I would like to ask the Minister of the Interior when he is going to lay on the Table the report of the Universities Commission.

The report, as I said, is being translated, and, as far as that is concerned, the work is almost complete, but then, of course, the report must be printed yet.

How long is that going to take?

I am afraid there is no possibility of laying the report on the Table of the House before Parliament is prorogued.

Will you send it out to members then?

Oh yes, it will be sent to members.

I move—

4. Sub-section (3) of Section 14 of the principal Act is hereby amended by the insertion after the word “excise” of the words “and customs”.

The Minister, I think, understands the intention of this amendment. It is to get rid of the anomaly that we now charge duty on customs duties that have not been incurred by an importer at all. For instance, if you import wine to-day from France direct, it pays a certain duty. If by any chance that wine happens to be sent to the port of London and put into bond, you not only pay duty on the cost of that wine, but you pay an extra duty on the British duty that would have been paid if the wine had been taken out from bond in England and put into consumption in England. This applies to all other goods. This matter was not a very serious matter until England decided to put duty on certain other classes of goods and in that respect reverted from her old policy of free trade back to semi-protection. If hon. members will look at the principal Act they will see in Clause 14 (3) that provision is made that when goods are subject to an excise in England, the importer into this country does not pay duty on that excise. For instance, when you import whisky into this country you do not pay duty on the home consumption value of that article. The excise is deducted from it before you are charged duty on the article when it is imported into this country. I suggest that the Minister should take exactly the same action as regards the customs that are payable. The Minister recognizes this anomaly and in this Bill he deals with the question of wines, and in order to get over the difficulty he abolishes the ad valorem duty on wine altogether in this country and simply makes a duty on the quantity of wine imported. He puts on a duty per gallon instead of on the sterling value of it. I suggest that the Minister could get over the whole anomaly much more simply and more completely if he would except from the double duty any customs or excise which would have been paid in that country, had it been used for home consumption in that country. Therefore, I move the words “and customs” to follow the word “excise”, in Clause 14 (3) of the principal Act. That will obviate the necessity entirely of making these special provisions for special articles, and will also remove the most curious anomaly that if, for instance, to-day a shipment of silk comes direct from Lyons it pays one duty, and exactly the same article coming from exactly the same manufacturer being landed in the port of London and put in bond there has to pay another rate of duty.

Which is the cheaper?

The point is this, that the big merchant who can import direct from Lyons gets his goods out at a lower rate of duty than the small man who has to buy a small quantity from bond in London. It is exactly the same article, but owing to the curious provision of our Act, there is a different duty leviable on that article. Bought in small quantities in bond in London, it is subjected to higher duty than if imported direct from the manufacturer and shipped direct from the ports of France to South Africa, and I hope the Minister will accept this amendment, because I think it will clarify once and for all this very curious anomaly that has only come strongly into evidence since the Imperial Government decided to put protective duties on certain of their own industries.

The hon. member has stated that the position with which he has been dealing is well known to the Customs Department, and the difficulties in connection therewith. That is so. We have given a good deal of thought and attention to it, but I am quite sure my hon. friend has not done so, otherwise he could not have proposed this amendment and used the arguments he has been using. What are the objects which he has in view? In the first place it cannot be that the hon. member is seeking to reduce the amount of customs duties payable, because it is obvious that if we were, through the adoption of another system, to sacrifice a large amount of customs duties, the obvious course would be to increase those duties on particular articles, so that won’t help the hon. member. I think what he really has in view, and that is what the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) had in view when he first raised the question, is that we should not, by adopting this basis as it were, penalize the British import trade. Is that not so?

I am arguing the equity between one importer and another.

There, I think, the hon. member is on very weak ground when he wants to make out the importer in this country is being penalized because he is now forced to buy in small quantities from bond in London, instead of getting large quantities direct from people overseas. Why should he be forced to buy large quantities from suppliers direct when he can buy from bond?

They only supply in large quantities. Only the big importer can buy direct.

