from Theodora P. Faure, teacher.

General C. F. BEYERS (Pretoria. District, South), from G. R. von Weilligh, late Surveyor-General of the Transvaal.

for construction of a wagon-bridge across the Vaal River at Roberts Drift (two petitions).

from E. C. Stahl, teacher.

for construction of a railway from Belmont to Douglas.

as Chairman, brought up the report of the Select Committee, reporting the Bill with amendments, and specially an alteration in the-title in accordance with leave granted by the House on the 28th instant.

The Bill was set down for second reading on Wednesday.

Report of Protector of Indian Immigrants, year ended 31st December, 1909; annual report Meteorological Department, 1910 (Transvaal); preliminary returns of the Census taken on 7th May, 1911.

Report of Postmaster-General, 1910; copy of Convention for the Exchange of Money Orders with Australia.

I have to lay on the table amendments to the proposed Standing Orders received by me from: (a) The hon. member for Woodstock (Dr. Hewat), on behalf of the Opposition; and (b) the hon. member for Commissioner-street (Mr. H. W. Sampson), on behalf of the Labour party. I would suggest that these proposed amendments be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders for consideration.

It was ordered accordingly.

said that although he did not object to the Standing Rules, he desired to draw attention to what appeared to him to be an important matter. Standing Rule and Order No. 55 made certain things necessary, namely, that members must appear in the House bareheaded, must bow to the Speaker, and must not cross between a speaker and the Chair. But the rule was too limited in its scope. No provision was made in regard to the clothes a member should wear. (Laughter.) It was no Laughing matter. In this matter disrespect was being shown to the House. They should maintain the dignity of the House. Why, some hon. members appeared in the House without a waistcoat on, and with their thumbs in their braces! (Laughter.) Did that show respect for Mr. Speaker? (Renewed laughter.) It was a scandal. Although the old Boers were often held up to ridicule in the days of the Republic in the Transvaal, members of the Volksraad had been careful not to be disrespectful. In 1855 when they adopted the Constitution they passed a rule; it would be found on page 4 of their old Rules and Orders. It Laid down that members must wear black clothes and white ties and appear bareheaded. This rule also applied to members of the Executive Council, the present Ministers. Yet how did the Ministers now appear in the front benches?. (Laughter.) He thought it was derogatory to the dignity of the House. (Laughter.) They were often referred to Europe for lessons. They should indeed take what was good from European precedents, but they should reject what was bad. He was aware that hon. members might give as an excuse that the weather was warm. Well, what was to stop them going to their tailor and ordering a suit of black alpaca? (Laughter.) It was always easy to obtain dark clothes. He hoped that in future hon. members would appear in dark clothes, and fully clad, with coat, vest, and trousers. (Loud laughter.) He desired that proposed new Standing Order No. 55 be referred back to the Standing Rules and Orders Committee with an instruction to consider the desirability of amending the said Standing Order so as to describe the dress to be worn by members attending the sittings of the House.

On the suggestion of Mr. Speaker, this Standing Order was accordingly referred back to the committee.

asked Mr. Speaker’s ruling on a point. The other day a Minister of the Crown quoted from a public document, and he was bound to lay the same on the table. The Minister of Railways had quoted from a very important report of a Commission. He asked Mr. Speaker to order that copies of the report should be laid on the table.

It is a little awkward for an hon. member four or five days after a debate to expect the Chair to remember all the words that have fallen from all hon. members in this House. I personally do not remember exactly what took place, whether the hon. Minister actually quoted from the document, or made reference to the document, and it is a little hard to expect the Chair to give a ruling on a point raised many days afterwards. I can only state what the rule is. The rule of this House and the rule of the House of Commons is that if a Minister quotes from an official document he should lay that document on the table unless he can assure the House that it is not in the interests of the country that that document should be laid on the table. More than my general statement of what the rule and practice is I cannot do at this stage, because I am not cognisant of what took place, whether the Minister actually quoted the ipsissima verba of this document, or merely made reference to the document.

I am very anxious that this document should be laid on the table. I quoted the sense of the document, not the ipsissima verba. He went on to say that the Minority Reports were prepared, and they would be printed as soon as possible, and laid on the table. What he had quoted had appeared in the newspapers.

said that there were many members who would like to have an opportunity of referring to the original document before they took part in the debate.

said that he understood the Minister to say yesterday that he would lay on the table the details of the proposed loan expenditure. When would he be able to give them?

said that yesterday he had inquired when they would be ready, and the reply was in the course of the day.

asked whether the Minister could not lay on the table a copy of the report of the Commission that had inquired into the conditions obtaining in the railway workshops, before they were printed. That was only fair to hon. members, who might not come to the same conclusion from the facts as the Minister had.

A copy has already appeared in the newspapers.

No.

said he was not able to say at present whether he would be able to lay the reports on the table, but he would be able to say later.

said that the Minister did not appear to have grasped the point. They wished these reports laid on the table so that they might be refered to because printing would mean delay.

Do I understand that you desire that the reports should be laid on the table before they are printed?

Now.

I have not got them here.

said he had to congratulate the Minister of Finance upon laying before the House a very interesting statement: he might say that at periods he (the speaker) was carried away by the extraordinary optimism in which he indulged. But it was like the scenery of a theatre, which could not be too closely inspected. It had since been criticised by hon. members on both sides of the House, and he would not repeat arguments that had already been used. At any rate, he should like to make reference to the end of the Treasurer’s speech. His hon. friend had said towards the close that the Government had every reason to believe that its policy had been of the greatest benefit to the country. Well, the Government was entitled to any opinion that it liked to hold, but he thought his hon. friend must feel that he had been rather premature with this patting on the back in view of the criticisms that had been made. He told them that there had been reductions in railway rates, and that further reductions were in contemplation. Well, that was nothing new; they expected that, because it was a portion of the South Africa Act Then they were told that there had been reductions in the Way of general taxation. He went on to say that his hon. friend the member for Cape Town, Central, had effectively shown that there had been an increase of something like £352,000 in the expenditure. He thought that should rather be the subject of discontent, than the indiscriminate giving of credit by the Minister. He thought that the congratulations with regard to a reduction of expenditure was merely a mirage. He then said that the policy of the Government was to stimulate industries, and he showed that the mines would not always be able to bear such a heavy share of the taxation. They had been told that agriculture was the greatest asset of the country. Agriculture, in time, would become the greatest asset of the country, but up to the present it had not been developed with the spirit and success to which it was entitled. Then the Treasurer had swallowed up his balance of £855.000. Next year he would have to suggest new taxation, and he thought the Minister would have done better by proposing taxation this year, instead of exhausting the resources which he had at his command. The Tight hon. member for Victoria West had complained that there was not that lively interest shown in the extravagance of the Government that there should be. Up to the present there had been reason for that, because hon. members on the other side of the House did not contribute so heavily to the taxation of the country. It had been said that the mining industry was practically inexhaustible, but he would like to utter a word of warning in that regard. In 1910 the mining companies of the Witwatersrand paid out dividends to the amount of £8,887,185, while last year—1911—the amount paid down in dividends dropped to £7,763,000, or a difference of 12½ per cent. Well, it was a serious matter when dividends went down at such a rate. He hoped the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. F. D. P. Chaplin) would deal more fully with the mining industry, in view of the importance of the matters he had mentioned.

He could quite understand the feeling of the Treasurer. He wanted to get a remedy, and they all knew that a Treasurer was a predatory animal. But there were certain directions in which it was impossible for the Treasurer to carry out his predatory inclinations without great damage to the, country. The first was to be found on page 33 of the Budget speech, and was in reference to a small matter of either buying up, or exchange, or the extinction of certain loans issued in 1869 and 1896. He would point out that, according to the Treasurer’s own statement, there were only outstanding to-day £500,000 worth of securities, and if they assumed that the Minister would, by expropriation, save 1 percent, per year, it would only mean a saving of £5,000 a year, and in view of the trouble this would entail, he hardly thought it worth while. Another subject of the greatest importance, because it was a question of principle and the national credit, was that of bewaarplaatsen. In a debate recently hon. members on the other side held up their hands in horror at the idea of the expropriation of land, even when fully compensated. They looked upon it as monstrous. (An HON. MEMBER: “Hear, hear.”) What would they say when he told them that there was a disposition to confiscate valuable property belonging to other persons without paying any compensation at all. He would be moderate, because the Treasurer had not definitely announced yet that he intended to confiscate this property; but he had to point out he took credit in his mining revenue for £111,716, that had been derived from this source, and he thought he would be able to show that half of it belonged to someone else. He was going to try to prevent him taling that amount. He thought it would shake the credit of South Africa to its very foundations. If that property which formerly belonged to hon. members on the other side of the House was still in their possession, the Treasurer would no more dare to attempt to do what he apparently intended than he would dare to take away their farms. The bewaarplaatsen were plots of ground originally granted under claim licences for the storage of the tailings. Later on it was decided by the Government to give out those storage plots and water rights under another title, and they gave rather a larger piece of ground than the ordinary claim licence entitled them to. No one in those days ever dreamt of those plots having any prospective mineral value. In the earlier days the people had only considered the value of the actual outcrop, and no one who took out bewaarplaatsen imagined he was losing his mining rights. Recently, in 1909, a Commission was appointed by the Government to go into the question of how any proceeds derived from these assets were to be dealt with. The Commission consisted of a body of gentlemen who were impartial, and included Messrs. Esselen, Gregorowski, and Cecil Fleischer. The Act of 1908 provided that the proceeds of these particular assets were to be paid into separate accounts and used for the redemption of loans. It should not go into the ordinary revenue of the country, but the South Africa Act had done away with that entirely; and the Minister of Finance thought he could smuggle that into the general revenue of the country; but it was not revenue, and the Treasurer’s project appeared to be to deal not only with the Government’s share but with the freehold owner’s share also in this way. He did not want to take up the time of the House by going into the whole of that inquiry, because most of it had to do with th rights of mining in these places, and the rights of claimholders and other tenants of surface rights. At a certain stage of the proceedings the surface holders had been thrown out altogether. One thing he wanted to deal with was the freeholder, and he wanted to say that the freeholder had always been entitled to a half share of what was realised, and was entitled to that to-day. He did not believe that if the House knew anything of the conditions under which these rights were held, it would dream of taking them away. He did not know what the object of the Minister was, and he thought it was absolutely indefensible to take a share of that money and smuggle it into the revenue of the country and say nothing about it. Surface holders had been dispossessed of whatever rights they had at the time (in 1891), and even the brickmakers, stonecutters, or the lime burners were entitled to a pre-emptive right to take out a mineral licence. At a certain stage of the proceedings the surface holders had been dispossessed of their rights. The real cause was that certain concessionaires were endeavouring to get the Government to enter into a bargain with them for the whole lot, and that was the reason why that dispute had lasted such a long time. The First Volksraad had passed a resolution on August 25, 1895, upon which the whole case rested. They had resolved that mining rights upon these areas should be sold to the highest bidder at a public auction and that half the proceeds of the sale should be given to the State and the other half to the lawful holder of the farm or the ground, or his legal heirs. That had been the last word on the rights. The point had been raised in August, 1898, and although the surface holders made another gallant attempt to get the rights of minerals, they were definitely dispossessed. The Volksraad’s reply was that in accordance with the resolution of August 25, 1896, the matter was closed as far as the surface rights were concerned. In paragraph 27 the Commission stated: It will be apparent that the whole question of under-mining rights was considered from two standpoints: it was a grant and dispossession of rights and secondly to allocate the proceeds derived therefrom. Under the law of 1894 these proceeds were equally divided between the State and the owners of the land. The hon. member went on to quote at some length from the Commission’s report, and also referred to the report of the Select Committee appointed in the Transvaal at the time of the introduction of a draft Ordinance by Sir Richard Solomon.

