I move—

seconded.

Agreed to.

I move—

This is the Customs Bill intended to give effect principally to the resolutions adopted by the House in Committee of Ways and Means. Hon. members will see that in Section 4 we provide for the necessary amendment to the principal Act to give effect to those resolutions and also to give effect to certain other proposed reductions in regard to customs duties at present provided for in the schedule to the principal Act. Then we proceed to make provision for the necessary repeal of the section in the principal Act which provides for the annual reduction of the customs duties on boots and shoes. That is also a matter which was debated in the House when I explained that in terms of the principal Act from the 1st April this year there would have been an annual reduction of 2½ per cent, of the duty on boots and shoes. We are now repealing that section of the principal Act, so as to retain the existing rates of duty on footwear. In Section 2 (a) of this Bill, we propose to provide for the free entry of glass jars and bottles intended as containers for Union products to be exported overseas. There is a bottle industry in the Union, but they are not effectively meeting the demand for these articles, which are very urgently required for the export of Union products, and in order to help that industry along, we propose to provide for the free admission of these articles. Then, also, in conformity with the principles already existing in the main Act, under which certain uniforms and appointments for various organizations are admitted free of duty, we propose to provide for the free admission of materials for uniforms of the St. John Ambulance Brigade. These uniforms can be made in the country, and in order to encourage that industry, we provide for the free admission of the necessary materials. In Section 5 hon. members will find an important departure, and that is where, in order to assist industries, we propose to provide for the assembly and manufacture in bond, in other words, manufacturers will be allowed to manufacture in bond and only pay the duties on the materials required for manufacturing when the article is exported. That will enable them to keep down the costs of production and facilitate this way of manufacture in connection with articles eventually intended for export. Under present arrangements, the duties must be collected when the materials are imported, although they are intended eventually to be re-exported after being put into the finished article. Then, in terms of the Liquor Bill at present before the House, which will in future provide for the distillation of spirits from any produce in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, it is necessary to take powers to provide for the necessary excise control. At present distillation is only allowed of spirits from produce of the vine, but in terms of the Liquor Bill it will be possible, in the northern provinces especially, to distil spirits from other produce, and it is obviously necessary if this is to take place, that we should obtain the necessary powers also to control such distillation. In order to effect that, we propose to apply the provisions of the Natal law to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in so far as it concerns the manufacture, the licensing of premises and stills, the storage and control of spirits and the mode and time of payment of excise duties, and then to apply the provisions of the Cape law so far as concerns own use allowance of the 30 gallons to each farmer. At present provision exists for the free use by a farmer distilling of 30 gallons of spirits.

That is a very generous allowance.

I think that is the allowance which was considered reasonable in the Cape, and we propose to apply the same provision to the northern provinces. Then another section gives effect to the resolution already adopted by the House as far as concerns the mixture of wine with wine brandy and grape brandy, and it excepts mixture with essences. We debated the necessity for providing that this procedure be stopped through the payment of the highest amount of excise duty, the procedure of mixing wine that did not pay excise duty with wines and spirits, in that way, of course, damaging the revenue and also damaging the wine industry of the Cape. I explained the procedure, how it is possible in terms of the existing provisions of the Act to evade customs duty by resorting to these mixtures. Then Section 8 fixes the excise duty on mixtures and unclassified spirits by providing for the payment of the highest rate of duty on such mixtures. We propose to provide that distillers shall keep an accurate record of transactions for at least two years, and give the right of entry to excise officers in order to control distillation. We have had a few cases in the past few years where it became necessary to investigate certain illicit transactions on the part of distillers, and it was very difficult for the department to get to the bottom of things on account of the fact that these people told them they had no record, or they had been destroyed. Then we provide for the issue of certain regulations to lay down the issue of excise licences, and for the remission of duty on the destruction of spirits between distiller and consumer. A certain mode of conveyance will now be allowed under the Liquor Bill, and it might happen that in the course of transit, spirits are destroyed, and it will be open to the excise department to give a rebate on production of the necessary evidence that the destruction was unavoidable. The last section merely provides for the repeal of certain Transvaal and Orange Free State laws to prevent overlapping. Where we now provide for the enforcement of the Natal and Cape Act in regard to distillation, it is necessary to repeal certain Transvaal and Orange Free State laws. These are the provisions of the Bill, the second reading of which I have moved. The really important part of the Bill is contained in the schedule intended to give effect to the few increases and the large number of decreases of customs duty provided for in the Budget scheme.

My hon. friend has been very good in giving all the assistance he can to manufacturers. I am going to make a suggestion under which he could help the farmers. I hope my hon. friends on the other side will not think because I am advocating the interests of the farmers on this occasion, that it is propaganda. I take my suggestion from an English newspaper, as I will show presently. My hon. friend is giving reductions to the extent of £503,000 in customs duties, and mostly, of course, in manufactured goods. The other day on the Agricultural Vote, a suggestion was made that some relief or assistance might be given to farmers in reducing the duty on an article which they are increasingly using. It was mentioned that a good many farmers, certainly in Natal, and I think in this part as well, are using tractors to a large extent. They find it both cheaper and quicker and especially in the dry season they can get more ploughing done. But of course, the price of oil is a big price, and also the transport of oil is a fair price on the railways. It was then urged on the Minister of Agriculture that he should press the Minister of Railways to reduce the rate of the carriage of oil, but I want to suggest now another step forward, and this the Minister of Finance can very easily do, and that is to reduce the duty on heavy crude oils, which is 20 per cent, at the present moment, and which are very largely used. Crude oil, it is called, and the duty according to this, is 20 per cent. My hon. friend has been liberal in assisting producers, and this is to assist the most important producers in the land—the farmers—why does he not make a reduction there? To show I am not unreasonable, let me point out that in Great Britain it has been done already in the British Budget, and this is where I got the idea from. This report in the “Times” of April 28th, states that a rebate in respect of heavy oil is given to farmers. Why cannot my hon. friend do it here? He might even do it on paraffin as well. The duty here is one penny a gallon. He might take that off as far as paraffin used by farmers is concerned. I think my hon. friend can afford to do it, and now is the very opportunity in the Bill before the House, to insert a clause that crude oil be put on the free list and paraffin also might be reduced. I hope my hon. friend will consider this. He is doing his best, quite honestly, to assist manufacturers and producers where he reasonably can. What could he do better than this when you have before you the example of Great Britain, where they have put crude oil on the free list, or reduced the rate in any case? They have even gone further in the relief of the industry—

I hope my hon. friend will consider this in regard to the heavy oils. He can do it very easily. I do not suppose it would amount to very much, and it would be of material assistance to those progressive farmers who want to plough a good bit of land and to make the best possible use of their land. The Minister has overlooked those things, and looked to the manufacturer. He forgot all about the farmers. That is the conclusion I have drawn, and now I draw his attention to it.

I wish to support the plea of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). The Minister must know that this reduction is going to increase the output of maize very much indeed. It is almost unthinkable that this crude oil costs the Transvaal mealie grower over £1 a case. If they could get it at a lower price, it is the cheapest way of ploughing, by tractors. We are a serious competitor of Argentina, and we are producing 20,000,000 bags of maize to their 80,000,000. If we reduced the price of crude oil, we would be a more serious competitor still. Provided we have a concession of this nature there is no reason why we should not produce 50,000,000 to 60,000,000 hags per annum. If the Minister does this he will have the grateful thanks of the whole of rural South Africa.

There is only one matter I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister, that is the cancellation of duty—Item 118 on page 10 —liners (manganese and chrome steel) for rod and ball mills. The Minister will remember that in 1926 a duty of from 17 per cent, to 20 per cent, was imposed on these particular articles, and it is extraordinary that he should now cancel it. I hope the Minister will let that matter stand over until the producers of that article have made representations to him. The industry concerned is just on the point of producing these articles.

It may be within the remembrance of the Minister that several weeks ago I addressed him an inquiry concerning the Importation of what is known as goods for kaffir clothing. Since then I have received a communication from an important mercantile firm drawing my attention to this fact—of late months the goods referred to have been taxed in customs entry three times what they used to be, which means that the cost to the native is almost three times what it was before this new regulation came into force. I hope in committee the Minister will attend to these details and be prepared to assure the House that there should be kindly consideration given to these, the poorest people in the country.

I just want to bring two small points to the Minister’s notice. According to this Bill, the person who evades the law merely has to pay the higher tax, and no penalty. It seems to me that that is not sufficient. I agree absolutely that we ought to prevent the evasion of the law, but it seems to me that there is no adequate penalty for a breach. According to this exercise law the person who evades has only to pay up the excise, but, in my opinion, there ought to be a further penalty. It is no more than right that there ought to be a further penalty, either a fine, or confiscation of the liquor. It is not reasonable that, if an individual tries to defraud the Treasury, he should not be punished for it, and I want to ask the Minister if he will consider putting in a penalty clause. The other point is that, under Tariff No. 95, a distinction is made in the tax between hoisting and trek chains. In the case of hoisting chains the duty is free or 3 per cent, ad valorem, but in trek chains it is 5 to 10 per cent, ad valorem. I do not exactly know what the object of this distinction is, and I should like the Minister to tell me why there is more duty demanded on trek chains than on hoisting chains. Trek chains are chiefly used by one section of the population, but the less well-off section, in fact, who can hardly make a living. It, therefore, seems unfair that there should be a higher duty on them than on hoisting chains.

I would like to concur shortly in what the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) said about the duty on oil and petrol. During the debate on the agricultural estimates I urged that the Minister of Agriculture should appeal to the Minister of Railways to try to reduce the railway rates on oil used for agricultural machinery. The farmers generally feel that the railway rate is too high and is practically intolerable. Now we are dealing with the Customs Duty Bill, and I want, in agreeing with the hon. member for Cape Town (Central), to ask the Minister to come to our help in this matter. We feel more and more that the farmers have to use machinery in order to compete on the world market. It would astonish hon. members to see how the use of machinery by farmers has increased. I can assure the Minister that it is a matter of great importance to the farmers, and as he is now acting as Minister of Railways, I can deal with the two together, and call his attention to the railway rates—

The hon. member cannot discuss railway rates.

No, but I only want to refer to it in passing. I shall be glad if the Minister, at a later stage, will consider the repeal of the 20 per cent, on oil and petrol.

I just want to appeal to the Minister to try to listen to the appeal of the farmers to repeal the customs duty, not on oil, nor on petrol, but only on raw paraffin, which is used for agricultural purposes. On the other hand the producers have promised that, if more use is made of that kind of oil, they will also be prepared to reduce the price. The farmer on the high veld, the wheat farmer and the mealie farmer, feel that they cannot exist because the price of their produce is too low, and they have to resort to machinery to make the work payable. The farms are too small to-day, and we cannot have the grass eaten up by the oxen. The Minister knows how much trouble I have personally taken, and how many deputations there have been to get the repeal of the duty on the class of paraffin used by the farmer. The excuse made is that the factories will then also use the paraffin, but is the farmer to suffer if the administration is not good? The farmer asks nothing more than this reduction.

That duty amounts to very little.

That may be so, but the maize farmers have to cut things so fine that the work does not pay unless machinery is used and production costs are reduced in every possible way. If the duty is so insignificant the Minister cannot have much objection to repealing it, and if he removes it we farmers will not bother him any more about finance, and we shall only press the Railway Department for reduction of the railway rate.

A pretty general appeal is being made to the Minister to reduce the duty on oil used by farmers. When the Minister is doing that he should also reduce the duty on oils used for lighting by poor people. There are people who live in towns on small incomes who use paraffin for both lighting and heating, and if a reduction is made in the duty, they should participate in it.

The Minister has explained that, owing to Clause 6, Ordinance 4 of 1906 of the Transvaal will be withdrawn, and the distillation and also the use of spirits made by the farmers themselves will be regulated according to the Natal law.

Not as in the Cape Province.

Yes, but the distillation will be regulated according to the Natal law. Will the Minister be so good as to give me the number of the Acts or Ordinances of the respective statutes in Natal and the Cape Province?

I hope that before next session and incidentally before the next general election, the Minister will instruct the Board of Trade to go into the question of the cost of petrol. It is not satisfactory that we should be paying just about double the price for petrol here that is paid in England, more especially seeing that the bulk of the petrol consumed in Great Britain passes our shores and has to travel double the distance. We are coming to a petrol age, and Mr. Henry Ford is of opinion that if farmers were put in a position to use petrol-driven farm machinery to advantage they need work only 25 days a year. The Board of Trade should inquire how the price of petrol can be reduced. Petrol should really cost little more than distilled water, plus transportation and profit.

The hon. member must confine himself to the reduction in customs duties. He cannot discuss the question of the price of petrol.

If I can show that petrol ought to be imported cheaper and that lower customs duties would help to achieve that end, I assume that I am in order.

If the hon. member can show that the customs duty is too high he can do so, but otherwise not.

The duty makes the cost unduly high. The Board of Trade should make an exhaustive inquiry into the price charged the consumer to see if some reduction could be made.

I trust that the Minister will not give way to the demand for the reduction of the duty on paraffin used solely for agricultural purposes. If there is to be any reduction, let it be a reduction which can be shared by all users of paraffin, including poor people. I believe in encouraging the farmers, as they are the primary producers, but when it comes to giving a reduction of duty only on paraffin used in machinery, how will it be carried into effect owing to a very considerable quantity of paraffin being used for lighting purposes in country districts? If there is going to be a reduction, and I believe there should be, because paraffin is a necessity, let us give it to all, whether they be farmers or poor people. People who are the users of paraffin for lighting being mostly poor people.

I want to plead with the Minister for a reduction on chain. There is an industry being built up which promises to be very successful for the manufacture of motor chains. The chain which is imported for this purpose is subject to a 20 per cent. duty, which is stifling the industry. It is impossible to build it up on those lines. I will give the Minister papers, and I want him to look into this to see if, when we come to the second reading, he cannot reduce this duty.

The hon. member for Hopetown (Dr. Stals) asked if, for the evasion of customs duty in connection with the mixing of wine and spirit, it was sufficient to demand only the higher duty. He wants a fine to be imposed as well. I understand that the higher duty is already such that there will be practically no inducement to evade the law, and that it is quite sufficient. In connection with trek chains the idea is to protect the local engineers. The chains are made here, and we want to encourage the local industry. The hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. Nieuwenhuize) wants to know what statutes in Natal and the Cape Province will apply to the distilling of spirits in the Transvaal and the Free State. For Natal it is Act 33 of 1901. 2nd for the Cape Province Acts 36 of 1904 and 5 of 1909 with the regulations thereunder.

The hon. the member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and other hon. members have again raised the question of a reduction of duty on power spirit for agricultural traction. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) has, for the first time, raised the other question of a reduction of the duty on crude oil. This is the first time I have heard it suggested that to deal with the question of heavy oils would be an encouragement to the farming industry to go in for motor traction. The question of power paraffin has been brought to my notice before, and I dealt with it in the budget, and informed the House at the time that so far as the Treasury was concerned, we would sympathetically consider allowing paraffin to come in free of duty if hon, members thought it would be a great encouragement to the farming industry. It was obviously impossible for us to consider a general reduction of duties on paraffin, motor spirit, etc. The difficulty in regard to the first suggestion was that of control. I am prepared to look into it to see whether it will be possible to devise machinery under which we can have effective control to distinguish between spirit for the agricultural industry and other spirit. Subsequently, I heard that hon. members were no longer pressing this point very hard, because they realized it would make very little difference, and that they were more concerned with railway charges. I understand that there also the difficulty of control arises, and I think such an important matter might well be left over for my colleague, the Minister of Railways, when he returns. If it will be of assistance, I can deal with the question of crude oil under an existing section of our Act, which enables the Minister, if the Board of Trade has investigated, to allow in free any commodity essential for any industry. I am prepared to consider the question of heavy oils for agricultural purposes. The general question of petrol is a big one. As far as the actual duties are concerned, I am afraid I can hold out no hope. That is one of our principal sources of customs revenue, and unless we are prepared now to abandon all customs revenue, I am afraid this is one of the items I cannot consider.

