brought up the report of the Select Committee on the Public Service and Pensions Bill.

It was agreed that the report, together with the proceedings, should be printed, and the Bill set down for committee stage on Monday next.

brought up the third report of the Select Committee on Waste Lands.

The committee recommended certain grants and leases of land (p. 1068 of the “Votes”) and expressed the opinion that, in view of the number of applications already granted, it is undesirable that further applications for sites on, or rights of way over, Crown lands should be granted for the purpose of establishing additional whaling stations in the Union.

The report was set down for consideration in committee on Monday next.

Second report of the Railway Grievances Commission.

read a message from the Senate, transmitting for the consideration of this House a Bill to amend the laws in force in the several Provinces relating to the survey of land.

By direction of Mr. SPEAKER the Bill was read a first time, and set down for second reading on Monday next.

asked the Minister of Mines: (1) Whether his attention had been called to a letter in “The Worker” newspaper, signed W. H. Hovenden, describing the hours he was obliged to work at the Bantjes Mine and other underground conditions on that mine; (2) whether he will take steps to verify the statements contained in this letter and ensure the proper inspection of the mine; and (3) whether any prosecution has been instituted against the management for an offence against the Mines Regulations Act, 1911?

replied: (1) My attention has been called to the letter in question. (2) The numerous allegations contained in the letter referred to have been very carefully gone into and fully reported on by the Department. I am satisfied that they seriously misrepresent the state of the mine, and are incorrect in almost every detail. As there have been nine underground inspections of the mine in five months, and it is reported as being managed in a conscientious and painstaking manner, I do not propose to take any further action with reference to inspection. (3) As a result of affidavits in regard to working hours at the mine made by the writer of the letter under an assumed name, under which he appears to have passed at the time, the papers were last month forwarded by the Inspector of Mines to the Public Prosecutor, who, however, after investigation, declined to prosecute, stating that there was no good reason for prosecuting anyone on the complaints. If the hon. member wishes to see the papers he is at liberty to do so.

asked the Prime Minister: (1) Seeing that when the sum of one thousand pounds was voted last year by the House for the purchase of the Union National Convention painting, at present hanging in the dining-room of the House, members were under the impression that portraits of all the persons who had the honour of being present at the deliberations of the Convention would appear on the painting, he is prepared to inform the House why portraits of the secretaries who represented the Transvaal, Natal, and the Orange Free State, and also of the gentleman who acted as interpreter, do not appear on the said painting; (2) why were members, on being asked last year to vote the said sum, not informed that the painting would be incomplete; and (3) whether he will take the necessary steps to have the painting completed?

replied: The instructions for the painting of this picture were given before the establishment of the Union. How it happened that the portrait of only one of the secretaries appears therein and not also of the others, I cannot say. I am sorry that it is so. The artist is not in the country, and I do not think that it is now practicable to rectify this omission.

asked the Minister of Justice: (1) Whether his attention has been drawn to the complaints recently made by the legal profession at Johannesburg of the utter inadequacy of the four Magistrates’ Courts there to deal promptly with criminal cases, in consequence of which there has been delay, inconvenience, and expense; and (2) whether he will take steps to remedy this state of things without delay, and, if so, what steps he proposes to take?

replied that his attention had been called to the accumulation of criminal cases at Johannesburg, which was in some measure due to the holidays last month. He had given instructions for another Court to be established until the accumulation had been worked off.

had given notice to ask the Minister of Railways and Harbours whether any further report had been received from the Railway Grievances Commission, and, if so, whether he would lay same upon the table of the House, but

said that it was unnecessary to ask the question as the report had been laid on the table.

asked the Minister of the Interior when the report of the Leasehold Townships Commission would be published?

replied: The proofs of the report are now being checked by the Commissioners, and the report will be published at an early date.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs; (1) Whether it is a fact that officers of the Travelling Post Office, performing an average attendance of over 60 hours per week, including Sundays and public holidays, have been informed that the time in excess of the ordinary weekly attendance of the offices to which they are attached must be regarded as being compensated for by a subsistence allowance of 4d. per hour; and (2) whether the entire staffs of the Midland and Eastern Travelling Post Office have asked to be released from travelling duties pending a readjustment of these conditions?

replied: (1) Officers of the travelling post office are paid an allowance of 4d. per hour for every hour they are absent from headquarters and, in addition, are provided with resting accommodation. The allowance is paid irrespective of whether they are actually performing duty or resting; (2) no such request had reached the Postmaster-General.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) Whether he is aware that the public is inconvenienced by the abolition of the postal service between the town of Hoopstad and Brakfontein and Klippan, in the district of Hoopstad, Orange Free State; and (2) whether he considers that the abolition can be justified; and whether he will state the reasons therefor?

replied that the information was being obtained, and he asked that the question be allowed to stand over.

asked the Minister of Education whether his attention has been called to a case of severe punishment administered by a Rand schoolmaster to a young child, and, if not, whether he will cause the matter to be inquired into?

replied: This is a question which purely refers to the Provincial Council and the Provincial Administration, and therefore I am sorry I cannot give the hon. member a reply.

said that on May 28 the hon. member for Commissioner-street (Mr. Sampson) asked him the following: (1) Whether he is aware that the Union-Castle Steamship Company are refusing to carry passengers suffering from miners’ phthisis except upon payment of large fees to the medical officers over and above the ordinary passage money, and, in the event of passengers refusing to pay such fees, are circularising their names among other shipping agents with a view to preventing them booking by other lines; and, if so (2) what steps he will take to remove the inconvenience and distress caused by such action of the shipping companies to the large number of mineworkers now leaving South Africa for other countries? Well, this is the information I can give him: From inquiries which I have instituted, I have ascertained that the Union-Castle S.S. Company does not refuse to book passengers who can produce a medical certificate that they are in a fit state to travel and will not endanger the health of other passengers. The company stipulates, however, that the booking is subject to a passenger’s being passed by the ship’s doctor. In the case of passengers who are invalids the company requires the deposit of an extra fee of £10 to provide for any necessary isolation and attendance expenses, a portion of this fee being in certain cases where the amount of attendance required during the voyage is not great returned at the end of the voyage, except in full ships, where extra accommodation may be necessary. Medical officers are not authorised to receive any fees in such cases. In the case of a booking being refused by the ship’s surgeon, the name of the passenger is sent to the company’s agents in Cape Town, but the company does not circularise the names among other shipping firms, although it appears that in certain cases other firms have obtained the names of such passengers. I have made representations with the object of putting a stop to this practice. As regards (2) I think it is unnecessary to take any further steps in the matter, as I think that there will be no difficulty about the booking in future of miners suffering from miners’ phthisis only. In the case of those suffering from tuberculosis, of course, the ordinary rules and precautions for infectious diseases must naturally apply.

said that on the same day the same hon. member asked: (1) Whether it is a fact that a considerable number of mine workers in the Barberton mining district have contracted miners’ phthisis; and, if so, (2) whether he will take steps to extend the regulations framed under the Miners’ Phthisis Allowances Act of 1911 in such manner as to make provision for such cases, or afford other relief? Well, the reply was: The District Surgeon of Barberton, who has held that appointment since 1901, states that he cannot recall any case of miners’ phthisis contracted locally, and that the disease is practically unknown in the district, except as regards imported cases.

moved that the following motion, of which he had given notice, be discharged and set down for to-morrow (Wednesday): For leave to introduce a Bill to regulate and determine the financial relations which shall exist between the Union and the Provinces, to provide for the transference of certain additional functions and powers to Provincial Councils and for other purposes.

The motion was agreed to.

moved that the definitions be taken seriatim.

The motion was agreed to.

In the definition of “miner,”

moved to omit “of European descent.” He said that he hoped he would be allowed some little latitude, because upon this amendment depended a great deal of the subsequent amendments which he had placed on the paper. The point was whether they were going to treat this matter of compensation for miners’ phthisis on a basis under which there would be no difference made in principle between Europeans and natives. If his amendment were accepted it would be necessary to accept almost the whole scheme of his amendments. He wished the compensation to natives to be on the same basis as the compensation to European workmen, namely, in relation to their wage-earning powers.

said that he hoped the committee would not accept the amendment. A great deal of pains had been devoted to the Bill, which was based on the distinction between the European and the native. The native was supposed to be a person who was not able to take care of himself, whereas the European miner was a man who drew a very high rate of pay and was well able to look after himself, and must be treated in a different way from the native. He had no hesitation in saying that if this amendment were accepted it would wreck the Bill.

hoped that the amendment would not be accepted, and that the hon. member for Jeppe would not take up too much time with the matter. Days had been taken up on this matter by the Select Committee. He hoped hon. members would have a look at the report of that committee; they would see that on nearly every question the hon. member for Jeppe had voted against the other seven members of the committee.

referring to the remarks made by the right hon. member for Victoria West, said he quite agreed that there was no necessity to wreck the Bill, because this was by no means the first time that this matter had cropped up. When the Workmen’s Compensation Act was under discussion in the Transvaal, there was a tendency to leave the natives out of the question altogether.

They had so often made this point clear that they objected to the phrase because it put a premium on black labour. They objected to these discriminations between black and white. In 1902, measures were suggested to do away with this disease, and it was only right that steps should be taken by those people who had neglected their responsibilities to see that all workers were adequately compensated.

regretted that the member for Vrededorp had thrown away his self-respect in attacking hon. members who sat upon the cross-benches. He was quite aware also that the right hon. the member for Victoria West posed as a pocket edition of God Almighty up-to-date.

Order! Order!

I think the hon. member had better withdraw.

Well, if I am out of order I will withdraw the expression. (Renewed cries of “Order.”)

The hon. member must withdraw the expression.

If the expression is offensive, I will withdraw it Continuing, the hon. member said that the phrase “European descent” was without meaning. What was “European descent”? A large number of hon. members there were not of European descent, and a large number of men who were at work on the mines were not of European descent. Anyone who had knowledge of anthropology and ethnology would know there was nothing in the phrase. Take, for instance, the question of the Italians and the Spaniards. There was a great deal of blood that was not European in their individualities. On such grounds as these, he did not think the phrase should be introduced into the Bill.

said he hoped the committee would not spend too much time upon these proposals, because they raised two fundamental principles. One was that it raised the question of compensation or insurance. The second principle was whether they should deal differentially with Europeans and natives. That, however, had been fully discussed in the previous year. The Select Committee had gone into all these details, and it would not benefit them to go over the same ground again. (Hear, hear.)

in reply to a query by Mr. P. Duncan (Fordsburg), said his amendment did not deal precisely with compensation as against insurance, but it embodied the principle of applying the same law to white as well as black employees.

said it was not quite clear to him why this phrase “European descent” had been introduced, because it appeared to him that it would exclude everyone who was of mixed European and native blood. Supposing a coloured man contracted this disease, it seemed extraordinary that he should not be compensated on the same basis as the European. In fact, as the matter stood, he would not get anything at all, as he was neither European nor native.

said there was a great deal in what the last speaker had said in regard to coloured people. He (Mr. Merriman) did not see why, if the native was able to do miner’s work, he should not get a miner’s wages. He suggested the insertion of the words “other than those described as a native in the Native Regulation Act.”

said they had a limited number of coloured men on the mines, and they did practically no skilled work. It would be a very serious matter for the mines if it were laid down that these men were to be entitled to the same compensation as that paid to whites.

