from A. J. Fuller, retired on pension in 1905.

for construction of a railway from Koffyfontein, via. Petrusburg, Boshof (between Dealesville and the Roberts Victor Diamond Mine) to Vierfontein.

from M. Power, who was pensioned in 1912.

from Ernst J. W. Wilken, for increase of pension.

from Louis Augustine, late coach painter, South African Railways.

from C. Baxter, gaoler at Uitenhage.

for the introduction of legislation prohibiting the sale of liquor to aboriginal natives.

for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Veto.

called attention to an error in the division list for the “Noes” on the motion by Mr. Silburn for a contribution to the British Navy, on Tuesday, the 26th inst., his name not appearing therein, although he so voted.

having called upon the tellers for the “Noes,” the list was corrected accordingly.

as chairman, brought up a special report of the Select Committee on the Gill College Corporation Bill, as follows: Your committee beg specially to report to the House that they desire permission to amend the preamble of the Bill by inserting in line 36 after “apply the” the words “available net”; by omitting in lines 37 and 39 “in part in providing bursaries for the purpose of assisting students attending the classes of the Gill High School and the balance”; and in line 40 after “School” by inserting “or a High School for Girls in Somerset East”; such amendments being necessary to bring the preamble into conformity with certain amendments which your committee consider necessary in order to give better effect to the obvious intentions of the late Dr. William Gill, founder of the bequest.

On the motion of Mr. FREMANTLE, leave was granted accordingly.

Reports of Surveyors-General and Registrars of Deeds of the various Provinces, 1911.

Text of special resolutions to amplify the articles of association passed by the Standard Bank.

moved, as an unopposed motion, that the eighteenth Order of the Day—adjourned debate on motion for reference of petition of lepers on Robben Island to Government for consideration—be discharged.

seconded.

Agreed to.

rising amid Opposition cheers, said that when the debate was adjourned he was endeavouring to appeal to the House to give its attention to the proposals made by the Minister of Finance in regard to his Budget for the coming year, in which he budgeted, during a time of unexampled prosperity, for a deficit of £670,000. He would just ask this House to remember, in passing, that this was not the whole of the deficit, because the Minister had not yet laid before them the Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure. They would have to add that to the deficit of £670,000. It seemed to be an extraordinary state of affairs that, in such a time, the Minister should come to tell Parliament that he could not pay his way. What was more, he proposed to filch from his reserve in order to apply it to his current expenditure. The Minister had been good enough to explain that in his statement and to print it in a little book which he had circulated amongst members. In his forecast he stated that, with regard to the surplus of £855,000, it must not be forgotten that that surplus was the balance, after taking account of a total contribution of one and a half millions from the Railway and Harbour Fund. He wished to quote the Minister’s own statement there as showing the origin of this fund which he now was going to appropriate, that was the reserve balances, profits made by this country during times of prosperity, to be placed on one side as a reserve to draw upon. He thought the House would agree that in times of prosperity they should set aside savings, in order to assure themselves against emergencies, against depression, against bad times, and against misfortune. That was what all prudent men would do. It was done by private individuals; it was done by companies; they would find banks set aside reserve funds; they, would find even that mining companies set aside reserve funds. They would find all financial institutions adopting this principle in good times; they set aside savings, they built up reserve funds, in order to be in a strong position to meet bad times. If they found a man or an institution during times of great prosperity, when business was good, when the returns from his farm, or his business, or his mine were good, squandering his reserve funds, dissipating the amounts he should set aside to protect himself against bad times, what would the House say? It would be said that he was a foolish fellow. As it was with private individuals and companies, so it was with the State. A wise statesman would set aside, would build up reserve funds in good times, so that he could relieve the burden from the people’s necks when bad times came. The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Merriman) smiled. He had known what it was to have to provide revenus during bad times, when the revenue was knocked from under his feet. It was a thing that might come upon this country; these things might happen, and had happened in other countries of the world. They all knew that progress was never straight up the incline. A country went up, then it got a set-back; then it went up again, and got another set-back. That was the sort of progress that a country made, and they knew that such had been the case in this country of South Africa. Even Joseph, in the days of old, made provision for the lean years. He built up a reserve fund that he guarded in a most jealous fashion. They held that the country was in the position to maintain a reserve fund. He said that it was only an unwise statesman that would not only not build up a reserve fund at the present time, but would squander and dissipate his savings. What was the position of the country? What was the condition of South Africa? He thought that every man in that country would agree that South Africa had been passing through a period of unexampled prosperity. Let them glance at last year. There was a surplus of £855,000. During the current year the Treasurer estimated that he would receive £16,050,000, but he received £17,033,000. nearly a million more than the amount that he estimated. It was true that £459,000 came from increased railway interest, but over half a million of the sum came from the ordinary revenue of the country. It came from Customs, it came from transfers, it came from the mines, and it came from Excise—all the ordinary revenue of the country. That proved that they were passing through a time of prosperity, proved that the people were making money and had to pay extra taxation, proved that the trade of the country was in a state of great prosperity. Even the railway returns showed evidence of prosperity. The Minister of Railways gave an estimate of what he would receive during the year, and though there had been a big reduction in railway rates—amounting to something like £450,000—he received £1,011,000 more than he thought he was going to get. It was another proof of the prosperous period through which the country was passing. Let them take the trade returns. The imports of merchandise showed an increase of not much less than a million pounds; the increase of exports was four millions; an increase in all of five millions sterling. That pointed to a great expansion of trade. That pointed to a great increase in trade, and everybody connected with trade acknowledged that they were enjoying this prosperity. Business men had done well, the farmers had done well, the mines had done well—all were enjoying prosperity. But they knew that this state of affairs could not last for ever, and that they must expect a set-back sooner or later. They knew they were not going up the incline registering increase after increase without getting a set-back at some time. Now, therefore, was the time when the country should reduce its debts. Even if they did not reduce debt, now was the time when they ought to be able to pay the ordinary expenditure of the country out of the ordinary revenue of the country. It was not a time to go back and rob their reserve fund for the current expenditure of the country. They did not ask for inspired finance: they asked for common-sense in the management of the affairs of the country. That £855,000 had been squandered on the ordinary expenditure of the country. It had not been invested in new railways. If it had been spent in connection with the new settlement or irrigation scheme, a good reproductive work would have been left behind. If it had been paid off debt they would have saved £30,000 a year in the ordinary expenditure of the country. His first charge against the Government, against the Treasurer, was that he lacked the courage to come to the House and say that he would keep the reserve fund against the bad times that were sure to come. Of course, he knew that economy was unpopular. But it would be no more unpopular now than it would be a year hence. His hon. friend had told them that he would put on taxation. Well, taxation was unpopular. Surely it was the duty of the Government in the first place to come to that House and lay proposals before it as to how to provide for current expenditure? That was the obvious duty of the Government, and the Government had, therefore, failed in its first duty. If the Government was not going to do it now, when was it going to be done? If South Africa could not pay its way at the present time, when was it going to pay its way? Were they ever likely to be in a better position to pay their way than they were at the present time? If they had to go to the reserve fund now, what would be the position of the Government when that reserve fund was exhausted? They had been told that there would be no further contribution from the railways, though the Act of Union provided for a contribution for a period of four years. What would happen when all the reserves were exhausted? Proceeding, Sir Edgar said that the Treasurer talked about having to tax them some time hence. Why was he afraid to tax them now? If the Estimates included expenditure on irrigation, land settlement, and reproductive works, then the Treasurer might have said it was true they were taking their reserve fund; but the expenditure of the country included a great deal of capital expenditure, which was going to benefit the country, and therefore he was justified. But he was not going to do any of that work out of expenditure. He was going to borrow for it. Soon they were going to have a Loan Bill before the House. These Estimates were for the ordinary expenditure of the country, to keep the country going. There might be some excuse for the Treasurer if he was making some special effort to equalise taxation in South Africa; but he was postponing that. He was going to make no effort to bring about equalisation of taxation in the Union; he was even shirking his duty worse than that, because he was going to put upon the Provinces the question of licences, so that a man was still going to pay one price for a licence in one town and another in another town.

on the cross-benches: So he ought.

So he bought? It seems a strange thing that a man should pay a different price for a licence in different parts of the Union. Proceeding, he said he was of opinion that the Treasuer’s deficit was due to just the ordinary expenditure of the country—nothing unusual; nothing brought from outside; nothing to help the country, but just the ordinary expenditure. That was a serious position for this country. He did not like to question the hon. Minister’s Estimates; it was a serious thing to question them, but he had noticed in his experience of the hon. Minister’s practice of estimating a rather extraordinary procedure of over-estimating expenditure and underestimating revenue. (Opposition cheers and laughter.) Then, when he came back to the House, he said: “Well, when my Estimates were given to you, they looked pretty bad; but now they look much better; so you see what a wonderful man I am.” Over-estimating the expenditure, he thought, was a very dangerous practice, and he would tell them why. If they put a big estimate before a department, they would want to spend it. (Hear, hear.) If they put it at £10, where they only wanted £8, he thought they would find that £9 would be spent. Therefore, it was a dangerous practice. The Treasurer estimated for this year a revenue of £16,112,000. The revenue he actually received last year was £17,033,000. Of course, he was going to receive less from the Railway Department, and so on. That they knew; but it seemed to him that he had made a very conservative estimate of revenue, even assuming he was going to receive £100,000 less from the customs. He was not sure that the Treasurer was hot carrying on his old game of underestimating his revenue, and over-estimating his expenditure, and like little Jack Horner, would tell them what a wonderful man he was (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He would be disappointed if the Minister did not get more than his sixteen millions. However, the main point was that on the Estimates of Expenditure he actually expended last year £16,587,000. He estimated this year to spend £16,782,000, plus whatever came in on his Supplementary Estimates. So far it was £200,000 more. He would ask whether everything possible was being done to reduce expenditure to the least possible figure, before he began talking about drawing on his reserve, and if he had not done so, he would ask him why he should not. He would ask him if he would continue the policy which had been characterised before as one of waste and extravagance. A little time ago the Government of this country brought out a man to inquire into the Provincial finances. He was a man of great experience, and he wondered if the Government ever discussed with him the scale of salaries paid in this country? Any man who knew anything about the work of administration in the different countries of the world would stand aghast at the salaries this country was paying, from the Ministers down, and that with a white population of a million and a quarter. They should not forget their Ministers’ salaries set the example. If their Ministers were paid at a high rate, the same thing must go all through the service. Every other person thought himself entitled to work up to the same point, and until the people tackled that question; until Parliament and until the Government itself tackled that question, they were not going to have economy in the Administration in this country. (Hear, hear.) Any person who would take the trouble to go through the revenue and expenditure in this country could not resist the conclusion that the country could not afford it, and that they could not tax the people of this country sufficiently to continue to pay the present salaries. They found it in the Cape Colony, where they did not even get the present scale. The Ministers were paid £1,500 a year, and when the bad times came they decreased them, and the Minister had to contribute towards the deficit, and even with a lower scale of salaries they found they could not pay their way.

They were doubling their Ministerial salaries; they had doubled a great many others. He wanted to call attention to one or two of these points. Now if the Cape could not pay its way on half these present salaries, could the Union pay its way on the present scale? They were living in a fool’s paradise; and the country could not do it. Next year they might try and go and tax up to the very limit, but they simply could not pay that scale. They were paying the Civil Servant on a scale which they could not continue; and as the Cape had to reduce salaries, so must the Union inevitably have to do it; and no one in his senses could burke that fact. He had tried very hard during the past two or three days to look up a comparison with other countries in that, and he had found it extremely difficult because the basis was so different—in Australia, e.g., they had a Central Government and all the different Colonies under the Federal system, and the same in regard to the U.S.A, and Canada; but he had worked it out with older countries in Europe just for the sake of a rough comparison, and to give hon. members an idea of what the position was. Here in South Africa they spent 16¾ millions a year to administer the affairs of 1¼ millions of white people. Of course, they had the natives, but they could make an allowance in their own minds as to that. Take Germany, which had a population of 65 millions, and an annual expenditure of 142 millions, or £2 3s. per head.

That’s with the Empire.

You must make an allowance for that. Continuing, he said that Great Britain, which had a population of 45 millions, had an annual expenditure of 163 millions, or £3 12s. per head of population, while France, with a population of 39 millions, had an annual expenditure of 170 millions, or £4 7s. per head. Germany was very hard to compare, because they had to provide not only for the kingdoms, but the Empire; and they could allow something for that in that case; but take the case of Great Britain and that of France and let them remember that these countries had an enormous expenditure to meet on military and naval affairs; in Britain that expenditure was nearly one-half of the total. What was our expenditure? It was £13 per head of the white population! They must make their own allowances with regard to the natives. Suppose they allowed four natives to one white man—some people did that—they would have 2½millions, so that instead of £13 per head, it would be £6 10s., and that did not help.

It makes a lot of difference.

