whole of the Union, had strongly recommended the Boy Scouts, and had advised all the headmasters to ask their pupils to become Scouts. He thought that under proper management the Boy Scouts and Cadet movements would not only have a good effect with regard to practice with the rifle, but also have a splendid effect on the moral character and manhood of the students. If they looked to the rifle clubs, they would recognise in them the genius of the people, and the love the people had for the defence of their country. The Minister of Defence would be surprised to find the large number of rifle clubs at present i flourishing throughout the Western Province. In his constituency there were at least fifteen of these clubs. They were working quite unseen, and without any encouragement from Government. It had been said that men over fifty should be relieved of military service, but he knew of men over sixty still taking a most prominent part in these clubs. It was wonderful how these clubs brought the two sections of the people together. (Hear, hear.) That was the same spirit which would be evolved once the defence scheme was placed on a proper basis. It had been said that there should not be an element of compulsion in the defence scheme. He would reply, “Are we serious over this question, and if we are serious, how are we going to make the scheme a success unless we have compulsion?” They should take the risk of giving Government this compulsory power. He thought the Select Committee would have to make the system of payment perfectly plain, for the scheme laid down in the measure might give rise to hardship in the case of the poorer sections of the community. (Hear, hear.) The Miniister should consider whether there should be a graduated scale, or else evolve some other system. With regard to some of the remarks of the hon. member for Pretoria District South (General Beyers), he (Mr. Krige) remembered the time of the Kafir war But the hon. member for Pretoria District South forgot to say that that ballot was held during a time of war, whereas the ballot proposed in the Bill would take place in a time of peace. In conclusion, Mr. Krige said he wished to accord his full sympathy with the Bill, and he trusted the Select Committee would bring back a measure which would be acceptable to every interest in the country. (Cheers.)