I will bring you coloured men who will do work quite as good as a white man in every respect. (Hear, hear.) When you employ a coloured man, you employ an intelligent man, and he is only prevented from doing white men’s work by my hon. friends opposite on the cross-benches. (Labour dissent.)

Withdraw, withdraw, withdraw.

I will not withdraw—I will say it over again. My hon. friends there by their narrow Trades Unionism prevent coloured men being employed. My hon. friend is not going to “bulldose” me from saying what I think. Who plastered this House? Coloured men. The distinction is between the people who are under the Native Regulation Act and the people who are not. The former are considered as children, but the other man—well, you had better look out for the other man someday.

said a man was regarded from the working point of view as being either a white man or a native. (Ministerial dissent and cries of “Nonsense.”) In the mines of the Transvaal at least the distinction between white and coloured was very clearly drawn. Perhaps it would be better for the clause to stand over, so that the Minister would be able to think it over. He moved that the section stand over.

said that as it was clear that hon. members could not agree on this matter, the Bill should be withdrawn and the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act extended to the mines. He therefore moved that progress be reported.

supported the proposal of the hon. member for Yeoville. He entirely agreed that there was a large number of skilled coloured men, and some of them of such a character that unless one knew their family history it would be almost impossible to designate them as coloured. Surely it was not desired to do such a class an injury.

said they could settle the matter very easily now. They wished to see that no one worked in the mines who did not get compensation.

said he hoped the motion to report progress was not seriously meant, because they must legislate over this matter. (Cheers.) The House would be neglecting a grave duty if it did not pass the Bill. As to the proposal to postpone the clause, if that would entail the hanging up of the rest of the Bill, which it would probably do, he saw some difficulty in the way. With regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Victoria West they must not forget that if they included the coloured man he would get a higher benefit than if he were included among the natives. If the hon. members for Fordsburg and Germiston were prepared to include coloured men under the provisions for white men, and thereby if they paid 6d. in the £ on their wages they would get the benefit of compensation to the extent of £8 per month, that would affect the amount which the mines would have to pay. It was not an amendment which they should lightly pass. The scale of living as regarded the native was so different from that of the European that they would not be entitled to give the same benefit to the native that was accorded to the white man. Personally, he was in sympathy with the amendment of the right hon. member for Victoria West, and if he were sure that coloured men were doing skilled work he would have no objection to their inclusion among Europeans. But he must not forget that under the mining regulations skilled work, rightly or wrongly, was limited to white men; that was the policy before Union, and that was the policy to-day. Were they in that Bill lightly going to depart from that, and to draw a different line of demarcation? It would be better to pass the clause as it stood, and give the hon. members for Fordsburg and Victoria West an opportunity of including coloured men somewhere else.

suggested that the committee should take a vote on the proposition of the hon. member for Jeppe.

said the question of compensation did not come in at all. They were not obliged to give anything, and the maximum sum was put down, and he supposed that in awarding compensation those concerned would act according to their discretion.

thought the Labour party had already received too much. He objected to further time being wasted and also objected to the taxpayers’ money being used for this miners’ phthisis. It would be better to withdraw the Bill and to deal with the subject under an extended Workmen’s Compensation Bill. He moved to report progress.

The motion to report progress was negatived.

said he was not in favour of the clause standing over.

said he would withdraw that motion.

said that the argument of the Minister of Mines, that they should pass this clause as it stood and afterwards make the necessary distinction between white and coloured, would also hold good to a further extent and they could make a distinction between the coloured and native. He was in favour of the original proposition of the hon. member for Jeppe.

said he thought the Minister had put the case very clearly. The fact was that there were no coloured men, broadly speaking, he should say, who were working at skilled work on the mines. Compensation was paid on that principle to-day. So far as he knew, there had been no difficulty arising out of the matter. The right hon. gentleman said that these coloured men could do skilled work. Of course, they could do skilled work, but the fact was that to-day they could not. But if the employers were to be asked to pay compensation to coloured men on the basis of skilled white men when they had been doing the work of unskilled natives, the result must be that the distinction between the skilled white man and the coloured man would be broken down and the coloured man was going to do skilled work. He thought they should go carefully into this matter. Unless it were desired to break down the distinction and get in the coloured man to do the skilled white man’s work, they had better leave the clause as it was.

said he hoped that the committee would now adopt the suggestion that he put forward to vote on this amendment of the hon. member for Jeppe. Let them pass this clause and they could deal with the coloured question later on. They would be doing a very hasty piece of work if they were to include coloured men on the higher scale of compensation when they were doing unskilled work. Under the Bill the maximum of compensation payable was in the discretion of the Board, but the £8 per month was not.

said he should support the proposal of the right hon. the member for Victoria West. The Minister must see that it was impossible for many of them to vote for the absolute exclusion of the coloured man. (Hear, hear.)

We don’t.

In the wording of this clause we absolutely do exclude him—“’ miner ’ shall mean any person of European descent.” The Minister, he proceeded, had said that they could consider this question later on, but they had nothing before the House. He thought the Minister would be wiser in holding the clause over, and in the meantime considering the provision he was going to make in regard to coloured men.

said he thought the House should be perfectly clear as to what they were going to vote upon. By the law, as it stood in the Transvaal to-day, the coloured man was precluded from doing skilled work under the mining regulations. The regulations in the Transvaal refused a blasting certificate for a coloured man. As long as they had that provision, they could not include coloured people in this class of compensation. (Hear, hear.) If, therefore, they intended to break down this principle altogether, and to include the coloured man, and give him the right to do every kind of skilled work, they would, at the same time, have to amend their mining regulations. If the House came to the conclusion that this distinction should be broken down, do not let them do it without understanding what they were doing. In the meantime, he should say that it would be wiser to pass the clause without amendment, on the understanding that provision would be made later on in the Act for the coloured man, who was at present excluded. By all means let him have compensation, but let him have compensation according to the class of work that he did.

said he would appeal to the committee again to follow that course. It was not that he did not wish to provide for the coloured men. He would give an undertaking to the House to frame a clause so as to bring them in. He said it was wrong to put them into this clause. He hoped that the committee, with the undertaking he had given, would pass this clause, and deal with the coloured man separately afterwards.

said that after the speeches of the hon. member for Yeoville (Sir Lionel Phillips) and the Hon. the Minister it was necessary to make the House clear on the point to which they had referred. The Minister evidently knew nothing at all about his mining regulations. Probably that was due to the chopping and changing of portfolios which had taken place recently. (Laughter.) The mining regulations in the Transvaal did not say that a coloured man or a black man could not do skilled labour. The regulations stated that a coloured man or a black man might not hold certain certificates. (Hear, hear.) But these certificates only covered individuals upon whose skill life depended. Where in the regulations did it say that a coloured man or a black man might not take a blasting certificate? The regulations merely stated that no coloured man or black man might take an engine-driver’s certificate. That was the only thing that was referred to in the regulations with regard to colour, and an engine-driver’s certificate only referred to drivers of engines which were engaged in hauling men. They had nothing to do with the haulage of rock. The hon. member for Yeoville had stated that a coloured man might not do skilled work in the Transvaal, but that was totally incorrect. The coloured man might, and as a matter of fact did, in an increasingly large proportion, do skilled labour in the Transvaal, not only underground, but on the surface of the mines. The hon. member knew perfectly well that coloured men were doing tramming. He might say that that was not highly-skilled labour, but the fact remained that the mines had removed white men for the purpose of getting coloured men to do the work. Even if the hon. member were correct, it did not debar the coloured man from drilling and doing all other kinds of mining except blasting. As a matter of fact, a coloured man, or a black man, or even an Asiatic, might do all classes of work except drive an engine which was engaged in hauling men. As to the point raised by the right hon. member for Victoria West that Trade Unionists were responsible for coloured men not being employed, he wished to say that that was incorrect. The right hon. gentleman spoke of something of which he knew absolutely nothing. What Trade Unionists said was that when a man was engaged in skilled labour, he should earn the standard rate of pay. They did not say that a coloured man should not do skilled labour.

They do.

No Trade Unionist places a bar on the coloured people. They merely state that they must be of good character, and must be of a certain standard of skill, and earn Trade Unionist wages.

said that in building contracts in the Transvaal it was laid down that coloured men must be excluded from employment. The House was asked by this Bill in an indirect way to prohibit coloured men from engaging in skilled labour. He considered that a man, whether he was black or white in colour, should be given an opportunity of doing skilled labour, and should not be debarred, either in an indirect way, as Trade Unionists did, or by this Bill. This was nothing else but an attempt to exclude coloured men from doing skilled labour.

said that he supported the suggestion made by the Minister

said that supposing a man who had a blasting certificate presented a claim for compensation, would it be allowed on the certificate? Would that certificate be taken as evidence that he was doing skilled work?