Is that the report of the Chamber of Mines?

It is the evidence of a gentleman who was called before the Select Committee. It is an official document.

Yes, but is it from the report of the Chamber of Mines?

My hon. friend need not interrupt, because he will get into a worse hole. The Select Committee, the names of which he gave, included that of Mr. Hull, and it reported in 1904 that the freehold owners were entitled to half share of the proceeds. He went on to urge that the owners were entitled to a half share of the proceeds of the mineral rights, and that those proceeds could not be taken away excepting by an Act of Parliament, which he did not think it was possible for this House or this Government or any other Government to carry through, because the confiscation of rights of this description that had been held practically since the bewaarplaatsen were created, would cause a scandal in the financial world which no Government could afford to risk. It was impossible that this act of confiscation, which he did not say they intended to carry out, but which they had certainly raised strong suspicion of an intention to carry out, should be passed; it was a monstrous state of things which he was perfectly certain this House would not tolerate. The cost would be far more than the advantage they would get from it. The value of the sum involved would be £2,000,000, spread over many years, and half of that would be the owners’ right. He hoped the Minister would not deal with the matter in a frivolous way. Of course, he might get up and tell the House that he had wanted to ask the House for its decision later on, instead of quietly taking this large sum of money and saying nothing about it. Proceeding, the hon. member said he would refer to railways. He had before him the Railway Board Report. It was rather a thin document, and referred to events ending as long ago as March, 1911. It stated that the details would be found in the next annual report of the General Manager. It seemed to show a disposition to keep them a long time waiting for any real information. He hoped the Minister of Railways would hurry up the issue of this report. A very serious question seemed to have arisen between the Minister of Railways and the Minister of Finance. A great many letters were no doubt being written between the two departments, and legal advice had been taken. It would be interesting to know what would be the cost of all this before the matter was settled. It was a case of “Where doctors disagree, who is to decide?” They were building railway lines out of revenue, and where did this revenue come from but out of the pockets of the taxpayers? Surely it was an absurdity to put profits into construction, then add the amount to capital and pay perpetual interest upon it. In spite of conversations that might have taken place in the Convention upon the subject, a more unbusinesslike procedure he never heard of. His hon. friend (the Minister of Railways) was not quite happy in dealing with figures. He got groggy. (Laughter) Of course he meant the figures were groggy. (Renewed laughter.) In dealing with dialectical points he was always at ease, but on this occasion he drew down upon his head a violent attack from the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle), which reminded one of the scene in “Julius Caesar” where Mark Antony, holding up the mantle of Caesar, said: “See what a rent the envious Casca made.” (Laughter.) The hon. Minister referred to a matter of £750.000 reduction in railway rates, which he desired to bring about for the benefit of those places furthest from the sea. He knew that certain smaller lines in the Transvaal wanted a reduction of their rates. If there was a case where a Province was badly treated in the matter of railway rates it was the Province of the Transvaal.

The House would be surprised at the extraordinary differences in the earnings of the various lines. For instance, from the Portuguese border to Germiston, via Springs, a distance of 301 miles, the average earnings per mile were 12s. 9d.; from the Portuguese border to Pretoria, 294 miles, 9s. 2d.; from Table Bay to Nelspoort, 373, 1s. l0d. People might say that these high profits were due to the heaviness of the traffic, but this was not so exclusively. The Transvaal lines paid something like double what the Cape lines did. From the Portuguese border to Pietersburg, 471 miles, the average earnings per mile were 6s. l1d.; and from Algoa Bay to Warrenton, 531 miles, 4s. 3d. In these two cases the traffic was very similar. From Durban to Pietersburg, 686 miles, the earnings were 4s. l0d.; from Table Bay to Fourteen Steams, 697 miles, 2s. 4d.; Port Elizabeth to Potchefstroom, 707 miles, 4s. 7d.; and from the Portuguese border to Potchefstroom, 398 miles, 10s. l0d. He was showing that it could not be said that this enormous disparity was due to the heaviness of the traffic, and he would take what they charged for the distance.

You may have the same rates and earn more.

That may be so. I am not raising this point to complain particularly from the point of view of the Transvaal, but to put a stop if possible to the extremely parochial views that some members are inclined to take when discussing the raising of revenue in this country. (Ministerial cheers.) I cannot say that those differences will be adjusted immediately.

I wish they would be.

I am raising this question to put a stop to this provincialism, and to this picking out of a particular item, and saying “Our Province is disgracefully used.” Proceeding, Sir Lionel said that to show that his contention about the disparity in charges was right, he would instance the following cases: From the Portuguese border to Potchefstroom, 398 miles, the charge on first-class goods was 103½d; from Port Elizabeth to Potchefstroom, 707 miles—nearly double the distance—the charge was 102½d. That showed an enormous advantage in favour of Port Elizabeth. Now, again, from the Portuguese border to Johannesburg, the charge per 100 lb. for the 367 miles was 84d.; from Algoa Bay to Beaconsfield, 484 miles, 77½d.; Durban to Johannesburg, 486 miles, 92d.; Algoa Bay to Beaconsfield, 484 miles, 77½d. There, again, the Transvaal was worse treated; but worse still was this: from the Portuguese border to Pietersburg, 526 miles, the charge per 100 lb. was 113d.; from Algoa Bay to Warrenton, 531 miles, the charge was 77½d. Nobody could contend that it was possible for anyone—not even the Railway Board—to adjust these things in a hurry, but do let them drop this habit of picking out particular items, and on the strength of them saving that particular Provinces were badly treated.

There was no doubt about one thing, and that was: that these very high rates were stifling the development of the interior; and that, therefore, they would be disastrous not only to the interior but to the whole of the country. The development of the interior trade was worth a great deal more to the country than any other development we could have. He was convinced that the in-transit trade was of little value, and all this talk about Cape ports being sacrificed on account of the Mozambique Treaty was of no account, be cause all their big merchants—their Mosenthals and Jaggers—were putting up their huge warehouses at the distributing centres in the Transvaal.

What about your harbours?

You get trade in your harbours in proportion to the value of your internal development, but your transit trade does not count. I do say this: if you are going to develop the interior, you have to concentrate yourselves upon reducing the railway rates to the interior, particularly upon wood, iron, and the raw materials of industry. Proceeding, Sir Lionel said that he was almost ashamed to quote from a report of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce, after the sneers that had been hurled at that body. The following figures were a disgrace to the Railway Administration. On the short line from Germiston to Witbank, a distance of eighty miles, the earnings were £10.000 per mile. The present charge was simply outrageous. On the Germiston to Pretoria line the earnings were £2,954 per mile, and looking through the list they would see a dreadful state of affairs. This was retarding the development of the country. In regard to depreciation, the Railway Board told them that there was £7,200,000 short.

The Railway Board doesn’t say so. The Assistant Auditor-General said so.

It might amuse the House if he recounted what had taken place. First, he wrote to the Board and received an answer from the Beard that he was to approach the chairman direct. He thought that the most direct way of approaching the chairman was to approach the Minister in the House with a direct question, which he did. Thereupon the Minister told the House that he had nothing to conceal. As his hon. friend had put it, “If he had nothing to conceal, why conceal it?” The Minister appeared to take great umbrage at the fact that he should have addressed the Secretary of the Railway Board instead of approaching him direct. He (the speaker) then felt that he was in the wrong box, because he was addressing the Minister of Railways, not the Chairman of the Railway Board. (Laughter.) So he wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Railway Board, and thereupon expressed his regret that he had trans gressed by approaching the Minister instead of the Chairman, and also in the same letter apologised for having addressed the Secretary of the Railway Board, adding in extenuation, that it was not an uncommon procedure when one wished to communicate with a Board to address one’s letter to its official amanuensis. In the end, as he thought from the beginning it would be, the Chairman of the Railway Board told him that he could not enjoy the privilege of seeing the minutes. The Chairman told him that it would not be in accordance with the wishes of the Board. (Laughter.) This was most extraordinary, because at the first go-off, when he wrote to the Board, they referred him to the Chairman. Now he was told that it might be in conflict with the ideas of the Board. He thought that the House would like to know what had happened. He had not been able to see the minutes, and he hoped that the other gentlemen to whom he had referred had been more fortunate. The Minister of Railways said the other day that the losses on harbours should be met by a duty on oversea goods. With that suggestion he agreed. In regard to the Loan Estimates, his right hon. friend opposite had issued a warning at the expenditure of this country. He thought that he knew something about the conditions of South Africa. He might be twitted with his previous prophecies not having come off if he venture on prophecy now. He did not wish to predict any falling off, because that would have a bad effect. But he did say that they must go easy, that they must not have the lighthearted optimism that the Treasurer indulged in. It would be of no use for the Minister, in replying, to say that the Estimates of Expenditure would not be realised. No economist or industrialist knew at what moment the effect of a falling off would be felt by the country. There was a falling off. He would probe into that question more deeply on another opportunity. Might he urge upon the Minister to heed the representation made from every direction to face the situation as it is, because economic laws would not forgive us if we transgressed them. The prosperity of the country and what we could raise in the country was dependent, not upon the proportions of population, not upon any calculations as to whether three black men made one white. The question of the-amount that this country could bear in shape of taxation depended upon its material wealth and productive capacity, and upon nothing else. Therefore, we had to go slowly. It was not by counting the heads, but the sources of supply of revenue, that one could obtain a fair idea of what we could get. He did think that the Treasurer was inclined to be optimistic in the speech he made the other day.

said that they were not in a position to properly criticise the Budget, for the reason that they were not in possession of certain information which they should have had. They had not got the report of the Civil Service Commission, and so were unable to deal with the question of Civil Service reorganisation and they had not got that Public Service Bill which had been promised so long, and which he hoped would soon put in an appearance. Then there was the case of loan funds, about which they had received no intimation whatever. He drew attention to what happened last year, when the Minister of Railways rushed through a Bill for the construction of new lines during the expiring hours of the session, and he hoped that the House would not be subjected to such a scandal again. Dealing with the figures given by the Treasurer, the speaker said that the Minister had budgeted for a deficit of £607,000, having obtained from the railways during the year the sum of £500,000. One could only regard these Budgets as extraordinary Budgets, because just before Union a wave of depression passed over the country, and the country was only recovering. So far the Treasurer had been in the happy position of not having had to look around for new sources of taxation. He reminded the House, too, that a Treasurer placed in such a happy position did not go wandering around looking for new sources of revenue, when he had such sources placed at his disposal for a period of four years. Next year they hoped to hear a Budget that would be more in accordance with normal times. Next year the Treasurer, if his anticipations were realised, would be faced by a deficit of nearly a million. With regard to taxation, they were passing through what he might call a transition stage. Some of the colonies had been looking upon the railways as a source of taxation, but the Act of Union stated that the Treasurer could only look upon the railways for help for a period of four years. He would not enter into the question of the relation ship between the Union, and the Provinces for there would be an opportunity of doing so later on; moreover, he did not think that the valuable time of the House should be wasted by repeating speeches on one subject. In considering this question of the revenue and expenditure of South Africa in comparison with the revenue and expenditure of other countries, they must not forget the two factors in the Act of Union—the dual capital and the dual language medium. He did not wish to be misunderstood on this point, but the fact remained that these two factors were there, and these two factors made for additional expenditure. For many years to come these two factors must necessarily mean some increase in the expenditure of the country. This year they were in a happy position, and they must wait until next year when the Treasurer, for the reason that the revenue from the railways would be exhausted, would have to come to that House with an alternative scheme for raising revenue. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth had expressed indignation and taken the Treasurer to task for using the balance of £855,000 from the year before last, and said that this amount should have been paid into the sinking fund or utilised in a more reproductive way. That hon. gentleman had been appalled at the deficiency, and had expressed the opinion that the Treasurer had not had the courage to come before that House with a scheme of taxation at this juncture of affairs. He wondered what that hon. member would have done had he been in the position of the Minister of Finance? He wondered what that hon. gentleman did in the past when he was Treasurer of the Cape Colony? Had he never laid his hands on small sums such as these instead of facing the country with a request for additional taxation? When he heard the remarks of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth and the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, on the extravagance of the Government, he could not help thinking how these two gentlemen had voted the other day when there was a proposal before the House that the contribution to the Imperial Navy should be increased without delay. If that motion had been passed, then the Parliament of that country would have been bound to increase the contribution paid by South Africa to the Imperial Navy. He (the speaker) did not support the motion, in view of the Treasurer’s statement of a few days before and the knowledge he had that the Minister would be faced by a deficit at the end of the year. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, made a comparison between the expenditure per head of the population in this country, Great Britain, and France, very much to the detriment of this country, and he drew an awful picture of the expenditure of the Government. He gave £167,000,000 as the expenditure in Great Britain. He wondered at the hon. member who was an experienced financier and had been a Treasurer. They had to take in addition to that £167,000,000 such a thing as local expenditure, which amounted to nearly £100,000,000 a year, and therefore his figures were totally misleading and utterly valueless.