Has the Board of Trade ever inquired into the question of petrol prices?

I do not think they have investigated the general question.

It is worth while doing.

I think it would be a good thing if we could cheapen this commodity. I am afraid we have had various kinds of investigations into similar matters, and all we have had is publicity, but whether they have had very much effect in cheapening prices I doubt. I do not think Parliament is ready yet to bring in legislation to control these prices. Then my hon. friend, the member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) raised the question of the proposed reduction of the duties now on manganese steel liners. The reason for that is that the Board of Trade investigated the matter and found that the existing industry is not yet in a position to manufacture these articles. These articles are used extensively in our mines, especially our copper mines, and we propose that this reduction of the duties should be made until such time as the local industry is in a position to supply the requirements here.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

On the motion that the House go into committee now,

I object.

Don’t object.

I withdraw my objection.

I understand that there is no recommendation from the Governor-General.

House to go into committee tomorrow.

I very much regret that the Senate has taken out the second portion of sub-section (1). Generally, the effect of practically all the more important amendments passed by the Senate has been to weaken this Bill as a reforming measure. There are some of us who take the strongest exception to what the Senate has done in a measure which is eminently one for the consideration of a popular and representative body. There was a general feeling in this House on all sides that this was a long overdue measure of liquor reform, that the state of affairs in this country in regard to the consumption of liquor had grown to such intolerable lengths, the abuses had become so frequent, that it was high time that we put on the statute book a measure which would reform the evils which have existed. Right through this House there has been one long tug-of-war between those who, without any consideration of pocket, want reform, and those who wish, apparently, to whittle down reform in the interests of what they call vested interests. This particular measure of reform that I am now going to deal with was one introduced by the Minister and knocked out in another place for one reason, and one reason only—because it trod on the corns, or it was thought that it might tread on the corns, of certain vested interests. Many misapprehensions seemed to exist as to the effect of what was proposed in this portion of the section which has been deleted. It was thought, and it was argued in the other House, that this was a deliberate invasion of vested interests, and that it would have the effect of taking away existing rights which other portions of the Bill preserved. The Minister pointed out to the members of the Senate that that was not the case, and that this was merely a clause giving a direction to licensing boards to take certain matters into consideration. That did not weigh with the Senate, and they took out this portion of the clause. If hon. members will look at the beginning of that clause, they will see that full powers are given to all licensing boards to do what they like in regard to any existing licences. All that these other words do is to say that, in considering the question of renewing an existing licence, the licensing board shall take into account the necessity for the continued existence of that licence. In other words, if it is an area where there are too many licences, then the licensing board is given a mandate to consider the question of reducing them. It is not told in so many words that it must reduce them, but it is asked by this law to take that point of view into consideration. We know that there are many areas in South Africa which are absolutely over-licensed. I see from a circular which has been sent out by the trade that it is argued, in defence of the Senate’s deletion of this particular section, that it is an insidious attempt to get behind the quota clause. I cannot understand the logic of that particular argument. This has nothing to do with the quota clause. All it attempts to do is to say that superfluous licences should be eliminated by the licensing boards. It is not a back-stairs method of getting licensing boards to reduce licences down to the quota. I agree, however, with the Minister to this extent, that, though this was an extremely useful provision, it was not one of paramount importance in the sense that we should necessarily make it a bone of contention with the other place. I do not think that we should strongly insist upon the retention of this portion of the clause, because I recognize that the Minister can do administratively what this particular part of the clause proposed to do. He can let it be understood that it is his policy and the policy of the Government that redundant and unnecessary licences should be eliminated. We should stand firm on one thing, and that is that there is no fixed property in a liquor licence. If you had heard hon. gentlemen in the other House arguing, you would have thought that a liquor licence came almost as high as a freehold, and that it was very much better than a lease or a mortgage. We have" to get away from that idea and recognize that a liquor licence is a licence for 12 months only.

I think the true value of this part of the clause which has been eliminated by the Senate was that it specially brought to the notice of the licensing boards what was undoubtedly a part of their power. This point was made clear in another place, but there was argument based on vested rights, and it was thought the first part of the clause sufficiently covered the point. In any event I do not think we should insist upon our view of this clause. I think it will be essential because very large new duties are thrown upon licensing boards under this Bill. I think it will be essential to send a short circular to the first licensing boards functioning under the Bill to explain what their powers are in a clear and short form. Undoubtedly in the course of a circular of that nature special attention would be drawn to this point, that they have the undoubted right, without giving reasons, to reduce the number of licences anywhere where they think there are too many. I will give an undertaking that such a circular will be sent by my department. We will not lay down what our policy is, but what their powers are. I think I can assure the House that that circular will give them a clear idea of what their powers are. At all events, it is perfectly clear that whether this is deleted or not, that power undoubtedly belongs to the licensing boards functioning in these cases.

Amendment put and agreed to.

On amendment in Clause 49,

I wish to somewhat alter the amendment made by the Senate and move, as an amendment—

It is first to make the language clearer than that used in another place, and also to show that there is no intention to depart from the necessary fee to be paid on transfer These people, generally speaking, are well dealt with under this Bill. To-day, as far as clubs are concerned in the Cape Province, they might have to pay up to £150 when their licence is renewed from year to year. Under this Act, all they need pay is £50, so they are in a more fortunate position than they were, and there is not the faintest reason why they should not pay these transfer fees. It is to remove all doubt on the point that I am amending the Senate’s amendment in this wider form.

seconded.

The Minister has just moved a very important amendment, indeed. The position I have taken up throughout is that clubs and hotels ought to be treated on the same basis. A similar amendment to that which the Minister is moving now he moved in another place, and the president said he could not accept the amendment because it was imposing additional fees and the Senate had no power to deal with money matters. So the effect of this amendment undoubtedly is to make it clear that a club will have to pay £25 each time it changes its secretary. I think the House will agree that is not really transfer of the licence at all. The licence is granted to the personnel of the club, which is an association of individuals who have formed a club for social purposes and the mere fact of the official who is charged with the duties of secretary is nothing to do with the personnel of the club itself. The Minister has made it clear that any club which takes a secretary for a month’s trial and then wishes to change him, will have to pay £25, and each time a secretary goes out to make room for a new one, £25 will have to be paid. Is that a transfer of the licence? The Minister used the word “transfer” and I presume it will be held that as it is called “transfer” by Parliament, it must be a transfer, but it is not a transfer. The transfer of a licence is where a person sells his business and transfers the licence to someone else, but a club does not sell its business when it changes its secretary. This will lead to some undesirable results, because if a club has not a very large revenue, and it finds that its secretary has been dishonest, it may say, “If we let him go before the end of the year we will have to pay £25, so we will keep him to save the £25.” It is an undesirable principle to say that when a licence is given to a club, each time the secretary changes, there has been transfer of the business requiring payment of a new transfer fee. I think that is not fair, and I hope the House will not agree to it.

I am glad the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) has brought this matter to the notice of the House, und I hope the Minister will not persist in the amendment he has moved. It has not been tabled, and we have not had an opportunity of studying it. It will not affect the rich clubs so much, but the poorer clubs. The poorer class of club very often has a chief steward and not a secretary, and the chief steward is likely to be changed more often than a secretary. Under the circumstances, the Minister should not press this. This is the only amendment which would be carried, and may necessitate the Bill going back to another place.

There will probably be other changes.

I would like to join in the appeal to the Minister not to make this heavy charge, which would be a very serious payment to be made by 90 per cent, of the clubs in the country. Very often a secretary finds it impossible to carry on, or to better himself, leaves the club, and sometimes for other reasons a secretary is asked to go. It is very unfair to charge £25 because there is a change of secretary. The Minister, like a good many opulent hon. members, when he talks of clubs, thinks of the Rand Club, the Civil Service Club, or perhaps the City Club of Cape Town, but these are exceptions. There are hundreds of small clubs throughout the country which cannot afford to pay this charge. I hope the Minister will delete that portion of his amendment which deals with this charge. It is a reasonable request that is being made. As the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) says, the licence is issued to the club, and not to the secretary, and it is not issued in the same way as to ordinary hotels. I think a very strong case indeed was made out for the plea put forward by the hon. member.

I agree with the Minister’s statement. A secretary of a club is in the same position as a hotelkeeper who is under a trust, the Castle breweries, for instance. If they changed a man who was in control of a hotel a transfer fee had to be paid. You should treat both a club and a hotel in the same way. How hon. members can ask for special treatment for clubs I cannot understand.

I do not follow the hon. member’s argument in the least. You have the secretary of a club working under the committee, and the licence is held not for profit making by that man, as in the case of an hotel licensee, but for the committee. It will mean a committee may not dismiss a man they would like to dismiss, because they are unable to pay such a heavy charge. A secretary or a manager of a club may be bringing it into disrepute, and the committee may desire to discharge him, but the Minister’s amendment will have the effect of fining them for doing so. I hope the Minister will not press this amendment, which will have a bad effect.

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

Upon which the House divided:

There are several points I wish to deal with in this section, which have been changed in many important respects in the other place. The first is the insertion at the beginning of the clause of the words—

I made the point that this would be a dangerous innovation, as it would facilitate illicit drinking. There are other difficulties which make it impossible to accept the amendment. A person lodging in an hotel could get any quantity of liquor and could hand it to anyone else who comes and drinks with him. There is no limitation of these powers, which are impossible powers to give to any licensee. The provision is a dangerous one and the form in which it is couched makes it absolutely impossible for the House to accept it. I am asking the House to reject the amendment.

That will save the trouble of amending it.

It is not impossible for a man living in an hotel to obtain liquor on closed days at meals. He is in exactly the same position as if he lived in his own house. I have never heard of a man in his own house being in the position to go and buy a drink of whisky at 10 or 11.30 at night. There may be cases, of course, where some gentleman’s wife has put him on ration and forces him to buy his drink at that hour of the night, but I have never been able to understand how we were going to put hotels in exactly the same position as our homes if we allowed people to buy drink at 11.30 at night or 1 o’clock in the morning. I think the safest thing is to ask the hon. the Senate not to press that amendment.

I cordially endorse what the Minister has said in regard to this amendment. I cannot imagine any amendment more calculated to weaken the provisions of the Bill, more calculated to promote the illicit sale of liquor and to destroy much of the good we hope to reap from this Bill. I am particularly glad the Minister has taken the strong line he has, and asked us to reject this amendment. There was a great deal of discussion in this House on this clause, and a great deal of give and take. Those who are fighting for the temperance ideal had to make a good many sacrifices from what we thought was a proper position. The Bill, as originally drafted, started with 9 o’clock closing, and allowed privileges to be granted up to 11 o’clock. Then it was thought best to have a universal 10 o’clock closing, and then an extension was made to 10.30 in the case of the four larger towns. Finally, however, the hour was fixed at 10 o’clock and an extension to 11.30 was allowed in the case of towns with more than 4,000 voters. Now the Senate apparently want to go very much further still. I hope the Minister will fight every one of these amendments.

made an interjection.

Will the hon. member assure me that he is going to vote against this amendment?

No. I

Then I think it is intellectual dishonesty on the part of the hon. member to ask me to cease speaking.

The hon. member must withdraw that remark.

I withdraw, and I withdraw’ the word “intellectual” in any connotation whatever with regard to the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Moll). For an hon. member who holds a view opposite to mine to ask me not to continue to express my views is not quite playing fair. If he is convinced and proposes to support me, he might say, “We do not wish to hear you further.”

You cannot convince me.

If this is accepted liquor may be sold in an hotel to boarders at any hour of the night, but if people are found in a bar at night, any licensee will describe them as boarders. It is quite clear that the police themselves would never support an amendment of this sort, because their task would be an impossible one.

I move as an amendment to the amendment—

That will do away with the only reason the Minister gave for objecting to the amendment of the Senate. I do not think the Minister can say it is unreasonable, that a man should be allowed while he lives in an hotel, to get liquor for his own consumption.

seconded.

I am afraid the amendment my hon. friend has just moved will hardly meet the case. A man may come from the theatre with his wife and family, and he could only get a drink for his own consumption, but not for his friends. As the law stands to-day, there is nothing to prevent people from getting in hotels whatever they require at whatever hour they like to order it. Before the Minister alters the law, surely there ought to be some very strong grounds urged against it. The only grounds I have seen so far are those that come from those people who don’t want to drink. I hope the amendment, as introduced by the Senate and as amended further by my hon. friend (Mr. Alexander), will be acceptable to this House. The Minister, when he dealt with, another clause of this Bill in regard to the tot system in the Transvaal

Take your boarder, for instance, the boarder does not live in the hotel.

I want to use the argument that the hon. gentleman used in regard to the introduction of the tot system in the Transvaal, namely that the law was being constantly broken.

The House was against me on that point.

I was against you?

The House was against me, which is more important.

The Minister knows better than I do that in most of the hotels in the country throughout South Africa, whatever the law may he, some people get drink whenever they want it. If that argument of the Minister in regard to the tot system was sound, surely we ought to legalize that which people are getting to-day contrary to the law.

I take it that the hon. member (Mr. Nathan) is not right when he discusses the tot system. I hope that the House will reject the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander). I think it would be wise if the people who are interested in the liquor question left this matter as it was when the Bill went from this House. They don’t know what a dangerous thing they are playing with. I gave them a good deal of support, because I thought we would take the middle course. If they are going to weaken this Bill by putting this sort of thing in, the liquor trade is in a very dangerous position. The people will attack them as they have never been attacked before. The people of this country don’t want to weaken the liquor laws. They want to strengthen them. The liquor people have been very lucky indeed in getting the Bill they have. When a bar is closed, it should he closed. Let us lay that down as a principle. Once a bar is closed, then is is closed. It is a bad thing to keep bars open in a hotel for people in the hotel alone. This old story about the theatres, when a man comes home from the theatre, is always dragged in. How often does my hon. friend come home from the theatre? In the majority of towns in South Africa there are no theatres. What is the argument then?

My amendment does not include the word “theatre”.

That is the argument. I am glad that the Minister is going to stand by this, and I hope he will get the Senate to stand by it, too, because, if it is rejected, I think there is a large number of men in this House who will not be prepared to go on with this Bill. You cannot pass a Bill and then go and weaken it in its essential points. The country will say that we are playing with this legislation. The country is satisfied with the Bill as it went out of this House.

The Senate, of course, had a perfect right in their view to alter any provisions of this law when it came before them, so I do not see that we should now take it amiss if the Senate has thought it necessary to make an alteration in this particular clause. The Minister’s strong point seems to be that it will create a traffic in liquor. We have had this law in force at least in the Cape Province, that lodgers had a right at any time to procure liquor.

