The amendment made by the other House is purely verbal, and I move, as an unopposed motion—

seconded.

Agreed to.

Amendment in Clause 1 put and agreed to.

brought up the First Report of the Select Committee on Crown Lands.

House to go into Committee on the report on 17th March.

Before the Orders of the Day are taken I beg to move, as an unopposed motion—

It will not take any time, and I hope, therefore, there will not be any objection to this matters before the Orders of the Day are read. I am sure that all hon. members of this House will agree with me in deploring the necessity for moving this motion to-day. The right hon. member will, to-morrow, be 83 years old.

How old?

83 years old, and he has been a member of this House and of its predecessor, the old Cape Assembly since 1869 —for the last 55 years. During the time that we have known him here as a member of the Union Parliament, he has been most assiduous in his attendance. Only last year, hon. members will remember, when he was formally and officially complimented by the House on his birthday, he made one of his usual happy and felicitous speeches in which he said that offerings were brought him by the three philosophers of the House. [Liaughter.] Well, that may have been sarcasm, but the speech was a very happy one. We deplore very deeply that since then, for reasons of health, it has not been possible for the right, hon. member to attend this session of Parliament; he has been very ill indeed. Happily the more recent news that I have had during the last few days, points to the fact that there is a very perceptible improvement in his condition. He is improving in many respects, and I hope that, notwithstanding this leave which may be granted today, it may still be possible for him to attend before the end of the session. We do not know, we hope so, and we pray that it may be so, but we do not know, and I am sure it will be not only a compliment to the hon. member but will produce a sense of relief when he knows that leave of absence has been granted to him for the balance of the session. I need not express my feelings on an occasion like this in connection with his illness, but I should like personally to go to the right hon. member, who is a friend of all of us, and bring over to him the sympathy and goodwill House, and I think a resolution such as this, to be passed by us to-day, will be a fitting opportunity for me to do so, and to reassure him and make him understand that he has the deepest respect, affection, and admiration of all members of this House.

Ek wens dadelik te sê, dat ek ten voile ondersteun wat die edelagbare die Eerste Minister gesê het. Ek wens die versekering te gee, dat ek en ons aan hierdie kant van die Huis bly is om te verneem, dat hy voornemens is om persoonlik oor te gaan na onse ou vriend en horn mee te deel die gevoelens teenoor hom van die lede van alle partye in die Huis. Ek wens nie veel toe te voeg aan wat die edelagbare die Eerste Minister reeds gesê het nie, dan alleen dat ek geloof, dat tot vandag geen ander figuur in die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika, so algemeen van tyd tot tyd, ’n gevoel van teenstand en selfs weerstand op sig gehaal het as onse ou vriend; maar terselfdertyd geloof ek nie, dat daar ’n ander figuur in onse geskiedenis was, die so lank aan die politiek deelgeneem het en wat op daardie stadium van sy lewe sig verheug het in so ’n algemene gevoel van vriendskap en liefde en toegeneentheid. Ek het altoos gevoel, dat hoeseer ek ook al soms van hom verskil het en hoe dapper en manhaftig hy ook gestry het, hy die stryd altoos gevoer het met ’t edele doel om die beste te verkry vir land en volk, en ek geloof nie, dat dit ooit van hom gesê sal kan word nie, dat hy gestry het vir selfsugtige of seksionele belange; hy had steeds die algemene welsyn voor oë. Veral in die laaste jare, sedert van sy liggaamlike agteruitgang gehoor werd, werd dit duidelik, dat hoe meer hy van die toneel skeen te verdwyn, hoe sterker sy verdienste uitgekom het en daar is geen beter toets nie, veral in die politiek, van ’n man se adel van karakter, as die mate van agting waarin hy hom verheug. Met die paar woorde wens ek die voorstel te ondersteun en aan die edelagbare die Eerste Minister op te dra om hom die versekering van onse hartelike vriendskap oor te bring. Ek sekonder die mosie.

I think I am expressing the feeling of every member of this House when I say we are grateful to the Prime Minister for his very happy thoughtfulness of proposing this motion on this day, and giving us the opportunity of sending to the right hon. gentleman that expression of the profoundest respect, love and sympathy in the very depth of his affliction which he has been going through. We know the forms of this House do not permit us to add anything to this motion, but the very fact that it has been performed on this day, which has become almost time-honoured in this House, in connection with which the hon. member will convey to him that he is in our minds, and I can only say that I associate myself with everything that has been said, and add a word of personal gratitude to the Prime Minister for having given us the opportunity.

Motion put and agreed to.

Shortly after the debate on this motion of the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) had begun, the right hon. the Prime Minister suggested the addition of some words, and they were these: following “the attention of the Government” the right hon. the Prime Minister suggested should be added the words “and the people.” I quite agree that these words would have meant a great deal, because it is inconceivable to me how this question or unemployment can be properly dealt with by this or any other Government unless it has the sympathetic consideration, co-operation, and assistance, of the people. It is manifest, sir, that in respect of unemployment we are not singular. We have it in all parts of the world, and, of course, the principal cause is the great economic upheaval of which the world has had no parallel, and this has had the effect of producing a very large number of unemployed, not alone in this country, but in Great Britain, America, and all over Europe. I think that it is clear when one takes the trouble to go into figures, that this country has not suffered more, in fact, I think it has suffered much less than other countries have. For instance, let us deal with Great Britain for a moment. During the years 1912-’13-’14 the percentage of unemployed was about 2½ per cent. During the years 1915-’16-’17-’18 the percentage was a negligible one.

But the war was on then.

I know that, and that was the reason; we will come to that later; but when the war was over and the effects of war had ceased, then we find that the percentage rises from 2.4 per cent. in 1920 to 15.3 per cent. in 1921, to 15.4 per cent. in 1922, and in 1923 it was 11.5 per cent. That is the percentage on the number of people registered as workers, and the figures are contained in the gazette of the Ministry of Labour. The number of workers stated there are 11½ million, and these percentages are based on that figure. Now we come to Australia. In Australia in 1911 the percentage was 4.7, in 1915-’19 about six per cent. Then it went up in 1920 to 11.2 per cent. and in 1921-’22 the figures showed 9.6 per cent. In the United States in 1921 they had six million unemployed. The traditional American policy regarding immigration was departed from as, I believe, hon. members know, and an Act was passed allowing a very small number of workers into the country on account of the great amount of unemployment. I think my hon. friends sitting on the other side of the House will agree that this question of unemployment is a very difficult and a very serious one. I think it will be within their knowledge that before the general election in England the Labour Party declared that if they were returned to power they would be able to deal with this question much more effectually and effectively than those Ministers who preceded them. And it was believed that from their knowledge of the conditions of labour, that they might be better able to deal with a serious position like this than others who were not so closely acquainted with those conditions. I think it will be within the recollection of the House, too, that only a very short time ago, it was last Monday night, that Mr. Thomas Shaw, the Minister of Labour in London, said in the House of Commons that he was practically powerless to do anything, except to deal tentatively, with unemployment. Mr. Shaw concluded his speech with these words—

We know perfectly well that that is the case. You must find in days like these, that as a result of a great economic upheaval, you cannot absorb a great body of unemployed when you have lost your foreign trade as Britain has done. In the same way in this country we also suffer because it is necessary that there should be industrial expansion, and until there is industrial expansion it will be extremely difficult to do anything more than the Government has done during the past few years.

We have lost our foreign trade.

No, we have not lost our foreign trade, but we have lost a great deal. It has been said that the Union Government has done nothing, or done very little in regard to unemployment, but I would like, just for a moment, to explain to the House what the Government has done. The House will then be in a better position to understand the situation. In 1921-’22 the sum of £399,000 was voted from Revenue and Loan Account for unemployment; in 1922-’23, £600,000 was voted from Revenue and Loan Account for unemployment; in 1923-’24, £253,000 was voted; and for 1924-’25, £200,000 appears on the Estimates which will shortly be before the House. Last year we voted £11,338,000 for different works on Loan Account of which no less than £7,798,000 has already been spent. I would also like to point out that for the year ending March 31st, 1923, employment was found through Government organization for 15,279 unemployed. Another question has been raised, and it has been said that the Government has not put its back into the work, and that it has not given us enough protection to help towards a solution of this important question. I am not going to tire the House with a dissertation on free trade and protection, but what I do propose to do is to show that there has not been an ungenerous measure of protection given by the Government in respect of many things during the last two or three years. I would also point out that you cannot continually come along with protection which will mean protection of a nature that will unduly put up prices, for then the remedy might be infinitely worse than the complaint. What one should be reasonably entitled to ask the Government to do is to give a fair measure of protection where there is reason to believe that it will result in more work being found for the white workers in the country. I find during the last two or three years protection has been given to the manufacture of paper, resinate of soda, plywood manufacture for box-making, acetylene lamp manufacture, enamelled ware and lithographed tinplate industry, confectionery, raw linseed oil, calcium of carbide, flour, footwear, condensed milk, asbestos, cement, dried white lead, dried red lead, detonators, saltpeter, salt and other items. And, in addition to these, recommendations were made that certain raw material and requisites required in the manufacturing industries should be admitted free of duty or under rebate of duty, and the following industries benefited: Harness and saddlery, canvas goods, cardbox-making, furniture-making, rubber manufactures, paint-making, polishmaking, explosives, soap-making, leather bags and whaling.

What about the millionaire industries?

I leave that to my hon. friend. Some people think that in order to increase the number of white workers that you have got almost entirely to do away with the coloured workers. It would be a very good thing for this country if we could simply employ white people. [An Hon. Member: “What will you do with the others?”] I will come to that. As I was going to say, it would be a very good thing for this country if we could employ a very large number of white people, but it is manifest that in order to make it possible for the white workers in this country to live and to obtain employment at a living wage in larger numbers, there must always be a certain number of coloured people working. Those coloured people who receive less wages, help to make this possible by averaging wages, and I think I will show the House in a moment that that, and that alone, can make it possible for many industries to continue, and then the workers, both white and coloured, can be kept in employment. The other way factories would have to shut down, because the article produced would be offered at a prohibitive price, too high to find favour in South Africa or in the markets of the world. I would just like to refer to a rather interesting set of figures, which deal with the white and coloured people employed in factories in the Union. In 1916 you had 39,000 white people and 61,000 coloured, or a percentage of 39.2 of the total number of people engaged in factories in the Union. In 1917 you had 46,000 white people and 77,000 coloured, representing a reduced percentage of about 2 per cent. In 1918 you had 49,000 whites and 84,000 coloured, the white percentage being 35 per cent. of the total. In 1919 you had 53,000 white as against 89,000 coloured, representing a percentage of 37 per cent. of white people. In 1920 you had 62,000 whites and 113,000 coloured people, the whites representing 36 per cent. In 1921 you had 62,000 whites and 116,000 coloured, representing 35 per cent., and in 1922 you had 59,000 whites and 110,000 coloured, representing 35 per cent. of whites. So that really, from 1916 to 1922, your percentage of white labour has gone down 4 per cent. But what is the nett result of that? The nett result of that is, whereas in 1916 39,000 whites were employed, in 1922 59,995 were employed. My point is this, that whereas the percentage of whites to the total is a little less, the fact that the coloured labour has increased made it possible for the aggregate increase of white labour.

No.

I knew that my hon. friend would say that. I would desire to point out that unless you average wages, many factories would have to shut down. What is the effect of averaging wages? It is this: you make it possible for the white workers to get a living wage. They would not get a living wage if you had not a proper proportion of coloured labour, because the cost of production would be altogether too great. It would kill industry, and the same thing would happen as has happened in England, many factories would have to close down but for the fact that we have been able to average the wages in consequence of the coloured people getting so much less than the white people. And my desire is this—

Sweated labour.