That hardly goes down. The argument that has been used so far—and that is the difficulty we are trying to overcome by adjusting the wine duties—is the possible damage this might do to your British import trade. Here you have an undoubted conflict of interests between the merchants in England doing this trade and the manufacturer in England. In most of these cases where you have these duties these duties have been imposed under the Safeguarding of Industries Act in England to protect similar local industries in England. The British Government have considered their manufacturing trade is of more importance to them than the import trade, and, therefore, they impose these duties. If we are going to adopt the suggestion of the hon. member, we are going to penalize the British industrialist. The British authorities have imposed these duties to protect their own trade. My hon. friend is not doing a good service to the British manufacturer and is not acting in the direction of the extension of preference to British trade which chambers of commerce are advocating all over the country. The other great difficulty is that his suggestion would be altogether impracticable; for instance, how are we, after an article has been imported into England and gone into the manufactured article which is imported here, to determine the extent of the original article put into the manufactured article so as to find out what the customs duty is? From the administrative point of view it is impossible. This is not on a par with the excise duties. This question has been discussed by imperial conferences on several occasions, and we have not been able to find a remedy. I, therefore, regret it is impossible for me to accept the amendment.

I am very sorry that the Minister should take up this position. In the first place he seems to think that I am concerned as between a merchant doing an entrepôt trade at the ports in England, and the British manufacturer. I am not at all concerned with that. It seems their job to fight it out in their own country. What I am concerned with is that two articles exactly similar come into this country and are charged two different duties. The Minister points out, or suggests, that what I suggest is going to do harm to the British manufacturer. The Minister is quite right in what he said about the chambers of commerce, and I am heartily at one with him in that, and do not wish in any way to harm the trade between Great Britain and this country, but in 95 per cent, of these articles the overseas manufacturer will not lose this trade, as it is not done by him. I see the Minister’s point; he suggests that if the amendment is put on the statute book the importer will analyze the ingredients of any articles being imported from England, and say one-tenth happens to contain silk, on which duty had been paid. It is a very long cry, and I think the Minister might consider for adoption by his department some restriction on the amendment so as to prevent that. It would not affect, I say, one-hundredth of 1 per cent, of the stuff that comes in.

The customs authorities will have to do it.

I want to get the custom people out of their difficulty of charging an extra duty on an article which has gone into bond in England.

The amendment, of course, goes very much further.

From the practical point of view it does not go any further. It is doubtful whether anyone knows whether a thousandth part of the value of the suit the Minister is wearing comes from Germany.

Under your amendment that would have to be determined in each case.

If the Minister wants to put in a restriction affecting goods not manufactured in England, he can put it in at the report stage. At the present time he is going the longest way to obtain his end. He is trying to get out of the absurdity of this decision of the customs by taking off ad valorem duties as far as possible

Of course, I do not agree with you that it is an absurdity.

He would not have done so in the case of wine if he did not recognize it is an absurdity. It is the extraordinary decisions of the customs—I agree most of them are legally sound—but to put it very plainly, they make a fool of the whole Customs Act as far as the ordinary man in the street is concerned. Two men buy exactly the same article from the same manufacturer, and the customs people say a different duty is payable on them. The ordinary man in the street who has not a legal mind cannot understand it, and it gets the Customs Department into serious disrepute. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment.

The hon. member in stating that the hon. Minister could not understand, he being a member of the legal profession. I am neither a legal nor a business man, but I look at the matter only from a common-sense point of view. The argument of the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) is ridiculous in the extreme, especially on a day like this (Empire Day)—a day when he should be advocating empire trade. He argues that an article manufactured in France and imported direct should pay the same duty as those kept in London in bond, we should, when we buy it, therefore, pay something into the coffers of the capitalistic class in Great Britain. If the hon. member had suggested that a benefit should be given to the manufacturers in Great Britain, he would have been logical, but if the Minister accepts the amendment moved by the hon. member for Newlands, it will simply mean encouraging London to be the market of the world to exploit other countries. If the amendment were carried, it would not lead to the employment of one additional workman in British factories, or in factories in France, but it would increase its value, and also the money in the bank of certain gentlemen in London. If merchants here want articles, they have the right to import them from the people who make them, but they have no right to encourage the bonding of these articles in England for the benefit of half-a-dozen people when, at the same time, they refuse to pay the increase in duty caused by the increased value compared with the cost at factory.