Also boarders, because they have hoarders in, too.

In the countryside to-day you have a large number of people who are permanent boarders in hotels. There are, perhaps, not suitable hoarding houses, and people prefer to stay at an hotel. Take the travelling public, farmers coming in from the district or travellers coming in at any time, perhaps on a cold winter’s night. Here we solemnly lay down that such a man has not the right to procure a drink at the hotel where he stays. Really, we are trying to curb the rights of the public in a manner which I do not think will reflect credit upon us, and I strongly support the amendment of the Senate, as proposed to he amended by the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander). I think it is confirming the law as it is now.

It is a matter of great regret to me that I cannot agree with the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige), What about the rights of the barman? Is he never to be allowed to sleep? Is he to be disturbed at all hours of the early morning to supply the wants, real or fictitious, of hypothetical travellers?

I would like to move, as a further amendment—

in the words “boarding or lodging” I do not agree with several of the previous speakers that a man should not have a drink on a Sunday if he prefers to have a bottle of whisky in his room. If there is anything that I disagree with it is any man storing liquor in his bedroom. The man who stores liquor in his bedroom is usually a drunkard. You will turn the bedrooms of the hotel into miniature bars. I want to provide for the hotel in a fair and legitimate way being able to supply the people who are boarding and lodging there plus the amendment of the hon. member for Hanover Street (Mr. Alexander).

I second that. A good many hon. members have been arguing on wrong grounds altogether. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) started in his usual extravagant way and said under this people will be able to obtain liquor at any time of the night or early morning.

That is so.

That is not so. Your licensing board of the district will regulate it. The hon. member ought to have said subject to the licensing board allowing it. The licensing board is composed of sensible men. The hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider) would be one of the last men in this House to make use of an argument which is not really a true argument. The hon. member would not like to mislead, but he has been misled by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. If this amendment is passed, it is left in the hands of the licensing board. The licensing board will regulate as to when liquor can be supplied and when not. The board is constituted of sensible men knowing the requirements of the people and the district, and it is for them to regulate it. The amendment of the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. J. P. Louw) has taken away one of the Minister’s objections, that any boarder can obtain it. Under the amendment it will only be supplied to people who are boarding and lodging as well.

If there is one mistake the representatives of the wine farmers made during the whole debate it is that they felt called upon to act as the champions of the hotels, and to fight systematically attempts made for reform. I am certain they will yet regret it, and that many wine farmers have already blamed them for it. We are not only thinking about the bona fide traveller—undoubtedly some people will experience a little inconvenience—nor only of the richer class of hotels, but the hon. member well knows what institutions still go by the name of an hotel to-day, and how easy it will be to evade the object of the Act if the people can only say to the police that they are residents in the hotel. We can easily see to what abuses it may lead, and I hope the House will support the Minister in his attitude. There are other amendments of the Senate with which we do not agree, but we do not want to have a long fight, and if the Senate meets ns on these few points, then we shall not make any difficulties with regard to the other points.

These amendments put and agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, put, and the House divided:

This is the last important amendment that I, at all events, am going to ask this hon. House to swallow, or rather not to swallow. This is the amendment in sub-section 7, starting in line 63—

I pointed out some of the troubles in connection with this in another place. The argument that weighed with me, in connection with a deputation I received from Somerset Strand and Hermanus, was that they were going to be unfairly treated in competition with a place like Muizenberg, and that they should be on the same basis. We can see the dangers in connection with this proposal. There is the danger you would have an enormous amount of pressure brought to bear, on whoever is the incumbent of that office, by pleasure resorts. It would be an extraordinarily difficult thing to deal with, to say that one place is, and another place is not. It is a burden, almost impossible to bear, placed on the shoulders of the person who has to deal with the matter; but then I found that the basis of the whole argument was thrown away, because Muizenberg does not fall, for the purposes of liquor licences, under Cape Town, and, therefore, is in exactly the same position as Somerset Strand and Hermanus. Muizenberg and Simonstown go together for this purpose; the population is less than 4,000. The basis of the whole argument collapses. I must say I am also very glad that I can impress on this hon. House the dangers and difficulties of a provision of this kind to anybody trying to decide for which place a certificate should be granted with which the licensing board should deal, and for which place it should be refused. The only way in which one can bear that burden is to say I am satisfied that not any place should be justified in having these licences extended to this late hour.

Or all.

You cannot say all. This position you would have to take up, unless you want to get into the hottest of hot water I have heard of. For all practical purposes this provision is impossible, and, therefore, I wish very strongly indeed to ask this hon. House to reject the amendment of the Senate on this point. I think this is of such importance we should get it out of the way, and then we can deal with the other amendments. There is a small amendment I am going to move later on, and I ask the House not to dissent from the other amendments of the Senate.

I am really very sorry to hear the views of the Minister, more especially after the most sympathetic hearing he gave to a deputation on this subject from Somerset Strand and Hermanus.

On a Muizenberg argument.

The Minister then practically agreed that he would accept this amendment, but I understand he now wishes to evade the question by using a Muizenberg argument. It does not apply to Muizenberg alone. Why should large areas like Cape Town and others have the right, because they have 4,000 or more permanently registered voters, to have the hotel hours extended to 11.30 p.m.? During the season Hermanus, Somerset Strand and Natal coast resorts have 20,000 or 30,000 people staying at them at one time—most select people from the Union as well as visitors from overseas, and very many of these people may be registered voters in other parts of the Union; yet when they return to their hotel they are debarred from obtaining liquor after 10 p.m. In the summer at Hermanus it is not dark before 8.30 p.m., and people often do not rise from dinner before 9 p.m. The attitude of the Minister is more difficult to understand in view of the publicity campaign that is being carried on by the Government overseas to induce people to visit the Union. One Harley Street specialist, who visited Hermanus, was so enraptured with the health-giving qualities of the air that he has decided to erect a big sanatorium there. Yet the visitors to these seaside resorts are debarred from exercising privileges which are enjoyed by visitors to Cape Town, Humewood or East London, where hotels can remain open until 11.30 p.m. The Railway Department carries over 10,000 people to and from Hermanus every year. Is the discrimination which the Minister desires fair? He argues that is to too big a burden for him to decide whether a place is, or is not, a health or seaside resort. I was surprised to find him adducing that argument with his knowledge of the country and the local advice he has at his disposal through the magistrates and the police. Does the Minister wish to argue that the onus is too big for him? I consider that a very flimsy excuse. I plead not for the extension of privileges, but for what is just and fair. At Hermanus about £80,000 are invested in hotels, and at Somerset Strand about £200,000 are invested in the hotel business. People have put all their capital and energy into developing seaside resorts, yet an invidious distinction is drawn between these places and the big centres of population. The Minister will not have to shoulder the responsibility of lengthening the hours; that responsibility will devolve on the licensing boards after the Minister has given his certificate. So the Minister has the licensing courts to protect him against a misuse of the privilege. I think the Senate did wisely in performing this act of justice to people who have invested their capital to assist in developing our seaside resorts.

As I understand the Bill, one of its chief objects is to encourage moderation, and to oppose drunkenness. My experience is that if we introduced the kind of provision we are dealing with here, and if we were not to pass the amendment, we might run the danger of encouraging drunkenness. If a man gets to an hotel at 10 o’clock and cannot get a drink, then he will simply provide liquor in his bedroom, and will go there with his friends to drink, and not only that, but he will go and drink alone. My experience is that as soon as a man drinks alone lie becomes a hopeless drunkard, and I see this danger if we limit the Act in this respect.

I am sorry the Minister is now so afraid of the little work which is being put on him. He has had a terrible task in connection with the Liquor Bill, but now he wants to get rid of this trifle. I want to suggest that he can easily do it by regulations, that the municipalities who receive a certain amount in taxes can make them over to the licensing courts. I will not mention an amount, but I think that if a municipality raises £500 in rates it ought to have the right. I hope the Minister will not completely mess up our seaside resorts. The unchanged clause would mean that the club outside of Pretoria, in some small little place outside in the veld, will have more rights than the large hotels, which have been erected in Somerset Strand, and even also at Muizenberg for hundreds of thousands of pounds, because that outside club will fall under the municipality of Pretoria. That can surely not be agreed to.

I am glad to hear the Minister is not going to accept the amendment of the Senate. If he had I would have been sorry for the Minister or any future Minister of Justice. I want to point out this to the people of the Free State. If this goes through it means that towns like Parys, where there is an enormous number of people who can just make a living, are going to keen the bars open until half-past eleven at night. The Free State province will not stand for it. The story of late hours is that we give it to one and everybody wants it. The hon. member is only putting up a case because he has been forced by his constituents from Hermanus. I can say that in the Free State we do not want these long hours. The whole of the country is against it. The same thing would apply to Kroonstad as applies to Parys. This started with 9 o’clock closing. Like Oliver Twist, the more you give the more they ask. The argument of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers) is that if you close at 10 o’clock people will take drink to their rooms. It is all my eye and Peggy Martin. If you close at I they will take drink to their rooms. Some people will always take drink to their rooms. Let us once and for all lay down these hours so that the country knows where we are. All over the world the tendency is going to be for hours to get shorter and shorter. If the liquor people were only wise they would accept this, because if this were to be put in the Bill, it would only be a Pyrrhic victory for them. There would be an agitation in South Africa to make the closing hour 6 o’clock, the same as it is in Australia.

The Minister told us he at one time favoured this amendment because of the argument that Muizenberg would have this privilege and other towns would not. Now the information of the Minister is that Muizenberg will not get this privilege. I have been credibly informed that Muizenberg is within the Cape Town municipal area and will be entitled to late hours. Then the Minister would not take the enormous responsibility of himself issuing certificates. He has already accepted the principle in Section 54, where he is taking upon himself to issue certificates to the licensing board in the rural areas. Both his arguments, therefore, fall away.

I want to tell hon. members exactly how this amendment has arisen. Members will remember that we had this clause under discussion for months in committee. After it had been hammered out to a regular compromise, it went to the Senate and in committee the Senate accepted in toto the compromise hammered out in this House. At the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, in the report stage, this proposal was rushed through. It was the first time it had ever been heard of. At the last minute a deputation came from Hermanus, Mossel Bay and Somerset Strand to urge their particular claims. We are not legislating for particular towns in this Bill and as the Minister has said, if the clause is passed in this form, a perfectly impossible burden will be passed upon the Minister of Justice. I will tell you why. Let us take the Natal coast. The Natal coast is dotted with watering places right from Durban down to Port Shepstone. There must be at least 50 watering places between Durban and Port Shepstone, and an unfortunate Minister of Justice is to be required under this Bill to say that watering place No. 1 must close at 10 and conform with the ordinary rule, but that watering place No. 2 can keep open until 11.30. It is like the old case of midnight privileges. Once you give it to one, you must give it to another. The Minister of Justice would never be allowed to rest. He would be continually visited by deputations from these other places which have not the late privileges and the rights which he could confer by scheduling one of these watering places under the 11.30 privileges would be so valuable that the temptation placed before the Minister and his subordinates would be enormous. Then the hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie) says that a precedent already exists in Clause 54. It is true that in that clause we do give power to the Minister to declare a particular area outside an urban area a health or pleasure resort, but that is only for the purpose of either establishing a new hotel or allowing the continued existence of one already there. It is not for the purpose of conferring special privileges on A as against B. It is merely to meet the case that, while there is a general prohibition against any new licences outside the towns, in certain special cases where there is a health or pleasure resort, a new licence may be granted. None of us had the slightest objection to that, but to say that a Minister, sitting in his office, can say that one town can close at 10 and another at 11.30 is an impossible proposition. What a perfectly impossible position it would be to say that Maritzburg, Grahamstown. Kimberley or Benoni, for instance, have all got to close down at 10. but Mossel Bay, Knysna, Isipingo, etc., can keep open until 11.30. Apparently we are going to lay it down solemnly in our legislation that the idea of going to a health resort is to be able to get a drink until 11.30 at night. I wonder if the eminent doctor that the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) speaks of, who is going to build a sanatorium at Hermanus, will stop building it because his patients cannot get drink up to 11.30 at night.

Amendments in lines 71 (page 60) and 1 and 61 (page 62) put and agreed to.

Amendment in lines 63 to 67 (page 62) put and negatived.

On amendment in line 4 (page 64), viz., to omit “one-fourth” and to substitute “one-half.”

In connection with the next amendment, which is on page 64, the number has been changed from one-quarter to one-half of the total number of on-consumption licences. I am not dealing with that point, but I think it should be made clear that it is not all types of on-consumption licences. I wish to move—

If we do not have that amendment, it would be very difficult to change from one-quarter to one-half. The one-quarter where the temporary or late hours occasional licence is taken into account, would be about the same number as one-half would be if we do not take them into account. I do not think the intention ever was to take those temporary and late hours occasional licences into account.

seconded.

With regard to the Minister’s fears, I do not really think that any court or licensing board would ever have construed that section as including late hours occasional or temporary licences, because the phrasing negatives that. I do not think that in dealing with privileges which are to be granted for 12 months they would ever dream of taking into account licences that exist for a day or for two hours. At the same time, it is better to make that clear. I want to deal with the Senate’s amendment to sub-section (7). It will be remembered that when this matter came before the House it was decided to limit the number of houses which should receive these midnight privileges to one-quarter of the total. We have had an unfortunate experience in the Transvaal, where what was intended to be an exception became the rule, and practically every bar got midnight privileges. The whole idea of granting these privileges was that in the busy parts of the town where the restaurants, theatres and cinemas are, it may be desirable to have a few licences open till 11.30 at night in order to meet these gentlemen whom we have heard so much about, the gentlemen coming back from the theatre. It was thought right in this House, to limit the proportion of houses which might have these midnight privileges, to one-quarter. In the Senate, however, with discussion and without a division, they increased this number to one-half. That makes an absurdity of it. It is quite contrary to the wording of the clause itself on page 62, line 68. There, in one breath, we say it is something exceptional, and yet, in our proviso, we say you shall grant it up to one-half. That is too much and it is going too far. I propose, not to re-insert one-quarter, but to try and arrive at something half way between the two, and I propose, instead of one-half, to insert one-third.

Keep it one-quarter.

I would like to do that, but the Minister has said we must meet the Senate half way; we cannot turn down all their amendments, and I think the Minister will accept one-third, but he does not want to go so far as one-quarter. I move as an amendment to the Senate’s amendment—

As far as I can see, the amendment of the Senate simply increases the maximum The licensing board still has to give permission to any one of these places. I am told the position in Johannesburg is there are 108 licence holders who have this privilege up to 11 oclock. The result of the Senate’s amendment will be that 54 would lose this right, which they have at present. As the Assembly passed it, 81 would lose the right. I am also told the policy of the licensing board will be in future, to limit them to near places of entertainment. I am told that is going to happen at the next meeting of the Johannesburg licensing board. They are going to reduce the licences by more than 75 per cent. Why should you force the licensing board to take it away from a number of people if they consider it is in the interests of the public to give these late privileges? The Senate has simply increased the maximum in cases where the licensing board wishes to give this privilege, and the licensing board is not likely to err on the wrong side.

I would like to support the amendment of the Senate. A few moments ago we threw out the amendment in sub-section 7, because it would make it difficult for the Minister to know to whom he should give this particular privilege Now he wants to throw the responsibility on the licensing boards. If there is a conviction by a magistrate, the privilege will be taken away at once. Why not leave it at that?