No.

Does the hon. gentleman challenge me? That local expenditure has to be taken into consideration. Is it not taken into consideration in this country? Proceeding, he said the comparison should have been made between this country’s revenue and expenditure and Great Britain’s revenue and expenditure, plus the local revenue and expenditure. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, also said the scale of Civil Servants’ salaries had been set by the scale which Ministers applied to themselves. He was sure that Civil Servants in this country would have been glad to hear they were; because any one looking at the scale would agree that it was an exceedingly moderate one. It was a scale nothing like the old Transvaal scale, and it was not the scale which Civil Servants expected under Union. It bore no comparison with the scale applied to the Ministerial Departments. He also accused the Minister of Finance of doing nothing for the development of the country; but turning to the Estimates he found that the Minister provided for an increase of £182,000 for irrigation, £313,000 for land, and £290,000 for land banks. Were those sums not being spent on development? He was utterly at a loss to understand what the hon. gentleman meant. Turning for a moment to the Railway Estimates, they found that at the end of this year the Minister of Railways and Harbours would only have a profit of £40,000, and by that time he would have reduced the rates so far that he would be practically working without any profit. He would ask the Minister if he would state to them whether the £500,000 he mentioned would come into his revenue for 1912-13, or whether he had already included it in the revenue for the current year? The Minister for Railways and Harbours had, in the year 1911-12, been somewhat unfortunate in his estimate of expenditure in that he had to come to the House and ask for authority for an excess expenditure of two millions. He hoped when they reached the two Bills on the paper they would be able to get some enlightenment on that subject. The Minister of Railways and Harbours startled the House by a quotation from a certain document or report, and he would like to say to him that in dealing with that subject he hoped he would give consideration to the other aspect of it, as he was sure he would. It was not a mere question of how far and how much they could get out of each of the works, working at top speed. The Ministers were not in the same position as the manufacturer at Home, who had to compete not only with his rival manufacturers, but with sweated foreign labour, and therefore had to look exceedingly closely into every department of his business so as to make both ends meet. The Minister could afford to run the railways on lines more conducive to the health and benefit of the whole of the community, and he honed before the Minister introduced generally the system he had in operation in one or two shops he would consider its effect and would take the men into his confidence and, if possible, show them that they would not become mere machines grinding out as much work as they could; but that they would find under that system that they would be able to enjoy life and health. He would ask the Minister most earnestly to consider that aspect of the question before he imposed piecework all over the country, as apparently, from the extracts he read to them, he seemed inclined to do. He also said with regard to the Natal railway men that although they had certain political rights they would not have them again. He there made a vain boast, because so long as those men had the vote they would have those rights. It would have been wise if the Administration had recognised the Union”formed by those railwaymen. There was no doubt, as the hon. member for Georgetown (Mr. Andrews) had said, that the Union was growing in numbers and influence, and he would ask the Minister, even now, if he would not recognise that Union as the legitimate representative of the men, so that they might feel that they had a means of approaching the Administration or the Minister in confidence, and that would give them hope of redress of grievances without coming to Parliament continually for that purpose. As to the relationship between the Minister of Railways and the Railway Board, or, should he say, that portion of the Railway Board which consisted of three Commissioners, he asked: Was the Board simply an Advisory Board? He did not know whether it was or not. The Act of Union said that it should have full control and management of the railways, subject to the control of the Governor-General-in-Council. Referring to the motion dealing with the Railway Board introduced into the House the other day, he said that he had voted against the motion because he thought that sufficient time had not elapsed for that experiment to work properly, but he did hope that the Minister would come before the House next year with a more satisfactory proposal for legislation in connection with the Board, because there was no doubt they did not at the present time know what were the real functions of the Board? (Hear, hear.) If he might be allowed to throw out a suggestion, it was that the House should give the Board a real control of the railways, and subject always to the control of the Governor-General-in-Council. That would mean that the House would be placed in ’the full possession of the views of the Board as to new construction and the like, and should the Executive Council have had any reasons for overriding the Board, they would have its report as well as the reasons for overriding it. The House would then be in a position to say whether it concurred with the Government or approved of the action of the Board itself. (Hear, hear.) The Minister had said that he was going to reduce the railway rates; and as he gathered from him, that reduction would apply to the points furthest from the coast. He did not live very far from the coast himself, and he was in some trepidation as to what all that reduction would mean to those who were living near the coast. Would they have to pay increased taxation for those who lived far inland? If that were so they would have some difficulty. The Minister threatened that their harbouns, which hitherto they had been running in connection with their railways, had to earn enough money on the spot to make good the loss incurred, so that the coastal ports would have, either directly or indirectly, to make good the loss. One began to wonder what financial benefit they who lived near the coast had so far derived—certainly Natal—from entering into Union. When other Provinces said that they were going to be robbed under that scheme, he sometimes wondered where Natal came in.

said that it was said that it was the duty of the Opposition to criticise the Government’s policy, but he had unfortunately struggled to find out what the Government’s policy was—(laughter)—and he had failed to do so. He did not say that there was no policy, but he had failed to find it, so far. He was pleased to hear that most of the hon. members who had spoken yesterday seemed to be inclined to favour increasing the Sinking Fund. He was very glad to hear that, because he was very strongly in favour of a Sinking Fund. They had borrowed something like 70 millions on their railways, and there had been no Sinking Fund to meet those loans when they fell due. (An HON. MEMBER: “The railways are there.”) He was one of those who said that the Government must be prepared to meet those loans when they fell due. He was afraid that the loans might fall due in times of depression, when money was scarce and money was dear, and they must pay a higher rate of interest. He thought that the Government should take a lesson from the New Zealand Government in that respect, which had discussed that question of the Sinking Fund, and had decided by a large majority to build up a Sinking Fund for all their loans, as well as their railways. He had been very glad to hear the right hon. member for Victoria West the previous day—(Mr. MERRIMAN: “Hear, hear.”)—say that he would like to see a good deal done to develop the coal industry, and that the Minister was in a position to assist in that matter.

The right hon. gentleman turned to the Minister of Railways and said he would like to see him assist that industry by giving better railways. Coal was one of their largest industries (Mr. Henwood went on to say), but it required cheaper railway rates, better facilities, quicker despatches, and additional loading appliances to enable them to develop that industry. A few months ago it took no less than 96 hours to carry coal from the coalfields to the coast. It was only fair to say that since then there had been a great improvement in that direction, but there was still room for further improvement. Last year the output of coal in Natal was 2,500,000 tons, in round figures, and most of the money went in wages and railway rates. There were only two companies that paid a dividend, and their dividends were only about 4 or 5 per cent. The Government reaped large benefits from the coalfields. The present railway was almost taxed to its utmost, and he saw very little chance of increasing the output unless something were done to give them a better line between the coalfields and the port. A shorter and more direct line to the port would, he believed, revolutionise the coal industry in Natal. By a route of that description, they would be able to capture the whole of the coal trade to India, Ceylon, the Far East, the Argentine, Mauritius, and Madagascar. He was confident that a new line, with better gradients and better curves, would result in an enormous saving, and that they would probably be able to save sufficient to pay interest on their money and a sinking fund to pay off the capital. What he would ask the Minister to do was to put down a flying survey, and see what could be done, and to bring a report before the House.

There was one other point he would like to mention, and he was sorry he had to mention it, and that was in regard to the Commission in relation to the railway workshops. The Minister gave them some figures the other day, which, of course, it was very difficult to contradict, but he did not do them the honour of placing that document on the table to enable them to read and reply to it as one would like. He thought the Minister had taken a course which was unfair to members of that House.

It is not fair to the railwaymen.

continuing, said that the figures given were: Bloemfontein, 100 per cent.; Pretoria, 98.9; Salt River, 86; Uitenhage, 55. Then the Minister drew himself up with a smile on his face and said, “Durban, 38”; and finished up by saying: “Those are the men who want full political rights, and I will take good care that they do not get them.” It was most unfortunate that such a statement should have been made in the House. He, for one claimed that the working men of Natal were not different from those in other parts. They were able to work and did work, but the fact of Bloemfontein and Pretoria being at the top of the tree in regard to work pointed in one direction, that was, there was no doubt, that those shops were the latest to be built, and they, therefore, had the best machinery, and if you gave men the best of tools they were able to turn out the best of work. He thought the statement made by the Minister would do more to stir up feeling among the railwaymen than anything which had been said on the cross-benches during the past twelve months.

said he wished to congratulate the Treasurer upon the excellent accountancy which he had shown. He had put before the House a statement of facts, so that “he who runs may read.” Last year the statement also appeared at first to be clear. But, ‘on second thoughts, men began to find that there were certain matters that did not appear from the service accounts. Men began to engage themselves in chasing, not Barbary ostriches, but certain balances that had come from various Provinces. Not only were ordinary members of the House puzzled, but experts like the hon. member for Uitenhage said he had found them. The hon. member for Victoria West also stated that he had found them, only to be told by the Treasurer that neither he nor the Prime Minister knew anything about them. This year they also dealt with a balance, but happily this balance had not required any chasing, because there was no difficulty in finding it. The Treasurer himself indicated where it was to be found. An Act was passed last year that the surplus of revenue should be applied for the reduction of debt. Last year the Treasurer stated that the surplus was not a real surplus, and that it was idle to refer to a surplus of £478,000 as a surplus, when the country was crying out for money to meet most urgent requirements. Then he explained that he was taking an amount of £500,000, which, with the former amount, totalled £778,000, and he proposed to ask Parliament to consider a supplementary works programme for that amount. Apparently, in the present year, the Treasurer had departed from the very sound principle that he had laid down last year, when he said that it was a pernicious system for buildings to be erected out of borrowed money, but only a year after, they saw the Treasurer laying violent hands upon balances. This was not money that they had in reserve; it was not money that they could use for the relief of taxation—it was money that was ear-marked for public works. If he departed from the standpoint he took up last year, then it meant that borrowed money must be devoted to works for which this particular money was ear-marked. Although he complimented the Minister of Finance upon his excellent accountancy, he could not compliment him upon his finance, not only at this early stage of the Union, by having to fall back upon borrowing money, but the Budget lacked that statement which one would expect from the Minister of Finance. One looked in vain for any indieation of what policy the Government intended to pursue with regard to finance. Surely it was the duty of the Minister to submit to them some statement—now that they were at the beginning of Union—of their assets and their revenue, and how he was prepared to carry on the finances of the country in the future. The amount of revenue we obtained from mines and other national sources of wealth still controlled by the State apparently amounted to £318,000 in all. Was this a stationary sum or under careful management and administration was it going to increase? Then what about that portion of our national assets no longer under State control—he referred to practically the whole country, for according to the theory of English law the State still had a lien upon quitrent ground. A good deal of public money was rightly spent on the development of this part of our national estate. The expenditure on agriculture, leaving out forestry and agricultural education, amounted to something like half a million. One would have liked some assurance as to what return the revenue of the country was going to get in the future from this expenditure?