I do not agree with the amendment of the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) as it goes too far, but all the same, there is an undoubted grievance. If stuff goes from abroad into Great Britain and is placed in open stocks, importers must take the value of that article as it is sold in the open market in Great Britain. For instance, if silks or laces on which a duty is paid on entry into Great Britain are put into open stocks, you take the open stock selling value in England for customs purposes. On the other hand, in the case of champagne, which is imported into Great Britain and is put in bond, and, if intended for re-exportation, is sold in bond, there would be no difficulty at all, the export value being the bond value.

That could be done with silk.

Yes, if it were kept in bond, but once it goes into open stock you must take the open stock value, otherwise there will be fraud. The principle is by no means a novel one; for instance, we used to sell stuff in bond to South-West Africa.

I am glad to see that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who knows these trade matters, takes a more reasonable view, and admits that the principle which the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) wants us to adopt, is altogether impossible. That reduces the point at issue to very narrow limits. You still have the other difficulty, and that is the conflicting interests of various people in Great Britain—the manufacturing and the importing interests, and if we agree to the amendment, we would certainly be going contrary to the generally accepted opinion in England, which has deliberately adopted a policy of protecting essential industries. The people who manufacture these things in England want a chance to export them, and they do not wish the British importer of foreign goods to be put in a better position than they are. However, I am prepared to investigate the matter so far as the question of customs administration is concerned, but I think it will be very inadvisable for us— at any rate, at this stage—to go as far as my hon. friend wishes us to go. The matter has been discussed at the Imperial Conference, it being a question which affects trade, not only internationally, but between the dominions. It would be almost impossible to apply the principle all round.

I thought all the illustrations I gave concerned goods ex bond. I am very glad to see that the Minister is softening in his attitude, and if I had known his difficulty regarding goods that had gone into consumption, I would have framed my amendment differently. Instead of putting in the words “and customs” after “excise” in Clause 14 (3), I would have suggested as an addition at the end of the clause the words “and customs dues if goods are imported ex bond”, That really covers his point. Goods that come out of bond would be treated as having come from the country of origin. If the hon. the Minister will accept that amendment—

Not at this stage.

The Minister said he would be quite prepared to go into the question as to whether administratively it could not be arranged that the basis of value in these cases should be the bond value. As the Minister has said he will do this, I will withdraw my amendment.

I ask the hon. member not to persist in his amendment. I am quite prepared to go very carefully into this and see how far it is possible, but I cannot lose sight of the broader consideration I have already mentioned. I shall have to make enquiries as to the question of policy.

The hon. the Minister has told the committee he will go into this matter and consider it, may I say, with sympathy, but subject to the difficulties of policy. I would ask him, in this regard, not to be influenced too much by what you might call the manufacturing attitude in England, because I do not think it is going to make any difference to the British manufacturer. I think it is a mere bogey they have put up in order to cause the dominions to carry on this very illogical attitude which, I believe, not only this country, but Australia, still adopts. I hope the Minister will find that he can eventually give instructions that the basis of value for customs dues shall be the bond value. I withdraw my motion with the leave of the committee.

On Clause 4,

Has the Minister considered the matter I mentioned to him yesterday, of reducing the duty on crude oil and paraffin?

I do not think the hon. member was here when I replied. I said I was quite sympathetic to the idea, but there is the question of control. I am prepared to go into the matter. I think we can deal with it under our existing legislation. I am going to see if I can devise effective customs control to limit the concessions to paraffin for agricultural traction purposes. I am quite prepared to consider it sympathetically.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 6,