Wait for the conviction?

Wait for the conviction, yes. If people carry on their business in accordance with the law and in a proper and satisfactory way, why interfere with them? Under these circumstances, I hope the House will accept the Senate’s amendment.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Blackwell to the Senate’s amendment, put;

Upon which the House divided:

I wish to move an amendment which I think will get the support of the wets as well as the drys or the half-wets.

What about the half-wets?

The half-wets are the wets.

What are the drys?

I move as amendments to these amendments—

This is only to make it absolutely plain, and to stop any illicit liquor selling.

Col. Sir DAVID HARRIS seconded.

There can be no doubt that as far as it goes, the amendment does institute a certain amount of safeguard. I do not want to initiate a long discussion, but this is a highly objectionable provision. We lay down in this clause, as a general rule, that no person shall supply any liquor to any native, and no native shall obtain and be in possession of any liquor. But now we are to introduce an exception, in the case of a native who is employed as an agent by his European employer to fetch liquor. Is it fair to say, “The white man’s liquor is forbidden to you; you may not taste it, touch it or be in possession of it, but you are allowed to be in possession of it if you are fetching it for your employer.” The argument of convenience should not outweigh the paramount policy we are following in this matter—that the white man’s liquor should be kept away from the natives. I would like to point out the perfect absurdity of this proposal. No native may be in a bottle-store at any time, yet if this amendment is passed a farmer may send his native boy with a note for a bottle of brandy, so that the native may have the liquor lawfully in his possession although he may not lawfully enter a bottle-store. I suppose he will have to hover round the door until he can send someone in to attract the attention of the bottle-store keeper, who will then interview him and give him the liquor. This only shows the absurdity of the proposal. A native may come with a forged order and the bottle-store keeper might supply him in all good faith. White illicit liquor sellers may make a business of supplying these orders to natives. I do not want hon. members to think only of the Free State, which I know is an abode of bliss and much nearer heaven than any other part of South Africa. In the Transvaal, however, the illicit liquor dealer flourishes, and the forgery of an order would be the easiest thing in the world. The more the Minister considers this matter, the more dangerous he will see it is. We have tried in this Bill to combat the illicit liquor traffic. We have said the native must not be in possession of the white man’s liquor, but this amendment will open the door to the bad old system of the past. Even with the amendment of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Bar-low), the principle is a bad one. There is nothing in the clause to say that the store keeper must know either the employer or the native. There are many poor whites in the Transvaal, at any rate, who would be glad to make a livelihood by supplying these orders.

The native will not be allowed to buy liquor. All that the clause provides is that a farmer instead of going for liquor himself, will be able to send a native for it. It is true the House has decided that the native has not to get liquor, but there is no reason why he should not carry it. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) has tried to cause alarm by talking about forged documents, but he knows that if a bottle-store dealer sells liquor on the strength of a document which on the face of it is suspicious, he will lose his licence. That should be an additional reason for looking at the matter fairly and not through the jaundiced view the hon. member for Bezuidenhout takes of everything connected with the liquor trade. The amendment of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) will prevent the practice being abused.

I hope the House will allow this to pass. The Senate was very concerned about the clause which they have put in rather a dangerous form. I therefore, moved the proviso. If the police say the practice is being abused in Johannesburg, Cape Town or other centres, those places will be brought under the proclamation. I am quite certain I shall have an enormous amount of trouble in the Senate over these amendments, and I hope hon. members will pass the amendments as they stand, or the Bill’s hope is dying away.

I cannot agree with the amendment which has been made, and I am sorry that the Minister defends it. The Bill was a good one. The Minister indeed says that he could withdraw the right by proclamation, but why does he want to assume the responsibility.

I have to get the Bill through the Senate.

Yes, I know, but the Senate has acted wrongly here. It makes the work of the Minister and the police much harder. We know that in places like Johannesburg people can always be found ready to give a note to natives with the object of smuggling liquor. I also want to point out how many natives there are who can sign their names today. We have seen how they used it in the falsifying of passes, and a native can place a signature under a letter and say that he got it from a white man. That excuse about the sick man who has to send a native to fetch drink as a medicine, will not hold water, because he can always find a white man to fetch it for him. I, therefore, hope the House will reject this amendment. The principle adopted by us in this Bill is to prevent intemperance and smuggling I can assure hon. members, from what I know of Johannesburg, if the system of notes to natives is introduced, it will lead to smuggling, and I, therefore, hope hon. members will vote against this amendment of the Senate.

Again I am sorry I have to attack the Minister. I refer to Clause 74 (7) where he said he would not take responsibility, and here he is prepared to take responsibility. I think this is a dangerous amendment. We have laid it down on broad lines that the natives shall not be in possession of liquor. Here he has weakened this clause.

I have not weakened it—it is the Senate.

Subterfuges will take place under this clause which is open to abuse and carelessness. Supposing a native gets to a store and is in possession of liquor thereafter by reason of a permit which he holds to carry the liquor for his master, why cannot the master himself go? What happens? The police arrests the native and takes him to gaol. Next morning, before he has had an opportunity of explaining that he had a permit, he is probably sentenced to imprisonment by the magistrate. That is possible. Then there is the case which has been strongly put by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell), in which a native can become possessed of liquor under a forged document. We laid down strongly that we are opposed to a native having this liquor. I hope the House will not adopt the amendment, even as amended.

Amendments proposed by Mr. Barlow put and agreed to.

Amendments as amended, put and agreed to.

On amendment in Clause 163,

I would like to ask the Minister to explain this amendment, because there was a sub-clause of a similar kind in the original Bill which I moved to delete, and the Minister accepted the deletion. I see the Minister himself in the Senate moved the amendment in sub-section (d)). The effect of that is that you will not be able to supply anything for on-consumption except sparkling wine or malt liquor, which is in a corked or stoppered bottle, jar, or other receptacle. The Minister said he did not see much reason for leaving that in, because off-sales are now allowed. Will he explain what caused him to alter his opinion and move this amendment in the Senate?

It was brought to my notice that it would be a dangerous thing to allow the supply where it is intended for consumption on the premises in any other form, but an uncorked form. All premises in the country, even in the Cape Province, will not be in the happy position of being able to sell for off-consumption. The licensing board will have to decide what places can sell for off-consumption, and I certainly hope that the licensing board will cut down the numbers to the lowest possible limit.

Hear, hear.

The provision here is a provision which obtains at all hotels, that the cork of the bottle is drawn and the bottle is handed over when it is for consumption on the premises, and there is no reason why it should be in a closed receptacle. What the hon. member is probably objecting to, is that I am excluding sparkling wine or malt liquor. The reason for excluding sparkling wine and malt liquor is that one would take the spirit out of these things if one drew the cork at the moment of supply.

I do not object to that.

I am perfectly willing to withdraw the provision as regards sparkling wines or malt liquor if there is any objection to it. I think it is a perfectly fair clause as it stands. The trouble I have always had was to make provision for these two particular types of drink, and now I have made provision for them, and I do not think we should vote that clause down.

I want to put this position before the Minister. He knows that certain people order a bottle of whisky at an hotel for use in the hotel at their meals. Will that be prohibited under this clause, or will they be able to have the bottle of whisky as heretofore?

The cork must be drawn, that’s all.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Remaining amendments put and agreed to.

I should like to ask the Minister if he can give me an explanation of what has been occurring at Port Elizabeth regarding the bespoke tailoring industry. Apparently an agreement was arrived at under the Industrial Conciliation Act between the employers and employees which has run out, and they have come to an agreement again and wished that could be registered. The Minister so far has refused to register that renewal. I have a good deal of correspondence here, and I should be glad if the Minister will explain why he has refused to do so.

The position at Port Elizabeth in this regard is as follows: It is true that the employers and employees made a wage agreement, in which they laid down certain apprenticeship conditions, and these were not considered by the department as satisfactory. The agreement which was put into force was put into force only for a limited period in order that the apprenticeship conditions might be improved and amended. When the new agreement was negotiated, it was found that the department’s wishes in regard to the apprenticeship conditions had not been met, and consequently, after extending for a further period of six months the old agreement and giving them reason why we were doing so, so that they would have a full opportunity of meeting the department’s wishes in the new agreement, as to apprenticeship conditions, they refused to do so. Consequently the responsibility is on them for the new agreement not having been gazetted. The point at issue was: The apprenticeship conditions in the old and in the new agreement specifically preclude a merchant tailor from taking on an apprentice, so that if the hon. member opens a tailor shop in Port Elizabeth he would not, under the agreement, be entitled to take on an apprentice. The only people who can do so are the journeymen tailors, who are in most cases a sort of master men working for the merchant tailors, and as 90 per cent, of these in Port Elizabeth happen to be Malays, it makes it almost impossible for a European boy to be apprenticed in the ordinary way to a merchant tailor who wants to take him on as an apprentice. It is undesirable that that restriction should be imposed. What we said was, “Leave it open,” so that any merchant tailor could take on an apprentice apart from the journeymen. We cannot compel them to take an apprentice on. Unless they set up an apprenticeship committed they cannot control the position, but they refuse to do that. The position which has arisen is entirely due to their attitude on the matter. It is not only my own view, but that of the departmental officials, that the agreement should be amended on the lines indicated so that no undue restriction may be placed on any merchant tailor taking apprentices. The present conditions practically rule out the apprenticing of white boys except to coloured tailors. I am not saying that would be wrong, but let the door be open so that if the hon. member had a tailor’s shop he could take apprentices if he desired provided he had the capacity to train them. The Port Elizabeth council has taken up a very difficult attitude; we have had more difficulty with this particular council almost than with any of the other 28 or 29 councils.

What are the other points?

They have been mostly overcome, but this was the outstanding one. I am acting on the advice of the responsible officials who handled the matter on the spot—Colonel Buchannan, the divisional inspector, and Mr. Walker, the chief inspector.

If this clause which prevents a merchant tailor from taking apprentices is eliminated, you are prepared to publish the agreement?

Yes.

I understand the Labour Department inspectors are taking over some of the duties previously performed by inspectors of the Department of Mines and Industries. Can the Minister tell us what their duties are? We are accustomed to having inspectors of the latter department to examine elevators. Are labour inspectors to take over that duty, or is the Minister going to take over inspectors from the Mines and Industries Department to examine lifts and machinery?

I agree entirely with the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) that it would be very undesirable to have unqualified men inspecting machinery and lifts and things of that kind. That is not proposed at all. If the hon. member had been here when I dealt with the Factories Bill, he would have heard me say that the proposal is to bring the inspection of machinery in factories, which to-day is done by the Mines and Industries Department, under the Labour Department, in order that the employers might only have one department to deal with. The requisite number of inspectors who to-day are doing that work under the Mines and Industries Department are to be transferred to the Labour Department.

If I understand the hon. the Minister, he is going to take over a certain number of inspectors from the Mines and Industries Department to inspect machinery, etc., in factories. Does that mean that there will be two lots of inspectors going down one street where one building might he a factory and the next building a store?

We will not interfere with any premises which are not designated factories and the definition of a factory is laid down in the Factories Act. If you have a factory, it is necessary that the machinery in it should be inspected. To-day it is inspected by the officials of the Mines and Industries Department, and the Labour Department also has to have inspectors for that factory, for purposes other than the inspection of machinery.

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

When business was suspended I was asking the Minister as to the arrangements about inspectors. Now I understand from his reply that he is taking over the Mines Department inspectors as far as the factories are concerned, but not as far as the other work they perform in the towns is concerned. It, seems to me that that is going to mean very considerable expense in overlapping. As I understand him, there will be in one street two lots of inspectors, one lot of inspectors of machinery will be taking factories in that street, and other inspectors will be taking places other than factories. I foresee one great difficulty, and the Minister, I am afraid, will be put rather in the position of the chameleon when he comes to places which are both. He will remember the case of the poor chameleon which was put onto a Scotch plaid. It tried to turn all the colours it could, but eventually it had to burst. I am afraid the Minister will probably be in the same position. Take a general store, under his Factory Act certain portions of that place come under the factory authorities, other portions do not. Take such a thing as a passenger lift, in one of these places you will find that the inspector of machinery from the Mines Department will inspect the passenger lifts from the point of view of the general public. A factory inspector will come along and turn down that machinery as not being suitable for the work people of the place. I do suggest that it will be very much more suitable for the Mines Department, who specialize on machinery, to retain this work. It is going to be rather interesting in this respect, that all the farming undertakings where farmers have boilers or anything of that nature will come under the Factories Act, and they will be inspected by an official of the Labour Department. I do suggest that, from the point of view of quiet and peace in this country, it would be as well to keep labour inspectors off farms. I do not think that the farmers will at all appreciate the fact of having missionaries of labour sent on to their farms in the shape of factory inspectors inspecting their boilers, and anything else they may use on their farms. I would ask the Minister whether he would not reconsider this suggestion of turning the factory inspectors into machinery inspectors. First of all, I believe it will be very expensive. You are going to duplicate the work.

I am not doing that. I told you I was not doing that.

The Minister told me that the factory inspectors were only going to inspect machinery in factories.

Machinery inspectors are going to inspect machinery in factories, as they do to-day.

I say that at the present time the Department of Mines and Industries inspect all machinery

In factories and outside factories.

The Minister, in the same town and in the same-street, is going to have two lots of inspectors inspecting machinery. The machinery in the factory is going to be inspected by an inspector under the Labour Department, and the rest of the buildings in the street are going to be inspected by an inspector from the Mines and Industries Department. I would like to ask the Minister who is going to inspect the building which in a very small way may come under the Factories Act, but in every other respect comes under the Mines and Industries Department. You are simply going to get duplication of men. I am perfectly certain that the Mines and Industries Department will find that they have to keep exactly the same number of inspectors for, say, Cape Town, as they did before in addition to having passed over a certain number of their inspectors to the Ministry of Labour to inspect the factory portion of the town. I am also perfectly certain the agricultural interests will not be at all happy at having the Minister of Labour sending his inspector on to the farm. It is only going to lead to trouble, and in the Minister’s own interest, I make these remarks to urge him not to take this very unfortunate step.

