When this debate was adjourned I had just risen to reply to some remarks which had been made in connection with the housing question by the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford). The hon. member had put in a plea for the better class of house and he rather objected to the reduction which has been made recently under the new £1,000,000 scheme and the maximum limit on grants for the construction of individual houses. He put in a plea for the better class house. Let me say in regard to that, that as far as I can judge, it was never the intention under the Housing Act that the Government should undertake to provide for houses for all classes of the population. The intention of the Housing Act certainly was to give preference as far as possible to housing provision for the poorer classes of the population and to eliminate as far as possible slum conditions in our urban areas. When the Housing Act was passed in 1920, the situation had become rather unsatisfactory in the Union as far as housing was concerned. On account of war conditions housing operations had practically for a considerable time come to a standstill and for that reason in laying down a limit for the granting of loans for the building of houses the Government, had been rather liberal. The result of that was that municipalities neglected rather generally the poorer classes and they concentrated on a class of inhabitant who received as a rule rather a better wage, rather a good wage or salary, and in that way the real intention of the Act was not carried out. The reason why the municipalities generally acted in that way was that the municipalities had to afford the security for the Government with respect to these loans. Behind the municipality, of course, was the provincial administration and they thought that if they built the better class of house to be inhabited by persons who had rather good wages or earned salaries that the rent would be paid in that way much more regularly. The Government made available a new £1,000,000 for the provision of housing and we had in view the elimination, as far as possible, of slum conditions, and therefore the limit on a building loan in an individual case was considerably reduced. That is what the hon. member for Newlands objects to. All I can say is we try as far as possible to meet the requirements of both classes. The £1,000,000 of new money will be available exclusively for the elimination of slum conditions, but in the course of time a good deal of the money that has been granted for building loans will be coming back, and is coming back now to the extent of between £60,000 and £70,000 per annum. It has been decided that while the new money will be for the poorer classes the money coming back from previous loans will be used for the construction of a better class of house, so that as far as possible we are trying to meet the needs of both classes.

I would like to make a few general remarks upon general financial policy, hut before doing so, I wish to take advantage of the fact that the Minister of Public Works is here, because just lately we have not had the pleasure of seeing him here. There is a small matter which on behalf of a section of my constituents I wish to bring to his notice, and that is the telephone service in the lower part of the Cape Peninsula. We have had to contend with a great many breakdowns and, as the result of investigations I have made, I have come to the conclusion that the fault really is with the installation itself. It is not the fault of the operators, they do their best, but the fact is, I am given to understand, that the equipment in that part of the world is now somewhat obsolete and the result is very serious deterioration in the service which is the cause of a great deal of inconvenience. I hope the Minister now he is back in Cape Town will stay long enough to look into that. On the general position I would like to make a few remarks, not with the idea of expecting the Minister of Finance to reply at any length now, because I recognize he will deal, when he comes to the Budget, with main questions of policy, but some of those I would like to touch on, quite briefly, this afternoon. It seems to me that the Minister is really very fortunate, notwithstanding the drought and the difficulties in connection with the diamond trade the country has been prosperous, but on the whole that prosperous position of our finances is owing to the fact that the Minister put on last year, or was it the year before, a considerable increase in the customs duties. That is all very well in its way, provided the surplus is properly used, as I have no doubt it will be, but we have to look at the circumstances which have produced it, and what is likely to be the effect and the tendency of events in the future Of course, the country has embarked, under the auspices of the present Government, on a policy of what may be called high protection. I am not going into the merits of that question, which we have discussed many times, and I admit that policy is supported by a large number of people in the country and by a large number on this side of the House. I admit a country like this cannot be a free trade country, but at the same time we add to this policy a policy of improving wages in practically every industry, we are going to raise considerable difficulties in the future, unless the country responds—there is an increase of population, an increase of revenue to the extent optimists think can be the case. There is hardly a week passes but we get one or two reports from the Wage Board. They think they have settled the wages in this or that industry—it may be omnibus drivers, bakers confectioners and all these businesses. That is very laudable, no doubt, but we are getting into the position that everybody is to get a comfortable wage, and every industry is to be protected against outside competition, but where are we going to get any markets for our products? If we are not very careful, we shall get into the condition into which it is evident Australia has got now. It has pursued that policy with even greater intensity, and has been at it a longer time. Its resistance is larger; it has a larger population; production, exports and everything is on a larger scale, and that they are not drawing in their horns and calling a halt to some extent in the pursuance of this policy, should make us consider whether we should emulate them in the pursuance of that policy as is the evident intention of the Government. The results of that policy as regards the labour question are that the cost of production in primary production cannot go down. It is safe to say that the cost must go up. The question is whether we can afford to say that it does not matter that the costs of the main industries of the country are increasing. Everybody must admit manufactured products can be produced in this country only on a limited scale. The prices which can be obtained for primary products are fixed in the world’s markets, and if we are not careful we shall find by the policy we are now pursuing—driving out native labour from many industries, the encouragement of what is called civilized labour, the protection of various industries by a tariff, settling wages by the wage board, and the awards of the Conciliation Act—that our primary industries may be affected to such an extent as to endanger the prosperity of our country. The two primary industries are mining and farming. If my argument is right, it applies to these two industries, but it is very difficult to persuade people—I know that from experience of hon. members opposite and the public outside—that that applies to farming, because it is exceedingly difficult to get statistics of the cost of production. You can get them, of course, in regard to mining. In the old days, when anyone stood up in this House and said that the mining industry deserved consideration, there was a cry that it _could look after itself. There is a great improvement in this respect, and it is recognized that the prosperity of the country depends to a large extent on the mining industry, and that nothing should be done seriously to endanger it. I think the whole country is agreed, as far as I can see, that the supply of labour from Portuguese territory to the Witwatersrand should be secured, and I congratulate the Minister of Defence on the change in his views as to the securing of that supply of labour. Notwithstanding that, we have to consider how long the mining industry will last. I have been looking at some general figures, and I find that for 1926 the average revenue per ton was 27s. 9d., and the average working costs 19s. For 1927, the average revenue was 28s. 3d., but the working costs has risen to 19s. 7d. There is admittedly only a limited amount of high grade ore, and as mine after mine is worked out we shall have to depend on lower grade ore. My point is, that the higher grade mines cannot last for ever. We do get an extension now and again on the Rand, but unless we get new discoveries, which no-one can foresee, the rich ore must be limited, and the tendency is for the working costs to go up, with the result that millions of tons of ore are not able to be worked after the richer mines are worked out. It is simply demonstrated with regard to the mines, because one can get the figures, but it is not so easily demonstrated with regard to agricultural products. It is obvious that the same process must be at work there, and to that extent the export of our products is liable to a check and a great deal must depend on the labour policy, because if you raise wages in one industry, the effect of that tends to ramify. I find that the Government is doing a great deal to encourage this. For example, the Minister of Public Works now insists that it shall be a condition in all Government building contracts that unskilled labour shall be paid not less than 8s. a day. What is the effect of this? The Public Works Department enters into a contract for the erection of a building in Adderley Street; a private owner makes a contract for putting up a building next door. In the latter case unskilled labour is not being paid the minimum of 8s. a day, but what will happen when the Minister comes along with his unskilled labour at 8s. a day? Of course, the men employed by the private contractor will ask to be paid at the same rate, and consequently the wages scale will rise. I suppose the Minister will say that the result will be the employment of more white labour, but in that case the costs will be still further increased. The question will be whether white labour will do the work which the native today does at very much less cost. Hon. members, in their private capacities, would be employing white labour to a far greater extent than they do to-day if they could afford to do so. That being so, it is a very questionable policy to insist upon a minimum wage of 8s. a day for unskilled labour in all Government contracts, and it is bound to have its effect on the wages paid by all other employers. It is all very fine to pay everybody high wages, but the question arises where are the wages to come from? It is far better to pay moderate wages and be certain that you can continue to do so and that your business will increase, than to insist on a policy which will only admit of employing a limited number of people at a high wage, because in the latter case there will be no certainty as to the time for which the employers will be able to continue to pay these high rates. I hope the Minister will consider this point, because in Australia there is a general recognition that this policy has failed, at any rate in the accentuated form in which it is being pursued in the Commonwealth. You could not have a better example of this than in the results obtained by the Australian railways, which are State-owned. It is sufficiently obvious that the railways must pay their way, but if they can only do that by keeping their rates to a very high level then the farming industry will have to foot a large portion of the Bill. If it is said that the rates are not high the answer to that is that if they could be reduced it would be an advantage to everybody. I would like to refer to the effects of this policy in Australia, for I maintain that policy indicates the way to which we are heading in this country. For the financial year 1926-’27, there was a railway deficit of £451,000 in New South Wales; over £1,000,000 in New Zealand; £1,118,000 in South Australia; £23,000 in Victoria; and £297,000 in Tasmania. The railway deficit for Victoria would really have been very much greater but for some adventitious circumstances. The aggregate loss on the Queensland railways in the past 12 years has been £16,000,000. The Tasmanian railway earnings have been showing an annual deficit for more than 30 years. That surely is a warning. In Australia it is accepted as a warning, and the Australians have recognized the necessity of putting their house in order, and in order to do that they will probably have to increase their taxation; at any rate, they will have to exercise the greatest economy in administration. The other day the Minister of Finance said he considered we had been borrowing too much, and that it was necessary to exercise economy. I entirely agree with that policy, and I hope the Minister will stick to it. Do not let us go too far with this policy of everybody receiving a comfortable wage. Let us consider to some extent whether the industries in which these wage determinations are made are worth the artificial support given to them by these awards and tariffs. By all means let us keep down the cost of administration. I am sure the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) will agree with me that there is ample room for economy in most of our public services. There is one other suggestion I would like to make, and that is that if the Minister of Finance has a considerable surplus he should seriously consider making some reduction in taxation. Most of the other dominions have made reductions in taxation since the war, although their burden of war debt is a great deal heavier than ours. The Minister may say that if taxation is reduced the chances of obtaining a surplus are not so bright, but if he has to work harder to obtain a surplus he will be more economical, and it will not be a bad stimulus towards the improvement of efficiency and the introduction of economy if the revenue is, to that extent, reduced by a reduction of taxation. I do not expect the Minister to reply to these questions to-day, but I hope he will take some of these matters into consideration and when he comes to deliver his Budget speech he will show that he has paid attention to these suggestions.

I cannot help making a few remarks on the speech which has just been delivered. It carries one back many years. Allow me to congratulate the hon. member on his consistency in propounding the same ideas and principles which I remember his propounding 17 years ago—

They are as good now as they were then.

—sup ported by arguments just as faulty. When the hon. member is speaking he expresses what his political and economic philosophy is. His philosophy in all these matters is the cheapest wage unit. To get the work done with the same production at the lowest general level of wages on which the people can live, will, he contends, be better for the country, and he supports that theory with arguments which are singularly lacking in convincing qualities. I want to refer to the quotation of figures which he gave for the Australian railways. It would have been just as pertinent for the Labour party, four or five years ago, during the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger’s) administration of the railways to have said that he was turning out Europeans and getting the cheapest possible labour and tremendous deficits followed as a result of that short-sighted policy.

That is not true.

There was a very large deficit in those days, and the hon. member was following the cheapest labour policy he could follow.

He didn’t turn out any Europeans, all the same.

Well, there were fewer numbers of Europeans employed at the end of the hon. member’s period than at the beginning.

There were not (so many applying.

I want this House and the country to consider where the policy, pictured by the hon. member, is going to lead us. He finds fault with the 8s. a day policy, and with the idea that, as far as possible, you should try and arrange that those who do the work should live in a comfortable way on wages compatible with the needs of civilized Europeans. He wants as many natives brought into the country as he can get. What sort of a population are we to become; what sort of a future have we before us? We are embarking on a policy of stimulating industry, of stimulating development in the secondary industries, and we are doing all we can to stimulate the wealth-producing activities of the country. They are expanding year by year. Is it not a matter of simple arithmetic that, as the wealth-producing activity expands, more human hands are required to do the work. Every time there is a hiatus, are we going to supplement the lack of human hands by importing uncivilized people into the country? If so, how can we justify the methods we are taking to stimulate the emigration of Asiatics from the country. As the wealth-producing activity expands and the number of human hands required increases, let them come from civilized countries which will help and aid and strengthen this country rather than add to its difficulties by importing considerably more of the less civilized peoples into Africa.

What are you going to do with the natives of Mozambique?

My point is that in this country there should be enough work for our own people, and if any more have to come in, let them come from civilized countries.

You have gone off the main question. What will you do if the Portuguese stop the natives from Mozambique from coming in?

I am not going to discuss that question. It is the same old cry. If the Portuguese stop the native labour from coming in, we should have to supplement the hiatus by bringing in others from civilized countries. But it is not going to be stopped. In the past we have taken precautions by always increasing the supply so that there shall be no crisis. Rather than extend the geographical area for the expansion of supplies, let us keep to a more sound and healthy national way in the matter. We do not get the greatest possible use out of the native labour in this country. In other countries employers are left to make their own arrangements, and if they want more labour they have to offer greater attractions, and they have to take care that there is the least possible waste of labour. I am expressing options I have held for many years, and I shall never alter them. You will not bring up a prosperous and strong nation on the basis of the lowest possible wage to the cheapest uncivilized labour you can find. This Government has adopted a white labour policy, and in that policy we have nothing to regret and we have nothing to defend. Under the hon. member’s regime the country was suffering by the administration of a precisely opposite policy. It did not matter to them if thousands of men were suffering from inability to find the smallest chance of employment. We adopted the policy, by age regulations, by the application of the Conciliation Act and by the introduction of the civilized labour policy, of giving employment and by that means we have largely redeemed the position left by hon. members opposite, and to that policy we are going to adhere.

The Minister of Defence tried to attack the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin), but he clearly showed that all he was defending was the old white policy of the past. It may sound very nice to the electors for the purpose of catching votes but the Minister must know that his system cannot possibly be carried out throughout South Africa from an economic standpoint. Take, e.g., the farming industry. Coloured and native labour is contemptuously referred to. Let the Minister rise and say that his white labour policy must be applied to farming. It is easy to speak about white labour but the great question is what the economic wage is that certain industries can pay. The statements of the hon. member for South Peninsula are of the greatest importance. The Minister for Public Works said that in the case of all public buildings that are put up and, in general, in Government contracts, the wages for an unskilled labourer will be at least 8s. per day. What is the result? What is the effect on the industry? Take the influence it will have on agriculture, e.g., in Stellenbosch and Paarl where farming is, so to say, carried on inside the town. In the erection of public buildings in the town 8s. a day will be paid to the unskilled workman while the farmer next door cannot pay more than 3s. a day. What, then, will be the economic effect of this system? It will have a serious reaction on the primary industries. Take, e.g., the influence it has on the protection policy of the Government which I cordially support. Hon. members know that I am a convinced protectionist, but the white labour policy of the Government causes the wages to rise. The wages are becoming uneconomic. Then our industries will not be able to compete and will ask for still more protection. The result will be that the primary industries of our country like mining and farming—and farming is the most important industry in the country—will have in the long run to bear heavy costs. The economic policy of the Government therefore results in the production costs mounting up which will have an injurious effect on the primary industries on which the economic future of our country depends. Now the Minister talks as if all the members sitting behind him agree with him. I ask my hon. friends behind the Minister if they do not feel as I do? The Dutch- and English-speaking South Africans who have a stake in the country are conservative. We are moderately conservative and respect a man’s property. This policy of the Minister’s is unacceptable and I hope that he will not receive the support of my Nationalist friends because, if there is one thing in which they agree with us, it is that we ought to develop the country on economic lines. I hope our friends behind the Minister will learn to see that the time has come for the conviction that if the system is applied practically to the economic life of South Africa, it will not be so rose-coloured for the economic development as the Minister to-day represents.