said he could not join in the chorus of approval with which the Bill had been received. He thought that several of the provisions were open to criticism. He would confine himself to the Citizen Force. He would start with the Cadets. No doubt the proper place to begin training youths was at school, because then their minds were most receptive land retentive. A grievous mistake was made in regard to the enrolment of young citizens. He considered that none should be excluded from military service once the principle of compulsory training was adopted. This view was, he believed, widely taken in South Africa, and it was therefore a comparatively easy matter to arrange for. Doubtless, the Minister had carefully considered the objections to training the whole of the European population instead of only a half, but he found it difficult to see what great objections there were. The necessity for a Boy Scout and Cadet training was evident enough, but after this, instead of taking 6,000 men they should take the whole 12,000. Instead of training them for four years for periods of two weeks, they should train them two years for a period of three or four weeks. They would then have the same number each year, with this great advantage, that they could get practically the same amount of training in two years as the Minister intended to spread over four years. Here would be an economy of time and work. The unpleasantness of the ballot would be avoided, and the possible unfairness of the more objectionable clauses outlined in clauses 55 and 56 would be avoided. However impartial the District Officer might be there would always be the feeling that favouritism was being shown. He suggested to the Minister that instead of having three lists of reserves he should have only two. The men on the first list should be trained for the first two years, and at the end of two years their places taken by the men on the second list. As a rule, men in this country could ride and shoot, and when they were able to do that it did not take much to make efficient soldiers of them. Shooting, he feared, was often neglected for the more showy things, such as looking smart on parade. Under this scheme men would go on improving their shooting at rifle clubs. Every able-bodied man should be trained. The only reasons for which a man should be excused were mental or physical infirmity. He thought that a reasonably high medical inspection would be valuable. Proceeding, he said that he considered that all men called out for training should be paid. Their Ministers drew excellent salaries for conducting the affairs of this country. Hon. members were well paid, and hon. members of another place were well paid. “In fact, for all the good most of us do,” he added, “I think we are grossly overpaid.” (Laughter.) Even now rumours were in the air of a subsistence allowance, but he hoped that the Ministers would object to that. In this patriotic country, where no man did anything for the State without being well paid, why talk of bringing out a large body of men without paying them, especially as legislators and others were so unwilling to do anything for the honour and glory! If the country could not afford to pay these men they could sacrifice some of their Departments. They could sacrifice the Education Department, the Department of Commerce, and the Agricultural Department, and he believed that none but the officials would know they had gone. (Laughter.) Continuing, the speaker said that it was little use of the Minister talking about encouraging the mounted corps if he was not going to continue to pay the horse allowance. He would tell the Minister that if this allowance was not paid, the corps would not survive for twelve months If they spent this amount of money, they would be spending it in a correct method. It would be handed over to a deserving body of young men. It would be of more use in their pockets than in the coffers of the Government, and if Government could afford to pay anybody, it was the men who might have to lay down their lives in defence of their country. Not only should the mounted men be paid, but the infantryman should be paid at least 5s. for every day he was called out to do duty. He thought that a country that could afford to pay £35,000 a day on departmental administration and have a pension list of £500,000, should be able to afford to pay those men who came forward and might have to lay down their lives in her service. Dealing with the appointment of permanent staff officers, he said there should be a distinct understanding at the outset that their appointments should carry a certain rank, and no more. If not, they would find at the end of a certain period of years that they would have an ever-growing staff of officers drawing big pay and doing little more than clerical work. He alluded to the case of Natal in this connection, and said that at one time they had a staff of grey-headed colonels who did little work besides ordinary office routine. Many of them were on the pension list at the present time. Now, he would come to the native, coloured, and Arab aspects of the question with which they were dealing. He did not think that any measure of the kind would be satisfactory if they left out the bulk of the population. He pointed out that in the case of Natal, one out of every fourteen men would be liable for service under the Bill. For every man that went on the warpath, thirteen would be left behind. Besides, the one man would not be very comfortable knowing that those left behind would be at the mercy of idle and savage men. It bad been stated that the Bill was modelled on Swiss legislation, but he asked whether it would be necessary in Switzerland to place the women and children in laagers for protection? His view was that every able-bodied man in the country should be liable to be called out for active service in case of necessity. Then he thought it was only right that the coloured people should be considered. Clause 7 placed, what he considered, an unnecessary slight on the coloured people, for it placed them on a footing with men who had been convicted of infamous or disgraceful conduct. Many of these people had our blood in their veins, and should take a full share of the responsibilities of the country. The future of the country did not lie with the white race. They had only to look round, and they would be faced with facts. Then there was the Arab trader and the free Indian. It was difficult to know what to do with these people. They should not be left, however, because he was of opinion that they would constitute a source of grave danger. The hon. member went on to refer to Clause 47 dealing with the foundation of a staff college. He was of opinion that at the present time, at any rate, there was no need of such an institution. They had a natural school. Such knowledge as that could not be gained between any four walls of any military college or in the pages of any military text book. The experience of years had shown that transport driving could produce as good soldiers as any college. They had such examples as the men on their Treasury benches as examples of what they could produce, and in Natal they had such men as the Minister of Commerce and Industries. These men were statesmen as well as soldiers. He would like to refer to Clause 49, which stated that all ranks shall be instructed in giving and receiving executive commands in both languages. He hoped it had not come to that state of affairs that anyone referring to the language question was guilty of high treason. Clause 49, in his opinion, pointed to compulsory bilingualism. That had been condemned on both sides of the House, and that being so, where was the cause for that. Were the men in Switzerland compelled to learn to give commands in French and German? Clause 147 of the South Africa Act meant, if it meant anything at all, that all men shall have the right to have the words of command in their own language. There was a chance of considerable ill-feeling being raised by that section of Clause 49. He thought the Minister would be well advised if he struck it out. (Hear, hear.)

said he thought the Bill was one that could be accepted by the country. There was a feeling in the country that every man should be ready at any time to defend the country. The Bill had been accepted whole-heartedly in the part he represented, the only feeling which had led to a little unrest being that the people had an idea that a four years’ military course was going to be enforced. Every man felt that it was necessary that the citizen soldier should be trained to do his work, and he did not think that any person would object to putting in such time of military training as was required to make him an efficient soldier, but he thought the time required for making him efficient should be stated in the Bill definitely, leaving it to the regulations to state how this time was to be put in by the different sections of the community. They could not apply in the towns what they could in the country He was certain it could be so arranged that any man could put in the time required with the least inconvenience, so that at the end of his four years he would be an efficient soldier. The Minister said he would not require all men capable of bearing arms, and for that reason wanted to introduce the ballot and the payment of a pound per annum. That he thought was a mistake, for he thought it was going to bring the Bill into the arena of politics, and people were going to feel that they had a burden that was not a just one. That pound per year was going to do more to destroy that feeling of citizenship and of duty to the State that now existed very largely all over the country. Clause 122 of this Bill provided for the enrolment of a voluntary ambulance corps in time of need. It was not a matter which should be left to volunteers. He certainly thought it was one of the first duties of the Government, when they enrolled their men, that they should at the same time train a large number of men who were capable of rendering aid in time of war. A citizen when he risked his life for his country should not be allowed to lie helpless on the field when wounded. He hoped that the Select Committee when this matter came before them would make provision so that a large number of men shall be trained. They already had such corps, and he was sure the medical faculty would give them every as assistance in teaching men for that duty.

