I move—

It is with reluctance that I get up to speak about this Bill, but my duty compels me to do so. Continually I get letters. I have a letter here again from a party in Johannesburg, a party who gives his full address and his full name. Members of the society know the man. I would like to read that letter to the House. I shall now give the name openly. In regard to the other letter I did not give the name in the House, but I told hon. members I was prepared to give it to them privately. The writer of the present letter is Mr. A. B. Dunbar, of 105, Kimberley Road, Judith Paarl, Johannesburg. This man is well known to the chairman of the society in Johannesburg, and the chairman of the society is a member of this House and he can therefore defend himself now. The only argument they can adduce against this man is that he is a rank socialist. To my mind, that is no crime. I can assure hon. members that he is not a man of straw. He has got a business in Johannesburg.

Do you know him? Have you seen him?

I have not seen him, but I know that he is a man of business, and I know that continually he has written to the society in Johannesburg since 1921.

What is his business?

Never mind what his business is as long as it is an honourable calling, much more honourable than that of some members of this House before they came here. I would like to seen an inquiry held to exonerate that society, because there are some honorary members in that society. Our Governor-General is an honorary member.

The hon. member cannot discuss an inquiry on this motion.

I am just mentioning it in passing. We would like this Bill postponed before another session pending an inquiry and getting the society clear if they are not guilty. This is what the letter says—

This may all be very interesting, but I do not see what connection it has with the Bill.

It may not have any connection with the Bill, but I believe that the society—the members of which may be perfectly honourable—must have inspectors according to these reports. They will fish out cruelty to animals where no cruelty exists. I have a letter to the same man, dated the 25th November, 1921—

They have had all these complaints. They must admit they have already sacked an inspector or inspectors for bribery. We have had an Act for the prevention of cruelty since 1914, and since then the Government had allowed them £200 a year. In 1920 that was taken away. They were not concerned about lashes then, but what they were concerned about was their income. They got an Act passed in 1922—

They were not concerned about lashes; they were concerned about the income of that society.

They would not ask for lashes if they wanted the money.

I will tell you why they want lashes—to intimidate people more and bribe them more.

Shame.

There is no shame about it. I say in the interests of the society I would like an inquiry to be held, and if that society does not ask for an inquiry, I shall always blame them. The members may be clear and their inspectors may not be clear. I would not for one moment say the members of the society are to blame. I do not blame them. This man is attacking the inspectors. He says they are taking bribes and I am now compelled to believe him, unless this society prosecutes this man, or the men who say so. It is an admitted fact that they have sacked some of their men because they have taken bribes. If it is so, then why not go into it and clear the society? Which is why I now move, as amendment—

I second the amendment. I have not yet spoken on the Bill, but I can-not understand why it was introduced. It is a Bill which, I think, considerably affects the farmers’ interests. Its object is to prevent cruelty to animals. The man who has most to do with animals is the farmer, and what appears so strange to me is that the movers and greatest supporters of the Bill are people who know nothing about animals and do not use them. Now they come and introduce a Bill which will injure the farmer most of all. If they knew how to handle animals then they would know that the farmer sometimes has to use means to train his animals for the work, and then they would not have introduced such a Bill. We have the old Act for the protection of animals. As far as I know it has never yet been necessary to push that Act to extremes, and now hon. members want to move that it should be made more severe and even that the cane shall be used or otherwise imprisonment or a fine shall be imposed. I have had experience in this matter, being a farmer, and I remember a case where I broke a horse’s leg by something I threw. It cost me £35, and if the police had seen it what would the result have been? According to this Bill I should have been caned. Another instance was that I was once riding my horse at a moderate trot when suddenly his leg broke. What would have happened if a policeman had seen it? According to this Bill I should again have been caned. I think that in many cases the magistrate would have to use his discretion, but we do not always have magistrates who are sympathetic to the farmer. There are some magistrates who have the same knowledge of animals as the hon. members for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) and Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow). They will say that it was wilful cruelty to animals and that a person should be whipped. It is very strange to me—and I can say that I have as much knowledge of animals as any member of the. House—that when we voted last time the fanners were unanimously against the Bill, but the other members who know nothing about animals voted to the contrary. Why are the people who understand animals against the Bill, and why are the advocates and town residents and others in favour of the Bill? I think we have far too many unnecessary private bills, which merely get the farmers into trouble.

Since the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) last spoke on this matter on Friday, I have had an opportunity of seeing the letter he then referred to, and the further correspondence by the same individual to which he referred to-day. I have read the letter in which the charges were made, and I cannot conceive why the hon. member should come and read them and believe them. Let me take some of the statements. He says in regard to the S.P.C.A. in the Cape that—

Corruption of whom? It does not say. The letter proceeds—

All obviously reckless, lying and unsubstantiated charges. He goes on to assert that Mr. de Villiers, the Attorney-General, sent an inspector (Mr. Frames) to investigate the charges he had made. The Attorney-General has no right to order an enquiry into the affairs of the society, and he never did order an enquiry. Then the writer says Frames mentioned three men for prosecution—another falsehood—and said his statement as to thousands of pounds changing hands yearly was mild. Thousands of pounds to whom? Does the hon. member suggest that the executive or secretary share these fictitious sums?

The inspectors.

The letter proceeds—

It is a reflection on the Minister of Justice to assert that he knows all about this alleged criminality and that no action was taken. The letter proceeds—

Surely these are the outpourings of an envenomed and debased mind. Statements of this sort can appeal only to a disordered mind, clouded with suspicion and permeated with malevolence, and the hon. member for Namaqualand says he believes them. I would not even have mentioned the name of the writer of these scurrilous libels as I do not want even to give him the notoriety of publicity, but the hon. member for Namaqualand has mentioned his name. Who is this Mr. Dunbar? He is a communist—one of those soap box orators who impress feeble-minded people. The hon. member over there (Mr. Mostert) is quite mistaken as to what the object of the S.P.C.A. is. Its object is not so much to punish as to prevent cruelty.

It does not seem so.

The less prosecution there is the more the society is pleased.

According to that statement there can be no prosecution.

Let us take last year’s report of the society, 1927, which states that the prosecutions were 365, and the number of warnings issued 668. I would like the hon. member to get out of his head the idea that the chief object of the society is to prosecute people. As a matter of fact, its object is to protect animals. When Mr. Dunbar was making himself rather a nuisance, I suggested to the secretary that the best way to deal with him was to put him on the executive, where he would be in intimate touch with everything that went on, but Mr. Dunbar declined. He prefers to criticize destructively and to make unfounded and untrue allegations. Mr. Advocate H. James Bowen, the present chairman of the Transvaal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in the course of a letter to me, writes—

So as to keep his mouth closed.

Respectable people do not act in that way. The executive of the S.P.C.A. consists of gentlemen, and it includes the Deputy-Commissioner of Police, one of the magistrates, Mr. J. Kinnear (the chief transportation officer of the railways), the chief veterinary surgeon, and Dr. R. T. A. Innes, late Union Astronomer.

They are honorary.

This is a working body; the members give their services and they take a very live and personal interest in the affairs of the society. I have never been associated with a more zealous body of men. They are certainly honorary, so far as emoluments are concerned.

That is my point.

Mr. Bowen’s letter continues—

Mr. Dunbar in his letter made a few suggestions, adding “although the matters contained in the letter may seem trivial, they will lessen a great deal of suffering to animals.” I do not want to depreciate his suggestions, but they are very trivial. He has, however, made in his letter further unfounded statements, one being that the society’s inspectors are bribed.

Didn’t you dismiss one of your inspectors?

They are even charged with laming animals with the object of bringing about prosecutions. The society has been in existence about 28 years, and Mr. Bowen further writes—

On one occasion the society prosecuted a man for offering a bribe to an inspector, and a conviction was obtained. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) should not lose all sense of proportion. I have established that the executive of the society consists of public men. I do not think that even the hon. member will believe that they are there for personal gain or profit.

Withdraw the Bill, have an inquiry, bring in a new Bill next year, and I will help you.

So far as the executive is concerned, the hon. member has no charge to make. The hon. member, I see, agrees to that. We choose inspectors after a very searching inquiry into their antecedents and capacity to do the work. The hon. member must know that in a place like Johannesburg, with its cosmopolitan population there is a large section that regards bribery as coming within the ordinary course of business, and it is not surprising if now and then an inspector succumbs to temptation, but you cannot blame the S.P.C.A. for that.

Mr. Dunbar raised the question whether a bribe was offered, and you have not investigated.

The society has investigated and will investigate all charges. I will undertake this, that the society will welcome any inquiry into its affairs if required at the instance of any responsible authority of individuals. I have felt it my duty to go lengthily into these charges so that the House may have a proper conception of what they amount to.

I have not yet spoken on this Bill and just want to say that, in my opinion, you must not return evil for evil or cruelty for cruelty. The days when people were tortured are past. That was in the middle ages and I am surprised that in our enlightened times people can propose that their fellow-mortals should be beaten with the cat o’ nine tails. In the middle ages people who had done anything wrong received corporal punishment and were pulled apart on the rack. We live under a higher civilization and in principle I am against corporal punishment. We have fines and hard labour, but it is wrong to inflict lashes. I have myself seen the appearance of a man who had been flogged. It is cruel to ill-treat an animal, but just as cruel to flog a man. It is a good thing that there are associations who try to prevent cruelty to animals, but I cannot vote for the principle of corporal punishment. I can quite understand the farmers’ representatives opposing the Bill. They come into contact with animals and under such a law they would run great danger because they are not always present when their animals are at work. They sometimes have inexperienced and careless natives who will ill-treat animals and, according to the Bill, they will be prosecuted along with the servants. I have often noticed in the magistrate’s court how the master is punished just as much as the person who committed the act. I will vote for the Bill if the provision for corporal punishment is deleted.

I ask myself whether the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. J. S. F. Pretorius) has ever read the Bill, because he says that if the provision for corporal punishment is deleted he will vote for the Bill. If that is deleted there will be nothing left to vote for. Another way he has shown his ignorance is when he says that people are flogged. He apparently does not know that the cat is no longer used.

I was thinking of the time before it was stopped. But whipping will be imposed.

The hon. member is clever after the event, but when he spoke he knew nothing about it. He says that the farmer cannot always be present when his native is ill-treating the animals. There again he shows ignorance, because the person who is cruel will be punished, not the farmer if he was not concerned in it at all. I hope the hon. member will see that his argument was due to ignorance and that he will support the Bill. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Boshoff) said that he was riding a horse when it broke its leg. What chance will there he of such a man being prosecuted for cruelty? It was a pure accident and no one would lay a charge of cruelty against the owner of the horse. He further asked why only the townspeople supported the Bill. I think that if there is one thing to the credit of the farmers it is that—in my opinion—more cruelty takes place in the large towns than on the countryside on the farms. Because the people in the towns see it continually, they have established societies, and because the magistrates themselves say that in some cases the cruelty is so malicious that they would like to impose the same punishment on those who are guilty of it as they give the animals, this Bill has been introduced. I should be sorry if the impression were created in the event of the Bill being rejected that the farmers were the cause of it. Does it not create the impression when the farmers say that they are so frightened of the Bill that they make themselves liable for cruelty to animals?

An accident might take place and be wrongly construed.

An amendment has been passed that cruelty must be wilful before corporal punishment is inflicted. I hope that the farmers in the House will vote for the Bill so that the blame should not be on them if the Bill fails to pass. There is no danger to the farmer unless he personally with his own hands wilfully treats animals cruelly.

The hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. G. A. Louw) has just said a very sensible thing and I will move a suitable amendment. He said that cases of wilful cruelty to animals occur much more frequently in the towns that on the countryside, even proportionally. I think that is quite right. Before I go further, however, I want to say something else, viz., that my hon. friends who are so extremely sensitive about cruelty to animals exaggerate that feeling a little. Everybody who is slightly observant will agree with me in connection with the suffering of animals that animals or even undeveloped people like natives have not at all the feeling with regard to pain that highly developed Europeans have. I could quote many examples. I noticed at a show, for instance, how a horse accidentally tore open the whole of his stomach and it hardly showed signs of pain. That is confirmed by people who have studied this subject. I have here a cutting from the “Sunday Times” of the 18th March by a certain Mr. Fischer, a biologist from the United States, who says precisely the same thing. Every sensible person must admit that we can go too far in this connection, and I think that this Bill does so as regards the cruelty. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) referred to occurrences in Johannesburg and elsewhere in South Africa with reference to the protection of animals. Perhaps those circumstances arise owing to the same misunderstandings and irregularities. I have a telegram here from Bezuidenhout Valley in connection with the irregularities in which the horse-owners urgently ask us to have an enquiry made because they are tired of extortion in connection with alleged cruelty to animals, and the telegram says that there is adequate proof of the extortion. I, however, want to revert to what the hon. mem ber for Colesberg said and move an amendment to Clause 1.

The hon. member cannot now move an amendment to the Bill. Amendments to clauses must be moved in committee of the whole House.

I am sorry because it would have been in exact agreement with what the hon. member said. In the circumstances I can do nothing else than support the amendment of the hon. member for Namaqualand asking that the Bill should be postponed so that we may have an opportunity to make the necessary improvements, nor am I at all satisfied after the speech of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Papenfus) about the position of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. There are rumours, and I think that hon. members can confirm them, that, even in Cape Town, things are not quite right. I cannot give proofs, but I think that certain members possess data. Let us not be too hasty. I was assured that corporal punishment would never be inflicted in this connection. If that is so we can reconsider the matter in a year or two.

I think this debate will at least do this much good, that it will tend to arouse the public conscience towards a matter concerning which it is becoming rather callous. It is not pleasant from time to time to find from visitors how unfavourably they are impressed by the attitude of the people in South Africa towards animals, and I am sure that those of us who keep our eyes open see that there is sufficient reason for this charge that has been made against us. A lot of matter, interesting, important and otherwise, has been imported into this debate. I think on the whole it will do good. We do want to arouse public attention to what is going on in this country with regard to our treatment of animals, and the object of the Bill is not to strengthen the hands of the societies, but to strengthen the hands of the law, so that, when very gross cases come on, they may be adequately dealt with. This is not the time or the place to go into the activities of these societies at great length, but we must admit that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the activities of these societies. We were told by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Papenfus), whose interest in the dumb world is well known, and I wish could be emulated by many others of our citizens, that his society deals with methods of caution and warning rather than prosecution. I hope they are effective, because, after all, that may be a good way to attain the end that we all have at heart, which is the prevention of cruelty to animals, but I am not sure that they are effective. In addition to caution and warning, energy is required. When we find in Cape Town that we have a member of the executive of the S.P.C.A. who has been cautioned many times, reported many times for cruelty to animals and convicted three times, it is not re-assuring.

made an interjection.

I am informed that that is not correct.

I say it is correct.

The hon. member (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) says it is correct, and that he was elected by a general meeting of members. Will the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) say that those members who elected him were aware of these facts?

Then they should not have elected him.

I put the question to the hon. member, if they were aware of these facts, would they have elected him?

They should have known about it.

When we find that a member of the executive of the S.P.C.A. in Cape Town has been cautioned many times, and convicted three times, for cruelty to animals and yet remains on that executive, it is time that—

made an interjection.

I am explaining that we are not here dealing so much with the constitution of the executives. We are dealing with the necessity for strengthening the law in order to—

On a point of order, can the hon. member discuss the matter he is now doing? Is it relevant to the Bill? If the hon. member is going into these troubles of the Cape Town society, it will be necessary for some of us to get up and make a reply to him. That would widen the scope of the debate on a matter which, I submit, has nothing to do with the Bill before the House.

I rather gather from the hon. member that he is leaving that part of the discussion.

I did not gather what the point of order was, and I should like to have it stated.

The point of order is as to whether the hon. member is entitled to go into the question of the Cape Town society on this debate. It is pointed out that if the hon. member goes deeply into that matter other members will be bound to reply, and the debate will be carried beyond all bounds, and I said that I rather gathered that the hon. member was leaving that subject now.

That is partly correct. My point is this—that, if it be true that societies have not achieved their main object, it is a reason for strengthening the law by means of this Bill, which we are now discussing. I take it I am correct in taking up that attitude?

The hon. member must not go too deeply into happenings in the society.

I am emphasizing the point that matters are not satisfactory now, and, therefore, we must take some action, and one action we are taking is to pass a law of this nature. I was going to say that it is every citizen’s duty to report cases of cruelty which are violations of the law, when he sees them, whether he is a member of any society or not, and I hope this discussion will tend to bring that very essential part of their duty home to citizens, and thus remove a grave reproach that is levelled against this country, and not without reason. Surely the way to get things bettered is not by covering them up, and if there are any weak points in our law or the administration of it—and I take it the administration of it is very largely in the hands of these societies—we are entitled to make some remedies. It is well known that the reporting of cases is left largely, not in the hands of the police, but in the hands of these societies, and it would seem, on the facts, that the societies have not come up to the expectations which the public have placed in them in regard to the prevention of cruelty. It would seem that their attention should be directed to this, and that more fresh blood should be introduced into their executives. Also, it should be placed beyond question that the personnel of these executives should be absolutely free from reproach with regard to the duties they have undertaken to carry out. I do not say whether they are or whether they are not, but at all events it is desirable that the societies should take cognizance of these facts and see that no reproach can be levelled against them with regard to that personnel. We not only want character and probity—and surely there is no question as to the character and probity of the list of persons read out by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Papenfus). We want something more; we want a little more energy and, perhaps, that is what some of these societies are suffering from, the want of the necessary energy to carry out their duties more efficiently. It often happens that people who have done long and useful work may be inclined to rest on their laurels, but, whatever means are adopted. I hope this Bill will be passed into law, and that it will have the desired effect of the prevention of cruelty to animals, which in the towns of South Africa is on such an extensive scale.

I have already spoken on the Bill and do not like doing so again, but I maintain that with a view to the high standard of civilization we have already attained in the Union among Europeans, coloured people, and even the blacks, this Bill would be a blot on our statute book. In a country which is already civilized the people must not be threatened with the cat. That is one of the chief reasons why I am voting for the motion of the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert), by which we shall have an opportunity to amend the Bill. I wish that the societies for the protection of animals who get half the fines would also receive half the floggings. If that is provided, I shall be satisfied and will, at any time, vote for the Bill, but, for the sake of our civilization, I am opposed—I am, even in cases of theft of stock—to the infliction of flogging. Corporal punishment is barbaric, and I think that we ought to oppose barbarism.

I very much regret that the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) should have followed the example of the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) in bringing the affairs of one of these societies into the House in this way.

Why not?

Will the hon. member just keep quiet while I am speaking? One happens to know of the trouble in the Cape society that has been referred to. One happens to know that the parties on both sides of that trouble have the highest interests of the work of the society at heart. They differ, to a certain extent, about methods of administration, and so on. I am a member of that society, and, because I deeply regret the matter has gone the length it has gone, I have kept out of the dispute as far as I could. But I do think it is unfair by methods of direct suggestion and indirect suggestion, to drag these matters on to the floor of the House, which is not the proper tribunal, and where people are not in the position to know what the facts of the matter are. It is quite impossible for the House to judge. Is it fair to do it, in the first place; and, in the second place, what has it to do with this Bill? This Bill is purely and simply to make an amendment of the law by providing certain concrete punishments in certain concrete cases. May I ask what on earth it has to do with the question which of two parties in the society—both equally anxious to see the humanitarian work they are doing carried out—is right? The way the hon. member connected it is purely indirect and ex parte. He has gone into all these things, but what has it to do with the Bill? Surely it is a domestic and internal matter for the society itself to deal with. There is only one way in which it could have affected the question before the House, and surely it should have been in the power of members who have brought this matter up here to devise some form of amendment in the law as a result of which this House could, if necessary, have insisted on certain duties being discharged by the society, or certain powers taken away from the society. But now we are on the third reading of a Bill purely and simply on the basis of discussing whether an amendment of the law shall be made by allowing punishment of a particular kind for offences of a particular kind. I do deplore again that the hon. member should have followed the lead of the hon. member for Namaqualand in introducing this form of discussion into the House at this stage. I protest most strongly, because whoever is right, and whoever is wrong, in the dispute in the society, this House is not in a position to judge; but these ex parte statements are going forward, and it can only be to the detriment of the very society whose objects these members profess to be supporting.

I am astonished at the attack by the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close), and I doubt whether he meant his protest seriously. If anyone has reason to protest then it is we on these benches. We felt from the beginning that we had to do with something wrong here, and the more we debated the matter, the more comes to light, such as the facts which the hon. members for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) and East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) mentioned this afternoon. Hon. members say that this has nothing to do with the Bill, but I think it has a great deal to do with it. It concerns it in that the House would be passing a Bill to make the societies still stronger and I ask if that is right in view of the people they employ and the facts that have come to light, for us, notwithstanding that, to pass the Bill. I protest most earnestly, and I hope the amendment of the hon. member for Namaqualand will be passed.

I must congratulate my hon. friends on the other side on the clever way in which they are trying to side-track this Bill. What the S.P.C.A. has to do with this I do not know; it has as much to do with it as the flowers that bloom in the spring. I will advise my hon. friend opposite not to talk of Mr. Dunbar. If he knew him as well as we know him, he would take no notice at all; he is a good fellow, a hard-working man, but not the type of man you should take seriously at all. No one in Johannesburg takes him seriously. 11 you told me that the whole of the S.P.C.A. in Johannesburg was rotten and seething with corruption, what has that to do with this Bill? It makes no difference to the question that if a brute ill-treats a dog or a cat, he should be whipped. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Boshoff) goes out of the House after attacking me, and as soon as I get up he goes out. The hon. member again dragged my name in, and made rather an important remark, which was: “What does the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), or anybody on this side, know about it, know about any animal, or about farming?” On farming questions nobody knows anything about them, except a small handful of people on the other side! I have never seen those gentlemen’s names figure very largely at agricultural shows for prizes for cattle. There are just as many men on this side of the House who know as much about farming as on the other side. I can put my band on an hon. member who knows far more about farming than the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler)—the hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. Sepbton). The hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Moffat) is probably the finest farmer in South Africa breeding cattle. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Papenfus) I have known for the last 52 years, we have grown up together, and I defy any hon. member to produce better cattle than the hon. member breeds on his farm.

Has he made his money out of farming?

He is not like many hon. members on the other side—he has not lost his money on farming. We all know the hon. member for Hospital—I totally disagree with most of his political thoughts and opinions—but he is a man of honesty and of standing. Here the society is attacked, and it is untrue and unthinkable that he is connected with a corrupt society. It is not true, and it is not fair. The hon. member for Ventersdorp says that hon. members on the other side say nothing, and know nothing about horses and cattle. Ho my hon. friends take an hon. member like that seriously? He means well, and has always meant well, but a man who says he broke the leg of his horse—we must take that with a little bit of sarcasm. We want to speak of the Bill as it is. We do feel that it does not apply to the friends of hon. members opposite, and they know it. There is no decent farmer who will ill-treat an animal, but there is a good deal of ill-treatment of animals going on in South Africa—these things do not happen in the country, but in the towns. This is the only way you can stop it. Magistrates cannot cope with it, and our own magistrates, born in South Africa, have asked that we should stiffen up this law. I do not know why my hon. friends opposite are opposing this Bill. They do not get into trouble to-day, and we do not hear of farmers being brought before the magistrates accused of ill-treating their cattle. Hon. members opposite are creating quite a wrong impression on the countryside, and they know it. I do not say the society is right or wrong. It has branches in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Durban—only in four or five places. This debate may clean up affairs so far as the society is concerned. I understand that in Cape Town there are two sections of the society, but that will come right, and has nothing whatever to do with the Bill. Mr. Dunbar is absolutely a man of straw, and the hon. member would not quote him if he knew him as well as I do. All we desire is that magistrates should have the right to order a whipping in gross and aggravated cases of cruelty, and the probability is that if that takes place once or twice, cruelty to animals will be stopped. My friend, the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler), who had a most distinguished career in the Boer war, knows that there were times when whipping had to take place, for instance, when men stole spurs or horses.