I think we are all very glad to hear from the hon. member for Caledon to-day that he is such a strong protectionist.

He always has been.

I am sure very few of us in this House were aware of it. He has been hiding his light under a bushel. When discussions of this character have taken place I do not think I have ever seen him rise in this House and defend the Government’s protection policy. However, I accept his word unqualifiedly that he is a strong protectionist and I am very glad to hear that he is. We are discussing the question of cheap labour and white labour or civilized labour. I want to call the attention of the House to something which has recently been said by a very prominent South African and I would ask the Opposition whether they agree with this statement of views —

That was written by the hon. member for Yeoville in a recent reprint of his publication on the native question.

What about it? What is the point?

It is on the question whether we should take the cheapest labour we can get, whether we should build our economic system on a stratum of cheap labour. The expression of these opinions is evidently not relished by the members of the Opposition. In connection with the question of the fixing of wages, I think the House should remember that whereas the present Government has followed this policy of fixing wages, the party who brought in the first measure to fix wages was the party opposite. The Industrial Conciliation Act was for the purpose of fixing wages and the same party introduced a minimum wage Bill in 1921 which was, mercifully for them, thrown out by the other House. But why fight on this matter? Why come to the House every year and fight over this question of fixing wages when we know that the party opposite was the party that initiated that policy. I do not mind the party opposite criticising any particular wage that has been fixed and saying that it is uneconomic, or it is not fair, but to come here and attack the Government’ on the general policy of fixing wages in industries does not, I think, sound very well from hon. members opposite. The point is that the party opposite were the people who started it. I hope members opposite will in future take the enlightened view of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) in connection with this question and see that this introduction of cheap labour into our industrial centres is nothing but an undermining of our whole white civilization in South Africa.

What about the farmers?

Even on the farms they are going in more and more for white labour. I do not say you can do without native labour altogether, but the farmers are actually introducing more and more white labour.

Why should they not get 8s. a day?

Can you tell me how much they do get? I am afraid in some places they get more.

I think we ought to realize, as the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) points out, what this introduction of cheap labour really means to places like Cape Town. If we take that enlightened view it will be all the better for the white civilization in this country.

It is all very well for the hon. member who has just spoken to talk about cheap labour when he does not employ any.

I employ white labour only.

I wonder how much white labour the hon. member employs. It is all very well for him, who is not a farmer, to say that farmers must entirely depend upon white labour, because that is an impossibility.

I never said so.

The sooner we realize the native is an asset to our farming industry, the better for us. This civilized labour policy of the Government to-day is acting in exactly the same direction as you have in Australia. You are depleting the countryside and you are filling the towns. The Minister of Defence has also said that it was the policy of the late Government, and particularly that of the late Minister of Railways, to get rid of white labour on the railways. This is not actually the position, and I shall quote figures. When the member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) became Minister of Railways, there was a matter of 38,000 white people working on the railways.

How much did they get?

Certainly a much better wage than your 5s. a day. You are drawing these people from the countryside and putting them on the railways. It looks very well, but they find when they come to the railways for this 5s. a day that they cannot come out. It is a miserable wage to pay these people. The number of white labourers on the railways when the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) took office was 38,409, and when he left office it was 39,892, which entirely contradicts the argument of the Minister of Defence and shows that they did not dismiss any white men to make place for coloured men or natives. It does seem a misleading statement to make when it is entirely contrary to the facts. I would like to raise a very important matter in regard to the irrigation farmers. Some time back I drew the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to a certain speech which had been made by the chairman of the Land Board in which he condemned irrigation schemes as being useless and as being failures. He made a certain statement also in which he said that these irrigation schemes, these dams, would silt up within five or ten years. The Minister in reply to my question entirely refuted the contention of the chairman of the Land Board and quoted as an instance that you had the Smartt Syndicate dam, which had been there for 15 years, and the silting in that time was almost negligible in comparison with the volume of water. The Minister, in replying to the question, somewhat shielded the chairman of the Land Board by stating that the chairman of the Land Board had spoken, not as chairman of the board, but as Mr. Faure, a member of the British Settlers’ Association. It is something I cannot understand, but it seems to be the policy of the present Government that you find Ministers making statements, and when you take them up, you find them saying: “I did not say it as a Minister, but in my private capacity.” I think the Minister of Justice is one of these. And now that this precedent has been laid down by Ministers, you naturally find officials doing exactly the same thing.

That is where you make a mistake. He is not an official.

He is certainly in Government employ, and he is certainly under the Minister of Lands. He certainly holds a very important post in the public service of this country. Here you find he has gone back on that statement he made, and he says he withdraws that, but he sticks to his main contention, and that is that irrigation schemes are failures.

Is he not entitled to his opinion?

And I am entitled to my opinion and the irrigation districts are entitled to their opinion. As a representative of the irrigationists, I maintain I have a right to defend them in this House and I have a right to ask the Minister to defend these people, especially when the Government has spent millions on irrigation.

Do you say he withdrew that statement?

He modified it at a meeting on Friday last. He said it may be longer. He made a very definite statement that these dams would silt up and, therefore, they were useless, and the whole of the Karroo schemes were not going to be a paying proposition. I do think that criticism of a healthy character is very necessary, but this is not healthy criticism. This statement of Mr. Faure’s is undoubtedly one which cannot be proved, and is entirely sweeping. Mr. Faure says, in the report of the “Argus,” that he had consulted his colleagues on the board, and these had agreed with him that the irrigation schemes of the Karroo were going to be failures. If that is correct, you will find that the Land Board is of the opinion to-day that the Karroo schemes are going to be failures.

What do you say?

I say they are not going to be failures, but that there is a big future for them. The hon. member who is doubting these schemes should go down and see for himself. Mr. Faure has seen the Fish River scheme once or twice and upon that says these Karroo schemes are going to be failures. He has now given reasons why these schemes are going to be failures, but we have to contend with these things not only in the Karroo but all over the country. No doubt mistakes have been made in irrigation policies. It is a very important matter in which millions have been invested. The very defects he mentions—that the rates are too high and the land schedule is too big—are quite right, but why say the Karroo schemes are failures because of that? The Minister knows that applies not only to the Karroo schemes but to the whole country. Why single out the Karroo? In the Karroo you have, on those banks, some of the richest soil of any in the world. You have the same troubles with conservation schemes in the Western Province and the Transvaal, and because the State and Parliament have realised the difficulties they have appointed a permanent irrigation board.

And they are writing off big sums.

They are writing off big sums, and primarily to bring irrigation schemes to a satisfactory basis, so that they need not be failures.

I suppose any scheme will be a success on that basis.

I am sorry to hear the Minister of Finance speak like that. I am convinced that the schemes are going to be a success. I would ask the Minister of Finance to go down and see for himself. It is not the country that has to be blamed. It is we who are to blame for the mistakes which have been made. I maintain a man can make an honourable living on those schemes. The Irrigation Board has reported to the select committee, which has reported to the House, and we are trying to place the whole matter on a satisfactory basis. The land in Fish River valley is as good as any in the world. Why Mr. Faure is coming along and persistently goes on with this criticism I cannot understand. As to their paying their rates, it is hardly fair to make that statement, because the whole thing is being gone into. Why beforehand condemn these schemes? It is a serious position when one Government department condemns irrigation as a whole. I fully maintain that in order to make a success of agriculture in this country we must help with irrigation, and why should we be continually running down this country? If ever there is trouble we run down the country. We do not look to ourselves and say that we have made mistakes. I hope the Minister of Lands will make a statement. If Mr. Faure was speaking as a private individual the same importance would not attach to his statement or arguments as has been attached, because he is chairman of the Land Board. He speaks as an authority. If the Minister had gone to Cradock and the Fish River Valley, he would have seen what a wonderful success that scheme was. To say it is a failure is doing the country a grave injustice.

Let me in the first place say that the hon. member is wrong if he says that Mr. Faure is an official. Members of the Land Board are not officials at all.

They draw our money.

Like many people, like our members of Parliament, although they are not officials. The members of the Land Board are appointed for a special purpose and paid for every day they work. I do not think the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) will deny that Mr. Faure is an expert who can speak with authority. He knows the Cape Province very thoroughly and has for several years been entrusted with inspecting in various districts so that he is very well acquainted with conditions.

Do you agree with him?

Partly, and let me tell my hon. friend that there are, alas, many more who think that the Karoo schemes will not be successful.

Only the Karoo schemes?

Particularly the Karoo schemes. Dams were constructed which have never yet held water, while others threaten to silt up.

Why are the Karoo schemes selected for the attacks?

I shall state the position. Mr. Faure did not refer to the Great Fish River scheme, but of the Karoo schemes. I sent for Mr. Faure and pointed out that his statements had created a certain amount of unrest. He explained that he had not spoken as a member of the Land Board, but as a member of the 1820 Settlers’ Association. He pointed out that he had warned members of his association not to put any settlers there before the schemes were in order and on a sound basis so that a living could be made there. In that capacity he had the fullest right to say what he apparently said. If the schemes were a success then the tax would surely be paid, but not one of them did so; then further it would not be necessary to write off millions of pounds. Most of the schemes requiring writing down are in the Karoo. I will not say that all will be failures. I admit that some of the ground is of the richest and most fruitful, but as a result of drought there is no water. Another danger is that some of the dams will silt up. I noticed one day at an embankment which was being built the sand had washed up almost as high as the gallery of this Chamber. I asked the engineer whether the dam would not silt up. He said that he was convinced of that happening in a certain number of years. I was astonished, and the danger exists with reference to certain Karoo schemes. There is no water. The danger exists that the dams will silt up, and the areas estimated as irrigable are much too large. Hence the Minister of Irrigation is engaged in reducing the tax and writing off amounts so that there will be a possibility of making a living there, and further he is engaged in reducing the areas as they are too big. My first visit as Minister of Lands was to the Sundays River Settlement. The first thing I said on reaching there was that there was not enough water for 6,000 morgen of ground, let alone the 14,000 mentioned in the schedule. Some friends differed, and said that it was too pessimistic, but to-day it is admitted that the water is only sufficient for at most 6,000 morgen, and the result is that much of the valuable ground bought by my predecessor has lain waste. I cannot clear and develop it because there is no water. We have to assist many people there so as to prevent the scheme being an entire failure. That is why Mr. Faure said that he recommended them to wait until the schemes were on a sound basis to prevent failures. Is that such a great sin?

The report which was published represents the remarks differently.

According to the impression I got, he only warned the members of the association. I said to people wanting to buy land under Section 11: “Let the Irrigation Board first go into things and say what the tax will be and the irrigable area, so that one can first judge what the ground is worth.” If anyone buys ground there to-day, he does not know its value nor what the tax will be. I do not wish to condemn all the Karoo schemes, but the hon. member must admit that most of the existing schemes were failures, chiefly for the reasons that I gave, viz., that they cost much more than was estimated, that the area to be irrigated is so large, that there is not enough water and of the danger of their silting up. The Irrigation Commission will go into everything in the light of our experience, and we shall avoid schemes costing two or three times as much as they ought, and of more land being taken than there is water available for. Mr. Faure apparently warned the members of his association not to act carelessly, and I do not think that he can be blamed on that account; he occupies a responsible position, but is not actually an official.

I concur entirely in what my hon. friend, the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) says as to the inevitably bad effect there is bound to be on our primary industries when these ideas of high protection through the customs and wages boards are carried to the excess the present Government seems to be carrying them. I wish to give a definite instance, as instances have been asked for, in order to show that the policy which is being carried out through these wage boards in particular is going to have the effect—not as the Minister of Defence thinks—of increasing employment, but really of decreasing employment in certain spheres. The particular instance I wish to refer to is the determination of the wages of drivers and conductors of motor-buses. An inquiry into this matter was made last July, and the determination was published recently. The wage was fixed at £5 a week for drivers. From what I can see from the report, nobody asked for £5 a week and it was an arbitrary amount arrived at by members of the Wage Board. Objections to the award were lodged not only by the employers, but also by the employees, the latter claiming that they knew what the bus owners could pay and that if the award were insisted upon the inevitable result would be that a number of the ’buses must be taken off the road, and that would throw the drivers and conductors out of employment. They, therefore, suggested that the wages should be fixed at £3 10s. a week. The Minister ordered the board to look into the matter. The board did so, and repeated its previous award of £5 a week. Apparently at that time the employees had not been an organized body, and they had no union to speak for them. Subsequently they wished to form themselves into a union so as to arrive at an agreement with the employers under the Conciliation Act. They notified their wish to the Government authorities, and the answer was, “You can form a union, but any arrangements made must be made on the determination already given by the Wage Board, but we shall not allow you to have any lower wages than £5 a week.” As a result of this, meetings have been held at Port Elizabeth, and a resolution was passed by 89 of these employees. I have the names of 89 of these who passed a resolution, which reads as follows [resolution read]. Here you have the position that 89 employees and employers are willing to come together under the Industrial Conciliation Act to arrive at what they consider is fair pay, and yet they are not allowed to do so by the Minister. The Minister of Labour says that having made the determination, they will not be allowed to arrive at any other determination than that granted by the Wage Board.

That is the law, it is not me. I cannot alter that; don’t blame me.

It is the effect of the legislation the hon. member brought in, and then he extols this Government as something that has done wonders for this country. That is the way he delivers the goods.

It is a very good effect.

What, to throw people out of work?

They will find work on the railway all right.

By this arrangement he is deliberately creating unemployment and then the Minister takes up the position that there are too many of these motor buses on the road.

It is the Wage Board that takes up that attitude. Read the report of the Wage Board.

I have read the report. They are servants of yours.

Read the report out and let the House hear it.

The Minister says he is doing away with unemployment and yet here he is deliberately creating unemployment and his point is that there are too many of these buses on the road, and that they are not all full and so he runs some off. Apparently his position is that if a man acquires a motor bus on the hire purchase system, he becomes a capitalist and must be run off. If the law had been left as it was under the late Government, these people, under the Industrial Conciliation Act, would have come together and would have agreed upon a wage which the employees would have been satisfied with. Under this new Act instead of these people arriving at a decision which satisfies them, they are not allowed to do so, and a higher wage must be paid than they ask for, and that is the way the present Government is doing away with unemployment.