It seems from the discussion on the Liquor Bill that a distinction is being made between the manufacture of brandy for sale, and for home consumption. It appears clear from the clause that the Minister distinguishes between the two, because the distilling of spirits and wine for sale in the Transvaal and the Free State will come under the Natal law, according to Clause 6, but when the distilling of spirits in those provinces are made for home consumption, then the laws of the Cape Province will apply. According to the old law a person may only distil brandy for sale from grapes; and for home consumption on the farm where it is made, a farmer may also distil it from other fruits. It further provides that he must have a distiller’s licence. An excise of 12s. 6d. must he paid for the best kind of brandy made from wine, and 22s. 6d. for all other kinds, including, therefore, peach brandy. Now people who only distil for their own use are not required to pay for a licence. They have only to apply for it, and it is issued gratis, and when once the still is registered they have no further trouble. But what is the position if the Bill becomes law? Take a farmer who distils for sale. At present he pays a licence of £1, but if this Bill becomes law he will fall under the licensing laws of Natal. I was not able to go into all the laws, but as far as I can see the position will become much more difficult. I have, e.g., looked into Act 33 of 1901, which provides that every person must pay £1 for a licence to be in possession of a brandy still, then he has to pay £5 when he wants to distil, and in the third place no licence will be issued for stills under 150 gallons. That practically excludes all the Transvaal farmers, because they usually have on their farms stills of 15 to 30 gallons capacity. Not a single farmer in the Transvaal as far as I am aware has a still of more than 150 gallons. It seems to me, therefore, that by applying the Natal laws to the application for licences, it is made fairly impossible for the farmers to distil brandy, and to that must be added the high excise of 12s. 6d. for the best wine brandy, and 2s. 6d. for any brandy made from other products. It is practically impossible for any farmer to distill brandy for sale. In the second place I come to distilling for home consumption. To that the laws of the Cape Province will apply. It is not quite clear to me as yet what those laws are, but I found information in a memorandum of the customs office dated 1923. In the first place, the memorandum says that a distinction is made between the various classes of brandy A, B and C. Then it says that the farmer must make the returns of the brandy he distils, and he must pay excise if he sells, and then Clause 6 comes in connection with distilling for home consumption. It is free of duty, but is subject to the following provisions. In the first place the largest quantity which can be kept on a farm is 30 gallons (about 180 bottles), with the proviso that it can be reduced if the Government thinks fit. The second provision is about two persons on a farm who distil jointly. The third is that if the distilling is for home consumption, the brandy must be consumed on the farm where it is distilled. And then there are further provisions about dop brandy, etc., the registration, distilling, etc. In conclusion it says that a fine of £500 can be imposed if there is any contravention of the foregoing stipulations. The question now is whether the whole position in which farmers in the Transvaal and Free State have hitherto been in connection with distilling for their own use, is being altered. I think that in any case it would be a good thing if the provisions of Clause 6 of the memorandum were altered, namely that the brandy must be consumed on the farm where it is made. What is the case when a farmer has two farms, one in the high veld, and the other in the low veld, if the fruit is grown on the latter and the distilling is done there, while the farmer needs the brandy for his own use, and that of the Europeans on his farm in the high veld? I say for the Europeans on his farm because, under the present liquor law, no liquor may be given to natives in the Transvaal, although it can be given to natives in the Free State. The Free State, however, will also come under the provisions that a farmer, if he distils brandy on one of his farms may not use it on his other farm. I think it is necessary to amend this provision. It will possibly be desirable to add to the provision that a farmer must use brandy he distils on his own farm, “or on any other farm he owns.” I believe that it will lead to trouble if the farmers of the Transvaal and the Free State are subjected to the laws of Natal and the Cape Province. Is it not possible to promulgate ordinances in the Transvaal and Free State for the distilling on farms in the province? It appears somewhat strange to me that the farmers there, with respect to the distilling of brandy, are subject to the Natal and the Cape statutes, because conditions there are different, and if this Bill becomes law the farmers will suddenly come under the provisions which are passed in Natal and the Cape Province. In any case, I want to ask the Minister immediately the Bill becomes law to send out a clear notice, either a memorandum or a pamphlet by his department, which makes it perfectly clear what the position is, what the obligations of the people are, and what penalties can be imposed, because at present certain things are not clear.