We used to whip them when they ran over to the enemy.

There are times when men have to be whipped. I hope the debate will stop now, so that we can come to the vote.

I just want to say a few words because it has long been time to vote. I cannot understand why hon. members opposite are so fond of caning. Last year there was a Bill before the House which contained provisions for corporal punishment, and then they all opposed it and the other place deleted the clause. We are a little suspicious; the societies only exist in the large towns, and the members have motor-cars and travel from one end to the other. In a few years there will hardly be any animals left in Cape Town or Johannesburg, only motor-cars. We farmers, however, have to work with animals, and we use them for carrying mealies and other produce. We do not only breed stock as the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) seems to think; he said that my hon. friend there, just in front of him, was the best stock breeder. What cruelty is there in it? One can breed thousands of animals without being cruel, but the farmers who have to work with animals day by day have to treat them differently. We are suspicious. Those societies are only in the large towns, but they poke their noses into matters they do not know enough about, and we are afraid of getting into trouble owing to circumstances.

That is no argument.

It is an argument, and I will give the hon. member another one. England is an old country. Has it got an Act for the prevention of cruelty to animals? Yes. Does it contain a provision for corporal punishment? No, otherwise they would long since have had to use the sjambok or the cane.

There are no natives there.

The Bill is not only meant for the caning of natives, but also Europeans. What happens in England? Foxes are specially bred, and then great hunts are held. According to the photos we see, that many people take part in them—hundreds and hundreds of men and women. They go hunting the poor foxes. A lot of foxes are released and they are hunted till they no longer have a skin on their bones. If England has not yet gone so far as to insert provisions for corporal punishment in the law we certainly ought not to do it. They know much more than we do.

There you are wrong.

The few English people that are here have been pushed out. The people with the most sense have remained in England. England is a much greater country than this, and we must certainly advance another 50 or a 100 years before we make such perfect laws as England does. I hope every sensible man will vote against this Bill.

They will not.

I hope the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) has sufficient experience of the countryside to do so. In any case he has more than the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North). Accidents happen with motor-cars in the towns from morning to night. People are run over and killed, but there is no flogging for that. The people on the countryside have to use animals and flogging is now to be imposed. Hon. members from the towns must not force legislation that the farmers do not want on us. The towns and the countryside must pull together.

Question put: That the word “now”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—49.

Anderson, H. E. K.

Arnott, W.

Ballantine, R.

Barlow, A. G.

Bates, F. T.

Blackwell, L.

Brown, G.

Buirski, E.

Byron, J. J.

Chaplin, F. D. P.

Close, R. W.

Coulter, C. W. A.

Deane, W. A.

Duncan, P.

Geldenhuys, L.

Gibaud, F.

Giovanetti, C. W.

Hay, G. A.

Heatlie, C. B.

Henderson, J.

Jagger, J. W.

Kentridge, M.

Lennox, F. J.

Macintosh, W.

McMenamin, J. J.

Moll, H. H.

Mullineux, J.

Nathan, E.

Nel, O. R.

Nicholls, G. H.

O’Brien, W. J.

Papenfus, H. B.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pretorius, N. J.

Reitz, D.

Rider, W. W.

Rockey, W.

Roos, T. J. de V.

Sephton, C. A. A.

Smartt, T. W.

Smuts, J. C.

Snow, W. J.

Stuttaford, R.

Te Water, C. T.

Van Heerden, G. C.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Watt, T.

Tellers: de Jager, A. L.; Louw, G. A.

Noes—44.

Badenhorst, A. L.

Bergh, P. A.

Boshoff, L. J.

Brink, G. F.

Brits, G. P.

Cilliers, A. A.

Conradie, J. H.

De Villiers, A. I. E.

De Villiers, P. C.

De Villiers, W. B.

De Waal, J. H. H.

De Wet, S. D.

Du Toit, F. J.

Grobler, P. G. W.

Hattingh, B. R.

Havenga, N. C.

Heyns, J. D.

Keyter, J. G.

Malan, C. W.

Malan, M. L.

Mostert, J. P.

Munnik, J. H.

Naudé, A. S.

Nieuwenhuize, J.

Oost, H.

Pretorius, J. S. F.

Raubenheimer, I. van W.

Reyburn, G.

Roux, J. W. J. W.

Steytler, L. J.

Strachan, T. G.

Swart, C. R.

Terreblanche, P. J.

Van Broekhuizen, H. D.

Van der Merwe, N. J.

Van Hees, A. S.

Van Niekerk, P. W. le R.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Vermooten, O. S.

Vosloo, L. J.

Waterston, R. B.

Wessels, J. B.

Tellers: Conradie, D. G.; Hugo, D.

Question accordingly affirmed, and the amendment proposed by Mr. Mostert dropped.

Motion for third reading put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

I am going to move as an amendment—

Hitherto we have had very little discussion on this matter and the House has taken very little interest in the debate. It has been carried on with empty benches and the quorum bell has been ringing very often and less than half the members of the House have taken part in the divisions. I think it is a very unfair and unjust thing which is being done in passing this Bill. If this Bill passes, I think it will be one of the worst blots on our statute book; I think it is a barbarous measure. We are going to deprive of the fruits of their labour one of the most gifted, yet one of the poorest and most helpless class in the world. Musicians are amongst the finest fruits of our civilization. They have been able to band themselves together in a form of trade union, the only kind of trade union indeed which makes it possible for them to get any return whatsoever, and here we sit in solemn counsel to deprive these people of the fruits of their labour. I cannot conceive how anyone who has a sense of justice and a sense of right can lend himself to this legislation. I hope at this late hour the House will reconsider the attitude it has taken hitherto, and defeat this Bill.

seconded the amendment.

I would like to register a final protest, too. As the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) has pointed out, this is a private Bill which I honestly believe has reached the stage it has owing to lack of interest. I do not think the House has understood the full implications of this Bill. To my mind this measure should have been sponsored by the Government and not by a private individual, because it unjustly takes away rights and privileges from a large number of private people. I notice in the “Cape Times” this morning there was a letter by Mr. Sonnenberg, who is a very strong supporter of this Bill. He says this—

There he gives the whole case away. In the first place, why is it a monopoly? These people are selling what is theirs. It is their composition. Why call it a monopoly? In the second place, the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees), admits that the composers have a right to restrain the public performance of their music, or require payment therefor. Nowhere has it been denied that the composers have a right to restrain the public from performing their productions without payment, but this Bill takes away their right, and to that extent it is a glaring injustice. The hon. member has told us that he does not want to take away that right, and yet this Bill does take away that right, and I submit it would be honest if we were to say to these composers, “Although you have been given this right by the Berlin Treaty, we are going to deprive you of that right.” That would be the logical and honest course. Instead of that, we are taking away the right by devious means, by indirect methods. The Bill says to composers, “You shall not be able to claim your copyright or royalty from anyone, unless you first give him a week’s notice.” I think it is agreed by this whole House that in practice it is absolutely impossible to give any performer a week’s notice, and therefore it seems to me that this clause was designed deliberately to make it impossible. Take the African Theatres Trust. Their attitude is not that they want notice, but “we don’t want to pay at all.” Their attitude is “You can give us as much notice as you like, we are not going to pay.” In practice they have had ample notice on every occasion. No legal action has been taken against a single individual except after ample notice, and yet this clause of the Bill makes it impossible to give them proper notice. In the second place, the hon. member who introduced this Bill said, “I am going to provide for that. I will put a clause in the Bill that any composition registered in Pretoria is excluded from this Bill.” Let us look at the motive for this clause. It purports to be in favour of the performers. It says that the composers will now have to get their works registered in the companies’ office in Pretoria. Is that going to operate as notice to performers? Do you think any performer is going to have an agent in Pretoria to look through the list of copyrights? The Minister of Justice admitted that that was, I won’t say impossible, but hopelessly impracticable. He told us so in the House, and he moved an amendment. The Minister of Justice was here only a few minutes during the last discussion, and he moved an amendment which might have been well meant, but it is equally impracticable. His amendment amounts to this, that musical works bearing “copyright” on the face of them shall be excluded. This would be all right if a musical composition were on the same basis as a printed book. Take a book. A man who wants to read a book, in the majority of cases, has to buy it and he has to sit down and read that book himself. It is not read in a town hall or broadcasted. That is the fundamental difference between a copyright in a piece of music and a book.

What about a poet’s works?

How many poets’ works do you hear in a town hall or broadcasted? It is possible that someone may give a reading from Dickens’ works now and again in public The hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal), who is a bit of a poet himself, I hope that is not his method of acquiring his poetic knowledge. Music is on a totally different basis. The Minister of Justice seems to think that the thousands who hear a piece of music buy this thing with the copyright stamp on it. How many people buy the actual piece of music? The African Theatres Trust, who are the biggest people in that line, take the music and they take it apart. They put some on cardboard for the violin players, and another part is for the band. The thing is not stamped on all the music. For every piece of music sold you will have 10,000 people or more hearing that music played. The Minister’s amendment excludes the entire bulk, the whole mass and volume of works already copyrighted. From now onwards no work which does not bear “copyright” on the face of it, can claim copyright.

That was not his amendment.

I will read it again. [Clause as amended, read.] I would ask the Minister, what does he mean by this amendment? Take a composition that is broadcasted. Are you going to put a rubber stamp on the instrument?

Broadcasting is quite another story.

Why is it a different matter? If the broadcasting company takes this piece of music and broadcasts it, surely it is admitted that the composer is entitled to his royalty on it? Take a piece of music that comes to Cape Town this morning. The African Theatres Trust take it and spread it all over the bioscopes in the country. They do not send the actual music, they send separate sheets. This Bill is going to make it quite impossible for the composer to collect what the law has given him. It has been stated in select committee that the system of notice is deficient. There, I am inclined to agree, but this Bill does not remedy that. I suggested to the Minister that we should get together and devise some fair method of notice, and I submit that my amendment met that difficulty, but here we meet on common ground, and we say the composer shall not be deprived of his just rights, or it is not the intention to deprive him of his rights. On the other hand, the Minister and the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) say people complain, and people who gave evidence also said, “We complain that the system of notice is not ample enough. We do not know when a thing is copyright or when it is not.” I moved an amendment to provide that no steps can be taken against anyone until he has been served with a registered letter notifying him that whatever works for which they claim copyright, are copyright. Surely that is a much fairer system than registering untold numbers of songs in the office at Pretoria where no one will ever see them. So we are clear on this, that if this Bill goes through we are depriving people of their just rights. We say we are not going to do it, but we are. Is that fair? This Bill, I submit again, should never have been brought before the House as a private member’s Bill. It seems to me the whole system of private Bills needs overhauling. The mere fact of its being a private member’s Bill deprives it of a great measure of interest, even though it is of great importance. The mere fact that these people are largely overseas should make us more careful not to deprive them of their rights. If this Bill goes out to the world as the work of this House, we shall certainly be rightly accused of having committed a gross injustice. I want to touch on the Berlin convention. The Berlin copyright convention, to which the Union is a party, conveys the right to composers to restrain the public performance of their music, or to require payment of their fees. That is a solemn covenant entered into by the Government of this country, and here we are allowing a private member and private interests to intervene and take away these rights. The hon. member talks about the Australian law. I have the Act here. Section 26 reads “Registration of copyright shall be optional”. And why is that done? Our own law likewise says that registration shall be optional. That clause was deliberately embodied in our Copyright Act because the Berlin convention laid down that there should be no unnecessary formality with regard to registration.

It does not lay it down.