Increased development.

Quite so, but that does not answer my question. How is this increased development going to bring increased money into the Exchequer? In what way in pounds, shillings and pence is this country going to get a return for millions spent on agriculture? Continuing, Dr. Watkins said that hon. members opposite should not think that he was cavilling at this vote, for he was prepared to spend, one, two, or even five millions—(Ministerial cheers)—for this purpose provided they could show him that it was a good investment. But he could not find any indication of the way in which this money spent on agriculture was eventually to benefit the Exchequer of the country. One might be told that the development of the country would be reflected through the Customs. In developing the agricultural resources we might not be gaining Customs, but absolutely the reverse, for the more agricultural produce we raised the less we should get in Customs. So we should not recoup ourselves through the Customs for the money spent on agriculture. One-third of the total revenue of the country was derived from Customs, excluding the interest we drew on money from the railways. To a certain extent, Customs were an absolutely legitimate means of raising revenue, but they must handle them very carefully if they wanted to develop the country. They could not get away from the fact that Customs increased the cost of living, and were a very heavy tax on the people, especially on those who could least afford to pay them. As had previously been said in that House, the Customs taxed a man upon his necessities and not upon his means. That put the heaviest tax on the man with a large family, and thus they drove out of the country those they would wish to keep in it. They heard of men leaving the country because they could not afford to live in it, and then these men were called parasites. But the way to keep these people here was to make the country attractive and to enable people’s money to go as far as possible. But the man with the family was the one who was hit the hardest. There was a tax on the baby s clothes, shoes, feeding bottle and perambulator, but it might be some consolation to the father of a large family to know that although his baby’s perambulator was taxed, he could get a traction engine through the Customs free. (Laughter.) He would like to see perambulators and shoes come into the country free. (Hear, hear.)

One felt that by spending money on agriculture one should make this a richer country. Everything produced and consumed in a country should make it richer. There was one matter in connection with the report of the Mining Industries Commission that struck him in considering where the State came in, and what share it obtained from the increased wealth of our national resources. It was stated that the price of land in Malmesbury had gone up from £2 10s. to £5 per morgen. What additional revenue did the State get from the district of Malmesbury in respect of this increased value?

Look at the railway returns!

replied that the railways were not to be run at a profit, and the country was obtaining nothing from this increase, he asked if the inhabitants of Malmesbury were getting the profit. He would commend the Minister of Finance to place these things on a sounder economic basis. He believed that, as a fact, the inhabitants of Malmesbury were not richer, because they went howling to that Commission, and visited the Prime Minister in their hundreds, saying that they were almost in a state of destitution, and asking for relief. They made out that they could not grow cereals without increased protection. Another thing that occurred to him in connection with that district was the statement that the amount of cereals produced had gone down, although the price of land had gone up. The land itself was poorer, and its productive powers had decreased. For many years he had heard charges against the mining people of the country, but here wealth was being dragged out of the land, and the soil was being impoverished. On the other hand, they were told that the future of the country, when the mines were exhausted, would be in agriculture, and that it would improve as the years went by. There was something wrong with the economics of a country where the value of the land increased while its productivity lessened. There was something radically wrong in the management and finances of the country, and, he thought, in the administration of agriculture. Some hon. members opposite were great admirers of the party in power in the Old Country. Did they not take any lessons in finance from that country? Would they not look forward to the Budget of years to come, and see that the money being spent on this national asset should be re couped, if not to us, to our children after us? He had looked in vain in the Treasurer’s speech for any indication of such a policy. In a question of finance, and not of accountancy, he would like to have seen some proportions drawn. He had looked in vain for any attempt to put on a systematic basis the proportion on which revenue should be contributed by Euro peans and natives. What was the principle underlying the collection of revenue and its distribution?

Now, the natives of the country might be paying too much or they might be paying too little towards the taxation of the country, but he did say that that House and the country had a right to know, and should be given some indication as to what would be a fair share of the taxation for the natives to pay. Had it been based upon a principle? If there was such a principle, then he should like to know that principle? He had forgotten, when dealing with Excise, to refer to an item that appeared just below. He referred to the large amount which the Minister of Finance had derived from the cigarette fax. When that tax was imposed he, as a cigarette smoker, could not quite see upon what principle that tax had been imposed. He was told that cigarette smoking was a vicious practice, and that the people of the country should pay for their vices; but he did not see why the virtuous people should escape, because it was upon virtues that they could best afford taxation. He would like to know on what principle cigarettes were taxed when cigars escaped taxation. He knew that it would be a most dangerous thing to suggest that there should be a tax upon tobacco He pointed out that necessities were being taxed, and he said that until they had exhausted every means, of raising revenue on what people could best afford to pay, they had no right to levy taxation on things that were of necessity to the poor man. One would have liked some indication from the Minister as to the principle on which he based the taxation on mines. He found that they got something like two millions from mines. A sum of £800,000 came from properties which still belonged to the State, but he did think that the Minister of Finance might have given the House some indication as to the value of those assets, and whether they were likely to yield more revenue or less in the future. They did not want to go back on the taxation which had been imposed on the mines, but they did want some indication of the principles underlying that taxation. There w.as a time when the mines did not contribute their fair share to the revenue of the country. There was a time when they nursed the mines, and rightly, just as they were rightly nursing agriculture at the present time But the time arrived when the mines did not require any further nursing, and when the mines were able to pay their fair share of the taxation of the country, and he did say that at the present time they were bearing their full share of the taxation of the country. He would like some indication of the system under which these taxes were levied, and he pointed out that mines and Customs contributed more than half the revenue received by the Treasurer. If there had been any principle underlying the taxation which had been imposed in the past, it was not the principle of looking at the question from the economic point of view, but of taxing in such a way that it would cost the least votes. They were faced with a deficit, and the Treasurer had abandoned the position which he took up a year ago. Instead of providing for public works out of revenue he was going in for borrowing. One would have hoped that the Treasurer would have looked ahead and given them his system of finance and taxation, so that it might be discussed by hon. members in that House. Now was the time to show that finance was not mere book-keeping. Then came the question of their relations towards Provincial expenditure. The so-called settlement seemed to him to leave matters exactly where they were. It was mere manipulation of figures. There was no alteration in it, and there was no principle underlying it. The same anomalies were still retained. They simply took certain figures and shifted them from one side of the account to the other. It left the facts just where they were, and the grievances of inequality just where they were. If one referred to this, one was charged with parochialism, but it was those who did these things who were parochial, and not those who called attention to them. The parochialism was in giving large amounts to one Province and not the others. He could not admit for one moment the statement that the Transvaal, having a Larger revenue, should have a larger expenditure than any other Province. If they admitted that principle, that the localities that raised the most money should have the most expenditure, then what claims had some localities to any money at all. He thought that with Union the barriers were swept away, and that this country became one country; that they were going to drop the parochial feeling, and that they were going to pool the proceeds of the country for the general benefit of the country. Not long ago, there was a Province of Griqualand West, and a great deal of revenue was derived from it. Should that revenue now be spent on that Province? It seemed to him that all the revenue should be swept into the Treasury, and dealt with as if no boundaries existed. He would like to deal with the principle laid down by the Treasurer of contributing to the expenditure of the different Provinces on the £ for £ principle. He was surprised that at this time of the day the Minister of Finance had got no farther than the good old £ per £ principle. It was a good principle at one time; but its object was to stimulate expenditure. People would come to them year after year and say that their expenditure had increased, and so would get more money out of them. He thought the object of the Government was to economise; yet they were going to bring forward the very principle that was introduced to stimulate expenditure. The Minister had taken the various reports of the Financial Relations Commission, and had picked out what seemed to him to constitute the line of least resistance, and had followed it. He thought it would have been a little better if he had gone a little farther into the Minority Report and had adopted the suggestion that the grants to the different Provinces be fixed on the capitation basis. If they paid on a capitation basis, they were assured of this: that as the demand of the central Government increased, so the revenue increased too. That was if they had a sound policy of finance, and not that policy of drift, to borrow when they were in debt. Regarding the relations of the Provinces, there was an opportunity given to stimulate in the Provinces the growth of an institution which had been found most beneficial in the Cape—he alluded to the Divisional Councils. Every member of the Cape whom he had consulted had been of opinion that the system was a most excellent one, and one to which the people of the Cape Province were greatly attached. (Hear, hear.) Anyone who had, seen the effects of the Divisional Councils in the Cape thought that the system should be extended to the other Provinces. They knew that by no Act of the central Parliament could they extend the Divisional Councils to the other Provinces, but if as a mild stimulant the Minister of Finance had left them with a deficit, some system of local taxation would have had to be introduced. The other Provinces would then have undersized what the benefit was of having these local bodies, and the benefits which accrued under local taxation, and they would have had that decentralisation which they all wanted—the people of each division managing their own affairs. The Minister had taken away the last hope of that, however, because the Provinces knew that it would row be used only as a lever to tax them. He thought that the Minister had missed his chance. He was sorry that with that brilliant accountancy, they had so little brilliant finance. He had an opportunity of reorganising the finances of the country; people knew that they would have to live under a new system, and the Minister could have introduced almost any sound policy of finance he wanted to, but he had accepted the old policy of drift, and instead of going down to posterity as the Minister of Finance who had given the country a sound system of finance, which might go down the ages, he would go down as a Minister of Finance who, in a time of unexampled prosperity, had added to the debt. Before the Minister of Railways got rid of that £750,000 surplus from the railways, and perhaps reduced a rate by a farthing, he hoped that he would give the matter of the pay of the railwaymen his fair consideration. He could do something to assist them without starving his revenue, or bringing the railways to bankruptcy.