It makes a lot of difference; but I mentioned that to start with. Continuing, he said that in Europe Ministers holding important portfolios and managing a very large business for a very large Empire, were getting something like £1,000 a year, while in South Africa they were getting £3,000. They had been told that their services were overcrowded, and that was one of the excuses which had been made. In the interesting little book which he had there the question of the Pensions Vote was mentioned, and it had been found necessary to increase that vote in order to reduce an overcrowded service! He thought that that accounted for that extraordinary return which he had asked for at the beginning of the session, and which had been laid on the table of the House the other day. If hon. members had not got it, he hoped that they would get it, and look at it; and hoped that hon. members on both sides of the House, and especially on the Ministerial side, would take a serious view of that financial question. They (the Opposition) did not keep the Government in office, but the other side did, and if they did so they had to satisfy themselves and their constituents that they were doing so on sound lines. As to the return of all the new appointments made in the Service since Union, they were told that pensions had been increased by £42,000 a year because of the unfortunate necessity of throwing men out of the service, and they had that return of 17 pages of new men who had been appointed to the Service—and all these new men would want a pension afterwards. He should like the Government to explain, and he hoped that some hon. members opposite would insist on an explanation, whether it was not possible to have kept some of these men in the Service who had now been sent out of it, so that it would have been unnecessary to employ these new men? He had taken a rough return of these figures and made it out to be 456—it was about that, although he would not guarantee it—while they were adding £42,000 to their Pension Fund. These two things would not hang together, and wanted an explanation. The chief sinner was the Minister of Justice, the number being 222 in his Department, at a cost of £30,000 a year.

That demanded explanation, especially as to whether some of these people who had been sent out of the service at a cost of £42,000 a year to the country could not have been used to fill up positions now given to fresh men. There was another point. Hon. members could see a little Blue Book that came down from the Public Accounts Committee, in which there was a return of increases in the Railway Department. Therein they would find a list of increases given in the Railway Department to persons in receipt of a salary of £480 per annum and over. There were eighty increases and three decreases. He found that the previous pay of these eighty gentlemen was £82,711, and at present it was £94,790, an increase of £12,079. These were increases of salaries, an average of about £150 a year. It was impossible for them to express an opinion as to the individual increases, but he wished to point out that there was no evidence of economy. When they gave increases of salary to eighty gentlemen totalling £12,000 a year it did not show a condition of affairs that reflected economy and retrenchment. There was rather evidence that people had got full purses, and of a time when they could scatter money. (Opposition cheers.) He had tried to point out that, in his opinion, there was great waste, that there was extravagance in the administration of public affairs, and no serious attempt to economise, and that our expenditure was swollen. The plan he suggested to the Minister of Finance was this, if he put before the House extravagant estimates and then came to the House and said: “You have got to pay this, and you have got to be taxed to pay this,” the House would then take a lively interest in the proceedings. The Government would have to explain why they had voted new taxes. Hon. members opposite would take an interest in the items of expenditure, and if they found that they were not justified they would oppose them. The present position was that the Minister said: “This talk of extravagrance is all Opposition talk; there is nothing in it; trust me; it is all right; the expenditure is all right; you won’t have any more taxes; I shall get the money.” What next? There would be nothing left in the reserve fund. The Minister was going to use it up now. Did not hon. members see that the time was being put off. A year hence the Minister would inevitably have to come forward with an income tax and a land tax. The reserve fund would have gone. His expenditure had remained swollen. There would be no way of economy. There would be a heavy deficit, and there would certainly be an income tax, and a land tax, for they could not have an income tax without a land tax: the right hon. member for Victoria West had found that out.

He predicted with perfect confidence that hon. members opposite would then wake up out of their fools’ paradise and turn on the Minister and want to know why this was not explained before. Outside the gates of fools’ paradise there was generally a deep gulf, and the man who got outside it was generally found in the gulf. (Ministerial laughter.) The Minister had told them that he could not reduce his expenditure. His reply to that was that if he had the courage to ask Parliament to pay, members of Parliament would have had their own voice in saying whether the expenditure should be reduced or not. He had pointed out that the country was enjoying unequalled prosperity and that farmers, business men, and the mines were doing well. Yet the country could not nay its way, and the Minister had to come before them with practically a confession of bankruptcy. (Ministerial laughter.) They saw little evidence in the Estimates of what they heard a great deal of from the platform and at after-dinner speeches. It was all a fools’ paradise. They could not object to hon. members opposite living in a fools’ paradise if they liked to. Unfortunately they had to suffer with them.

We are in’ the paradise, and you are in the gulf. (Ministerial laughter.)

said that they saw little development. He could always understand Ministers smiling on the House. They had every reason to do so. They had voted themselves magnificent salaries. They had got a very obedient lot of supporters. They were being kept in office, and could afford to laugh at the poor fellows who had to pay. (Laughter.) So that they had every reason for joy. He thought that the day of reckoning was coming. As soon as the taxation came the question would be raised by hon. members opposite and by their constituents. In the meantime he believed that Ministers enjoyed their position; their faces were wreathed in smiles. He asked what had been done in the way of real development. They heard occasionally of the Australian example. Australia had done marvellous things. It used to import foodstuffs and was now exporting them to the value of millions of pounds. It was an example worth following. (Labour cheers.) What were they doing? We were talking and getting precious little else but talk.

The chief feature of the trade returns-given them by the Minister of Finance was that South Africa exported 55 million pounds’ worth of goods every year. With this we had to pay the interest on our debt and for the goods we imported. Out of the 55 millions, 43 millions represented gold and diamonds, leaving 12 millions for South African produce. Our mines, let them last as long as they liked, were necessarily temporary. (Hear, hear.) What would our position be when the mines were worked out if we still continued to export only 12 millions worth of produce, as against our present debt and the necessities of the country in other ways. That would leave us in an absolutely unsound position, for we should be a bankrupt country if the mining exports were cut off. (Hear, hear.) It was essential that our exports of produce should be increased, so as to make up for the deficiency. But what steps were the Government taking, and what steps did the House find indicated in the Estimates to increase the development of the country? The Minister of Finance had given them a dissertation as to what the Government intended to do with regard to Provincial Government. He (Sir Edgar) would not discuss that, because it did not affect these Estimates by a penny, and the proper time to discuss that matter was when the Government laid its proposals before Parliament in the shape of a Bill. Another and’ a stronger reason for not discussing that matter at the present time was that the financial position of the country demanded the earnest consideration of the House. He hoped the House would not be side-tracked into a discussion of Provincial Council affairs, and thus have its attention diverted from the consideration of the expenditure of the country. In the meantime, he would like the Minister of Finance to tell them what would be the effect of these proposals on the Treasury? Then, how did the Minister propose to deal with the debt? In all departments with which the Minister of Finance was connected, they had full details of the expenditure; but for the Department of Railways, they had no details at all. That was not treating Parliament with proper respect. Parliament was entitled to details.

I am going to give them to you.

said the Minister of Finance also alluded to the question of the 4½ and 5 per Cent. Cape Stocks, but what he said did not convey much information to the holders of those stocks. He hoped the Minister would not delay bringing his proposals before Parliament. He agreed with the Minister entirely as to the legal position, and that the holders were entitled to some consideration, for they had been under some misapprehension. The matter should be settled as early as possible. The position in regard to the floating debt was not sound, and had not been so for some years. That was not the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, nor was it his (Sir Edgar’s), neither was it that of his hon. friend (Mr. Merriman), but the issue of Treasury Bills should be a temporary expedient for raising money, as it was considered to be in Europe. Here we had Treasury Bills running for years. All that debt should be consolidated and if they on the Opposition side of the House could give any assistance in that matter, they would do so. The railway question he must leave to some of his friends, but he would just throw out a suggestion with regard to the extraordinary returns about the railway workshops; he was sure there was something wrong about those returns (Cheers.) He had been associated with workmen all his life, and he knew perfectly well that piecework did make a difference—the difference between the Minister of Railways running to catch a train and walking. (Laughter.) If they put a man on piecework, he had to run instead of walking, and he had to work his very hardest. (Hear, hear.) He wondered how the Ministers would get on if they were all put on piecework. (Cheers and laughter.) Then there might be a surplus of men in some of the railway workshops. He would make a suggestion to the Minister of Railways. The Minister of Lands was carrying through a Land Settlement Bill. If any of the railway men had to be retrenched, why not make settlers of them, for a first-class set of workmen they were? (Hear, hear.) The hon. member might prefer to throw these men out into the streets, and send them to Australia and elsewhere. Then they would have the Minister of Lands advertising for settlers from oversea.

He wanted to say a few words about the position as regards the railways. In 1909 the earnings were £10.157,000. That yielded a gross profit of £4,745,000. In 1911, two years afterwards, the earnings had gone up to £12,163,000, an increase of £2.000,000, but the profits had gone up by £100.000 odd, less than £200,000. The rates had been reduced, and the expenditure had gone up, and he wanted to point out that there was every probability that they were going to come down again to the figures of 1909. If that were the position, and they went down again to the figures of 1909, and took the Estimates given in the Budget, he would say that they would be in a very parlous state. They were decreasing their earnings and increasing their expenditure. Now, as to the returns this year, the Minister estimated his expenditure at £8,361,000, and the earnings at £12,116,000. That was a worse position than last year by £1.115.000. What he wanted to urge upon Parliament was that these figures were high figures, that there was a very high estimate, that they could not possibly maintain these figures, that their expenditure was based upon the very highest revenue of the country, and that the country could not keep up to that. So it came back to the same position, that this country could not maintain its present scale of expenditure; it must reduce its scale of expenditure. The Minister of Finance had told them that he was not prepared to reduce it, and unless this House reduced the expenditure, unless this House took these things in hand, the estimates of expenditure, and systematically reduced them, item by item, they had got to face taxation next year, and not only got to face taxation, but taxation which was not necessary, for with prudence and ca.re, their revenue was sufficient to pay for the whole administration of the country. (Cheers.)

who rose amidst cheers, said he did not think he had ever enjoyed a speech so much as that of the hon. member who had just sat down. (Laughter.) It did him good to hear him talking about the virtues of economy and all the other things, and warning people against overstrained estimates. He could not help remembering a few years ago. Now he had drawn a picture of the Treasurer as a kind of light-hearted spendthrift, who was going to work scattering money all over the country. His (Mr. Merriman’s) idea of the Treasurer was quite different—that of a good man struggling with adversity. (Laughter.) His natural bent was towards economy, coupled with efficiency. He was a colleague of the Minister of Railways, both of them fighting the good fight of economy, only the difference was this: The Minister of Railways fought for economy with the outside public, and was enabled to indulge his fondness for saying “No,” and he did it with very great effect and very much to the advantage of the country; and the poor Treasurer, on the other hand, had to tight his battle for economy with his colleagues, and he did not find it so easy to say “No.” (Hear, hear.) Somebody came with a proposal for a wild goose expedition to the South Pole to look for bears, or something of that sort. (Laughter.) The Treasurer knew in his heart that it was all rubbish, but he was obliged to give way to it. (Renewed laughter.) He insured a man’s life at a fancy premium, and the beans, he had no doubt, would turn up in time, and it would be to the advantage of this country. (Laughter.) He must say he wished to congratulate the Treasurer upon his statement, and to express the very great satisfaction with which he had listened to him. He had not, if he might say so, that somewhat breezy and offensive style that he had last year, and he appeared to him (Mr. Merriman) to be chastened a great deal by the experiences he had gone through, whether inside or outside the Cabinet, he did not know, but there it was. He thought the thanks of the House were due to him for having given them a perfectly—he thought this was the word he used—“lucid” statement of the affairs of this country, a perfectly clear statement. If he differed from him (the Minister) in one or two of the deductions that he drew from his statement, he would forgive him (Mr. Merriman), he knew, and he would forgive him if he remembered that last year, after he had attacked him with horse, foot, and dragoons for some of the criticisms he had made, just after the House had risen he endorsed those criticisms with far more eloquence than he (Mr. Merriman) could have used with reference to the inflated expenditure and estimates wholly beyond the resources of this country. (Hear, hear.) His hon. friend had dealt so exhaustively with the details of the Budget statement, that he did not think he should go very much into those. He would only like to say that really he could not endorse the Treasurer’s claim that he made every economy—(hear, hear)—for the great economy and the enormous efforts that he made in retrenchment. It reminded him very much of another distinguished statesman, who used to occupy a seat in an adjoining room, and who used to talk about the economies he had carried out, and, actually, the economies they got were nothing. What economies had they got? The mountain had been in labour, and the ridiculous mouse of £108,000, nominal, solely nominal, had been brought forth. Well, that didn’t seem to be very much. There was Agriculture, £250,000. Well, the question of East Coast fever was set out so lucidly in the memorandum that was attached to the Estimates that he would not go into details, but hon. members could read it for themselves. It did not bear out the reduction. Then there was an increase of £45,000 for printing, and so the printing of the country cost nearly a quarter of a million a year—he thought the amount, to be exact, was £245,000. Well, he did not see very many signs of economy in that direction. Whether the Treasurer was egging it on, or whether somebody was screwing it out of the Treasurer he did not know. Then pensions showed an increase of £42,000. He could quite understand that if they were going in for reductions of establishment that pensions, in this country, must naturally follow, and he hoped that before the House rose they would have that pension business placed upon a sound and business basis. If they were going on for another year it would mean great extravagance Sooner or later they would come to a dead stop with regard to pensions. The amount had now reached £600,000 a year. Therefore, they had £250,000 a year in printing and £600,000 a year in pensions, which brought the total to £850,000 a year. The point he wished to make about this business was that, of course, they knew that these pensions were unavoidable. But why should they turn out men with one hand and pay them pensions, and put in more men with another hand? That did not appear to be sound economy. It did not appear to be economy-at all. He did not know whether it was efficiency. In fact it was not efficiency, because they took the heart out of people in the service for the reason that a man never knew when he was safe. He did say that they were looking to the Minister of the Interior—he did not want to press him unduly—to bring forward that measure in connection with the service. In the interests of the Government and the interests of his colleague the Treasurer he (the speaker) thought he would be doing well to bring that measure forward. (Opposition hear, hears.) Then they had an increase of £95,000 under the heading of police. There was a Bill on the subject to come before the House, and he supposed they would have an opportunity of saying something further on this point when the measure was brought forward. They were departing further and further from the good old principle that each place ought to be responsible for its own good management. He wanted to know whether any place, with its Government police, was more orderly than Durban, which controlled its own force. Now, they wanted to make the police into a little civil army to move about the country and be directed from headquarters, and that was going to increase the expenditure under that head. He had always held that view, and that was the view he took of the matter at the present time. He thought it best for localities to take a share in the management of its police—he meant the ordinary police who made provision in the case say of a man who was knocked down and so on. He must say that, looking at the Estimates and ’ after hearing the discussion with regard to the Barbary ostriches, that it was strange that the Minister of Finance should pat his colleague on the back for economy in the Department of Agriculture.