Certainly, but I don’t see the point of the question. Proceeding, he said it was not a question of skilled labour or unskilled labour; it was a question whether a man was of European descent or not. That was the point here. He wished to say that they must provide for cases where men were coloured, and he undertook to draw up an amendment to deal with the matter, but he said that they should not deal with it here. As to the point raised by the hon. member for Springs, he wished to say that a certificate was required, not only for an engine-driver, but for other workers. A whole chapter of the regulations dealt with certificates for all kinds of work, and No. 285 provided that certificates for skilled employment should not be granted to any coloured person in the Transvaal or the Orange Free State, and that a certificate granted in any other Province should not be available outside the Province. This question was raised by the hon. member for Tembuland, and, as he had stated before, the policy of the Government was to maintain the status quo as it was before Union. He did not think it was wise to raise this question now on miners’ phthisis. The question was difficult enough in itself, and they should not complicate it by raising more complicated questions.

said that his point was that he knew of cases where men who were not European in any sense held certificates, and were miners, and he wanted to know that if these men contracted phthisis would they be included in it or not?

said that as far as he could see there had been a change in the policy of the Labour people in regard to the employment of coloured people. He remembered the time when they were absolutely opposed to the Chinese, and now they advocated that the Cape coloured man should rank with the skilled labourer on the Witwatersrand. He considered that there was as much colour about the Chinaman as there was about the Cape coloured man, and before voting he would like some explanation of the change in the Labour party’s attitude towards colour.

agreed with the suggestion of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, that the whole clause should stand over. If they adopted the suggestion made by the Minister it tied their hands to the question of a European descent. He did not wish to suggest that this championship of the coloured men and natives might not have ulterior motives in the matter of securing votes. Under all the circumstances it would be better to adopt the suggestion made by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, and give the Minister time to look into the matter.

said he had listened to the discussion very fully, and he would just say how it struck him. He would be the last to advocate any diminution of rights of coloured men, but he did not think that they should pay compensation to them at the same rate as the white men, as long as they were not doing the work of the white men. Therefore he thought they should adopt the suggestion of the hon. Minister on the distinct understanding that he would deal with this matter later on. The more they discussed this measure the more mystified they seemed to get.

said he quite agreed with the statement by the last speaker that the more they discussed this the more mystified they got. The point really was this, that whether a man was a white man or a skilled man, so long as he had contracted miners’ phthisis he would have a claim for compensation in accordance with his earning power, and by adopting this principle they got rid of a great many multifarious details.

said he hoped the Minister would not commit the House upon this question. He was not a member of the Select Committee, and when he read the Bill he did not understand that the difference between the higher and lower compensation was the difference between the skilled and unskilled labour. If a white man were employed to do unskilled labour he would obviously be classed as a native and receive the same treatment in the matter of compensation.

said the question that “European descent” be struck out raised the point whether the employment of labour on the mines as set out in the rules and regulations was in accordance with justice. The hon. member proceeded to read extracts showing what people could be employed under the various definitions. Hon. members could not say that there were no prohibitions. He could not see why the mining people should object to the striking out of these words, “of European descent,” because no Act of Parliament would compel them to employ coloured labour if they did not wish to do so. He would support the amendment.

put the question that the words “of European descent” proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause, and declared that the “Ayes” had it.

called for a division, which was taken, with the following result:

moved to insert, in line 27, after “performed” the words “as his regular occupation.” The effect of the amendment was to make it clear that the definition only included people regularly employed underground.

said he could see the force of the amendment if miners’ phthisis were contracted by a man going down a few times, but according to the evidence that was not the case. He did not think the amendment was necessary. It was clearly laid down that for purposes of compensation a miner must have worked on a mine for two years.

said a man might go down a mine once or twice and then go to work in Australia or at the municipal stone crusher at Johannesburg, where he contracted phthisis and then claimed compensation from the mines. He (Mr. Chaplin) did not think the words could do any harm.

thought some qualifying word was necessary.

said the amendment merely defined the regular underground worker.

A native’s regular occupation is not mining.

A native does not come under this.

You might have a white man doing the same thing.

said that what the owner desired to exclude was a man who went down a mine to do an odd job once or twice and, perhaps, did not go underground again for two or three months.

said they must be careful to avoid making the definition so narrow that it only included men who were professional miners. He would suggest to the committee that they should take this amendment and, if the words were not expressive enough, he would move some amendment afterwards.

said he would only urge upon the Minister that he should introduce something of the sort.

The amendment to add “as his regular occupation” was agreed to.

On the definition of “the fund,”

On the motion of Mr. CRESWELL,

put the amendment, proposed by the Select Committee, to omit “’the fund’ shall mean the Miners’ Phthisis Fund established under this Act,” and to substitute “’ the funds ’ shall mean the Miners’ Phthisis Compensation Fund and the Miners’ Phthisis Insurance Fund established under this Act.”

thought that the old definition should stand, and that instead of two funds they should only have one. He thought this would be a good place to take the question of whether those who were suffering at present and those who might be suffering in future should be treated on different bases. There were a number of points on which they on those benches differed from the Bill as amended. The new definition desired to set up a Miners’ Phthisis Compensation Fund for those who were suffering at present and a Miners’ Phthisis Insurance Fund for those who might be suffering in future. They, according to their ideas as to how this subject should be dealt with, could see no reason whatever in justice or in public policy for the treatment of those who contracted miners’ phthisis in the future separately and on a different basis from those who had contracted it up to the present. He would, therefore, move that the definition should remain as it was originally, and that the Select Committee’s amendment should be deleted.

said that this raised the old question of whether there should be an insurance fund or not. It was a matter which had been discussed very fully in the House and in Select Committee, and he did not think it would serve any useful purpose by going over the arguments again. He would, therefore, ask the committee not to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Jeppe.

said that, in supporting the contention of the hon. member for Jeppe, he would point out that it was a principle to which they attached the greatest importance that this should be a compensation Bill and not an insurance Bill. Notwithstanding anything which may have taken place in that august Select Committee, he claimed that it was worth discussing in Committee of the Whole House as to whether even at this hour it was not just and expedient to say that there should foe no contribution on the part of the miners towards their own compensation. They knew perfectly well that the principle had been recognised in England. The House very often went to England for precedents, particularly when they did not happen to help the contentions of hon. members who sat on those benches, but in this instance the British precedent was the one which he considered the right one. He knew it would foe said by the right hon. the member for Victoria West that the enormous wages attracted the men. These enormous wages were very much in the nature of a myth, and they seemed to obsess certain members of that House. What these men got was on the average just about the same wages that men got who were not subject to these unhealthy conditions. There was nothing in this cry of “freedom of contract.” Freedom of contract, so far as the average workman went, did not exist. He had either to accept the conditions offered by the employer or he had to starve. He hoped the House would seriously consider that the men in their thousands, the men most concerned, had petitioned this House to bring in a Bill on the lines of workman’s compensation. Was this committee going to take no notice of the men most concerned—the men who were sufferers, or who were likely to suffer, and whose wives and families would suffer if they were not dealt with fairly by this committee and this House at the present time? He had no doubt in his mind that this petition was a perfectly genuine one, an almost spontaneous petition, presented to the House by five or six thousand signatories, and he asked the Government and their allies, the Opposition, not to ignore the wishes of the miners of the Rand.

said that, as it was his view that miners’ phthisis was an occupational disease, he should vote for the retention of the original definition of “fund.”

said he considered that it was advisable, on a subject of this kind, even at the risk of delaying the passing of the Bill, that the various points that had occurred to hon. members should be discussed. He thought it was admitted as a principle all over the world, that injuries or disease contracted in the course of employment should be compensated entirely from the profits resulting from the industry or by the industry concerned. Without any contention having been put forward that this claim would ruin the industry or any evidence having been brought forward in support of that contention, they were asked to throw aside an accepted principle. He noticed in committee a constant occurrence of this passage, “Do you know any other country where miners’ phthisis has been scheduled under the Workmen’s Compensation Act?” Invariably the witnesses had answered “No.” Hon. members who had constituted that committee evidently did not know the reason why miners’ phthisis had not been scheduled under the English Workmen’s Compensation Act. From inquiries he had made, the position, as he understood, was this, that in 1906, when the Workmen’s Compensation Act in England was under discussion, the question of scheduling under that Act certain occupational diseases was discussed in Parliament, and the principle having been agreed to, a start was made by including two or three diseases in the schedule to that Bill. Furthermore, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the whole question of occupational diseases, and report to Parliament what occupational diseases should be included under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Miners’ phthisis was inquired into, and many other occupational diseases, and the report of that Commission, when published, recommended that miners’ phthisis and other diseases be included under the schedule of the Act. Almost simultaneously with the publication of the Commission’s report, a Board of Trade report was published, which pointed out that, even in regard to the few diseases included in the Act, the effect had been that, in consequence of the Act not being retrospective, the men engaged in those industries who had contracted the disease had been dismissed, and there was a tendency on the part of employers to weed out the men before they got to that stage of the disease when they could claim compensation.

Knowing that, obviously the Legislature did not proceed to add more diseases to the schedule. It was a fact that since that time replies to questions asked in the House of Commons had elicited a promise from the Government that when it had an opportunity to amend the Workmen’s Compensation Act, so as to provide for the contingencies which had arisen, it would add other diseases to the schedule, and that miners’ phthisis would be included. That was the position. There was no intention of throwing the question aside. If they had included it without such provision the effect would have been to throw a large number of miners into the street. That was the position with which they were faced in the Transvaal when the Workmen’s Compensation Act was passed. It was then suggested that miners’ phthisis should be included in the schedule, and that existing cases should be treated retrospectively. The Minister, however, could not agree to the principle of making the legislation retrospective, and the thing fell through. In his opinion that decision accounted for the trouble they were having now. It was their duty to put the matter right, and there was no justification for referring to the fact that other countries had not taken notice as a reason why they should not deal with this on the proper basis.

said that the hon. members on the cross-benches knew perfectly well that they had not the slightest chance of carrying their proposal, and they were losing time, and possibly if they continued to block the measure they would lose it altogether, and the poor people who were suffering from miners’ phthisis would lose the compensation which the measure proposed to give them. With regard to the merits of the case, the case of the hon. members on the cross-benches was that the disease should be looked upon as an occupational disease, and that existing cases should be treated retrospectively. If they carried that argument to its logical conclusion it meant that a man before getting any compensation would have to prove that he had not contributed to the disease from which he was suffering. How many men were there who were at present suffering from the disease who could prove that they had not contributed to the disease? They knew perfectly well that the men had neglected to take the necessary precautions, and from his own knowledge he had seen men down the mines refuse to make use of the water which had been laid on for their benefit.

said that the hon. member might be, and, as a matter of fact, was, perfectly correct. Hon. members on the cross-benches knew perfectly well that it was absolutely hopeless for them, no matter how long they spoke, to influence the hon. members opposite. They would vote solidly, but it was their (the Labour members’) duty to put forward their views. He disputed the ground upon which the hon. member (Mr. Runciman) went. The hon. member stated that the risks were such that the onus of proof rested upon the men to show that they had not contracted the disease owing to their fault, but the whole evidence they had got showed that the men could not be held responsible for the risks underground. He and his colleagues simply wished to place on record their protests. They believed that they might not be listened to in that House, but they knew that they had much sympathy in the country. He recognised the position they were in this session, but he hoped the House would not forget that with it lay the responsibility of dealing with this matter, and seeing that the Bill was passed, and that with them (the Labour party) lay the responsibility of placing their views before the House. They were determined to exercise their right and do their duty.

put the question: That the interpretation of term “the fund,” proposed to be omitted by the Select Committee, stand part of the clause, and declared that the “Noes” had it.

called for a division, which was taken with the following result:

put the substitution of the interpretation of term “the funds,” proposed in lieu thereof, which was agreed to.

An amendment was made in the Dutch version.

hoped the hon. Minister would take into consideration the advisability of including the Sheba and Barberton districts in his list.

made a remark that was inaudible in the Press gallery.

was saying that the right hon. gentleman sometimes presumed on the position he held in the House, when he was called to order by the Chairman. Continuing, Mr. Creswell said he wanted to point out to the hon. Minister that he should not rely too much upon the clause. Nothing in the Bill should take away from the Minister the responsibility of saying his Department instituted such inquiry as would enable him to include every man in the list.

said that full provision was made for that in the Bill. Clause 33 gave the Minister power even without the request of the mine owners or miners.