The position we have to do with has of course arisen in consequence of the Liquor Bill, which has now almost been completed. We must take steps at once to be able to act with regard to the control of the excise over such spirits as are distilled in the northern provinces, a thing which has hitherto been prohibited. Because it was forbidden, the position now arises that we must have the necessary legislation for control in those provinces. The hon. member will see that legislation is now being introduced which practically applies to the whole Union. We cannot make a separate law for the Free State and the Transvaal but as the hon. member sees, Clause 6 lays down that the statutes can be applied with such variation as the Minister thinks fit. The intention is merely to give us certain powers by means of this Bill. We are going to study the position and see where it is necessary to make a variation in connection with the law, and we shall provide for it by regulations.

Does the same apply to licences?

Yes. The hon. member is interested in this matter, and knows the position in the Transvaal. I shall be glad if he and other hon. members who are interested will make representations to my department, which we will carefully consider in connection with preparing proper regulations. We, of course, want to keep local circumstances in mind, and do not intend to impose onerous stipulations. We do not want to impose any stipulations which will clearly not be applicable to the northern provinces. It is merely a clause to give power to act with such variations as the position in the northern provinces necessitates. The points raised by the hon. member will be carefully considered, and we shall be glad if hon. members who are interested will make representations to the department and thereafter we shall draft, the regulations

Clause put and agreed to.

On the First Schedule,

I have a few amendments on this annexure which the hon. member for Hopetown (Dr. Stals) will move, or shall I be in order if I move them myself?

Yes.

I move—

Agreed to.

First Schedule, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining schedules and title having been agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments, which were considered and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted; third reading to-morrow.

I move, as a further amendment—

On a question of public policy, namely, the wrung and wasteful expenditure of certain funds voted for the relief of unemployment by reason of the failure of the Minister to defend and safeguard the best interests of the unemployed persons concerned. In the course of my remarks I shall probably find it necessary to refer to some of the matters that were mentioned last evening, but essentially the subject of my remarks is the reprehensible action of the Minister in not safeguarding the interests of the persons who come under his charge. I charge the Minister with serious mismanagement of certain important affairs in his department, and I stand here metaphorically knee-deep in proofs of the Minister’s guilt. I shall produce evidence—I hope you won’t be alarmed, sir. I don’t propose to quote all the proofs I have—to prove the negligence or failure of the Minister to defend and safeguard the interests of the unemployed on whose behalf he has professed to be concerned. I shall also prove that the Minister’s policy has served to benefit and enrich persons into whose control he surrendered certain members of the unemployed. The Minister has a personal responsibility towards the unemployed, and I shall have no difficulty in showing that he has not only neglected that responsibility, but he has been guilty of betraying the interests of the unemployed in a manner as culpable as it has been callous. We must remember that the Minister is one who has professed high ideals which have not only been preached on public platforms in this country, but are on record in public documents. In his report on the Cost of Living Commission, the Minister preached a high-minded doctrine of State socialism that showed his fervent belief in that creed. He said—

He quoted the constitution of the All Russia Congress of Soviets laid down on July 10th, 1918, to this effect—

That was the Hon. Thomas Boydell before he became a Minister of the Crown. We find him now hand in hand with one of the worst exploiters South Africa has ever known, and I shall proceed to show to the committee how blameworthy the Minister’s conduct has been in connection with this gentleman. We have reached a stage on which we can now look back on the course the Minister has taken in regard to the unemployed placed on the Doornkop estates. We have before us the Minister’s contract, signed on 25th April, 1928, on the one part by Mr. Nathan Rosenberg on behalf of the Doornkop Estates, Limited, and, on the other part on behalf of the Government of the Union of South Africa by Thomas Boydell. This contract, in simple terms, shows that the Government of the Union allows Mr. Rosenberg the use of £60,000 free of interest, and repayable in an indeterminate period, as shown by the able analysis of this document made by my colleague, the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) last night—an analysis which I challenge the Minister to controvert in any way whatsoever. There is not only the analysis of the contract from that point of view, but I shall proceed to show what the Minister held out to these unfortunate people, and how they were totally deceived by the representations made to them in consequence of which they went on this estate. The arrangements, under the present contract, are so loose as to be to the amazement of every man in South Africa. The contract also gives Mr. Rosenberg a loan of £15,000 to get rid of the incubus of the unfortunate tenant-farmers who were induced by the Minister’s representations to go on to the Doornkop Estates. Mr. Rosenberg’s company was unprovided with money to pay any sort of claim these men might make against him in respect of their 22 months’ work, and the Minister provided that sum in order that Rosenberg should escape a claim for the full value of their work, which it was the duty of the Minister to honour and support. The entire justification for any loan to Mr. Rosenberg having disappeared by the tenant-farmers refusing to go on with the contract, the Minister proceeds to give him full measure, pressed over— £60,000 free of interest and a £15,000 loan to escape his lawful obligations. I was astounded to read in the paper this morning the remarks of the hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Wessels), who said that these people had got more than they were entitled to.