Oh, no! We do not want to see the white people sweated, we do not want to see the white people getting a mere pittance, we want to see the white man get a proper return for his work. But he will not get it if we are going to squabble about a little rise of 6 or 7 per cent. in the coloured quota, because that may be the difference between being able to keep a business going and being forced to shut down. That has been the experience throughout this country. Well, now in that connection I think it is perfectly clear that the coloured labourer properly utilized is an asset to every white worker in the country, but we want to see him properly utilized, we only want to see him used in the way which will make expansion of industry possible, because it must be clear that unless we have expansion of industry, not only shall we not be able to absorb the unemployed whites, but we cannot hope to add to the number of white workers in South Africa. In the same way as England wants its foreign trade, we want expansion.

What the hon. member wants is cheap coloured labour.

No, I did not say that. I have heard my hon. friends attack this side of the House, because it has been said that the larger quota of coloured labour has been used.

Not coloured labour, cheap labour.

I am not dealing with that point; I am dealing with the question of a fair wage. We know very well that the one man can live very much cheaper than the other. We know that the white man requires to be paid more than the other because his conditions of life are different, and we want him to be kept in his right and proper place; but I am trying to find out how that can happen if the arguments of the hon. members on the Labour and Nationalist benches are given effect to. We know very well that the coloured people can live more cheaply than the white man; they are perfectly happy.

They are not.

Yes, they are.

Five or six in one room.

Now I ask what is the position after all is said and done?

Sweated labour.

The position is this, that if we have to pay higher wages than will make it possible for the article produced to be supplied at a reasonable price, then we are stultifying our efforts, and we are making the whole position impossible.

Then better do without.

It is all very well saying that it is better to do without than that certain things should happen, but one thing is manifest, and that is, that the country has to go on. You have two sets of people to supply. The one set you supply are the people who will buy our goods in this country. We have million of whites here. One of the difficulties of this country both in relation to this question and in relation to other questions is that we have so few white people here. When we produce an article the first thing to find out is, how much we can sell in this country, and the other is, whether it is possible to supply the article abroad and to find markets in Europe for that article. You can only do that if you can supply at a price which makes it possible for us to compete in the world’s markets, and I am bound to say that hardly an ounce of gold would have been turned out, or would be turned out on the Rand to-day, but for the fact that the coloured labour assists us to make that position possible. And I would also like to know what the farmers would do if they had to rely on white labour.

They would do much better.

The hon. member is quite wrong.

What about Australia and Canada?

In Australia and Canada the conditions are quite different. It is perfectly clear that you are dealing with a position here with regard to unemployment, which exists all over the world, and my hon. friends know perfectly well that, when such a position arises, there is only one thing to do, and that is to go and blame the Government, and tell them that they have done nothing, and that they could have done everything. My view is that a Government can always do something, as everyone knows. After all they collect the money and spend it, and the result is that they are able to give a certain measure of employment. In order to achieve some practical result, one wants to get the co-operation of the people themselves, and in that way assist expansion of industries. Unless we expand, and expansion means the employment of large numbers of people, one will never cope successfully with this unemployment question. I think for the time being, that the Government should undertake as far as is practicable as many development schemes as possible to tide things over until our expansion will enable us to do something much more tangible and much more lasting, and I think facilities should be given by means of the establishment of an industrial bank to operate in industrial matters in the same way as the Land Bank operates for the agricultural industry of the country. I think that much sympathetic treatment by the railways in the transport of raw materials required for factories, and for the conveyance of locally manufactured goods, would also do a certain amount of good, and, lastly, I think that more sympathetic treatment and co-operation on the part of those who guide the destinies of the white workers of this country, who can assist materially in bringing about great industrial expansion, would also be an important factor in this question of unemployment. Then we should be in sight of the disappearance of unemployment and most probably be able to find work for many more white workers in South Africa.

We have just listened to a speech by the hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann) which the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) would probably call an orthodox one. One remark which the hon. member made was to this effect, that we had to see how much cheap labour we could utilize in this country. That is what it amounted to. He said that the first thing to do was to produce the article here, and then you would see how much could be sold here, and then sell the surplus in the overseas markets, but the main idea was to sell as much as possible where you could get the biggest price without regard to the interests of South Africa. That is the principle which the hon. member advocated. It is a most extraordinary thing that one day one hears members pleading for goods from overseas to be landed here cheaply, and the next day they want to send goods overseas. The hon. member said, or rather he suggested, that the main thing was to utilize cheap labour, and the greater the amount of cheap labour you had the more people you could pay on a higher scale, and that would solve the problem of unemployment. I think the Prime Minister of England will be grateful to the hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann) for his advice. I expect that we shall hear by cable to-morrow that the Prime Minister of England is importing a large number of natives and Chinese. I am afraid the hon. member is on the wrong track in his argument that cheap labour will solve unemployment. What is wrong in this country is that we have too much cheap labour. The majority of the workers are on a miserable level of wages, and these people cannot live properly and never will under such conditions. That is what is wrong in this country. Every country in the world has proved that the higher wages you pay the greater prosperity among the workers and the working classes, then the more the country prospers. I should think that every hon. member of this House would be aware of the fact that the countries which are making progress are not low wage, but high wage countries. The hon. member told us that in South Africa last year our labour bureaus had found employment for 15,000 people. What does it mean? That with the machinery we have in South Africa, that some time during the year jobs were found for 15.000 people. It may be they were only 5,000 separate individuals involved. It simply means that at some time 15,000 jobs have been found: it may be a week’s work or it may be a day’s work, it goes down in the bureau that on such and such a day a job was found for a man, but that is not the proper solution. I admit that the labour bureaus have some very capable officers in charge, very conscientious men, but they cannot manufacture work. The real solution of the problem is that sufficient employment should be available for any man who makes application for work, and that it is the duty of the Government to provide such employment when private enterprise has failed. The hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann), stated that the new Minister of Labour in England, Mr. Shaw, had admitted that he was unable to deal with the question of unemployment properly. That was not what he said; but that he was not able to deal satisfactorily with it, owing to the way he was handicapped. Although they have a Labour Government there, they are not actually in a majority, and they still have the capitalist system of private enterprise to contend with. It has been also stated that the problem of unemployment was due to the great economic upheaval caused by the great war. Probably some of it is, but the problem has been with us ever since machines were produced. From the time that machinery got into the hands of private individuals, unemployment began, and not with the great economic upheaval of a few years ago. The only way that the problem of unemployment can be solved will be by the State stepping in and using machinery for the benefit of the whole of the people, and taking it out of the hands of private enterprise, and by doing things in a more scientific way. Unemployment should not be a matter of party politics. Personally I think we should all sit together to solve the problem, irrespective of political parties. Hon. members will find in the library a book by the present Prime Minister of England, entitled “Socialism, Critical and Constructive,” and I would suggest to hon. members that they should study it. He deals with the theory of labour not from the extreme socialistic, but the constructive socialistic point of view. The book is well worth reading, and the author deals with the unemployment problem in that book, and with the effects of the capitalist system, and what is termed private enterprise, and he agrees that while this exists you will have the problem to deal with. He draws certain conclusions, and states that if the Government is prepared to take over such industries in such a way as to put the question of profits on one side and to work for the common weal, the problem could be solved. Unemployment is one of the diseases of the capitalist system just as poverty and drunkenness are some of the effects of the system. I want to ask the hon. the Minister in regard to this question of unemployment: How is it possible to find out exactly what unemployment costs the country? What does it mean in the long run to the country? The hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann) gave us some figures in regard to the relief of unemployment, but his figures are actually unreliable. No man or woman can tell what unemployment costs in the way not only of pauper relief and relief works, but in the way of the failure to educate the children properly, and loss caused by sickness, etc., through want of work, and making men unfit. Through want of employment, sickness is bound to come along. Taking all these facts into consideration is it possible to tell what is the ultimate cost to the State. The State should come along in cases where men are thrown out of employment through private enterprise and save them. If a man is down on his luck what is the use of paying him 3s. or 4s. a day, particularly as the ultimate cost to the State will be enormous. What, I suppose, is fundamentally wrong in South Africa is that an attempt is being made to run a huge country on an inadequate European civilized population. This is a question also of civilization, and there are enormous potentialities in South Africa if you had a much larger civilized population. Approximately we have a European population of one and a half millions, equal to the population of many cities elsewhere, but unfortunately in this country we are carrying a larger percentage of non-producers of wealth than any other country in the world, and this also is responsible for some of the poverty and unemployment. I notice that the Government benches contain one Minister, which shows the interest the Government takes in this great problem. If the members of those benches were out of employment for a few months, or had to work on relief works for 3s. or 4s. a day, they would take more interest, and they would be in their places, trying to help in solving the problem.

Where is the opposition?

The responsibility is on that side. This has nothing to do with the pact.

Wake them up.

The Government has failed to make proper provision for the unemployed, in the direction I have indicated, probably they have done something, but why have they not made some arrangements with the cold storage in regard to those who are seeking employment. [An Hon. Member.: “The Government is asleep”]. They should be able to get them somewhere where they would not require food and clothing and then, when work was available, they would be fit to do it. I have the instance of a man who, as the result of amalgamation at De Beers, has been thrown out of employment and is now on the labour market— there are electricians and engineers in the same position, and it is no use their going to the Government Labour Bureau unless they are prepared to take employment on the relief works —and they have to walk about the town, having no place to go to.

Has he not got the bonus?

I do not know about the bonus, but I suppose they will get his bones. These men were paid a certain amount, but whatever the bonus they got is, some day they will have to go to the Labour Bureau. I am glad the responsible Minister has come back to his seat, as I want to draw his attention to the fact that as far as South Africa is concerned, in the matter of treatment, the unemployed here in the Peninsula are worse off than those in any other part of the Union. I want to know what the hon. the Minister is going to do in connection with the question of unemployment here? I want to charge the City Council of this city, this city beautiful, which proposes to spend £1,000 on fire-works for the Prince of Wales, not that I object to the spending of the money; this city is going to spend thousands in welcoming the Prince of Wales, but I say that the City Council has been guilty of nothing more or less than a crime against the citizens of their own town. How they can stand up and welcome the Prince of Wales, and treat their own unemployed in the way they do, I cannot understand. The finest tribute they could pay to the Prince would be to say: “Here is a fine city, a city beautiful, no District VI, a clean, real, mother city, and we have no unemployed here.” The City Council is responsible, and I want to ask the Minister if he will not attempt to do something to create a sense of civic responsibility for the care of the unemployed as far as the City Council is concerned, in the Peninsula. Hon. members want to know precisely what has been done. I had a deputation here the other day, and the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) had the petition in his possession from hundreds of these men who sent a deputation to see me in the House. They told me that on the Raapenberg relief works and the sewage disposal works, which are absolutely necessary, and which are going to permanently improve the city, and are part and parcel of the improvement scheme, they have been taken out, dumped together, willy-nilly, young men and old men, good men and bad men, all out of work, and have been paid on a scale which is an absolute disgrace to civilization. I may inform hon. members of what they are paying them on these relief works. They are paying single men 3s. a day, irrespective of the fact that many single men have responsibilities as well as married men. It does not follow that because they are single men, they have not someone to support, it may be a mother, brother or a sister. Married men are paid 4s. 6d. a day. If their wives are alive they are paid an additional 6d. a day. If they have one child they are paid 3d. a day, and so it goes up to four children. They are not supposed to have more than four children, that is the maximum they are supposed to have.