The Berlin convention does say that there shall be no unnecessary formalities. We can go against the spirit of this law if the Government decides to do so, but for a private member to do something directly against the spirit of this convention and deprive people of their just rights, is a piece of gross injustice. I can use no other term. The New Zealand Act says the same. I do not know what the Canadian Act does.

The Canadian Act expressly forbids.

I do not think so. The hon. member has repeatedly quoted Australia and New Zealand, but the Australian and New Zealand Acts do not make registration compulsory and definitely state that it shall be optional. The Australian law goes much further. For infringement of copyright you can bring a criminal prosecution, in case you have registered. In our country it is a civil liability. You cannot bring a criminal prosecution. We do not want to make more criminals than we have already. The composers do not want a criminal remedy, they want a civil remedy. Our Act in Section 8 says there shall be no civil proceedings unless notice has been given, so there is no danger of anyone being proceeded against without having received notice. Why go and make the giving of this notice impossible? I cannot carry the matter any further, but I do hope that even now this House will pause before it commits what will be a piece of flagrant injustice. The hon. member for Delarey did not answer one of the very pertinent questions I put to him. He did not tell us how, in practice, an unfortunate composer is going to give this seven days’ notice. He did not tell us how, in practice, an unfortunate performer is going to benefit by his registration clause. How does he expect a performer to go up to Pretoria and look through a list of tens of thousands of songs? The Minister himself told us the thing is absolutely impracticable. I hope the hon. member will not content himself, as he did last time, by simply sitting quiet and saying nothing. There is a serious principle involved in this matter.

I have explained it at least a dozen times.

No, I do not think the hon. member has once explained these points. Will he kindly tell us how he expects a composer to give this notice, and whether, in practice, it is possible for a composer to go chasing about after a performer in order to give him seven days’ notice? How can you read the mind of a performer? How can you tell what he is going to play on a particular night?

Why have you suddenly taken up the cudgels for the performer?

As a citizen of this country, I am entitled to point out what is a gross injustice. I am equally entitled to ask, and I would like to know, why some members on the other side have suddenly taken up the cudgels for Mr. Schlesinger. I am not putting that question, but I could do so with equal right. It is a curious thing that Mr. Schlesinger came down a week after the Bill was rejected, and it was introduced again. I would like the hon. member also to tell us, thirdly, why this objection to the Performing Rights Society? We are told they are a monopoly. But how else can the overseas or South African composer collect his royalty? We all admit it is his just due—as much as I can claim money for the sale of a horse or a book. The sale of a musical composition is constituted by performance before the public. The hon. member seems to think that a musical composition is sold by printing it on a piece of paper and selling it over a counter. A musical composition is performed on a tambourine, violin or broadcast before the public. Why should not composers co-operate or form themselves into a trade union to collect their due, because there is no other way they can do so. How can a man in Germany, England or South Africa follow a man all round the world? He cannot do it. This is the only way, and it is not a monopoly any more than the farmer has a monopoly of his own corn and mealies which he sells. These composers are selling their own produce, and doing what the law allows them. I do hope this Bill, even at the last moment, will not go through, and I move—

I do not believe that I can be accused of wanting to do an injustice to composers. I myself, as one who in my small way has written dramas, would not like to see an injustice being done to authors. That is why at the second reading I expressed the fear that the Bill might have an unjust effect. But after I had had the evidence that was given before the select committee, I saw what the actual position was. The hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) is only trying to protect the public against the unreasonable claims of a company that has bought up the rights of certain composers for a song. This company refuses or neglects to clearly inform the public what music is under their control, and says “beware if you perform one of our pieces.” The result is that all proprietors of cafes, restaurants, hotels and all municipalities and broadcasting stations have paid the money demanded for safety’s sake from fear of litigation. The Performing Rights Society only controls a comparatively small part of the world’s good music, but they hold a sword over the heads of all performers, singers, municipalities, etc. If that society does not wish to take precautions, by means of registering their music or by putting a stamp on their pieces so that the public shall know what cannot be performed without their consent, then it is their business. For anyone to receive money from performers or municipalities, irrespective whether it has the right of control over the performance of the music or not appears to me a kind of swindling even if it is not so intended. Personally I think that the copyright on music is sufficient protection for the composer. There should not also be author’s rights on the performance of that music. Because, why is music written if it is not to be sung or played? The composer or publisher or syndicate or company that have bought up the composers’ rights can make the prices of their music as high as they wish and the profits they make out of the sale ought to be enough for them. Just as the best singers make enough profit out of the gramophone records which reproduce their voices, so also the purchasers of authors’ rights ought to be satisfied with the proceeds of the pieces of music. If they are not satisfied with that, then let them register. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) says that the Bill conflicts with the resolutions of the Berlin convention. He denies the second clause of the Bill which expressly provides that the resolutions of that convention must be borne in mind. He also says that one could just as well prohibit a wheat farmer from selling his wheat as limit a composer in his rights. Would a wheat farmer, one who has sold his wheat, want to stop its being eaten? Farmers are glad when their produce is sold, and do not demand, in addition, payment for the consumption of it.

I support the amendment by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), and I do so on the ground that everyone who values the good name of this country should vote against the passing of this Bill. We, as a nation, are very much interested in this Bill, one way and another. We have our international status to consider in this matter. We should cut a very sorry figure in the international sphere if we pass Bills of this kind. The arguments of the hon. member for Piquet-berg (Mr. de Waal) might be used against any form of copyright, but in various parts of the world people who put their labour and skill and genius into works of art, books or music have the right to protection. It is given in various forms, and in regard to music the protection given is not as to the mere paper on which it is printed, but the law protects the composer and gives him an adequate reward for the genius and skill he puts into it. It is futile to bring in the question of gramophone records, because international conventions have recognized that the products of the brain are matters which require protection in different forms. It has been universally recognized that the work of a musical composer can only be adequately rewarded in the shape of royalties on the works performed. There are considerable rights in regard to copyright works, and there are certain acts which would be theft in law if the people were to do them. This Bill is going to legalize such acts, so that people who would be looked upon as pirates at the present time, will be allowed to take what they are not entitled to. It becomes literally legalized piracy. We have an International Convention, and the hon. member has given no reason why we should not wait until after the next conference, which will be held next month, before we pass this Bill. Why this desperate hurry to get the Bill through? The hon. member knows he would have no ghost of a chance of getting a clause of this kind through the International Conference. The hon. member for Piquet-berg acknowledges that the works of composers should be protected. There are only three forms of protection under this Bill, namely, registration, notice, and by getting the notification of copyright put on the face of the work itself. Notice is quite impossible. If this Bill passes, you might hear for the first time today that an important copyright work is being performed, then you might give the notice, and for seven clear days the person pirating it can go on performing it after he gets the notice. Then he can switch on to something else and carry on different works for 52 weeks, pirating copyright works before or after he gets the notice in each case. Take the next protection, that the work should be registered. It is impossible to get adequate protection from registration, and hon. members who know this have not said a word for some time in favour of registration. Let us take the third point, that the copyright notice must appear on the face of the musical work itself. There are a hundred ways of getting over that, and that particular protection is not worth the paper it is written on. The proposition is futile to protect the admitted rights of the composer. We ought to view, with considerable distaste and shame the taking away of the rights these people have. What is the excuse? We hear talk about monopoly and the hon. member for Piquetberg talks about a syndicate. This Performing Rights Society is not a syndicate, hut a body constituted for the protection of 20,000 members all over the world, containing men of world-wide reputations, like Elgar and Strauss, and others, down to the humblest member, whom we are just as much concerned to protect, for the sake of our own honour, as to protect men with an international reputation. These people have nothing but this society to protect them against raids and robbery of the pirates of the world. Why should they be stigmatized as a syndicate? They exist simply for the protection of the members of the society, poor and rich, and the people who are protected are the composers. Publishers are members of this society for some very good reason, probably for the reason that they have equal interests and are equally important in publishing a work in a way that enables the composer to get advantage of the disposal of a large number of copies which he would not otherwise be able to. It is a common interest. The poor composer living from hand to mouth, at his wits’ end, in some garret in London or other big city, devoted to musical art out of the sheer love of that art, ought to be protected, and it is no use stigmatizing the society as a syndicate or a company. It is there for a proper and laudable object, to protect the interests of a large number of people who have combined, and can protect themselves only in that way. This, I submit, should be the last tribunal in the world to do a grave injustice against these people. Why are we being asked to do this? Who are the people that will suffer? The question is purely, from the point of view of the hon. member down there (Mr. van Hees), one of profit. There is a profit in the production of these works. Who is entitled to that profit? Under the present system the man who under our statute laws and under international law is entitled to the profit of that work is the composer. Who is the alternative person who is going to get the profit? It was put to us the other day by the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) that the Performing Rights Society might sell their works to a trust. In the first place, why on earth should they? Why on earth should they not look after their own interests in their own way In the second place, let me tell the hon. member that the Performing Rights Society cannot sell these works for the simple reason that the society does not own them. Why should this Performing Rights Society be stigmatized as a trust, a syndicate, a monopoly, and all the rest of the hard names given to it, when the very people using these names suggest that the Performing Rights Society should get out of their difficulty by selling the rights which they have to a trust, which is a monopoly and a syndicate, or whatever you like to call it? Following up the point as to who is going to get the profit, we have this fact that by our statute and international law the profit rights are secured to the composer. The Performing Rights Society does not get them. Who is going to get them under this new provision? Is the public going to get the benefit of these profits, or is the group of people who are behind this movement to cancel the present law going to get the profits? Very clearly there is some well-organized promoting body behind this Hill which is seeking to push this Bill through, and the House can take it that this is the body which is going to get the profits. In the interests of whom? In the interests of the promoters themselves. I have just had placed in my hand a resolution passed at a congress in Rome of the Confederated International Society of Authors and Dramatic Composers, in which they state that a violation of the revised regulations of the Convention of Herne, Article 4, would be submitted to the Parliament of the Union of South Africa, and that the free protection and exercise of authors’ rights would thereby be rendered impossible. It is perfectly clear from this resolution what the composers think about it. What amazes me is the attitude of the Labour party in connection with this. After all, in whichever way you regard it, it is the protection of the fruits of the labour of people who combine for their own protection. How people who support trade union principles lend themselves to what I may call the policy of the blackleg, I cannot understand. After all, that is what this Bill really is. It is currying out what, in labour circles, is known as the blackleg policy. I hope that this Hilt will not be allowed to pass, and that the House will not lend itself to the principle of confiscation, embodied in this Bill, a principle not of confiscation, as was pointed out in another matter yesterday, for the benefit of the State, but for the benefit of people who do not themselves come forward in these matters, but who, we know, are ultimately bound to benefit. The hon. member for Delarey mentioned some figures, and said that the Performing Rights Society collected something like £4,000, and that the Schlesinger company paid about £450. I have been informed since then that the Performing Rights Society have collected about £2,000, and that the Schlesinger company paid about half of that. It seems to me that when the people who are most interested passed this resolution of protest at the International Conference against the violation of their rights, we are bound to ask this House to pause and refuse to pass this measure.

As this is a musical subject, I wish the rules of the House would allow me to sing my few remarks, because I can sing them so much better than I can speak them. I do think that if this Bill passes it will be a scandal. This Bill, in my opinion, aims to rob widows and orphans, and I am told, to benefit a rich corporation. I would like to tell the House this—that musicians, as a rule, do not make big money. It is scarcely on record that any big musician, however big he may have been, ever made much money out of composing. I suppose Sir Arthur Sullivan would probably be one of the few exceptions. I want to refer the hon. member for Delarey to one ease. Let us take Coleridge-Taylor. He is dead. He left a widow and children. He wrote two great classics. His widow and children are away in England. These works go on, and if it were not for the Performing Bights Society there would be no one to see that they got their fee. There are very few songs written which are best sellers. There are songs like the “Lost Chord,” which has to-day become a classic, and there are other songs which are also classic, and they go on living for ever, but the great bulk of songs cease to be. Very often on a programme the name of the composer of a song is not printed, and even when songs are printed on the programme the encores are not printed there. It seems to me an extraordinary thing that the House should be asked to pass something which directly aims at a poor class of women. I have heard the bona fides of the Performing Rights Society questioned. I have got the names of one or two of the publishers. Chapman & Co., Ricardo, Novello—are they to be impugned? It is ridiculous to make these assertions. These people are banded together to protect people who cannot protect themselves. The honour of this House is at stake, and I hope the Minister of Justice will not lend himself to a private member’s Bill to rob widows and orphans.