He just wanted to draw attention to the fact that the surplus was due entirely to the railway contribution. He (the speaker) was in favour of the railways contributing a fair share to the Government of the country. The railways should help the Government in reason, but should not always be looked to for a lump sum as a sort of donation. He was very much amused at the Treasurer saying that he had received a sort of present from his friend the Minister of Railways of £300,000. But that was not the way he should look at it. The railways were a part of the Government of the country, and the railways belonged to the taxpayers of the country, and if it was right to take that money from the railways then it was not a question of the liberality of one Minister—he took it that it was a figure of speech on the part of his hon. friend the Treasurer—to fill up the void of another. Continuing, the right hon. gentleman referred to the fact that the Estimates did not work out quite correctly, for if the revenue had been what it was estimated, it would be the Treasurer would have been short of something like £535,000, because the ordinary expenditure of the year was more. The original estimate was £16,587,000, and there would have been a deficiency. Of course, the sum secured from the railway made all the difference, but why talk about economy? The expenditure last year was £16,587,000, and this year it was put at £16,782,000, without taking into consideration the Supplementary Estimates and the sum for Treasury Bills, which he supposed would amount to £75,000. He might say that he could not quite follow his hon. friend in his remarks with regard to the debt. Then he presumed there would be some borrowings—quite natural, too—during the year. At any rate, he would have to face the Supplementary Estimates. Then the Minister for Defence had quite candidly told the House that he thought he had underestimated the cost of the defence scheme. At any rate, these things did not appear to him to be rigid economy. He would only say that to the Treasurer, and give him the hint if he would take it. Continuing, he said that he listened with a great deal of pleasure to the speech of the Minister of Railways and Harbours in introducing his Budget, and the best part of his speech was when he described the operations of that body which had gone round the workshops of the country. He thought that that Commission deserved the best thanks of the House. He (the speaker) had thought, while listening to the Minister, what a good thing it would be if they had Commissions going through all the departments of the country. They would be able to tell the House how many men were doing the dockyard stroke—(laughter)—how many men were redundant, and how many men were writing letters to each other. What a saving it would be to the country! But why only touch these men in the workshops; were they any worse than the other fellows? (Laughter.)

They had got now 57,000 people drawing Government pay in this country, out of an adult white population of 376,000. Let them do a little sum in arithmetic, and see how many men they had got to work to keep a Civil ’Servant. And in that 57,000 they did not include those well-paid gentlemen in this and another Chamber, nor the Civil pensioners, amounting alone to over 3,000; and in the railways there was no doubt a very considerable number. Altogether, they would be well within the mark when they said that out of that male population of 376,000, 60,000 were drawing Government pay. Would they tell him, in the face of that, that there was no room for a Commission such as that which went through the workshops? Were the workshops the only places to be inquired into? Were there no redundant people anywhere else? Were there no half-time people anywhere else, and was not the key of that to be found in the Estimates before them? They had got enormous Estimates before them. His hon. friend once described them in language which he could not command as “inflated Estimates, altogether beyond the resources of this country.” Well, the Estimates were just as inflated as they were then, and the resources of the country were, he ventured to say, not much improved; and yet they had these Estimates to consider. He would not do it, but if some person were asked to describe what Union was, he might say the outward and visible sign of Union was those sumptuous buildings now going up in Pretoria, and the inward, and spiritual grace was that sign of extravagance that keyed up the high salaries all over the land. (Laughter.) And how long would the country stand it? And was that the best way of spending their money if they had any to spend? He did not think it was. They were now going in for something like £200,000 or £300,000 more expenditure than last year. He did not think it was right and did not think it was safe; but he would say this, he was sure the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton), had his tongue in his cheek when he recommended the members of the House to devote the greatest attention to the Estimates, and out them down. Had he ever known any Estimates to be cut down in that House? No, not at all.

He wanted to draw attention to one point in these estimates which should receive great attention, and that was the crude proposals which were thrown into the Treasurer’s Budget speech—hauled in by the neck and shoulders; proposals to set their local government right. He could tell him they had given the greatest dissatisfaction in the country. They felt it did not do two things. It neither settled the question of local government and neither did it do anything of which they had promises; which the Prime Minister had promised on platforms and which, he understood, was a cardinal point in the programme of the Government, and that was to equalise taxation. On the contrary, it destroyed that part altogether. (Opposition cheers.) He hoped the Treasurer would be warned and would not believe that those crude proposals were the be-all and end-all of a matter of this kind. They were not. If he wanted to do it deliberately and wanted to set abroad an anti-Union spirit in this country these principles would do it. They must have justice in this matter, not only to a part of the country, but to all, and he wished strongly to lay that before the Treasurer and the Government. (Hear, hear.) He spoke as a friend on that matter entirely. If they wanted to do anything to foster the spirit of Union they must have local government, and local government was of no use unless they had local taxation, and they must also have equalisation of taxation in this country. Another thing he thought, it was most unfortunate that those proposals should have been sandwiched, or, to use an old word, spatchcocked, into the discussion, because they had nothing to do with it. He must also take leave to compliment the Treasurer upon his management of the debt. He thought he had done well with it. He had reduced his permanent debt, though, of course, he had added to his floating debt. And here let him say that they had got to make bricks without straw. They had got a report from that body, the Public Debt Commissioners, and a more miserable report he did not think it was possible to place before them. (Laughter.) There was nothing to show how much floating debt they had, what kind of debt they had, or what the operations of that body had been. Who was responsible for that report? He did not know. It was not the Treasurer, for it was not his style. If he had reported on the debt it would have been something much more pretty and much more forcible. (Laughter.). But who was responsible? It was not the style of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central. It was not sufficiently involved for him; but the sooner they had that statement the better. And again he must say he did not think the Treasurer did himself full justice, or the country full justice, because he neglected, except by some side issue, to point out what extraordinarily large assets they held against that debt. The debt he put down at £114,000.000, and they held £15,000,000 in assets. The Sinking Fund he had mentioned; then they had local loans of £406,000; half the School Board loans; irrigation loans of £304,000: repatriation loans of £1,800,000—he took it at half-a-million, and they would be lucky if they got that. Then they had the land banks; it had proved a good liquid security—these were perfectly safe; cash for two millions and mortgage bonds in the Cape Colony for land sold, which were paid up regularly, and there was no difficulty in getting the interest—£715,000—making in all over 12 millions, exclusive of that nest-egg that the Minister of Railways and Harbours had invested some where or other, which was a few more millions. He thought they would be perfectly safe in saying that their liabilities for the permanent debt would not be more than 100 millions, which he thought ought to be brought out because it improved their position and security very greatly indeed. He entirely approved of what the Minister had said about" the Sinking Fund and carrying the surpluses in the future, because the more they could reduce their debt the better, and they must never forget what the condition of that country was, and that they must reduce their debt when they could, because the prosperity of that country—the very existence of that country as a financial entity—was based upon one thing, and one thing only, i.e., the mining industry—or upon a gradually diminishing security. It might be long, and they hoped it would be long, before it went off altogether; but under those circumstances to pile up a debt without any idea of reducing it would be an act of madness. He also approved of what the Minister had said about local borrowings. Let him give a warning about small amounts, because he had once done that—down to £25—and he got only one person to take it up. (Laughter.) He would like an answer from the Minister as to the policy of the Debts Commissioners in selling good six per cent securities—of course they could not sell bad securities—because he did not understand lit—securities which were as good as gold—and re-investing the money at 3½ per cent. It did not seem to be good business. He dared say that there was some explanation, but it did not seem to him to be good policy.

Proceeding, he said that the state of the country, in one way, was revealed by the trade returns, and they were well deserving of study by everybody. He wished he could have the time to go very fully into the matter; he did not wish to take up the time of the House unduly, but he wanted to draw the attention of the House to some very curious facts. Now, in the Cape last year, they imported, exclusive of specie, 38 millions sterling and exported 54½millions, or, in all, a trade value of 92 millions for the Cape. Well, he must say that that was a surprising improvement upon anything they had before, and it was remarkable from many points. If they took the trade values of all the other Dominions of the British Empire—people richer and more enterprising than we were—and saw what they came at per head of population, they would find that the Commonwealth had a trade value of 133 millions sterling with a population of 4,449,000. or £30 per head; New Zealand, a trade value of 39 millions with a population of 1, 008,000, or a trade value per head of £39. Canada worked out at £21 per head on the same basis. Now, if they took an average of £30 per head, and multiplied our white population by that, they got £38,340,000. which was our trade value upon that basis, leaving 54 millions sterling to be accounted for by the 4,680,000 non-European population—natives and coloured people. They then got a trade value of 11. 5 for these people, which came out at nearly what they had presumed—three natives to one European. That, he thought, was a very curious confirmation of the estimates which had been made from time to time.

He would now turn to imports. Perhaps some of his agricultural friends would explain a point in regard to imports. Unfortunately our food imports had increased a good deal this year, but the funny thing he could not understand was that we heard such a tremendous lot about butter, and the enterprise of the Agricultural Department, and the enterprise of the farmer, but the imports of butter had increased. Why? In 1911 we imported £192,000 worth of butter, and in 1910, £178,000 worth; that was, apparently, £14,000 worth of butter more this year than last. (An HON. MEMBER: “Drought.”) Oh, no! There had been unexampled prosperity. He had been to agricultural shows, or had read some of the speeches made at agricultural shows, and everybody was patting himself on the back over the wonderful enterprise and progress in dairying. (An HON. MEMBER: “The population has increased.”) He had no doubt that there was a very good explanation; but it was not satisfactory. (Opposition cheers.) Of course, it was not as bad really as on first sight it would seem. Neither were any of these figures; because one must always take away from imports the re-exports, which amounted to a great deal. For instance, in butter, this year we re-exported £19,000 worth, out of which, he was sorry to say, South African butter only figured at £1,209. That left the net imports at £173,000. as against £154,000 last year. It was still above last year’s figure. Why? He thought it very poor, especially when Australia the same year exported £4,000,000 worth of butter. We had a long way to make up. He hoped that we were on the track now. Another point that he would like to ask the Minister of Commerce was whether he could spare the time—he knew he had many engagements and had a wet towel round his head to try to understand his Weights and Measures Act—daughter)—whether he could pay a little attention to this business of extending our markets. We were getting no information as to what was going on in Belgian Congo, German South-west Africa, and Portuguese East Africa, all of which were important markets for our produce. This might be considered a trifle, and hardly worth noticing amongst the large matters with which we had to deal, but he could assure the Minister that this was not the case. We were sending to German South-west Africa £118,000 worth of produce, to Portuguese East Africa £62,000 worth, and even to the Belgian Congo about £5,000 worth of goods. We had to look after all these markets, but he had tried, and he was sure other people had tried, in vain to get any information about them. We knew nothing of the people or what they were likely to take. We spent a lot of money on various things, but he thought that it would be within the function of the Minister of Commerce to try to get some information on these matters. German South-west Africa alone took £61,000 worth of food and drink, South African produce, farmers’ produce. It was a valuable market for farmers. It ought to be an increasing market. All that he knew was that he was likely to get his goods pilfered if sent up there. It was eminently a matter for the Minister of Commerce: he had got functions he knew. (Laughter.) That was what he was there for; he had to make the business himself. Animals were sent to German South-west Africa to the value of £29,000: every farmer ought to be interested. But we didn’t know anything about that. Butter, £5,000; and so forth. Now, our wine!

Would they Jet him say a word about wine? He had never seen a more deplorable thing than wine in this country. It had steadily gone down. (Several HON. MEMBERS: “Where?”—Loud laughter.) Well, not down the throats of our customers. The exports were steadily decreasing. As far back as 1821—he was not going to lead them down the stream of time—we exported £80,000 worth of wine. We exported £13,000 last year. It was steadily decreasing, and that although the quality of the wine was supposed to be improving; he thought it was. Nothing was done to open a market for it anywhere. He had no great faith in the Government opening markets, but if we had a Minister of Commerce, that was his business. We had no information. We had not even got a report from the Minister. Let him turn the Minister’s attention—he knew that he was a farmer himself—to how it would encourage the farmers to supply them with a little information. We were opening a trade in wine in New Zealand, the value exported being £5,300 last year, in competition against Australian wine. But if we looked to the United Kingdom, our exports had sunk from £80,000 to below £1,000,. while Australia’s had risen to £121,000, although our wine was better. He did not understand the thing at all. There was some great mistake about it, because this was really a serious matter. People were inclined to laugh whenever wine was mentioned. But it was an important industry, employing thousands. The farmers were handicapped by the Government in not extending the Adulteration Act and the Excise. That was a great handicap. At present Cape wine of an inferior kind was taken to Johannesburg, and doctored with sugar cane and sugar spirit, although we had a law in this country with a view to improving the wine. Was that fair? And how were we to subsist under that? Was that encouraging an important industry of that kind? He wondered whether the Minister of Commerce knew that quite recently, in deference, no doubt, to opinions expressed in the House by the hon. member for Tembuland, a gentleman had now set up a large manufactory, where he was turning out a large quantity of inspissated grape juice; primary wine was used? It was an article altogether to itself, which could be manufactured here more cheaply than elsewhere, and which he had no doubt would be very valuable indeed. Then, turning to the question of dried fruit; things of that sort ought to grow more and more. From Spain, they exported more than a million pounds’ worth in a year. Here we were in the background. Somebody produced a few samples, but nobody knew where to send. Nothing was advertised, and they did not know where to look for markets. He did not see how Government could be expected to do everything of that sort; it was not directly the business of the Government, but the country spent money for that purpose. For Heaven’s sake let the Department do something—(laughter)—even if it were only a little.