All we want is that he should exercise his powers.

On clause 3,

On the motion of Mr. CRESWELL,

put the amendment proposed by the Select Committee: In line 9, to omit “from three persons nominated by,” and to substitute “by the Minister to represent”; and in line 12, to omit“from three persons nominated by” and to substitute “to represent”.

moved, as an amendment to this amendment: In sub-section (1), line 9, to omit all the words from “selected” to “mines” in line 13 inclusive and to substitute “nominated by the Transvaal Chamber of Mines and one shall be nominated by the Transvaal Miners’ Association.”

urged that all the miners did not belong to the Transvaal Miners’ Association. He hoped the Minister would not accept the amendment.

said that the association was open to all. It was absolutely in the public interest that such organised bodies, which represented men in large industrial occupations, should be recognised. The association had organised itself and voiced the opinions, not only of those who were members, but also the minority, who were not members.

said he could not accept the amendment, for the simple reason that both the Chamber of Mines and the Miners’ Association were private bodies, and what applied to one applied to the other. They could not limit themselves in an Act of Parliament to a voluntary association. The machinery of the Bill which constituted those Boards must carry out the whole thing; one weak link in the chain would stultify the whole Act.

The amendment to the amendment was negatived.

moved an amendment in line 45, to make the word “fund” read “funds.”

The amendment was agreed to.

On new clause 5,

On the motion of Mr. CRESWELL,

put the new clause.

moved to omit the words, in line 37, “miners employed,” and insert “tons of rock hoisted.” That was for the purpose of basing the contribution for the mines.

said he hoped that the committee would not agree to this amendment, because if they took the basis of tonnage, they would find that a poor mine would be affected much worse than a rich mine. A poor mine, to meet expenses, had to hoist a great deal of tonnage to make it pay. If a mine also was not working the whole of the time, the average amount it would have to pay would be reduced proportionately. He thought they could not have a fairer basis, and he hoped the committee would let the clause stand.

said the hon. Minister had drawn attention to the case of the rich mine, which, because it produced a smaller amount of rock, would pay very little in comparison to the poor mine, but the point of it was this: that because the poor mine produced a larger amount of rock, and therefore more dust, the greater would be the danger of miners’ phthisis, therefore he thought, if they took the basis of tonnage hoisted, that would be better than taking the number of men employed. Because a poor mine killed more men, because it was a poor mine, that was no reason why they should reduce its liability.

said this was not a question affecting the miners, because they were going to get their compensation from a fund, and this was merely a question of how the mines were going to contribute to the fund. The question of basing the contributions upon the number of men employed seemed to him to be the only logical basis to go upon, the idea being that the mine which had the most men should pay the most. This was the best way to get the gross contributions, and how were they going to distribute this contribution otherwise? There were mines which hoisted very little rock, and were perfectly deadly, and there were mines again which hoisted a great deal, and spent a good deal of money on proper underground arrangements, and were fairly healthy.

said that certainly the fairest arrangement was by dividing the burdens among the mines in proportion to the number who were employed.

said when this Bill was before the House last he pointed out that compensation based on the principle of white Europeans employed would mean that employers would endeavour to employ as few white men as possible, because the man who employed the largest number of white men would have to pay the most. He had suggested that the fairest way was to base part of the contributions in proportion to the profits.

The amendment was negatived.

New clause 6,

On the motion of Sir L. PHILLIPS,

put the new clause.

moved a small amendment in line 65, after the word “employer,” to add the following words, “who desires to avail himself of the last preceding sub-section.”

did not think it would be wise to leave the security to the option of the employer, otherwise they would have no security at all.

said the machinery and other assets would always be enough to pay every claim under the Bill.

said they had heard of such things as general bonds, and some day they might find that the security was pledged to the Standard Bank.

thought the suggestion was unnecessary in the vast majority of cases, but still it was a good thing to have the clause. In the case of a tributor the Board should have the power to demand security.

wished to know what sub-section 1 intended to provide. He took it that the Board would allow the employer to pay a capital sum.

That is the beginning.

said how an actuary could decide what the liability of a mine would be twelve months hence passed his comprehension.

said the committee contemplated that the contributions might come down to a very small amount and it might be inconvenient for the mines to pay £50 a month, and in that case they might wish to compound the payment. It was for the Board to see that the mines did not pay too small a sum.

pointed out that sub-section 2 was in no way connected with sub-section 1. He had no objection whatever to sub-section 1, but sub-section 2 was proposed by the hon. member for Victoria West, who was suspicious of the mining people, and he (Mr. Chaplin) did not think it was of any use at all. If a mine got into such a state as to lead the Board to think it necessary to call upon it to give security, the mine probably would have no money at all. Unless the Board was going to seize the assets of a mine the clause was valueless, and if the Board did seize the assets it would have clause 31 to protect it. To make the proposal applicable to all the mines would merely be vexatious.

said the real value of the clause was in the alternative. The second part of sub-section 2 was the important thing. He moved, as an amendment, to omit the word “to” before “demand.”

said really one read so much about the goings on up above that one liked to have a little security.

thought the right hon. gentleman had no right to make the insinuation. If the clause were left in the Bill it would give the Board the right to go to one of the great mining companies and say, “You are going to be liable in the next 20 years for £100,000; give us security for that amount.” It was the most monstrous thing he had ever seen. If they wished to provide for cases in which the Board believed that the assets of a company were going to be done away with, they should insert words to the effect that if the Board had grounds for believing that something was wrong.

It is only for two years.

It is not the proper thing to do, unless you have reason to believe that the assets are being frittered away. There is not the least danger of any reputable company on the Rand trying to make away with its assets.

said the hon. member seemed to think that he (Mr. Merriman) imagined that all mining companies were rogues. The hon. member also seemed to imagine that all the members of the Board were lunatics. (Laughter.)

withdrew his amendment.

said he hoped the Minister would not press his amendment to omit “to.” He thought the clause read much better as it stood. (VOICES: “No.”)

said that as the clause stood it made nonsense, because it left it to the Board to call upon any employer “to demand payment of a capital sum.”

The amendment moved by the Minister of Mines was agreed to.

said he agreed that the word “to” should be struck out, but he thought that “shall” should be substituted, so that it should not be left to the Board to decide the matter. He moved to insert “shall”.

The amendment was negatived.

said he thought perhaps the better course would be to omit “to” simply.

If the right hon. gentleman prefers it that way, I have no objection.

moved to insert the word “may” before “demand.” He said they must have some word in place of “to”.

The amendment was negatived.

On new clause 7, Government contribution to Compensation Fund,

On the motion of Mr. DUNCAN,

put the new clause.

moved to omit “sterling” after pounds. He said that he did this in order to economise printing, because if they inserted “sterling” in this place they must do it in every place.

said he hoped the committee would accept the amendment. There was really no necessity to have the word “sterling” after “pounds,” and it was not customary in their Bills.

The amendment was agreed to.

moved in line 22, after “(1)” to insert “of section 5”; in line 23, after “2 of” to insert “that”; and in the same line after “section” to omit “5”.

said he would like some information in regard to the provisions of this clause.

said it meant that £100,000 would be paid into the fund. It would be kept in a separate account, and would be drawn upon by the Board to pay the difference between the amount and the annual charge on any particular mine and the quarterly profits. Suppose the quarterly profits of a mine were £100 and the mine had to pay under the Bill £500 per annum, there was a difference of £100 per annum. The committee proposed that the Board should pay this £100 from the account. The second point was as to where they were going to get this £100,000. It was proposed that it should ultimately come from the bewaarplaatsen fund, but Parliament had not yet allocated that fund. Pending the decision of Parliament, the Government would finance the £100,000, and the House would be asked to vote the £100,000 this session. It would then be paid into the fund, and afterwards, when Parliament had dealt with the general question of what should be done with the bewaarplaatsen they could recoup themselves from that fund.

said he thought the contribution by the Government was one of extreme niggardliness. It was one that did not reflect any honour or credit upon the members of that House. It had been admitted that the prosperity of South Africa had been built up almost entirely by that great industry in the North. They had voted nearly one million of money this year towards the advancement of the agricultural prosperity of the country. He did not object to that, but when they considered that these men had sacrificed their lives to build up the prosperity of the country this £100,000 which they were going to get and which probably did not belong to the Government in any case—(hear, hear)—was a beggarly gift in the extreme. He should have thought that they would have had an endowment fund of £500,000 from the Government. None of the hon. members who had voted this thing could, he was sure, go away with “peace in their hearts, because this Parliament had done a wrong thing, inasmuch as it had not recognised its liability to a large body of men and a large body of widows.

said that, as one of the members of the committee who signed the Minority Report, he would like to state, in a few words, why he signed that report. On every other point he agreed with the Majority Report, but in this instance the reasons which led him to sign the Minority Report were two. Firstly, he considered that the Government of this country had received a very large revenue from the gold industry in the past, but they would not have received such a large amount had compensation been paid during the past years; that if the necessary precautions had been taken the profits of the companies would not have been so great, and, therefore, that the percentage paid by the mines in the way of profits to the Government would not have been so great. That was one of the reasons why he considered that the Government ought to pay a larger contribution than £100,000. The second reason was that the Government accepted a responsibility and framed certain regulations with regard to the working of the mines, and it was proved to his satisfaction, as a member of the committee, that the Government in recent years, with a full knowledge of the danger to these workmen, did not see that the inspection was sufficient to carry out these regulations which they had prepared. He did not want to labour the question in any way; he thought it was impossible to get a larger amount, but it was only fair that he should state why he had signed the Minority Report. The compensation given under the Bill was not sufficient, and he would have liked the Government to have contributed a larger amount.

maintained that they had got higher compensation in that Bill than was being paid under any similar Bill in the world. (Hear, hear.) He would challenge hon. members to point out to him any Bill of a similar kind in the world where the Government had come forward and contributed to an occupational disease. Who got the profit? It was divided between the men, who drew enormous wages, and the shareholders. They in Parliament were trustees of the public, and he thought they had gone very far indeed. He himself was the instrument that got the £100,000. He went to his hon. friend, who was no longer the Treasurer, and worked upon his feelings. If they had to deal with the matter on more logical lines, they would wash their hands of it altogether. It would be very bad for the men if everyone had to go to the court and prove his case. Some would find it very hard, indeed, because they would have to prove that they had taken every precaution. The Bill was a more liberal Bill than they would find on any statute-book in the world.