They are allowed to have as many children as they like, but they are only paid for four.

That is the trouble, they may have fourteen, it does not matter, they are only paid for four. Do hon. members know any worse system than that? They only possibly obtain a maximum wage of £1 16s. per week, and surely the hon. the Minister is not aware of that. He knows that as far as the Transvaal is concerned they are paid somewhere about a maximum of 7s. or 8s. per day. He stated that on railway construction work they earned the average wage of 7s. or 8s. a day, but down here, allowing for these figures to be correct, we are asking the same class of man to do the same class of work, and to try and live on something like 6s. a day with a wife and four children.

On what work is this?

On relief work at Raapenberg; City Council work which is absolutely necessary work, and which has added to the value of this Cape Peninsula. The City Council should be forced in some way or another to increase the pay. That is the principle reason why I feel so keen on this unemployment problem. The Minister says that the Government has done all it possibly can—I beg to differ from him. I do not think it has; the hon. the Minister of Railways and Harbours has closed down, for reasons of economy, very valuable works, and I say he is responsible as a Minister for closing down many valuable improvement and development works which are absolutely necessary, with the result that today many hundreds of railway men are working on relief works who should still be working on railway works, building up this country. Instead of this the hon. the Minister of Railways and Harbours has cut down those development works, and he is responsible, in my opinion, as well as other members of the Cabinet, for a large amount of unemployment to-day. The hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Buchanan) asks what we can do. I have said, in my opinion, and I have the authority of the General Manager of Railways in his annual report two or three months ago, that in time of depression the State should utilize the surplus labour for suitable work and extend its development policy. Every country in the world does that. That is one solution; if the Government did that, the unemployment position would be very much better met. Hon. members know that; even take the railways alone; apart from the post office and other departments, large quantities of material are purchased for the railways locally and overseas to the extent of £10,000,000 per annum. We had the returns laid on the Table some time ago, which shows) that we import annually about £5,000,000 of material, and purchase locally about £5,000,000 of overseas goods for railway purposes only. I am not a high protectionist but show me an article which can be produced as well here, and I am a protectionist—but I know we have been purchasing for the railways here, materials which we can manufacture equally well. We should, as far as possible, manufacture our own requirements from our own labour in this country, and we are then going to do something for the country. I, personally, have six children, four boys and two girls, and I can assure the House that every family man in this country is looking forward to the future with fear and apprehension as to what is going to happen to his boys in the future. We have thousands of children being turned out of the schools yearly; to-day we are training hundreds of boys in our technical schools, and teaching them the elements of a trade and I ask: What are we going to do with them? That is a problem this country has to face, and we are wasting too much time talking about “pacts” and other political matters. What we have to do, is to concentrate on the question of unemployment as it applies to-day and to the future. Every family man to-day is absolutely scared about the future for his sons. What the solution is, I do not know; I simply indicate one or two ways in which we can help to solve the problem, but surely the collected wisdom of the House should be sufficient to make a start to tackle the problem at the beginning, not by what I call helpless ideas, by pauperization and such like, but by getting at once to the root of the trouble and finding a solution for the benefit of South Africa.

I listened with great interest to the last speaker, and had I not been a member of the municipal council, I would have said nothing; but the hon. member wishes to put the blame on the City Council. The City Council has nothing to do with the wages of the unemployed—that is laid down by the Administrator and we cannot give more than the Administrator allows. He lays down the amount that is to be paid daily to the men and we have to abide by that. I think that if he had read the Gazette Extraordinary he would have seen that in April they will only receive 2s. a day. How can he blame the City Council?, The Provincial Council is the body.

How much does the City Council pay them?

The Provincial Council is the body to lay down what money we have to pay them.

How much does the Council pay them?

The City Council pays the coloured labourers £2 per week. I do not know if the trade unions pay their unskilled labourers that amount of money. Now, the hon. member talks about the married men. We have nothing to do with that. Does the trade union say a man, because he is married, must get more money than the other man? Nothing of the kind. They do not consider that. They get a standard rate of wage. What, when an hon. member, who has been a member of the Provincial Council comes here and blames the City Council for something which he knows it is not to blame for, it makes me tired. He knows it is wrong, and that the City Council have nothing to do with the laying down of the rates for the unemployed. I would not have spoken had not the hon. member mentioned the subject, because he knows perfectly well that the City Council are up against the unemployed; they want to have nothing to do with them, only the Administrator pushes it on, but at the end of the month we will try and push it back on to him, and see if he cannot do something for them. We all know that the Government has done a lot for the unemployed. Up in the north, which you hear so much about, they have spent lots of money and done wonders. It is only in Cape Town where they earn 2s. a day, but up in the north they earn 8s. a day. Here, unfortunately, we have not so many able men to speak in the interests of the province as they have in the north. If 500 men go out on strike there, there is a great hullabaloo, but down here if 500 men go out on strike at the docks there is an end to it. It is the Rand members, and I do not blame them, who look well after their men up there. We must all know that the only man who knows anything about the working classes and can talk about them is the man who lives amongst them, the man who sees them going to then daily work, sees them in their houses at night, and sees them coming home from their toil in the evening. That is the man who knows them. But it is no use saying that these people are living under conditions which are not true. I am speaking now of the unemployed, the unskilled man. In my district alone there are over 800 unskilled labourers out of work. There is no bunkum about that, because I made them go and get their names registered at the City Hall, so that when the Steenbras work comes along the City Council will have no excuse to resort to other labour outside the town. This large number does not include the natives. We have over 8,000 natives in the two locations down here. They work at the docks for two or three days, and then for the other two or three days they roam all over trying to get cheaper work than the coloured man and so doing the coloured man out of his job. In former years I used to see any amount of coloured men doing all the dock work, but to-day they have been ousted by the natives. I think the Government should try and do something and get work for these natives on the mines or send them back to their kraals. Let us keep them away from competing against the coloured man down here. That is the whole problem of the unemployed. If the natives were removed from this city we would not have the unemployment we have now. There is another class of men who are out of work, these include clerks, bookkeepers, shopmen, and those skilled men who have got over a certain age and are not being employed any more. What is going to become of them? We must look out for them, too. A man when he has passed his 55 years is shunted out now, what has got to be done in regard to him. It is heartrending to see the number of people out of work at the present time. The Government must do something to keep these men from roaming about the streets. Then there are the men who came out to this country years ago who to-day find it totally impossible to make a living. What I would like the Government to do is to assist these men to get out of the country. If a man wants to get out of the country of his own free will, why not let him go? They have not got the means to go, but I think it will be cheaper to assist them to get away rather than that they should become dependent on the State. I wish the hon. the Minister would take particular notice of that. In regard to the skilled men, they do not always remain young, and an elderly man cannot possibly do the same work as a younger man, and on account of his age the elderly man must take second place. As a result he is thrown out of employment. I hope the hon. the Minister will take notice of that too. The Government is blamed for making unemployment. I have made it my business during the last twelve months when a man came to me and asked me for work. I said: “Who put you out?” He said: “I have been working for the last fifteen or twenty years, but I am too old and I am put out.” When these men work at merchants’ places, when they get too old they are put out, and they go to help to swell the ranks of the unemployed, but when Parliament is over, the Government should take these things in hand and try and assist these men because this is one of the most serious problems to-day. When I was young I was happy on £2 a week, but to-day four or five times more than that is required. The only one who can help in these matters is the Government. The hon. the Minister has said we ask too much of the Government, and that we should help ourselves. I believe that in some cases but not in all. The trade unions have a small scheme, which is that every man when he is working, banks so much an hour for his holiday at the end of the year. He then draws this money when his holiday is due and goes to enjoy it. Why cannot the Government make every employer and employee lay by in a similar manner against the time when the employee is out of work, for then he could get relief? The Government also should contribute something in addition to that paid by the employer, and the man. I think if the Government would consider some scheme like that, then a man when he was out of work could be assisted. I am on the board of aid, and you would be surprised to see the class of men asking for relief. There are railwaymen getting a pension of £2 13s. 4d. a month after twenty years’ service, and what is that to live upon? I must agree with the Government on one point that it has done a lot—but the money that has been spent has been but a drop in the ocean. I do not agree with charity because I think the unemployed should be given something to work at. Something must be done and done soon, or I do not know where we are going to land. You hear people talking a lot about coloured labour, but was has the coloured man got to do? I am pleading for the Cape coloured man. We have coloured artisans here as good as any white man, and they stick to their trade union. When we were under the old Cape Government we used to have contented minds, and there was no worry in those days, but now you have in this House days upon days, and hours upon hours wasted in discussing the question of wages to the men. A wages board outside this House should organize that. That would be outside politics altogether. It may not suit some, but that is the best way out of it. I must appeal again to the Government. The Government must do something. They must not assist on the Rand alone, they must assist here in the Cape as well. We know the work which is being done by certain men on relief work. I ask any hon. member to go on the High Level Road here, let any hon. member take his motor car and go to have a look there, and he will see the unemployed putting in some very hard work. I ask the Government not to say that because the House is sitting that therefore they will leave matters alone. Let the Government not look only at the north or the Free State, but let them look at the Cape also. We want work to be found here, and I appeal to the Government on behalf of these 800 men who are turned out in my ward alone, to do something. On the railways the Cape coloured men should be re-established in the positions which they held in the past.