The farmers are of course all in favour of the abolition of the dumping duties on superphosphates, and we hope the Minister will listen to the plea the hon. members for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh), Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal) and other hon. members made last week. I merely want to point out to the Minister that if it appears justifiable to withdraw the dumping duties, the Board of Trade and Industries must be careful to prevent foreign factories importing too cheaply and thereby crushing our industry in order thereafter to be able to import at a very high price. If it is possible to abolish the duties I can assure the Minister it will be appreciated throughout the country. There are a few other points of great importance to the farmers that I want to bring to his notice. Firstly I want to say a word about our grain farmers. Grain farming in our country is not so successful as in other countries. The costs of production are very high. In the interior wheat can only be grown by irrigation and that raises the cost of production. Moreover, the yield is not high. In the Western Province on dry lands the crop from the wheatland is too small to enable the farmer to live well on it. I, therefore, think that it will not be unfair to the consumer to urge that the customs duties on wheat and flour should be made a bit higher. The result will be that the farmers will apply themselves more to wheat and that our country will be able to supply its own needs. As for maize, we feel that it is of great importance, that the costs of transport are too high. With our over production, which is again expected this year, it is of the greater importance. The costs are so high that the farmer in many cases can make hardly any profit. I want to urge a reduction of the railway and shipping charges on maize. I do not believe that the Government paid enough attention to propaganda in Europe about the use of our mealies. We have already sent young ladies to America to learn the various ways of preparing mealies, and then to come and teach them to our girls here. I do not believe that that is so necessary, because we know the various ways of preparing mealies. I believe that we did not take the bull by the horns, but as an hon. member next to me remarked, by the tail. What we should do is to send young ladies from South Africa to the Continent and to other parts of the world to teach the people there what good food mealies make, and the various ways it can be prepared, I should like to know whether it is not possible to establish a department under the control of the Trade Commissioner in Europe, to teach the people there how to use mealies. We understand that there is poverty and hunger in certain parts and we can always recommend our mealies as good food. We have an instance of that with our own native population, who grow old often without eating anything else except bread and mealiemeal. They have good sense, are strong and can work and often grow older than some meat-eaters and, if we publish throughout the world that our mealies are so healthy and such a valuable food, then the consumption will certainly increase much. Now I want to say something about tobacco. We have considerable overproduction. I have looked in the papers for anything being done to get rid of the great stocks, but I found nothing on the part of the Government. I found news of Rhodesia where there is also great over-production. One of their Ministers is going to England to see if he can find a market for their over-production of tobacco. Here in our country where we have great over-production, nothing has yet been done. I hope the Government will see that we find markets for our tobacco otherwise there is a danger of tobacco culture retrogressing with the result that the farmers on the settlements who are dependent on tobacco will have to give up their work and drop down again to the life in towns. With reference to our fruit we feel that attempts are of course being made to make arrangements for its transport. The result of the efforts is fairly satisfactory. I hope I shall have an opportunity on another Bill to make a further request about this to the Minister of Railways. There is, however, a great need, viz., that the transport, the storage and distribution overseas is not properly regulated. There is at certain times a great demand abroad, and when that is so, we have usually insufficient fruit there to offer. We must keep more in touch with the demand on the European market, and if our trade commissioner keeps us acquainted with the requirements of the overseas fruit market, much more will be effected in my opinion. I wanted to bring these facts to the Minister’s notice and especially to say about over-production that it is necessary to take steps to provide markets in good time.

I would like to seize this opportunity of again taking up a matter with the Minister of Finance that was the subject of discussion in this House some time ago. I would like again to plead with him the cause of the farmer in connection with income tax. I feel that I am perhaps responsible for the optimistic feeling of the farmer, and the hope that he was finished with income tax and income tax returns, and I think the House and the Minister will bear with me if I make a few remarks on this subject. I see from ail sides farmers are writing and taking resolutions on the matter. I have an article before me from which I would like to quote a few paragraphs. [Extracts read.] These hopes of the farmers have been rudely, one may almost say cruelly and wantonly, dashed to the ground by the Minister of Finance a month ago at Bredasdorp, where he told us that the question of exemption from income tax is not practical politics. I would like to ask him why. Surely with a big surplus in sight, if ever there was a chance of reducing taxation, if ever there was a chance for him to reconsider the matter, as he promised to do, with all due consideration to the farmers’ interests and all sympathy, it is now, and I would like to say to the Minister that if he does not do it now, the opportunity may not arise again soon. The second point that the Minister made was that the farmers, or rather their organizations, had attacked rather than supported him. I believe amongst others the president of the Agricultural Union, either of the Transvaal or of South Africa, had made a strong statement in connection with it. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) showed me this statement next morning. I still stand to my guns, and I certainly do not hold that Major Hunt is such a tremendous authority on this point. I do claim that I know as much about the farmers’ wants and certainly about the farmers’ wishes in this matter as he does, and the Minister knows that this is the right policy, and I appeal to him, if it is right, not to be led away by theorists who tell him that in theory this matter is not right. Let the Minister consider the position after deduction of the amount that it costs him to collect this income tax, and the amount that is written off in losses from that income by people who both farm and have other sources of income. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), the Minister himself and many of us, including the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford), have for years and correctly—written off those losses on our farming from our income, and I am not at all certain that if there is a chance of calculating it, it will not be found that those losses which are written off and which will fall away, if the farmers are exempted, will be almost as much as this sum of money that is being paid by farmers to-day. I have here a resolution that was passed at a meeting at Carolina. [Resolution read.] That is undoubtedly the opinion of farmers right through the country, and I say again, notwithstanding what some theorists would say, and what some of their organizations would say, I am afraid that one might well say to our farmers: “Look to your own organizations and see who are the men you appoint at the head of them.” I do hope the Minister will reconsider the matter and not harden his heart, and that he will tell us in his budget speech he has decided to meet the farmers on this very serious question. I would like to have a few words with the Minister of Labour about his farming operations and farming peregrinations. I put a question to him about ten days ago.

Bring it up later on. He has replied already.

I would be very glad if the Minister of Finance would give me his opinion about these farming operations. I know he won’t. It would not be fair to ask him, because I have no doubt the farming operations of the Minister of Labour have caused the Minister of Finance some grey hairs. I would have liked to have asked the Minister of Lands to reply on this matter, but, unfortunately, he has just replied. I understand that in a certain area the Minister of Labour is farming and the Minister of Lands is farming, and I believe the Minister of Agriculture is also carrying on certain farming operations I would have been very glad to have had the opinion of the Minister of Lands on these operations of the Minister of Labour, because some of the schemes are on farms which he has handed over to the Minister of Labour to carry on certain operations. I have also heard a rumour that they found the Minister of Labour was farming better than the Minister of Lands. I can hardly credit that. I do not think the Minister of Lands is such a rotten farmer as all that. From these questions and answers which the Minister laid on the Table there are certain conclusions. I understand he has three separate schemes. The first is the tenant farmers’ scheme, then he has another scheme that he calls an extension scheme, and then he has other farming operations on three farms in the Pretoria district. These farms, I understand, have been put at his disposal by the Minister of Lands. Exactly what he carries out there I cannot find from his answers to me, but the point that does strike me very forcibly is this, that he has evidently tried identical men on the three schemes. A lot of these people have gone off. They are not working on the tenant-farmers scheme any more. They were tried on the extension scheme, some of them, and evidently they failed there too. I understand some of these men have been put on the third scheme. It does seem to me the Government is being very kind to some men, while there are many poor people in this country who cannot get even one chance. I do not know whether these men are a success on the third scheme, and, if not, whether the Minister is going to think out some more schemes to try them on. An amount of £160,000, apart from administration costs, has been spent on these three schemes. The only revenue, as far as I can make out, was last year an amount of £12,000, and this year the estimate is £35,000. I hope the Minister will take another opportunity to reply, because it seems to me we are spending a tremendous amount of money and getting very little for it. I do not know that the Government is getting what it should from this expenditure, and it has been whispered to me that the produce which is won from these farms, for instance tobacco, is tending rather to make the general production weaker in quality. The Minister of Finance reminds me that the Minister of Labour cannot reply now to these remarks of mine. I hope he will take an opportunity later on to take the House into his confidence, and explain the whole scheme to us, because on the face of it it does not seem very sound.

I also want to say a few words with reference to the statement that the resolution passed at Bredasdorp was unpractical. I cannot see why. After a long debate we passed the motion requesting the Government to favourably consider the resolution. Now the Minister says that it is unpractical. I wish the Minister would explain matters. I believe that one of the reasons is that a large agricultural association has expressed itself hostile to the resolution. I maintain that they were not talking for the farmer there when they said that the farmer did not want it. Hon. members, who said so, were talking on behalf of the merchants. In my constituency I addressed large meetings, and at all of them I said that. I wanted instructions on this question and, although others besides farmers were present, they all agreed that it was very necessary in the interests of the farmer. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the resolution I can assure him that the farmers will be much disappointed if he does not do so, because the farmers hoped, after the motion we passed, that there would be an end to this tax. I do not wish to go further into the matter now, but I want to refer to the speech of the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden). As usual, he made a covert attack on the Government without producing facts. He accused the Government this afternoon of being out to drive the farmers from the countryside to the towns and villages. I think that it is our duty not to pass that unnoticed. I challenge the hon. member to mention one man in my constituency who has been driven by this Government from the countryside. I do not know how many white people the hon. member himself employs on his farm. The Government does not drive the people to the towns, but when a man can’t find work owing to the drought and the farmer cannot help him, the Government employs him on the railways or other public service at 5s. or 6s. a day. I want to assure the Government that the population is very grateful for the white labour policy, and I am certain that if the people were to express their views the great majority would stand behind the Government in this matter.

I am very glad to see the Minister of the Interior in his place, because I want to say a few words with regard to a wrong impression he may have created, but which he did not intend, in dealing with what the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) had said on housing The point of the hon. member for Newlands was that the Government should not lend money on houses of a value below a certain amount. The impression I am sure the Minister did not intend to give was that my hon. friend was endeavouring to get assistance for what the Minister referred to as “better class people.” The housing loans were intended to encourage the construction of houses, and to remove, as far as possible, the undesirable and objectionable features of slum conditions in our cities. You can remove these conditions either by removing houses in the slum areas, and by giving people personal advances to build houses, or granting municipalities loans with which to erect dwellings, but a great deal of the congestion can be relieved by relieving it from the top. There are persons with comparatively small salaries who are forced to live under conditions out of which they themselves want to get. The Minister knows that the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) has had considerable experience in a very excellent form of helping to relieve this congestion, and it has been found by practical experience that the figure the Government has reduced the maximum to—£800 —is just too small, which we know from our inquiries, and from that particular scheme, in which I have the honour to be associated with the hon. member for Newlands. We know that there are quite a number of people with salaries of from £300 to £400 per annum who want a decent house of three or four rooms, but cannot put it up for £800, whereas £950 would cover quite a number of those cases. We all agree that a maximum of £1,500 is no longer needed, and that a reduction should be made.

That is for the new money.

We quite appreciate it, and we are grateful to the Minister for assenting to the replacement money being used for houses at the higher figure—a maximum cost of £950, but I would ask the Minister to go a little further and see whether the £950 should not refer to the new money, although I would not stress that too strongly. I think the Minister’s experience has been that it is a little difficult to get the smaller man to undertake the responsibility to take a house of this character, because a large number are not certain of their employment or of the place of their employment. A man may get quite good wages to-day, and to-morrow might get a better job in Port Elizabeth, and he would be in difficulties about the house. As regards individuals, we do not find the houses taken up with the freedom we would have been delighted to see. Taking the alternative, the schemes of the municipality, I think, except in one or two cases—I hope the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—a good many municipalities have not been at all keen to take on these loans for building schemes, and I am afraid, with the best intention in the world, this one million scheme will not be made the best use of for the particular object in view.

It has practically been allocated already.

Then we fall back on the replacement money. I am very glad to hear that, because it is rather a new departure. The Minister of Labour, who I do not see in his place, the other afternoon gave us a statement with regard to the methods adopted by him to deal with unemployment. I would be the last to criticize any attempt to cure unemployment; on the contrary, everyone on this side of the House has been very strongly in favour of any scheme that could be devized to deal with unemployment, which was a more difficult problem than it is now. One remembers well how, during those dreary discussions, and during the parliamentary elections, the welkin was made to ling by the Minister of Labour and others, and they charged the Government most furiously with an entire neglect of the problem. When informed what the late Government’s well-considered and wide-spread plans of afforestation schemes and public works were, they said they were mere palliatives, and that relief works were thoroughly vicious When I asked the Minister of Labour what he was doing in the matter, he outlined a large programme which seemed remarkably like the programme adopted by the previous Government. When it was pointed out to the Minister that what he was doing was merely a palliative he replied: “I must admit my efforts are only palliatives, but we shall do nothing until we have got rid of capitalism.” Does the Minister expect sensible men to accept a reply like that? We know the Labour Ministers have abandoned their fiery principles for the upsetting of capitalism, and that they now know they never will upset capitalism, for it is essential in every State in some form or other. A large number of members are still waiting for the Minister of Labour to reply to the question put by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) as to what he is doing to undermine the system of capitalism. It is a question how long the Minister will be able to carry on his arduous efforts to undermine that system. Nowadays the Minister in repeating his annual speech as to what he has done, is doing, and hopes to do, to cope with unemployment, speaks in a much more chastened way and with a much greater recognition of his own failure in attempting to deal with the problem. He talks about relief works, although he very strongly condemned the previous Government for undertaking them. What difference is there between the work done by men on the construction of roads which are not called relief work, and similar work done by the same class of men? When the Minister cannot arrange with provincial councils or town councils to provide work for the unemployed nothing is done by the Minister of Labour himself. We have an expensive Ministry of Labour, and I want to know in what single way has this great expense been justified by results. Let us have done with talk about the problem being solved, and there being no more unemployment. When the Minister of Defence was asked what was being done for the natives who had been displaced by white labour he took refuge in an angry retort.

There is a scarcity of native labour in the country today.

What kind of native labour?

On the farms and in the mines.

There are a large number of other occupations from which the natives have been displaced.

White people cannot always select their employment.

I have not put forward any such illogical position, but have asked if you displace natives what are you doing with them. The Minister of Finance is trying to give an answer which the Minister of Defence would not give. There is a scarcity of labour no doubt in certain respects, but that scarcity would have existed because of the non-employment of natives from outside the Union. What is the Government doing for natives who cannot find work?

That has never been a problem in this country—there is a scarcity of labour.

I am not able to accept that as an explanation. You are solving the question of white employment by creating black unemployment. You are solving the question at the expense of the native and users of the railways. While we would give every recognition to any good work done in the direction of solving the problem, the answers given by the Minister of Labour have been extraordinarily unsatisfactory.

When one listens to the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) on unemployment, one cannot help getting up. The farmers have a great deal to do with labourers, and, as a farmer. I wonder who is unemployed. I think the hon. member is only thinking about the “boys” that walk about Cape Town and will not work. They are a crowd who won’t work. Now the hon. member wants the Minister of Labour to give heed to those people. The hon. members know nothing of the position. The other day a coloured woman came to someone who needed a servant and said that she would not work under 8s. a day. I say that we should allow those people to starve if they will not work. When I compare what the Minister of Labour has done in my constituency with what the S.A.P.’s did, then they come off a bad second. I want to ask the hon. members how many Europeans have got work through the Department of Labour? The Minister of Labour has taken away 60 poor families out of my district alone, and sent them to plantations where they have another chance of making a living. I hope the Minister of Labour will take no notice of the group that won’t work. The hon. member for Rondebosch is so concerned about the natives. There is enough work on the countryside. We have hardly any coloured people. Let the natives come and work for us, and let these white people find work on the railways, even if it costs the railways a little more. We farmers are prepared to pay a little more if the white people are thereby enabled to make a living. The Minister has done a great deal to give people who want work a chance, and I hope he will continue doing so.

The hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst) correctly stated that the coloured people and natives go to the towns to-day from the countryside. Why? Because they are offered 8s. a day. They get that wage on all Government works, and the result is that they won’t work for less, but try to get Government work. That is the direct cause of labour leaving the countryside. I want to revert to the settlement the hon. member for Ermelo (Col. Cdt. Collins) spoke about. He pointed out how three Ministers were dealing with the settlement, the Ministers of Lands, of Agriculture and of Labour. The fact that there are three who are trying to carry out three schemes in various ways is a reason for my not being astonished if no success is met with. I hope it will be a success, but if it is to come under three Ministers one commences to doubt. Each one has his officials who carry out a certain policy. And there is no fixed basis on which schemes are conducted. If the whole business were left to the Minister of Lands, it would possibly succeed. A whole group of the officials could be discharged, officials who know nothing about farming People who are first-class farmers work under little officials who come from an attorney’s office and know nothing about farming. Another point in connection with which the farmers feel very strongly is tobacco farming under the Government. I understand that in the Brits Division, e.g., a million lbs. of tobacco will be produced by the Government tobacco fields. I understand the quality is very poor. This tobacco is thrown on the co-operative societies, who have to handle poor tobacco. Special buildings are needed for that, and our co-operative societies have to handle all the tobacco.

Are not the poor people to be allowed to produce tobacco also?