said that his right hon. friend asked who got the profit out of the industry. There was a great deal of misapprehension about that. Certainly the men and the shareholders had profit, but the State also had had enormous profits out of the industry. He wished to put to the Minister a matter that was worth consideration from the stand-point of good finance. It was very important that the mining industry should be carried on in a proper manner. That Bill would place upon the mining industry a very serious burden, and it was going to involve a sum amounting to seven or eight hundred thousand pounds during the next two years. He wanted to suggest that it would be a good thing to distribute the burden over a considerable number of years. It would be wise on the part of the State to go to the aid of the mining industry and pledge its credit in order that the payment might be spread over a number of years. The security of the mines was absolutely perfect from the point of view of soundness, and he asked the Minister to consider whether he would not with his colleagues discuss the question seriously of the advance of money by the State for the liquidation of claims during the next two years, and spread the repayment over a period of years. Investors would not then be alarmed at the fall in the profits. The charges would be borne by the industry, for there must be no cost to the State in the matter, and it would be a very wise thing considered as a matter of public finance.

agreed with the right hon. member for Victoria West, to whose endeavours it was due that this £100,000 was provided. He agreed that the burden on the mining industry was a heavy one, but it was not right now to start accusing the agricultural industry. He had spoken at the second reading against the State making any further contributions to the fund, though he would not object to bewaarplaatsen moneys being devoted to the purpose. A good deal had been done for the mining industry, and he regretted the attitude of some hon. members. It was not right either to throw the whole burden on the industry. Miners knew their risks, and should contribute something. He recognised that the mining industry was doing much good to the country, but at the same time, it was right and to the interest of the mining industry that this matter was properly dealt with, as this would at once have the effect of attracting labour. Otherwise, people would be scared if no provision were made for them. He was pleased to see the Bill as amended by the Select Committee, and thought the workmen should also contribute. It was not right always to cause agitation on the part of the workmen against the employers, as the hon. member for Jeppe was doing. He was sure that the Bill would be welcomed with gratitude, and regretted the charges against the agricultural industry. Most of his constituents would, he felt sure, accept the Bill with gratitude.

said that although they fully recognised that the right hon. member for Victoria West was largely responsible for this £100,000 and the thanks of the community were therefore due to him, he thought that should not prevent them from differing from him. He had said that this contribution was greater than in any other part of the world, but taking everything into consideration it was not too great. Sight should not be lost of the fact that the profit tax was a million, and although they had not the power to increase this tax, he would be one of the first to move that 25 per cent. of this be devoted to this compensation, but it was not in their power to do so. This profit tax had gone into the general tax, and did not help these miners. If they put a too heavy tax upon this industry they might find themselves in the position of having killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

contended that although the Government contribution was excusable in this case there was no claim upon them in the same way as upon the mine owners.

It being five minutes to 6 p.m.,

stated that in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted by the House on the 20th May, he would now report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Progress was reported and leave granted to sit again to-morrow.

called attention to the increase that had taken place in the vote. There was, he complained, a want of superintendence of the agricultural schools.

was pleased to see that an experimental station was provided for Malmesbury and Robertson. He was strongly in favour of protection for the grain industry, but without proper expert advice protection would be useless. Therefore, these experimental stations would be of the utmost importance. The present difficulty was in regard to the exhaustion of the soil, and unless proper experiments were made to find out what elements were taken out of the ground by the grain, and how these elements could best be replaced, the ground would continue to be impoverished. What was the best sort of fertiliser to be used? His district was a rich corn district, and produced last year half a million bags of grain, but they had no expert advice as to what sort of manure was required to keep the soil in order. He hoped the Minister of Agriculture would consider this question. They had tried superphosphates, but that only appeared to aggravate the process of exhaustion. They did not require an expensive experimental station, but only an expert, who could travel through the country to advise farmers. It was possible for every farmer in Australia to get an expert to advise him what to feed the soil with in order to grow any given kind of produce.

moved that they take the sub-heads seriatim.

The proposition was agreed to

asked if the schools were boarding schools, and under what conditions was entry obtained? Suppose, for instance, he wanted to become a farmer. (Ironical cheers.)

The best thing you could do

It may surprise the right hon. member to learn that I do know something about farming, although it may not be wine farming.

said the first condition was that the applicant for admission must have passed Standard VII. (Laughter.)

Have I passed?

I leave that to the hon. member to decide. Secondly, the applicant must be over 16. He must pay for his board and lodging—£40 per annum, and also the school fees, which are not large. The course is a two years’ one.

asked did the authorities enable a pupil to obtain land, or must the pupils be sons of land-owners?

pointed out that the fees for 1912-13 were estimated at £11,850, against £7,550 for 1911-12. Where did the increase come from?

said there were no reports on the Agricultural Colleges. The House was called upon to vote a considerable sum for agricultural education, and it had no guidance whatever as to the way in which the money had been spent during the preceding year. (Mr. MERRIMAN: Hear, hear.) They could not possibly judge if the money had been properly expended unless they knew what had been done in the past year. What was the cost of the education of the boys apart from farming and what did the education of a boy cost the country? (Mr. MERRIMAN: Hear, hear.) He would like a return giving a comparison between the cost per head here and in Canada and Australia—(hear, hear)—so that South Africa could see whether it was getting a fair return for the money it spent. All this information hon. members could get if they were provided with reports, but which they had not got. (Hear, hear.)

called attention to the item “visiting chaplain, £60,” and asked why the item appeared under one school only; what church did the chaplain represent, and what opportunity had the representatives of other churches of visiting the school?

wished to know if all the boys had the same religion, and, if not, what facilities were afforded to the others for the obtaining of religious instruction?

asked at what time could farmers visit Elsenberg to obtain information such as they used to get from the Agricultural Department in Cape Town?

said it was only fair that the Prime Minister should tell the House the principle of the change that had been made in agricultural administration in the various Provinces. He (Sir Thomas) understood that under the new system work hitherto done by the Agricultural Department in Cape Town was to a large extent now being performed at Elsenberg and Grootfontein. He thought that was a policy which was going to break down, for the general complaint of farmers in the Western Province was that there was practically no place for them to go to for information. If they went to Elsenberg there was no accommodation for them if they should have to stay overnight. In the old days the farmers came to Cape Town for agricultural information and advice, and very often stayed here for a day. How was it possible for Elsenberg to carry out the work hitherto performed by the agricultural officials in Cape Town? When the question was raised a few months ago of the capacity of the Agricultural Colleges to deal with important problems, the House was told that these colleges were fully equipped for the purpose, but at Elsenberg there were only 17 officials. How was it possible for these people to be able to attend to the education of the students and also to give the necessary advice to the farmers of the Western Province? He thought it was impossible. Would the Prime Minister tell the House if there had been any complaints with regard to the change from the farmers and the agricultural societies of the Western Province, and whether there was a consensus of opinion that the farming population was not satisfied with the Prime Minister having changed from the old system. He (Sir Thomas) had held that these agricultural colleges were training institutions, and that outside them there should be experts to move about among the farmers advising them to take new steps in the direction of scientific improvements and be of use to the farming population generally.

in reply to the hon. member for George, said there was an increase of students at Grootfontein College; at Elsenberg there was a small decrease—they could accommodate there a maximum of 55 to 60 at the outside—and at Potchefstroom they had increased their accommodation, and there was a large increase of students there. With regard to the functions of these schools, he would point out that they had a three-fold function. Firstly, they existed for the teaching of the students; secondly, they had to carry out experiments, and were, therefore, experimental stations at the same time. The experiments were for the benefit of the farming community generally, and for the practical instruction of the students. The third function was that the lecturers at these colleges or schools had to go about in the neighbourhood where they came into contact with the farmers. If they kept these three-fold functions in mind it would be seen at once that there was no administrative function connected with the schools. If a man, therefore, wanted to know anything about the Scab Act or anything of that sort he must go to the Department centred in Pretoria, but who had representatives here.

Since when?

said “All along.” For administrative purposes, therefore, they must continue to go to the same places as before. But if any member of the public wanted to know anything about experimental work or was seeking advice about sowings, etc., he could go to the schools, and his wants would be attended to; but the schools had nothing to do with administration.

said on the Supplementary Estimates an amount had been provided to appoint a person as suggested by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort. He agreed that they should have one official to visit these institutions from time to time, and report as to what should be done. Replying to Mr. Krige, General Botha said a station as suggested by him (Mr. Krige) had been established at Malmesbury to deal with the question of fertilisers. The Government would do their utmost to improve the productive quality of the soil, and to see what was the cause of the present state of affairs. As regarded the question of policy raised by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, he had hoped that, as arranged last night, this matter of special schools would be dealt with under the Supplementary Estimates.

said he wanted to know if Elsenberg was sufficiently well equipped to be able to give a scientific training to the students, and also to be able to attend to the wants of the farming population by the lecturers going through the districts and explaining the various scientific points of agriculture to the farmers. It was impossible for a man to be lecturing on a farm and attending to the education of the students, and also to be travelling through the districts discussing points of a practical character with the farmers.

said they had a system in Canada by which the Agricultural Colleges were made use of by the farmers. They did not analyse soils for the individual. If a man wanted that done he had to pay for it himself. But they had a system of experiments, the results of which were shown in a series of glass tubes in the colleges. There were hundreds of these glass tubes, showing the results of these experiments. It could be seen what a certain soil would produce, what mixtures and manures would produce, and what would be produced by seeds sown at different seasons. As showing how this method was appreciated, he mentioned that at the Ontario College of Agriculture during a period of six weeks in August and September last no fewer than 42,000 farmers had passed through the college especially to see the results of these experiments. Anyone who had a certain kind of soil or manure could see at once what would be produced. While they did not often get hundreds of acres here containing the same kind of soil as in Canada, he thought they could still make a beginning. It would be a much more economical way than dealing with every individual farmer. They had poultry rearing there, butter making, cheese making, the slaughter of stock, but then the college was on a much larger scale than at Elsenberg. They could not carry out all these experiments, because they were too small. The students at the Ontario College had turned out among the farmers from year to year, and they were lucky if they got the price of their food. That was how they got their practical experience.

wanted to know if the vote of £12,749 was utilised solely for the training of students, or were they spending it for the benefit of the population of the Union in this particular school? If they were spending this for the benefit of the students then it was a pretty expensive training indeed. He noticed also that the rent of the farm was put down at £442, and he wanted to know whether the State intended paying this amount annually, or whether they were going to acquire the farm.

wanted to know if the record of the visitors to these Agricultural Colleges was kept, because it would be a good thing if this was included in the report in future.

asked the Minister if he was aware that experiments in dynamite sub-soiling had been taking place in various parts, and whether the Department would go the length of asking the people to give ground for these experiments, or if the Agricultural College was going to allow these experiments to be made on its own lands?

said he had been asked by a young friend of his who was anxious to go in for poultry farming, whether there was a text-book on this industry in the country. He had applied to the Agricultural Department, and he was informed that there was no such book in existence. He would suggest to the Minister that it would be useful to have such a text-book.

agreed with the hon. member for Caledon. Experimental stations had been created at Malmesbury and Robertson, but he could not see in how far the other parts of the country benefited thereby.

said that was not the point under discussion.

wished to know whether the students at these colleges were given practical work to do in farming, or if they simply listened to lectures, and simply looked on at the work being done?

drew attention to the increase in the cost of each student at Elsenberg. He intended also to refer to the same matter when they came to the votes for Grootfontein.

said if the hon. member would look at the footnotes he would see that Elsenberg was an experimental station, and that was the reason of the increase.