I move—

On a question of public policy, namely, the entering into of a contract and amendment thereof between the Department of Labour and the Doornkop Estates, Natal, without due and proper regard for the public finances or the interests of 100 tenant-farmers placed on the said estate. The Minister’s action in connection with this contract has not been challenged tonight for the first time. It has been challenged consistently every session since he entered into the contract, not only by members representing Natal, but by members representing other provinces. I well remember even the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) condemning this contract and foreshadowing that it would end in failure. The contention all along has been that this contract may serve the interests of Mr. Rosenberg, but it was hot in the public interest, nor was it in the interest of the tenant-farmers concerned. Those hon. members who have taken part in this Doornkop debate in the past foreshadowed that it would meet with failure. We were told by the Minister only a few weeks ago that he had abandoned the whole scheme, and that the original contract entered into between himself and the Doornkop Co had been cancelled. I asked him on that occasion whether in concluding the sale of the assets of the Government to Mr. Rosenberg he had consulted the interests of the Government and also the interests of the tenant-farmers, to which he replied that the interests of the Government were amply safeguarded as well as the interests of the tenant-farmers. I want to show this evening that he has not safeguarded the interests of either the Government or the tenant-farmers and that the Government stands to make a considerable financial loss through this contract, while he has not safeguarded the interests of the tenant-farmers. I want to show that he blundered when he entered into a contract with a man of the type of Mr. Rosenberg, and that he blundered when he got out of it. That he has got out of it I think is very problematical. The initial mistake the Minister made was in having anything whatever to do with a man with such an unsavoury record as this man Rosenberg. The Minister has already had his attention drawn to certain incidents in connection with this man’s past which should alone have convinced him that lie was not a desirable person with whom to have transactions involving the expenditure of considerable sums of public money. The first instance to which the Minister’s attention was called was in connection with the evidence in the case of Levine and Company versus Simon in Johannesburg. That evidence was given in 1920. The judge, in his summing up, said—

The judge there characterizes this man as being slippery, the faker of an account, unscrupulous, unsatisfactory and utterly untrustworthy, and this is the man whom the Minister took unto his bosom and trusted with tens of thousands of pounds of public money. I do happen to know the Minister is well aware of an attempt made by the same man to foist the same Doornkon Estates on the public subsequent to 1920. The matter was fully debated in this House in connection with certain advertising boosts in which Rosenberg had interested such highly-placed gentlemen as the Minister of Justice, the Superintendent of Police, Maj. Trigger, the manager of the National Bank, and Dr. Krause, who is a judge at present. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) said in this House, referring to the Minister of Justice—

This was an attempt by Mr. Rosenberg to offload his concern on the public, and with these boosts which were being utilized by him to the fullest advantage, people were clamouring for the plots, but as soon as they had had some time to enquire into his financial and moral standing they were clamouring to get out of them, and they succeeded in doing so on the ground that he had misrepresented the position and so were entitled to call for a refund of the money they paid on account. The Minister knows quite well that Mr. Rosenberg refunded money on the plots in respect of the estate which, only a short while before, he had paid 35s. an acre for, and which he attempted to foist on the public at £25 per acre planted with cane. I know the Minister was present on that occasion, because I see an interjection by him in connection with what was said by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz). Mr. Rosenberg having failed to dispose of this estate on the terms of the advertisement, endeavoured to float a company, and in the course of his endeavours, was introduced to one Maxwell who was persuaded to take 30,000 shares in the concern, but it was not long before he found out he had been influenced by the misrepresentations of Mr. Rosenberg. A law suit resulted. Mr. Maxwell had paid a little over £10,000 on account, as a first call on these shares. The action took place in Johannesburg, and a counterclaim was made by Rosenberg; the result being that the case was settled out of court, Rosenberg paving some £12,000./

Was he found guilty?

It was a civil case—not a criminal charge.

He paid the money back, and Maxwell paid the money into the company.

That was what Maxwell sued him for.

He had his money back.

There was no judgment of the court in respect of that claim. Rosenberg evidently saw the case was going adversely to him and decided to compromise; he repaid Maxwell’s amount, and added £2,000 odd. Well, here is a gentleman who almost immediately, in fact, while this litigation was pending, and before a decision had been come to, came here and knocked at the door of the Minister of Labour where he was admitted And let me tell the Minister what the financial position of this man was then. Maxwell had already filed a petition for the sequestration of the Doornkop Estates, which was stayed for a short while. A meeting of the Doornkop Estates was called in order that a resolution might be passed for the voluntary sequestration of the estate, and the matter depended entirely on the sort of reception Rosenberg got at the hands of the Minister whether the resolution should be proceeded with. His position was a desperate one. He had tried to raise a loan of £50,000 from the British trade facilities to erect a mill, but his credentials were not satisfactory enough and his application for this loan was turned down.

It was not granted.

Will you make these statements outside Parliament?

They have been made before

Will you make them outside?

Will the Minister get up and deny that a resolution had actually been framed for the voluntary sequestration of the estate?

Will you make that statement outside?

I challenge him to get up and deny it. The position was Rosenberg had no assets, and was practically down and out when the Minister placed him in a position which enabled him to get £70,000 from the trade facilities and to secure from the Minister what he had been looking for for a considerable time, and what he had not been able to get—labour to develop the estate and the capital to pay that labour; and the Minister, by backing him, put him in a position of obtaining this loan, his credentials, because the Government of the Union was backing him, being regarded as satisfactory. He placed labour at his disposal to enable him to carry on; undertook to pay a subsidy to the tenant-farmers and a loan to enable them to build houses, buy implements, etc. I want to ask the Minister what security had he for this money? Not a shilling security was Rosenberg required to give, and even to-day there is no security. The capital expenditure amounted to something like £40,000, which the Minister has to be reimbursed out of the profits of the cane produced, or to be produced, on the Doornkop Estate—sooner or later—we do not know when. We know that Rosenberg posed as being very solicitous for the “well-being of the underdog” and, knowing that the policy of the Minister was to attempt to solve the unemployment problem by settling tenant-farmers on the land, he played on the sympathies and the obsessions of the Minister to attain the object he had in view, namely, the obtaining of financial facilities to enable him to develop the estate. All his protestations of sympathy for the cause the Minister has at heart were simulated. His sole object was to obtain capital to develop the estate for his own personal benefit, and not for the benefit of the tenant-farmers at all. He succeeded admirably. To-day he has jettisoned the tenant-farmers who have been thrown overboard without any adequate remuneration for the work they have done, and Rosenberg is again the sole owner of the property. I want the Minister to explain why this man Rosenberg, who was stigmatized by Mr. Justice de Villiers as slippery and unscrupulous, should have been granted financial assistance to the extent of thousands of pounds.

What did Mr. Justice Krause say?

The opinion of Judge de Villiers, who weighed Rosenberg’s evidence, should carry far more weight than these advertising boosts. What were the Government’s obligations? It undertook to place 100 farmers on 7,000 acres to cultivate sugar and to subsidize them until the indebtedness to the trade facilities was liquidated. The Government subsidized them to the extent of £40,000. Another obligation of the Government was to advance £150 to each tenant-farmer for the erection of buildings and for the purchase of cattle, plant, equipment and fertilizer. The Government gave a guarantee to Rosenberg to cultivate 2,500 acres in 1926 and 2,500 acres in 1927. In short, the Government had to find all the labour and to finance the scheme free of cost to Rosenberg, and without any security for the money which had been expended in development and for the payment of labour. Let us consider what Rosenberg’s obligations were. He undertook to erect a mill at a cost of something like £70,000 to be borrowed from the trade facilities, and during the 1928 season to allot to the Government, on behalf of the tenant-farmers, 5,000 acres and to register a limited company consisting of the tenant-farmers and the company. This was the inducement which was held out to the tenant-farmers to go and labour on the estate. The assets of the co-operative society were to be 7,000 acres in their developed stage, the mill, and all such property and improvements which had been effected out of moneys that had been advanced by the department. The company was to receive one-third of the registered capital and the tenant-farmers two-thirds. Thus the tenant-farmers were promised in 1928 a two-thirds interest in a property which the Minister considered good enough security for £145,000. What did they get? Development continued until eventually the estate was nearing the producing stage. Then Rosenberg, realizing that, clever though he was, he had made a sorry mistake in agreeing to give away two-thirds of this valuable estate, set to work to plot and scheme to see how he could escape from this irksome obligation, so much so that he was not prepared to carry on unless he could release himself from a difficult position. This valuable interest in the estate was far too much to give to the tenant-farmers who had brought the estate to the producing stage, and Mr. Rosenberg determined that the interests of the tenant-farmers should not be allowed to stand in his wav. The tenant-farmers, by the sweat of their brow, had turned the place from a wilderness into a fully developed estate and the time to reap their reward was near at hand, and they were about to call on Mr. Rosenberg to “deliver the goods.” The only way in which he could escape from his obligations was to get the Minister to agree to a cancellation of the agreement. He therefore approached the Minister—

The very opposite of the facts.

Very well, the Minister approached him. Things were so unsatisfactory that the Minister was tired of the whole affair and Rosenberg was waiting knowing what was going to happen.

You cannot have it both ways.

The farmers were so dissatisfied with Rosenberg’s actions that the sale of the Government’s share of the estate was inevitable. Here is where I think the Minister betrayed the solemn trust reposed in him by the tenant-farmers. Rosenberg undertook to allot to the Minister, on behalf of the tenant-farmers, a two-thirds interest in the estate, and the Minister released Rosenberg from that obligation without consulting the tenant-farmers.

That is not true.

Let the Minister explain. I say he did so, because I have the new agreement here. The Minister took upon himself to agree with Rosenberg that his obligation to hand over two-thirds of the estate should be cancelled, and he did this before he had consulted the tenant-farmers. I say he was in a position of trust. It was self-imposed trust, because he took upon himself, not at the request of the tenant-farmers, but in his own volition to see that a two-thirds interest was allotted to the tenant-farmers, and to see that they got what they were promised when they went on to the estate, and what the Minister led them to believe they would get. The Minister has sold the Government’s interest in Doornkop Estates, and sold the tenant-farmers at the same time. He has undertaken to assume liability for the £70,000 bond held by the Facilities Board; Rosenberg has a £15,000 loan standing to his debit; subsidies amounting to £45,000 are to be debited to him, and the Minister has actually granted him a further loan of £15,000 to enable him to carry on until the sugar cane is sufficiently matured and ready to feed the mill, making a total liability by Rosenberg of £145,000, the security for which is the estate which was purchased a few years ago by Rosenberg at 35s. an acre, or £16,000. I want to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied.

You have forgotten the mill is that not part of the assets?

Nearly £80,000. apart from the mill, which the Minister has to obtain out of profits which are to be made, and which he has to wait for until those profits are made. I want to call attention to the conditions of the new agreement. It says—

Then it goes on to provide that the agreement between the company and the Minister of Labour shall cease to operate. That was the agreement under which the tenant-farmers were to receive a two-thirds interest in the estate. The Government guarantees repayment by the company of a debt of 1370,000 secured by debentures. The company undertakes to pay £15,000 advanced by the Minister to the tenant-farmers at the fate of £130 per tenant-farmer to enable them to buy fertilizers and so forth. A total of £60,000 is to run goodness knows how long, free of any interest. Mr. Rosenberg is to have the use of £60,000 of taxpayers’ money probably for 20 years, and the taxpayers are not to receive any interest on it. There is provision for the advance of a further £15,000 to be added to this debt carrying interest at 5 per cent. There is £120,000 on which interest has to be paid, which is a charge against the profits of the mill. ... Any tenant-farmer who continues to remain on the estate after the settlement shall receive a salary of not less than £8 a month, and that is all he is to get out of the contract. He has lost his two-thirds interest. Does the Minister deny that?

Yes, I do. You are mixing them all up.

Am I to understand that tenant-farmers are to receive their two-thirds interest?

Those who do not get compensation are to remain under the old agreement.

Will they receive their two-thirds interest?

Yes, if they want to.

If a two-thirds interest on the estate is to belong to the tenant-farmers it leaves one-third interest, and the Minister has advanced moneys to the extent of £145,000 in respect of that one-third interest in the estate.

I will deal with it,

The Minister told us in reply to a question, that he had consulted the interests of the Government and of the tenant-farmers, and the Government were not going to make a penny loss on this transaction. I ask him whether the use of £60,000 by Rosenberg for an indeterminate period does not constitute a loss to the Treasury? It is equal to an income of £3,000 a year.

Those are exactly the same conditions as we apply to every man who gets a tenant-farmer.

If the Minister will read the agreement he will see that Rosenberg is no longer obliged to have those tenant-farmers on his estate. The tenant-farmers can leave if they please, and he can remove them from the plots which they have been cultivating ever since the inception of the agreement. They can be stuck away in some remote corner of the estate, at the will of Mr. Rosenberg, and all they can get for cultivating the sugar cane is a percentage of the gross profit which may accrue after all this huge liability has been paid off by Rosenberg. That is the position. I challenge the Minister when he gets up to deny it.

I will deny it. I will challenge your case.

The Minister may challenge. I have consulted these agreements very carefully, and I am prepared to stake my reputation that what I am stating is correct.

You are mixing up a different set of conditions. There are three or four sets of conditions. You are mixing them all up. You are ringing the changes.

I would like to know in regard to a clause of the agreement [read whether this compensation has been granted. [Time limit.]

We have heard a tremendous amount lately about Doornkop, and we shall probably hear more about it until the Opposition in time understand the whole state of affairs, and then we shall hear very little. One thing is certain, namely, that Doornkop was started in good faith by the Labour Department. It was the time the department was trying to get work for the unemployed. We could not at once get enough work for the people. When we came into office 10.5 per cent, of the population were poor white, poor people who had no work, and to find room for them all immediately as settlers or tenant-farmers was an impossible matter. Then there was the opportunity when the famous Mr. Rosenberg made an offer of the farm Doornkop to the Department of Labour. The Department of Labour was immediately prepared to listen to Mr. Rosenberg’s terms. A great deal is now said about Mr. Rosenberg’s character, but it is a pity that we do not hear more about these things outside the House.

What did the judge say?

The judgment was given after the contract had been started.

Oh, no.

The matter came before the judge after we had to do with Mr. Rosenberg. The Department of Labour could hire Doornkop from Rosenberg, and it was not that gentleman’s character that was a stumbling block. He was prepared to let Doornkop to the department with the option of buying the farm, and the alternative was added that Rosenberg was prepared to give the ground, and to develop it, on a co-operative basis, whereby the people there would get two-thirds of the sugarcane yield. Rosenberg assumed certain obligations, he gave the ground, looked after the mill, and would supply the sugarcane, and the people could get two-thirds of the proceeds. It was a very simple transaction. No big security was required for that. The ground was there, the man would erect the mill, and the Department of Labour would bring the people. The hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) now asks what the people got. Does the hon. member expect, when he ploughs this month, to reap the next? The sugarcane was planted, and we had to wait for the harvest, and not be over hasty. The people will get their share at the harvest, and afterwards the whole business will go to the co-operative society. There are great prospects for sugarcane in Natal, and I am surprised that an hon. member from Natal should talk in that way about sugarcane. He makes out as if it would never pay, and must be a fiasco. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) said it was doomed to failure. What do the hon. members of Natal think about it? Is sugarcane worth so little? Doornkop lies in the heart of the sugarcane area.

No, not at all.

I fear the hon. member has visited Doornkop less frequently than I. I have been there twice and seen it myself. There are plantations all about, and I came to the conclusion that Doornkop was centrally situated in the sugarcane area of Natal. If it pays in Natal, it must pay at Doornkop as well, but we have a class of people there, the poor people, who must be assisted, and amongst whom there is dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction prevails amongst them, whether at Hartebeestpoort, where there are good settlements, or anywhere else. There is always some discontent, because they do not immediately reap the fruit of their labour, and the people are over hasty. It is their nature, and possibly it is the nature of all of us. There was some dissatisfaction at Doornkop, and our Natal friends have increased it. There is only the feeling of condemning that class of people because they dare to come into Natal. We had it in Durban. When the poor whites were employed on the railways there, there were conditions of lunacy. The white Dutch-speaking people dared to go to Natal, the Holy of Holies of the English people. There was much shouting and fuss, and to-day the people are still working in Durban and are doing very well.

They are the best people in Durban.