The Government cannot belong to a co-operative society, and the man who works under a Government system and is therefore dependent on the Government cannot also be a member of the co-operative society. The result is that the group of members who maintain the society by their subscriptions must pay all the expense of handling the Government tobacco. I think it is only fair of the Government to contribute or give the people leave to contribute as ordinary members. Buildings and all kinds of other provisions are necessary to handle the tobacco of these people. According to law, the societies are obliged to receive all the tobacco which is delivered to them. In consequence, they have a very hard time, and I hope that when we have to appeal to the Minister again he will come to our assistance. Then there are two boards that exercise a great influence in the country, the Board of Trade and Industries and the Wage Board, and I just want to say a few words to point out how those boards might possibly do something for the farmers. The Board of Trade and Industries recommended putting a dumping duty on phosphates. If it were necessary in order to keep a local manufactory going, it is possibly to be defended. I learn, however, that the price of the imported article is already higher than that of the local. Why, then, should the Minister impose a further levy? I learn that the Minister expects a report from the board towards the 15th, and if it is favourable he will allow the dumping duty to lapse. Our farmers are, however, now buying at the higher price as a result of the dumping duty. A few consignments are now in the docks, and orders have already been sent to traders to send the phosphates to the Transvaal. They now have to pay the duty. But why cannot the Government take it off now instead of making the people pay 5s. more? We must not only look at things from one point of view. It was argued here that our factory was a bastard industry which imported all its raw material. The farmers should surely not suffer for the sake of an industry which imports everything, and cannot exist without a high protection from the Government. Let the Board of Trade and Industries rather enquire how it can protect the farmer against the excessive prices for agricultural implements. Most of it comes from America. A price was fixed after the war, and is being maintained to-day. Why does not the board enquire where there is a screw loose? Everything has come down, and ploughs which shortly after the war cost £24 still cost the same, though the same plough before the war cost £12. Let them enquire whether big combines are the cause of that. On the other hand, the Wage Board raises the wages. In Oudtshoorn the wages were fixed in the tobacco industry, and not only the few factories that there are in Oudtshoorn were affected, but also the farms where roll tobacco was made. Prices are fixed, and the result is that the people can no longer produce and have ceased to carry on. Let the Board of Trade and Industries be instructed where the shoe pinches the farmers. These are not trifles. We have to pay taxes, and I do not say that the income tax must be abolished when farmers make money and can pay, but the indirect taxation is so tremendous that we pay the most of all.

Just mention a little.

Our farmers pay everything that other people pay, and then in addition we pay on agricultural implements.

What do you pay on it? What is the tax? Is that the only thing you can mention?

I pay every tax, and in addition we have these expensive agricultural implements.

The hon. member is running away.

If I buy a ton of fertilizer to-day I pay £2 19s. at the factory. The farmers in the Cape Province get it for that price, but in the Transvaal we have to pay £4 10s. Is not that an indirect tax of £1 11s. on the Transvaal farmers?

What is the cause of your paying more?

We help to keep up the railways and the white labour. Our position in the north is much worse than that of the farmers here, and if relief can be given, why does the Minister not do it? I said something about income tax. The matter is very complicated, and the Minister will agree that a farmer who bases his income on the stock basis pays double tax, and subsequently the stock die and he gets nothing.

That is not so.

Only when the stock come in and subsequently after four or five years on the capital stock basis. The position of the tobacco farmers is very serious, and I want to ask what is being done to find an overseas market? A person travelled about, but he was not even assisted by the Government. Nothing is done to sell tobacco overseas, and if the Government goes on producing tobacco as at present, the industry will go to the dogs. I see from the report of the person that South African tobacco is not wanted in Europe at all, that there is no sale at a profit unless South African tobacco can be sold at 3½d. with all charges. How can we live at that price? The Minister ought therefore to curtail the Government tobacco farming, and not to encourage the production.

I just want to make a few remarks in connection with the economic principle, or the application of the economic principle which we are now discussing, and which has been consistently followed for the past 17 years since Union. I just want shortly to enquire what the fruit of the policy of the late Government is. As for the effect of this Government’s policy, we cannot yet properly establish it. On this side of the House we cannot quite get away from the suspicion that some hon. members opposite who talk in that way about the farmers’ interests are influenced by something else in the background, and that the farmers are being used to protect another interest, I think we may, with a certain amount of justice, deduce that when the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) started about the farmers’ interests be had the object of defending big capital instead of primary needs. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) said that the effect of the Government’s policy was “To deplete the countryside and to fill the town.” We do not yet know what the effect of the policy will be, because it has only been in force for three years, and we have not yet been able to make any reliable inferences. The hon. member for Cradock is a little premature, and we must give the policy some chance. When the hon. member, however, speaks about depopulating the countryside, then I want for a moment to look at the effect of the policy of the last Government, according to the census of 1923. The average normal increase of the towns is about 10 per cent. per 10 years, a little more or less on the countryside. Instead of that, the census of 1923 shows that it was 20 per cent. at Pretoria instead, of 10 per cent., 22 per cent. in Pietermaritzburg instead of 10 per cent., 26 per cent. in Johannesburg, 31 per cent. in Cape Town, 32 per cent. in Bloemfontein, 37 per cent. in East London, and 55 per cent. in Durban, instead of 10 per cent. That looks like “depleting the countryside.” That was the effect of the economic policy of hon. members opposite. Speakers, including the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), have rightly pointed out— he has done it from time to time—that as there are various standards of civilization in South Africa, the least civilized hangs like a millstone about the neck of the more civilized, and that he is not able to uplift the less favoured one, but that the less civilized one is only civilized to pull down the more civilized. But we also have a tremendous increase of the natives in town under the former Government. The census of 1923 again shows that it was 94 per cent. for Durban, 33 per cent. Pretoria, 46 per cent. Port Elizabeth, 71 per cent Bloemfontein, and Cape Town 196 per cent The less civilized natives therefore increased in Cape Town by nearly 200 per cent. in 10 years. No more serious example of depopulation of the countryside can be quoted than the census of 1923. Then we come to another point which the hon. member for Yeoville warned us against, namely, that no civilized country dare allow the work to be done at the least possible wage. That is what the hon. members for Caledon (Mr. Krige) and Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) teach. They want the capitalists to have the right to get work done against the least possible payment, apart from the profits of the individual, of the companies in a small way, and the meaning to the whole people. If the doctrine of the hon. member for Caledon is sound, then no country is entitled to give the least further attention to any condition in its territory which has the tendency to oppress the less favoured section. That is the result of the economic doctrine of work for the least possible pay. Family life, of course, floes not come into it, nor the interests of the people as a whole. Then the question is only how many dividends can be obtained and, in the case of South Africa, can be sent overseas. It is one of the most pernicious economic doctrines. Because this kind of thing cannot continue, we heartily support the principle of civilized labour. I make bold to say that if we had followed that policy for the last 15 years, if there had been a certain amount of protection for civilized labour, we should not have had the terrible position of large numbers of poor and discouraged out-of-works. That is not only my view, but it also comes out in the blue books to which I will refer hon. members. It is also specially illustrated in the reports under the old Cape Government; 20 years ago under that Government a report was drawn up by a commission of the old Cape House of Assembly, which throws much light on the state of affairs that arose. And we also have a report of the last Government, viz., the report of the Unemployment Commission, in which the principle which the present Government is following was most strongly recommended. I refer to page 29 of the report. If we want to maintain our civilization, then we must see to it that a man is able to lead a civilized life. We see what is happening in South America, and this country if that is neglected, viz., that a part of the people are impoverished and become poor whites. The civilized labour policy is therefore so great a blessing, and I hope it will be continued. There are a few other points which were mentioned here by hon. members. It was stated that the costs of production were increased by civilized labour. This seems to me another of those statements of the popular kind which are calculated for the moment, one of the convenient arguments for members of the Opposition which, when they were in power, did not apply according to their attitude. The fixing of the wages was mentioned here as a reason why the primary costs of production of the farmer were increased. I just want to point out that the Opposition itself introduced and approved of the fixing of wages in various Acts such as the Factory Act, the Wages Act, the Industrial Conciliation Act and the Children and Women’s Protection Act. If hon. members opposite said to-day that the effect of the stabilizing of wages means an increase in the costs of production, how is it that they did not use that argument when those Acts were passed, but hon. members are aware that it was not so then, nor is it now. If the wage is fixed, it must be done according to a sound economic principle, i.e., that the industry must pay the highest wage it can carry. That is the principle of the Wages Act, which says that the Wage Board must investigate the carrying capacity of the industry. It does not apply to agriculture. I say, as a private individual and not as a member of the party, that, in my opinion, it is the duty of every resident on the countryside to give as much work as possible there to white people, and to keep them on the land. I do it myself as far as I can, and I regard it as the duty of every employer, whether he is a manufacturer or a farmer, to pay the utmost wage which his business will allow. In that way the countryside will not only he the natural home of the farmer, but it will enable a man to make a decent living on the land. The slackness which is seen in certain industries, as at present in tobacco growing, cannot arise from the fixing of wages. It is not true. It is over-production that is to blame. In this connection I should like to call the Government’s attention to cases where the Wage Board is asked to fix wages affecting the farmer. I think it is no more than right that the farmers in those cases should be represented on the board. It is not right that three officials who possibly have absolutely no knowledge of farming should decide what wages must be paid without consulting the farmers. Therefore I want to bring it to the Minister’s notice, so that in cases where wages are being fixed for the countryside, a representative of the farmers shall sit on the Wages Board. I am convinced that the population does not know what the result of the white labour policy will be. We know what the result is, if it is not applied because we have seen it in the past, but I hope and am convinced that it will appear the only way to maintain western civilization in South Africa.

I hope the Minister, when he replies, will be able to tell us he has modified his views about the method of the taxation of debenture interest. As the Minister knows debentures are a favourite form of investment with the small man. They do not fluctuate much, and they have the merit of a mortgage in some respects. There is usually a substantial margin of security. But the Minister, by his income tax arrangements, seems to prevent this form of investment being taken up by the small man. Take the case of a widow who has a capital of £5,000. If she invests it in 6 per cent. mortgages, she gets £300 a year, which under our income tax regulations is tax free. If she invests it in 6 per cent. debentures, she pays no less than 300 half crowns to the State, or £27 10s., an unreasonable tax for such a small income. She pays the maximum normal tax. It is time that this matter was revised. I understand the Minister’s chief difficulty is the collection of this tax, but I think the ingenuity of the income tax commissioner would overcome that. I would remind the Minister of a slogan which was very successful with regard to Union Loan Certificates “Don’t drift, cultivate thrift,” which I believe was very effective, and I hope the Minister will act up to that and encourage thrift. I do not think he has carried that into practice. While the population has increased 8 per cent., direct taxation has increased 28 per cent., and is £4,700,000 greater than when he took office. If the increase of taxation had followed a normal course, nobody would have objected. I do not know if the Minister, through association with the individuals who support him, is coming reluctantly to the conclusion that capital is a bad thing and the proceeds of robbery. I do not know if the Minister has got as far as that, but he must know that capital is simply the difference between production and consumption. I suppose the first capitalist was a savage who killed a beast and ate it and put the skin by for winter. That is what we are doing in some form or other—we put by a portion of what we do not use for future benefit. If we exhaust all our income, national or private, we shall very soon be in a position of penury. For instance, if for two years running we ate all our eggs, there would be no more poultry, and if we exhaust all our income, there will be no capital with which to develop the country. Everything should be done to encourage thrifty habits in the people, especially the small man. If a man puts by 1s. a week for 21 years, he will then be worth £100, assuming that he buys a Union loan certificate every time he has saved 16s. £100 at 5 per cent. will bring the man and his de scendants in 2s. a week for ever. I want to show how the Minister’s taxation is affecting the community at large. There are in the Union about 1,600,000 whites, of whom about half are males, and we may presume that the males and females over 21 years of age who are earning would number about 500,000. The Minister has extracted in taxation £4,000,000 more from their pockets than was necessary. In other words, each individual is paying £8 a year more in taxation; roughly that is 3s a week, and if each of these taxpayers had saved this 3s. a week for 21 years, then they would each have a capital of £300; so, by taking from the people the maximum amount in taxation, you are preventing people in humble circumstances from saving. These figures are not fanciful. When you consider wages, you must take into account the cost of living, which should bear a reasonable proportion to wages. Having got wages fixed and the cost of living attended to, then comes the question of taxation. I hope every effort will be made, particularly in the interest of the small man, to reduce taxation to the lowest possible limit. One of the reasons of high taxation is the enormous expansion of our public service. We have to-day 106,000 Europeans permanently employed in the public service, including the railways. That is an enormous proportion of our able-bodied population. The number of European voters is 384,000, so the proportion of State employees is not less than 27½ per cent. In every constituency there is an average of 700 European public servants. I do not say they are all voters, as there are some women in the public service. I have no doubt this vast number of public servants will account, to a very large extent, for the very large increase in taxation. Returning to the sphere of thrift, we are in a very unenviable position. In Australia two out of three of the whole population are post office savings bank depositors.

They don’t buy shares or invest in debentures.

The Minister does not encourage people to buy debentures.

Yet they do it all the same, according to you.

There are many opportunities in Australia for investing money, but we are dealing with the poor man. In New Zealand three out of five of the population are post office savings bank depositors. In South Africa, only one in five of the total white population has a deposit in the post office savings bank, and I am assuming that the whole amount in our Post Office Savings Bank belongs to Europeans. Then we find in Australia, each depositor per head of the population, has a credit of £30. In New Zealand the amount is £38 10s., and in South Africa, the average is only £3 18s. The figures are striking, and are not very satisfactory as far as we are concerned. The Minister may say that a good many people buy Union Loan certificates. Here again it is not very good. The amount to the credit of the people on these certificates in round figures is about four-and-a-half millions. A good many people take advantage of the conditions, and put in the maximum of £1,000 for the benefit of their children. It is not taken advantage of to the fullest extent by the small depositor. If you take the amounts of £500 and over standing in one name, you will find the amount credited to other depositors is not a very large one. These figures point to the fact that we are not in a position to become a thrifty country. Our taxation is increasing much too fast. We are taking from the people far more of their savings than we should do, and in many cases we are preventing them from saving. If this country is going to develop, it will be solely by the savings of the people, and we must give them the opportunity to save if we want to develop. It should be a great ambition of any Minister of Finance to reduce taxation to the lowest possible limit consistent with efficiency, to enable the small man to save and put him in a position of independence gradually, and thus bring about a condition of contentment and stability which will be very welcome in this country. I do hope the Minister will once more look into this matter of income tax. It presses very hard on small industries. There is no reason why the collections should not be made effective, and make the income tax payable on the amount received by the individual. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the officials to devise a scheme that will be effective and will not mean any loss to the treasury. We must open a campaign to make our savings greater, and endeavour to make the small man in this country a capitalist in his own right. Make him feel he has an opportunity of saving, and in the course of time he will reap the benefit of his thrift.

Recently the House passed additional expenditure “to be defrayed from revenue and loan funds.” I want to discuss briefly the principle upon which these estimates are framed and the language employed in the framing of the estimates. I raise it in connection with the sum of £100,000 appearing in Vote 19, Defence.

I do not think the hon. member can discuss the additional estimates on this Bill.

I am going to discuss the principles.

The hon. member should have discussed them when they were before the House.

I agree, sir.

Then the hon. member must not discuss them now.

I do not intend to. I wish to avoid the reoccurrence of this sort of framing of estimates. I wish to ask the Minister if it is a right and proper thing to put in larger sums than have actually been expended.

The hon. member ought not to discuss that. He had an opportunity on the additional estimates.

Will I have an opportunity on the main estimates?

I do not think so. The additional estimates are done with. The hon. member can deal with anything appearing in the estimates when the budget debate takes place. The additional estimates have already been disposed of.