It is really very delightful to hear these hon. gentlemen taking up the case of the authors and composers, but they have been caught with birdlime in the simplest way. The unfortunate composer is being done down so this philanthropic society is watching the interests of these poor people! It is the greatest fallacy. The company or society is not doing any watching. They have no staff for such a purpose. Let the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Rockey), whose sympathies are so easily aroused, inquire what staff of protectors this Performing Bights Society has in South Africa. No, they do not need a staff, they are not going to do any work at all. They simply get a lot of musical composers into their society and these, not being able to fully watch their own interests abroad, hope someone will keep watch for them. It is a vain hope. First we can put the writer of books aside. His authors’ copyright, if he has protected it, runs very simply right throughout the world. All he is afraid of is that his book may be pirated by being re-printed, but that is so easily traced that it does not need much watching. Unless printing pirates can sell a large number of “best sellers” it would not pay to do it, so the Performing Bights Society does not help the author. Now we come to musical composers, and what do they tell me? They can register compositions with this society, and maybe once in a blue moon they will find there was discovery of some performance of their music or songs, and pressure brought to bear to stop it. But it is not that performing composers object to. The more their works are performed the better pleased they are. As a matter of fact, musical composers say: “Sing and play our compositions just as much as you like; the more the merrier.” It makes their work popular. Where then does the composer come in? It is entirely on the sales of printed piece music and songs.

Not a bit of it.

It is so. The composer says: “Do not let anyone print and publish it, my authorized publisher pays me a royalty on every copy sold. Sell as many as you can; let it be performed freely as often as possible. I have no objection to that publicity and popularity at all.” But for these company shareholders to put it out that they altruistically protect innocent authors and composers is pure bluff; a greater fallacy there could hardly be. Company promoters have seen a good thing for profit making and dividends, collecting a considerable amount of revenue. The society’s solitary agent simply comes upon the scene and says to a municipality, or some theatrical body: “Now, if you will pay us £1,000, or £500, or £100 a year, as the case may be, we will guarantee, as far as we are concerned, not to bring any action against you for copyright infringement.” And then do they watch what copyright pieces are being performed, and do they say: “Out of these thousands we receive, noticing that so-and-so’s work is being performed, we will send him some money from our impost?” No one ever heard of the society doing so. Possibly, if a composer said: “In such-and-such a hall I notice my things are being performed,” they might then interfere at such an unusual request, but generally speaking, I do not think one shilling of the thousands exacted by the Performing Bights Society ever reaches a composer; and certainly, of course, never an author. The society is exploiting a remarkably good field, but I challenge its parliamentary defenders to produce an annual account with particulars of what the society has paid to musical composers, and what has gone to its shareholders. You have in this country one man, like a spider in the middle of a web, and the moment you touch that web the spider runs out and catches you.

You are in the web all right.

Who is the spider behind the Bill?

Supposing all members who believe this society protects copyright are right, I ask what harm is there in asking the society to do something for its money? Why should they not give performers due notice if a copyright work under the society’s protection is being publicly produced.

How much royalty would they get in such cases?

Well, whatever they got, they—the society’s shareholders—would stick to it. I can assure the hon. gentleman of that. I know something of the transactions of these good and generous people. What harm is it to say to them: “If you find anybody infringing performing restrictions, give notice—

It is too late.

Give seven days’ notice, and then come down on performers, the moment they got notice they would drop it. In most cases, nearly all in fact, where there is copyright music, public performance is not interfered with by composers. If I thought we were doing injustice to anybody, I would not be for this Bill. I admit it may be a ding-dong battle between Mr. Schlesinger and this Performing Rights Society; I am not standing by Mr. Schlesinger because he is Schlesinger, but why do you put outside people into the position to interfere so as to give them a nice, unearned income? There are few very agents employed—the society makes easy profits and distributes dividends amongst its own limited number of shareholders. Does anybody suppose that all these names of publishing firms the hon. gentleman (Mr. Rockey) read out are shareholders of a mutual profit-sharing society? Not a bit of it. It is to nobody’s advantage that this society should be buoyed up; and to give it statutory protection is a mistaken idea. It is only royalties from publishers that do the composers any good whatever.

The argument adduced by the hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hay) is rather difficult to follow. I do not know whether it matters what staff the Performing Rights Society have. They exist, and the best evidence that they carry out the functions for which they exist is the introduction of this Bill. They are agents for these composers, and that is their business, and if the composers have entered into an agreement with these people, it is not for us to say whether that agreement is a fair one or not; after all, the composers know best where their interests lie. I oppose this measure, however, on very different grounds. It is an elementary principle of our law that an individual infringes the legal rights of third parties at his peril. I think this legislation would be a blot on our statute book. If we put this Bill on the statute book, we are countenancing the most contemptible form of theft, viz., the stealing of other people’s brains. I insist that these people have certain rights, and you have no right to interfere with them, and, if you do so, you do so at your peril. The Bill amounts to this: “You have a right, and I am going to infringe that right until you tell me I have rot the right to do so.” That is a novel doctrine, and is preposterous. It is the duty of the Minister of Justice to take up this matter and see that this Bill is thrown out. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal) has put forward no reason for his justification that this is a reasonable measure. Never have I heard of such an attitude being taken up that you have a right under a statute and an Act of Parliament to infringe the rights of another individual with impunity; that you can do so for seven days, or until notice has been given by the injured person.

The Bill does not say so.

I am sure that if any hon. member sits down and looks at this Bill calmly and sees what it contemplates and asks for, his sense of justice will compel him to vote against it.

You give him notice.

As far as giving notice is concerned, a communication has reached me from the Performing Rights Society—the last communication which has reached me. The letter states that any person performing a musical work knows immediately—by looking at the cover and seeing the publishers’ name—whether or not he is entitled to perform it. If a person performs a piece of music without previously ascertaining whether he has the right to do so or not he should not play it.

Has the society shown you its accounts?

I don’t want to see their accounts. That is the composer’s business. It is the business of the Minister of Justice to intervene and stop this blot being placed on the statute book.

It cannot be said that any tactics have been used to oppose the measure, and the speeches which have been delivered this afternoon must have enlightened hon. members as to what is really before the House. I congratulate the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) on his two previous contributions this week, which were excellent—I wish I could congratulate him on his speech of this afternoon, but this subject requires inside knowledge.

Where do you get your inside knowledge?

I happened to have practised a good many years as a barrister, and have been concerned in cases dealing with copyright. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) said that the Performing Rights Society had no staff. Seeing that performances take place in 300 or 400 places every night in the week throughout South Africa, how would it be possible for the society to have a staff to visit each of those places? Even if the society had a staff large enough to do that, the wages that would have to be paid would not be covered by the contributions levied on places of amusement. The hon. member has chosen to make a lot of a letter we have all received to-day from Mr. Silberbauer, a solicitor of a very high reputation, and who would not he connected with an association of this kind if it were a fraud. We may therefore take it that the society’s bona fides are established because of the fact that a man of Mr. Silberbauer’s calibre is connected with it. Mr. Silberbauer asks how can a municipality like Bloemfontein object to an annual fee of £5 5s. for permission for almost the whole of the world’s music to be played on its property? He gives other instances of the very small fees which are asked, showing that the authors and composers receive a modicum of reward.

How much do they get?

What has that got to do with you?

Is this House anxious to protect those who write songs or music? We protect engineers and manufacturers, so why should we not protect authors and composers? The object of the Bill is to make it absolutely impossible for a composer to protect himself.

You have your Copyright Act.

But the composer may be in another part of the world. Take the case of the late Coleridge-Taylor. His widow lives on the royalties on his music. The heirs of composers like Sir Gilbert Sullivan are entitled to protection. The Bill says that an interdict will not be granted unless seven days’ notice is given. Can it be expected that the authors will be here to protect their rights? They entrust that task to the Performing Rights Society. Assuming that an author does take action, he will have to prove damages. What damage can he prove if his song has been sung for four or five nights? Very often the author is a poor man living heaven knows where, and he finds a firm which comes to his assistance and produces his work, taking the risk whether or not it will take with the public. Those of us who know anything about music say that not 1 per cent. is successful. If you go into some of these places in Cape Town you will find pieces of music selling for 3d., 2d. and 1d., because they have been failures. They have a right, however, to ask us to protect them in regard to the 1 per cent., but this Bill proposes to take away that right. The hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) has put the matter very thoroughly, and I can only add my word: “Don’t proceed with this Bill. It is not fair or just.” I am not concerned as to who is at the back of the Bill, but we have to take the Bill on its merits, and on its merits it is a bad Bill. A man may take action and fail, and he has to pay the costs in addition, and they would probably be high enough to ruin him for the rest of his life. Don’t legislate to take away legitimate rights of people who come to us and ask us to protect them. This legislation should not receive any encouragement in this House.

Question put: That the word “now”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—51.

Alexander, M.

Badenhorst, A. L.

Barlow. A. G.

Bergh, P. A.

Bosboff, L. J.

Boydell, T.

Brits, G. P.

Brown, G.

Cilliers, A. A.

Conradie, D. G.

De Villiers, A. I. E.

De Villiers, P. C.

De Villiers, W. B.

De Waal, J. H. H.

Du Toit, F. J.

Fick, M. L.

Grobler, P. G. W.

Hattingh, B. R.

Havenga, N. C.

Hay. G. A.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

Heyns, J. D.

Hugo. D.

Kemp. J. C. G.

Kentridge, M.

Keyter, J. G.

Malan, C. W.

Malan, D. F.

Moll, H. H.

Mostert, J. P.

Munnik. J. H.

Naudé, A. S.

Oost, H.

Pretorius, J. S. F.

Raubenheimer, I. van W.

Roos, T. J. de V.

Sampson, H. W.

Steytler, L. J.

Swart, C. R.

Terreblanche, P. J.

Te Water, C. T.

Van Broekhuizen, H. D.

Van der Merwe, N. J.

Van Heerden, I. P.

Van Hees, A. S.

Van Niekerk, P. W. le R.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Vosloo, L. J.

Wessels, J. B.

Tellers: Pienaar, B. J.; Vermooten, O. S.

Noes—41.

Anderson, H. E. K.

Ballantine, R.

Bates, F. T.

Buirski, E.

Byron, J. J.

Chaplin, F. D. P.

Close, R. W.

Deane, W. A.

Duncan, P.

Geldenhuys, L.

Gibaud, F.

Gilson, L. D.

Giovanetti, C. W.

Grobler, H. S.

Harris, D.

Henderson, J.

Jagger, J. W.

Lennox, F. J.

Louw, G. A.

Macintosh, W.

Nathan, E.

Nel, O. R.

Nicholls, G. H.

Nieuwenhuize, J.

O’Brien, W. J.

Papenfus, H. B.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pearce, C.

Pretorius, N. J.

Reitz, D.

Rockey, W.

Roux, J. W. J. W.

Smartt, T. W.

Smuts, J. C.

Snow, W. J.

Stuttaford, R.

Van Heerden, G. C.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Watt, T.

Tellers: Collins, W. R.; de Jager, A. L.

Question accordingly affirmed, and the amendment proposed by Mr. Nicholls dropped.

Motion for third reading put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

On this clause I see that the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) has an amendment on the paper. I do not know whether anybody is moving the amendment on behalf of the hon. member. This is an important amendment as far as the south coast of Natal is concerned.

I move—

About a fortnight ago the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst) asked the Minister in charge of this Bill to adjourn because we had had a very hard week. I took the liberty of advising the hon. member to go to bed, and on this occasion I feel very much like that myself, for we have had a very hard week. Won’t the Minister report progress so that we can start on Monday afternoon fresh?