Yes, the best Europeans in Durban, but that is why the Durbanites do not want them there. They do not want good society. When the Labour Department introduced the 100 families into the Holy of Holies of the English-speaking people; it was the same thing. Now the fault lies with the Minister of Labour and Rosenberg and everybody, except with the spokesmen of Natal, and the people are incited, the flames of dissatisfaction are fanned.

What did they say when you were there?

The people were already dissatisfied of course, but poison had then already been spread about.

When were you there?

In August last. At that time you had long since created bad blood, and the dissatisfaction amongst the people was of course great. The fault at present does not lie with Rosenberg, or the Labour Department, but the cause of the failure of Doornkop must be looked for in the surroundings of Doornkop which have not done enough in helping the Government to raise our poor whites. We have the Union, but are not yet united with reference to the people who have sunk and must be helped up again. That is where the great fault lies. There is great dissatisfaction now at the failure of Doornkop. Admitting that it is a failure, everybody can make a mistake, but have hon. members opposite the right to throw stones when they are living in glass houses? What was done under the previous Government with regard to settlement? Take for instance, the case of Tsaneen near Duivelskloof in the district of Pietersburg.

That is the best settlement.

We shall hear about the best settlement. The farms were 3,255 morgen in size, and it cost the Government, including all expenes, £36,648. It was bought for a settlement, and when it could not be made to pay for that object because it was a total failure—even worse than Doornkop—it was transferred to the Agricultural Department, and in the old days the department tried to make something of it, but it was given up as hopeless. It was then cut into 20 plots, and 15 were sold for £6,340, leaving five plots which worked out at £30,000. Thereafter two of the five were sold with machinery, etc. for £5,250 to be paid off in 40 years, leaving three plots at Tsaneen, which therefore cost £24,700.

When was that done?

Under the S.A.P. Government, and it lost £23,000 there alone. What about Doornkop now’? Take places like Thongrove and Bedford, C.P. The last was, I think, bought for £15,753. There were ten plots for settlements. Subsequently when a start had to be made, it had to be written down when the Department of Lands had it valued. It was valued at £6,285.

One mistake does not cure another.

It is referred to in the Auditor-General’s report, and in the Lands Department’s report of last year. But take the case of Rodekop near Germiston, a plot of 68 morgen which was bought for £1,622. When the Government had to sell it, it was worth £860. It was totally unsuited to land settlement. [Time limit.]

Perhaps it would he as well if, at this stage, I deal with some of the main points made by the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson). Any further points raised by other hon. members I will deal with also. First, of all, let me say this, that the hon. member recited again all these crimes and offences that Mr. Rosenberg was supposed to be guilty of, and he quoted a certain judge in support of his case. We have had this repeated in this House time and again I would only ask hon. members who seem to take a pride and a delight in making the most objectionable charges and accusations against Mr. Rosenberg to be good enough to repeat some of these libellous statements outside of Parliament so that he could take action against them. For every one you bring forward and quote as against Mr. Rosenberg, there can be brought equal weight of evidence in his favour by other eminent people in this country. But apart from all that, that has nothing whatever to do with the case. As far as Mr. Rosenberg’s dealings with the Government are concerned over this matter, I can only say, as I have said before, that we have had the utmost consideration and a fair and square deal. I can say no more than that. I can only speak from experience as I find and no matter what others may say, I can say that, so far as this Government is concerned, so far as Mr. Rosenberg’s actions and his dealings in this matter are concerned, he has gone out of his way time and again, to meet us and to give us a fair and square deal

More than a square deal.

Yes, even more than a square deal when he gave me a letter to say that where there were any points in dispute or any doubt, as far as he and his company were concerned, they were prepared to leave the decision in my hands, feeling confident I would give them a fair and square deal.

That was before you cancelled the agreement.

That was 12 months ago. The agreement has not been cancelled yet. I will come to that. Why were these men placed there? What other object had the Government than to try and rehabilitate 100 of the poor white type who found themselves landed on our forestry settlements? Hon. members know the type of man we are dealing with here, people who come to our labour exchanges

Quite a good type.

A splendid type, an excellent type, but our only purpose is to rehabilitate them, to serve their interests to the best of our ability. We recruited these men mainly from the forestry settlements where they were doing good work, and we selected them on account of their industry and their capacity. We asked them whether they would like to go as tenant-farmers on this estate under our ordinary tenant-farmers’ scheme. We said we would place them on this 7,000 acre farm on the same terms and conditions as we would place them with any other individual or private farmer anywhere else in the country. We have placed hundreds. With this difference, that if they were prepared to carry on and work long enough, in order that the estate might be brought to the producing stage, and from the revenue the cost of the estate of the mill and the Government’s expenditure in putting them and maintaining them there; when that was paid or met out of revenue they would then become two-thirds owners in the whole estate, the mill, the land and the whole business. The reason why they did not get three-thirds of the estate—what they have been claiming—is because the Doornkop company in the first place own the land, and in the second place undertook all the financial obligations for erecting and running the mill. When we first put forward the scheme in this house, two things were said which have been disproved; one was that we were putting these, poor people there on a farm where sugar would not grow. The hon. member for Umvoti (Mr. Deane) said sugar would not grow on this place, and he condemned the whole scheme.

Am I not right?

The hon. member said it was a wattle plantation and that where wattle grows, sugar will not grow.

Was I not right?

Right? You were never more wrong in your life. I ask him to go and see the place. He will see some of the finest sugar cane he will see anywhere in South Africa. That is one lie—misstatement—that was killed. We had another hon. member who killed the scheme beforehand and shouted that the mill would never go up. These were things said in the early days to condemn the scheme. I ask hon. members to go there, and they can get any sugar engineer —expert if you like—and they will see one of the most up-to-date mills ready for crushing ou that estate—one of the most up-to-date for its size erected in South Africa.

Why abandon it?

I am not abandoning it I am coming to that. I am sorry that the men who were placed there were so disaffected that they refused to act in partnership with Mr. Rosenberg. It is a shameful offence against the interests of these men that they should have been so disaffected that today they say they do not want to continue working with Mr. Rosenberg. It is not from anything he has done while he has been there, but what has been said inside and outside this House. They say they want the Government to take over the lot and want to have nothing to do with Mr. Rosenberg and his company.

They have been listening to agitators.

These men went there under our ordinary conditions. They knew they would have to work that estate until it was developed, and out of the proceeds of the mill they were going to get two-thirds interest in the mill and in the whole estate.

Did they not work? They did work.

They did work—well, until lately. They worked exceedingly well. Unfortunately 1926 and 1927 in most parts there was a period of drought and they had great difficulty to do the work in the time we stipulated. We undertook to do certain work in two years—a tremendous task— stumping, planting 5,000 acres of cane on an estate full of wattle trees and so on—and in two years which were unfortunately a period of unusual drought in which all cane farmers suffered. It took us all our time to see it through. We did not see it through in the time. We were about six weeks over the time, but that was provided for in the agreement by saying that we would do it provided circumstances which were not under our control did not prevent it. We could not control the drought, but the company made no bones about that, and saw we were doing our best—and the work was done. Up to that point, things were all right, but last year, in consequence of the agitation and condemnation of the scheme and of Mr. Rosenberg, we found some of these men saying that they did not want to carry on with the scheme, and numbers cleared out on their own accord. They took it for granted that these things being said were true. Others got indifferent and slack, and others, again, had to be dismissed. Others got medical certificates to go away.

Why?

Because they came to the conclusion that they were in partnership with a man and a company that was not in their interests, and they did not want to continue. Twenty said they did not want to continue in that partnership arrangement with “this Johannesburg Jew,” as they put it; they wanted to go back to forestry settlement. You can’t carry on an organization on that basis. Something had to be done. Mr. Rosenberg said, “You can either buy the property out on terms to be agreed upon, or we will buy you out on terms to be agreed upon, or we will adjust the agreement to give satisfaction,” because it was found that the co-operative society we were going to form in terms of the agreement could not own fixed assets. That could not be done, although the agreement was passed by the law advisers. I want to make this quite clear, when the agreement was submitted to the law advisers and passed, approved, signed and initialled, the words used were “without flaw.” Greater precautions than that I could not take. I want to repeat that because hon. members will make a lot of capital out of the fact that a co-operative society could not be formed and have fixed assets. The agreement was approved of and passed by the law advisers, and only after that was it given effect to. That would have presented no difficulty, for there was another way out if the men had been willing to continue in the partnership. If the partnership had been between the Government and the men, there would have been no difficulty, but it was the dual interest that caused the trouble. Mr. Rosenberg then said, “If we cannot do this under the Co-operative Societies Act, let us do it under the Companies Act, and give effect to what was intended in another way; any way you suggest, I am willing to do it, and they can get their two-thirds.” But the men said they did not wish to continue in the partnership, and they asked that they should be allowed to go on or else Government should buy Mr. Rosenberg out. Mr. Rosenberg said, “I am prepared to buy you out or to sell to you on the same basis as I asked you to buy me out. In other words, if I buy the Government’s interest on a certain basis, I will give the Government the right to buy my interest on the same basis.”

Will you produce the petition the men sent to you?

I can let the hon. member see the petition, which is in the office

Had these poor, ignorant, simple men no independent legal advice to help them?

They knew the Government was acting on their behalf, and is still acting on their behalf.

After two years these men are turned off the estates.

The officials and the Government have been acting in their interests and on their behalf.

The men had too much advice from over there.

The reason they are in this position is because they were influenced by people trying to make political capital out of it in Natal.

They ruined these men.

Yes, they made it impossible for them to get what they should have got, and what they were entitled to get if they had been content to leave it in the hands of the Government.

How could that be if this is a good thing?

They were not prepared to wait or to carry on the partnership. However, I cannot deal with the remarks of every hon. member at once.

Does that excuse appear in the departmental report on which you decided to close down the settlement?

That aspect of it appeared in the report.

Will you read it?

No, I have said it was a confidential report by three officials representing the Labour, Lands and Agricultural Departments. Now, as to the adjustment. The Government has sunk a good deal of money in this venture, and it has to get its money back. We have also to protect the interests of the tenants. We are making a new agreement whereby the Government guarantees to the British Government the repayment of the money advanced by the British trade Facilities Fund for the mill—£70,000. In addition to that there is some £60,000 spent by the Government on development, £45,000 of that has actually been spent, and the other £15,000 is to go in compensation to the tenants. An hon. member asked if that is free of interest, but all our tenant-farmer schemes are free of interest for six years. Why should we treat this scheme any differently from the way in which other schemes are treated?

How many farmers have you lent £33,000 to?

We have paid something like £46,000 to farmers for placing tenant-farmers with them. Out of that £46,000 we have already recovered abut £20,000, but the full six years’ period has not yet run. All that money is free of interest. I wish to emphasize that if one farmer receives an advance on account of a tenant-farmer free of interest, if you multiply it by 100, you will get 100 advances of £150 each free of interest. So there is no difference in policy or principle. I will deal with every criticism that is raised, but not all at once. Here are the figures I have been quoting from memory: Loans for stock, implements, etc., £46,295; recoveries, £24,585.

For how many farmers?

Five hundred and fifty-six.

You gave Mr. Rosenberg 500 times more than you gave anyone else.

In numbers of cases the whole of the £150 is not borrowed. The next point is this. An hon. member has referred to the £15,000 which the Government is advancing at five per cent, interest to bring the mill and the estate to the producing stage, so that we can get our money back. We can do that in two ways—either on the security of the whole estate, on which we have a first mortgage bond, by guaranteeing the British Government’s loan of £70,000. We hold a first mortgage bond on the estates, which are valued at about £250,000. The mill, rails and buildings have cost nearly £130,000. The Natal Land Board, which was asked to value the land and improvements and everything except the mill, has valued it at the present stage of development at over £100,000 so that we have security in the assets to the extent of about £250,000. The hon. member said £70,000 for the mill, but the £70,000 was the contribution towards the cost of the mill of the British Trades Facilities Fund. The mill cost over £100,000, Lord Inverness paying the balance. The mill and rails and buildings connected with the mill have cost about £130,000.

What security has Lord Inverness got?

We all have the same security—the whole estate. The whole estate including the developed land as valued by the Natal Land Board, is about £250,000. That is the security for the £70,000 advanced by the British Government and the £60,000 indebtedness of the company to us and the balance of the cost of the mill. There are two ways of getting our money back. One is to realize the assets, and the other is to get the estate developed and make the money out of the proceeds of the mill. The Government are advancing at five per cent., £15,000 in order that new labour and other expenses, might be met to bring the whole estate to the producing stage, in accordance with the undertaking we gave to the company and to the British Government that we would keep the men there and produce the cane.

What about the tenant-farmers? Those are the people we want to know about.

If you had wanted to know anything about the tenant-farmers you would have taken an interest to see that they were not disaffected as they were. Your agitation would not have continued in order to bring about the present state of affairs. Then tenant-farmers have been working there from 18 months to two years, on the usual tenant-farmer’s payment of £6 per month with £150 for plant and equipment. We are now going to give them each £150 in consideration of the work they have done in addition to free housing and £6 a month they have had for that period.

What is the value of the cane they have planted?

When it matures it will be considerable. Cane is valued at about £20 an acre by the time it is cut. The agreement provides, and it was put clearly to the men when I sent the Secretary for Labour down there to explain matters to them so that there could be no misunderstanding whatever, that those who wanted to remain on under the old conditions could be allowed to do so. That was the first point made. That appears in the new agreement. An arbitration clause had been provided for, so that in the event of there being a dispute as to the interpretation of the old agreement, the dispute should be referred to arbitration, under the Natal Arbitration Act.

How many tenants elected to remain?

Not one decided to remain in spite of these advantages. Then they had another choice. They could remain with Mr. Rosenberg and work for him under any terms and conditions they mutually agreed upon. Eighteen of them have decided to do that, and if at the end of three months they are dissatisfied, he will pay them not less than £8 a month, which the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) referred to, and mixed up with something else, and we will give them £150 each and they can go the same as the others. The next point is that they could go back to one of the Government forestry settlements or the Hartebeestpoort area and continue in the same conditions as they were under when we recruited them, and a large number, I think about 70 of them, agreed to do that. They want to remain under the Government under some other scheme. Another option was given them. They could be transferred to any centre they liked, free of charge, if they did not want to go to any Government schemes. There you have four options. Was it humanly possible to do more for any body of men who have become disaffected with the conditions under which we had placed them. I ask any hon. member of this House, could anybody have been more fair or given greater benefits than we did?

How many took the last option of going back home?

I think about 20. I am not sure. Most of them said that they wanted to remain with the Government, but they did not want to remain on this property.

Anywhere but Doornkop.

Eighteen are going to stay. The men asked for eight days in which to decide, and we gave them a month The hon. member said: “Is it in the agreement?” Yes. It is in Clause 5 of the agreement [read].

Obligations of the Government, not obligations of Mr. Rosenberg.

All the obligations which are laid down in the existing agreement were to be carried out under the new arrangement. We put that in for that purpose.

You are wrong there.

It is provided also, that should any dispute arise, between the company and the tenant-farmer, the company agrees to submit such dispute to arbitration in accordance with Act 34 of 1893 of Natal, or any amendment thereof. What more could we do under the circumstances? I regret very much indeed that a position has arisen where a scheme which was proving successful, there is nothing wrong in the principle, there is nothing wrong in the conception and there would have been nothing wrong in the application if the people concerned had not objected to the partnership arrangement and refused to carry on.