who was received with cheers, said that the Hon. the Minister of Finance had been so surfeited with congratulations, both on his lucidity and his accountancy, that he must hesitate in adding his tribute of congratulation. The Minister had maintained an unbroken record. For years in the Transvaal, and now for the second time in that Parliament, the hon. Minister had been able to come down to the House and report that he had a substantial surplus as between revenue and expenditure. The hon. Minister, he thought, had begun his official career under a particularly lucky star; and he thought that on the present occasion the Minister was fortunate that his star was in the ascendant, because, when they came carefully to examine the accounts he had presented the other day, they could not but be struck by the fact that, although he had an increase of nearly a million in revenue, his expenditure, as a set-off against that, should require the gravest consideration. He was not going to gibe at the Minister in regard to that circular to which reference had been made by more than one hon. member, because the hon. gentleman said very much the same thing in that House that he said in the circular. By the issue of that circular he only fulfilled the promise he made to that House, and he (Mr. Currey) was sorry that that circular did not meet with the reward that it deserved, and that it did not bear the fruit that it ought to have done, because, if they eliminated from the revenue the amount the Minister received from the Railway Department and the surplus revenue he did not expect to get, they would find that hrs ordinary expenditure exceeded his ordinary revenue by £1,116,000. Even making allowance for his surplus revenue, he expended £126,000 more than his ordinary revenue. We were entirely to-day, in respect of that enormous increase of nearly one million which the hon. gentleman did not expect to get, dependent for our surplus on that fairy godmother, the Railway Department. He wanted during the few minutes he should trespass on the time of the House, to consider not the whole expenditure, but one aspect, and one aspect only, of our expenditure, and that was what was known as the Establishment Vote, excluding Railways. The Minister of Finance complained in his Budget speech that he had been rather unfairly treated by this House and by the country in regard to this particular item of expenditure. He complained that, in response to his efforts to bring about a large reduction of expenditure, he had been met by unrelenting opposition and criticisms in certain quarters, where he might reasonably have expected sympathy and support. He (Mr. Currey) was sure that this House would never be slow to acknowledge services in that direction, but he would ask the hon. member whether the facts disclosed in the papers which he had him Self laid on the table of the House, and which had been circulated among members, did justify the-statement made in his Budget speech that wholesale reductions had been effected. (Blear, hear.) When the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, made some comparison of expenditure to-day and expenditure in the immediate past, he took the year 1908-9, and he was severely taken to task because it was said that the country was then in the worst of its depression. He thought the hon. member for Uitenhage took up that position last night. He would put it to the hon. member and other hon. members, if they took the year 1909-10, whether that would not be a perfectly fair year to take for purposes of comparison, because his hon. friend would remember—he was speaking now entirely of the salary vote—that during 1909-10 the reductions made from the Cape Civil Service were refunded, and the same would apply, he believed, to the Civil Service in Natal. Taking the total amount expended in that year, immediately prior to Union, as a fair basis for purposes of comparison when they considered salaries, and salaries alone, taking the report of the Auditor-General on the four Provinces and taking the salary vote for the eleven months immediately preceding Union, and adding one-eleventh for the whole year, they found that the total salary vote of the four Provinces prior to Union, exclusive of the railways, was £5,240,000. Now, if they took the Auditor-General’s figures for the 10 months subsequent to Union, and added thereto one-fifth to make the whole year, and took the estimates of the Provincial Councils—for they had not got the Auditor-General’s report—the expenditure on that basis was £5,638,462, an increase of nearly £400,000. The estimate for 1911-12 amounted to £5,980,589, and the estimate now before the House, plus the estimate for the Provinces for salaries alone, showed that our salary vote had reached an appalling total of £5,993,161. other words, if his figures were correct, and he believed them to be absolutely correct, the salary votes of the Union had increased since Union by three-quarters of a million of money per annum.

That is excluding railways.

Yes, of course, I am excluding railways. Proceeding, he said that these figures were not as bad as they would seem at first sight to be, because at the Cape, prior to Union, they debited to loan account the money that was expended in salaries in connection with East Coast fever. If he remembered rightly, the Government of Natal did the same thing. The Minister of Finance, when he came into office, said that that was a bad system, and he altered it, and he put the expenditure in the salary vote in the Estimates. What would be a fair allowance for that expenditure he (Mr. Currey) could not say with certainty, but he thought that he would be well within the mark if he said that the expenditure on salaries in connection with East Coast fever was a quarter of a million. If that was a fair estimate, then the salary vote of the Union proper increased since the date of Union by at least £500,000 per annum. He thought that was a matter for very serious consideration. He had now spoken of the position today, and the hon. Treasurer had stated that they ought to consider in connection with the position they found to-day, the position they found last year. In that connection he thought that the hon. Minister and his colleagues deserved credit, because there was no doubt that they had succeeded in reducing the salary vote of the Union proper from what it was last year. The salary vote for the Union proper had been reduced from £5,036,193 to £4,961,655. There was an actual reduction of the salary vote in the Union proper of £74,538. But where they had saved in the salaries of the Union, they had lost in the salaries of the Provinces, because the salary vote of the Provinces had jumped up £87,385, which made a net increase of £12,847. The fact that the Treasurer had reduced the salaries of the Union proper was very satisfactory, but, from the taxpayers’ point of view, it did not matter whether those salaries were paid to the Provinces or to the Union. Then, with regard to pensions. Prior to Union, the pensions of railway and other servants were lumped together, and he could not say how much was due either to one or the other; but, on this basis, the combined pensions of the railway and general administration prior to Union was £525,683. The pension vote for the Union to-day, plus the vote for the railways, was £636,909. In other words, the pension vote was £111,326 in excess of that prior to Union. The responsibility for this rested with the House. It had sent some of the votes to the Public Accounts Committee, and the House had voted these moneys holus bolus. He had said that there was a reduction on the salaries of the Union of nearly £75,000. This was very satisfactory, when they remembered the demands made upon the Minister of Finance by the other Provinces. The Treasurer had to find on the salary vote for the police £85,000 more than he had to find last year for police alone. What did the country get for that? They were getting 289 more policemen and the Minister of Justice was going to adjust certain allowances for policemen here, there, and everywhere. He had no doubt that these allowances had to be met, but what the Treasurer really had to do was to find £85,000 for 289 policemen. In addition, fie had to find £53,000 for Post Office salaries, but he expected to get another £35.000 more revenue. That was where the Treasurer’s bad luck came in, to have heavy demands made on him on a vote like police, from which he got no return, and printing. Of course, on the Post Office vote, he got a substantial return. On the other hand, the Minister of Finance had some good luck. The Minister of the Interior had saved him on one item, salaries, £78,000. Last year the Minister required £83,000 for the census, and this year he asked for only £5,000. So, as against the demand for the police and Post Office vote, the saving in respect of the census had almost balanced this. On the other hand, the pension vote had increased by £42,000, and such saving had really been effected through the retrenchment of certain officers. He wished the House to consider for a moment what the effect would be if they were to maintain an establishment costing £6,000,000 a year, exclusive of the salaries paid to teachers in the Cape Province. The normal ratio of pensions to salaries was not an easy matter to determine. A very competent authority had given it as his opinion that the normal ratio of pensions to salaries in the United Kingdom was 18 per cent. We gave to our Civil Servants by way of pension, as was done in England, one-sixtieth of their salary for every year of service, with a maximum of forty years service. On that basis the day was not far distant when our pension vote would be over a million a year.

Quite right!

went on to say that fortunately the salary vote included a large number of temporary men and non-pensionable employees, and thus the pension liability was reduced. When the Civil Service Commission for the Cape Colony sat, that presided over by Justice Graham, this question of the Cape’s pension liability was most carefully considered. Very eminent men, including Sir Charles Abercrombie Smith, went into this question very minutely, and the result of their elaborate calculations was this: Taking the salary vote of the Cape Province, and making due allowance for the non-pensionable officers and the temporary employees, the ratio of pension to nay in this country was not 18 per cent., but it was 12½ per cent. If that calculation were correct, and it was infinitely better, of course, than the English basis, our pension liability to-day on a salary vote of £6,000,000 was going to be £750,000 a year.

Rot!

It is quite right.

These are not my calculations, but the calculations of men to whom even my hon. friend must bow. (Cheers.) He went on to say that these were the calculations of men who, when the salary vote of the Cape was £2,400,000, said: “Take that basis, and make all due allowances, the obligation in respect of that is 12½ per cent., £300,000.” He must leave his hon. friend to fight it out with such authorities as Sir Charles Abercrombie Smith. From the point of view of the taxpayer, and of the taxpayer alone, they must pause before they maintained a salary vote of £6,000,000 with a pension obligation of £750,000. It was not a question of an attack upon the Government or of making party capital. He said that if they maintained that large establishment with these pension obligations, those who came after them would probably have nothing to thank them for. Let them consider for a moment the burden on the taxpayer. We had a population of nearly six millions; we had a salary vote of nearly six millions. That meant that every man, woman, and child, black and white, civilised and barbarian, paid £1 per annum for public service in salaries alone, and there was a pension liability of nearly 2s. per head on each person. Were they willing to go on paying 22s. per head for salaries and pensions? It was difficult to draw comparisons with other countries which were thickly populated, and had only a small area. But let them consider the comparison between this country and India, where there was, at any rate, this similarity, a small white population face to face with and governing an enormous coloured population. There were 252 millions of people in British India, which was two and a half times the size of the Union. Their whole expenditure was £75.000,000—this included their railways as well as defence, which cost £33,000,000. For the whole of that Civil Service the expenditure amounted to 18 millions in a country which was two and a half times the size of the Union of South Africa. Neither as regarded salaries or pensions was that Government illiberal. The magnitude of the burden which the country was called upon to pay could best he gauged when they remembered this, that their revenue for next year, exclusive of railways, only amounted to £15,600,000 and they had a debt liability of four and a half millions—that was, of course, including the railway debt. He meant this, that when they made the necessary deductions for debt and pensions they had only 13½ millions left, and out of that 13½ millions six millions went in salaries. When they considered these figures he thought that it was all the more lamentable that from so many hon. members in the House they should hear the statement that there was discontent in the public service. If there was any discontent this was not due to the Minister of Finance or hon. members of that House, who had provided ample funds. There were certain causes, and he thought that he would only be doing his duty to the Government by dealing frankly with these matters. He believed in his own mind that one and really the chief reason of discontent in the service was due to a cause over which nobody had any control whatever. It was due to this. It was due to the uncertainty which prevailed prior to and immediately after the establishment of Union. Nothing was more trying or more wearying to a man than this uncertainty. From the day it was likely that Union would become an accomplished fact, the Civil Servants of the Union were uncertain as to their immediate future. That uncertainty had continued for eighteen months, but it was most difficult for the Government to avoid such a state of affairs. He was confident that if they got to the back of this discontent they would find that it was due to this uncertainty. If the Government had been able to say to a man that such was his position, such his salary and such his pension rights, he was confident that there would have been none of this dissatisfaction. There were one or two other causes, and he thought it best that he should frankly give the Government his opinions on the subject. One other cause was the grievance in one or two departments that men had been taken from outside the Civil Service and given positions not as temporary clerks, but important positions. (Opposition “Hear, hears.”) He would tell the Minister of Education that the appointment from outside the service of a gentleman to the permanent headship of a Ministerial Department gave rise to a great deal of discontent.

A public scandal!

I—

It was a public scandal!

continuing, said that they had four Departments of Education in the Provinces, and the heads of these Departments thought it was not quite fair that they should have been passed over. There, surely, must have been somebody in those Departments who might have been promoted and given the salary of £850 a year. Continuing, the hon. member went on to refer to another case—that of men in the higher branches of the service who received increases when Union came into being and who were cut off after enjoying the increases for about 18 months. Naturally, these men would increase their expenditure in some way or other, and the result was that men were not only done an injustice but put in a position that no Civil Servant should find himself. He was sure of the facts, and he could give names to hon. gentlemen on the Treasury benches. And that was why he was so glad that the Minister of the Interior had given his promise in regard to the Public Service Bill, because this question of what was called the grading and classification of public servants was a very complex one. It affected the present positions and the future prospects of thousands of public servants. (Opposition cheers.) And he did hope that the Minister of Finance would not ask them to grade and classify the public service by passing the Estimates and accepting the basis as laid down in the Estimates as the last word, because he was afraid that when they had passed the first vote they would fix the grading and classification of the public service, and when the next vote came up they would be told that in passing the first vote they had settled Mr. A.’s position and Mr. B. was in the same position. Therefore, he hoped that the grading and classifying as it existed and was set forth in the Estimates to-day would be purely temporary until the Public Service Bill had been introduced and been dealt with. (Opposition cheers.) And when that came before them, he would remind the House of the very great difficulty they had in dealing with it, in view of the fact that they only got reports of the Public Service Commission, of, roughly speaking, ten per cent, of the service. This grading was a most difficult and complex question, and he defied any man, no matter how great his knowledge and experience of the public service was, to be satisfied, without very great study and very minute calculations, that he was not doing a gross injustice either to the public service or to the taxpayer of this country; and he was perfectly certain they could not pass any grading and classification scheme until they had a most careful calculation by the most competent actuaries. (Opposition cheers.) They could not determine whether they would accept the grading scheme until they knew what the effect was going to be. So he hoped, regarding this grading and classification, that the House would pause a long time before they decided on it. They had this advantage, at any rate: they had the grading and classification scheme of the Campbell Commission, a more unfortunate body of men than that Commission they could not find.