Is it not of the greatest importance that only sums which have been actually expended by the 31st March should be included in the estimates?

You are quite wrong again. I should be glad to relieve you of your troubles, but, unfortunately, I cannot do it.

All right. I will leave it where it is. I wish to discuss the question of the appointment of a charge d’affaires who was sent to the continent to deal with our affairs. Take the sale of tobacco, which has been pushed considerably on the continent. I hear that the salary of the gentleman is included in this Part Appropriation Bill. If so, I want to ask the Minister if he agrees with the statement of the Prime Minister with regard to the appointment of this gentleman. The Prime Minister told the House that throughout the whole of the service they were unable to find a man competent to fill the position. I maintain that it was manifestly unjust to go outside the service to fill this office. I want the Minister to tell us whether it is a fact that they went through the whole of the service and could not find a man to fill the position. I want to draw attention to the qualifications of the gentleman appointed. I find them fully set out in “Industrial and Commercial South Africa” published this month. [Quotation read.]

Quite wrong, as usual.

Well, I read it because it has been issued to the public, and the Minister can tell us the true state of affairs. Perhaps I am doing Mr. de Villiers a justice, and not an injustice.

Tell us his birthmarks.

I leave that to you. I am not accustomed to searching for birthmarks. If these facts are correct, I do not think it is the right thing in the interests of South Africa to send a farmer and attorney overseas to attend to the commercial interests and requirements of this country. I hope the Minister will be able to enlighten us on this point. We want the very best men to be appointed in the best interests of South Africa.

The motion standing in my name asking the House to take the second reading of this innocent little Bill has produced quite a minor budget debate. A number of questions have been raised, some important questions, questions of policy with which some of my colleagues have already dealt. As far as questions of the general financial policy and economic policy are concerned, I agree with the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) and the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who have admitted that this is not the proper occasion to discuss those questions. We will shortly have an opportunity of doing so when we deal with the budget. There are just a few points which have been touched upon in this debate on which I think it is necessary for me to make a few remarks. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) in discussing the question of unemployment gave, as one of the reasons for the state of affairs which we have in the country in regard to unemployment, the high taxation of the country. My hon. friend has also chided me with having imposed a dumping duty on superphosphates to increase the revenue. Let me tell him at once that this is really not a question of revenue at all. We were merely carrying out the law which lays down that if certain facts are present and injury is apprehended to one of our industries, it is the duty of the Minister of Finance to take action, and that is what we have done. The hon. member may not agree in regard to the general wisdom of the action which we have taken in imposing this duty. My colleague has already explained the whole position, and it shortly comes down to this—that here, on the facts as represented to us, it appeared that not only would it be in the interests of this particular secondary industry concerned, but it would be in the interests of the farmers themselves that this protection should be given. I have stated on more than one occasion that, as far as I am concerned, when we deal with the question of protection, where you get this difficult situation that there is a conflict of interest between the secondary and primary industries of this country, the interests of the primary industry must come first, and that is the policy which I am going to consistently adopt when I consider this question of industries, but here, fortunately for us, on the facts there is no such conflict. I think our farming friends are adopting a short-sighted policy when they take up such an attitude towards this question. The facts which have been brought before us go to show that it would be against the interests of the farmers themselves if we allowed this industry to be strangled, that it would not be to their permanent interests. Eventually they would have to pay very much more for this essential commodity in regard to the conduct of their farming operations. If the Government is wrong there, we shall have to review the whole position. The Minister of Mines has informed the House that that phase of the question is being investigated. Certain facts have come to light subsequently, and the Government is going into the whole question, but we have taken this action in the belief that here we are acting not only in the interests of this secondary industry, but in the permanent interests of the farmers themselves. If that is not so, the Government will have to review the whole position.

Ignoring all the arguments and facts.

The Government has acted on the facts brought before it. If those facts are not correct then the Minister of Mines and Industries has told the House that the matter will be re-considered in the light of the investigation we are conducting. The hon. member referred to the question of the increase in our taxation. He mentioned a certain figure, and I interjected by saying: “It is quite meaningless to say that the amount of taxation the people of the country are paying is so much or so much; let us discuss the merits of the situation and see in how far the incidence of taxation has increased.” I agree that the yield from taxation has increased, as it has been doing since 1910, but also the amount of expenditure on the various services has increased. The country is progressing and expanding, and one would naturally expect that the yield from taxation is also increasing. But the important point is this—that, although we have been reducing taxation—the hon. member may say we have not reduced it sufficiently, but the fact remains that we have reduced it during the four years—the yield from taxation has kept pace with the expenditure of the country and that is a position of affairs which we did not have formerly. I do not blame my hon. friend when he and his friends say it should be the duty of the Government and especially of a Minister in the position I hold to make every effort not only to curtail or arrest expenditure, but to reduce taxation. That is the task to which we should apply ourselves, but I say again that in order to do that there will have to come a change over the general outlook of the people of this country in regard to these matters. A few weeks ago we dealt with the additional estimates of expenditure, an increase of over a million in one year, but there was not a single member in this House who pointed to the possibility of deleting a single one of those items. An increase of over a million additional expenditure in a year, but these estimates went very easily through the House. I explained them, but not even any members of the Opposition were able to point out that it would be in the public interest not to spend a single sovereign. Let us examine the facts. I say again, I have no quarrel with the hon. member when he tries as he says to assist me to try and keep down expenditure and reduce taxation, but when he tries to give certain facts to the country to show how extravagant we have been, I think the hon. member should be careful that the exact position is stated. He is a keen student of these matters and, as a rule, very careful with his figures, but here I think he has, as they vulgarly say, put his foot into it rather badly. The hon. member made one important statement. He says that during the four years this Government has been in office the expenditure or rather the taxation, has increased by an amount of £4,670,000 or 28 per cent., while the population has only increased by 8 per cent. What are the actual facts? My hon. friend appears to have taken the yield from taxation, not during the year we took office—1924-’25— but 1923-’24. That gives him a comparison, not over a four years’ period, but over a five years’ period. What are the actual facts? If you take the four-year period, the amount yielded by taxation when this Government took office was not £16,830,000, but £18,366,000. If you then take the other figures given by the hon. member, the present yield, £21,500,000, which is approximately correct, you get £3,134,000 instead of the £4,670,000 given by the hon. member, or a percentage increase, not of 28, but of 17. That is rather a big difference.

Even that is double.

But it is a very big difference. But what is the other fact which emerges from this? If you take the five-year period, in one year when the hon. member was in office you had an 11 per cent. increase to make this up to 28 per cent. But, after all, that is not the correct way of looking at the matter. When you come to the budget, you can discuss the whole matter and we will examine the actual increase—in seeing how the policy is a right one, and how far that policy is one the majority of the country would like to adopt. That is the only right view to adopt in these matters. It has also been stated in the course of the discussion the large sum of this increased taxation which we are getting was derived from customs, and is due to the increased customs duties put on by the present Government. Let me point out, in regard to that, that practically the only increase of any importance that has taken place as the result of the adjustment of the tariff has been in regard to the withdrawal of the 3 per cent. preference. I gave the House the figures, when it was stated that the difference would be in the neighbourhood of £400,000. That has been borne out in a remarkable manner by the actual returns. There is actually a very small increase in the customs yield. In 1924 the imports were £58,000,000, excluding Government stores, in the following year £61,000,000, in 1926 £65,000,000 and in 1927 £67,000,000. That gives you as the percentage on these imports, 12.63 in 1924, 13.14 in 1925, 13.9 in 1926 and 13.2 in 1927. There is a difference of just ½ per cent. during the four-year period, so hon. members will see that on the whole the percentage yield of customs duties on our importations has been very constant.

The 3 per cent. rebate is half a million.

About £400,000. I suppose it will be somewhat more now if you take the actual importations of those lines now. In 1925 when the tariff was introduced the figure the Customs Department gave me, and which subsequently proved to be correct, was about £400,000. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) has spoken about high protection. Well, we have not gone in for a policy of high protection. If you compare our customs duties with those of America and Australia, you will see that ours are on a very moderate scale. Before protection is granted the industry concerned has to justify its claim to receive protection. Hon. members are not entitled to predict the very serious consequences which seem to have befallen our sister colony—Australia—in regard to protection. The hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen Byron) has brought up the question of the taxation of debenture interest. I do not wish to anticipate the budget statement, but it is a very important matter, and is receiving my attention, and I will see in how far it is possible to meet the claims which have been put forward by people who invest in these debenture issues. The hon. member also dealt with the question of thrift generally, but he is probably not aware of the thrift committee, which is doing very good work in popularizing thrift among the masses of the people in this country. It is quite true that if we compare the actual deposits South Africa lags far behind countries like Australia, and it gives rise to the question whether we are as thrifty as some of the other dominions. The fact must not be lost sight of, however, that owing to the peculiar conditions in this country people in South Africa invest largely in shares. Then there is life insurance, which is a very popular kind of thrift, and we also have Union Loan certificates. Taking all these things, I do not think we compare very badly with Australia or New Zealand. The Government is quite alive to the importance of the question of thrift. Therefore, we have this thrift committee, of which the hon. member of Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is chairman, which has been doing excellent work in furthering this very worthy object. During the recess a departmental committee went into the question of popularizing the post office savings bank. The committee has reported, and we are considering the report, to see whether we should modify our methods. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) asked me whether Government intended introducing legislation to control shop rents. The reply has been given that Government does not intend to introduce such legislation. Then the hon. member brought up the question of whether we were going to have a scheme of old age pensions. I can only give the reply I gave a few days ago. The hon. member must await our plans, which will be disclosed in the budget statement. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) asked a few questions dealing with the department of the Minister of Mines. He made certain allegations about the supply of boots by the mines of the Witwatersrand. I am informed representations have been made of this kind for some time, but little reliable information has been forthcoming. If a prima facie case is made out, the Minister will go into it. Then the hon. member asked whether the proclamation regarding the State diggings in Namaqualand was to allow a certain company there to exploit their claim. No, it is for the State diggings only, and the working of the hundred claims of the syndicate which made the discovery. The hon. member also asked with regard to the proclamation of the Phoenix mine. He has a lengthy question on the Order Paper to the Minister of Mines, and I hope he will wait for his reply in answer to that question in a few days’ time.

*The hon. member for Ermelo (Col-Cdt. Collins) and the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) have again referred to the income tax on farmers. I wish to remind them that recently, in reply to a motion, I said that the Government was quite prepared to consider the matter, but since that motion was passed, certain resolutions have been passed by agricultural unions, i.e., by people who represent the farmers, and we have not only to do with the opinion of the chairman of the Transvaal Union, which expresses disapproval of the abolition of the farmers’ income tax, and says that we are insulting the farmers. Many letters have, moreover, come in from farmers saying that they strongly object to being insulted in that way. In the circumstances, when possibly 50 per cent. of the farmers are opposed to it, we do not feel that we can consider such a step any further and, therefore, I said at Bredasdorp that such a proposal was impracticable.

I think that is all.

Tell us about de Villiers.

Oh, yes, the hon. member has brought up the question of Mr. de Villiers’ appointment, and he asked if I agreed with the Prime Minister’s statement. Yes, I agree with him—every word he said. I think Mr. de Villiers will represent us in Europe in a creditable manner. I think it is a first-class appointment. The information the hon. member gave out of a certain publication is absolutely incorrect regarding the qualifications of Mr. de Villiers.

The point was, was there no one available in the service?

It is not a service appointment. No, we did not comb out the service. It is an appointment outside the service.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into committee on 14th March.

Business suspended at 6 p.m., and resumed at 8.6 p.m.

When this debate adjourned last week, I had said all I could in favour of the Minister’s forward policy in connection with the opening up of the country by means of motor transport. Having given the Minister all the praise I possibly could in connection with this energetic policy of developing the country, I was gradually working towards the question of rates, which requires the fullest consideration. When we went into Union, Natal, owing to its geographical position, possessed an advantage which placed her in a very excellent position as regards competing with those who were very much farther away from the port than we were. We understood, of course, when we did come into Union that we should lose that geographical advantage, and we have not been disappointed. The whole of our naturally favourable position has been taken away from us. When the question of rates came to be considered, the first thing that struck the powers that be, was why should Natal be enjoying all these advantages? Why should not others in the Union be put on the same footing? We had no objection to that, but what we did not expect, was that when this readjustment of rates took place, we should be placed in a worse position and at a greater disadvantage than others who live considerably farther away from the ports than we do. And that is exactly what has been done. For instance, taking one illustration only, it costs more to send a case of fruit, say oranges, 155 miles to the port of Natal, than to send the same weight from Nelspruit to Cape Town, a distance of 1,196 miles. We want to know why we should be placed in this position of inferiority. It is practically penalizing us. I can tell the House in a few seconds why it is. The Administration regards Natal in an entirely different light to any other province in the Union. When you get to Natal, you expect all the branch railways to pay their way, and I must say that most of the branch lines in Natal do pay very well. If they do not pay, a commission is sent down to inquire into matters and in some instances to threaten the people down there with pulling up their railways. That does not take place in any other part of South Africa. Within the last four months we have had a departmental commission sitting in Natal to take evidence, and to consider the advisability of taking up the Weenen railway and replacing it by road transport. Everyone knows it. I cannot conceive such a suggestion being put before any other part of South Africa. It is only because it is Natal. I cannot conceive of the Minister sending a commission to the Transvaal or Free State, for instance, to suggest that the railways there which are not paying should be torn up. This is one of the reasons why Natal is penalized: Our branch railways are expected to pay; branch lines in other provinces are not so expected. Again, if the Government establishes a road motor service, that road motor service is expected to pay, and so you have in Natal a condition of affairs which today makes it more expensive to send a case of oranges a distance of 155 miles from point to port than it does to send a case of oranges from the Transvaal, a distance of 1,196 miles. I have asked for these figures to be worked out so that they can be placed on record and so that the Minister may have an opportunity, at his leisure, of considering them. It is not the first time I have drawn the Minister’s attention to this, nor of course will it be the last. I think the Minister and the Railway Board will realize upon consideration that these people are not being fairly treated. This is the report I have received. I will read it—

This is worked out by one company, the Muden Co-operative Co., Limited—

I should like to interpose this remark; we know that so much money is being lost on branch lines in other parts of the Union that the Minister dare no longer disclose the figures—

I would just like to remind the Minister that on the 21st January last, he received this telegram from the East London Chamber of Commerce [telegram read]. In dealing with this matter I do not want for a moment, to be charged with pleading for the parish pump. I want to show the Minister, the House, and perhaps the country, that the matter is not only of the deepest interest to East London, but to that of the vast hinterland behind it. East London serves a large extent of country for some of the most important productions of South Africa. I will tell the Minister that it is the premier port for the export of wool. The amount of this commodity that goes through East London is larger than goes through any other port. I would also like to tell the Minister that East London has the record for the quick and economic despatch of mealies without the advantages of a grain elevator. Grain elevators have been put up in Cape Town and Durban at an enormous cost, but at East London maize is despatched quickly and expeditiously and at one-third the cost that would have to be paid if it were through a grain elevator. In the year ended 31st March, last year, 642 vessels called at East London, of a registered tonnage of over four millions. Of this number 484 entered the harbour, so that 158 remained outside—that is an average of about three a week. Two each week would account for the mail steamers on the outward and home voyages, which are not able to enter the harbour there because they cannot turn when inside. East London has been described by experts, including the admiral, commander-in-chief, as the best and safest harbour in South Africa. This is most excellent, up to a point. But large ships which can enter cannot turn. There is ample water—32 feet—enabling the largest vessels which visit the port to enter. It will be the Minister’s duty to controvert the figures, if they are wrong, but if they are correct the country requires an explanation why the turning basin has not been constructed. Plans have been got out for one 1,000 feet by 1,000 feet, which would enable the largest vessel to enter the harbour and go out again. It is estimated that the dredging would cost £40,000 only. One estimate is £35,000 and another is £45,000, and I am selecting the mean. The plant for excavating this basin is already on the spot, and it could be excavated at practically no additional cost to the country for the simple reason that there are several days on which the excellent dredger at the port cannot go out on account of stormy weather. If, on those days, the energy of the crew were devoted to dredging the turning basin, it would be at almost no cost to the Government beyond the coal and oil. The Minister, in his reply, stated when this matter was referred to him, that he had to be guided by public opinion, which was averse to more capital expenditure. Is that correct?