The hon. member who has just spoken realizes that the responsibility rests with the Government, and while one agrees with the right hon. the Prime Minister that the people must de something, that the people themselves must do their best—of course they must—it is only the Government who can bring forward a proposal to deal with a national evil like unemployment. The hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann) took unemployment back to the war; but of course there was unemployment long before that. Just let us examine how unemployment arose. The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Snow) referred to the big inventions which have taken place; well, there is no doubt about it that every big invention means unemployment. It very often means a big fortune for one man and misery for a large number of others. Then take the case of businesses. They have better success at certain periods of the year than at others. They are full up at certain times and at other times they can only employ a few. But the men who are out of work in the meantime have to exist. That sort of thing is also a cause of numbers of men being unemployed during portions of the year. You have no machinery to deal with those men. When a man once gets unemployed, he gradually goes down and down, and at last he begins to beg and he loses his self-respect, and eventually he is absolutely lost to society. And then one has to deal with him in another way which costs a great deal of money to the State. In the last resort the responsibility rests upon us, upon our system, and more especially upon the Government who are elected by the people and have a majority, for the time being, and they should bring forward concrete proposals to deal with the problem. It is a very serious problem. Now we are always asked to make suggestions, but I am sorry to say that these suggestions do not fall on willing ears and the Minister who deals with this matter is at this moment not even in the House, that is the hon. the Minister of Lands, who, we understand, is the Minister who deals with unemployment. He is not here, and I suppose cur suggestions will again fall on deaf ears, and we shall have to go on making our suggestions. At any rate, one must make what suggestions one feels may do some good and may be of some help. In the first place there is the difficulty which concerns every member of Parliament in this matter—there are no statistics to guide us. If I were to ask the hon. the Minister how many unemployed there are, he would not be able to tell me. He would simply make a guess, and others do the same, and also make a guess. We do not know the number of poor whites there are in the country. The first essential is that we should have statistics as to the number of our unemployed. Now why are they not there? Simply because it is no ones business. Yes, if a man goes to a labour bureau, that bureau would be able to tell the number of men who have applied for work, but not all the men go there for work and there is no machinery able to inform one, or as a result of which one can be informed how many unemployed there are, nor is there any machinery by which one can ascertain how these men have become unemployed. So my suggestion is that first of all we should have our statistical department, and to my mind it is an unfortunate thing that we have not got a Department of Labour with a Minister of Labour at its head to do nothing else but to attend to that department. Such a Minister would have his time full in dealing with these matters. There should be a portfolio in the Cabinet especially for this purpose. And such a department would in the first place see to it that accurate statistics are kept. But I want to say this: that the work of the labour bureaus is excellent, as far as it goes. They do their work very well, but it is quite impossible for them to obtain what we want. Once you have your Ministry of Labour and your statistics you will be able to deal with things much better. I do not say that that would end the matter, by no means. One of the things which the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Purcell) argued in favour of, was the establishment of wages boards. I quite agree with him, but why does not the Government introduce a wages boards Bill. It was passed by this House some years ago, but it was rejected in another place with the aid of Government supporters. A wages boards Act to my mind would prevent a great deal of unemployment. For one thing it would prevent exploitation and other difficulties. The hon. member of Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann), referred to an industrial bank, and I agreed that to a certain extent our banking system in this country is the cause of unemployment. There is no proper provision here for helping industries, and for helping persons to establish industries, as there is in other countries, and I would strongly recommend the hon. members who have referred to this question, seriously, to consider the question of a State bank. I may say at once that I am a believer in private enterprise. I am not one of those who are prepared to abandon private enterprise in favour of State socialism, but there are directions in which the State could enter, and in which the State can come and do things in the interests of the general community, and one of those things is the establishment of a State bank. In Australia the figures are remarkable, and although conditions there are not exactly the same as here—I do not say they are—to show how a thing like this grows, the balance sheet of the Commonwealth. Bank of Australia for 1913, shows the assets and liabilities at £6,000,000 odd, and in nine years the figure came up to £126,000,000 odd. We have our Central Reserve Bank, and it would not require very much in the way of legislation to alter the Central Reserve Bank into a State Bank, and it would be a very good thing if we had a system of commercial credit; there would be less unemployment and more industries. Another point to which I wish to refer is this—the increasing amount of convict labour which is being used in the country, it is a most extraordinary thing, not only by the Government but by local authorities as well, and in time to come I foresee that this will become a very serious matter. Even in the precints of this House, viz., the gardens, one saw convict labour employed. If you are once going to admit the principle that besides giving them such labour as their sentence demands, you are going to send them out to do work such as we find them doing, it is undoubtedly going to cause unemployment. Undoubtedly to-day the employment of convict labour on a larger scale than before, is having a serious affect, and is causing a special difficulty in solving this question. That should cease. These are all ways in which the matter, to my mind, might be dealt with, although they do not go to the root causes. Still, one might do something by attending to them. I think the Government, besides these things, could organize, and if necessary introduce a Bill for some national organization to deal with this question. I shall tell the House what I mean. There is a lack of co-ordination. You constantly hear that a man in one part of the country wants a person of a particular kind and cannot get him. You may go to the labour bureau, but the labour bureau, under existing circumstances, does not know all the men out of employment. And if you have your industrial system organized, as it should be organized, one would be able at once to lay one’s hands on the kind of man required. In times of war there is no difficulty. If a soldier is not wanted in one place he is drafted elsewhere. You do not wait till the man is shooting before you pay him. He is a member of the army and you should have your industrial army under similar conditions. You should recognize the right of every man, who is willing to work and give his labour, to live, and therefore you must organize your system so that work shall be found for that man. Now, how will you do that? You should organize, and, in the first place, should adopt a policy of insurance. That is one of the first things the Government should do. They should bring in a system of State insurance, which will deal not only with unemployment, but with old age pensions, invalidity, sickness, and such matters. It has been done elsewhere, it is done in Germany and England, why should it be impossible here? The employer pays, the workman pays, and the State contributes, and you will have a permanent fund in existence to help a man in the difficult days between one employment and the other. With a system of State insurance, one will be able to solve the question. From organized industries there ought to be a contribution in time of prosperity. These industries should pay into some central fund, so that unemployment can be dealt with in time of stress, and special facilities might be given to such industries as giving employment to out-of-works. Organize the community in time of peace. There should be a central organization and local organizations right throughout the country, even in the country districts, with a chairman and secretary and executive, and they would be able to keep a record of men out of work, and they could communicate the figures throughout other parts of the Union. Although a man might be out of work in one part of the Union, he may be able to get employment elsewhere. One would be able thus to know immediately where a man is wanted. It is heart-breaking that a man should be out of work in a particular area while, if he only knew it, there was work for him somewhere else. The organization could make the arrangements and also make arrangements for transportation. It seems to me that the Government should introduce a Bill establishing these committees all over the country. I suggest that this is a practical suggestion, to deal with a very heart-breaking question. Poverty through unemployment is not only heart-breaking in itself, but causes a great deal of after effects for which the State has to pay. Social workers will tell you that men, when down in the social scale, through unemployment, have sometimes taken to drink as a temporary measure of relief from thought and worry. If we put down on paper the poverty that unemployment brings into the country, the cost of hospitals, gaols, etc., the loss of self-respect and the mental suffering of the individual and his family, the bill would be a big one for this country to pay. This is a national question, it is a national evil, and it is up to the Government to introduce legislation on the lines I have suggested. There are questions to be tackled at once, viz., national insurance, co-ordination, wages boards, and the question of a State bank; and it is quite right to place the responsibility on the Government to bring forward legislation to deal with one of the most serious evils with which modern civilization is faced.