But you have not more people?

Yes, we have. There are five men at least who were not included in the previous vote. Continuing, the hon. Minister said that as regarded the book on poultry, they were collecting the necessary information. The question had been asked by the hon. member for Springs with regard to the rent paid for this at Elsenberg. The farm was bought originally out of money held by the Government as trustees for the Porter Reformatory, and this amount was actually the interest on the money so invested. In regard to the question by the hon. member for Griqualand, he would like to say that practical work was being done by the students. He was afraid that the Prime Minister, having now taken up Saturdays for the sitting of the House, would not be able to extend an invitation to them, so that hon. members could see what was being done. The hon. member for Worcester had asked whether a record of the number of visitors was kept. Yes, that was being done. The number of visitors at Elsenberg last year was 2,000.

speaking for his side of the House, said that any comments that may have been made did not, he would like to point out, detract in any way from Elsenberg, which was an admirable institution. He had had the assistance of young students who had been at Elsenberg, and he could assure hon. members that they had gone through a great deal of all sorts of practical work connected with farming. For instance, they could do smithy work and carpentry work, and they were almost all able to turn their hand to any kind of farm work. At present Elsenberg was admirably staffed, and they were doing admirable work.

said he noticed an amount of £14,050 for labour. Was that for coloured labour?

Yes.

And what do the boys do?

wanted to know again whether the whole of this vote, less £1,300, was devoted to the training of students, because if so, it worked out at the rate of £200 per student. Surely they could keep them for less than that a year.

said he had already stated that this was an experimental farm; they had large numbers of thoroughbred stock, and they had big sales there. The same thing was going on at other experimental stations. As regarded the increase in the labour vote, that was due to the transfers.

said that in regard to the Elsenberg College, he would support what the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smartt) had said. In his opinion, it was an admirable institution, and he was glad to hear from his experience that some of the students had benefited so well from their studies there. He (the hon. member) had seen the students doing every kind of work there. Whether the amount for labour was too big, he could not say; but he would like to say to hon. members that the students could not do all the work on the farm. There must be some paid labour to do some of it.

said he was rather struck by the amount spent per annum on the students. £217 appeared to be the figure it cost per annum to train each student. He supposed they must agree that this money was being well spent. But he noticed what a difference there was in the treatment of the students in the agricultural colleges and some of the other schools in the Union. There was a school at Krugersdorp, of which an official connected with it said that the children were being taught in a corrugated-iron room about 24 ft. by 9 ft., lately used as a coolie store. Eighty children were being educated there whilst the space was only sufficient for half that number. The students in the agricultural colleges were probably represented by the gentlemen of the Government side of the House, and there seemed to be a want of fair play there. He took it that those who could afford to pay £40 per annum for board and lodging, besides fees, were not the poorest of the community, and he questioned whether the country was justified in paying £217 per annum to teach these students, while they were spending the small amounts they were on the children in the elementary schools. They were told that they were advocating class legislation on those benches, but on these facts he would put it to do the committee whether there did not seem to be some class legislation here.

said he would like to ask whether he would be in order in moving the reduction of the salary of the principal of the Grootfontein Agricultural College by half, for the purpose of asking for information regarding the Barbary ostriches?

That amount was dealt with last night.

said that his reason was that the principal of this college had been absent for more than half of the past year, and if his services could be dispensed with for half a year, it seemed to him that his salary could be reduced by half the amount. He would like to find out something as to how he had been spending his time in the last few months. They were told he had been in charge of an expedition to the North of Africa to Barbary, and he believed he went there to collect Barbary birds, but instead of getting to Barbary he got to a place called Kano, the railhead, and which was 900 miles south of the southern borders of Barbary. They learned that the real Barbary bird was a native of Mogador.

The Barbary bird is not here now. (Laughter.) The hon. member can only ask the question.

said he wanted to ask the Prime Minister as to the success of the expedition in charge of Mr. Thornton; and he wanted to know whether it was a fact that the ostriches which he went in search of were most valuable because of the class of feathers they carried. He believed it was supposed to have a long dense plume and a thin stem, and because it had no bars on the feathers.

The hon. member can only ask the question.

said he would like to ask the Prime Minister what had been the result of the expedition. They heard accounts of Arab steeds, marabouts, Barbary birds, and birds of doubtful origin. 140 birds were secured and according to what had been said they had cost £140 each. He wanted to know if the expedition had been of real value to the country and whether the zoological specimens Mr. Thornton had brought back with him, which might be very advantageous from a menagerie point of view—whether they represented a fair value on the cost of the expedition. He moved to reduce the amount by £15, from the item “Up keep of dairy, smithy, poultry section, etc.,” £1,615.

said he wished to know something about the staffing and equipments of this college. Complaints had been made by the parents of the original students that they were urged to enrol their sons in good time so as to secure places for them at Grootfontein. Now it appeared that even before the place was properly started the principal was sent away on an expedition to Barbary, and it seemed to him that the original students lost the benefit of having a principal who was selected because of his special qualifications, for three out of four terms of the course to which they were entitled. So much had this been recognised by the parents that he knew of one case where the student was actually removed from the college to a private farm until the return of the principal. Then he would like to know something about the stocking of the farm. He noticed that this year the vote for stocking was £6,000, and last year it was also £6,000. That seemed to be rather a large amount. He also noticed an amount of £3,000 for the purchase of cream, and £3,500 for the purchase of wool for demonstrations.

said that he would move the reduction of the upkeep of the poultry section by £50. He would like to have some information about the new type of poultry they had there, known as marabouts. He would like to know something about them and whether they were obtained before the American people could get hold of them, because it seemed to be the start of a most important industry in this country.

said that in reference to the absence of the principal of that school, he would also like to have some information. He had heard some complaints also. It was not fair after the school was just started that the man should be sent away. They should keep him on one job and not send him away. He hoped now he was back the Minister would keep him to his work.

said he desired to know whether arrangements had been made at Grootfontein for warming the students’ quarters. It was a most rigorous climate up there, and he knew that last year no provisions were made for that.

said he wished to know what instructions had been given to the principal with regard to the disposal of certain ostriches which were recently taken to the Agricultural College. He believed the principal would have received instructions as to how he was to dispose of those Barbary ostriches. If they were to be put up to public auction it was quite certain that a few wealthy men would secure the whole lot. He would like to know if some system could not be devised whereby every man would have a chance of getting some of the birds.

said that he would like to call the attention of the Minister to the amount that was down for fencing. This year the amount of the vote was £2,000. Last year it was £12,000. If the money were being spent in a useful way that was all very well, but he would like to know whether they were getting value for that expenditure.

referred to the amount of £6,000 that was set down for the purchase of stock. He pointed out that within two years something like £1,500 had been asked for the purchase of stock. This £6,000 could not be for the purchase of pedigree stock, for on another page he found an item of £3,000 for that purpose. Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to explain the matter. It seemed to him, in the absence of any reports or information on the subject, that amounts of this sort were mechanically placed on the Estimates from year to year. As the colleges expanded this would become a very serious item of expenditure. If the committee voted the amount, he hoped the Government would look into the matter in the future.

said that this amount of £6,000 was voted last year for the purchase of stock, but the greater part of the money was not spent. It was intended to spend the money on some Friesland cattle from Holland, but owing to the foot and mouth disease raging in that country it was found impossible to carry out the scheme. This amount was largely a revote of the money.

With regard to the absence of Mr. Thornton from Grootfontein, he would say that such an expedition was only sent once in a lifetime. It also happened that Mr. Thornton was the best man they could send, and everybody would admit that that gentleman knew more about ostriches than anybody else in the country. He had gained a lot of valuable knowledge in consequence of the trip. With regard to the complaints of parents that Mr. Thornton had not been there to teach their children, he would only point out that the students were two years at the college and they would have the benefit of the valuable experience which had been gained by Mr. Thornton. With regard to the complaint of the hon. member for Border, he would like to say that they were not able to pick up the staff for an agricultural college at any one moment. He pointed out that the students knew that they were going to a new institution. It did them a lot of good to see a place like that grow from the very start. It was better to start slowly and get men that were eminently suited for the work than to get men who would afterwards be found unsuitable. He had been very surprised at the progress which had been made at the college. At one time they had doubts as to whether the institution would progress in a very satisfactory manner.

said his idea of these places was that they should not only be colleges for students but that the farms should be object lessons to farmers. The best way of doing that was to keep a profit and loss account of what was done. Then farmers would be able to see not only what was done from the scientific point of view, but see clearly the financial portion of the business. He thought that Grootfontein was a splendid place to carry out a scheme of this sort, for the reason that it was a new institution.

said he thought that the students should be taught how to keep accounts. He had met many farmers who were quite unable to keep accounts in a proper fashion.

said that with regard to the amount that was down for stock, he should like to know whether there was any co-ordination in connection with the matter. Who selected the cattle? Did the colleges choose their own stock?

said that estimates were sent in to the permanent head of the Department, who coordinated everything according to requirements. This amount of £6,000 was really a re-vote.

What for?

The purchase of cattle. Continuing, he said that to run a factory of that kind they wanted a large quantity of milk, and there was £3,000 for cream. As regards the cost, he was afraid that it was impossible to allocate the cost per student and for the experiments and actual farm work, but so far as it could be done he would look into it.

asked whether the marabouts brought back by the recent expedition to the Soudan had been bought for private speculation? If so, he did not think it should be done.

said that they had not been brought out by the Government.

Did he (Mr. Bowker) not go at Government expense? Did he get the right to go in for private speculation?

The amendment was negatived.

was understood to say that the £20,000 was an excessive price to pay for the expedition.

said that the notion that the expedition had cost £20,000 was an odd notion, for which the hon. member himself seemed in a great way responsible. As a matter of fact, he was glad to say that the cost of that expedition was nothing like £20,000—(hear, hear)—and the actual cost would be in the neighbourhood of £8,000, or a little more, perhaps. The accounts had not yet been examined.

also spoke, but was inaudible.

asked whether in view of the large expenditure on the upkeep of dairies, the Minister would not pay attention to the question of condensed milk being supplied to travellers on the South African Railways.

Bring it up on the Catering Department.

was understood to refer to the case of Mr. Sawyer, whose services, he said, had been lost because he had continually been irritated by the Agricultural Department. He would like to know officially from the Minister the reason of the departure of the principal of the college. The hon. member also spoke of the Cedara Station.

in reply, said that Cedara was a good place for many things, but not a good place for horses, and he did not think they ought to concentrate their horse breeding there.