I did not say so.

Then the hon. member was misreported. I hope he will not attack people who are most cruelly treated under a contract for which a Minister of the Crown is responsible. Does the hon. member maintain that they were liberally treated?

To a point of order. What I said was that £150 in two years was quite a good income, and that there were thousands of people on the countryside who did not earn that amount in two years.

The entire justification for the loan having disappeared, no vestige of justification remains for any further payment to Mr. Rosenberg, but the Minister pledges the Government’s credit to pay Mr. Rosenberg’s debts—£70,000 from the Trade Facilities Board —a liability Mr. Rosenberg entered into in complicity with the Minister, because it was the Minister who assisted Mr. Rosenberg to get that loan, and but for the Minister’s backing, Mr. Rosenberg would never have succeeded in getting that loan. He had failed to get it before receiving the Minister’s backing. What is the result of the recent contract? It is this: Untold benefits to Mr. Rosenberg, and the complete exploitation of the unfortunate people who were induced to go to Doornkop on representations which would not hold water—a fact which we pointed out at the time. I want again to emphasize the Minister’s personal responsibility. The present contract amounts to a compounding with Mr. Rosenberg to deprive the farmers of what was held out to them, and in emphasizing the Minister’s personal responsibility, for coming to the original contract with Rosenberg, I wish to draw attention to the copy which was sent to the tenant-farmers. I do not hesitate to call it a false contract. I have read the contract tabled in this House by the Minister, purporting to be the contract he entered into with Mr. Rosenberg. I have read the same contract which was produced under a discovery order in the Supreme Court in the Maxwell case, and those two documents agree in every particular. The document the Minister or his department sent to the tenant-farmers has a totally different condition—a condition which would lead these men to believe that Mr. Rosenberg was to give them £10 (instead of the £3 15s specified in the original contract) for every acre cultivated of cane sugar they established on that farm, and the Minister cannot deny it. What was the purpose of inserting that condition?

Will the hon. member please read out to me why he moved for a reduction of the Minister’s salary to enable him to speak for 40 minutes?

[Motion read.] I am dealing with this point at this very moment, showing that the contract the Minister’s department sent to these people is one I do not hesitate to say is a false contract, and in that way he failed to protect the interests of these unfortunate unemployed persons. I hope, Mr. Chairman, you will allow me to continue, because it is of great importance to make my point.

I want to assist the hon. member, but he seems to be covering the same ground as the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) last night.

The hon. member dealt with features of the amended contract; I am dealing with the original contract. The Minister allowed this contract to be entered into and neglected to safeguard the best interests of the unemployed. But I have other contracts— and other arrangements—with the tenant-farmers which I propose to deal with as well.

The hon. member may proceed.

The following letter was addressed and signed on behalf of the Secretary for Labour on January 26th, 1927, to the representative of the tenant-farmers. I will not give his name, as there has been so much espionage—

The totally new condition accompanying this letter, which does not appear in the other official documents, is this—

If any plot becomes vacant through the death of a settler, or for any reason, 18 months after its first occupation, the Minister of Labour may demand that I take over the plot at £10 for every cultivated acre. This amount represents compensation for improvements on the plot. The above is subject to the condition that there is a ratoon crop on the plot on the day of its being vacated for the reasons above mentioned.