Dis al ’n bietje laat om oor die onderwerp te praat, na al soveel in die Huis daaroor gesê is, maar niettemin is dit so ’n ernstige onderwerp, dat ek dink, dat nie alleen die Goewernement, maar ook die lede van die Huis en elkeen in Suid-Afrika, aandag daaraan behoort te gee om te sien of nie ’n oplossing kan gekry word nie. As jy na Suid-Afrika kyk en jy sien die pragtige land met al die uitgestrektheid, met die waterstrome en soos ek nog van more gesien het met die vooruitgang op die gebied van myne, dan sou jy dink, dat die volk rustig en gelukkig onder die sonlig moes lewe. Maar as jy dan saam met die volk lewe en jy sien die werklike toestand en dat die van jaar tot jaar erger word, dan moet jy vra, waar gaan dit eintlik eindig? In 1920, toe die wolkongres in Bloemfontein was, net toe die wolindustrie inmekaar gesak het, het ek in teenwoordigheid van die edelagbare die Minister van Mynwese en Nijwerheid gesê, dat die toestand, soos dit vir my lyk, van die aard begin te word, dat tensy nie iets buitgewoons ter hand geneem word nie, dan sal Suid-Afrika voor die felt kom te staan, dat die armeblankedom ’n nasionale ramp gaat word, tengevolge waarvan die land inmekaar sal sak. Ek is op byna elke landboukongres teenwoordig en ook op andere kongresse en ek kom met mense uit alle dele saam en as jy dan die toestande verneem, dan maak ek my stout om te sê, dat as ons nie iets kan doen nie, of as die natuur ons nie beter sal bystaan dan in die laaste jare nie, dan vrees ek, dat ons voor ’n nasionale ramp sal kom te staan. Van jaar tot jaar gaan dit swakker. Die Goewernement doen sy uiterste bes, spandeer honderhuisende van ponde om mense op die land te kry, of werk te verskaf, maar nieteenstaainde dit gaat die land agteruit en word die toestand elke jaar kritieker. Natuurlik is die toestand baie vererg deur droogte en sprinkane, maar dis nie alles nie. Daar is andere dinge wat meegewerk het om die toestand te skep. Jy voel daar moet iets gedoen word. Nie alleen moet daar werk verskaf word vir die arme blanke nie, maar ons moet ons aandag daaraan skenk en vra, waarvandaan die arme blankes kom. Tot nog toe gaan die Goewernement en vat so ’n arme blanke, vind werk vir hom, maar in sy plek is daar dadelik al weer twee of drie andere. Die groot meerderheid, miskien te minste drie vierde, kom van die platteland af, maar die vraag ontstaan, wat gaan die toestand wees as ons op die manier aangaan? Want die man, wat van die platteland gekom het, gaan na die klein stede of kom terug in die agterstrate van Johannesburg en nie alleen, dat die man van die land vertrek, maar hy kom in ’n heel andere soort lewe, in miserabele toestand. Hy is nie meer dieselfde man nie, hy het geen selfstandigheid meer nie. Sy kinders kom in ’n omgewing waar hulle sosialiste word, of wat meer sê, hulle word ongeskikte burgers van die land. Maar soos die edele lid vir Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) aangewys het, word die man se plek ingeneem deur die naturel. En die naturel is op die boer se plaas, hy eet die boer se dikmelk en eet pokoteco, word gesond en kragtig en dit nie alleen nie, maar hy doen ook praktiese ervaring op van die boerdery en die arme boer se kind sit in die agterstrate van Johannesburg in ellende. Die gevolg is—mens kan daar nie van wegkom nie—dat die naturel die wetenskap van die boerdery kry en om die rede sê ek, het dit ’n nasionale ramp geword. Maar dan kom die vraag, as dit op die platteland so gestel is, watter klas word dan in die eerste instansie arme blankes van die platteland, en waarom? In die eerste instansie, die man wat ons op die land bestempel as die bywoner. In die twede instansie, die klein grondbesitter en in die derde instansie mense wat grotere besittinge gehad het, maar wat deur omstandighede gekom het tot arme blankedom en na die stede getrek het. As jy die drie klasse sien, dan sien jy dat die toestand nie kan reg kom nie, voordat daar meer finansiële krag in die binneland is. Daar is geen finansiële krag in die binneland nie, die spandeerkrag van die boer het opgehou om te bestaan. Dis in die binneland nie sons vroeër nie. Toe het jy een boer gevind, besig om ’n dam te bou, ’n ander om krale te bou en ’n derde om grond te ontgin. Nou sien jy dit nie meer nie, omdat die boer geen kapitaalkrag meer het nie, omdat daar geen geld meer buitekant is nie. Die ander dag het ek die woorde gebruik, dat die geldskieters, die kapitaliste, Suid-Afrika gebruik soos ’n spons sal gebruik word. Sodra daar ’n mielie-oes gewees het of iets anders en daar geld in die land is, druk die kapitaliste die spons en dadelik stop hulle die geld agter slot en grendel en onder geen omstandighede kan ’n mens daar geld uit kry nie. Die gevolg is dat daar nie kapitaalkrag is nie en omdat die boer geen spandeerkrag het nie, verminder die mense op die platteland. Die eerste wat gaan is die bywoner. Die boer sê vir horn, kyk hier, laaste jaar het ek 80 of 100 sakke mielies gesaai, maar vanjaar kan ek geen saad koop nie. Ek het geen geld daarvoor nie. Jy moet gaan. Waar gaat hy heen? Reguit dorp toe. Dis die eerste wat gaan. Dan kom jy by die kleinere grondbesitter en jy voel, dat in hierdie geval dit baie gemakliker is om die man op die land te hou. Maar omdat hy miskien ’n verband op sy grond het, omdat hy sy grond in die dure tyd gekoop het en die grond aansienlik in waarde verminder het, kan hy nie betaal nie. Die kapitalis kom en sê, dat die man sy verband moet aflos. Maar die man kan nie betaal nie. Waar sal hy die geld vandaag kry? Die verbandhouer sê: “As jy nie kan betaal nie, gee my dan jou plaas vir die verband.” ’Ten slotte se die man: “Ja vat maar.” Ek weet nie hoe dit in andere dele is, maar in my distrik sien jy selde ’n boer wat openlik bankrot gaan. Dit word maar net gereël tussen die verbandhouer en die boer. En dan sit die arme boer met sy famielie, met sy kinders op die veld en binne twaalf maande is hy klaar. Die mense moet gehelp word. Ons moet, in die eerste plek, daarop sien om mense op die land te hou en dan om mense terug te bring na die land. Nou kom ons by die groot boer. Ek het die ander dag al van die geval vertel, waar ’n groot boer in my distrik, wat ’n ontwikkelde man is en wat £25,000 werd gewees het, na my toe gekom het en toe hoor ek die man se treurige verhaal. Hy vertel vir my, dat hy nie ’n plek het nie om sy kop op neer te lê nie. Die man maak dit vir my duidelik, dat hy nie insolvent is nie, maar hy is gevra om seker geld te betaal wat hy skuldig was en hy kan dit nie betaal nie. Die gevolg is, dat die man van sy motorkar afgehaal is en armeblanke geword het. Daardie toestande is verkeerd en ons moet probeer om planne te maak om sulke mense te help. Dit gaan nie aan om eers armeblanke te maak en dan te help nie. Ons moet probeer om mense op die land te hou. En ek voel nou dat die Regering ’n plan moet aanneem, wat 80 persent lenings sal toestaan aan ’n man wat daartoe geskik is. As hy nog op die grond is, kan so ’n man nu 60 persent lening van die Landbank krij. Ek dink dit moet opgebring word tot 80 persent. In my distrik kan ek baie gevalle noem, wat as die man met 80 persent gehelp word, hy gered is en die geld is ook veilig, maar as hy eenmaal ’n arme blanke is, dan is redding moeilik en die edelagbare die Minister van Finansies het gesê hy kan nie deur die Landbank gehelp word nie. Wel, as die Landbank dan ’n goude kalf is, dan moet daar ’n ander plan gemaak word. Waarom kan ’n man nie op sy grond met £2,000 kapitaal op sodanige manier gehelp word, dat hy ’n nedersetter word op sy eie grond? Waarom gee ons horn nie 80 persent nie? Tensy ons dit doen, verloor ons daardie mense en hulle verloor hulle grond. Ek spreek van my eie distrik en verklaar, dat die land in die hande gaan van die kapitalis; dit is nie dat hulle net groot blokke grond aanmekaar koop nie, maar so stadigaan gaat die afsonderlike plase in hulle hande oor. Die naam van die gewese eienaar kom nie eers in die koerant nie, maar hulle handel die saak somar agteraf af. Hy sit nog vir ’n jaar miskien op die grond, dan kom die kapitalis na horn toe en sê: “Jy moet trap.” Die man is ’n arme blanke. Tensy ons daardie stap neem wat ek aangegee het, sal die vraagstuk nie opgelos word nie, deur die man van die dorp af plaas toe te bring, terwyl die man, wat daar reeds op is, dit nie kan uithou nie. Ek kom nou tot die breër punt, die man van besitting en wat nie geld kan kry om die verband te los, waarvoor hy opgedruk word nie. Tensy een of ander gedoen word, wat ek erken dat moeilik is, om op die platteland die spandeerkrag van die boer te versterk, sal hy ook verlore gaan. Kan hy ’n bywoner wat hy daar op sy grond het, hou of nog meer byvat? As diesulke nie gered word nie, sal ons agteruit gaan. Die oplossing, wat ek aan dink en waar ook reeds sprake van was, is dat daar ’n boerebank moet kom. Dit sal die boere help om nie op die handelaar te steun of op ’n ander soort persoon nie, wat eenvoudig handel met horn, met die voorbedagte plan om later sy grond in te sluk. Dit sou ons seker baie help. Wat ook gedaan word, dit kom tot een ding terug: dat die man met grond die bywoner nie kan behou of ander byneem nie. Die edelagbare die Minister van Lande het gesê dat as elke boer net een man wil byvat, dan is die arme blanke kwessie opgelos. Die feite is net andersom, nl., dat hy die een wat hy het, moet laat gaan en ons moet die posiesie van die man so versterk, dat hy die man daar kan hou en dan sal hy miskien nog een kan, byneem. Die kwessie van verarming op die platteland hang ten nouste saam met die mark. Dit word gesê, dat die verbruiker nie genoeg betaal vir die boer se produkte nie. Ek dink hy betaal genoeg, maar as ons oplet wat die boer, die produseerder kry, waar hy dit verkoop en weer wat die verbruiker betaal, dan is daar ’n grote tussenruimte en daaromheen draai alles. Hoe moet ons die vraagstuk oplos? Ek dink die antwoord is organisasie. Daar is reeds veel gedaan, maar ek dink nie dat die Regering reeds alles gedoen het wat nodig is nie. Ek dink, dat sodra as die plattelandsbewoner, al is hy bywoner, in staat gestel is om sy produkte vir ’n behoorlike prys te verkoop, sal die hele posiesie verbeter. Maar hy sit daarmee, en kan dit nie van die hand sit nie. Ek weet van gevalle waar mense klompe beeste had en as hulle die kon verkoop, sou hulle op hulle grond kon bly en dit behou, maar hulle kon daar geen prys voor kry nie en dit is klaar met hulle. Ek sou aan die hand wil gee, dat die edelagbare die Minister van Landbou ’n ko-operasieplan moet uitdink en dan bekwame mense laat rondgaan om die boere voor te lig en hulle in staat te stel, om op die land te bly en dan ook andere daarheen te bring. Dit sou Suid-Afrika ted. Wat betref die plan om mense sonder werk op die grond te sit: die saak is oor en oor bespreek, toe die verteenwoordigers van die landbou organisasies onlangs hier byeen was en ek het die toestand werklik nie so geken as wat die organisasie dit uiteengeset het. Daar werd meegedeel, dat op één dag, op één pad. ’n ry van veertien waëns, almal met die famielie op, aan rye was na die delwerye toe en as dit daar misloop, vlug hulle stede toe. Daar is ’n plan aan die hand gegee, maar die edelagbare die Minister van Lande wou dit nie geheel aanneem nie. Nogtans sal daar iets gedaan moet word om die mense weer op die land terug te breng op so ’n manier, dat hulle Under strenge kontrole geset word op die stuk van uitgawe van die aan hulle geleende geld en die bewerking van die grond, van welke grond hulle eigenaars sal word, naargelang hulle dit afbetaal. As toegelaat word, dat die mense na die delwerye afsak en as die diamant se prys val, in welke toestand sal Suid-Afrika dan wees? En al val die prys nie, kan dit nie toegelaat word, dat die ruggegraat van die land weggaat van die lewe, wat hulle ken en waarmee hulle grootgeword het en waar hulle die meeste geskiktheid voor besit. Die edelagbare die Minister van Landbou behoor ’n plan uit te denk; verdeel b.v. die Kaapprovinsie in vyf dele en so die hele Unie. Stel dan twee bekwame en invloedryke manne aan, tesaam met iemand, wat wetenskaplike kennis het van ko-operasie en laat hulle van dorp tot dorp gaan om dit sover te organiseer en die boere te beweeg om te ko-opereer, so dat hulle die kontrole kry oor hulle eie produkte se verkoop. Ons kan nie aan die mense hope geld gee om vryelik te spandeer nie, maar net instaat stel om hulle produkte te kontroleer. Met sommige produkte word dit moeilik, soas vleis, wat byna altoos in die hande van ’n trust belande. As die edelagbare die Minister daar geld in wil steek, sal dit baie help om die toestand te verbeter en die arme blanke kwessie op te los. Ek spreek van ondervinding; daar was dele, wat ons niks kon uitrig nie en ons het daar ’n stuk of vyf kaasfabrieke opgerig en die mense laat ko-opereer en hulle koppe is bokant die water—daar is ’n hele verandering bewerkstellig. As ons die boer die nodige voorligting gee, sal die toestand beter word. Daar bestaan ’n wonderlike opvatting, dat as mens die boere laat saamwerk, dit gerig is teen die handelsgemeenskap en ten koste van die stedeling. Dit is nie die geval nie en die ko-operasie van die boere sal selfs die posisie van die stedeling in die algemeen ook verbeter; dit sal die handel makliker maak tussen produsent en verbruiker, as die middelman uitgesluit word. Daar moet ’n plan gemaak word om die kleine grondbesitter te red en ek denk die Landbank moet hier instap. Enige dage gelede het ek gepraat met een van die beste outoriteite en hy verklaar net wat ek dink, dat die Landbank moet help en reken ook, dat by die gee van voorskotte, daar rekening gehou moet word met die karakter van die mense. Daar is mense, aan wie die voile bedrag gegee kan word, maar ander, wat as men hulle 25 persent gee, dan sal hulle dit verkwis en die hele ding laat misluk. Daar sal ’n verandering gemaak moet word en ek gaan sit met die oortuiging, dat die edelagbare die Minister van Landbou ’n plan sal beraam om die boere te organiseer en hulle instaat te stel hulle eige produkte te kontroleer, stappe te neem om die mense, wat nog op die land is daar te hou en sodat hulle naderhand van die klas, wat werkelose genoem word, kan help. Vandag is dit so, dat as een persoon gehelp word, dan val daar twee weer in die sloot.