That is one of the reasons I gave.

A member of the Railway Board said, “Yes, when you have your turning basin excavated the work is not finished” … “Cranes and so forth have to be provided.” Now, No. 2 Wharf is condemned, and requires about £103,000 to be expended on it to be put into order, whereas to provide the same accommodation on the same site as the turning basin would cost only £50,000 or £60,000 at most, so there is a saving at once when this matter of the wharf has to be provided for. This is not the only point I have to plead in connection with this matter. As the last speaker pointed out, there are certain anomalies in our railway traffic. At present fruit from Alice, Fort Beaufort and Stockenstroom is railed 800 miles to Cape Town. The distance to East London is only 100 miles. The reason it is railed to Cape Town is that there refrigerating trucks can go alongside the mail steamers, but in East London the fruit has to go out in lighters, and they are not equipped with refrigerators; therefore the fruit may be damaged between the port and the vessels. It takes 80 trucks to shift this fruit to Cape Town. If the fruit were shipped at East London, the service could be done by employing only 10 trucks. We are always complaining of the shortage of trucks in regard to the transport of fruit, coal and everything else, and here the Minister can save 70 trucks in the handling of this one commodity alone. Surely that ought to weigh heavily with him. Dredging the excavation for the turning basin will practically be only a book entry, and I cannot impress that sufficiently on the House and the Minister. There is another saving. It is estimated that when this turning basin is constructed, the mail steamers can come into the harbour, and lighterage to the value of £30,000 will be released for the service of other ports, such as Algoa Bay, or wherever else they may be required. That is an important item. The upkeep of the lighters is no less than £10,000 a year. We have, in East London, a very nice, safe and commodious harbour—once you are in. It is 100 acres in extent, and can hold a large number of vessels at a time, and if we can only arrange for the larger vessels to come in, and go out, it will be of advantage not only to the port, but to the hinterland it serves. The Union Castle Company says “When you are ready we will come in.” Not only the mail steamers will enter, but there is a great probability that the big Australian liners which at present call at Durban will call at East London as an intermediate port. Only the other day it was announced that the African Refining Company was looking for a site for a refinery. Vast quantities of petrol are being used, and it is of importance to every industry that petrol should be available at a cheap rate, but that can be done only by landing it in a crude state and refining it. This company, I understand, is prepared to put down no less than £1,000,000 for the development of a refinery at a suitable port, and I am informed that East London would be selected but for the lack of turning facilities. At present when an oil tanker enters the port the whole of the work of loading and discharging other vessels in the vicinity is held up, as, owing to the danger of fire, no fires of any sort, whether in donkey engines or galleys, can be allowed on them. Not long ago there was a serious accident and loss of life at East London for want of proper facilities in unloading a tanker. There are ideal sites for an oil refinery on the West Bank. I do not know what the position of manganese is now, but some time ago it was estimated that 250,000 tons of manganese ore would be shipped from East London to America every year, so that two steamers a week would be required. Surely, with that traffic in sight, it is worth while spending a little money. We are always talking of the vast export of fruit we are to have in the near future. Where is it to be shipped from? All the ports must have their share, and be equipped to handle this traffic. When pure gold and diamond mines cease to give satisfactory results, their place may perhaps be taken by shipments of fruit to customers in Europe who will readily buy it. I wish I could take all the members to East London by sea on a day when there is a bit of a wind on, and for them to wait in a jumpy sea on a tug alongside the mail steamer for almost an hour, waiting for the last passenger to be transferred. Inward and outward about seven thousand passengers each way have to be dealt with in this manner. Then many visitors are debarred from visiting East London through not being able to face the terrors of the basket and the tug on a rough day. This is a great loss to the port and to the visitor, for there is no prettier or attractive sea front in South Africa than East London. All this inconvenience could be obviated if the mail steamers could enter the port, and the cost would be trifling. East London is on the Indian Ocean, which is subject to storms, and when a particular wind is blowing a strong tidal wave comes in. The effect on the shipping in the harbour is sometimes very serious, vessels sometimes being torn from their moorings. A turning basin, however, would act as a safety valve for the onrushing water. Anything that helps to develop our trade and commerce surely is a matter for which the Railway Department exists, and, incidentally, for which the Minister exists. I am glad that the Minister smiles acquiescence. It is his bounden duty to run his department on business principles. What I am suggesting is a good business proposition from any point of view, and I do not wish the Minister to side-track the matter on account of expenditure. If he objects to my figures, let him say so fair and square, but he will not be able to controvert the fact that the expenditure is not excessive. I am prepared to quote the opinion of competent persons who say that the figures are correct, and that the whole cost of excavation of the turning basin will be practically but a book transaction. These are very important facts, and if they cannot be controverted, what reason is there for not going on with the work? The excavation could be done in about three and a half months. What I ask for is something feasible which is inexpensive and would be a profitable business. I appeal confidently for the support of any member whose constituency is served by East London. I believe the hinterland of East London extends to Kimberley and the area to the east of that to the centre of the Free State. That hinterland contains vast areas not yet fully developed, and one means of developing them is to provide easy and inexpensive means of communication. East London has nothing to fear by comparison with the expenditure on other harbours. East London has been rather a Cinderella of the Union ports, but in spite of that Buffalo Harbour has progressed. If the Minister turns the matter down, and he gives permission to the local authorities to go on with the business, they are quite prepared to finance it. The walls, of course, would follow later. We have none too many ports in this country. For that matter we have only four ports, and they should be well equipped and in such a position that the largest vessels coming to South Africa can be assured of safety and convenience, and I hope the Minister will show in his reply that the time has come when this very much needed work will be given effect to.

There are a number of matters I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to, for instance the question of the eight hour day. One would like to know how much further he is going to give effect to the pledge which has been made. There is also the question of differential rates of pay. I do not, however, propose to enter into these questions now, as I am sure they will be dealt with by other members from these benches. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the question of the shipping agreement which the House has been informed has been entered into between the Government and the Conference Lines. The question of whether the shipping needs of the country should be carried out by the Conference Lines or by the State has been a matter of controversy for a number of years, and the principle of the establishment of State shipping is one the South African Labour party has advocated and to which it is pledged. I think, too, the vast majority of the members on the Nationalist benches have favoured the establishment of State shipping in South Africa, and for that reason the House has a right to expect, before the Government definitely commits itself to the agreement with the Conference Lines and perpetuates the principle of the combine, that the House should have an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the agreement which has been, or is about to be, entered into by the Government and the Conference Lines. It is a matter of vital importance that the House should have an opportunity of dealing with the agreement before it is actually carried into effect. There are many members of the House, including the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who will congratulate the Minister and the Government on the fact that they have decided to enter into an agreement with the conference lines.

It is a good thing for the country.

I know the hon. member’s view. He thinks that everything should be done as far as possible by private enterprize. He is an extremist on this question. You would imagine that private enterprize has always been right, and State enterprize always wrong. A reference to the bankruptcy court records of this and every other country will show them littered with the failures of private enterprize in every direction. Unlike the hon. member for Cape Town (Central), I am not an extremist. I do not adopt the attitude that everything should be done by the State. I am not interested in the State dealing in luxuries or in non-essentials in the interests of the community, but where you come to matters essential to the interests of the community, whether they be commodities or service, they should be carried out by the State, so that private enterprize shall not have the power of dominating the interests of the country or the interests of the citizens. If there is one class of service which it is essential private enterprize should not control, it is transport. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) would oppose any departure from the principle of private enterprize, yet we have already departed from it so far as internal transportation is concerned. We have State railways. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) would not scrap State railways and hand them over to private enterprize.

They would he run more economically.

It seems foolish, because it is so obvious, to suggest that the logical conclusion of the policy of internal State transport should be the transport of goods coming to South Africa from overseas and going from South Africa to overseas, by means of State shipping.

Take Australia as an example.

I will tell him something about Australia. I will not go into general arguments of the principle of State transportation. I could do no better than quote the policy as given in a nutshell by the Minister of Labour in 1925. He was then Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and was reported in the “Rand Daily Mail” of October 7, 1925, as having stated at a meeting at Vereeniging that “he would like next session to see State shipping embarked on. They might call it socialism, but it seemed a fool’s policy for a country to deal with its transport to the water’s edge and leave it to shipping combines to carry it to the world’s markets.” I need not do more than quote this.

But he is not an authority.

He is quite as good an authority as the hon. member for Cape Town (Central). The only argument utilized from time to time against this policy of State shipping has been the case of Australia. It is going to become in future a bugbear to those who favour State enterprize. It has not only not proved a failure, but it has proved a success where it has been adequately tried.

Where?

We know that until a few weeks ago, when the Government announced that they had come to an agreement with the conference lines, the press was occupied with harrowing details of the failure of State shipping in Australia, but as soon as the object was achieved we saw nothing more about State enterprize in Australia. I want to put to this House and to the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) a few figures and a few facts which I am sure will be examined with impartiality. I want to show that where shipping has been done by private enterprize, the public interest very often suffers. I take one case quoted in the daily press throughout South Africa in June last year. In that case, a firm had tendered to supply a number of railway coaches to the Railway Department, and in respect of those coaches the freight, insurance, etc., amounted to about £1,000 per coach. The tendering firm explained that the price quoted was based upon ability to ship the coaches in accordance with clause 19 of the railway conditions of tender—under the old agreement with the Union Castle Company, it was a condition that Government goods had to be shipped with the Union Castle Company or such ships as the Union Castle Company allocated. The firm explained that if they had been free with regard to this question of shipping, they could have reduced the price by £300 per coach. One would be interested to know how much, taking into consideration the importation of railway coaches and railway material in South Africa, could have been saved to the State and through the State to the community, to the users of the railway and the workers in the railway service, if it had not been for this agreement under which people who were tendering to the Government had to send their goods through the conference lines at the rates which the conference lines laid down. If a comparison is taken of the rates charged for goods shipped from London to South Africa and goods shipped, let us say, from London to the Argentine, which is a much greater distance, you will find in quite a large number of cases that the charges for the same tonnage to the Argentine is less than to South Africa. To that extent the development of the Argentine is being fostered while the development of South Africa is being curtailed. I could give a number of items, most of which are known to the Minister and his department. Take the case of pig iron. On pig iron the charge from London to South Africa is 30s. per ton as compared with 22s. 6d. per ton from London to the Argentine. I go further and say this, that even Great Britain has suffered from the same position, development having been hampered by the fact that the conference lines which control the shipping trade of England have been giving lower rates to foreign countries in comparison with the rates which they were charging in England. I quoted a number of those cases from the Board of Trade reports when we were discussing in this House the question of the Steel and Iron Bill. I have here a quotation which I think shows that the position applies at the present moment. The London “Times,” which I am sure will be accepted as an authority by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), contained on 20th January, 1928, a report of a meeting of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, at which Mr. Wright, who represented the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, stated that traffic sent from London to Hamburg and from Hamburg to Buenos Aires was charged 57s. 6d., and traffic sent direct from Liverpool to Buenos Aires was charged 100s. The rate of freight for iron and steel tubes from a continental port to Alexandria was 14s., compared with 25s. from a British port. In the case of Constantinople, the respective rates were 15s. and 32s. 6d. The London “Times,” in a leading article, said that the matter could hardly be left where it was, and that it was no use having these freight questions settled by shipowners and shippers—importers—“since shippers are not necessarily interested in the promotion of British manufacturing industry, and may conceivably derive as much profit from selling foreign goods as from the sale of British goods.” The same has been the experience of New Zealand, where they have depended on private shipping. They have been paying higher charges than the people of Australia have been paying, as the result of having a State shipping line. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) will find in Hansard of the Australian Federal Parliament, in November, 1927, a report dealing with the question of shipping in a speech delivered by one of the hon. members there, in which a comparison is made between the charges for New Zealand goods and the charges for Australian goods. Mr. Coleman, one of the members, stated: “The charges for carrying frozen rabbits from New Zealand to the United Kingdom was 10s. per ton measurement more than from Australia. The carriage of apples was 6d. a case more. Frozen lambs were 5s. 10d. per ton weight more. The additional freight for the carriage of beef was £1 3s. 4d. per ton.” Mr. Coleman, continuing, said “if Australian shippers were on New Zealand rates they would have paid last year £239,000 more to send their refrigerated consignments to British markets.” The same applies to the position of South Africa. I have here a statement giving a comparison of the charges for certain articles from South Africa to London and from Australia to London. In the ease of bark, the figures given were 63s. per ton from South Africa to London, as compared with the same tonnage calculated on the same distance from Australia, 29s. per ton; dried and canned fruit, 63s. from South Africa, as compared with 29s. from Australia; wines, 63s. from South Africa, as compared with 29s. from Australia; grease wool, 198s. 6d. from South Africa, as compared with 105s. from Australia; scoured wool, 242s. from South Africa, as compared with 128s. 9d. from Australia; apples, oranges and grapes, 87s. 6d. per 40 cubic feet from South Africa, as compared with 43s. from Australia; eggs, 108s. from South Africa, as compared with 54s. 6d. from Australia. These figures are now in the possession of the Minister. I know, and it is only fair to say, that subsequent to these figures having been calculated, the Union Castle Company issued a statement in which they declared that the figures given were not accurate, and they quoted lower figures as far as their charges are concerned, but in that connection may I point out that the reduction in the freight was brought about as the result of the competition of the Cambrian line of steamers, and that even the reduced figures given by the Union Castle Company were far in excess of the Australian charges. Let me also, for the benefit of this House, quote a statement which was delivered by Mr. Bruce, Prime Minister of Australia, and which is reported in the Hansard of the Federal Parliament on July 10th, 1923. They were having a debate in connection with State shipping, and he stated—

From time to time the Conference line approached the Commonwealth line of steamers with the request that they should increase the charges, and on each occasion the Commonwealth line refused, with the result that the Conference line, on several occasions, were obliged to reduce their charges in order to come into line. In 1920 the shipping combine suggested to the Commonwealth line that the freights on general cargo should be increased, but the management refused to do it. At the same time freights were increased on the North Atlantic lines by over 25 per cent., and on the South African lines from 10s. per ton. No increase was made in Australia. In 1921 a similar proposal was made by the combine to the Commonwealth line. The State line again definitely refused, with the result that the combine had to reduce rates by about £2 a ton. The Melbourne “Argus,” which is an anti-Labour paper, on the 30th March, 1921, stated—

The same thing took place in 1923. The State line made further reductions as a result of which the combine had to make similar reductions. The reduced rates were estimated to benefit the people to the amount of £2,000,000 per annum. The same took place as recently as July, 1926, when the Commonwealth line announced a further reduction, and Mr. Bruce, speaking on July 13th, 1926, is reported, in the Melbourne “Argus” as having said—

He then goes on to give details, and he comes to this conclusion—

At the expense of the taxpayer.

Who is the taxpayer? The consumer is the taxpayer. That money would have been paid to the combine, instead of going to the consumer. If the hon. member made an impartial investigation he would find, as I have, that the reduction in freight, as far as Australia is concerned, amounted to very much more than the losses. They have sold out because Mr. Bruce came in with two objects, the one to scrap the State Bank of Australia, and the other to scrap the State shipping line in the interests of private enter-prize. They have been in office for five years, and it has taken them until now to be able to do it, because there would have been too great an outcry originally. Ultimately they reduced the Commonwealth line to seven steamers.