Nobody had ever said a good word for them. When they appointed a body of men to grade and classify the public service and abused them from inside the service and from outside, they were hitting them while they had one arm tied behind their backs. They had not gained a single friend in the Government or out of it; and the Government had given the Commission the hardest knock. They had turned its recommendations completely upside down. He thought the recommendations of that Commission with regard to the junior ranks of the Civil Service were altogether too liberal and extravagant. (Hear, hear.) They might differ where the barriers should be, but, after all, the Campbell Commission wanted a young fellow of 19 at Pretoria, to draw a salary of £180 a year; £120 in salary and £60 in local allowance. Well, the Government was quite right in not accepting that. It was too much for the State to pay a boy of 19 when he first entered the public service of this country. What did the Government do? They decided that this young fellow on entering the service should be given £100 a year salary, and £56 a year local allowance. And he was sure that when the House came to examine it they would almost unanimously accept the verdict of the Government with regard to the salary in the junior ranks of service. (Government cheers.) He was sure of it, because they would see that the recommendations f that Commission were absurd. But on the other hand, he wished the Government had accepted the recommendations of the Commission with regard to higher pay. The Campbell Commission recommended that the maximum salary should be £1,350 a year; but the Government to-day recommended that the maximum salary should be £1,500. The Government scheme from about £750 onwards was much more liberal and extravagant than that of the Campbell Commission. (Opposition cheers.) He was very glad that the Government did not accept the Campbell Commission’s recommendations with regard to the local allowances. The Government scheme began with a minimum of £36, and went up to a maximum of £100. He preferred the recommendation of the Graham Commission, which was that there should be one local allowance for a bachelor and another for a married man. (Cheers.)

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

resuming, said that he hoped that the Government would make some modification with regard to the proposals for local allowances. One proposal was that of the Campbell Commission, that every officer should have a local allowance, whatever this rank, of £60 per annum. The proposal of the Government was that the minimum local allowance should be £30 per annum, and the maximum £100 per annum; or, in other words, the higher the salary the higher the local allowance. A bachelor receiving, say, £200 at the Cape, would not, he thought, have to pay £3 per month more at Johannesburg or Pretoria for board and lodging; but it was different in the case of a married man. (Hear, hear.) Such a man, when he removed from Cape Town to Johannesburg or Pretoria, should receive a larger local allowance than the single man, because of the increase in the cost of living at the latter places, which was largely a question of rent, service wages, and laundry. The proposed local allowance was too much for a single man and too little for a married man. The expenses of a married man of a few years’ standing were heavier in Johannesburg or Pretoria than they were in the Cape. They should have one local allowance for the single man, and another for the married man. That was a question, however, which could be discussed, and should be discussed, when the House was in committee on the Bill, and not when they were taking a vote on the Estimates. It might be said, why should they bother about all these figures? They had been told by the hon. member for Uitenhage to look at the position or the price of Cape stock immediately before Union and today. They were told that it was much better than it was before Union.

Cape 3½ stock.

Where my hon. friend gets his figures from in regard to the price of Cape stock before Union and the price of Cape stock after Union, I cannot possibly imagine. (Hear, hear.)

My figures are from Mathieson’s “highest and lowest prices,” which are the best authority in the world

I must on the other hand, refer to the “Economist.”

Hear, hear.

After all, the man in the street reads the “Economist.”

What date before Union?

I will give you the exact date—between the 7th and 14th May, 1910.

Union was settled then. (“Oh.”)

The Government began on the 31st.

Let us be fair. That is why I took the 7th and 14th—the thing was not finished; it was very much in doubt. (Hear, hear.) And if you take the price of Cape Stock on the 7th and 14th May, 1910, and on the 9th March, 1912, those are absolutely fair dates to take. According to the “Economist,” no mean authority, Cape 3½’s were 100-101 between the 7th and 14th May, 1910, and on the 9th March, 1912, they were 97½-98½. (Hear, hear.) Proceeding, Mr. Currey said that the Minister had referred to the proposals of the Government in reference to the recommendations of the Financial Relations Commission. He did not propose to discuss those proposals, but he would ask the Government to do nothing to postpone for a day longer than was absolutely necessary the extension of local government in the Union, and if some delay, in the circumstances of this country, were unavoidable, then he would ask that nothing should be done to financially penalise that section of the community within the Union which had, up to the present, made such vast strides in the art of self-government. (Cheers.)

said he thought the thanks of the House were due to the hon. member for George for the way in which he had dealt with the Pension Fund and the Salary Vote, for he felt confident that, at any rate, many private members of that House were not at all aware what the position of the Pension Fund was or what a large amount we were spending annually in connection with the salaries of the Civil Servants, apart from railways. The Pension Fund had been considered several times in the old Cape Parliament, and they realised that it was becoming a great burden. It was necessary for this Parliament at an early date to take into consideration the Pension Fund and consider very seriously the facts stated by the hon. member for George that afternoon. The Treasurer had been severely criticised in connection with the Estimates of revenue and expenditure, especially by his candid friend, the right hon. the member for Victoria West—(hear, hear)—who had described him as a man struggling with adversity. He (Mr. Oliver) pictured the Minister of Finance as a gentleman experiencing great prosperity, who was carried away by this prosperity, and commenced to squander his reserves. After the remarks made by the right hon. gentleman in regard to extravagant and inflated Estimates, he (Mr. Oliver) did not propose to say anything more on that point. He wished to confine himself to one or two deductions which he drew from the Estimates laid before the House by the Minister. First of all, dealing with the revenue for 1911-12, he thought the Minister of Finance estimated for a revenue of £16,052,000, whereas the actual revenue realised £17,033,000. This gave an excess over the estimate of £981,000. The hon. member for Uitenhage had stated that the Minister had underestimated his revenue account because of what members had said last year. Well, all he would say was that these members had rendered a great service to the country, because what would have been the result had the Minister over-estimated his revenue, and had come to the House to meet a deficiency that had been foreshadowed? If he had come to the House and proposed this increase of taxation, there would have been a howl. With careful management and with a revenue such as they had, there ought to be no increase in taxation. They were passing through a time of great prosperity. That must be admitted by anyone who had a knowledge of the country. The total amount of Customs collected last year was £4,500,000; that would give hon. members an idea of what passed through the ports of the country. Let him now turn to the expenditure side. There they would see that the expenditure was estimated at £16,890,000, whereas the actual expenditure was estimated at £16,587,000, showing a saving of £303,000. This saving was more apparent than real, because a great portion of it was due to the delay in carrying out certain public works, for which money would still be required. The Minister of Finance had stated that there was a great saving on account of the rigid economy that the Government had insisted upon, but he (Mr. Oliver) agreed with the hon. member for Victoria West that there was no rigid economy at all. When he stated that there was an estimated surplus of £446,000, that locked at a first glance as if the finances of the country were in a very satisfactory condition, but when they remembered that the railway contribution last year was £1,159,000, that altered the position somewhat. But for that contribution, the balance would be on the wrong side altogether. This was a very serious position, because during the present year they would only receive half the amount they received last year, and that within two years this source of revenue would be cut off altogether. He would like to turn for a moment to the revenue and expenditure of 1912. There they had an expenditure of £16,782,000, and the revenue £16,112,000, which included £500,000 from the railway, leaving a deficiency of £670,000. What was to happen when they received no contribution from the railway, and depression overtook the country? Proceeding, the hon. member referred to the imports and exports. The imports last year amounted to £38,000,000. and the exports, including gold, diamonds, and specie, amounted to £57,308,000, or an increase of £3,308,000 over the previous year. The exports were satisfactory, but again the member for Victoria West pointed out the weakness in one respect, that whilst gold, diamonds, and minerals amounted to £47,000,000, that only left an amount of £10,000,000 for all the other exports from South Africa. It was still more unsatisfactory to know that foodstuffs that could easily be grown in the country were imported to the value of £3,500,000.

Continuing, Mr. Oliver congratulated the Minister of Railways and Harbours upon the successful year he had. He very much questioned, however, whether the results were so satisfactory to those people who had to get their supplies over the railways. (Hear, hear.) Bearing in mind the great reduction in railway rates and passenger fares the profits were very satisfactory. The Minister had stated that if the railways were put upon the market they would realise more than they stood at in the books. That was quite possible, and for the very same reason that the Union-Castle Co. had sold its assets for more than three times their share capital, because the company had built up a tremendous reserve and had written down its asset to a very low figure. The Minister of Railways and Harbours was building up a very large reserve and that also came out of the pockets of the up-country consumer. He (Mr. Oliver) understood that it was proposed to charge the railways with interest on a larger amount than its actual capital account, including as capital the betterment that had been paid for out of the railway profits. He sincerely trusted that such a project would not be carried into effect, for it was contrary to the Act of Union. As to the loss on the Union harbours, if the harbour charges were raised they ran the danger of driving a large portion of the trade to a foreign port—Delagoa Bay—and that would be suicidal. As all the people in the country reaped the benefit of the harbours in some shape or other everyone should contribute to the deficiency on the harbours. This could be done by charging the loss to general revenue account, but do not put the burden on the up-country people and make them pay the entire loss on the harbours. Another way of meeting the loss had been suggested, but he was afraid that that would have the same effect as the raising of the harbour charges would have. It had been suggested that a special duty should be placed on imported goods. Personally, he could not see any other way out of the difficulty, if they were going to treat the matter fairly, than by paying the shortfall on the harbours out of the general revenue, so that the people at the coast as well as people in the interior should contribute towards it. The Minister of Railways and Harbours had referred to the very small percentage of efficiency in some of the railway workshops. He (Mr. Oliver) sincerely hoped that when the return was placed on the table it would be found that those who had framed the report had made a mistake, because he could not possibly conceive that there could be such a vast difference in efficiency.

The question had been asked: “What have we received out of Union?” Those of them who lived in the Cape Province, at any rate, had received certain advantages since Union. First of all they had the income tax abolished, at any rate for a time. (Hear, hear.) Then they had a considerable reduction in railway rates and the stamp duties had been reduced. The Patent Medicine duty had also been taken away. He could mention other matters in which other parts of the country would in time be benefited, if they were not being benefited now. He was still optimistic with regard to Union itself. He maintained that if we could not stand as a Union we should not have stood as separate colonies or states. Even under federation one State would have been pulling against the other. Then on the secondary consideration, that of expense, we were bound to receive a benefit from Union. When we got thoroughly into working we would find it cheaper to have one Cabinet than to have four Cabinets, even if that one Cabinet were an expensive one, and cheaper to have one Civil Service than to have four, and the same in regard to defence forces. (Mr. P. A. SILBURN: Question.) There were many things which they could do better standing together than as separate colonies. (Mr. P. A. SILBURN: Question.)

One of the most difficult questions before us was the financial relations which should exist between the Central Government and the Provinces. He did not expect uniformity to be brought about immediately, but he quite agreed with the remark of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, when he objected to a grave iniquity being definitely fixed for a period of ten years. The Government’s action was in direct conflict with the findings of the Financial Relations Commission. They said that they were going to adopt the £ for £ principle. At the same time they said that they were giving to one Province 15s. l0d. and to another 40s. That was not the £ for £ principle. He would like to make a suggestion to the Government. They had already given a promise that a Civil Service Bill would be presented to the House during the present session. He asked the Government to place that Bill on the table, and for a definite promise that they would allow nothing to stand in the way of it being carried this session. It was of vital interest to this country, and would bring about a much better feeling. They had been told by the hon. member for George what a large number of Civil Servants had been taken on, and some explanation was required from the Government as to how they reconciled with their doctrine of economy the practice of discharging a large number of Civil Servants who were placed on the pension list, while 1,600 men were taken on from outside the service. There might be some explanation, but from a business standpoint he could not understand it.

said that it seemed to him that some hon. members were afflicted with short memories. Last year the Minister of Finance was blamed for excessive modesty. He was told that his Estimates were altogether too high. This year the Treasurer was blamed because the same Estimates were too low. When the question of the taxation of land had been discussed the Treasurer said that the money was not required Now the need had come. He trusted that when the necessary taxation was looked into it would not take the form of a general income tax, but a proper land tax, and the sooner the better.