When the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) introduced this motion he said it was a question in which everyone was equally responsible, and he also made the statement that it was not a question which should be dealt with in any way from the party or political point of view. If this were possible I think we would have a chance of finding a solution, but how is it possible with a House and parties constituted as they are, for any such thing to be attempted or even thought of? I think it is a perfectly well-known fact that, take even the party on this side of the House, that in questions of development or protection there is a very strong division. How, therefore, is it possible to bring about a real constructive policy unless there is unity in the party concerned? My view is that the people of this country have not yet realized the necessity for the development of the country, and until they realize that it is necessary to push on industrial development, so long will this thing be kept back, and unemployment go on, and possibly get worse. There is only one solution for unemployment, and that is to find work for the people. How is it possible to do that unless you can bring about a real constructive policy of development? If you take this thing not only from the point of view of industrial, but of an agricultural development, then it is necessary that there should be an absolutely fixed policy, and that that policy should be initiated, thoroughly carried out, and well done. In order to do this I think it is necessary in the first place to deal with the question from the agricultural point of view. We will take as an illustration the irrigation schemes that we have in this country. A large number of them have been built and been carried out from their political aspect; they have cost far too much, and what is far worse, that there is no proper system of instruction for the people to be able to develop the land, when the water is available for them. What the Government should do in a case of this kind is to establish schools for the instruction of these people so that they will be able to work on the land when they can get the water to it. The cost of these irrigation schemes is so enormous that it is utterly impossible for any ordinary man to make a living on this land and pay the prices asked for it. There should be a complete revision of the charges for irrigated land so that if a man is put on he should be able to make it pay. It will mean writing down the cost, and by that means you will have a chance of getting men to do the work. There is another phase of the question. When there is irrigation work to be adopted people get options on farms, and the Government has to pay prices far in excess of what the land is worth. There should be some equitable system of expropriation to meet this difficulty. There is a large avenue of employment for men who were originally on the land, and these men, if possible, should be put back on the land, but it must be done in a practical way, and they must be instructed in what they should do. It is hopeless to put a man there unless he has had some chance of instruction. Then there is another side of the agricultural question; and that is, that every possible inducement and encouragement should be given all men who are going to produce stuff from the land, in order to enable them to get it to market as quickly as possible. There should be a re-examination of the railway rates of the country, and products which can be produced in this country should be carried at the lowest possible rates. Then let us come to the industrial development of the country. It is absolutely necessary if we are going to have industrial reorganization in this country that there must be a readjustment of our customs tariff. We have to-day a revenue tariff which is one of the worst things for a country like ours. Ad valorem, rates should be lowered wherever possible, and where it can be shown that such things can be produced in this country, then a protective rate should be put up, so that a chance shall be given to people who are producing that class of goods. We have had instances of people starting the manufacture of goods in this country, and they have had to shut down, because there was no effectual protection. Where we can produce anything from the raw products of the country, there should be a system of encouragement, not only in the way of a customs’ tariff, But all possible assistance should be given in every other way. I think it could largely be done in the way that was adopted in regard to the boot and shoe industry, by a system of import under licence. The only way to do this, is that there should be a Government in power, which has the strength and support of its own party, to be able to bring about a really proper tariff on the lines brought about in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other places. I do not think this country will ever become a great developing country, as long as you have a bastard system between free trade and protection, where you have a Government influenced by one section of the people asking for a tariff to be put on, and another section for it to be taken off. You can never get along on those lines. Another great feature in the industrial development of our country is the mines. We should undoubtedly develop the mines, and they should be made to help the whole of the industrial life of the country; this can be done without interfering with the mines themselves. Whatever taxation is arranged in regard to the mines, it should be arranged in such a way that it would be on a sliding scale, and if that taxation can be carried out in such a way that it is going to encourage the production of goods locally, then we are going a long way towards the encouragement of industrial development. This can be done, and it can be done so that it does not reduce the mining development of the country, but in such a way that it will assist general industrial development. To attain this end, everything possible should be done. A great deal has been said in the course of this debate about the standard of living of the white and black races. Hon. members over there want prices paid to labour quite independent what that labour can produce, and they say that a white man should be paid a certain wage whether his work is good or not. This is absolutely impossible, and is contrary to the law of economics. If this thing is tackled in the way it should be tackled, you can find a way by which the white standard of living is upheld, as well as proper payment being made to the blacks in this country, and you will be in the position where you will have to look for people to do the work. This country has tremendous possibilities; I do not think there is another country which has greater, but what are we doing? Matters are being brought up in this House through motions which are solely for the purpose of attacking the Government in power. That being the case, how can any Government bring forward a real industrial policy with any hope of success? You have a very strong element in this country, which considers it to their disadvantage to adopt a policy of protection. So long as that is the case I see no hope of dealing with the question which is becoming more and more difficult every day. But now to come back to the question of wages on which I have very strong views. My view is that there should be a grading system. You should start with the lowest grade and the_ wages should be based on that lower grade and from that you should go up, and anyone who is capable of being employed, in any grade, should be paid according to the pay of that grade, independent of his colour. It is only in that way that you have a chance of getting over your difficulty. If there is any idea of making this an industrial country by paying a man according to the colour of his skin, independent of the value of the work he does, then I say that you are going against all economic laws, but if you are going about in the way I suggest by putting these people in various grades, then I do not see why you should not find work for every man in the grade to which he belongs. Unless this question is tackled on these lines it seems to me that we shall get no further, we shall never get further forward on this problem of getting rid of unemployment, and of getting rid of those who are out of work. If on the other hand this country can bring in an industrial policy, then you will not only employ all those who are out of work, but you will be able to find work for thousands of others. You constantly hear it said that we have a small white population and our market is so small that it is impossible to build up industry; but what is the use of bringing in a larger population if you cannot find work for those whom you do bring in? Unless people can find work here when they arrive, it is useless for them to come. There has been a good deal of talk of men with a certain amount of capital coming in; a number of those can be absorbed, but what help will it be? Will it help us if we bring in a few thousand men who happen to have a certain amount of capital? No; you can only do it on the lines of giving work to those people who come here, and only in such a way that they can make a living when they come in large numbers. I am sure this can be done, and it should be done by the Government which happens to be in power, but it must be a Government which has a policy of pushing the industrial development of the country, and that policy must be supported by those behind it. So long as the political divisions of this country are as they are to-day, very largely on racial lines, to me it seems hopelessly impossible to achieve anything, because everything that is brought up here, whatever its merits are, is looked upon from the point of view, not of its merits, but of the political aspect it bears to each party. And you cannot get away from this, while you have a party Government; the whole point being that the parties are divided in such a way, that you cannot get constructive legislation carried out. The party in power should have a fixed industrial policy, and the opposition party should be the rest and be on the other side. Whatever the position is, there is only one way in which this country can ever go forward as an industrial country, and that is that some day you may get a division of parties under which you may have people who should be determined to push the country, who will make use of the very much abused and misunderstood term of “South Africa first,” in its best sense for the good of the country. When you get the parties on these lines, and a Government which is strong enough to initiate a policy, a policy of what I call protection, then the country will go ahead, and when I speak of protection I do not merely mean by way of customs duties, but I mean that you should have a Government which has the strength and the power to push the policy of protection for its own industries throughout the country in every possible way. Only in that way can you hope that the country will get ahead. Unless you can do that, it is no use thinking that by merely bringing up resolutions you will secure much. I think it is admitted by all, that Government doles are not going to be any solution of the question; in fact, they make it worse, and, after all, what is the use of paying a man 5s. or 10s. per day unless the work that man does is worth the money he gets. I say, and I say it emphatically, that you are wasting money to-day. Unless you can get work and provide remunerative work, you will never settle this question by Government doles. Now I want to touch very shortly on what has been said by several of the members of the Labour benches, and I feel that they are right in a great deal of what they have said in regard to this. We have a large railway system in this country, and there is a very large amount of work which can be done in our workshops, which we are developing, but not to the extent we should do. Cannot we make a great deal more of our rolling stock? Cannot we do what is done in other countries? It may be said that a country with a very low depreciated currency that can undercut us should secure our orders; but if by getting in cheap material you do so at the expense of work for your own people, then the question which appeals to me is: Is that economical? Is it a matter of political economy, is it a matter of economy at all to send your money out of the country instead of keeping it there and finding employment for those who are in the country? I do not care whether the price of rails in this country is higher, I say that if rails are brought into this country at starvation prices, we would do better by arranging our house so that we can make those rails here and employ our people. There is no reason why we should not make a great deal more here than we do. I do not say all, but I am strongly of opinion, and I see no reason why the Government should not be able to do, in its own workshops, a great deal more work, so that we shall be able to employ a large number of people who are to-day out of employment. That system can be carried out. There is no reason why, outside Government work, private individuals should not be encouraged in such a way that it will pay them to get the work done in the country, and that is where I think that a policy of development should be initiated, so that you do not ask a man to buy a thing and pay for it at a higher price than he can get it elsewhere for. A man will not do that unless it pays him. It becomes a question of having a fixed policy which will be carried out, and any Government in power, whether it is this Government or any other, it should carry out such a policy with the support of the people behind it. What we want is a policy which stands for the development of the country, so that they shall make this a productive country. I would like to see a Government which will stand for protection, and when I speak of protection I do not mean merely by the Customs; but I want them to have a policy by which whatever can be done in this country shall be done. Now, I want to go back to the mines. The mines, enormously wealthy though they are, are not used for the encouragement of the industrial development of the country in the way it can and should be done, and I can see no reason why they should not be induced to build their own workshops, and so induce them to build a lot of their own plant, and in such a way that it will pay them to do so. It is no use saying to a man you must pay a pound when you can get the same thing for 10s. That cannot be done, it is not sound, it is not economical. If you want to get over this question of unemployment, if you want to get a large white population here, you can only do it by developing the country and by finding employment for the people. It is no use telling the Government that they must find avenues for employment when there is no work; it only means that you force the Government to give people work in the way of doles, and instead of producing good men you are going to produce bad men in that manner. There is another side of this question which I want to touch on. We are spending an enormous amount of money on education. Are we getting for that money and for that education what we should get? I maintain that we are not. We have a very high system of education, but when you come down to the question of practical education for the farmer, or for the industrialists, then I must say that the system is not as it should be. We want to be able to give the boys when they leave school that education which will fit them to follow the occupations which they are going into. We are producing professors, we are turning out B.A.’s and M.A.’s in far greater proportion than the country warrants, in fact we are producing men whom we shall never be able to find work for, unless we have a much larger population. Our whole system of education wants overhauling, and if it were done in such a way that our schools, our primary and secondary education, were so arranged that our boys and girls, before being sent to college, were sorted out so that those who have to go to industrial work should be sent to the proper institutions to learn it, it would be a great advantage. We are not doing that. We take the standard of matriculation, and then the idea is that every boy and girl has to get a higher education, and then go in for a profession. That is a big mistake, and that is one of the reasons why you find that our white men here, our white workers, on every occasion, look to the natives to do what they call the dirty work for them. You will find that in every case. The man wants the assistance of a black man, and very often when he does not want it at all, he has the black man with him and he relies upon the black man; and in that way our white men are making a rod for their own backs. I could point to many instances where a white mechanic, having a native under him, has found that in the course of a short time the native has become a skilled man, and then finding he cannot get the pay of the work to which he is entitled, he does it at a lower price, which is immediately in competition with the man who has taught him the job. All this has to be altered. We have these conditions existing, and it is no use our shutting our eyes to them. If you want to make this an industrial country you have, I think, to employ the system of grading to which I have referred, and you have to create a condition of affairs under which you have to run after every man, instead of men running after you for employment. If such a system of grading could be put into force it would be of the greatest benefit to my mind. And here the mines come in. The mines provide first-class work where this could be done, and could be brought into effect, but it must be done in a practical way, so that they shall get the benefit of it. It is no use saying: “You must give this man more than that,” if they can get the work done at a lower rate. I am sure this can be done, but it is practically impossible in the time laid down for a speech in this House to deal with the whole subject. One can only touch on the fringe of the question. I feel this, and I think I am right in saying that the first thing to be done to get development in this country, is for the people of the country, I am not speaking of the members of the House, but for the people of the country, to realize that if they are going to find work for their sons and daughters, they must set to work and make this an industrial country, in so far as it is possible to’ do so. They must encourage industrial development, and it is only when they have the general view, and the general idea, that they will see the necessity of doing as I have suggested, that they will return to this House people who will carry out these views. No Government can carry out a fixed policy of that description unless they feel that they have the full support of their party behind them. On this question of industrial development I have no hesitation in saying that this Government has not. Even in the Cabinet itself they are divided on these matters, and so long as that exists I do not think it is any use to think that you will get over this very serious question of unemployment. You will only get rid of unemployment by finding work for the people themselves, and the only way to do that is by producing goods in the country, whether it be agricultural or industrial, you will only find work by creating work for these people. Unless this country realizes this, you will, session after session, and year after year, have these political debates brought from one side and the other. It does not matter whether this Government is in power or any other Government, it simply means that these things will be brought in and dealt with from the political aspect, and not from the economic aspect; they will be dealt with simply from the point of view as to how they may be used to attack the Government in power, and to get them out. Mr. Speaker, so long as that is the aspect, you will never make this a producing country. It has been the same elsewhere. Take Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries, they have gone through the phases which we are going through now, and it was only when the people realized what the true position was, and when they created work for the people, that they altered the state of affairs, and when they returned men to represent them in Parliament, who brought out a real protective system of legislation. I say again, that if you want to get your industrial system developed, you must do it by the means of protection. I repeat, I do not mean merely by protection of the customs—that is only a phase—but you want to be able to deal with the matter in such a way that, whatever may be produced, whether it is mining or agriculture, your country shall have the first chance of producing it, and you must arrange it in such a manner that imported things which can be produced naturally in this country, shall not be imported. That is the only way in which you will get over unemployment. We have possibilities, and potentialities in this country, which do not exist elsewhere, but we are not making use of them as we should, simply because there is not sufficient unity of opinion, to be able to return people to Parliament who will come with a determined and fixed policy to develop the country as it should be, industrially and agriculturally.