hoped that the Bill would do much to fuse the two races of South Africa together. He congratulated the Minister of Defence, not only on his arduous labours in drafting the Bill, but also on the admirable manner in which he had introduced that Bill. He was glad to see that the Minister had chosen the compulsory rather than the voluntary system, because the latter had proved a failure everywhere, even in Britain. Both sections of the community must feel that they were equally treated, and that they would fight shoulder to shoulder for the defence of their country. To be effective, the man who went into the defence force must be properly trained, and had to undergo a great deal of personal self-sacrifice and perhaps have to leave his business. It was no small matter having to lay down one’s life for one’s country. He held that a military college was necessary in South Africa, and would be of great assistance. They needed a military staff in time of peace, as well as in war. During peace they could study tactics and strategy ; but discipline did not come of itself, and training was necessary. Any man who knew anything of war or its horrors would never advocate it, if it could honourably be avoided. He congratulated the Minister upon having produced such a well-thought out Bill. It might not be perfect, but he thought it would go far towards attaining the object in view. The hon. member spoke of the great value of machine guns in modern warfare especially as illustrated by the Japanese war. The hon. member went on to say that he supported the Bill because it went in the right direction of training the manhood of the nation. He hoped it would never be found that the British and Dutch would be on opposite sides and that the horrible spirit of racialism would be blotted out of existence. (Hear, hear.) As to the regulations, he differed from the Minister in leaving so many matters to be arranged by regulations. He did not imply that the Minister would exercise his enormous power unfairly, but it would give more confidence to the men if his wings were a little clipped. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He hoped the Minister would stand by the principle that the officers should be thoroughly trained. It must be seen that ardent spirits were not shut out from performing duties they were admirably fitted to undertake. Some of the men least looked to had proved the best men in emergencies. Therefore, he submitted that the Minister should provide for promotion from the ranks in all the forces. He endorsed what was said by many Cape Colonists in admiration of their own corps. He had the same admiration for the Natal corps, which had proved efficient and able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best forces. He hoped that the Minister would remember that if he wished to recruit his police from the best services, it would be a great stimulus if he gave them the chance of promotion. Section 60 seemed to him to deserve further consideration. It enabled the Governor-General to suspend the operations of sections 55 to 56 in any military district or sub-district. That meant the suspension of enrolment and training in the district affected. That was a matter that deserved most serious consideration. He would like to say with regard to the gentle stimulus that there should be a graduated scale, so that the poor man should not have to pay as much as the rich. Why should the willing risk his life while the unwilling stayed at home in comfort? That was the defect of the voluntary system, and he hoped that some graduated scale would be brought into force, so that the rich and poor might be treated fairly. A most useful arm of service in modern times was mounted infantry, and if the right hon. member for Victoria West had seen a mounted infantry regiment go into action, he was sure he would change his opinion of the value of that arm of the service. They must also have well-trained artillery. He hoped, in committee, these matters would be so thoroughly thrashed out that the Bill would be almost perfect. He did not quite agree with the retirement of officers. If an officer was going to be dismissed or placed on half-pay, he should have some protection. In the field the Commander-in-Chief must be supreme: but in peace he was sure a Council of Defence was desirable. He thought that if an officer were dismissed he should have the right to ask for a court-martial. He wished most cordially to compliment the hon. Minister on the Bill, and hoped that every member would help to pass that measure, for he would feel satisfaction in the work he was doing, and that they would see this country grow into a great and peaceful country. He hoped the Bill would enable them to successfully preserve their own country and to defend its shores. (Hear, hear.)

moved the adjournment of the debate until to-morrow.

This was agreed to.