How are the Government going to come out of it?

The way in which we get our money hack is either by selling it up and getting the assets or by allowing it to develop and getting it out of the proceeds of the mill. We have decided that we should get it out of the proceeds of the mill.

How long do you think it is going to take you:

That we don’t know. The agreement provides that from the time they start crushing, the Government is to get, to redeem all these debts, one-third of the total revenue from the mill in the first year, 40 per cent, in the second year, 40 per cent, in the third year and 50 percent, after that until it is paid off. I put this agreement on the Table even before it had been ratified by the company. Hon. members clamoured for it. It is subject to modification, but any modification will be along the lines of safeguarding the interests of the Government financially. The company do not want to escape their liabilities. They are quite willing to pay, but they want to pay out of the proceeds of the estate when it is running and the estate is not running, yet. There will be about 3,000 acres of cane to be cut next year, which will produce 6,000 tons of sugar. Six thousand tons of sugar at £20 per ton means a pretty big slice Of course there are the expenses, the cost of milling, etc. to come out. Those are the conditions provided for in the agreement, but it is subject to any modification which may be decided upon if the company do not agree to these particular terms. As to the £10 per acre, I will tell you how that comes in. The Government foresaw a certain possibility. After the cane had been planted and ready to cut, they saw no reason whatever why, if one of the tenant farmers had to leave, he should not have the option of either getting value for the work done on his behalf or of putting somebody else on the vacant plot. Mr. Rosenberg then agreed to give the Government, on any plot which had been cultivated, £10 an acre out of which the Government would deduct expenses involved in the labour and the maintenance of the tenant and the implements, etc. and then hand over the balance to the man who was leaving. In other words, take the case of a man who died and whose plot was being developed, what were we going to do with it? Were we going to put another tenant-farmer on that plot or were we going to be able to realize in some way so that the Government would get their money back for the State and the person concerned would get something for his labour? Mr. Rosenberg said: “We will, at the request of the Minister, in respect of any plot which, for any reason, might become vacant, pay £10 an acre for the plot, provided the cane is planted and ready for cutting.” That £10 per acre on 50 acres means £500. Each plot has a debit against it of £450. By the Government paying £150, that makes £600 in respect of each plot, so that the Government are going to recover £450 from each plot and the other £150 will go to the tenant-farmer who has cancelled his agreement. Mr. Rosenberg offered to give us £10 an acre, which is £500. We are getting a better deal actually than that £10, which my hon. friends over there have cottoned on to, presupposes.

It sounds very ingenious.

No, it is not a question of being ingenious. That £10 was in order that we might get our money hack and the balance might go to the tenant-farmer. This £45,000 had to be paid back to the Government.

How can you he sure that it will be paid back?

Is this a sample of State enterprise?

No, I wish it had been a State enterprise. If it had been a State enterprise entirely, this position would not have arisen. If I have made a mistake, it is in putting two people into partnership who refuse to continue in that partnership.

Why?

Because one is told the other man is a scoundrel, that he is no good, that the whole thing is a fraud and practically that this man has only just escaped gaol. From the sugar planting point of view, it has been a success. We have proved that sugar can be grown by white labour of the peasant farmer class in Natal. We have proved also that these men are suitable for doing that work, and will do that work if they are put by themselves and are not in partnership with somebody whom they regard as being objectionable. I am sorry for their sake that the scheme has had to be dropped. It is not my fault. The fault is entirely theirs, because people have told them the scheme was no good and the people in partnership were also no good. We have done our best to safeguard their interests. We can do no more than that. We have given them their option. If it had not been for the efforts to make political and party capital out of this matter by hon. members opposite, this scheme would have been successful and hon. members over there would have been very dissatisfied and disappointed if it had been successful.

I am sorry to see that the hon. member for Potchefstroom (the Rev. Mr. Fick) is not in the House, because I wish to reply to certain of the insinuations which he made against the people of Natal. I say deliberately that the insinuations he made were absolutely uncalled for and without any foundation whatever. The tenant-farmers at Doornkop have been treated fairly by the adjoining owners. They have taken an interest in them. I can only read a letter written by one of the tenant-farmers. He says—

Mr. Bodenstein is a welfare officer, and if a full inquiry was made and evidence was obtained from these poor unfortunate people, a different story would be divulged from that which the Minister has tried to make out. The Minister, from the very beginning, has thrown out a smoke screen, and he has tried his best to screen what has been an absolute failure. The hon. member for Potchefstroom admitted quite frankly that the scheme was a hopeless failure. We warned the Minister before he entered into that agreement that this scheme was going to be a failure. It was not so much because of the land, but because of the economic basis upon which he was entering into the agreement. The Minister knows that we warned him against Mr. Rosenberg. Only last week we received another letter from one of the tenant-farmers, and he says this—

I happen to know about this. Only about six months ago the Dutch Reformed Church in Natal received a complaint from the tenant-farmers that they were being overcharged there and not able to obtain the goods they required, that Rosenberg was bleeding them, and the Dutch Reformed Church inquired into the matter and found these statements were correct. I had it from the Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church in Natal. That was one of the chief causes of dissatisfaction. The Jews were masters of their cheques, in other words, when they received £6 at the end of the month, Mr. Rosenberg had a monopoly store and these cheques were handed over to the store.

He had not a monopoly store.

Oh, yes. He says—

The Minister did not tell us of a strike having occurred by reason of the fact that they could not handle the cheques themselves—

It is really an astonishing and sad thing to have a Labour Minister practically admitting that these tenant-farmers have not been treated fairly.

I never said that.

I understood you to say they were dissatisfied at the way they have been treated. If I have misunderstood the Minister, I withdraw it, but, to a man, they are leaving that property because they have not been treated fairly. The Minister has not dealt with them fairly in this way—that he has allowed them to leave the property without being paid the compensation they should have received. They were poor ignorant people and the Minister made use of that statement sometime ago when interviewed by a newspaper in Cape Town. He said—

I would like to hear when we ever spoke to these tenant-farmers. I challenge him to say we have on any occasion tried to turn them against the Doornkop scheme

You have been communicating with them.

The information we have is that Mr. Rosenberg’s man was running the store, and if a letter was written to a member of Parliament it was immediately communicated to the Minister. I say it is a shame that these poor unfortunate people should not even have the right

On a point of order, that statement is a serious statement, and it is absolutely untrue.

I say deliberately that the store also ran the post office and the tenant-farmers complain that letters they have written to members of Parliament were divulged. I want to know how the Minister knew it. Will he explain?

The hon. member must accept the Minister’s statement.

I do accept it, but I say he must explain it.

No, the hon. member must accept it.

I want to say one of the tenant-farmers received letters from the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) quite recently, within the last few weeks.

Since the agreement was cancelled.

The hon. member has made a serious charge and I must reply to it. I say this, that letters which have been sent by the hon. member for Illovo have been handed to a Government official and then handed to me, and I sent them back again. That was within the last two weeks. Will the hon. member deny that?

That is another admission by the Minister that a certain amount of espionage is going on.

On a point of order, I say the letters I saw were received by the person to whom they were addressed and handed to the Government official who sent them for me to see, and I sent them back again.

Who is the Government official?

Bodenstein?

It would be interesting to know who that official was. There is no doubt about it that Mr. Rosenberg has exercised an undue influence on the Minister in some way which it is difficult for any of us to understand. He has had such an influence on the Minister that the Minister has entered into an agreement that no business man, no man with the interest of his country at heart or the interest of the tenant-farmers at heart, would ever have entered into. I say no one else could have got such an agreement but Mr. Rosenberg. It is difficult to explain the extraordinary influence he exercised on the Minister; he got the Minister to finance to the extent of £145,000. I would like to know whether the Minister is prepared to finance any other citizen on the same terms. Is he prepared to offer the same privileges and conditions—£60,000 free of interest—to any citizen who comes along? I say nobody else coming to the Minister would ever get it. I cannot understand how the Minister of Finance agreed to the £60,000 being advanced to Mr. Rosenberg free of interest. It seems to me an extraordinary method of business. With what is Mr. Rosenberg paying these tenant-farmers out? With the State’s money. The State has financed the Minister in order to enable Mr. Rosenberg to pay the money. The very cost of the bond Mr. Rosenberg has passed is included in the capital amount, although ordinarily the buyer has to pay the cost of the bond. Mr. Rosenberg has used such extraordinary influence that even the cost of the bond is added to this enormous amount. Mr. Rosenberg himself is not personally liable. He was dead off that! Mr. Rosenberg would agree only to a limited liability company. If the Minister has any more jobs of that sort sticking out I will be glad if he will tell me. And that with regard to a man who admitted in the Transvaal Supreme Court that he knew nothing about sugar farming—a man the judge said he could not rely upon. This is the man who gets this enormous remuneration. [Time limit.].

When I stopped a little while ago, or rather when my time was expired. I was pointing out how much the country had lost on settlement schemes in the past. Here in the case of Doornkop, as we have heard from the Minister of Labour, there is a chance of the Government recovering at least 90 per cent, of the money spent, there is at least security, but how do things stand with the losses suffered in the past? Take, e.g., Spitskop, near Ladysmith, in Natal. There 3,815 morgen were bought for £32,808. Subsequently the present Government had to write down the ground.

The hon. member cannot discuss it under this vote.

But surely there is a motion before the House to reduce the salary of the Minister. We are now dealing with the settlement schemes in the past.

The hon. member can discuss it under another vote, and further, it took place in the past under another Government.

I mention it merely as an example of where money was lost in the past, without hope of its ever being recovered.

The hon. member must not go too far.

I shall not go too far. Subsequently, when the Government wanted to transfer the ground to the people, the ground which was purchased for £32,858 was valued, at £2 a morgen. Then I only want to add the case of Oakdale in Riversdale, 7,895 morgen in size which cost the previous Government £91,000, of which £54,000 has been written off. There has therefore been a total writing off in regard to settlements of £564,000 for which the State got nothing, while in the case of Doornkop, as the Minister says, there is still a chance of the Government getting back a large portion because it has security for the money. What has been written off under the previous Government is lost without there being an opportunity of recovering a penny. If we bear in mind those failures in the past on settlements then we surely have not the right to detain the House in connection with the one mistake which has been made in the matter of Doornkop. If hon. members will only remember their past a little they will see that they live in dark houses, and must not throw stones. Then they will be ashamed to open their mouths about the one failure of the Labour Department. Hartebeestpoort is a settlement where the department is doing good work in elevating the poor white, and it is a great success. So, also, in the other settlements, but in the one case the department has not succeeded, and it has to pay the penalty, it acted in good faith, and I think that the people who do not want to continue the work will subsequently regret it. I consider the sharp attack on the department is unfair.

One of the things which must strike the man in the street is this: It Doornkop is such a magnificent proposition as the Minister maintains, where did the duty of the Government lie? Did the Minister think it was his duty, after providing the capital necessary to develop the estate for the benefit of the company promoter, to allow the tenant-farmers who should have been his special care to go off this magnificent estate in which they had a potential interest with only £150 each. The Minister has spoken for about half-an-hour, and he endeavoured to paint the prospects of the estate as one of the most glowing in South Africa. If that is true, how comes it that he allows these men to go away with only £150 each—£15,000 as their total share in this estate which they have built up with their own hard labour, while the Minister leaves someone else to walk off with the spoils. I wish to comment now upon the new agreement under which any of those who elect to remain behind will have to work, As one having some knowledge of these affairs, I challenge the Minister to dispute any of the figures I am going to give. Clause 5 of this new agreement deals with two factors. In the first place, it deals with the return which the tenant-farmers will get for their cane ultimately, and in the second place the period at which they will become entitled to receive payment for their cane. It is clear that no payment will be made for cane at all to the tenant-farmers until certain things have happened. In the meantime, they are living on their subsistence allowance. The first thing that has to be done before any payment can be made for cane is to repay the capital sum invested in the construction of the mill. The sum of £70,000 has to be paid back to the Trade Facilities Board, and £50,000 of outside capital has to be repaid, making a total of £120,000. That is to the total cost of the mill as far as it can be ascertained from the agreement. The second thing that has to be done is the repayment of the subsistence allowances to the tenant-farmers, which amount to £60,000, which the company has had free of interest. There is an additional sum of £15,000 for which the Government gets 5 per cent, interest. The tenant-farmers get nothing at all for their cane they get merely a subsistence allowance paid monthly, and, until this £120,000 and the £60,000 and the £15,000 has been paid back, they receive no money for their cane. The Minister has been extraordinarily optimistic about the amount of cane which is going to the mill and the quantity of sugar to be made from the cane, but I wish to give the facts. The total acreage which the tenant-farmers would have had if they had all remained on the estate is 5,000 acres, and the tonnage of cane per acre will not exceed 20 tons on the average. The ratio of cane to sugar is one ton of sugar to ten tons of cane. The price which the Minister will get for the sugar is £16 a ton. That is, £17 from the refineries less £1 excise. Upon that he has to pay railage to the refineries, say, 10s. a ton, and he has to pay for transport j from the mill to Stanger at 3s. 6d. a ton. The quantity of cane to be crushed will be 50,000 tons, assuming that the Minister’s optimistic expectations are realized. The tonnage of sugar made from 50,000 tons of cane would be 5,000 tons, so that the total returns on that sugar in Durban before railage is paid is £80,000. The transport and railage to Durban will amount to £3,125. The cost of running the mill is £4,000 a month, and it cannot be done under that sum.

The hon. member’s figures do not tally. Twenty tons of cane to the acre for the 5,000 acres under cultivation amounts to 100,000 tons of cane.

But you cut only once every two years. We are dealing with an annual production, and it requires ten tons of cane to produce one ton of sugar. It has been found that it will cost at least £4,000 a month on the average throughout the year to run the mill. It costs the same very largely whether you have a small or a large unit. It does not cost much more perhaps to run a 10,000 tons mill than a 5,000 ton mill. These are really conservative figures. Therefore the total amount which is paid for railage and the running of the mill and transport is £51,125, leaving a net return on the mill of £28,875. It is provided that, other things being equal, if the debt has been paid back, the tenant-farmers are going to get two-thirds of the nett return on the sugar. That will amount to £19,250. That amount divided over 50,000 tons of cane amounts to 7s. 6d. a ton for cane, and the planters in Natal to-day are getting 16s. and 17s. a ton. [Time limit.]

If other millers can afford to pay 17s. a ton for cane, clearly there must be something wrong with the hon. member’s costs or they could not possibly afford to pay this.