Having listened to the speeches from both sides of the House and from what has taken place, I think we should express some appreciation of the very good work done by the Government to ameliorate the position. The question appears to be mixed up. A lot has been said about the unemployed on the Reef and their classification. As far as I am concerned, I will deal with the question of skilled and unskilled labour. As far as the unskilled labour is concerned, I will deal with that question later on. The skilled workers on the Rand, of course, would like to work in the neighbourhood of the Rand, so that whenever a job was available they would be in a position to get it. We have a few railway lines in the Springs area which we would like to see carried out, and I think it is an excellent thing for skilled men to be so employed, so that they might, at any rate, have an opportunity of keeping in touch with work in their trade. It is not only the railways, but the roads also want attention. We know that the Provincial Councils deal with them. I am glad to see that the Municipal Council of Johannesburg has taken the matter up very seriously and is employing more men. Let us hope that municipalities will also spare something for the roads along the Reef. I think the hon. members who are acquainted with conditions of the phthisical men along the Reef, will appreciate very much when I tell them that on railway construction these men seem to do very well. I happened to meet one of them in Johannesburg, and he told me he was working in a gang of six and they earned a salary of £21 a-piece, which I thought was excellent, and he mentioned that all the gangs could do the same. They had 200 on the works, and they could do with more; unfortunately, more were not forthcoming. But we are never satisfied. £21 a month does not seem very much when they have to keep two homes going—they have to keep their homes on the Reef and keep themselves on the works, so I appeal to the hon. the Minister of Railways to make some provision whereby these men can take their families with them. We would like to see these men go back to the land, and this is one way, because there are quite a number of them who will find occupations, and probably a better measure of health on the land, than if they go along the Reef. We have also heard of the poor whites. I would like to draw the attention of the Government to the state of the Northern Transvaal. We have there a fairly big white population, who are, unfortunately, not up to date in their farming operations, and I am afraid their education has been neglected. Their children, I am glad to say, are getting better opportunities, the adults are all the sons of the old Voortrekkers and are hunters, and their children are the same. They are at present hunting in the game reserves and, of course, the expensive licences keep them from making a living. I do not know if all of them are poor whites, because most of them have farm property, where they have natives living on their farms as squatters, and most of them live by what they can make out of the natives. If I were to tell this House how these people live, hon. members would not believe me. The unfortunate part is, that their children are growing up on the same lines as the natives, and I think it is worth while for the Government to institute an enquiry, and see what can be done for these people. We have heard of labour colonies, where people are compelled to work, but I think it seems that we will have to find some way to get these children away from their parents, and to put them into industrial schools, or else on industrial farms, and teach them what to do and how to work.

I think we all always had the greatest pleasure in listening to the hon. member for Natal (Coast) (Mr. Saunders). His speech was surely the worst knock that the Government has had in this debate. A shiver must have gone down the spine of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South-West) (Sir William Macintosh), as well as down the spine of the hon. the Minister of the Interior, and if the hon. the Minister of Railways had been here he would have had a paralytic stroke. There is no doubt about it that the party over there is a disconnected gang. The hon. member for Natal Coast (Mr. Saunders) should be sitting on this side of the House, and in any other country in the world he would cross the floor of the House. If he was in the English House of Commons my hon. friend, after such a speech which he has delivered, would certainly have crossed the floor of the House. He has made two speeches lately, and in both of them he has been entirely out of sympathy with the South African Party. He is a man of courage and brains, a man of great courage and great strength in the country, and he should be certainly helping us and our friends in front of us, to get rid of the present Government. My hon. friend cannot belong to a party and blackguard that party, sit with that party, and vote with that party. If he tries to carry on that game he will fail. I see the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Buchanan) laughs, but he has been a camp follower all his life.

He will not be a marriage broker.

Yes, the hon. member will be a camp follower all his life; he even followed the police on one occasion.

Always on the side of law and order.

I am not going to speak long on this matter, but I am sorry the hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann) made a speech and then ran away. He said the cheaper your labour, the less your employment. It strikes me the only thing that is left for us is to go to Samoa where the baboons collect cocoanuts; they have been taught to do that; so the Government had better bring them over here and put them to work on the mines. If we are going to build up our industries on the lowest scale of labour, then this is going to be a country of black labour and white capital. It will become a second West Indies, and I am not so certain whether we will ever be able to solve that position if the present Government keeps in power. What do hon. members over there want to do? They want more men than jobs, but the Labour Party want more jobs than men. That is the difference between ourselves and hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Commissioner Street (Sir Harry Graumann) said that we would have to close down our factories here if we worked them on white labour and that the more black labour there is, the more white labour is employed. If that is the policy, what is going to become of the children of the white people in this country? The policy of our party is we do not care what a man’s colour is, whether it is black or white, but he must get the same rate of wages for the same class of work. There is no question of the colour bar in our party. What we want in this country is that the working man shall live as a civilized man, but the policy of the other side is that South Africa must be speeded up by black labour at the cheapest rate. The Dutch-speaking people have not been able to retain their land, and they are coming into the towns to seek for work. Our farmers are bonded up to the hilt. I had to go through a list of bonds recently, and was astounded to find that 90 per cent. of the farmers were bonded heavily—the bonds are getting higher and higher, and the people cannot hold their farms. In the Free State the bonds are getting higher and higher, and the interest is getting more, so the people are losing their land and coming into the towns. The farming population of the Southern Free State is getting less and less. Unless we have a policy of development, things will become worse, and one of our biggest exports is the export of our young men; we have to send our young men to Canada and Australia. I know professional men in this country of high attainments in universities, and in universities overseas, who cannot make a living here to-day. They have to go overseas to make a living. I know of several, relatives of mine, and others, relatives of hon. Ministers, who have had to leave the country; the reason being that the country is not developing, but going back. In my opinion South Africa is a poor country, only rich in patches. Let a man take a farm, and he will then see whether the country is a rich one. It is rich around the coast belt, but if people have farms in the Free State, where I come from, they would find, I am afraid, that there was no living in that part of the country. It is an extraordinarily difficult country to farm in, and it is becoming worse and worse. At the coast where they have a rainfall the position is different. If we take the figures we will find that the highveld farmers are becoming the poor whites in South Africa; these people are coming into the towns, and there is nothing for them to do, and as long as the present Government is in power there will be nothing for them to do. They put the young men into the mines during the war while the other people were overseas, but when these men returned they were taken back, the others being replaced, and wages were reduced. Unless we have a protection policy in this country, coupled with a wages board, what is the use of having a big factory, if the men working have to have low wages? If we are going to have big factories, we must have a wages board to lay down that a man working there gets a proper salary. I would support protection if we got an undertaking to this effect. I do not think that the hon. the Minister of Lands is as hard-hearted as we suppose. He says here that he has found a policy whereby the Government was building railways with white labour. That was done by Lord Milner 20 years ago, and the line which was erected was the cheapest railway ever constructed in South Africa. I am glad that the hon. the Minister has adopted this policy, but we find that the hon. the Minister of Railways and Harbours is getting rid of white men on the railway. The hon. the Minister may sneer, but in the Free State he has put white men off, and taken black men in their places. He has put black gangers on the branch lines in several portions of the Union. The white man was put off because he had a family, although, as far as I am personally concerned, I agreed to put up houses on my farm where the railway passes through, for them to live in; the Government stated it was not going to get houses for them, but I said I would put them up. The Government, however, said they did not want these men; so that the Government is trying to solve the unemployment problem by building railways by white labour on the one hand, and turning men off the railways and putting on natives on the other. The Government does not know what its policy is. I do not know how we are going to carry on like that in this country. The best thing that was ever done was done when the railways let these white men go on to the railway lines and earn that small wage. Nothing has taught those poor people more. We know men who went to work on the railways at 4s. and 5s. a day who went higher, and to-day are assistant station-masters and hold very good positions. Why cannot the hon. the Minister do that in the whole of the northern part of the country? I admit it cannot be done in the Cape, where there is a coloured vote; they would be afraid to do it. I am not in favour of the colour bar, and I sit for a northern constituency. The hon. member has always thought what the voters are going to say.

dissenied.

The hon. member would not get up—

The hon. member should go on with his monkeys from Samoa.

I do not want to stick to the hon. member; I want to leave the hon. member and get on with somebody else. I want to ask the hon. the Minister for Railways if it is not possible in the Free State to have white labour entirely on the railways? In Bloemfontein there were a large number of white men employed at the goods sheds, and they were doing well and got a living wage. He has removed these men and put black men there. What is the good of that? It is contrary to the policy of the Free State. The natives are not thanking you for that. There is no unemployment among the natives of the Free State, but we have a certain number of men who can do nothing else but work on the railway. Would that not be doing something to solve the unemployment question? In Bloemfontein we used to have a white man who went round with parcels, but he was turned out and a black man put in his place. What is the good of that? The Government will not make a million pounds a year, they would probably make a shilling a day out of it, but it has displaced a white man whose children would have had a chance. Now, nobody in this House can accuse me of being against the black man. I have stood up in this House before now in defence of the black man, even although I represent a northern constituency. But I ask, why can the Government not go on in the way it has done, and change the whole policy of the north and get rid of these men on the railway line? The black man does not want these jobs, and I ask the hon. the Minister of Railways, who, if he is not a politician, is certainly an honest man— there is no doubt about that. I think if we were to mix up the right hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Railways we would get a descent man. We have a politician on the one side and a real honest man on the other, and I think if we could mix them up, we would get a very good man indeed. I want to ask him if, some years ago, the hon. the Minister took into the railway workshops a large number of boys and taught them to be coach-makers. Now he has suddenly stopped making coaches, and has turned but these boys? What can they do now? They have a trade at their fingertips, and they are turned out into the streets of Bloemfontein, East London and elsewhere, and put on to relief works. What is the future for these boys? They have been taught a trade; they were asked to go into the railways workshops, openings were created for them, and then they were turned out because coaches are not now built. Is it not possible to build coaches at Bloemfontein or Salt River, even if they do cost 10 per cent. more than they do now? The Government put 25½ per cent. on to the footwear of South Africa. Now place 27½ per cent. on to the coaches, and you will find it will still be able to build them in this country perfectly well. We know the hon. the Minister is pulling the railways out of the mud and putting the men into the mud. The country is unhappy about this. My hon. friend knows there are hundreds of thousands of boys applying every year to go into this work. The future of this country threatens to become a state of rich men holding the mines, the natives working them, and the white man going slowly down to the level of the black man, and the country becoming a coloured country like Mexico. You locked the door against the white man coming in. You say, “You cannot come in; that is the policy of South Africa.” You will have your white capital and coloured labour, and you will yet find an ever-increasing number of the Dutchspeaking men of South Africa trooping over to Australia. You will found a large colony in Australia of sons of the Voortrekkers’ descendants. The right hon. the Prime Minister said he had had letters from people who have gone to Australia and that they were not doing well; but I know that they are doing well, and that they are able to find work there. There is no work in South Africa; there is no work on the farms. An hon. member has said that the poor white problem will be solved if every farmer would take one poor white on to his farm. But what good will a poor white labourer do? He would do no good on a farm. It is now six o’clock, and I think we should come to a vote.