No, it is not good enough.

Eventually, by continuous propaganda, they impressed the people with the desirability of doing away with them, and they did away with them. We know exactly what the hon. member would do if he had pledged himself to do away with a State shipping line. When it comes to a question of State enterprize or private enterprize, I believe the hon. member would carry out his pledges to the letter in order to do away with State enterprize. I am pointing out what the actual position is. The actual figures and facts reflect this, that the farmers of Australia, the consumers of Australia, and the workers of Australia benefited under the State shipping line, and I venture to say that it requires no prophet to forecast that the State line being scrapped the conference line will begin putting up their charges and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will show no loss, but the consumer will pay more for his goods. That is what, in South Africa, we should consider, that it is of the utmost importance to the farming population, to the public generally and to the consumers, that rates shall be at the lowest possible level, and it shall not be within the power of a shipping combine which has been penalizing Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, it shall not be in their power and in their hands to decide what they shall charge or what they shall not charge. I regret very much that the Government, with the pledge that many of them have given, with the pledge certainly given by the Labour party and with the very strong and drastic statement which only recently was issued by the Government to the Union Castle Company, should have decided to enter into an agreement with the combine instead of pursuing a policy of State shipping. I think it was not a very wise step, but a very timid one brought about by the unconscious desire of the Government to be considered business men, statesmen and moderate men. It is regrettable that the Labour party should be held responsible for a policy to which it is diametrically opposed. The “Cape Times” admitted in an editorial that part of the loss in respect of the seven steamers to which the Commonwealth line had been reduced was due to the fact that the conditions of labour and payment on the Australian Commonwealth line were better than on the conference lines, and it said that, had the Commonwealth line been run on the same conditions as the conference lines were run, it would have saved £220,000 per annum. That is a position we do not want in South Africa; that our shipping should be carried under conditions under which the farmer on the one hand pays very heavily, and the consumer on the other hand also does so, while the workers on those ships are paid very inadequately. If the Government had established a State shipping line it would have benefited the farming community and the community generally, as well as the working classes. Thousands of the working classes who are at present idle would have got work. I hope the Minister will, before this agreement comes into effect, give this House a proper opportunity of discussing it, and the policy underlying that agreement.

I just want to amplify a few figures—

The hon. member has already spoken in this debate.

The case of the turning basin which is of such importance at East London has been so admirably explained by my colleague that there is not much to be said by me in that connection. The greatest naval authority, the Admiral, unsolicitedly paid a very high testimony to the safety and security of Buffalo Harbour, and expressed his astonishment that provision had not been made for the turning basin that is so imperatively required. He has no axe to grind; nobody can buy his opinion; it is voluntarily given. The Minister knows all about it, and he knows full well the urgency of this whole case. Arguments have been dinned into him, and he has not yet vouchsafed any adequate reason why this scheme, necessary for the completion of the port of East London, should not be proceeded with. I leave that for the present, and I shall return to it at some later date. I want to deal with the human factor in the railway and harbour service. What policy governs the Railway Administration in providing for the dismissal of some of its employees for faults which, if perpetrated by others, are met by the imposition of a fine? I have certain documents in my possession about which I have spoken to the general manager, and I want to say that he is a man under authority, and has to carry out the regulations, first of Parliament, and then of the Railway and Harbour Board. Last year an engine driver on the eastern system, after 27 years’ service on the footplate, through a temporary error of judgment, when driving a goods train, overran certain points to the extent of 15 yards. He has been dismissed. To-day, with a family of young children, he is helpless and stranded, with nothing to do, in spite of his strong pleas to be employed in some other capacity in the railway service. Five years ago that man, because of some defect in the structure of a hand-rail on the engine, had a serious fall, was treated in hospital, and has not been the same man since. That ought to be taken into reckoning years ago, but it was not so taken; he was continued as a driver, and, through a lapse of memory, he did something which did not result in an accident.

It might have resulted in a very serious accident.

A great deal might happen that does not happen. This man, probably 50 years of age, after 20 years’ unblemished service, has now been dismissed. The medical certificate proves his case, that for five years past he has suffered from that accident. I want to know what policy governs these matters. Is it a policy of humaneness and of human kindness, or of rigid, unbending justice, harshly applied? I do hope the Minister will give to this matter that human sympathy for which the service cries out in many of these respects.

My colleague on the right referred to the running of the railways on business lines. [Section 127 of Act of Union read.] I will not read the rest, as hon. members say they know it. I am not so sure that the whole of the country knows what there is in the Act of Union. Some days ago I asked the Minister a question with regard to these 400,000 rails and 200,000 sleepers, the order for which was placed with the European Steel Rail Makers’ Association, which passed it on to other people. The heading in the paper says: “Another order for Germany.” The other day the Minister said he found this was the practice when he came into office, but I very much doubt if his predecessor did the same for he is a business man and helped to pull the country together; in fact, he has done more for the Union than any other Minister of Railways since 1910. The Minister of Railways is always urbane and pleasant, but that does not imply that he is running the railways on business principles. If he found something in force when he took office which was not on business principles, was it a good thing to follow?

That is so.

So the Minister justifies his action. Seeing that the order was placed with an association which was able to buy the material at a lower price than that which it received from the department there was a distinct loss to the country. I do not blame the Minister personally, but I hope it will not happen again, and we are indebted to the newspapers for drawing our attention to it. Between £25,000 and £30.000 might have been saved to the country over this transaction. If this is an instance of how the railways are carried on generally, then they are not being run on sound business principles. Recently I asked the Minister to give me a return regarding the employment of certain stationmasters, foremen and engine-drivers appointed during 1927. He gave a complete report, but, unfortunately, I was not supplied with a copy. A large number of accidents occurred recently, and the annual report of the Department of Justice shows that during 1927 twelve inquiries were held into railway accidents, although there might have been more. From the returns recently placed on the Table I find that four out of the 67 stationmasters appointed during 1927 had less than five years’ service, 20 out of the 147 foremen had less than five years’ service, and 13 out of the 139 engine-drivers had less than 10 years’ service. I was told confidentially that a large number of unqualified men have been placed in these positions.

They all came from overseas.

Nonsense.

The hon. member (Mr. Munnik) is quite mistaken, and I purposely refrained from giving names. The names mentioned in the return are both English and Dutch. The Minister has been perfectly fair, but I am told that many accidents occurred because of the appointment of men who should not have been placed in responsible positions. With regard to the hooter at Mouille Point, the position is getting worse, and I have been disturbed by it pretty well every night during the past week. I have a right to live undisturbed, and surely the people who live in the neighbourhood are entitled to consideration. I suggest that the shipping should be warned by means of a lighthouse as before. Some hon. members, however, who sleep like elephants don’t mind the noise.

Reference having been made to the Australian State line, I will quote the testimony of a leader of the Nationalist party in Victoria. This gentleman, whose testimony is reported in a newspaper dated September 1st last, said it give him much pleasure to be able to express his high opinion of the Commonwealth line and the services it had rendered to Australia. He spoke as a business man. His firm had big interests—exporting and importing—and whenever possible almost entirely booked all freight by the Commonwealth line and had found them most satisfactory, receiving better consideration from them than from any other line. The hon. member asked why they sold the line. A good many people in Australia would like to know why the Australian Government sold the line. Their Public Accounts Committee cannot find out. In 1928 the Public Accounts Committee made a recommendation to the Australian Government that they should not sell the line. Let me quote the actual statement as given in the “Argus” in February, this year. [Quotation read.]

Give us the figures.

The hon. member would not understand them if I did. If he had been here when the member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) gave the figures he would have been wiser. If he reads next week’s “Hansard” he will find the figures given by the hon. member for Troyeville. These are business men who know the facts, and I support the speech of the hon. member for Troyeville in asking the Minister of Railways to consider very wisely whether it is not desirable before the contract receives the sanction of Parliament, to institute a State line of shipping in this country. I want now to touch on one or two other matters. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the necessity of making provision for the housing of the poorer classes of railway employees, and I want to bring to his notice the conditions that exist in my own constituency, where there are hundreds of white men, most of them of his own tongue, who are living under indescribable conditions, unable to obtain houses suitable for civilized men to live in. They are on the borders of the borough of Durban. The municipality cannot do anything, and the Natal Provincial Administration will not build houses, and they have no local authority except a health board, which has not the power to build houses, and so the railway board is the only authority to which they can look for assistance, and they look in vain. I understand £100,000 per annum is put on the estimates for the provision of houses for the whole of South Africa. You can spend the whole of that amount in Umbilo, and then we should not completely relieve the position. Then I want to touch on the question of the language qualification. Is it not possible to abolish the grammatical side of it? Why insist upon making these men qualify in grammar? Let them qualify by speaking the language. I know many men who can speak both languages well enough to be understood, and they can understand it well enough to gather what is conveyed to them, but they cannot pass in grammar. The purpose of the bilingual qualification is to make the men understand or convey their thoughts to other persons in their particular language. They can do that, and they are becoming disheartened because they fail in the written test. They asked the Minister to abolish the written test. Make the oral test harder if necessary, they will pass that, but abolish the written test. It is not grammarians we want, it is good railwaymen. Then there is the question of the eight-hour day. What is going to be done with regard to that? I remember in 1924 when the Labour party was asked to take part in the Pact, one of the written pledges given to us, and the document still exists, was the establishment of an eight-hour day on the railway. That is in the possession of the Labour party.

Which side?

There is only one Labour party and that was a written pledge given to the Leader of our party, the Minister of Defence, that we should have an 8-hour day on the railway. Possibly the Minister of Railways does not know about it, but it is a fact, and can be produced. I remember when the engine-drivers got the 8-hour day, and we were told it was an instalment. I remember another Bill which came up in this House in connection with instalments, the Insolvency Bill I think it was, and there it was laid down that you had to put down an instalment and keep on paying other instalments or else return the goods to the owner. I want to warn the Minister that a large number of people took part in the handing over of the railway to the Minister of Railways, and they got one instalment of the 8-hour day, but the other instalments are considerably in arrears, and, perhaps, they will say to the Minister that the purchase should be taken back. We want another instalment of the 8-hour day.

You will not vote against the Government if you do not get it.

I voted against the Government the other day. I divided the House against the Government and the hon. member did not support me. The 8-hour day is undoubtedly a thing which is perturbing the minds of the railwaymen to-day. It may be said that it would cost money. It always does. I remember the Minister of Railways saying a little while ago that the Natal coal rates could not be reduced, and that they were even then below a paying basis.

I did not say that.

Anyhow, they were so low that they could not be reduced. It has been done.

Yes, in order to keep the business.

Such pressure was brought to bear upon the Minister on behalf of commerce—

No, it was a question of keeping the business or losing it altogether.

I suggest that something should be done in regard to the human factor as well, that it is a thing which was pledged to us. We are practically the only British dominion that has not got it, the only civilized country in the world which has not got it.

What nonsense.

They have the 8-hour day on the railways in Great Britain to-day.

Oh no.

I am surprised at the hon. member. He can very well verify the fact for himself. I would like to ask the Minister to bring the 8-hour day into force as soon as possible, because it is one of the things which is perturbing the minds of railwaymen to-day, and they feel that they are not getting a fair deal in this matter.

I want in the first place to thank the Minister for the extension of the Road Motor Service at the request of the inhabitants of my district. The far-off parts of my district have thereby got into a more favourable position, but I hope that will be no reason to refuse applications for extension of branch lines in future. For the moment the need has for the most part been provided for, but the production is increasing so fast that in the long run it will not be adequate. To me it is still incomprehensible why the Minister no longer publishes the figures about the branch lines. I do not know what motive the Minister has not to include these details, as formerly, in the bulletins of the Railway Administration. I want to point out to him that he has thereby deprived me of one of the weapons with which I have often defended the Railway Administration, because there were often cases when I was asked to press the Minister for a lower rate, that I pointed out to the people that the line showed a loss, and I was not able to approach the Minister in such circumstances because it appeared from the returns that a loss had been made on the particular branch line. Returns are now no longer supplied. Now I can no longer tell my constituents that it is not possible for the Minister to do so, because the line continues to show a loss. I, therefore, feel at liberty to make my request to the Minister. The cost of publication is given as the reason. We all know that regarding statistics the Railway Management is nearly perfect, and it would certainly cause no extra expense to obtain the data. Therefore, it will merely be the cost of printing, and that surely cannot amount to £10,000 or £12,000, the figure I have heard mentioned. I would also like to say a few words about civilized labour. I sometimes think the Minister is like the man that went to build a tower without reckoning the cost. In the first place I want to mention the wages on branch lines. Branch lines have been built in my district out of the funds for relief works and the labourers’ wages were then 7s. or 8s., while the white labourers who work there now get 3s. 3d., 4s. or, at most, 6s. 6d. They, therefore, get still less than the wage paid on relief works. It goes without saying that the fixing of the wage for work on Government buildings at 8s. per day or 1s. an hour for ordinary casual labourers has created an impression on the railway workers. They naturally ask and rightly, whether the railways are not a Government institution and whether work there is not also done for the Government. If the ordinary daily wage, even for natives, is 8s. a day while their work is merely to carry bricks or do other simple work, why can they not also get at least 1s. an hour as railway workers? I think that their request is a fair one. A second point is the housing for railwaymen. The Minister knows that this is not the first time I have mentioned the matter, but the position, even in my district, is really distressing on the branch lines. The people have to occupy small hovels of 6 feet by 8 feet with a tin roof. I have a whole bundle of letters here about it. I will not go into it further, because the Minister doubtless knows the position and has probably had numbers of representations directing his attention to the entirely inadequate condition of the houses of the white railwaymen. Then I want to say a word about what was mentioned by the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Swart) in connection with his complaints about the railways on his journeys here. I am not sure that the hon. member is justified to speak like that in the, House. Not that I doubt its happening, but I think that it possibly only happens once a year. I do not believe that one out of ten thousand travellers would complain about it. On the whole, I think that the Administration deserves praise, and when one remembers what a series of three meals a day on the railways cost and compared with an hotel or boarding-house, and one further remembers that, e.g., for a journey of two nights a bed only costs 3s. or 1s. 6d. a night, then it is ridiculously cheap, and there is no reason for complaint. The meals supplied and the attention by the servants leaves, on the whole, nothing to be desired. The conductors are always very obliging towards the travelling public whether poor or rich, old or young. From my own experience I can praise the treatment received on the railways. The hon. member for Ladybrand possibly mentioned an exceptional case; it is, anyhow, not a daily occurrence. I think we can all be satisfied with the service in the dining saloons as well.

I am sure the Minister must have looked with a certain amount of envy on his colleague when he was juggling with the millions and explaining how the money was received. I think the Minister in a way is entitled to some sympathy in running a huge organization like the railways, when one considers the difference in running this huge organization, such as it is, from what was contemplated at the time of Union, when the highly-paid traffic to the interior enabled them to pile up those huge surpluses. Otherwise it is quite possible that the provision in the Act of Union would have been quite different. What is the position to-day? We have to consider that the Minister is faced with the very heavy competition of road motor traffic, and with the cost of electrification. I will take the Sea Point line. I think the Minister was badly advised when he agreed to the electrification of that line.

My department were very strongly in favour.

No, no, not the Sea Point line.