That was a clear and unequivocal pledge to these men that, if they improved the land by planting cane, they would, if obliged to leave, receive £10 per cultivated acre of cane. What was the Minister’s procedure in regard to cancellation of this contract—a contract which he described as embodying the “biggest, boldest and best” scheme of land settlement that had ever been conceived in this country? I can only say that the Minister’s best is the world’s worst. When these unfortunate people complained to the Minister that the contract was not working satisfactorily, and they wanted the Government to buy Rosenberg out, the Minister, without sending a reply to these men, and without answering their petition, proceeded to sign a contract with Mr. Rosenberg for the complete cancellation of the original agreement and for the forfeiture of whatever right the tenant-farmers had under the conditions I have read. The Minister sit3 there knowing very well that he is guilty of that betrayal of these unfortunate people. He signed a contract on April 25th, but not until April 28th were the tenant-farmers interviewed by the Secretary for Labour and Mr. Rosenberg. The men’s complaint that the contract was not working satisfactorily was taken by the Minister as sufficient grounds for him to cancel the contract and to forfeit all the advantages which had been painted to the tenant-farmers in such glowing terms, and a new contract of an extremely favourable nature to Mr. Rosenberg was entered into. In fact, so favourable is it that it constitutes a unilateral contract. The Minister has told us that this was only part of the tenant-farmer’s scheme, and that Mr. Rosenberg had no advantages which any other farmer could have had. How many farmers can get £60,000 free of interest, a loan of £15,000 at 5 per cent., and a debt of £70,000 paid by Government? He seems to forget that the tenant-farmer’s scheme introduced by his predecessor in office, the present Minister of Defence, was unknown to farmers generally. I was present at Durban when the Minister of Defence announced the scheme, which simply suggests a gradual absorption of individual persons suitable for farming occupation by landowners who had land which could be made available for these people. It was never once contemplated that it should be a means of financing a Johannesburg adventurer and to enable a company to build up a sugar proposition at the expense of the State, and to the great disadvantage of poor people put in the power of this man. One clause in the tenant farmers’ scheme reads—