No, I like a jaded House.

Exactly, but I should think the Minister likes a good measure better. I am sure the Minister must be indebted to some of the members, at any rate, for the valuable assistance which they have contributed during this debate. Of course, if the Minister is going to remain obdurate, I am not going to waste time. There are some members here, I am sure, who must feel very tired after what we have gone through this week.

I would like to ask the Minister about sub-section (a) of Clause 53. Take the town of Heilbron. The whole town, I should think, lies within a radius of half-a-mile from its own location, and I daresay in most Free State cases you would find the same conditions hold good. Surely, it should be a matter for the licensing court to decide, and prohibition should not be made as final as it is here. It seems to me you are laying down a hard and fast rule that no new licences may be granted within half-a-mile of a location. Surely the licensing court should be the best judge. I again mention Heilbron. How does the proximity of the location affect the matter at all? All the licences in existence in that particular town are within half-a-mile of its own location. Why not leave it to the licensing court? I would move that sub-section (a) be deleted, because it may work very great hardships in a number of cases. Take Bloemfontein. I realize it only applies to new licences, but if existing licences being within half-a-mile of the location does not constitute any trouble or offence, then why make this a hard and fast rule? I think this is far too definite. It is too inflexible. Take Heilbron again. A licence may lapse. They may all lapse and new licences will be applied for, but a surveyor will tell you that these are within 800 yards of the boundary of a location. The licensing court should be given the jurisdiction. I hope the Minister will agree to delete sub-section (a), and I would ask him to accept the amendment, viz.—

I am advised by the department that it might cause considerable danger as far as the illicit traffic is concerned, if we allow licensed premises to be established so near a location. After all, half a mile is not a very great distance, and it only means in that radius there will be no new licences, although renewals may be had. I think there are bound to be sites in every town at a greater distance than half-a-mile from the location. It is a matter of common knowledge that you generally have the location abutting on the poorer part of the town and all kinds of things might happen. The chances there are greater than elsewhere. We have tried to provide for cases of hardship, and I think it would be unwise for the committee to delete that paragraph. As far as the other amendment is concerned, I think it is an amendment which should be accepted. I know of cases of hardship in Natal that might easily be hardships in other parts as well.

Does not the same thing apply to the amendment of mine? It should be hedged round.

It may be possible. I don’t think much harm would be done if it were hedged round or if we hedge it about in the same way as the three miles are hedged round. In practice I do not think it would help, because I do not think any Government would take the responsibility of establishing a licence within half-a-mile of a location. The provision might be inserted in the proviso, but I do not think it would ever be used. If the hon. member will allow the matter to stand over for the report stage, I have no objection, and I would be grateful.

It is not clear to me either what the effect of this clause is. I mean paragraph (a). In my constituency, where there are various locations, there are different cases where there are hotels in a village which border on locations, such as Taungs. If the proprietor of such an hotel were possibly to commit an indiscretion his licence is taken away and then, according to this Bill, no renewal of his licence can in future be granted. A village like Taungs, and there are four other places in my constituency that are in the same position, is absolutely dependent on it. Such a village possibly consists of 30 erven, and there is an hotel in every village. If the licence is taken away from the holder in such a village through his having committed such a mistake, it means that in future that village will be without an hotel. There is a danger in this Bill of existing rights being taken away. I know of two cases in my constituency where right up against the locations two hotels have been built for the convenience of the travelling public, but if they have no bar licence it means the hotels will have to close down.

I do not want to continue the debate; the Minister has very reasonably met the point. But take Heilbron again, the whole main street is within half-a-mile of the location. The court should grant licences only in the main street, where all the licences are concentrated. If, at the report stage, the Minister would allow me to recast the amendment on the lines suggested by the hon. member, I will withdraw my amendment.

With leave of committee, this amendment withdrawn.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Anderson put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 54,

I move—

There are some licensed houses which are not located in health or pleasure resorts, yet they are required to meet the needs of the travelling public. There are several such places in the rural areas of the Transvaal and Natal; there are no such places in the Free State, but probably there are some in the Cape Province. The amendment would allow the court to renew a licence when the court was satisfied that it was in the interests of the travelling public. The amount specified for licences may err on the side of extravagance where country side licences are concerned, and I would like to hear the views of hon. members conversant with countryside conditions on the figures.

I move—

I do that on behalf of the hon. member for Boshoff (Mr. van Rensburg). The Minister knows that the old Volksraad passed an Act abolishing the wayside hotels throughout the Free State and if there is one thing of which the Free State is proud, then it is that those country districts are rid of the hotels. Practically the whole of the public insist that there should be no interference with the laws made in this connection.

The Minister said there were conditions prevailing in the Transvaal and the Free State similar to the Cape and the Western Province. There are places like Humansdorp and Gamtoos River which are holiday resorts where people of moderate means go and no one would put up a £10,000 place at Gamtoos River. It would be dangerous. Occasionally they have big floods there and as a holiday resort, as I said, only people of moderate means go there, and no one would put up a building of that value. The Minister’s amendment concerning travellers would perhaps meet it, but I hope others will say what amount they think is necessary. I am sure £10,000 would kill these places as it is not fair to people of moderate means.

I move—

When you omit “or renew” the country hotels would go on as in the past. If they are no longer required at that spot, it is for the licensing board to decide. If they are mere drinking places, it is for the licensing board not to renew such a licence. By taking out (a), (b) and (c) you do away altogether with a place having to be of a certain value. The value of £10,000 for a country hotel placed on it is very extravagant, but whether it is or not I do not think we should place it at any particular value. By inserting these other words you leave it in the Minister’s discretion. If such an hotel would be in the general public interest that hotel or club could be established at any place within the rural area. Then you need not place any value on it. If the Minister thinks it is in the public interest, he will send a recommendation to the licensing board to consider the application as to whether it shall be granted or not. I hope the Minister will approve of my amendment which I think goes far to meet all the objections and would not unnecessarily do away with country hotels now existing, as is proposed in the Bill.

I move—

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.7 p.m.

I want to support the amendment of the hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie), because I think that the control of licences for hotels should be left in the hands of the licensing boards. Where there is ample evidence that a licence is needed in a certain locality, I think the discretion to decide whether that licence should be granted or not should be left entirely in the hands of the licensing board, without any restriction whatever as to the value of the building proposed to be erected. I certainly had hopes that the Minister would accept that amendment, because on the second reading debate on this clause, the Minister indicated that he would be prepared to consider amendments to the clause providing that no country hotel licence should be granted unless the building be of the value of not less than £10,000. What will be the effect of that clause if we pass it as it stands now? The effect will be to close down practically every country hotel in the three provinces. There are none in the Free State, I understand. One can imagine the hardship which would result to the people who own these hotels. These people have probably invested their life-long savings in acquiring these businesses. Surely it is too drastic with one stroke of the pen to tell them that in ten years time their businesses shall close down, because that is really the effect of it. There are no country hotels, as far as I know, which can on a capital outlay of £10,000 expect to get a reasonable return on that capital outlay. I think the effect will be, not to bring about an improvement in the country hotels, but to close them down throughout the Union. Then again, what about the general public? Would it be an advantage to the general public if all the country hotels in the Union were closed down? We know there are hotels which are a great convenience to the travelling public, and hotels which are a great convenience to the pleasure-seeker and the health-seeker. I have, in my own constituency, some examples of that. We have such an hotel as the National Park Hotel. There a purely seasonal business is done which endures for about six months in the year, during the summer months, and to expect the National Park Hotel proprietor to put up buildings of the value of £10,000 in the hope of getting an adequate return on a six months’ turnover, is, of course, an utter impossibility. That hotel is one of great convenience to the pleasure-seeker and the health-seeker. It is very well patronized and it would be a very great hardship to the general public if it were closed down. Then I have another example in the Van Reenen hotel, which has served a much-needed want. It is not within the area of a local authority. That is also a seasonal business lasting for about six months, the summer months. For the rest of the year most of the people go down to the coast. The effect of this clause would be that that hotel and many others like it, would have to close down, the proprietors finding themselves in the position that they will not be able to sell their businesses. If this clause passes, what will be their sale value? Imagine an hotel proprietor with this clause up against him trying to dispose of his business. What would he get for it? It simply means that these people, unless they are in a very strong position indeed, financially, would have to close down, and probably be thrown on the street. This sort of legislation may appeal strongly to the ultra-temperance people who want to make a clean sweep of these hotels—they would probably like to wipe them out in the towns as well—but I do not think it is the sort of legislation that appeals strongly to the Minister, at any rate. I am quite sure the Minister is not desirous of inflicting any hardship or treating any section of the community in a drastic way, and I am quite satisfied he is not going to insist on this limit of £10,000. The Minister indicated he would like to get some information from hon. members of the value which should be placed on country hotels, the minimum value. For my part, I do not think any such value should be fixed at all. The extent of the buildings should depend entirely on the estimated value of the trade which is anticipated, and to insist on any man putting up buildings which cost more than the circumstances warrant, is certainly a hardship. There is another class of hotel in Natal, and I think the Transvaal too, which is serving a very useful purpose indeed and is a great help to the farming community. That is the hotel which is in the centre of a prosperous farming district. Instead of the farmer to-day, in many of these districts, being compelled to take his produce to the buyer, he is able to attract the buyer to his own centre. They have these sales periodically in many parts of Natal in the outlying districts. I do not think they will be able to attract the buyer unless there is some hostel or accommodation where the buyer can be put up. There are numbers of such places in my constituency. [Time limit.]

I move—

There are many hotels in the countryside which are already having a hard struggle to exist, but yet they provide for the needs of the whole public. It is almost unthinkable that a proprietor of one of the small hotels can so improve it by rebuilding to be worth £10,000 together with the ground on which it stands. The result will be that the hotels will disappear to the great inconvenience of the traveling public. When the Bill was being debated the Minister expressed his readiness to provide for that. It says here that they may continue to exist another ten years, and therefore I hope that the Minister will allow the hotels to continue longer. In the small villages of my constituency such hotels cannot possibly be built, and I hope the Minister will not allow that provision to remain.

I think the objection of the hon. member who has just spoken would be met quite effectively by simply agreeing to the omission of the words “or renewal”. This clause in the future only applies to new licences. This clause has ostensibly been put in to provide for fresh accommodation where it is required. Those who have had the handling of the Bill have made it a condition that no new licences shall be granted, no fresh hotels and clubs agreed to, unless of the value of £10,000. It is a prohibitive condition, and I put it to the hon. member that this is not the way to achieve his object. He should agree to that £10,000 being reduced to some reasonable amount. The existing ones, I think, should be allowed to remain exactly as they are. Don’t interfere with people who are making a living in an honest way. They are doing their best, and they supply a very important public need. I think the conditions to be attached are quite reasonable—it should, be proved that it is necessary for these licences to be granted, and the Minister should have the right to decide on the merits of the case that a licence should be granted. Omit the words “or renewed” and reduce the £10,000 to £2,500.

Take it out altogether.

I am not prepared to take it out altogether. We must have some regard for the comfort of the surrounding public. £2,500 is not an excessive amount to ask him to spend in the interests of the public for decent accommodation. In the past we have had too many ramshackle places called hotels, and shebeens, which we want to avoid. I am quite prepared to support this clause if the words “or renewed” are omitted, and this reduction is made.

Many unreasonable and absurd provisions are contained in the Bill, but the provision that a country hotel shall cost £10,000 to obtain or retain a licence is the worst of all. What person would dream of building an hotel costing £10,000 on the very doubtful prospect of obtaining a licence for it? And when once he has obtained the licence what guarantee is there that he will keep it? What is the object of the provision?

To kill all the country hotels.