It is to be regretted that the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) and his hon. friends in that corner of the House are not straightforward enough to admit that most of the criticism directed against the Doornkop experiment is due largely to the fact that this scheme has had the result of introducing into the sun-kissed coastal belt of Natal a large number of Dutch-speaking South Africans who could not possibly have got a footing there under any other circumstances. The sugar-growing magnates of Natal and their satellites have always looked upon the North Coast of Natal as there special preserve, and are only prepared to welcome there those whom they are pleased to call the light type of settler or planter. It is, I contend, because the settlers at Doornkop belong to the Dutch-speaking race that much of the opposition has come from Natal. There can be no question about that. The whole matter was ventilated at the munipal congress held at Maritzburg recently, and things were said there which proved to me that although the people in Natal, especially those in the coastal districts, have no objection to McTaggart and McTavish going to the Free State looking for employment, they strongly object to van Zyl and van Tromp coming to Durban for a similar purpose. One of the Councillors, a Mrs. Knight, of Durban, delivered a vehement speech denouncing the policy of the Government in employing pool whites on the railways in the urban areas at a totally inadequate wage. She said the difficulty was caused not so much by the poor people who drifted from town to town as by those who have drifted from the rural district into the urban areas. “This influx from the country into the towns is growing day by day,” continued Mrs. Knight, “and I know we shall get them down from Doornkop into Durban. We have already had them from other settlements and they refuse to go back because they like Durban life so well. This congress must act. We must tell the Government that they must cease this practice. They must keep these people in the country and find work for them there. This question of influx of poor people is, as far as I know, the greatest menace which Durban has had to face in all my experience.” This seems to be purely a racial question. The sugar planters in the North Coast of Natal do not desire to have amongst them this particular type of people. Everything possible has been done to make the men settled at Doornkop dissatisfied. The things that have been said in this House have been conveyed to them, and, I cannot help saying, it is all being done because there has been a large number of Dutch-speaking South Africans introduced into the north coast of Natal.

I should be ashamed to make the speech of the hon. member. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachau) never gets up unless he has a red herring of the worst type to trail. I will establish my bona fides in this matter. I will ask the hon. the Minister of Labour whether I personally did not put a plan for the employment of many hundreds of poor whites on the Umfolozi settlement; whether I did not work out this scheme on a basis of Government land which would have been productive of the utmost good to them and a great deal of wealth to the Union, not on a plan like Doornkop, but on a plan where they would have earned, and established themselves in a very good walk of life. I ask the Minister of Defence, in justice to me, is that true or is it not? Let me say this, I know and I think the Minister will believe me—that the sugar industry has done its utmost to try and make Doornkop a success. It is the sugar planters themselves that the Minister has trusted to, some of the leading sugar planters have been his advisers and have done their best to pull this matter through.

Is the member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) a sugar planter?

No, he is not. He has nothing whatever to do with the sugar industry. The economics of this proposition were never sufficiently gone into at the beginning. The Minister asked me a little while ago how it was that sugar mills are able to pay to-day while this scheme cannot pay. The reason is simple—they are large mills. The small class of mills such as you have at Doornkop have gone out of existence. The two or three which exist are the property of private owners who have grown up with them and who run their estate in conjunction with their sugar mills. And it must be remembered that they have no capital to pay back. Before any of this £28,875, which is the net return to the mill after paying all expenses, can be divided up, they have to pay back this £70,000 to the Trade Facilities Board and the £50,000 for the outside capital, making a total of £120,000. There is no dispute about these figures. The payment of the advances which has to be made to the Government amounts to £75,000 in all. Leaving out of question depreciation, overhead expenses or anything like that, we have to make these further deductions. There is the quota to be paid to the Trade Facilities Board of one-fifth of the value of sugar, amounting to £14,000, then there is the quota to be paid on capital repayments, one-fifth amounting to £10,000, and the interest on the £15,000 advanced is £750, while the interest on the Trade Facilities Board loan at 4½ per cent, amounts to £3,150. This total payment amounts to £28,400, so that for the first year the excess over working expenses is swallowed up before the Union Government comes in. This excess must necessarily go on for five years before the whole £120,000 is paid back. After the repayment of the outside loans, the Union Government must look for its repayment. The provision for the repayment of the Government’s loan is rather extraordinary, as set out here in Clause 7. The agreement provides for the repayment each year to the Government of a specified fraction of the whole return on sugar. That is not the return, less manufacturing expenses. The words used in the agreement are “of the value of sugar produced,” which means the value of the sugar f.o.r. Durban, which is the price that the buyer will pay for it in Durban. With these provisions and the fact that the Trade Facilities Board must be repaid in five years, and putting the repayment of capital on the same footing, it is seen that there is nothing left for the Union Government until all other loans have been repaid. They cannot get their loan repaid at all on that basis. Repayment to the Union Government can therefore only begin at the expiry of five years. The fractions required to be paid are set out in Clause 7, and the total is £75,000. This £75,000 is to be liquidated in this mannet: The first year one-third is to be paid back, amounting to £25,000; the second year two-fifths, amounting to £30,800, and the third year the balance to be paid back, amounting to £19,200, and the interest on the £15,000 amounting to £1,500, so the total would be £76,500. The mill has not sufficient net revenue to repay the second instalment of £30,800 since the net return is only £28,400. So it cannot meet the second instalment. But if the company by any chance is able to pay the Government it will eat up all the surplus. That is certain, so that for eight years the settler who conies under this agreement can get nothing whatever for his cane. He can only get his subsistence allowance. After eight years, when all the loans are paid back, the utmost he can get is 7s. 6d. a ton for his cane, as I have shown, but out of that 7s. 6d. he has to pay eight years’ subsistence allowance, now 7s. 6d. a ton on a maximum of 500 tons, which the tenant-farmer would get, amounts to £187 10s. a year. Supposing he pays back subsistence allowance at the rate of £100 a year all that is left to live on is £87 10s. So that after 16 years he will be earning the magnificent sum of £3 12s. a week. That is what the £187 10s. a year amounts to.

He will get his old age pension long before that.

He probably will. Let me point out another fact. The maximum amount of cane which we are counting is an impossible amount, and I want to tell the Minister why. In the first place the area planted cannot be the whole farm. The average tonnage of such land as you have at Doornkop is ultimately going to bring less than 20 tons to the acre. [Time limit.]

I will at once admit that I am not fully acquainted with the Doornkop scheme, at least I never visited it, and I do not know too much about sugar planting in Natal, but I should be quite glad to be led by the hon. members of Natal, or to get information from them. I must say that I have listened all the evening, but I am just as wise as at the commencement. The hon. member who has just spoken, and who was so greatly cheered by his colleagues when he rose was going to give me information about sugar growing in Natal. I expected it, or otherwise I expected him to tell us how shameful the action on the Doornkop scheme has been. But I heard neither of the two. Now, in the first place, I want to ask the hon. members for Natal a few questions. The first is, what actually is their grievance?

I wil state it at once-

No, the hon. member can reply to it later. As far as I can ascertain the grievance in the first place is that the Government concluded a contract, or is that they have an objection to Mr. Rosenberg? Are hon. members opposed on account of the Government’s not having entered into the contract with a member of Parliament, as the previous Government did with a former member for Riversdale? The previous Government did not enter into one such contract, but dozens, as has been shown here by the hon. member for Potchefstroom (the Rev. Mr. Pick). Therefore the objection cannot be that the Government entered into the contract. Is the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (Mr. Strachan) then possibly right that they do not want the poof Dutch-speaking whites to come to Natal? I have listened carefully, but I could not find out. They cannot say that their grievance is that there has been a terrible loss, because it has not been proved by them, and they cannot prove it until the whole matter is completed. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) must not forget that the sugar plantations on the Umfolozi, with which he, if I am not wrong, also had a good deal to do, was a terrible failure.

What was the cause?

I asked the hon. member not to be so impatient. He will get an opportunity of replying later. I want to find out where they find fault, and I should like to be led by them. I know the hon. member will say the failure of the Umfolozi plantation was caused by washaways, but was it a success before the washaways? Far from it. If the hon. member for Zululand wants to show me by figures, I want to tell him honestly that I will not allow myself to be influenced by his figures, otherwise he could also have foreseen the failure of Umfolozi.

The hon. member had nothing to do with it.

Then I accept it, if the hon. member says that the hon. member for Zululand had nothing to do with the Umfolozi scheme. Another objection by hon. members possibly is that the people had to work at £150 a year. Is that their grievance? If that is the grievance then I do not agree with them. The people who had no work, and hardly any income, are there given a chance to make a living, and if there was a loss it would be suffered by the Government and not by them. It cannot be their grievance that the people only earn £150. My grievance is that the Government did too much for the people. They did not earn £150.

What about the agreement with the people?

The hon. member is talking too much.

I do not in the least object to the hon. member talking too much, but I object to his doing so at the wrong time. If the grievance is that the people earn £150 a year, I want to point out that there are thousands of people on the countryside and in the towns who cannot earn £150 in two years. Then some hon. member said that the Minister has driven the people off the farms. I do not believe that is correct. The people went to Doornkop voluntarily. They had another option, and did not want to take it. It is clear to me that the people could have gone if they wished, and that they had a chance such as thousands of our people do not get, even when they are land-owners. But just as the natives on farms allow themselves to be incited by Kadalie, so these people have been incited by the Natal Kadalies. Now hon. members from Natal say that the wage is too low, but they speak differently when we recommend a daily wage of 7s. 6d. or 10s. for workmen. Then it is they who oppose it terribly. To-day again they say it is too little. The people have lost nothing, and the Government took the risk. Then hon. members still say that the Government did not treat the people fairly. The security cannot be the grievance, because the Government has every security. They cannot say that the Government has lost anything. As the Government has proper security that cannot be the grievance. I would like hon. members to inform me what the grievance actually is. As for the sugar mill, I do not think that it was the original intention to erect a mill, but if I am wrong I hope hon. members will correct me.

It was the intention. The nearest mill was 15 miles away.

The hon. member says that the intention was to put up a mill, but my information was that that was not originally intended, but if the hon. member says so I accept his statement. Was there not a mill 15 miles from there, where they were prepared to mill the sugar from Doornkop?

I do not know.

I heard so. Now the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) can reply to the questions I have put.

The hon. member asked what our grievances were. It is quite clear that he never listened to the speeches made by hon. members. If he had listened he would long since have been convinced that our grievances were just. I will mention one point in connection with our grievance against the Minister in his dealing with the poor people. One of the conditions of the contract was that, if a man died or left the settlement for another reason, eighteen months after the first occupation of the ground, the Minister of Labour would have the right to demand that Mr. Rosenberg pay £10 an acre to the person for each cultivated acre. The amount would be compensation for increasing the value of the plot. As the people have now worked there two years and have each put about 40 acres under sugarcane the Minister had the right, under the contract, to call upon Mr. Rosenberg to pay each of the people £400.

Even if they go voluntarily? Why do not the people sue the Government then?

The Minister has the right to demand it. And, besides the cultivation of those 40 morgen by each of the settlers, the weeds have been removed from other ground as well. All that work of the people Mr. Rosenberg gets for £150. For each £150 he gets 40 acres of land under sugarcane which is just ready for reaping. Our Dutch Church went there to investigate the position, and I want to tell my hon. friend over there that they found that the people complained terribly about their treatment by Mr. Rosenberg. He made them pay high prices in the shop he had there, and there was no other, except eight or ten miles away in Stanger. They had no transport to go there, and they had bound themselves in the contract to buy at the shop, and they had to pay double for everything they required. And the second complaint is that the people had to decide within 24 hours what they were going to do, and whether they accepted the agreement or not. They asked for two days to think the matter over, but they were told that they must immediately decide what they wanted to do. “Yes, or no.” If the hon. rerber does not believe that there is a great dissatisfaction he can go there himself and talk to the people, and then he will learn all about it. I will say for the credit of the people that they work very hard. The English farmers in the neighbourhood say that the people worked hard and did good work. They cultivated over 5,000 acres.

How many natives did they have?

They had a few there, but it is a part where the sun is so warm that a white man can hardly work there. The hon. member would not be able to stand it two days. In any case they did their best, and they had the right under the contract to use natives. The Minister could demand £10 an acre for the people from Mr. Rosenberg, but did not do so. That is one complaint. The people had no business capacity, and the Minister ought to have protected them against Mr. Rosenberg. I ask the hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Wessels) if that is not a reasonable grievance.

No.

If the hon. member is so obstinate it is useless. The Minister says that our agitation creates the dissatisfaction, but I deny it, be thing as a failure from the commencement, and the conditions were impossible to the people. If the Department of Lands had been consulted, things would have turned out differently, and the people would have been protected. Has the hon. member for Frankfort read the contract? The position is such to-day that Mr. Rosenberg gets credit for £145,000, of which £40,000 is without interest. I ask the hon. member if he is satisfied with that. The Minister gives Mr. Rosenberg the money to pay out the people. At first they would not sell anything in the shop to The people unless cash was paid, but now the Government has taken the step of making the money available to pay the people £150, and they can get anything there that they want. I want to tell the hon. member that there were people walking about without boots for two months because the shop would only sell them boots for cash. I have the Social and Industrial Review here, in which the report of the Minister’s department appeared, and we see from it that the people were satisfied until January, 1928, then they learned that they were like birds on a branch and that the ground had been cut from under their feet, and they then petitioned the Minister to take over all the ground and to make it Government ground, so that they could be certain that they would reap the fruit of their labour. [Time limit.]

One would really say that the Natal members to-night are really very much concerned about the poor Dutch-speaking people who were at Doornkop. It makes me think of a story I once read. An elephant once crossed a road and came across a partridge hen which was sitting on some chickens, and when the elephant came along the hen flew up, and? the elephant said: “How sad, the chicks will starve with the cold,” and it sat on them and killed them with love. It is the same with the love of the Natal people for those poor whites. They complain of their only having received £150, and say it was very unfair. Is that the whole truth? Did they not earn a further £6 a month during the time they were there? And did they not further receive medicines gratis? And the people who went there were very poor. I know some who went from my constituency were extremely poor. They asked the Minister for permission to go there. If we give the workers 5s. or 6s. a day then there is a great fuss opposite because we are paying them so much money, and to-day the same members come and complain of our giving them £150. The people who went there, as far as I know, were of the poor class who lived in great poverty under the S.A.P. Government. They went willingly. The Minister did not drag them there. The second point is that Mr. Rosenberg is said to be such a hard man. I understand he is a Sap. What happened with regard to Oakdale in the Riversdale district? The hon. member for Riversdale sat on the Government benches, and he went to the Minister in the previous Government—as the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) will doubtless remember, and the Government bought ground there to the value of £71,000. From whom? From that member who sat in this House. The settlers could not make a living there, and very soon £54,000 had to be written off the ground, which we bought from that member. And as for Doornkop it still has to be shown that there has been a loss, and how much. Hon. members know that they were always bad prophets, and they should wait a little. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (the Rev. Mr. Fick) has already mentioned the sums we lost owing to the purchases of the previous Government. Take Thorngrove. The Government bought it knowing that one of its little friends had an option over it for £9,000, subsequently it was valued at £6,000. Now they complain that the Government only gives £150 to the people there, but if we pay our poor people 5s. or 6s. a day when they have worked all day in the wet ground—and I know that there are some amongst them who have £20 to £30 in the bank—then there is a great fuss. And do the people go back home? No, they prefer to remain with the beloved Government because they trust it and know how they suffered at home; they are not going back home. Hon. members opposite should preserve silence. What did the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) say. He, an English-speaking member, had to get up and tell English-speaking people that there was race hatred behind it, and that Natal did not want those people there. I receive letters every day from Afrikaans-speaking people that it is made impossible for them to live there. I have just received a letter from a parent saying he has to fetch his children at noon every day from school, because if they talk Afrikaans in the streets they are beaten. They are making the attack because it is the Minister of Labour, and I know the public outside will not attend to them. I think it is a scandal their attacking the Minister because he is a Labour Minister. If the people put the Labour party here together with the Nationalists, then they ought to have just as much respect for that Minister as for any other.

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

House Resumed.

Progress reported; to resume in Committee to-morrow.