Is it the intention of the Government to start a new stud farm in Natal?

On sub-head E,

moved, as an amendment, that instead of “Tweespruit Agricultural School” the words “Tweespruit Stud Farm” should be inserted.

This was agreed to.

spoke, but was inaudible.

read paragraph 4 of the report of the Public Accounts Committee, which recommended a reduction of £500 in the dairy vote.

accordingly moved: On page 56, to reduce the amount by £500, from the item “Up-keep of dairy, smithy, poultry section, etc.,” £750.

Agreed to.

On the vote for the Malmesbury experimental station, £1,240,

moved: On page 57, to omit the item “Investigation of cereal-growing soils,” and to substitute “General maintenance expenses.”

Agreed to.

asked for information with regard to the item of £1,000 for the investigation of cereal-growing soils.

stated that Mr. Visser was in charge of the investigation.

On the vote for the Weenen Experiment Station, £999,

asked if an increased amount could be given to the Weenen Experiment Station? More money should be put down for the encouragement of the growing of sugar beet. Only a family party in Natal was interested in the growing of sugar cane, and he could not see why they should object.

said he had experimented in the past with sugar beet.

On the vote for Household Science, £500,

objected to this vote. In the Cape this work was managed by the School Boards. If it could be done in the Cape by local people, it could be done elsewhere by the local people.

said the lady concerned had been sent to Canada, and when she returned one did not know exactly how to utilise her services. At present the arrangement was not a permanent one, and eventually the lady might be transferred to the Education Department.

said he visited Canada last year, and at the Montreal Training College he heard this lady very highly spoken of.

said he would like to ask the Minister to state whether these were open scholarships.

drew the Minister’s attention to a suggestion made by the Public Accounts Committee with regard to preparing a scheme for the purpose of regulating these scholarships.

said that no scheme had been drawn up, with the exception of the scholarships in connection with the Agricultural Schools within the Union. As regarded scholarships for students outside the Union, he believed only two had been granted since Union. The Transvaal had had 24 and the Cape had had four. Eighteen had been granted of the value of £200 for four years to Transvaal students, and four in the Cape had been given scholarships of £75 per annum for four years. There was also one from the Cape of £200, one of the few who had been sent out since Union.

He is at Cambridge.

Yes; they are scattered all over the globe almost. The majority of these men will be coming back very shortly, and when they do come back will be the opportunity of framing a scheme. I think we should draw up regulations, and that the matter should not be left in the haphazard condition in which it has been in the past.

said that there were 29 bursaries, he saw, abroad. They had four established colleges at the present moment in this country, with only 250 students. He should have thought that it would have been unnecessary to send students abroad.

said he noticed globular sums under almost every head for the purchase of pedigree stock. He would like a little more information with regard to this subject.

said he entirely agreed with the Minister, and he differed entirely from the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, on the question of sending these scholars abroad. He thought, in the state of progress in relation to agriculture that we were in at present in this country, it would be a lamentable thing that they should hold that these scholars should be content with the education that could be given to them in this country. It was, he thought, a very sound thing to send these scholars and students abroad, so that they could bring the most modern ideas to this country.

asked the Minister of Agriculture to extend the system of letting out stud stock to farmers, as now in vogue in the Transvaal and Free State, to Natal. This, he held, would be highly beneficial to the poor farmer.

called the Minister’s attention to a recommendation by the Public Accounts Committee in paragraph 7 of their first report, and remarked that he did not know whether the Minister concurred in that opinion.

said that in regard to the grant to the Lovedale institution, he wished to congratulate the Government on having done something in the right direction. He did not see any mention in any way of the agricultural schools and farms which were being carried on by the natives through their own taxation. There were two or three in the Transkeian territories, and there was one in Glen Grey, and he hoped in another year that there would be, in addition to this one grant, some further assistance to these institutions.

said he hoped that the Minister would not concur in the recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee referred to by the hon. member for Maritzburg, North.

said that the £3,000 was for the purchase of stallions. Before Union there were established in the Transvaal and the Free State several stud farms, which were now in full operation. These purchases were to serve that purpose in the Cape and Natal. Replying to Mr. Bosman, he said it was the custom in the Transvaal to let out stallions for stud purposes to farmers. The other animals were not let out. As regarded the £250 for the Lovedale Institution, it was an attempt to do the usual work, and they could not get a move on in any other way. The Minister of Native Affairs saw him in connection with the matter, and he (the Minister of Education) had consented to make a start.

wanted to know if the Government had some hold on the Lovedale Institution. They had to vote money to these institutions, and he thought the Government should have some control and some right of inspection; that was not quite clear to him.

said the Lovedale Institution was a State-aided institution.

said his hon. friend wanted to know if the Government had got any control. It was perfectly clear from the grant shown on the Estimates that it was a State-aided institution, but was it State-aided without having the least control?

Yes; we have that. We inspect from time to time.

You inspect in the case of private schools.

objected to the principle of selling trees and plants by retail. It was not right, he contended, for the Government to enter into competition with local people. He suggested the laying down of a rule that not less than 250 should be sold. To anyone who wanted to plant on anything like a large scale 250 was not much.

said there were certain regulations in the Forestry Department which his constituents found pressed unduly upon them, but in view of the fact that the Prime Minister was going to visit the district it would be hardly fair to take up the time of the House with those matters. He did, however, wish to express his gratification that the Prime Minister was going down there, and was going to make inquiries into these matters; for the people there were complaining very seriously of the effect of some of those regulations. There was another matter he would like to mention. The Prime Minister was the last person in the world to unwittingly do an injustice to a public officer, and he was sure it was only necessary to invite his attention to what he (Mr. Currey) considered to be an injustice to ensure it being remedied. The salary of the Chief Conservator of Forests for the whole of the Union had been reduced from £1,200 to £910, a reduction of £290. There had been no change of incumbent. The officer who last year and the year before was acting Chief Conservator of Forests, and who was paid £1,200 per year, was the same gentleman who had been put down to £910; in other words, the proposal was to reduce the salary of the distinguished public officer by £290. That officer was the Conservator of Forests for the Province of the Cape of Good Hope prior to Union. He had had altogether some 37 years’ service in the Cape Colony and some five years’ service in India prior to coming to South Africa. As far as he (Mr. Currey) could make out, he was one of two officers, and only two officers, who had been treated in that way, and he thought some explanation was due to the committee. It was the first time he had known of the salary of a public officer being reduced except by Parliament; in fact, he did not know of any case of Parliament reducing an individual’s salary. He hoped that it had been done unwittingly. Those estimates were studded with salaries which were marked as personal salaries. That was to say that the amount now paid was paid to a particular individual, and would not in future be paid to his successor. There were heaps of those cases. It meant that in the event of a change it was not the intention of the Government to ask Parliament to vote the amount that was being paid to a particular officer. In the first place, as far as he knew, £850 was the salary of the Conservator of Forests for Cape Colony. Then within a few days of Union he was made Acting Conservator of Forests for the Union and his salary was increased to £1,200, and he drew that salary for two years. He knew that the Civil Service Commission had fixed the maximum salary of the Chief Conservator of Forests of the Union at £1,000, but why should they make an exception in the case of this gentleman and not in the case of others? Let him take the case of the gentleman who had come out from England as an officer in the Inland Revenue. Before Union he received a salary of £1,200 a year, and at the time of Union he received an increase of £300. No reduction was made in the case of this officer, but in the case of the Chief Conservator of Forests they made a reduction.

Everyone would bear testimony to the good work that he had done. They surely had no intention of making any reflection upon him, and he hoped the hon. Minister would take the necessary steps to see that this officer, at any rate during the time he was in the position of Chief Conservator, should draw the salary that he did during the past three years. The fact of reducing his salary had also a serious effect upon an officer’s pension, and it was an injustice not only to reduce his salary and thereby reduce his pension, but on account of his larger income he might have increased his liabilities, and this withdrawal of a greater portion of his salary might place him at a great disability.

said that the House was indebted to the hon. member for calling attention to this measure. He had himself drawn the attention of his hon. friend next him to what he considered a misprint in the Estimates, because he had before him the old Estimates and there he found that in 1910 and 1912 this gentleman was receiving £1,200 a year, and he thought that this was a misprint which would be corrected. Now, however, he found that there had been a deliberate reduction in this officer’s salary. Looking through the Estimates, commencing with the salary of the Secretary of Agriculture, he found that there were two officers drawing £3,300 between them, where it was stated that the new incumbents were to receive £1,500 each, or £3,000 altogether. He was perfectly certain it was the opinion of those who had come into contact with the Chief Conservator of Forests, that they were all agreed that he was an admirable officer indeed, and he hoped the right hon. gentleman would see that this injustice was rectified and the amount deducted restored to the officer. He hoped that hon. members would see that justice was meted out to him irrespective of party.

said he simply rose to say a few words in support of the statement made by the hon. member who had last spoken. This Department of Forestry was one of the most important Departments in the Union and, speaking personally, the work he had seen in his own district, well, the land there had been made into a veritable garden. (Hear, hear.)

said he heartily sympathised with the hon. member for George, and he would support him most strongly. It was very unfair that a man who had evidently proved himself in every position of his work a very capable man, should practically have his salary reduced when his subordinates were having theirs increased. Hon. members had to realise how important the question of forestry was in this country. But if the hon. member felt so strongly on this point surely he would feel equally strongly on a point he (the hon. member) wished to bring forward. It had been stated that certain men in the employ of the Forest Department were receiving from a shilling to five shillings a day. He asked for a return of these men, and the Prime Minister was good enough to give him a list of those men. He found, leaving out the first item of 20 labourers and one apprentice, that there were ten white labourers receiving from 1s. to 1s. 6d. per day, and six apprentices; there were 27 labourers receiving 1s. 6d. a day and one apprentice; there were 61 labourers receiving from 2s. to 2s. 6d. a day and ten apprentices, and one, an exalted individual, called a foreman. Receiving from 2s. 6d. to 3s. a day he found there were five men, seven apprentices and 42 labourers, making in all 146 labourers in the department earning wages from 1s. to 3s. per diem, and he would ask hon. members if they thought that an adequate or a living wage. How could the men live on pay of that sort? They must be going about the forests in skins. Surely such conditions should not be allowed to obtain in a department of the State. It was a disgrace to the Union.