Then the Minister must be honest and say so and frankly provide for it. The question ought not to be what the building costs, but where it is situated, and whether a licence is required there, and whether there is enough police control, and things like that. What has the cost of the building to do with the desirability of the licence? Public interest and the convenience of travellers must be studied in the first place. Why must one be compelled to build a palace with 15 rooms where, on the average, you have only to provide for three travellers a day? The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) once said that the select committee intended to stop the facilities for the sale of drink as much as possible. This is another proof of it. I am only sorry that the Minister allowed himself to be influenced to put such an absurd provision in the Bill.

I want to support what has been said by the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards). I very well know those country hotels referred to just before 6 o’clock by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Sir William Macintosh). In each case, not only do they provide what the outside public calls strong drink, but they provide for the simple necessities families demand—tea, coffee, and so on. It is too much to expect people of this sort to commit themselves, if they possibly can, to a capital expenditure of £10,000. The Thornhill Hotel is on the very verge of Van Staaden’s Pass, and it, as well as the Gamtoos Hotel, makes provision for travellers who come there. It is the same with regard to the country hotels adjacent to the beauty spots in the neighbourhood of East London—beauty spots which are unique in this country. Carry, if you will, stringent regulations concerning new applications, but do not touch places that have been in existence for years and are still conducted as model properties.

I think, if we can get a figure on which we can agree, we should keep this minimum requisition in this section, for this reason—it is going to be a difficult task as far as the discretion of the Minister is concerned if there is no guide in the Bill. The amendment of the hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie) would make every case one for the decision of the Minister, to be passed on to the licensing board, and is going to be almost an impossible task with which to deal. I think hon. members will see from both points of view; we could give some guidance as to these types of hotels in the rural areas; after that, we must give some idea as to what our requirements are, and also make our work, where our discretion is concerned, easier. Then, if we had the clause “to the satisfaction of the Minister” and we get the right figure, we ought to make this clause applicable both to the old grants and to the new ones. If we have a figure which is moderate, we can bring up our hotels in the course of the ten years to that figure. I do not like deleting the words “or renewed”. I propose that we substitute £2,500 for £10,000, so that throughout the section the amount will be £2,500. That should meet hon. members, who say that £10,000 is too much, for if an existing place is worth £1,500, and it cannot in ten years’ time be added to so as to make its value £2,500, then it is obvious that it is not necessary; there may, of course, be exceptional cases, but one cannot provide for every exception. After all, £2,500 represents a very substantial country hotel or club. I move—

I am sorry that the Minister has conceded so much. He knows very well how we in the Transvaal have fought in the past for the abolition of country canteens. I admit that places like pleasure resorts and clubs may be necessary, and that we must concede a bit there. Hon. members cannot understand what opposition we had from the liquor people in former days; those places were the ruin of the country. The Minister has done the right thing in the existing clause. I agree that the sum of £10,000 is a little high, but £2,500, which is now proposed, is too low, and the people who are building hotels at pleasure resorts, such as, e.g., the Hartebeestpoort Dam, will be prepared to pay a large amount, and the existing hotels are given ten years’ time to make the alterations. Now the Minister comes and concedes far too much to the hon. members who want it reduced. Do not let us, when we now have the country fairly quit of those undesirable hotels, reintroduce them. An amendment has already been proposed by the hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. Cilliers) that the Free State does not want hotels at all. The Free State set an example in doing away with the outside places. How many years have they not rejoiced at the abolition of those places where drink used to be sold? I am very sorry that the Minister has yielded. If the amount is too high bring it down to £5,000 or £6,000. I admit that if we leave it altogether to the Minister it will place too much responsibility on him. We must make provision because the country hotels and wayside drinking places are very undesirable.

Hon. members seem to forget that there is no quota for country hotels, and that is one reason why this high figure was inserted. It is obvious that in the case of Natal and the Cape there may be cases of hardship, to which possibly the commission did not give sufficient heed through focussing our eyes too much on the Transvaal and the Free State. Country hotels have been abolished in the Free State. In the Transvaal we have numerous little pot houses in the country districts, which are an absolute curse. The police evidence before the select committee was almost entirely against the continuation of these country hotels, which are simply foci of illicit drinking and Sunday drinking. I ask the hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider)—whose speech I listened to more in sorrow than in anger—how does he suppose we are going to control Sunday drinking at these country hotels?

It would be better if the hon. member addressed the chair.

If these hotels are left on the fringe of the towns how are you going to control them? Nevertheless, I am prepared to accept a considerably lower figure than the £10,000. I would like to see £5,000. I think the Minister should throw out this proposition. If they want to make it as low as £2,500, then restrict the period of ten years, and I think it would be reasonable to give them five years. If a country hotel is worth existing at all and having a liquor licence, it is worth spending £2,500 to serve the travelling public. The complaint about South Africa as a land for tourists is that our country hotels are impossible, and ten years was put in because you could not expect the country hotels to reach the big figure in a short space of time, but if you reduce it to £2,500, you should reduce it to five years.

And you propose abolishing them five years after?

If they are not worth £2,500 they have no right to exist with a liquor licence. Their existence is only justified because they give service to the travelling public, then let them give efficient service. I move—

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell), seems to think that the hotels exist solely in the interests of the licensee, and that they get such huge profits out of them that they should put some of it aside to build further additions to their hotels. But hotels exist for the benefit of the countryside, which the hon. member seems to forget. These hotels exist not only as hotels, but in Natal they function also as bottle stores. If it were not for the off-consumption licence, many of them would not exist at all. They fill a necessary want. It is the farmers going to meetings who call for lunch or dinner while looking after their business, or who find it necessary to spend a night in the country centre for whom these hotels exist. These hotel-keepers do not earn sufficient money to build new and palatial hotels; they only get enough to make a living and they keep the kind of hotel required to meet the interests of the countryside. Must the farmers in Zululand have to send all the way to Durban for a bottle of beer if they want it? What advantage is it to me or to any other farmer if the country hotel-keeper is compelled to spend £2,500 on the hotel instead of keeping the £1,500 hotel in a proper state. The ordinary tripper from Johannesburg is not going to these hotels. They were created for the local people. We are not catering for the American tourist, as the hon. member seems to think.

It is because the country hotels are so bad.

Rubbish. The American tourists do not go to every dorp in the country. I think we are trying to legislate for the whole country from the angle of Johannesburg, and we are going to penalize not only the whole countryside, but we are going to make it impossible for people to earn a living. I do not stand up here in the interest of increasing facilities for drink, but in the interest of common sense and of the people of the countryside, who use the hotels.

I can really not understand why the countryside should be placed in a difficulty. It is surely done by people who have not yet got any experience of travelling without wayside hotels. I quite agree with what the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), has said. More and more use is being made of the country hotels. More travelling is being done nowadays and, in the northern districts, one finds travellers everywhere. Where are they to stay if the small hotels in the country districts cease to exist? The distances between the larger places where there are proper hotels are great and it is impossible to expect that the farming population shall show the same hospitality to travellers as formerly. That cannot be done. People no longer arrive by ones or twos in a Cape cart, but with their families in motor cars, and it cannot possibly be expected that the ordinary people who own farms should give hotel facilities to the travellers. It must not be forgotten also that travellers are often delayed by rivers in flood, bad roads, etc., and the hotels are then a blessing. I had hoped that the Minister would move his amendment on page 222. The clause deals with the renewal of licences for country hotels, wayside hotels. It seems to me that the Minister has abandoned the idea of moving it. He wanted to move to delete all words after “be renewed” up to the end of the paragraph. That would mean that the renewal of licences of country hotels would be easier and be left in the hands of the licensing boards of the different districts. According to the motion now under discussion it is necessary first to erect buildings of a certain value, and secondly such an hotel must be a health- or a holiday resort. I must admit that the Minister had met us by reducing the value of hotels from £10,000 to £2,500, but I consider that still too high. I agree with the hon. member for Zululand that £2,500 is a large sum for an outside hotel. I do not think that many houses on farms are worth that, and many hotels in villages are not worth more than £2,500. I do not, however, wish to go into it, because the Minister has agreed to the reduction to £2,500, and will possibly go a little further, but I should like to see the following condition, which is being put at the same time, should also be deleted, viz., the last words of the paragraph—

Because although hotels may be very convenient for the travelling public, they still need not absolutely be health or holiday resorts. It is difficult to expect that in many country districts, and especially in the low veld. The hotels are for the benefit of the travelling public, and I hope the Minister will be prepared to delete these conditions. Therefore I move—and the amendment practically takes the place of the one the Minister originally intended to propose, viz.—

I do not want to look at this clause through the eyes of the Transvaal or the Free State, because it seems to me those people have enough money to build any hotel: nor do I want to look at it from the point of view of Haartebeestpoort, which is a picnic place where the people commit unrighteousness every Sunday, but I want to look at it with a view to the great distances on the countryside, where hotels are a great convenience to the public. The hotels are built for much less than in a large town, and for £2,500 a nice big place can be built. In my district, e.g., there was a man who put up a fairly large building, and he made it so large because he wanted to prevent anyone else starting an hotel, but it was not expensive, and the man went bankrupt because the hotel was too big. In those hotels nobody comes for weeks, possibly, and then suddenly there is a rush of people. It is said that there is drinking in these places. May the travelling public who travel those large distances, and in those districts where the sun is much warmer, and the thirst therefore greater, not have something to drink? Must I then, because I have to travel such long distances, be doubly punished? I can understand the people who are opposed to the liquor traffic have gone to extremes and become mad. I am not a drinker myself, but when I have travelled such a long distance I might possibly like a cup of coffee, and if this amendment is passed, I shall no longer be able to do so, because the hotels will disappear. How will it pay a man to build an hotel of £10,000? He will never make the interest on it. And what will be the depreciation on the buildings when in ten years the licence disappears? The owners will possibly go to another place, but the public will lose the conveniences. What about a place at a railway terminus? Are the people who arrive there to have no lodging? I hope that the amount of £2,500 will be further reduced. Rather let us provide that there must be a certain number of rooms, how large they are to be and that they must be well furnished. Why should the public be punished who travel with cart and horses? The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys), will possibly be going about in his motor, and now does not want to think about other people at all. He must not forget that his people were also poor, and how he then felt and spoke and thought. Some people are grateful when they can get hold of something which they call an evil, but they are also thankful for something which other people call an evil. It is said about diamonds by some people that they are a curse, but he did not think so. We must not forget the poor districts. Hospitality in South Africa is not the same as formerly, when one could find a clean bedroom on any farm. In some districts pride is already so great that if a man does not arrive by motor you are not even asked to outspan.

In Namaqualand?

No. There they are still hospitable. There there is no pride.

I rarely agree with the hon. member for Bezuidenhont (Mr. Blackwell) and Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys), but to-day I agree with them and the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert). He comes here and says that all the poor people who drive in carts to an hotel have to go and must have an opportunity for drinking. They become still poorer if they drink. I say that lodging houses must be put up where one can find accommodation. The farmers go to a boarding house if there only is one, and not to the hotel. When the farmer comes into the village or town he looks for a good boarding house, he is not keen on drinking beer. I am sorry that the Minister has so much reduced the sum of £10,000 which, admittedly, was a bit high. I think he should have made it £5,000. The reason why my constituents were glad that it was fixed at £10,000 was because they wanted to stop the drinking on the countryside at the outside places. Some of them are nothing but drinking places.

As I understand sub-section (4), the intention after 1927 is to abolsih country hotels altogether, unless they are pleasure resorts.

Or for the needs of the travelling public.

Where does that appear?

That is the amendment I moved.

I understood the Minister had jettisoned his amendment. However, that fully meets the point I wanted to put. As regards the £10,000 provision, I hope the Minister will adhere to his amendment. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) and the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys) seem to think a big hotel means a good hotel. It may easily mean the very opposite. If you force the country hotelkeeper to spend £10,000, probably £5,000 of that will be dormant capital. The result will be that he will spend less on furnishing the hotel and making it comfortable. If the Minister wants to go into seclusion, say, after the next election, I would suggest one of these small country hotels.

With leave of the committee I wish to withdraw my amendment.