I do not think the Minister of Railways can be absolved from blame in agreeing to this. It was in 1925 that the Chairman of the Electricity Commission pointed out there would be an enormous loss on that line. The loss is estimated to-day at £2,000 a month. When you consider that it cost £60,000 for the electrical side of the work, and £25,000, apart from rolling stock and track, I think the Minister was very wrong to give in to the importunities of Sir William Hoy. There is the other point of the branch lines. Here I think the Minister was also badly advised when he agreed to withhold the publication of these statistics. How is the Minister going to arrive at true returns in respect of these lines unless he has some record of returns of traffic on these lines? He must have some report somewhere, because when we discussed this last year the Minister stated that if at any time a member wished to get a return of the profit or loss on any branch line, he would be able to give it to him.

It could be given, of course. The figures are there, but they have to be compiled.

I asked the Minister on the 31st of January if he would lay on the Table a return of income and expenditure on branch lines, but he said the practice of compiling statistics for the working of branch lines was discontinued on the 1st of January, 1927. But you must have a record somewhere. Then there is this other debt that is loaded on to him, this three-quarters of a million spent annually on civilized labour. I think it is about time that the Government went into the whole of these dead weights that are piled on the railways, these unproductive lines, etc. When the Act of Union was laid down we were making a big profit, and it was never anticipated that the railways would have to carry this dead weight. You have the loss on the Sea Point railway, then there is the branch lines and the civilized labour policy. Further, there is the interest on this £13,000,000, and then you take these enormous free services. We cannot have a visit from the Empire Parliamentary Association or the Prince of Wales, Parliamentary Service, etc., but the railway has to pay for it. Surely that should come out of the general revenue fund. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) dealt with the enormous increase over prewar rates, and he pointed out we shall never get production in this country unless these rates are reduced. The only way the Minister can get revenue at all is by making the up-country people pay, and he cannot get revenue unless he increases the rates. My point is the up-country people should not have to pay for the losses that are piled upon them. The only way to get low rates is to make the general public pay. The people of Cape Town should pay for the losses on the Sea Point line. You have all these special rates made for the benefit of farmers, and you have the losses on the grain elevators which, last year, were something like £79,000. I understand the Minister is inquiring into the manner in which grain is held up in these elevators, and whether it will not be possible in the case of speculators who use these elevators simply for storage purposes to see they are debited with a fair charge. Last year we were faced with what seemed to the Railway Committee a very serious position, and that was the large increases in the cost of some of these branch railways, the Matubatuba railway and the George-Kynsna railway. These two railways were increased to the extent of 50 per cent., somewhere in the neighbourhood of half-a-million altogether. How are the Railway Committee and the Railway Board to estimate correctly if the railway engineers let them down so badly? The Railway Committee and Parliament are faced with ah accomplished fact, and they have to swallow it, with the result that we are piling up losses on these lines to the detriment of up-country users. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. te Water) rather took the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) to task in saying that he starved the fines, and that this was the cause of accidents. The Minister, in his estimates, is showing a saving in maintenance of the permanent way of 3137,235. The reason for doing that is hat the track as a whole is in a stable condition, and that disposes of the point that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) when he was Minister of Railways and Harbours starved the lines. I want to ask the Minister when he is likely to place before the House the report dealing with level crossings. I understand a very valuable report was presented by one of his own staff with regard to electrical warnings being given at portions of the lines—the engine being electrically connected and giving a warning by displaying a light when 400 yards from the crossing. A matter which has been brought to my notice in Pretoria, is that 18 fitters engaged in the repair of motor coaches or motor buses have been put off, and the work given to contractors in Johannesburg. Seventeen had English names. I am not suggesting anything, and I do not want to blame the Minister, but it is rather a coincidence. A further point, I have been wondering whether the Minister, in connection with these branch lines, had considered that where traffic was not very dense or very frequent, use might be made of petrol traction and do away with steam.

I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to the hardship suffered by certain classes of railway employees owing to the lack of means of conveyance between Ladysmith and Daimana—a distance of about two miles. About 300 men employed at Ladysmith petitioned the general manager for a motor bus, as has been provided at Maritzburg—to convey railway workers to and from Mason’s Hill. The general manager was unable to accede to their request. A train runs to Daimana every morning at 7 o’clock, and returns at 5 o’clock, conveying the artizans to and from their work, but there is the clerical staff and the running staff, who are without any means of conveyance. The latter have to report on duty at all hours of the day, and the clerical staff cannot conveniently utilise the 7 o’clock train, as their duties commence at 8.30 a.m. It appears that these men reside a distance of from one to three miles from Daimana, and have to walk to and from their work in all weathers, and in their own time, which is felt to be a great hardship. They have sent the papers to me and requested me to inquire into the matter, and to ask that the same facilities be granted to them as are granted to the men in Maritzburg. They assure me that some of them do not get back from their work until half to three-quarters of an hour after they have finished at Daimana, which gives them no opportunity of shopping. I hope to have an opportunity of discussing this matter fully with the Minister in his office. Then there is a complaint about the office accommodation which is provided for the clerical staff at Daimana, and the report in my possession by one of the staff, states that—

Then there is the matter I brought up last year regarding the goods shed. The accommodation is inadequate, and the goods are being dumped out in the open. I asked a question with regard to that last year, and the Minister had to admit that it was so, and promised that the matter would receive consideration when the next estimates were considered. I have no information that provision has been made and the matter is very urgent, as the shed is 20 years behind the times. Then there is the matter of the Ladysmith flood protection scheme, which was devised by the Minister’s own engineers. I have repeatedly asked the Minister to have the necessary amount placed on the estimates, the Administration share of the cost being mainly represented by a bridge over a cutting it is proposed to make. I must say my constituents very much appreciate the motor service the Minister has given them to the National Park, which is doing good work, is much potronized, and I am sure will be a financial success.

In regard to the Sea Point railway, I would like to have some information. From an artistic point of view one might say that railway is an eyesore. Before it was electrified, it cut off access from the beach to a great extent, but now it is worse than ever, and it gives one the impression of a series of black gallows, forbidding an appearance. It appears that all that man can do to bar nature he has done there. We have it on the authority of the hon. member for Lady-brand (Mr. Swart), who is a member of the Select Committee on Railways, that the annual loss to the State exceeds £50,000. In other words, the State loses £138 a day to subsidize the transport of one of the suburbs of Cape Town. In other towns, suburban traffic is dealt with by the local authority. The late general manager said that the Sea Point line would never pay with the competition which it has to face from buses and trams, and I also understood him to say there was some agreement with the Sea Point people as to the running of the line, but I have since gathered that that agreement is superseded. If, however, there is an agreement on the part of the State to run the line, there is, I presume, an agreement on the part of the people to use the line. The only proper thing to do is to scrap it or to pay the Cape Town municipality or tramway company £10,000 for taking it over. If there ever was an indefensible business proposition, it is the continual running of this railway. I can see no justification for it, and it has been a scandal for some years, although I know the Minister is not to blame for it. I now wish to refer to the freight contract. In a memorandum sent to me by an up-country merchant, he comes to the conclusion that—

The South African rate seems to me to be preposterous. My correspondent states that no fewer than 15 companies share the South African trade. The result is that this country is penalized. My correspondent suggests that the conference lines should reduce the number of ships and their rate for inward cargo to 35s. a ton, which would be quite reasonable, and pay the shipping companies far better. This would provide a fair solution failing drastic measures which would present difficulties. I should like to hear what the Minister has to say in regard to this. It would seem, on the figures, that this country is penalized in respect of the inward freights. There is one domestic question I would like to ask the Minister about. I notice, on the railways, that whereas formerly there was a bedroom steward to attend to the making of the beds, at present there seems to be two, a white man and a coloured man. It seems to me to be a duplication of service and an extra expense. The white man’s duty seems to be to go round and see if you want a bed, take the money, and also the tip. It is comparatively small matters like this that might mean a considerable saving on the railway. I would also like to show the Minister a specimen of the fruit served on the railway. This is an apple, it does not look like one, so I am compelled to tell you what it is, although it is somewhat shrivelled up as I have had it in my possession for about two weeks, was served as dessert on the Union Limited. Now, the Union express is supposed to be the show train of the Union, but the catering thereon is not all one should expect. When you get apples of this character served, well, any really self-respecting pig would not eat it. The Minister would do well to talk to the men about this. If you strike a good train the catering is all right, but some of them are anything but efficient. It would be interesting to know what evidence of their capacity to cook good food is obtained before they are put into the position.

Perhaps the Minister will now accept the adjournment of the debate. No. Well, up to a moment ago, I was really sorry for the Minister sitting there in splendid isolation; nevertheless, I have one or two matters to which I want to draw his attention. I am prepared to admit it is the function of the Opposition to criticize, and I am also prepared to admit that the present Opposition criticizes remarkably well, but when one has to sit and listen, year after year, to complaints directed against South Africans who are unfortunate enough to have to accept employment on the railways as civilized labourers. I think it is criticism carried to an extent which ought not to be indulged in in this House. Last session the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) accused these men of being inefficient, and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Sir William Macintosh) went further and said civilized labour was another name for civilized loafers. He was referring to certain men who had had to stand aside to allow a train in which he was travelling to pass, and he referred to these unfortunate South Africans as loafers. During this debate we have had the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) insisting upon knowing what it cost for the civilized labour policy of the Government. Why not insist upon the cast for the administrative offices of the railway? What the hon. gentlemen actually desire is this. They wish to see white men discharged from the railways, and the members of the community to whom they look for support at election times, placed in the jobs of the men now employed. That is what they want. They are not prepared to say so, but they keep on asking the Minister what it costs to provide labour for Europeans. I would rather see those of my own kith and kin employed on the railways than men of another race. In 1924, when the present Government came into office, there were 2,000 Indians working on the railways in Natal. It was then very difficult indeed for any young man to get an opportunity of employment on the railways. In Pietermaritzburg alone I have seen fine young South Africans at the most critical time of their life standing at the street corners with nothing to do. Many a homo in Natal has reason to be thankful for the civilized labour policy of this Government, and mothers and fathers are delighted that their sons have been able to get employment under the scheme. As to the success of the civilized labour policy, let me read an extract from the report submitted to the Economic and Wages Commission of 1925 by Sir William Hoy, the then general manager. He considered a statement presented to him by the staff and labour inspector of railways was of sufficient importance to re-submit it to the commission, and I would like to read an extract from the report—

I think this is a splendid tribute to the Government and its policy. It has been stated by the Minister that no fewer than 60 per cent. of the 15,000 odd men who have been recruited under the civilized labour scheme have been promoted to higher grades, and 50 per cent. of the lad labourers have been selected for apprenticeships on the railways as occasion arose. The contention that the civilized labour policy on the railways leads, or is inclined to lead, to blind alley occupation is not borne out by the fact that 60 per cent. have been promoted, and 50 per cent. of the lad labourers have been selected for apprenticeships. I note in a newspaper the other day that a Mr. J. M. Bateman, who has been in charge of construction of railways from Potchefstroom to Losberg, now almost completed, has gone to Empangeni, Zululand, in connection with railway construction work there, and that before leaving, he again expressed his satisfaction with the white labour employed on the Losberg line. He pointed out that the estimate of cost had not been exceeded, and that the average earnings of the Europeans employed amounted to 10s. 9d. a day, as against the previous best of 10s. 3d. on other railways. It was also stated that excellent results were obtained, and that in all 800 whites were recruited, the average number employed being 200 from February, 1927. I contend that white labour given a fair opportunity, will prove as good an economic proposition to the railways or any other employers as any native labour can possibly be. The Minister has told us that the policy of civilized labour is to give to the civilized man, whether he be white or coloured, an opportunity to earn a wage which will enable him to live according to civilized standards in South Africa. And here is where I fall out with the Minister and the Government. If the Minister or anybody else considers that a wage of, say 5s. 10d. a day will enable any man in South Africa to live on a civilized standard, I would like that individual to try it. We have listened to many appeals for reduction of rates. I am going to appeal to the Minister to go into the question of an advance in the wages paid to the civilized labourers. That is one of the pressing needs of South Africa to-day, and the more the civilized labourer is able to earn the better for everybody in the community,— the better for the small store-keeper and even the big departmental establishment in Adderley Street for that matter. I would like the Minister in his reply to tell the House he is going to give some measure of an increase in pay to men who are bravely carrying on under very adverse circumstances the civilized labourer’s job on the railways.

What are you going to do with the uncivilized labourer?

I am more concerned with the civilized man’s position than I am with the uncivilized. I will leave the interests of the latter in the excellent hands of the right hon. member. There is another matter I wish to refer to. I find in the annual report issued by the general manager, very high praise bestowed on the local committees of the safety movement. He compliments them on their work; he says they have been responsible for preventing many an accident, and altogether he speaks in very generous terms of the men who give their time, ability and experience serving on the local committees of this movement. The Minister himself on one occasion last year at a meeting was reported to have said—

What has the Administration now done? They have abolished the committees of the safety movement. I have been approached by several employees who take a keen interest in this movement in Natal to ask the Minister why the safety committees throughout South Africa have been discontinued, notwithstanding the excellent tribute paid by the Minister? Why, when such good work has been done by these committees, it has been considered advisable to abolish them? Finally, in connection with the unfortunate accident which occurred at Salt River on the 9th June, 1926, I find in the Auditor-General’s report the amounts of compensation given to those who suffered personal injuries and to the dependents of those who were killed. One lady with 5 children has been compensated for the loss of her husband and the father of the children to the extent of £10,000, and another lady with 7 children has been compensated for the loss of her husband and the father of the children to the extent of £4,000. I wish to ask the Minister by what method the Administration computes the compensation and by what means it differentiates to the extent I have mentioned. The difference is so great that I cannot help drawing comparisons.

I just want to make a few remarks and I shall not be long. I am astonished to hear that there is such a large deficit on the Sea Point line. It amounted to £50,000 on a line of 4 miles. I thought that the former Minister of Railways started electrification for reasons of economy. We learn, however, that while the loss formerly was £25,000, it is now £50,000. The country cannot afford it, and I think the Minister had better break up the line and give the money to the farmers, seeing he is deleting the costs of carrying sheep in the drought-stricken areas. The loss is too great. I do not favour the electrification of railways, and I think the Minister will be sensible in not going on with it, but building development lines, especially branch lines instead. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) said that he was not in favour of the branch lines, and especially those to the stock districts. I am glad he is not the Minister. What would have happened to those parts if the Hutchison-Calvinia line had not existed when we had a drought? True, loss has been suffered, but thousands of sheep were saved and they are an asset to the country to-day. We cannot do without branch lines because they feed the main lines and help the farmers in time of drought and develop the country. Hon. members mentioned civilized labour on the railways. I just want to say that the people approve of it and heartily welcome so many poor whites being employed on the railways. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) would, as Minister, doubtless have employed natives. The public appreciates the Minister’s policy. The last Government also did something for Europeans by putting them on relief works, but this Government is out to find a permanent solution. Then I come to the question of lower rates. We know that the rates have been reduced by £1¼ million. I shall be glad if the Minister can further reduce the rate for the carriage of maize. Maize is carried at the rate of 2s. a bag irrespective of whether the distance is 300, 400 or 800 miles, but if it is necessary, in time of drought it is carried at 1s. a bag. Usually, however, the mealies, when detrained, have to be carried further on by motors and 3s. a bag is asked for instance for the motor transport from Pampoenpoort to Loxton. It is a distance of 36 miles. I hope the Minister will be able to reduce this rate. He has indeed reduced it to 2s. 6d., but that is not enough. Now I come to the carriage of sheep in the drought-stricken districts. The Minister can carry animals cheaper by virtue of the Drought Emergency Loan Act. At the moment, sheep are carried at 50 per cent. of the ordinary rate, but I want to ask him to consider a possible further reduction, because the farmers have suffered terribly and cannot bear the expense. Then I think with reference to the appointment of railway doctors, it is very unfair for them to be district surgeons as well as railway medical officers. I agree with what the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Swart) said and I strongly favour the dividing of the two appointments.

On the motion of Mr. Krige, debate adjourned; to be resumed to-morrow.