One could go on with these trade statistics and the lessons they taught for a long while, but his time was short. He wanted to come to only one other point, and that was the mining industry. He did not think people realised what an enormous value the mining industry was to this country. Did people know that out of 54 millions of our exports the produce of the mines amounted to no less than 45 millions, of which gold represented 35 millions. The whole of Australia only exported 21 million pounds’ worth of gold. We were by far the most important gold-producing country in the Empire. It was a melancholy reflection to think that the produce of the land of South Africa amounted to only £9,200,000, while that of the mines totalled £45,300,000. He would like to see the things exactly reversed—(cheers)—as they were in Australia. We had not reached four millions worth of wool yet, only a slight increase on what it was in 1874. Australia exported 28 millions worth of wool last year, so that in one sense it was gloomy to see how entirely the prosperity of this country depended on mining produce. (Cheers.) It was, of course, a good thing to have the mines—better to have them than not to have them, but to depend on mines was to depend on a broken reed. That was a very dangerous thing, and some day or other we should find it out. The white labour on the mines was slightly diminishing. The House was hampered by not having proper returns as to the mines. The last return gave the details regarding white, but not coloured labour. The return was wholly imperfect if one went into it in a systematic way. In December, 1911, we had 35,000 white people employed on the mines in the Union, as against 32,000 in February, 1912. No information was given as to the shortfall, but he thought the first return included the River diggers while the last return did not. Take the gold mines. In December, 1911, there were 25,713 white workers on the gold mines, as against 25,424 in February last. While there had been no expansion of white labour, in the same time the number of native labourers rose from 194,000 to 206,000.

The most satisfactory part of the mining industry was coal, which produced £1,867,000, which was a very respectable output indeed for coal. We exported coal and that was one of the things we did better than Australia. We exported a million’s worth, which was equal to the Commonwealth of Australia, and we ought to do better, and he hoped the Minister of Railways and Harbours would see that we did better, because the Minister held the key to the position. (Hear, hear.) We produced practically the cheapest coal in the world. The Transvaal produced coal at 4s. 6d. a ton, the Commonwealth 7s. 6d., New Zealand 10s. 4d., Canada 10s. 8d., the United Kingdom 8s., and the United States 6s. He took these figures from an Australian report, and it showed that if we could get our coals to the ports we ought to command the market in the Argentine. (Hear, hear.) It was a very important matter, because in our coalfields we had a source of extreme wealth, and fond as he was of gold mining coal mining was a more wholesome thing, because, after all, coal was a useful thing. (Laughter.) Gold was no use—you could not warm yourself with it. (Laughter.) You could make iron by the use of coal. It was interesting to see the difference in the results of our mines. We employed in mining in 1911 232,000 people, and we produced 35 millions worth of gold, or at the rate of £151 worth per head. Australia employed 50,000 people, and produced £12,600,000 worth, or at the rate of £230 per head. (Hear, hear.)

In Victoria the rate worked out at £149 per head and in Western Australia £400 per head. He wanted to draw attention to Victoria, because, after all, when they spoke of Australia most of them considered Victoria and New South Wales. There they found the white workman employed on poor reefs, very much like ours here.

No, not at all.

How do you mean? At any rate they produce £149 per head and ours is £151, with the native included. Proceeding, he said they were always talking about wages, if we could only have a white population. He had no doubt that we could have a white population here if they took Australian wages. But they did not.

And Australian prices.

continuing, said that shift bosses in Johannesburg were paid 25s. a day. In Victoria they were paid 10s. to 12s. In Western Australia, which was probably as expensive as Johannesburg, they got 16s. 6d. A shaft sinker in Johannesburg got on contract 50s. per day. He got in Victoria 8s. 4d. dry and 9s. 2d. wet. In Western Australia he got 11s. 8d. to 15s., or wet ground 12s. to 16s. 8d. Smiths got here 20s.: in Victoria 8s. 4d.; carpenters here got 20s.; and in Victoria 8s. 4d.

Now take Queensland, where you have the largest mining fields.

My friends do not like the figures. I can imagine that they do not like the figures, but it is a misfortune to us that all our things, just as the revenue of this country and the expenditure of this country are keyed up to extraviagant prices and extravagant salaries, so everything is keyed up to the watered capital of the mines in this country. Look at Australia and see how with these low wages and low reefs they pay dividends. Why? Because labour is cheap and because the capital is kept down. They are working 4,000 feet deep in Victoria in many mines, and still pay dividends upon these prices and wages.’ It is a great misfortune for us that we have started on our magnificence. We are grand people in this country, and the consequence is that the whole of our expenditure and everything else is worked up to this extravagant basis. You keep everything down because you are obliged to keen such a heavy edifice at the top.

We are face to face with this, and that is why I introduce the question again to draw the attention of the House to the appalling calamity which is threatening us in that miners’ phthisis. Anyone who has read the Report of that Commission must have seen that it means an extraordinary amount of expenditure to this country, and we have only touched the fringe of the question yet, because we have not looked at the native. (Hear, hear.) I cannot describe to you what I feel when I think that we are fond of talking to these people as our children and giving them no voice in this House, because we represent their interests, and yet these natives were not touched by that Commission, there was no examination of their state, there was no account taken of the man who has to go to the end of the drive and work the machine while his overseer is sitting some distance away. I think it is a great blot upon our administration, which will be remedied no doubt in future. We cannot deal with this question solely on the basis of the 25,000 white people who are in the mines. You must treat it also on the basis of the 206,000 natives who are equally affected by this insidious disease. Continuing, Mr. Merriman said it was a very serious question for this country, and he was glad to think that a Bill was to be introduced at once, and he hoped the matter would receive the gravest consideration at the hands of this House, because he saw in that the germs of a question which might disarrange the Treasurer’s Budget and disarrange a great deal of the welfare, he would not say the fictitious, but the adventitious welfare, upon which the prosperity and the extravagant expenditure of this country, public and private alike, was built up. But it would have to be tackled. He bad spoken, he was afraid, at too great length, but he felt that it was incumbent up on somebody to draw attention to the two lessons which were learned from this Budget. ’One was the dependence that we placed in this country solely upon mining, the enormous value that the mines were to us, and how completely the prosperity of this country and the whole fabric of our society was built up on this industry which had come to us by the gift of Providence. Another thing he wanted to point out was that our expenditure was up to our revenue, was ahead of our revenue, and that was a dangerous thing for this country, a very dangerous thing indeed. He would like, in closing, to give the words of somebody else, words which expressed his own feeling and what he hoped were the feelings of everybody: “An excess in the public expenditure beyond the legitimate wants of the country, is not only a pecuniary waste, but a great political, and, above all, a great moral evil. It is a characteristic of the mischiefs that arise from financial prodigality that they creep onwards with a noiseless and stealthy step, that they commonly remain unseen until they have reached a magnitude absolutely overwhelming.” He commended these words to his hon. friend the Treasurer. If his hands wanted strengthening in the way of economy he could rely upon it that he (the speaker) would do what he could. He knew how distasteful it was to preach this policy of economy. He had done it for many years. He (the speaker) had seen waves of prosperity when people went mad, and went in for large expenditure, and then had come times of depression when everybody went running about crying, not knowing whom to blame. Still, he believed it to be the duty of any one who had knowledge, as he had, of what had taken place in that country, to impress upon the House the necessity for economy, and to impress upon the Government the necessity of economy and the necessity of being wise in time instead of rushing on until disaster came. (Cheers.)

said that he had listened with attention and pleasure to the very able and interesting speech that had been delivered by the right hon. member for Victoria West. (Hear, hear.) He shared with others in the disappointment, which he believed would be felt throughout the country, at the fact that the Minister of Finance in a time of prosperity in South Africa should have been faced with a deficit of £600,000, after taking into the account the large amount drawn from the railways. In other words, the Treasurer had received from the railways something like £850,000 all told, and notwithstanding the prosperity of the country and the rising revenue he had budgeted for a deficiency of £630,000. He proposed to make up this deficit by taking the surplus of £855,000 of 1910-11, entirely ignoring the fact that this surplus was appropriated by Parliament during the last session. He (the speaker) had before him the speech which his right hon. friend delivered last session, in which he said that he proposed to lay before Parliament the Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure on public works and other services. Portion of the amount used, he had said, would be the surplus of £478,000 from the ten months period, and altogether a sum of £750.000 was included. Well, he (Mr. Jagger) had the Supplementary Estimates before him, in which was appropriated the amount which the Treasurer proposed to make up the deficiency this year.

Where is the Bill?

There is no question about the Appropriation Bill.

Where is it?

It appropriates this very money.

Where is it?

There is no getting over it. Does the Treasurer disown the speech which he made last year?

Where is the Bill?

said he did believe the time would come when the Treasurer would refrain from having his speeches printed. (Laughter.)

Where is the Appropriation Bill?

continuing, said that not only would there be a feeling of disappointment throughout the country, but he would like to ask the Treasurer what effect such a state of affairs would have on the credit of the country? It was almost inconceivable that in a time of prosperity, and with a rising revenue, that the Treasurer should have to fall back on a surplus to make both ends meet. He should either have gone in for a reduction of expenditure, or should have imposed further taxation; but he simply took the line of least resistance, and put off the evil day. He (the speaker) had not the slightest doubt that when the Treasurer came forward with his proposals next year, he would impose taxation through the Customs, for the reason that it presented to him the line of least resistance. It was much easier to raise money by indirect taxation than direct taxation—it was the line of least resistance. He had no doubt that when the Treasurer came forward next year, he would draw upon the Customs in order to make good the deficit. His hon. friend had talked a great deal about the remission of taxation that had taken place since Union came into vogue. What did those remissions amount to? £390,000 was the actual remission of taxation in the Cape; there was £586,000 accounted for by the reduction of railway rates, and £180,000 the assumed sinking fund, or a total of £1,150,000. He granted that these reductions were large; there was no question about that. When pluming himself on these reductions, his hon. friend forgot that he was budgeting for a deficit, though a wave of prosperity was passing over the country. Of course, as he had said before, the Minister had always been; a fortunate Treasurer. He had always budgeted in times of prosperity. Even, when he was Minister of Finance in the Transvaal, that Province was passing through, a season of prosperity. He had not passed through such troublous times as his hon. friend the member for Port Elizabeth or his right hon. friend the member for Victoria West. His hon. friend, instead of facing the situation courageously, chose the line of least resistance, and put off the evil day when taxation would have to come as long as he possibly could. The Treasurer had laid great stress on economy, and in the course of his speech said that the country’s affairs were being run on a sound, businesslike, and economical basis. He (the speaker) would lay stress on the word “economical.” He had studied the Estimates, and he did not see economy in any shape or form. Last year, when hon. members on his side of the House attempted to draw the attention of the House to the extravagance of the Government, no one opposed them more than the Treasurer, who said that it was being done from a purely party spirit. He even disputed figures which he (Mr. Jagger) brought forward. They on that side tried to show that even the Ministers had gone a step beyond in regard to their salaries, but here-again, they were told that such was not the case. They tried to show that departments of the service were overstaffed, and pointed out that the same sort of thing was evident in the higher ranks of the service. As he had said, these things were disputed; but, as his right hon. friend the member for Victoria West had said, the Treasurer discovered later that they were right. He had got a copy of a circular issued by the Treasurer, and dated from Pretoria on May 10, a few days after Parliament adjourned. The second paragraph read: “The Estimates of Expenditure which have been approved by Parliament are admittedly inflated, and have been estimated on a basis altogether too extravagant for the resources of the Union.” That was exactly what they said in Parliament, and he would like to draw the attention of the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. H. E. S. Fremantle) to it, because it gave him away entirely. In paragraph 3, the circular went on to say: “In the Estimates of the next financial year, it will be necessary to make Large reductions, and in order to obtain them it is most advisable that the expenditure in the current year be kept within the narrowest possible limits.” That really expressed the Treasurer’s true sentiments on May 10. But what was the result of that appeal? The total saving only amounted to something like £303,000 on the total Estimates—less than two per cent of the total expenditure of the country, and of that no less than £163.000 was saved on public works buildings and bridges, which was practically no saving at all. It was easy enough to stop public works, but that was not a saving. Turning to the next Estimates, he would like to ask where were the large reductions in the Estimates which were now before them in the current year, and which the hon. member spoke of in the circular? The total saving amounted to £108,000 on last year’s Estimates, and, in fact, it was £195,000 in excess of the actual expenditure of last year. And notwithstanding the fact the Treasurer stated that his estimates were inflated, but brought up Estimates this year in which the only reduction was £108,000. That was not very much in the way of economy, so far as he could judge. And he accounted for that saving by the fact that he had got to spend more on printing (£45,000), pensions (£42,000), police (£90,000)—altogether his extra expenditure in those directions was £333,000. But he forgot entirely to mention that there were large savings in these Estimates on account of changes of circumstances; savings which, he ventured to think, were not so much in a spirit of economy, but simply on account of a change in circumstances. Take the census. He saved on it something like £79,600. That was a saving that would have taken place if he had not issued his circular, because the census had come to an end. There was a saving in fencing of £58,000; also transport to Natal (£12,000) and steam ploughs were cut down to £14,000. Then there was also a saving on the Coronation contingent of £10,000; but there was no particular virtue in saving that. Take miners’ phthisis, last year they spent £25.000, but there was nothing down for it this year. Take the £250,000 for the Cape School Board. Last year that was down on the main Estimates. Putting them together, those savings, as he had said, were not due to any rigid economy, but due to a change of circumstances. The Treasurer laid stress upon certain items upon which he had to spend more; but there was £480,000 which he had to save owing to the changed nature of things. Of course, that extra saving had really gone in extravagances in other ways. There had been no saving at all. In fact he would go further and say that the administrative expenses of this country were considerably higher this year than ever before. He would divide the expenses of this country into two classes, the administrative expenses and the non-administrative expenses. The administrative expenses showed a net increase of £352,000 and the non-administrative expenses showed a saving of £460,000. The administrative expenses had actually increased; it was only the non-administrative expenses that had come down. That really explained how the Treasurer arrived at the sum of £107,000 as a saving. He would like to ask where the economy came in? There had been no economy exercised in connection with the Estimates now before the House.