Ek hoop, dat die Huis enkele minute geduld met my sal oefen, terwyl ek ’n paar woorde spreek in antwoord op die debat. Ek dink, dat ons almaal met die grootste plesier geluister het na wat werkelik genoem kan word ’n belangryke kontribusie tot die debat, nl. die rede van die edele lid vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders). Dit het my biesonder veel genoege gegee en ek vertrou, dat dit almaal goed gedaan het om horn aan te hoor. Hy het o.a. ’n leer verkondig van “Suidafrika eerste,” die elf jaar gelede niemand mog verkondig in fatsoenlike geselskap nie; hy het ’n leer verkondig omtrent immigrasie die dertien jaar gelede die hele pers met al die mynbase en die helfte van die lede aan die oorkant op my en diegene, wat dit met my eens was, afgebreng het met ’n verbasingwekkende oorhaasting, wat tot gister en ek vrees ook vandag nog, ondanks die toespraak van die edele lid vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders) sal voortgeset word, namelik rassehaat. Dit het my laat denk aan wat my kort na die voorvalle van 1913, welke ontstaan was uit die tweede leerstelling soewe genoem, geseg werd deur ’n engelssprekende Afrikaner, die na my toe kwam in alle erns—hy is aan die meeste Kaapse lede bekend en hier ’n bekende politikus—seg: “Wat jy geseg het is helemaal waar, maar jy as Hollandssprekende Afrikaner moes dit nie geseg het nie; laat dit oor aan engelssprekendes.” Die Huis kan daarom verstaan hoe bly ons is om die woorde te verneem uit die mond van die edele lid vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders) nog wel iemand uit Natal, waar ek vrees, dat ons dit so weinig vandaan verwag het. Dit toon, dat ons vooruit gaan; die politiek, welke tot hiertoe gevolg werd deur die Nasionale Party, blyk nogal ’n navolgenswaardige te wees. Maar ek denk wat net soseer getref het uit die mond van die edele lid, was sy hele toespraak, wat, met ’n kleine wysiging hier en daar, net so goed kon gekom het uit die mond van 99 persent van die Afrikaner bevolking. Wel, ek sê ons gaan vooruit en as daar iets is, wat my laat voel, dat die voorbreng van die mosie geregvaardig was, dan is dit die toespraak van die edele lid vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders). Die edelagbare die Eerste Minister het by die begin van die debat verklaar, dat as ek wou aanneem om na die woord “Regering” nog die woorde “en Volk” in te voeg, hy bereid sou wees om die mosie aan te neem. Ek sou graag aan die versoek voldoen, as dit nie was, dat indien dat gedaan werd ons die gevolge dadelik kon voorsien; ons sou iets inset wat die mosie so goed as doelloos sou maak; want vir ons als Volksraad om ’n beroep te doen op die volk om sy aandag te skenk aan die oplossing van hierdie probleem, sou nie doelmatig wees nie en die rede waarom ek dit voorgebreng het is eenvoudig omdat, afgesien van alle partygevoel, wil ons as liggaam met hoog gesag bekleed, as liggaam die saak voor die Regering leg en dat dit iets is, waaromtrent die volk voel, dat ons moet ons kop oplig en met erns soek na ’n omvangryke oplossing. Ek is daarom bly te verneem dat, as ek goed ingelig is, die edelagbare die Eerste Minister helemaal bereid is die mosie aan te neem, soas dit staat.

Ja seker, daar is geen amendement op die mosie ingedien nie.

Ek wens op die vermoede, dat dit aangeneem word, die volgende aanmerkings te maak. Dit is baie duidelik, dat ons as liggaam dit eens oor die toestand en hier is geen wanklank gehoor nie. Ons is dit daar ook oor eens, dat alle kragte ingespan moet word om te sien, dat daar ’n oplossing gevind word; dit ook is aangeneem deur die toon van die edelagbare die Minister van Lande. Maar ek wens daarop te wys, dat daar verskillende skakerings is, hierin bestaande, dat daar sommige is wat denk, dat dit nie om ’n omvattende oplossing te doen is nie, maar ’n middel die hier ’n bietjie kan help en daar ’n bietjie kan versag en op ’n ander plek ’n bietjie ontevredenheid onderdruk. Die mosie is, dat daar ’n omvangryke oplossing met erns gesoek sal word en hierteen het miskien niemand soseer gesondig nie as die Minister van Lande en daarom vraek die Huis om nog ’n paar minute geduld met my te oefen. Die edelagbare die Minister van Lande het feitelik verklaar, dat alles wat gedaan kon word is gedaan deur die Regering, en wat gedaan kan word word gedaan. As die Huis daardie gevoele had, sou die saak nooit voorgebreng gewees het nie of daar soveel tyd aan bestee het nie. Ek dink, dat as ons die drie toesprake gehoor het van die edele lede vir Kaapstad (Kasteel) (de hr. Alexander), vir Wodehouse (de hr. Venter) en vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders) vanmiddag, dan het ons ’n uitstekende denkbeeld, ’n duidelike idee van wat ’n omvattende vraagstuk dit is, hoe uitgebreid, hoe vertakt, hoeveel lyne van die lewe, van ons staatslewe, van ons volkslewe in Suid-Afrika dit raak, want elkeen van die drie sprekers het tereg daarop gewys, hoe die toestand deur horn gevoel word, die gebrek aan ’n groot omvattende politiek. In antwoord hierop het die edelagbare die Minister van Lande feitlik by anticipate gesê, wat hulle gedoen het, hy het die konstruksiewerke genoem, die spoorweë en die gee van gelde uit die Staatskas en meer van die dinge. Maar juis in verband hiermee het ek by die voorstelling van die mosie gesê, dat ons met al die dinge nie raak aan die wortel van die kwaad nie, of te minste maar kom by ’n klein persentasie van die oorsake van die kwaad in Suid-Afrika. As ek nou mag sê, wat my indruk vanmiddag was na ek die drie toesprake gehoor het, dan is dit, dat ek so duidelik gevoel het wat hun aldrie wou en wat miskien die beste in woorde gesit was deur die edele lid vir Kaapstad (Kasteel) (de hr. Alexander), dat daar ’n tekort in Suid-Afrika is aan ko-ordinasie. Ons vergeet, dat ons te doen het met ’n groot staats-masjiene, waarvan al die radere voortdurend moet geolie word nie alleen, maar ook inmekaar moet pas en met mekaar moet werk en dat as een rad stilstaan, dan staat alles stil; as een deel lam raak, dam is alles lam en dat wat ons so nodig het is, dat daar ’n voortdurend oog op die masjiene gehou word. Daarvoor het ons ’n ingenieur nodig, wat went wat die masjiene is, wat weet hoe alles inmekaar sit, maar wat ook weet hoe die masjiene inmekaar te hou en te laat loop. Hy moet dadelik ’n oog kan hê oor alles. Dit moet sy kennis meebring. Ons sit hier as staatsmanne, maar feitlik is ons roeping niks anders as om ingenieurs te wees en ’n oog te hou oor die hele staatsmasjiene en namate ons tekorte sien, dadelik te weet, waar die tekorte is. Wat my in die toespraak van die edelagbare die Minister van Lande opgeva1 is, is juis, dat hy die indruk gegee het van ’n man wat in ’n masjienekamer kom vir die eerste keer en wat die masjiene wat buite orde is wil gaan regstel. Ons weet, wat gewoonlik die eerste ding is wat gedoen word. Die vinger word geknyp. Ek is bang dat dit die toestand van die edelagbare die Minister is. Ek wil daar nie verder op ingaan nie, maar net dit sê, dat ek dink dat ons die reg het om van die Regering te vra, dat dit nie bly by die aanname van die mosie nie, maar dat ons verder moet gaan, verder kyk, meer moet doen dan wat in die verlede gedoen is en wat dit betref het die debat, wat plaasgevind het, veral vanmiddag toe die drie edele lede en vernaamlik die edele lid vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders) gepraat het, grote waarde. Ek wil nie verder hierby stilstaan me, ek wens alleen dit te sê, dat ek bly is, dat die edelagbare die Eerste Minister dit gaan aanneem en wens hier weer die versekering te gee wat ek gegee het by die begin van die debat, dat ek die mosie voor die Huis gebring het om hier in die Huis ’n diskussie te kry—en ek dink dat ek daarin geslaag is— om te sien wat gedoen kan word en deur die diskussie uit te vind of nie middele aan die hand gegee kan word om die Regering te lei tot ’n oplossing. Ek wil nie sê, dat ons tot ’n algehele oplossing kan kom nie, maar ons kan sien of ons nie iets vir die volk kan doen nie. Ek wil nog net dit sê, dat die edelagbare die Minister van Lande gesê het, dat hier niks, ook nie deur my, aan die hand gegee is nie. Nou as dit juis is, dan was des te meer rede om die mosie voor die Huis te bring, om in oorleg met andere, met horn en andere, te sien of daar nie iets gevind kan word nie. Daarom juis is die diskussie so belangrik om tot ’n oplossing te kom. Maar ek wens ook te sê, dat die edelagbare die Minister vergeet, dat ek daarop gewys het vroeër al en nou weer, en dat daar ook op gewys is deur die edele lid vir Bloemfontein (Noord) (de hr. Barlow) dat—en ek spreek nou besonder tot my edelagbare vriend, die Minister van Spoorweë—ons in Suid-Afrika meer moet oorgaan tot die basis van beskaafde arbeid in ons staatsonderneminge en dat ons nie eenvoudig moet sien hoe ons teen die laagste salarisse werk gedoen kan kry nie. As ons dit nie doen nie, dan gaat ons ons eie dood in Suid-Afrika voorberei. Ek het daarop gewys, dat die Regering dit nie gedoen het nie, en dat die Regering van Suid-Afrika besig is om juis die teenoorgestelde te doen, en weer is ek die edele lid vir Natal Kust (de hr. Saunders) dankbaar, dat hy gewys het juis op wat ek ook gewys het, en waarop ek aangedring het by die indien van die mosie, dat ons ons industrieë moet beskerm, maar dat hulle alleen mag beskerm word onder voorwaarde, dat daardeur ’n arbeidsveld sal ontstaan vir die Europeaan, vir die blanke man. As ons dit nie doen nie, dan is alle poginge, wat ons gaan aanwend, ydel. In ons spoorwegplase en andere inrigtinge moet ons nie die beginsel invoer, wat in stryd is met die soek van ’n arbeidsveld vir die witman. En hiermee wens ek te sluit, maar ek wil nog net aan die edelagbare die Minister van Lande sê dat hy weet wat die toestand vandag is, wat natuurlik baie vererg is deur die ramp van droogte, en dat hy so spoedig moontlik die Noodlening Wet waarvan kennis gegee is, sal inbring, want hy weet wat die toestand is. En dan wat betref die landelike Kredietbank, laat ons ook daarmee so spoedig moontlik die mense te hulp kom. Dit is een van die middele wat ons van tyd tot tyd sal moet aanwend, maar wat ek deur my mosie becog het is eenvoudig ’n breë, vaste politick, nie om toevallige omstandighede te oorkom nie, maar ’n politiek om die permanente, kroniese moeilikhede op te los, wat die aanleiding is tot armoede en werkloosheid in Suid-Afrika en dat ons kom tot die wortel van die kwaad.