Continuing, the hon. member said that he thought that the strictures which had been passed on the Civil Service had been far too sweeping and far too severe. Undoubtedly a lot of men got high salaries, and perhaps it was a little difficult to know what they got for it. They were told that salaries were too high from the top to the bottom and that the Ministers had set the pace. They were told that if they cut down Ministers’ salaries they would be able to cut the other salaries. He asked whether these Civil Servants were an army of impostors. Were they not citizens of the Union? What became of all this money that was paid to Civil Servants? Was it sent out of the country or was it spent in the country? It was money that was spent in the country and money which helped to make the country richer. His hon. friend the member for George had talked a great deal about it, and he hoped that his hon. friend would say “Put an end to pensions.” But he considered that Civil Servants should make provision for themselves for after life the same as any other person in the State. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth had said that the country was passing through a period of unexampled prosperity; he (the speaker) would like to know where that prosperity could be found. He knew that in certain centres there had been amazing prosperity, but if they appointed a Commission to go round the country collecting information as to the existence, and the cause and consequences-of unemployment they would get a report that would prove quite as dreadful as the Phthisis Commission report which was laid before the House the other day. If they went to the White Labour Depot at Johannesburg they would find that there were thousands of skilled men who were unable to find the means to earn their daily bread. He wished to break a lance with the right, hon. member for Victoria West, who had dealt out butter so eloquently on the previous day. He went on to refer to the butter industry, and said if they only had some competent men going up and down the country they would have an efficient industry. Little New Zealand could afford 50 experts; we spent less than £2,500 for what might easily become a leading industry. Then the right hon. gentleman spoke of farm produce: but what was the good of large numbers of their people producing what they could produce when they had to leave it lying on the ground and in the orchards for manure. The people had no transport facilities. When last year he said there was a large amount of railway materials lying rotting on the ground he was laughed at; but now the Minister of Railways and Harbours had found it out also. They should put down light lines and utilise some of their spare engines. Then they could blame the people if they did not seize their opportunities. Then the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. J. X. Merriman) dealt with the coal trade. He was sorry, but his figures were quite incorrect, and his comparisons unfair. He dealt with wages in Australia; but his figures were incorrect. They were told that South African coal was the cheapest in the world. Why? If they went to Natal they would find they paid a coolie miner about 1s. a day, and in the Transvaal he believed they paid the native about 1s. 6d. per day. When they went to Australia they found that the miner was paid 11s. a day, and notwithstanding the long distances, in Melbourne coal was sold at 30s. a ton. Gas in this country was 1s. a hundred, while in Melbourne it was 8s. a thousand. He did not care what the nominal wages of a man might be. That was no test at all. One man might have 25s. a week; but the one with 15s. a week was better off if he had to spend less. It was said that an artisan only got 8s. a day in Australia, but he would like to find any State where that was the case. They were paid 11s. and 14s. a day.

To show the difference in living between this country and Australia, and he would take the dearest places there and here—a mining town in Queensland and Johannesburg. Take rent. They could get a good house there for £2 per month; but it was a poor house they got in Johannesburg for £6. Bread in Australia was 2d., and in Johannesburg 6d.; meat, 3d. and 8d.; butter, 6d. to 1s. 6d., and 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d., eggs, 9d. to 1s. 6d. and 2s. 6d. to 5s; and boots, 12s. 6d. in Australia, and 22s. 6d. in Johannesburg. He did not know whether to regard the Minister of Railways and Harbours as serious or not—whether he had to take his speech as serious or not; but he thought that was the most brutal, inhuman, and heartless speech he had ever listened to. He had to compliment the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. H. E. S. Fremantle), in spite of the sneers of the Press, because the Press was paid to sneer, on his speech on that question. He would like to mention a case that had come to his notice. In November an article appeared in one of the Rand papers pointing out a serious state of affairs at Park Station. On the following day, Mr. Hoy made an inquisition into the matter. He got hold of one man and said that he was one of the oldest men there, and he wanted him to tell him if he wrote it. The man said he had not, and if he told the truth about matters he would be penalised. Mr. Hoy said he wanted the truth, and he would see that the man was not penalised. He told the truth eventually on the assurance from Mr. Hoy that he would be protected. What was the result? Three times, in a very short period, that man’s life was in imminent danger, and once the Minister himself was nearly smashed up owing to another person’s interference. What was the result? An inspector accused him time after time of writing that letter. He (Mr. Haggar) wrote that letter. But that man had to leave Park Station and break up his home. He had to leave because he told the truth. The Commission’s report was absolutely worthless. In Natal, another Commission had sat. Mr. Justice Beaumont was the chairman, and every man who heard that knew that everything would be absolutely impartial for employer and employee. He would like the Minister to read that report. Continuing, he said that the Minister had said that the efficient man did not object to piecework. The hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) had dealt with piecework to a certain extent, but he was sorry that he had not gone further. Webb, in “Industrial Democracy,” said that 38 unions in England did object to piecework, and many others objected to such piecework, as the hon. Minister had referred to. The A.S.E. did object to it, and so did the Carpenters’ Amalgamated Society. In Natal, that question of piecework had been brought before the Commission there, and the hon. members for Victoria County and Umbilo would bear him out (if they were there) who were the men who had done piecework in Durban a few years ago? Why did they do so? They were not the pick of the men. They had to work from early morn till late at night, and when they left their work they had hardly strength left to crawl home. One could see that they were pieceworkers. These men had no choice, and had to sacrifice their manhood for the sake of a piece of bread and for their families. In Lancashire, in 1899, when 11,000 men had applied for service in South Africa, only 428 had been found fit for service in South Africa, and when they came here, it was found that only two out of every five were any use at all. There they had the result of that system. The Massachusetts Bureau stated that piecework was an unfair attempt to cut down a man in rates, with unnecessary pressure; the rate of the fastest man was made the standard, so that every man who was not up to the highest standard was turned adrift, to be a pauper or a burden. They took 24 industries in the States and 24 in the United Kingdom, and the day-work men came to 10.46 dollars as against the pieceworkers’ 9.85; while in the United Kingdom, the figures worked out at 7.43 as against 7.17. The late Mr. Seddon, on one occasion, said that with regard to piecework he would never demand from a fellow man what he would not ask from an engine or from a horse. The utmost for one week must lessen and lessen his capacity each succeeding week. Manhood came before money. (Hear, hear.) A man who worked twelve hours a day, it was stated, had ten years efficiency; a man who worked ten hours a day had fifteen years efficiency, and a man, if he wished to maintain his efficiency for any length of time, should work eight hours a day. In Great Britain and the United States of America the race was degenerating with every generation. In Germany, heart disease had increased 24 per cent. in ten years’ time; and in Europe everywhere they found insanity on the increase. Shadwell said that there was that point in favour of piecework; that a man seemed to get what he earned. So they did, to a certain extent, on the South African Railways; and then it stopped. Shadwell said—and the Minister knew this was true—that “efficiency depends upon the adequacy of the reward”—(hear, hear)—and, with all respect to the Minister, Shadwell said, “It is not determined by supply and demand. Piecework deteriorates a man’s efficiency too rapidly; it imposes undue burdens upon ratepayers.” The Minister’s speech might be characterised as a plea for the wholesale manufacture of paupers in this country.

Referring to the political rights of the railwaymen in Natal, the Minister said that they would not have them again. “But,” declared the hon. member, “they will have them. Those political rights in Natal are charter rights. I (hope, and sincerely hope, that we shall never have a strike in this country, but you have the British character, and I think every battle won by Britishers has been won on the ground of principle, and, if the men should be driven to fight, the Minister—and I shall be sorry to see it—will go to the wall.” Proceeding, the hon. member said that the Minister had said that he could find a sufficient number of men who were willing to work at that rate of pay. Well, they ought to be ashamed ever to allow, should he say, that idea, or method, or that principle to work upon them, supply and demand, taking advantage of a man’s needs? It was the plea of the highwayman. Opportunity was justification. It was this cruel supply and demand that drove men to degradation and their women to sell themselves on the street. He knew the working men of this country, he knew that the Minister had a loyal body of servants, but he did say this, that if private employers were to treat their servants as white men in Natal and the Transvaal were treated by the railway, they would find no language lurid or stinging enough to apply to them. He had told the Minister what was going on. He was informed that the Minister had issued an order that no man should be dismissed until he had a chance of defending himself. They regarded that as a distinct gain. (Hear, hear.)

said he would like to say a few words in regard to his idea of the situation. About a year ago the Government appointed a Commission to go into and study the fiscal conditions and policy of this country. That Commission made a report about three months ago, which was laid before his hon. friend the Minister of Commerce and Industries, and no notice had been taken of it. He considered that this was one of the greatest questions upon which they could base their fiscal policy, just after Union they ought to have started that policy. Here they had four separate colonies fighting one another in the past, which had now come into Union, and they left things just as they were. They were in a position to do what he mentioned better than when they had four separate colonies, and he had hoped that they would have given them some equalisation of taxation. Now they had to go on another year upon these un sound conditions, and the Government had offered them no explanation. With regard to the Budget, the hon. member pointed out that they must not take notice of £54,000,000 of exports, and when they said that to-day there were £38,000,000 of imports, they were living in a fool’s paradise-if they took credit for the difference. How could they improve the situation? They had thousands of miles of railways in the country going through apparent desert, which was not really desert country; but they wanted to go one step further. They wanted to put as much money as they were putting into the railways to-day into irrigation schemes. He would advocate the policy that had been recommended, that to foster industries such as iron and steel and copper, the Government should give bonuses. Let them advertise that they were willing to give so much for getting iron out of the natural ore, and also for manufacturing textile fabrics from the natural products of the country. He said this in no hostile spirit, because he supported the Government. They must con sider that this money was going to stay in the country. He would mention a few schemes. There was the irrigation scheme upon the Vaal River. The Government need not buy land. They had 100,000 acres there. By damming the Vaal River the water would go back up the channel of the river for 100 miles. They could dig a canal out for 50 miles. This scheme was-lying ready for them to-day. It was a scheme that had been before the Cape House for twenty years. Mr. Rhodes bought part of the ground. Then on the Riet River there were 60,000 acres available for irrigation, and that would mean the beneficial occupation of 300,000 acres. Government should take note of these things. The Minister of Finance had budgeted for £300,000 in taxes from the Government-owned diamond mines. That would come from the Premier Mine, and the sum mentioned represented one-fiftieth of the whole of the revenue of the country. There was no uniform diamond law in the country. If a diamond mine were opened in the Cape, the owner would be entitled to the whole of the output, and it could be worked more cheaply than the Premier Mine.

Government is the joint proprietor in the Premier Mine; there is no taxation.

A mine found with no tax to pay is in a better position than the Government one is.