Take the matter of the establishments, referred to by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, and the right hon. member for Victoria West. They were all great last year on the large reduction of establishments in this country but the Minister had shown the “large” reduction of £1,141 in these Estimates. There ought to be large reductions, because the Pension Fund had gone up something like £42,000. What were the facts of the case? They were paying £462,000 in pensions, exclusive of £135,000 pensions paid by the Railway Department, or a total of £637,000 in pensions alone and contributions to the Superannuation Fund. While the Pension Fund was going up and was, in his opinion, excessive at the present moment, new appointments had been made, and since Union appointments from outside the Service—he was not going to deal with those from inside the Service—came to 626. Of these 258 were definite appointments and 368 were temporary, and as mentioned already, the Department of the Minister of Justice took the lead with no fewer than 98 definite appointments and 123 temporary, the figures for the other Departments being: Minister of the Interior, 51, 198 (a large number of the latter being it was only fair to add, in connection with the census); Minister of Education, 12 definite; Minister of Lands, 28; Minister of Native Affairs, 61; Minister of Commerce, 1; Minister of Public Works, 1. Appointing those additional men from outside while the Pension Fund was increasing did not, to his mind, smack of economy. He thought these facts entirely disproved the assertion of his hon. friend the Minister of Finance, that he had drawn up those Estimates on a basis of strict economy. He thought that they were most extravagant Estimates for a population such as ours, and he did not know of a country in the world, with our population and resources, which could carry such an extravagant Government as they had. It was easily explained. They had, with one exception, or possibly two, the most expensive Ministry in service, and he did not know of any country, except perhaps Great Britain and India, where the Ministerial salaries were so high as, or more than, in South Africa. Continuing, the hon. member said that taking one coloured man as equal to one white man, and four natives as equal to one white man, he took the population of South Africa to be 2,912,000 on the white basis. He had deducted the interest they were paying on the railways, and tried to come down as far as he could on a fair basis.; and he calculated that per head of that population they were paying no less than £4 14s. 3d. in expenditure.

Have you deducted the Railway Debt?

Yes. Continuing, he said that the figures per head of other countries, which had unitary governments like theirs, come to: Belgium, £2 5s. 6d.; Denmark, £2; France, £4 6s. 7d.; Holland, £3 0s. 5d.; Italy, £2 16s.: and Great Britain, £3 12s. If they took France, probably the most heavily taxed country in the world, or France and Great Britain, the two most heavily taxed countries in Europe, they in South Africa were paying even more than they did. He wanted to repeat what he had said last year: There had been no saving as a result of Union, and they were spending more today on the cost of government and on administrative affairs than the four colonies together had been spending prior to Union, by something like 1¾ millions. In the years 1908-1909, the expenditure of the four colonies, adding certain expenditure in the Gape on loans, and in the Transvaal, which came to £973,000, came to 15 millions, compared with an expenditure of £16,782,000 for that year. The total expenditure of governing that country at the present moment had gone up by £1,771,000, or 11 millions practically, compared with the year before Union. Where was all the economy? As he had said these Estimates were still on the same basis mentioned by his hon. friend in last year’s debate on the Estimates. He fully expected that when the House was adjourned, and when the Treasurer had time to reflect over these matters, he would issue another circular of the same nature. He agreed with his right hon. friend that the Treasurer wanted to do what was right, but that he was not strong enough. The Minister knew that the country could not afford this expenditure.

He wished to deal with another matter, and perhaps he would go more into detail than his right hon. friend had done, and that was the financial arrangements with the various Provinces. That part was perhaps of more interest to the country than any other part of the Budget. It indicated a policy—or as he preferred to put it—an absolute want of policy on the part of the Government in regard to local government in this country. One effect of these arrangements which had been entered into by the Government was that they had practically put off the creation of local government for at any rate ten years. He had no question about that. They were perpetuating for another ten years the injustice done to the Cape Province. He went further. The Prime Minister last session spoke once or twice of the necessity of doing away with the Provincial feeling and in the circumstances they had all agreed. But the action of the Government had gone to seriously accentuate that feeling. Did the Minister think that the Cape was going to sit down and take this quietly? Notwithstanding the advice of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth the chief thing the people of the Cape Province were interested in was equality of taxation. He believed that they took more interest in this than in any other part of the Budget, and under the present inequality the present discontent would be accentuated. The members of the Convention had laid stress on the fact that there would be equality of taxation. That was one of the strongest cards they played, and of course the people took their word. What was the result? That was thrown to the winds so far as the Budget was concerned and so far as the next ten years were concerned.

Union taxation?

It is all right for my hon. friend to shift it off on to the Provincial Councils. But that was not the idea of the Treasurer las year when he talked of the inequalities in taxation. The speaker went on to quote a passage from the Treasurer’s speech last year to the effect that the public would not submit for any length of time to the existing anomalies in taxation, and that even then some demands had been made for steps to be taken to bring about equality of taxation. The Treasurer had recognised the position quite clearly last year, and naturally they had been looking forward to this session to see some action. What had he done? As usual he had taken the line of least resistance. He had not dealt with the matter, but had tried to shift it on to the shoulders of the Provincial Councils. In these arrangements the Government adopted the suggestion of the Majority Report, namely, that they should contribute on the pound for pound principle to the expenditure. They in the Cape were well acquainted with the pound for pound principle. He did not agree with the Treasurer or with the Majority Report in their inference that this principle would go towards economy. He had sat on Boards for many years which had been assisted by the Government on the pound for pound principle, and many times when there was a proposition for expenditure he had heard it said: “Oh, the Government will pay half,” and they would have exactly the same proposition here. That would not tend towards economy.

Do you want the Provinces to pay the lot?

said that another drawback existed. The Treasurer paid half of the expenditure over which he had no control. To his mind the Minister would do far better to adopt in some degree the recommendation of the Minority Report, that was to say—he agreed that the assigned revenues should be given to them—the grant per head principle. It would be more economical in the end to have that. It need not be 5s. in the £, but he maintained that the principle would produce more in the way of economy than the £ for £ basis. Then the Provincial Councils would know exactly what they would get, and if they wanted to go in for expenditure in any shape or form they would know that they would have to put their hands into their own pockets, and not go to the Treasurer. Further, what was the position of the Cape Province under this proposal? It had a normal expenditure of £1,400,000. Of this assigned revenues provided £388,000. Then they had liquor licences, transfer dues and the like. On the £ for £ principle it was granted £700,000 and that brought the total up to £1,019,000, leaving a deficit of £380,000. Where were the congratulations of the Treasurer in saying that the Cape was particularly fortunate in this arrangement?. They could not see it. He was certain that no hon. member who represented a Cape constituency could see it. They were left with a deficit of £380,000. Of course, he was aware that this was going to be made up, not by a special grant from the Treasury, as in the case of at least two other Provinces, but by local taxation, which did not exist in the other Provinces. Or take the position in Natal. Its normal expenditure was £418,000, and the Government’s contribution on the £ for £ principle would be £209,000. Then there were assigned revenues amounting to £132,000, bringing the total to £441,000, and leaving a deficit of £77,000.

Did the Minister refer the Natal people to local taxation, as suggested in the Majority Report? No, he went and planked them down the lump sum of £80,000. Was there a sense of fair play in that? From another point of view, let them take what Natal raised in taxation—£132,000. They were going to give Natal 46s. l0d. for every £ raised out of the assigned revenues. To the Cape, with a local taxation amounting to £838,000, they were going to give 15s. 9d. in the £. Yet these proposals were to bring about equality of taxation! Take, again, the Free State. Its total expenditure was estimated at £390,000; the contribution would be £195,000, and assigned revenues £128,000, leaving a deficit of £67,000. There was no talk there of local taxation—the Cape must be treated differently. Taking the same basis as for the other two Provinces, the grant to the Free State would be 41s. in the £. That was to say, that for every pound the Free State raised in taxation, it would get a grant from the Union Government of 41s. as against 15s. 9d. the Cape was to receive in the £. With regard to the Transvaal, it worked out on a much better basis, for the assigned revenue would amount to £594,000, and the Union contribution to £589,000. The grant in this case worked almost to a penny to £ for £. For every £ raised in the Transvaal, the Union Government gave a £. Why this differential treatment in the various Provinces? Of course, he knew it would be said that you could not tax in the Free State and Natal. But why should a farmer at Colesberg pay Divisional Council and school rates, while a farmer on the other side of the Orange River did not do so? Why should men who lived at Herschel and Aliwal North pay these rates, and men who lived at Rouxville not pay? Would anyone maintain that the farmers in the Free State were not as well off as the farmers on this side of the Orange River? The Government, as usual, had taken the line of least resistance, and taken it at the expense of the Cape.

What about school fees?

The Cape Division pays more in school fees than the whole of the Orange River Colony put together.

What is the population?

The white population in the Free State is 174,000; in the Cape Division, it is about 100,000. We complain that this differential treatment goes right through the Estimates, and is going to be continued for the next ten years. Continuing, Mr. Jagger said that the normal expenditure of the Free State last year was £308,000; this year it was going to be £390,000, of which increase the Union Government was going to pay half. Did that look like economy? The total expenditure in the Cape had gone up £62,000. About £150,000 was down in the Estimates for school buildings in the Free State That was a free gift to the Free State, which would not pay a penny in interest on that money.

There is the same position in the Transvaal.

said let them contrast that with the position in the Cape Province. The Cape got a beggarly £150,000 out of loan funds, on which the Cape would have to pay interest and sinking fund. Where was the fair play as far as that was concerned? Again, take Natal; there was the same differential treatment. It was proposed to spend £181,000 on education in Natal, which spent for the same purpose, when it had to find the money itself in 1908-9, only £107,000. There were not as many white children in Natal as in the Cape Division; there were 14,000 white children in Natal and 14,500 in the Cape Division. The Cape Division School Board paid full interest on its loans, and it raised locally over £50,000 last year, fees amounting to £27.700 and rates to £12,000. Out of a total expenditure of £94,000, the people in the Cape Division themselves raised over £50,000.

Take the position of Natal in this matter. They were going to spend £181,000 on education. The whole amount they received in fees of any kind would not exceed £28,000 Every penny of the balance was paid by the Union Government. That was the equality of treatment which they were supposed to get from the Treasurer and the Government. Their complaint in this matter was that there was not the slightest effort made, so far as these Estimates were concerned and so far as the arrangement concluded between the different Administrations was concerned, to remedy this state of things. There was no hope apparently for ten years. He knew it was said that the Cape had remissions of taxation, but what did they amount to? On income tax, £280,000 had been remitted, and on the patent medicine stamps, £11,000.

Railways.

We cannot take railways into account, because £750,000 is going to be taken off all over South Africa. So far as railways are concerned, I take it that that is about equalised.

What about stamps?

I am afraid my hon. friend will find that we have more probably to pay in stamps now than we had before. Proceeding, he said that the whole of the financial arrangements outlined by the Treasurer the other day were, in his opinion, grossly unfair, so far as the Cape Province was concerned. When Union was brought about, three promises were made to the various Provinces. The Transvaal were promised that they would have a reduction of railway rates, and that the railway should not be made a taxing machine. That was put off for four years. Now, according to the proposition of his hon. friend the Minister of Railways, it was going to be brought about in the near future. Again, the promise was made to Natal that they would get a certain portion of the trade to the competitive area. They had pretty well got that trade at the present moment. The promise given to the Gape was that they should have equality of taxation. That promise had not been carried out, and, as far as he could see, it was not going to be carried out under this arrangement for ten years. As far as he could make out, it was going to accentuate the differences that existed at the present moment between the various Provinces.

He had no doubt it would give cause to infinite discontent in the Cape, and it would have this effect, that it was going to put off indefinitely the establishment of local government in the other three Provinces of the Union. He hoped that House would never agree to the proposals of the Government in reference to the financial relations of the various Provinces.

said he regretted that the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had imported so much heat into his speech, in reference to the question of the relations between the Cape and the other Provinces. He was particularly sorry that he should have singled out the Free State. He (Mr. Jagger) did not remember apparently that his friends made a party question of this matter of school fees in the Free State. When his hon. friends tried to impose fees in the Free State they were assailed by hon. members opposite. He regretted the rather unfair Provincial comparisons which his hon. friend had made. He would like to draw attention to the hon. members extraordinary calculation, in which he said, that curiously enough, in the Transvaal it amounted to the £ for £ principle. Why “curiously enough”? Of course, it was.