raised the question of the sale of wood from the forests. The regulations said that the trees had to be sold by auction in March every year if one person wished this to be done. He did not agree with these regulations, as they acted harshly on the poor people. Every sort of tree had its special tariff. There would be no objection to this tariff, but owing to the trees being sold by auction the prices were far too high. The position of the poor people buying the trees was extremely bad, and he urged the Government to consider the case. This was one of the most important matters that could be raised, and he hoped the Government would see that these people were enabled to buy the trees at the price laid down by the Government, and not by auction, when they were always outbid. He stood here as the representatives of these poor woodcutters, and he urgently pleaded that something should be done to meet them. It was the Government’s duty, he held, to do something. He looked forward with some confidence to the visit of the Prime Minister to his part of the country, but such visits rarely produced much good. He was, however, determined to see that something was done. (Hear, hear.) For twelve years he had pleaded this cause, and he hoped that at last the regulations would be revised. They should see that the proper kind of trees were planted, such as were required by the market. There was no necessity to import trees —the South African trees were quite good. The people he pleaded for had the same blood in their veins as he had—they were Afrikanders—and their lot was a sad one. Therefore, let them be helped. Another matter which the Government should look into was that many of the forests were in the hands of private speculators. The Government should look at the matter from a business point of view, and they would find that South Africa could produce sufficient wood for all requirements.

said he was sure they had all listened with the greatest interest to the moving appeal which had been addressed to the committee by the hon. member behind him (Mr. Rademeyer), and he could only express the hope that when the right hon. member (General Botha) went to the hon. member’s constituents he would be able to turn his attention to the questions which had been discussed, and perhaps do something to ameliorate the state of affairs there. (Cheers.) He had not risen to speak on that point, however, but he wanted to say a few words on the point raised by the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey) in reference to the salary of the Chief Conservator of Forests. The Leader of the Opposition had said that some mistake had taken place, but that was not the case. What had happened was that immediately after Union a number of the higher officials in the Cape Province had to go to Pretoria, and at that time it was arranged that there should be local allowances given to these officers who were transferred from the coastal ports to Pretoria. In some cases, however, that principle had not been adopted, because where officers had drawn a very high salary officers were appointed to acting appointments at largely increased salaries. There was the case of the Chief Conservator of Forests who was given the acting appointment of Chief Conservator to the Union at £1,200 a year. Another case was that of the Postmaster-General. These officers were not given local allowances, but their salaries were raised on their acting appointments to higher lump sums. All that was subject, however, to the report that might be made on these increases by the Public Service Commission, which recommended that the Chief Conservator of Forests should be put on the scale of £850, rising to £1,000. He had been two years in the appointment and was drawing £850 plus two increments, thus bringing his salary to £910 per year. To this must be added the local allowance which he (General Smuts) believed was £90.

Although apparently an injustice had been done, and one felt that there was a hardship, yet hon. members must understand that they could not deal on personal grounds with cases like this, but must deal with them as a matter of principle. The principle was that these few acting appointments at higher salaries were not permanent appointments, but were subject to any alteration proposed by the Public Service Commission. Since that Commission made the recommendation, the Government was bound to accept it, and the result was that the Chief Conservator had lost part of his salary, but instead of that he would now get his permanent appointment at a salary considerably in advance of the salary he drew at the Cape. Take the case of the Secretary for Native Affairs. He was removed to Pretoria, and was also given £1,500 a year without any local allowance. But when the Public Service Commission went into his case they found that this salary was not justified for a permanent appointment, and the Commission recommended that the salary should rise from £1,200 to £1,350. Just as in the case of the Chief Conservator, the Secretary for Native Affairs had had two years’ increment, bringing his salary up to £1,260. Look at the case of the Postmaster-General. There, too, that officer was given a lump sum of £1,500. There, too, the Commission recommended a scale of £1,300, rising to £1,500. There, too, the officers got two years’ increments for the two years’ service, and, therefore, the salary now stood in the Estimates not at the figure of £1,500, but of £1,380.

That is a different officer altogether.

It is Mr. Wilson. There was no other procedure that the Government could adopt on principle. He might have done differently, but we should have been led into the greatest anomalies.

Take the salary of the Secretary of the Interior.

said that the Secretary of the Interior got before Union £1,500. That was guaranteed under the Act of Union. He was speaking of those cases where people were getting large increases since Union. He would go into the case of the Officer of the Inland Revenue. He was not conversant with the details of that case. If hon. members would compare the salaries which these officers drew before Union they would find that, substantially, the salaries had gone up a considerable amount, and he did not think any injustice had been done.

said he would ask the Minister how he reconciled his statement with the facts he (Mr. Struben) would give. He had said a considerable increase had been given from what they got in the Cape. In 1909, if he looked at the Cape Estimates, the Minister would find that the Chief Conservator of Forests had a salary of £825, which, with certain allowances, brought the total up to £900. He now figured on the estimates for £910. How could the Minister say that that was a considerable increase from what he was before?

Plus the local allowance.

said they had been told that that was not part of the salary. Further than that, he understood that this officer’s duties were a great deal more arduous now than they were before Union. It was proposed to increase his salary to £1,200. The Re-organisation Commission recommended he should get £1,200. The Minister may be correct in saying that the intention was that future officers should draw £910. Their specific recommendation was that this officer should draw the amount of £1,200, which he was given in view of increased responsibility. Then there was the Advisory Committee, which the Government appointed to assist the Civil Service Commission. That Advisory Board also recommended this officer at the higher figure. Then came some decision which reduced him down to the sum of £910. The Minister might say there was no substantial injustice, but it was a curious proceeding when an officer who had been considered worthy by virtue of increased responsibility to draw a salary of £1,200 for two years should suddenly be cut down to £910. When he was raised to £1,200 he thought that was his pensionable emolument. His position was infinitely worse than when he was appointed, and he (the speaker) could not help thinking that that particular case really deserved further consideration. Mr. Struben referred to the case of another officer, who had a specific promise that his salary would be raised above what it was before Union, but it had remained the same. That was not the way to create a feeling of satisfaction. Either they should make no promise at all, or if they made a specific promise they should not, as it seemed, but he hoped they would not, go back upon it. He hoped the hon. Minister would take this matter into further consideration.

hoped that the Minister of Agriculture would visit the Western Free State to see what could be done there in regard to forestry. Very little was being done at present there.

said he was very much surprised that an officer as well known as Mr. Lister—who was well known throughout the country before ever there was a Union—should have suffered. He (Sir Percy) had been looking through the Estimates, and they found there were no fewer than 27 high officials whose salaries stood side by side with a maximum that was much lower. In several cases their salaries were £1,500 a year, while in the next column the maximum was shown as £1,100. There were those 27 officers drawing salaries higher than the maximum, and here was a case of an official with 35 years’ distinguished service throughout the country not asking for an increase of salary, who was being reduced. He did not think that was fair. By way of comparison, he mentioned the case of an official. He did not know the official, but as Under Secretary of Agriculture he started on absolutely the same position as Mr. Lister, his salary being fixed at £850, rising by increments of £30 to £1,000. The Under Secretary of Agriculture was immediately put on the maximum of £1,000, and the Conservator of Forests was put on the minimum of £850. Where was the sense of justice in treating one so much more favourably than the other?

said he thought this case might easily be put on the Supplementary Estimates, because he believed that a great injustice had been done. He maintained that the Government, by paying this gentleman £1,200 a year, had placed him in exactly the same position as the other officers, and unless they could show that he had been in any way incompetent, they had no right to reduce his salary.

There have been two other cases.

said he did not think it was fair to treat either of these cases in this way either. Mention had been made of the allowance of £90 a year, but that was made because of the increased cost of living at Pretoria. The other officers were paid that as well. He maintained that if they were going to treat people in this way, they were going to create a great deal of dissatisfaction in the service.

said if they had kept this salary as it was before the Estimates were framed, the Government would still have been in the wrong, but it was very useful for them to shelter themselves behind the Commission’s recommendations. He noticed that none of the Ministers made any reply to the statement he had made with regard to the wages of the men. He would like to know if the Commission recommended that those wages should be kept, or that they should be introduced. He would like to know if the Government were going to do anything towards ameliorating the lot of those men receiving from 1s. to 5s. a day; and whether the Government thought that a fair rate of pay; and whether they did not think there was an enormous difference between the salary of £910 per year and the wage of 1s. per day. He wanted to know what this Forestry Department was for. There was no indication in the Estimates what it did. It appeared to him to be a very important department on the agricultural side of the State. They had nothing, because they had not got the report of the Agricultural Department.

But you have got it, it was published weeks ago.

I am talking about the bearing of the Forestry Department on the agriculture of the Union. All the report of the Forestry Department said was that there were certain trees planted here, and certain trees planted there.

You have not read it.

Yes, I have. Proceeding, he said he wanted to know what the Department was doing toward inducing the general planting of trees in the Union—not planting trees in blocks. That was of no use. It was the general planting of trees so as to control the rainfall. (Laughter.) It was a fact that they did regulate the rainfall, and the general planting of trees was valuable in the direction of preventing the erosion of the soil and conserving the water in the soil.

said he wished to draw the attention of the Minister to a matter on which he had spoken to the Minister of Education some time ago, and that was in regard to the preserving the natural vegetation on their mountain-sides. He thought something should be done to stop the prevalent practise of burning the vegetation. The hon. member for Cape Town had raised this matter, and he (the speaker) was sorry to see that he had taken such a narrow and petty view of the question. He thought that the Government should give better facilities to people who wanted these trees, even if they gave them away for nothing.

said he would like to ask the Minister why the recommendations of the Public Service Commission had not been carried into effect in regard to the salary of the Conservator of Forests. Why had not the action taken in the case of the Conservator of Forests been carried out in connection with other officers who were similarly placed? He would like to draw the attention of the Minister to the case of the Under Secretary for Agriculture, who was drawing the maximum. That officer had 22 years’ service; Mr. Lister had had 42 years’ service. If after 42 years’ service an officer could not get the maximum, when in Heaven’s name was he going to draw the full amount? Let them take the case of the Commissioner of Police, an officer who was deservedly drawing the maximum amount. Continuing, he said that they knew very well that they were unable to increase the amount that appeared on the Estimates that evening, but he asked the Government to see whether it would not be possible to give to the Conservator of Forests the maximum amount.

How about the Secretary for Native Affairs?

I am coming to that later. Proceeding, he said that he would in all earnestness submit that proposal to the Government as a sort of half-way house, and he did not want to see the injustice done to a man like that, otherwise he did see that they would have considerable trouble in the future in regard to other salaries that were coming on.

said that he wanted to ask what the Government were doing to arrest drift sands on the Cape Flats? The farmers there were most deserving, and the Railway Department, he believed, was doing something there by taking soil from Bellville on to the Flats. He had been there very recently, and it was lamentable to see the way in which these drift sands were gaining the mastery there and ruining most excellent farming lands. The Forestry Department had admitted that more could be done and more should be done. Something should be done for those farmers who were striving in poor soil to advance agriculture. The work would not be expensive, and by judicious expenditure of a few hundreds enormous benefits would accrue, such as by planting grasses, as was done elsewhere. That would be much better than tinkering at the job, and it would be much better to spend a few hundreds now than several small amounts.

Progress was reported, and leave obtained to sit again to-morrow.