They have a 10 per cent, tax to pay.

said that if they had a diamond mine in the Transvaal they had to pay 60 per cent, to the Government, in the Free State they had to pay 40 per cent., but in some parts of the Cape Province they would have to pay nothing to the Government. A diamond mine found in the Cape Province, if it were worth 4s. or 5s. a load, would shut down the Premier Mine, because the latter was worth only 3s. 6d. a load. They must bring in a law to regulate and equalise the taxation on farms where mines were not discovered to-day, or the Government and the shareholders would suffer. The Minister of Finance had made mention about reciprocity with Australia. They would want to know all about that before anything took place, because in going round Natal with the Industries Commission he found that reciprocity with Delagoa Bay had opened the door to Delagoa Bay sugar competing with that from Natal. Government should see that any reciprocity treaty entered into with any other country did not interfere with a South African industry. Another great trouble the Industries Commission found was a lack of statistics. Then, coastal freights were much too high, and the Minister of Commerce should see if they could not be reduced so as to facilitate the carriage of coal and mealies from Natal to other orts of the Union.

Australia made £200,000 out of coinage. There was a mint in Pretoria, and an effort should be made to put it to some use. In regard to irrigation, he observed that in Kakamas, which was a fairly prosperous settlement, the land cost £10 per morgen in respect of irrigation, and another £10 to clear. There were many localities where land could be placed under irrigation at half that cost, and he thought it was a sound policy in initiating their irrigation schemes to deal first with the land which could be most economically irrigated. Continuing, he dealt with the position of railways and harbours, laying it down as an axiom that cheap railway rates was one of the most important essentials in a country’s welfare. He pointed out that before Union the Transvaal could have remitted a million in railway rates, but they waited for Union. With all due deference to the hon. member for Cape Town, who said that they must not be parochial, he thought they had been far from parochial when they allowed the £370,000 to be remitted in the shape of railway, rates in the Cape just after Union, while in the Transvaal nothing was remitted. The net profit of railway working for last year was £2,600,000. He would like some information as to where that money came from. Last year the Cape had enjoyed the reduced rates. Before that they made about £250,000 a year. Assuming then that the £250,000 represented profit, the whole of that £2,500,000 belonged to the inland colonies, where the taxes had not been remitted to this day. The Government were going to have a bad time when they went back to the Transvaal. Notwithstanding the fact that the Premier was not parochial, they were going to give him a warm time when he told them that all the profits on the railways had gone. They also wanted to know how the revenue that was to be remitted was to be allocated. The Minister of Railways had an idea that one could not have different rates in different parts of the Union. But a consideration to be borne in mind was that it was sound business to work at low rates if by doing so they would build up an industry. In the case of coal, he advocated a reduction of 2s. per ton on coal for export purposes. Both Natal and the Transvaal had stated that they could do a large trade with India if this were done. These resources were there, and they should develop them, for these were the things that would be bound to send the country along on sound lines. He also recognised that if it were possible to do so they should use the coal in the country, for once it was exported its utility had gone. They could apply the same idea to mealies. He did not believe that they should export their mealies; they wanted every ounce of mealies they could produce in the country. He pointed out that a good deal of waste work was done by the railway in moving these mealies from the country to the coast. They take wheat from Cape Town to the Transvaal. The railway service had to do that work because they had a cheap railway rate for S.A. produce, while the Cape eat imported wheat. The same thing took place in regard to dynamite. It was taken from the Cape Province to the Transvaal, when as a matter of fact they could get dynamite on the spot. He did think that this was a question that should be taken into consideration by the Government, because the railways did all this work. The railways had to perform a double service. It was done for the sake of competition, and he believed for the purpose of keeping the price of dynamite down. It was an un-economic condition of affairs to take dynamite to the Transvaal, when they could get it there from points on the coast which were nearer. Now the Minister of Railways and Harbours said that he was going to save a certain amount on the harbours, and he would like to know what the Minister was going to do with that sum. Was it going to be used this year, or was he going to equalise it after the end of this year? What was he going to do about this remission of taxation, because it was a question that the inland people wanted answered. He had made a few points, and he would like the Government to take notice of them, because inland people were anxious to know what the Government intended to do. He hoped that some action would be taken this session. He could assure the Government that it was a very easy matter once one put one’s back into it. He instanced what he had been able to do. He started large works, and spent £200,000, and now they were able to pump water—a distance of 25 miles—to the Premier Mine, at a cost of 4d. a thousand gallons, including redemption.

said he wished to make a few remarks, and in doing so he hoped that a charge of racialism would not be levelled against him. When he spoke on the matter last year he had not the slightest idea that it would be said that his remarks were made from a racial standpoint. He understood that the field-cornets in the Transvaal had been appointed for another three years. He understood in the Northern Transvaal that they could not be elected for a shorter period. At the same time, he did not see why they could not have been appointed for two or three, or five or six months, or during the pleasure of Parliament.

He happened to have many friends in the Transvaal, and their independent opinion was that these field-cornets were, as a rule, inept, inefficient, and unnecessary. And as matter of fact, the very office of a field-cornet was a sinecure, which they knew now by the Government making them scab inspectors. They knew perfectly well in the Transvaal that those men had been political agents for one particular party alone for years past, and he hoped when they went into committee—he hoped more would be said on that question. (Hear, hear.) His purpose in getting up was to speak on a question which the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. J. X. Merriman) brought up in his speech, and that was the question of miners’ phthisis. He said that the present prosperity of South Africa was built on the mining industry, a vanishing asset. He did not believe that the mining industry on the Witwatersrand was as vanishing an asset as the right hon. gentleman would make out. It was almost as great as the tin mining industry in Cornwall, which had gone on for hundreds of years. Gold mining on the Witwatersrand, he hoped, would go on for many hundreds of years to come. He thought it would be allowed that the discovery of gold in the Transvaal was the renaissance of commercial prosperity in South Africa. Everyone benefited alike by it. The very absence of direct taxation to-day was entirely due to the discovery of gold. The present flourishing condition of the railways, all the extensions within the last ten years and all the extensions that must come in the next few years, were derived, and would be derived, from the same source. To-day the prosperity of South Africa was dependent almost entirely upon one industry. The Minister said, and quite truly, that Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban were the gateways of the commerce of South Africa. That he admitted; but if they were the gateways, then Johannesburg, the Witwatersrand, and the Transvaal generally was the metropolis. If it were admitted that their present prosperity, and, indeed, a great deal of their future prosperity, was dependent upon the Transvaal gold industry, then was there no obligation on the State in regard to that industry? Should the Transvaal and the Witwatersrand area alone have to bear the taxation which must come about for miners’ phthisis? Should not every citizen in the Union bear a share of the taxation? Was it nothing to this House and South Africa that men’s lives were wasted for the prosperity of South Africa? This was not a party question. It was a national question. Was it conceivable that any hon. member in that House could persist in the parochial view and not admit his liability in this common cause? What did they find in this day of grace, in this Christian country, with a Christian Ministry, and a Transvaal Treasurer? (Laughter and cheers.) The sum of £15,000 put down on the Estimates, and with that £15,000 this Christian Government was going to obtain plenary absolution for their sins of neglect and omission in the past. That was going to be the full and official atonement for their wanton—he said it advisedly—sacrifice of human life; because it was their duty to take care of every citizen in this country. They did nothing, because what was done came from that side of the House and particularly in the Transvaal. (Ministerial “Oh’s.”) Whatever was done was done from that side of the House. Many years ago they started, and if the Government had fulfilled its responsibilities they would not have allowed that state of affairs to go on in the Transvaal until it had become a scandal to South Africa. He was told—they were all told sometimes with a little truth—that when subjects came before that House which concerned animal diseases the House was full of men who were listening to the arguments on both sides of the House, but he did not believe that this question of common humanity made members on the other side of the House realise that there was a great necessity for them to be able to gather what was going on in the Transvaal, and to realise that on this side and that side of the House they had their liabilities. They could not divest themselves of their responsibility in this matter. It might be asked: What about the mine-owners? He was not going to excuse them; but if they were going to ask the mine-owners to pay a sum they could not reasonably pay, it was going to fall on the shoulders of the people. Hon. members on the cross-benches, who were supposed to be the representatives of the men, were laughing. (Cries of “Order.”) Well, he would apologise. They could not unduly tax that great industry, and if they did so the reflection came upon the men themselves. In that game of human suffering the finalist was the labouring man. Members of the crossbenches pointed to them (the Unionists) as if they were the mine owners, but how many of them had a share in the mines? The Minister of Finance would tell them that the shares were divided into very small parcels indeed. They did not want to drive capital away from South Africa. He hoped that the Minister would place on the Supplementary Estimates a sum which would show that the Government had a reasonable idea of what the country owed to the industry and the men who had made that industry so great. They were told on all hands that the great and pressing question of to-day was the native question, but he frankly told them that with that he did not agree. He believed that if the natives were treated with justice and common humanity, that question would never arise in that country, and they should not try to retard the intellectual development of the native in this country; but, on the other hand, he was strongly against those people who would unduly accelerate that development to-day. He believed that the great native question would have its own solution in its own time, and he believed that those people who tried to force that question were a menace to the peace of South Africa. They had to treat the natives fairly from the beginning. What was the great question in South Africa today? It ought to be apparent. It was the fusion and the harmonious working of the two great white races in South Africa, and that was the question which that Parliament, and the Parliaments which came after it, had to see was worked out to a proper and satisfactory ending. They were each of them a stiff-backed people, and just as they respected each other’s rights, so the country would go ahead. Whether they liked it or not they were in partnership which was to last for all time. What was the House to-day? On the Ministerial side, with a Jew exceptions, they were Dutch, and on his side, with a few exceptions, they were British. Union had been the result of compromise. They were bound to run together, and the sooner they ran together in double harness, the better for the country, for themselves and the great nation which was to follow them in the future. He hoped the time would come, as it must come, when that division would vanish. Touching on the question of the poor whites, he said it was up to that Parliament to do something to alleviate the condition of these people, who, many of them, through no fault of their own, were living lives which were infinitely worse than the lives of the natives. How could they regenerate the condition of these poor whites? With a live committee, formed from both sides of the House, they could come to a working solution of the difficulty that obtained. He regretted that a small amendment brought in by the hon. member for Turffontein had not been allowed. In travelling through South Africa he had realised that they had hundreds of miles of fertile valleys suitable for the settlement of poor whites. He would instance the 60 miles between Krugersdorp and Potchefstroom. There they had a veritable Valley of Goshen waiting to be developed. With regard to the expropriation of the ground, he thought a farmer should submit to a 10 per cent, of his frontage on the line being given up for a system of land settlement. He had aspirations himself to be a farmer, and in the Transvaal, and when that came about he would certainly give a portion of his land without compensation for the purpose he mentioned. If these poor whites were treated as they ought to be treated, they would see little of the conditions that prevailed among them to-day.

Continuing, the hon. member said the Cape Peninsula could not produce sufficient good wine to supply the needs of South Africa, and that was the real reason why Cape wines were not being sold to any great extent abroad. The brandy vote, he was told, had a very large influence in that House, and that influence had particularly been marked in the House of all the virtues—(laughter)—the late Cape House, which they were told was a pattern for everything. The brandy vote had & great deal to do, even with that noblest of institutions. Never as long as they Transvaalers were alive was the Cape going to find a market for its beastly wine in the Transvaal—(Laughter)—because the former would not have it. They were not going to have their coloured people absolutely demoralised body and soul as the coloured people were down here because of drinking this cheap stuff, which would not be produced if the farmers paid proper attention to producing proper wines. They need not sell a drop of this awful liquor to these men if the wine-growers made proper stuff. At different times there had been insidious whispers that the mine boys should have a drop of good wine, but that would never come about as long as there was a Transvaal man left to speak in that House. (Hear, hear.) In conclusion, Mr. Rockey said that if the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) and his chief lieutenant, the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey) really held the views they had expressed in the debate on the Budget, they ought to be sitting on the Opposition side of the House. (Cheers.)

moved the adjournment of the debate until Monday, which was agreed to.