It is not in the other Provinces.

It is in the Cape. He has calculated the £200,000 twice over. He forgets that my hon. friend has a surplus. He has entirely left that out of account. As a matter of fact, we are going to pay exactly £1. The proper figure is £1, and my hon. friend’s figure of 15s. 9d. is not to be defended at all. His hon. friend, he went on to say, reminded him of the old French dynasty—he forgot nothing and he learnt nothing. They had from him that afternoon very much the same speech as he made last year. He had compared the expenditure per head of the population in this country with the expenditure per head in Denmark, leaving entirely out of consideration many factors which were of great importance, such as distance, size, and population.

He thought that some of the statements of his hon. friend might cause some disquiet in the country. His hon. friend took as the basis of comparison the year 1908-9. Then they were starving their Civil Service and now his hon. friend was complaining that they were bloating them. He considered that it was not fair for his hon. friend to select that year as the basis of comparison for making statements to that House. What were they to believe with regard to these debates? His hon. friend the member for Fordsburg twitted him last year because he said he (the speaker) believed that the Treasurer was going to reduce expenditure. That was exactly what did happen, and he thought that, on the whole, the situation was most satisfactory. He (the speaker) would again offer a little grace on this occasion, and hoped that the Government would not deny him his meat. They had not done so on the last occasion, and he hoped that the same state of affairs would prevail. Last year the Minister of Finance came down to the House and said he would retrench and now the hon. member for Cape Town said that he had not retrenched. He had been twitted about the circular which, after all, only carried out the promises made by the Government to that House.

I only called the Treasurer’s attention to the fact that he had contradicted himself.

said that the Minister of Finance made certain promises of retrenchment to the House, and had carried them out, and now the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, came to the House and expressed surprise at these promises being carried out. A more important point was that his hon. friend had drawn attention to the salaries that prevailed in the higher ranks of the service, and said that these had been sec by the Ministerial standard. This remark did seem curious, because of the fact that recently from the middle benches of the Opposition they heard complaints against the Government cutting down salaries. He was surprised, because he (the speaker) had always recognised that the Ministerial salaries were high and had always been afraid that other salaries in the services would be set by such a standard. He was glad to say that that scale had not been followed by the Government. Instead of salaries being raised, there had been a tendency on the part of the Government to lower salaries. It seemed to him that the Government had practised more economy than might have been anticipated. The hon. member went on to refer to the salary of the General Manager of Railways, pointing out that the present holder of the post was not receiving more than the General Manager of the Cape used to receive in the old days, despite the fact that his responsibilities were greater and that owing to his having to travel about the country a great deal his expenses had increased. He thought that the Minister had justification for saying that the Government had studied economy in framing the Estimates that were before the House at the present time. Apart from that, he thought it was hardly right for his hon. friend to indulge in indiscriminate criticism, for the reason that he was a member of the committee which had studied these Estimates and had not been able to suggest any important economies in detail. It seemed to him that the total in the aggregate was large. Economies could be effected. It was desirable that there should be economy, and he thought that hon. members on the other side had been rather inclined to under-state the case. In the previous year they had Supplementary. Estimates, which were really capital expenditure to be defrayed out of the surplus of the preceding year. Apart from that, the real Estimates for 1911-12. were £16.155,000 as against £16,782,000 for 1912-15.

If the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, could have put his finger on the spot and said that here and here were extravagances the would have rendered a service to the country. He (the speaker) confessed he was not at all confident that that could not be done. He had tried, but had not succeeded, and his hon. friend had not succeeded to any large extent, and seeing that that was the case, he thought it was only fair that they should recognise the economies that had been effected, especially by the Prime Minister in his department. No doubt the affair of the Barbary ostriches was very unfortunate The farmers did not believe very much in them, and he noticed that at the Port Elizabeth show when a couple were put up for auction no bids were offered. He wanted to say a word or two about the Budget for 1912-13, because, as he understood the thing, the case had been rather understated by the hon. gentlemen on the Opposition, because after all the plan was rather a disquieting one. They were budgeting for a deficit of about £1,300,000, of which they were going to meet £800,000 by means of the surplus of two years ago, and the remaining £500,000 comes out of the railway. But not the railway revenue of this year, but the railway surplus already accrued. Here, however, he had to draw attention to the extraordinary doctrine put forward by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton), with regard to financing this country by means of the reserves. Was ever such an extraordinary doctrine heard of? He was going to keep money in his pocket, and if at any time they had a deficit he was going to put his hand in and pay it. Instead of this they had a sinking fund, and he thought it ought to be remembered that in the present year the Treasurer was making provision for a sinking fund to the extent of £625,000, and in addition to that there was the surplus on general revenue of £446,000, so that altogether they were actually paying off more than a million pounds’ worth of debt in the present year. There would have been a great deal in it if the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, said they should have put the £800,000 to the same purpose. Perhaps that was what he meant; but he would expect very few governments to pay off two million pounds’ worth of debt in one year—about 2 per cent, of the total debt. On the other hand, he agreed entirely with the hon. member when he said that the Minister of Finance’s Estimates were rather characteristic on the present occasion. The hon. Minister skated very rapidly over his survey of the condition of the country, and did not seem to be very anxious that the House should devote very much attention to the condition of the country, because the Minister’s virtue was such that he was anxious that his right hand should not see what his left hand did. He (Mr. Fremantle) did not think there was any need to think that they were on the crest of a wave. When he went into the position of the country it seemed to him there was no reason for supposing that the revenue of the country was going to shrink. He thought that the Hon. the Minister was going to finance a very great amount of his deficit in the coming year by having revenue that would exceed his estimate. He thought it was well to remember that they were at the present time an exporting country, and it had to be remembered that they were exporting 21 million pounds’ worth more of goods than they were importing, whereas about sixteen millions would probably suffice to pay all the charges on their public and private debt. Specie was flowing into this country, and it was quite clear that the wealth of the country was increasing; and he did not mean to say that it was entirely or mainly due to the exertions of his hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, or any Government, past or present. He believed that there was no reason to take a pessimistic view of the prospects for the immediate future. He had understood his hon. friend the Minister to say that the importation of specie was not a very important matter, but the thought that it was a very good barometer, and in this way, he thought, and in every other way there was every indication that the prosperity and the wealth of the country were on the up and not on the down grade. He would rather go by an indication which had not proved false in the past than by what mining or commercial men stated—and he did not include the hon. member opposite (Mr. Jagger) in that, because he considered the hon. member more of a politician and statistician than a commercial man. Continuing, the hon. member said that another good indication was that their 3½ per cent, stocks had gone up in value; and while other giltedged stocks in the world had been falling—Consols had fallen 5 points since Union—the most valuable securities in the world after all, at the present time—while their stocks had gone up 3 points. He regretted very much that there had been some hesitation on the part of the Cape Province to realise the enormous benefit which had accrued as a result of Union. Simply in taxation alone the Cape Province had benefited to the amount of £1,200,000 since Union, including railways, and he calculated that there had been a remission of £280,000 as regards income tax, £110,000 from the patent medicine tax, £180,000 sinking fund, £30,000 stamps, and the rest were railway rates, according to the figures which had been given them. He suspected the Minister of Railways to have done exactly the same thing as the Minister of Finance; or that he had allowed too much for what he called “remission of taxation,” and had not realised the immense difference there was between the remission of taxation and reduction of railway rates. The first result of reducing railway rates had been to swell the revenue very largely; the revenue that month was considerably larger-than a year ago, so that he thought that some of the rates which the Minister had lowered were rates which tended to crush trade and reduce the revenue. He was allowing for extra mileage and everything he could think of; and after that calculation it appeared to him that the railway had not remitted anything like the amount of taxation they said they had, although they might have reduced the railway rates to the amount referred to by his hon. friend (Mr. Sauer) in his speech. He thought that those who lived near the coast enjoyed enormous benefits from Union, and he was delighted that those who lived inland should have received their share. He most sincerely congratulated the Government that they had brought that great boon of railway rates reduction after two years under Union, though the Constitution allowed four years. He was also very glad to hear that the Finance Minister intended to issue stock in small denominations through the Post Office. He hoped that his hon. friend would go forward bordly on that course which had been successful in France, and had not been altogether a failure in Canada. Nothing could do more towards strengthening our stock than inducing the people of this country to hold it in small sums. He trusted that his hon. friend would not be discouraged if applicants did not turn up in numbers at the start.

How was it that they were compelled to discuss this subject with an almost total absence of information and statistics? The Minister of the Interior was, he believed especially responsible for this. How was it that in regard to statistics, which was the very foundation of intelligent government, the country was reduced almost to methods of barbarism. In what other country in the world had statistics been so much neglected as here, since the present Government had been in office? It was unintelligible to him. It was two thousand years since Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that all the world was to be taxed; he wanted statistics. And we wanted statistics to govern the country. The statistics that the Union Government had put them off with were worse than were put before the country a hundred years ago. He thought it a great misfortune that the matter had been overlooked. The Minister of the Interior had promised to lay on the table the report of the proceedings of the Statistical Conference of which he (the speaker) had been a member. That had not been done. He did not mind that so much, but the statistics should be collected. Hon. members who were at the Convention would remember the difficulty they had in dealing with many matters, owing to the absence of statistics. They collaborated and obtained statistics in a very short time, but everyone was dissatisfied with his own work. The Minister of the Interior was known as a pattern of efficiency, but here where efficiency might be expected to blossom before it ripened out in any other part winter had nipped the bud. (A laugh.) In regard to the question of financial relations, he spoke with considerable diffidence. He disliked nothing more than inter-Provincial jealousies, and he was diffident about dealing with the question from the Provincial point of view, but at the same time it was necessary for him to say that more consideration should be shown to the Cape, he would not say for the sake of fairness, but for the sake of efficient government. He did not think that it was fair to make a comparison between the Cape and the other Provinces. The Transvaal was overflowing with wealth when it entered into the partnership. Right minded men should recognise the great patriotism shown by the people of the Transvaal in entering Union knowing the immense financial burden that they were assuming at the time. He recognised the enormous advantages that had accrued to the Caps not only in regard to a sum of £1,000,000 in the remission of taxes, including reduction of railway rates, but also in regard to expenditure. In the Cape they obtained a sum of something like £400,000 in the salaries of Civil Servants, which was absolutely necessary in the year 1909, but which they could never have paid, not even today. (An HON. MEMBER: Oh!) If they had been remitting taxation in the way that had been done he did not think that they could have done it. (Cheers.) He quite recognised that the affairs of this country had been prospering and part of the increased prosperity of the Cape was due to that, but a part of it was due to the fact that they had gone into partnership with the Transvaal, and it was only right that a Cape representative should give expression to the feeling of recognition.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

continuing his speech, said that, as to the relations between the Provinces, there was one point that ought to be mentioned, and that was in regard to the provision made by the Minister of Finance for school buildings in the Cape. He did not think that it lay in the mouths of Cape men to utter another word on the subject—(“Oh” and “Hear, hear”)—because they had a remarkable paper which was published the other day, not by his hon. friend the Minister, but by the Administrator of the Cape, showing that whereas his hon. friend had made provision for £200,000 for the Cape school buildings, that could not be spent. Why? Because the Cape people were not ready a year after his hon. friend had made the provision. The Cape authorities were not ready with their plans when his hon. friend was ready with the cash. He did believe that it was very doubtful, indeed, whether any Cape member of Parliament would have ventured, if he had been in the place of his hon. friend, to have treated the Cape as generously as his hon. friend had done.

Oh!

I only express my own opinion on the matter.

Proceeding, he said that they had been aiming at equality of taxation in the Union. They had not got that, and they had not got anywhere near it. He desired, as far as possible, to make his statement, if he were on the wrong side, rather on the side of under-statement. He took it that the school fees which were paid at the Cape and not paid by the other Provinces amounted to £140,000, that was deducting the boarding fees and allowing for the fees which were already paid by the other Provinces. He had put down £50,000 for licences. As to transfer duties, the Cape paid £175,000. It appeared to him if they had the Transvaal duties, the Cape would pay about £60,000, so that they were paying about £115,000 more than the Transvaal. Add to that the Divisional Council rate, estimated at £236,000 by the Commission, and they had altogether £540,000 in taxation which the Cape was paying and which the Transvaal was not paying. He did not say they ought to be precipitate in equalising taxation, but he did say that £540,000 was a very big figure, and if, as he understood the Treasurer, that was fixed for ten years, it was very questionable whether it ought not to be reconsidered. (Hear, hear.) His hon. friend said in his Budget speech that it could not be altered by Parliament for ten years.

No, no.