I only want to say this—that, as far as the Free State is concerned, there is no doubt they are against rural hotels. They always have been, but you must not forget this—that the towns in the Free State are growing. Bloemfontein is growing very rapidly. It has a white population to-day of 25,000 to 26,000. If this resolution is carried you won’t be able to put up a country club in Bloemfontein. I think the hon. member should exclude licences for country clubs. They are growing up all over South Africa, and it is rather hard on the big towns to be stopped by Parliament from having country clubs. As far as rural hotels are concerned, we do not want them in the Free State, but a club outside a big town is wanted. If you can’t allow them to have liquor there they simply take it with them and put it in the locker. They consume more that way than if they buy it at the bar. I hope my hon. friend will appreciate that and exclude the clubs.

I moved an amendment to exclude the Free State. I should not have spoken again on it, but one never knows where one lands with an amendment. I just want to say that I am very dissatisfied with the Minister’s reducing the amount to £2,500. If the Minister wants to meet the other side fairly let him agree to £5,000. That would, at any rate, give some satisfaction. My district is one of the first that will be affected by this clause. It seems strange to me that hon. members like the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) want to put an hotel in every little place. The clause expressly says that hotels shall only be put in health resorts. Accordingly, I think that there will not be so many. I do not think £5,000 is at all too much. I therefore move—

I think, if we exclude the Free State, that hon. members will then agree to the amount. It is desirable in the other provinces that the amendment moved, viz., £2,500 should stand. It is possible to exclude the hotels, but there are, in the Free State also the so-called country clubs, and hon. members must also bear in mind that towns like Bloemfontein will become great cities in the Free State. In the Free State it might be possible, perhaps, to include hotels, but that can certainly not be done throughout the country, namely, to fix the minimum for hotels at £5,000. In the Transvaal there are even small places where it would be almost impossible to find hotels worth £2,500. I almost think that if it can be settled in that way, that we are then very close to the best form of the clauses, because it meets all the amendments as far as possible.

I am sorry that the Minister has taken up the attitude he has by adopting the suggestion thrown out by the hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. Cilliers).

Why worry about the Free State?

This is a consolidating measure. We should not legislate to the exclusion of the Free State. We in the Transvaal and, indeed, elsewhere in the Union wish to participate in legislation which will make for greater sobriety. I am persuaded from actual experience that these country hotels are for the greater part great sources of drinking, and drinking dens, and that the hotel aspect—that is, providing proper accommodation and food—is more of a side line, and the principal thing is the sale of liquor. I congratulate and envy the Free State on the position that it will have; we want to share in that benefit, and we want that that benefit should be extended to the rest of the Union. After all, the conditions in regard to country hotels are very much the same. My experience of country hotels, whether you get that experience in the Free State, Natal, the Transvaal, or Zululand, is just the same. I beg to remind the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) of a place I visited with him in Zululand—it was a drinking den, and badly run. Did I not take the liberty of telling the member of the licensing authority who was our informant that it was his duty to see it put right, and to insist that it be run under proper conditions? The hon. member knows the place well. The public also is entitled to protection, and £2,500 for a hotel building in the country is a very inadequate sum; if you provide a well-equipped hotel with a proper lighting and water system, and proper sanitary arrangements, you will soon spend £2,500, which is, after all, only the price of a moderate house. I will second the proposal that the amount be £5,000.

I should also like to say a word in connection with the Free State hotels. The objection the Free State had in the past against countryside licences was not against large hotels, but to small canteens and hotels at the cross-roads. The small shop often had a licence, and it was often abused. The “Volksraad” then decided to abolish them, and I think that was a right step. This proposal is a different thing. It is not this kind of hotel which was objected to because hotels are met here which will be built in health resorts. Such health resorts may also arise in the Free State, as, e.g., in the Mont-aux-Sources, where possibly a national park will be established. A commission has already been sent there to investigate the possibility of that. Hotels will then also be established, but if the amendment of the hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. Cilliers) be passed, that will be quite impossible. I think we should have as few hotels as possible in the outside districts, but there are places where they are required, and I do not want the door shut on such cases. We shall make it impossible for people who want to build an hotel at a health resort in the Free state, as, e.g., at a mineral baths to do so if the amendment is passed. There are hotels in the small villages to-day that do not pay, even with their liquor licence. I am not at all in favour of hotels being built all over the countryside, but we must not say that no hotels can be built at health resorts. The clause gives adequate protection, because it says that such hotels can only be built in health resorts, and there are certain conditions about which the Minister must decide. I should like the conditions in the Bill to be left, but the hotels which may be required in the Free State must be able to be erected. I do not want us to allow more hotels in the Free State, but in certain special cases the Minister ought to have the power to permit country hotels.

We have already laid it down that these country hotels shall have a minimum of five bedrooms. It is quite competent to erect a country hotel with five bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, etc., for £2,500. Why compel a man to spend more money than is necessary? If there is a greater demand for accommodation, he will provide it. I hope the Minister’s proposal will be accepted.

I am sorry to say that I do not agree with the hon. member for Bethlehem (Dr. D. G. Conradie). We have heard that nearly everybody envies the Free State being in the fortunate position of having no wayside canteens. The hon. member for Bethlehem says that in the old times there were small hotels, and he does not see the danger in the big hotels. I cannot understand that. If the small hotels were a danger, then surely the big ones are a still greater danger. There are not many health resorts in the Free State. If then they want to build something at those places they can put up a good boarding house. I will support the amendment of the hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. Cilliers), and I hope the Free State will be protected against the danger. I also wish the amount to be £5,000, and not £2,500.

The Johannesburg members have spoken from the Rand point of view alone, and have shown a great ignorance of the conditions which prevail in the country. I think the Minister has been very reasonable in suggesting £2,500. Any higher sum would have the effect of closing numerous wayside hotels which are essential to the travelling public. Building does not cost nearly so much in the outlying districts as in the towns, and a very decent country hotel can be erected for £1,500.

I move—

I want to withdraw my amendment in favour of that of the hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Wessels).

I do not mind the Minister being in a hurry for the vote, but we are dealing with a big principle here. The proposal was £10,000. The Minister sometimes thinks that I cannot speak for the Transvaal, hut I can assure him that there is a very strong feeling against the country hotels so far as the small places are concerned. I agree with him as to health resorts and clubs that they should erect buildings worth £10,000, but the reduction of the amount for hotels to £2,500 goes too far. I repeat that the country canteens and hotels in the Transvaal are one of the reasons why there are so many poor whites. The hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. Nieuwenhuize) said that so many people drive about in motors Vow. That is exactly the argument why the country hotels are not longer so necessary. The motor folk can easily reach villages. I agree with the Free State members who are so fortunate as to be quit of those outside hotels and canteens. I will support them and shall be glad if the Minister will accept the amendment to fix the value at £5,000 for the whole of South Africa. In the Transvaal there are many buildings which are of the very worst. My wife looked for accommodation in such an hotel the other day and conditions were very poor. We should encourage the building of decent hotels.

With leave of committee, amendment proposed by Mr. Cilliers withdrawn.

Amendment proposed by Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl put and negatived.

Amendments proposed by the Minister of Justice, in lines 58, 59, 60, 61 and 52, put and agreed to.

I move—

Amendment put and agreed to, and the amendment proposed by the Minister of Justice, in line 63, dropped.

On amendment proposed by Mr. Wessels,

I would like to move—

I hope for the sake of temperance, the hon. member will not move that. We always had these things in the Transvaal, and it will probably end up in getting the Free State in the same position the Transvaal is in to-day.

I hope the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) will not wreck the amendment with regard to the Free State.

I withdraw my amendment.

Amendments proposed by Mr. Wessels, and remaining amendments proposed by the Minister of Justice, put and agreed to.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Blackwell, in line 18, put and negatived.

Would I be in order in moving in an amendment to this clause as a proviso? The proviso I propose is—

That, I think, is one of the crying needs of hotels in our country districts. It has been one of the things which has been more criticized by people who have had to pass through the country districts than anything else.

I agree with this amendment. I think it is one of the crying needs of the country districts that these sanitary arrangements should be properly looked after. I know that many of these country hotels are really health resorts in every respect except the sanitary arrangements.

I think the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) has got his amendment in the wrong place. If he will look at sub-section (4) he will see that the first part of the section deals with the renewals at the commencement of this Act, and then it goes on to provide what may happen after the 31st December, 1937. If he moves the amendment in the form I understood him to do, he is practically telling the licensing board that hotels need not have proper sanitary accommodation and bathrooms until after 1937. I think the amendment should be inserted after the words “shall be renewed by licensing boards.”

It is impossible to move it there now, because the amendment has been decided upon.

I would suggest to the hon. member that he should leave it out in the meantime, because it is liable to be taken by inference that the hotels have ten years in which to provide proper sanitary accommodation and bathrooms.

In view of the Minister’s amendment, I want, with the leave of the committee, to withdraw mine.

With leave of committee, amendment withdrawn.

I see the objection raised by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Black-well). Perhaps the better course would be to move a new sub-section (5) which would read—

I do not want to put a spoke in the wheel of my hon. friend, but that is not really the clause in which to move this particular proviso. There is a clause which deals with what accommodation hotels must provide, and that is where this proviso would have to be moved, if at all. This whole Bill has been divided up into chapters dealing with specific matters. I would suggest to the hon. member that he should look up the clause which lays down what sort of accommodation an hotel must provide and that the amendment should be moved in there. The clause now under consideration bears the side title of “Restriction of licences within rural areas.”

Why not move it at the report stage?

Very well. I am sure the Minister is sympathetic towards the object of this amendment, and the point I want to provide for is specifically the case of the rural licences dealt with in this clause. With leave of the committee, I will withdraw this amendment for the present, and put it down for the report stage.

Amendment withdrawn.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 63, standing over,

I would suggest to the Minister that we might now adjourn.

I may just explain my view in regard to Clause 63, and progress may be reported after that. Clause 63 will probably give us a fair amount of discussion, and I feel that we should not pass that clause as it stands, but rather pass the amending clause, which I have placed on the Order Paper. This is a clause that deals with the off-sales of hotels. In the Transvaal hotels have no off-sales. They cannot sell by the bottle; they may only sell for consumption on the premises. In the Free State, the Cape Province and Natal, off-sales for hotels are permitted. The scheme of this Bill is to make a very sharp division between licences for on consumption and licences for off-consumption, and I think it is obvious that as far as the hotel is concerned the right and logical course is that the hotel should not be allowed to sell by the bottle. But there are various difficulties in connection with these sales. Logically, I think, and the House will probably be at one with me, these off-sales should at some time or other be ended. The first proposition was to give a kind of preference in the clause as printed. The trouble was this, that they are going to pay a special licence for a bottle store, and if they are going to some expense the result will be they are bound to press their bottle business in a way in which they have not pressed it before, and the result will probably be a much greater consumption of drink, and a much greater pressing of the business of the hotel. Besides, it was not a very logical course to do that. The amending clause I propose is on a different scheme, and it is on this basis that these off-sales shall come to an end after a period of five years, four consecutive sittings of the licensing court. For these five years the hotels have exactly the same power as they have to-day, and they pay no licensing fee whatever. At the end of the five years the off-sales end, and they will have to take their chance of whether they are able to get a bottle store or not. They will be hampered to a certain extent by the quota, and they will perhaps be hampered by people having obtained licences for bottle stores.

What about misbehaviour?

The licensing court will have to deal with that matter, of course. I am not certain whether I have made provision for that, but I will bear the point in mind. I think, as a matter of fact, your licensing board has the right to refuse or grant a renewal and that will probably cover the whole of that case. That is the scheme I wish to introduce, and I think that scheme is much better than the scheme as printed. It is going to take away difficulties. For these five years these hotels are going to have the right to continue selling. This matter is one over which we shall probably have considerable discussion, and I thought it as well that I should explain the matter before we have the discussion on Monday.

On the motion of the Minister of Justice it was agreed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported; House to resume in Committee on 26th March.