In his Budget speech he said quite clearly that it could not be altered for ten years. If it can be, it is very satisfactory. I think it ought to be recognised that the Cape has gained by this transaction something like £200,00. which is now a surplus. We can spend £400,00 more, as I take it, or the Cape Province can remit £200,000 worth of taxation. Therefore, that is taking a long and rapid step in the direction of equalisation beyond the steps already taken. Still, there is a considerable distance that we have yet to go. Proceeding, Mr. Fremantle said there were two subjects he was not altogether satisfied upon. One subject he wished to raise was in regard to the payment on school buildings. At the present time the Cape had a debt of something like one million on school buildings, on which the Cape had to pay the full charge. The Union paid half. The other Provinces did not pay anything for their school buildings. In the future, it was true, there was going to be equalisation. But he would like to ask Ministers, and especially the Minister of Education, what he was going to do in regard to the outstanding school loans? It would be hard in the Transvaal to make one school pay interest on its school loan, when another school two miles away was paying nothing, because the building had been erected before the new arrangement. They had a difficulty there not only between Province and Province, but between school and school in the Province. It seemed to him that they had a problem in this matter, and he should like to know how it was going to be solved. (Hear, hear.)

The matter that caused him uneasiness was not a question of Province against Province. It was not the revenue that made him uneasy, but the expenditure in regard to education. That danger had been in existence for a whole generation. Years ago, one of their most brilliant educationists, Mr. Ross, drew special attention to the question of the education of the country people, and said he could not reconcile himself to this, that they were putting off their country people with third-class schools, and, worse than that, third-class teachers. Unfortunately, they had not, since Union, been able to do anything substantial to improve the education of the children of their country people, and they were not treating them fairly by putting them in charge of teachers who were faced by an impossible task and were inadequately trained for such a task. Let them go up and down the country, and they would find wretched hovels with a girl of eighteen, imperfectly educated, in adequately trained, in charge of five and twenty children, in seven or eight standards, each with six or seven subjects. He said that that was a matter which should concern the whole of the Union, and which should be remedied as speedily as possible. Now the Minister of Justice had thought out a scheme which had earned his (the speaker’s) unqualified admiration, because he thought that the scheme at work in the Free State—he was not alluding to any controversial question—was the real solution of the problem of rural education. He believed that the key—the talisman—had been found by the Minister of Justice, who had brought into operation in the Free State a law which said that teachers should be paid according to their qualifications and merits, and not according to the richness or the poverty of the district in which they worked. That came as a ray of hope to the people of the country. That seemed to strike at the root of all the problems which they were called upon to face. In Denmark it had been found that the great blessing with which they could provide the country people was not a sort of technical education, but rather a good general education in which character, intelligence, and the personality of the children were brought into play, and society was made a living and breathing society in which intelligence was the ruling characteristic. He thought that here was the ideal which they should set before them. In this matter Natal was in the same position as the Cape, having been handicapped by funds. He hoped that the Government would give this question earnest and serious consideration. It might or might not be right that primary and secondary education should be in the hands of the Provincial Councils; but he did implore the House and he did entreat the Government not to doom two of the older Provinces of the Union to inefficiency in regard to the education of their country people. It was a matter that could be settled; it was a matter that ought to be settled. Teachers’ salaries were the great problem in educational finance, and education was the great problem of provincial finance. He knew that difficulties would arise, but he did not think that these difficulties would be so serious as to thwart any such scheme. The Directors of Education had agreed to go into the question, and if the Government would only go into the question then he did not think that for the next ten years they would be doomed to inefficiency in the older colonies so far as the education of their country people was concerned. Continuing, he said there was one other point on which he would like to make a few remarks. There seemed to be a good deal of misunderstanding with regard to what the Minister of Railways had said with regard to the Workshops Commission. It might relieve his hon. friend to know that in recent years he had never gone into the workshops except on one occasion, and that was when an inspection had been made by one of their Ministers. It was most essential and most necessary that these workshops should be run on business lines. It surprised him to hear the rejoicing with which the House had welcomed the statement that the experiment which had been tried had failed.

If it had failed, it was one of the most lamentable things that could happen to the people of this country, because in the workshops of Uitenhage and elsewhere they had a real experiment in white labour, such as they had hardly anywhere else in South Africa; and surely it was not a matter for rejoicing that this one outstanding experiment had failed. With regard to this question of piecework, there was a total misunderstanding in the House on the subject. It appeared to him to be the impression of hon. members that all the Trades Unions were opposed to piecework, and that all the employers were in favour of it. There could be nothing more opposed to experience than a doctrine of this kind. That was pure theory, and there was plenty of theory of that kind. The actual experience, if they took the experience of the great Trades Unions in England, was, they would find, that it was impossible to decide whether Trades Unionism, as a whole, favoured or discouraged the substitution of piecework for time wages. Therefore, he would warn hon. members who were afraid of Trades Unions that the Minister was going on lines that were favoured by a very large number of Trades Unions. In the greatest of all Trades Unions—the coal workers in England—not only were they in favour of piecework, but they insisted upon it, and they would strike at any moment if it were taken from them. The same in regard to the cotton operatives. A purely time wage would be absolutely inimical to the coal workers. The boot-and-shoe workers, and the whole of the tailoring trade, were opposed, to a time wage. All those great trades were on the side of the Hon. the Minister of Railways and Harbours. The Engineering Trades Unions, on the other hand, were absolutely opposed to piecework, and in favour of a time wage. The reason was a simple one. It was that it had been discovered in the engineering trade one job differed so much from another job that it was almost impossible to form a tariff of piecework. His hon. friend (Mr. Sauer) might say it was not so; but he would only say that he was quoting from experience, which was vastly in excess of any immediate experience of his hon. friend or of the recent Commission or that House, because he was quoting from the experience of the Trades Unions of England. As far as the information he had been able to collect went, this system of piecework did not suit the engineering Trades Unions, and he was afraid his hon. friend would not be more successful than most of the master engineers in England. An engine came in for repairs: how could they form the tariff? It was utterly impossible; and they had to pay a man by the time, and if they pretended to pay him by the piece they had to invent a tariff after their job was done. He believed that that would be the experience of this country. His hon. Friend (Mr. Sauer) said that he was not willing for men to be underpaid, but he must know that if they had the piece-work system it must be difficult not to under-pay the men. If they formed a tariff, sooner or later it tended to break down, and the tendency was that men came, not under high officials, but under foremen who tended to create unrest, with the result that the work was badly done. A departmental committee appointed by Lord Gladstone in England had reported that piece-work tended to raise the accident risk. The Minister might be prepared to take the risk by adopting piece-work; but undoubtedly it was a risk. The lives of the people might be imperilled through repairs to rolling stock not being adequately carried out. He did not say that his hon. friend could not argue against that: he did say that if they were going to make that great change it ought to be made after far more thorough investigation and a far more exhaustive inquiry than they were doing at the present time. He was appalled and astounded by the statement made by the hon. Minister (Mr. Sauer), who in the first place had quoted from an important document without laying it on the table of the House, and he understood that no hon. member could quote from a public document without laying it on the table of the House.

Nonsense.

said that the hon. Minister had read extracts, and he might have been perfectly right, but if the House was to be asked in any way to express an opinion, he said that it was a wrong thing that they should not have full information on the subject. The Minister had said that one of the Commissioners, Mr. Beatty, was not in favour of piece-work, a man who had as long experience as, if not longer experience than, any of the other Commissioners. There was no majority report: there was a report of two Commissioners out of the four, and he did not know at all what the reports of the other Commissioners were. It appeared to him almost a matter of levity to deal with a matter of that kind in that way; it was the least of the risks that they might plunge the country into an industrial struggle, and the greater risk was that they might embark on something which would involve increased risk to the Jives and safety of the people of the country. (Hear, hear.) The Minister had quoted certain figures about the workshops which to his (Mr. Fremantle’s) poor intelligence appeared to be altogether meaningless. He said that there was a certain percentage of efficiency, but what did that mean? He had said that Bloemfontein had an efficiency of 100 per cent, and Uitenhage 50 per cent.—taking all the figures. But in Bloemfontein the men were paid 80 per cent, more than at Uitenhage and they earned a further 25 per cent, more owing to piece-work, so that it appeared to him in the end there was nothing at all in the saving. The country saved nothing; and it meant men working at greater pressure, at an increased risk to the public. (Hear, hear.) He found that it was the general experience that employers whose machinery was up-to-date objected to piece-work. What did that mean? It meant that if his hon. friend were prepared to bring his machinery up to date piece-work would be contrary to the interests of the country. It would be far better to keep his machinery up to date, and then leave piece-work alone. That was his opinion with the light vouchsafed to him. He knew that his hon. friend would do his utmost if he was going to enter into this apparently ill-considered venture to minimise the harm that might result. The Minister had said that he had 1,800 too many men. He found that since Union 1,758 men were added. Now the Commission said there were 1,789 men too many. “I have not been running the shops,” he added; “my hon. friend has been running the shops.” He now says that he has been mismanaging them, and then he says that that is a nasty one for the hon. member for Uitenhage. The grand old Duke of York. He had ten thousand men: he marched them up to the top of the hill and marched them down again. (Laughter.) With the information they had before them the Government would stand convicted of entering into this very serious change with insufficient consideration. If his hon. friend said that he had managed the workshops without conspicuous efficiency, he would not be prepared to dispute that point. He thought there had been a great want of efficiency in the management of the shops as far as Uitenhage was concerned. He was convinced that there had been inefficiency for a long time, and the point of the whole thing was this, that they had refused to take the men into their confidence. (Labour cheers.) He had looked to his hon. friend to alter this state of affairs. He spoke so much about his radicalism that he had hoped for that. But he had refused to take the men into his confidence. Some years ago the hon. member for Fort Beaufort had acted as he should have hoped Ministers would always act. A matter had been brought to him, not in his capacity as a member of Parliament. For a long time a certain minor official had been using the men in his department to build a house for himself in Government time. Not only that, he had been using Government stores. He passed the information on to his hon. friend opposite, who instituted inquiries, confirmed the allegations, and dismissed the inspector. The hon. member never took a partisan view in such matters, and was always prepared to listen to any information that came to him, whether from hon. members on his own or on the opposite side. It was alleged at the same time that while a number of men with unblemished records were being retrenched this inspector had given employment to his son, who had been convicted of theft. The hon. member agreed that it was not right that a man with a blemished record should be taken on while others with stainless records were being turned away, and he dismissed the man. A resolution was passed in Parliament that the men who had been retrenched should be first taken on. These two men who gave the information and saved the country thousands of pounds of stores had been marked men ever since. The petty officials saw that, at any rate, these men should not be employed. His hon. friend went out of office. He (the speaker) gave the facts to the Minister of Railways, who told him that he was a Radical, but he was not prepared to put his foot down and insist that justice should be done and petty officials prevented from pillorying men who had done a great service to the country. This was not a unique case. (Labour cheers.) When the present Government came into office information was brought to him that a great amount of pilfering was going on in the Uitenhage workshops. He passed the information on to the Minister, who instituted inquiries, and the pilfering was stopped. He asked the House whether it was not right that they should take the men into their confidence? Every employer knew that the men could do him immense service. Why were the Government perpetually turning a deaf ear to the men? (Labour cheers.) Officials said: Save us from the men. They objected to the men giving any information to the Ministers and to members of Parliament, and he regretted to say that there was the same sort of tendency amongst some of the Ministers. Every employer in England knew that if he closed his ear to the men he would open the door to the worst sort of corruption, and that some of the petty officials would sooner or later bring about a system of plundering the stores of their employers. The Minister should bring into operation a little of that Radicalism of which he was so able an exponent. Nothing could be more subversive to discipline and nothing could be more contrary to the interests of the Government than this system of turning a deaf ear to the men, and this system of thinking that because a man was an official he was bound to be right. (Opposition cheers.) There were few subjects of more moment to the people of the country than this. He trusted the Government was going to turn—and it had to turn—from the path which experience had shown to be wrong and against the interests of the country; he trusted that a change was going to be made, and that the House would insist that the occupation of a workman artisan was to be regarded as an honourable career. (Opposition cheers.) The other day the Minister of Railways said that 68 percent, of the grievances which came before the Railway Grievances Commission were in connection with money, adding that he (Mr. Sauer) was surprised that these money grievances were not 100 per cent. That showed that the Minister had little appreciation of what was really at work in the minds of the men, because what was really at work in the minds of the men was a desire, not for a little extra money, but that their status should be preserved as self-respecting citizens of the country who were in the service of his hon. friend (Mr. Sauer), but who were as good South Africans as the Minister himself. (Loud Opposition cheers.)

said the Minister of Finance had forecasted, a new tax for the following year, and that was the message with which he (the speaker) would have to return to his constituents. They would ask him whether some economies were not possible before proceeding to further taxation, and he would have to reply that there were a thousand and one opportunities to economise. The proper thing to do was to cut their coat according to their cloth. There were 31 judges in the Union, the salaries ranging from £800 to £4,000, and with pension rights from £2,600 downwards. The Pensions Vote this year had climbed up to £600,000. Certainly there was room for economy. If the report of the Financial Relations Commission were to be followed, a section of the public would be required to pay a special tax. The Commission recommended that in the Free State the transfer dues on property should be regarded as a Provincial tax. In that way the dues were made permanent and could not be reduced, which was in conflict with the undertaking to secure uniform taxation. The inequality of those dues had long ago called for attention. In the Free State they amounted to 4 per cent., and after six months to 8 per cent., and there was a further charge of 10 per cent, for interest. If the transfer dues were not paid within ten years they were doubled. When he (the speaker) was a prisoner of war in India he had to pay succession duty. He was unable to do that at the time, with the result that afterwards he had to pay a very large amount. Would the Free State Provincial Council ever be able to reduce the transfer dues? He did not believe it. The Financial Relations Commission also recommended that the auction dues in the Free State should pass to the Province. That tax was, therefore, also preserved, while in other Provinces it did not exist. The tax on coloured people in the Free State would also continue, though it pressed very heavily. A coloured man there between 16 and 60 paid £1 per annum, whilst in the Cape it was 10s. for a whole family. The result of that unequal taxation was that the natives in the south of the Free State regularly went to the Cape in order to escape the larger tax. In the Free State they wanted natives most in November and January, and it was just then that the natives left for the Cape for fear of the tax. If the tax were made uniform, the natives would not go away. He had supported the Constitution as drafted at the National Convention, as he believed in the principle of one Government for one country. But the boundary lines of the different colonies continued. If a big Province applied to the Minister of Finance for money it was ladled out, but if the little Free State applied, the Minister used a mustard spoon. When it had been stated that the Civil Servants were in mutiny against the Government, he (the speaker) had difficulty in restraining himself from saying that mud was being thrown at the Government. The postal and telegraphic officials in the Free State had, however, good reason for complaint. Their salaries were small, beginning at £150 a year, and going up to £165 a year. They had obtained an allowance, but that had been taken away in 1908, and those officials were hoping that after Union they would be placed on an equal footing with those in the other Provinces. They had been disappointed. Their salaries had not been increased, and vacant positions had been taken by Cape officials, who received special local allowances, all of which was very unfair. Then, with regard to the development of the country, they were looking eagerly for railways and irrigation works. Still those things would not help them unless the produce of the country was protected and the railway tariff reduced. The industries in the interior must have assistance. Farming was going downhill, owing to Lack of labour, and it was one of the first duties of the Government to make provision for more labour within the Union, unless the farming and cattle breeding industries were to be destroyed. When the Free State was very poor the Kimberley mines were found, and that saved the country. They made the mistake, however, of allowing rough diamonds to be exported. If they imposed a tax on the exportation of rough diamonds, they would bring about the establishment of a diamond polishing industry, which incidentally would increase the number of settlers. There were other latent industries in the country, but nothing was done to help them. Wool was still exported in the rough, and nothing was done to start a clothing industry. Skins also were exported in tons, and no encouragement was given to start a leather industry. Then the mining industry was a large one, and the gold ought to be minted here, and generally as many industries as possible should be concentrated within the Union.

said he noticed, in the course of his speech, the Minister of Finance said they could not go on indefinitely giving up revenue and increasing expenditure. He was rather surprised that the Treasurer did not give them some indication as to the direction he would take to supply the deficiency that might come along in the future. They knew that the railway revenue was rapidly being given away in this or that direction. They found that the Cape income tax had been relinquished, but he would like to have heard from the Minister that he intended not only to depart from the system of taxing the people through the railways, but would make a move in the direction of direct taxation. They on the cross-benches were in agreement with the system of direct taxation, which was the most equitable and best system, and hoped to see, in the near future, some policy outlined by the Minister of a graduated income tax, and a tax on land to make up for the loss he had incurred. Regarding the Minister of Railways and Harbours’ speech, he wanted to associate himself with the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle). He had put a very large part of the case for the men most eloquently, and better perhaps than could any other man in that House. His authorities were beyond reproach. They were told by the Minister of Railways and Harbours that he had received a report from two members of the Commission that went through the workshops. The other two members of the Commission had, he understood, written minority reports, and were gentlemen of the highest standing in their own line—quite as high as the other gentlemen of the Majority Report, which was read by the Minister with such gusto. In regard to that Majority Report, he would have liked to have seen the whole of it. They did not believe, any more than the Minister said he believed, the other day, in ex parte statements. They would like the truth and the whole truth, and they had not got the whole truth, and therefore it was very difficult for the House to make up its mind on that very important point. The Majority Report showed that the greatest efficiency of the workshops in the Union was either at Pretoria or Bloemfontein. These particular centres paid the highest wages. It was strange that the greatest efficiency should be found where they paid the highest waves. He was quite prepared to believe that that report and the Minister’s statement were designed to make this House and the country believe that piecework would be the salvation of the railways. But, of course, there might be a tendency for the best workmen to gravitate there.

Without the report before him he would try to show that other factors entered into this. There was the question of machinery. Pretoria had the most modern machinery of any workshop in South Africa. That was a very important factor in the efficiency of the men. Modern appliances counted for a great deal in efficiency. He knew what piece-work meant. He knew how men who had worked in piece-work shops looked at the age of forty-five. Their backs were not straight. They were not very fine specimens of manhood. They had nothing like the physique of hon. members who had never done piece-work nor wanted for fresh air or food. That was a point to be considered. They had a Defence Bill, and one of the essentials was good, strong, healthy men. What was found in the thickly-populated centres of Great Britain? Did they find the finest men from these parts? He did not think that they could compare with some of the men who came from the veld. Piece-work had not made fine men of them. It might have sharpened their intellects, but it had not improved their physique. There was also the quality of the work. It must appeal to hon. members that a blacksmith, working in any of the railway shops, who had to weld the links that connected the engine and the carriages, was in a very responsible position. A defective weld could easily be concealed except from the eye of an expert, and even he would sometime find it difficult to detect. There was a temptation—he did not say that the men succumbed to it—when a man knew that unless he turned out so many links he could not pay his rent and keep his family, a temptation to say, “That is good enough; I won’t scrap that link, I will let it go.” What might that not mean? That consideration might appeal to hon. members who travelled on the railways, but who had no other interest in the men. It was worth considering whether the saving of some thousands of pounds was really good business when they might have one big catastrophe as the result of this piece-work system. He was not drawing on his imagination. It was a well-known fact that unless there was a most rigid examination piece-work led to scamped work, and in no service was this so important as in the railway service. The Minister might say that they would have an inspection, but that cost money, and what was saved in one direction would probably be lost in another. They were told that efficiency in certain shops was greater than in other shops. He gathered that the efficiency was based on the output, and not on the quality of the work. He was not now dealing with the danger to life, but purely and simply with the £ s. d. point of view. If an engine could be turned out of the Pretoria workshops in a month, and out of the Uitenhage workshops in six weeks, and it was found that in the first case it would only run 5,000 miles and in the latter case 10,000 miles, that was a fact that should be considered. He unhesitatingly affirmed that there was a considerable difference in the number of miles that these engines and carriages ran after leaving a piece-work shop, and after being thoroughly overhauled in a day-work shop. Very often false economy and a desire to show a big output led managers of works and others to plunge their employers—in this case the public—into the most disastrous experiments. He quoted from Adam Smith: “Workmen, when they are liberally paid” (he was not prepared to say these men were liberally paid) “are very apt to overwork themselves and ruin their health and constitution in a very few years.” Hon. members might say that did not matter. When they had complained of the conditions of work, he had frequently heard the Minister say: “The conditions must be excellent, even when we only pay 3s. 4d. a day, because we have hundreds of men looking for the work.” That was no argument. These men were driven by the whip of starvation to seek any work at any price. Lord Brassey—another respectable authority—had confirmed Adam Smith’s opinion. He said: “I have seen slaves in Brazil on piecework at coffee carrying. They work desperately, because if they save enough money, they can purchase their freedom.” But they had not to go to Adam Smith nor to Brazil. They could go to a mine in the Transvaal—the Premier Diamond Mine—and find that the piecework experiment did not pay there even, and it was abandoned, because the natives were found to injure their health owing to the system.

That is not so. They are still working on piecework.

Then it is carried on in spite of their injuring their health. I thought that the company would have had the humanity, as well as the common-sense, to abandon it. He went on to say that they were told that men objected to piecework without reason, and sometimes because they were afraid of their fellow workers earning more than themselves. There might be, and probably were, certain persons amongst the manual labourers who might be partially insane. He quoted Slos in contradiction of that statement, as follows: “The allegations frequently made by unfriendly critics of the labouring classes that they object to piecework because they objected to seeing the superior activity of their fellows rewarded is entirely without foundation.”

The men feared that the pace in a piece work shop would be set by the youngest and cleverest workmen. At the start everything was made easy for the man on piecework, and he was encouraged to earn almost as much as he liked, and he found at the end of the week that he had earned more than double his usual rate of pay. The other men gradually fell into the trap, and then prices were cut, until only by the most extraordinary exertions could the men earn just a little more than they would have earned if they had been working for fixed wages. Subsequently perpetual bickerings and quarrels arose, as well as accusations of unfairness. That state of affairs might be good enough for a private contractor struggling with other contractors; but there was no excuse for a great department like the railways of South Africa to introduce this pernicious system. (Hear, hear.) It might be said that the men at Pretoria had agreed to the piecework system, and were working along very comfortably, but they were not satisfied, and complaints had reached him. There were piecework conditions in other countries which were a little more fair than those on the S.A.R. The men in his own trade—engineering—were most emphatically opposed to piece-work, but sometimes circumstances were too strong for them, and they had to accept it. But the stipulation invariably was made that a man should be guaranteed a certain day’s pay whether the job he was engaged on was worth it or not. That practice persistently had been refused by the Railway Administration, with the exception of Natal. It might be said that the engineers in England were working under the premium bonus system, which was a modification of the piece-work system, but they were doing so under protest. The system was only forced on the engineers in England after the big strike of a few years ago. The men were waiting their opportunity to throw off this system. He would be accused of threatening again, but he was referring to Britain now. In England, especially on the railways, it was recognised that the men through their unions should have some say as to the conditions under which they laboured and that there were two parties to an agreement. But that was not recognised by the Minister of Railways, and he was probably backed up by nine-tenths of the members of that House.

There was another point. The Minister objected to the men using their political influence. The modern tendency, at any rate in civilised countries, was for more and more of the inhabitants to be working for the public bodies. It seemed that a time would probably come when more than half the people would be working for the Government, for themselves, for the community, on reproductive work. What was going to happen if half the population were to be deprived of their rights of citizenship? Only those in private employment would be in the enjoyment of full rights of citizenship. The position was impossible; it was preposterous. If they dammed the stream in one direction, it would break through in another. The men on the railways had formed their own organisation. One of the victims of railway tyranny was at the head of that organisation to-day, numbering 13,000 men. He did not say anything would happen, but if political rights were to a large extent denied and the men’s industrial organisation were not recognised, something might possibly happen. They would take steps to force the Government to recognise their industrial organisations, and they had a right to do so. The Minister would be wise and the Government would be wise to recognise and take cognisance of things as they were, to examine what was going on in other countries, and draw a parallel. He would urge upon the Ministry not to be led away by bureaucrats, by men who would like to play the Czar. “We are not,” declared Mr. Andrews, “prepared to accept the methods of Russia in this country.” There was, he went on to say, one other little remark made by the Minister to which he would like to allude when he dealt with the question of what were sometimes called “poor whites,” just as if they were different from hon. gentlemen sitting there. He was not prepared to sling any mud at the Minister for hiring these men on the railway; he believed his motives were of the best. Although he disagreed with the payment they were getting, perhaps in the long run it would be beneficial to the country as showing that, even at these ridiculous wages, men could be got, and were got, to do good work.

The Minister had not only said that these people were being promoted to higher rates of pay, but that they were being promoted to other spheres of labour. He thought he heard the Minister say that this sort of thing was not appreciated by some hon. members in that House, insinuating that they on the cross benches did not wish to see these men rise in the social scale. That was not correct. They said that there was another side of the case. They on the cross benches could see how these men were being used and exploited to their own detriment, and to the detriment of other and more highly skilled workers. They came into the service at low wages at the one end, while men who were receiving ton wages were being pushed out at the other. That was a fact. That was one reason why they on the cross benches did not altogether welcome this system of putting in these cheap men and throwing out other men. Then there was the Railway Board, which was costing the country some thousands of pounds every year. Nobody knew the extent of its functions, or what it was doing. They on the cross benches were accused of wanting class legislation; he threw that accusation back in the teeth of the Government and the Opposition. Governments had always legislated for the benefit of the rich. That was what they were there to protest against. They were not concerned whether the Transvaal, the Free State, Natal, or the Cape Province received more consideration or less. They were not concerned whether the Union Buildings were at Pretoria or at Cape Town; what did concern them was this, that this country ought to support her citizens in the way a civilised country should. They were told that the country was passing through a period of unexampled prosperity. The workers had not seen very much of that prosperity. Why, if he lifted his finger he could find a hundred or two hundred skilled artisans belonging to his trade who would take employment if it were offered. There were many men who were not far removed from starvation, and yet there were hon. members in the House who talked about the prosperity of the country. They on the cross benches did not say that the country was prosperous until every man, woman and child was able to live as civilised human beings. He hoped that in his next budget the Treasurer would show that he had some sympathy with the social problems of the country.

said he had expected the Minister of Railways and Harbours to announce a reduction in the railway tariff on coal, but the Minister had failed to keep his promise. The Minister thought that by reducing the tariff he would enrich the coal mines, but that was incorrect. There were at present twenty-eight coal mines at work, but if the tariff were reduced they would perhaps have 128 mines working, which would provide a living for more whites and Kafirs. Those workmen required produce from the farms. The Minister had promised so to reduce the coal tariff as to make it possible to develop bunkering in Cape Town. If they had cheaper coal it would assist the use of steam ploughs and other farm machinery. Coal was sold for 2s. 6d. per 100 lbs., whilst at the mine itself it cost 6d. per bag. That was a result of the high freights charged, which injured’ the whole industry, and restricted the amount of coal used. The Minister would sooner or later find that the railway tariff on coal should be made as low as possible, and he would see that both traffic and profits would then be increased. He (the speaker) could not understand why the poor whites worked on the mines, seeing that on the farms there was plenty of work for them on terms of paying a half or a third of what they produced. He hoped the Minister would take careful note of his warnings.

moved the adjournment of the debate until to-morrow.

Agreed to.