This clause was not observed by the Minister in his dealings with Rosenberg. The Government and Mr. Rosenberg have arrived at the contract which clears the people off the land without any reference to the people concerned. If this has any resemblance to the tenant-farmer’s scheme, why was Condition No. 13 not followed, and why was Mr. Rosenberg not called upon to pay back the subsidy paid for these people who had cleared the land of wattle stumps in order to establish the cane which Mr. Rosenberg now has on the property? I have been accused of getting the people in a state of uneasiness over this contract. I spoke on this question in June, 1927. The Minister’s own monthly magazine from that date onwards records the satisfaction of the tenant-farmers with the scheme. To the drought has been assigned the failure of the crops to grow to proper maturity. Had the Minister been perfectly frank with us, he would have reminded us that there had been a distressing drought, and that the failure of the cane to grow was due to its late planting originally. Among the optimistic outlooks that were given to these unfortunate people one of the Minister’s own experts gave Mr. Rosenberg a letter which said that there would be a net profit of £70,000 from the year’s cutting of the cane. Those people were told when they went on to the property that they were getting two-thirds interest. To-day the Minister speaks in an interview with the “Cape Times” of the expectations of these people to get two-thirds of the property in freehold as though it were an unreasonable one, whereas he himself held out the inducement to them. The men have not been wanting anything more than the Minister promised them. The two-third’s interest in the mill and estate was promised to them unequivocally by the Minister, and he has now rendered it impossible that they can ever get it. I want to go back to the Minister’s culpability at the time he entered into this contract. He maintained that it was based on the tenant-farmer’s scheme, but what farmer would maintain for a single moment when that scheme was explained to him by the Minister of Defence and in the “Farmers’ Weekly” of 22nd October, 1924, that it was intended to apply to such cases as this? Would the Minister of Defence, if he had been asked at his Durban meeting with farmers to finance Mr. Rosenberg, have given an affirmative reply? He would have dismissed the proposition as absurd. He would have said that the scheme was devised for a totally different object, and that nobody but a lunatic would have suggested such an idea to his mind. By a gradual process, Rosenberg has got into the ribs of the Government to such an extent that to-day we have the reality that the Government have pledged themselves to pay the debts of Mr. Rosenberg to the extent of £70,000, and have given him a loan of £15,000 to get rid of the very people we, with such alluring prospects, placed on his land. That is the result of almost debauching from its proper purpose the tenant-farmer’s scheme. I wish to emphasize the personal responsibility of the Minister of Labour. When Rosenberg approached the Minister of Labour the Minister has told us he had never seen him before. A flashy Johannesburg adventurer comes to see the Minister, and the Minister receives him with open arms and believes everything he tells him. The Minister sets about to transform the scheme designed for the relief for unemployed farmers into a deep scheme for the relief of a distressed and discredited Johannesburg financier. That is plainly what the Minister did in this case. He had no previous knowledge of this gentleman, but he entered into a contract which gave him a supply of white labour and £33,000 to meet the cost of that labour. The Minister’s first duty was to provide fixity of tenure and other protection for these tenant-farmers. When Mr. Rosenberg came to him the Doornkop estates had a freehold farm in their ownership. The Minister facilitated Mr. Rosenberg’s pledging that farm to the Trade Facilities Board for £70,000, thus preventing the tenant-farmers from having any claim on that farm that they could make good. I do not say the Minister did this deliberately, but he was a party to Mr. Rosenberg getting documents which enabled him to get a loan from the Trade Facilities Board which he had previously failed to get and which he had tried to get with a false document. The evidence of Mr. Alexander Aiken is to the effect that when Mr. Rosenberg applied to the Trade Facilities Board for a loan and held out that this company had a capital of £25,000 fully paid up, there was no such capital fully paid up at all. In fact, the capital of the company at that stage was only £7,000. The Minister enabled this gentleman to get this loan by giving him a contract which he took to England, presented to the Trade Facilities Board, and on that document alone did Mr. Rosenberg succeed in getting £70,000 and pledging his land, and thereby depriving the tenant-farmers of any fixity of tenure, or any security for their future. What safeguards did the Minister make against the failure of this proposition or what safeguards did he make in the interests of the tenant-farmers so that in any case their labour should not be in vain? None whatsoever. The Minister repeatedly said in this House that there was security for the performance of this contract in the agreement he had entered into with Mr. Rosenberg, and to-day he comes before us having cancelled that agreement and made it into a unilateral agreement wholly and solely in favour of Mr. Rosenberg, with no sort of protection for the tenant-farmers themselves. I do not want to dwell at length on the reputation of Mr. Rosenberg, but I want to show the particular kind of mind that this gentleman possesses and the reputation that he has borne in regard to the courts up to now. In the judgment given by Judge-President de Villiers he mentions that this gentleman had been engaged in two lawsuits already over the matter which was in issue before him. That further lawsuit constituted the third. When he originally bought this Doornkop farm he acquired it in partnership with a man named Vine. It was not very long before Mr. Rosenberg had the farm and Mr. Vine the experience. Mr. Rosenberg, before he came into contact with the Minister, went to Mr. Maxwell and on a series of misrepresentations to Mr. Maxwell, he got £10,000 and a guarantee from Mr. Maxwell to take up 30,000 shares. By reason of his misrepresentations Mr. Maxwell sued him, and the lawsuit lasted a considerable time, and a large number of matters were gone into there.

Who won the lawsuit?

The lawsuit was won by Mr. Maxwell receiving back the money he paid (£10,0001, plus £2,500 over and above the sum which he had deposited. That was, I take it, in some respects payment in lieu of his costs.

And in court he unreservedly withdrew the charges he had made against Mr. Rosenberg.

The Minister must take us to be very simple people if he does not realize that nobody pays out on a charge of misrepresentation unless the charges are well-founded.

He didn’t pay out.

I have the complete evidence in that case, and nobody can read that evidence through, even taking Mr. Rosenberg’s admissions alone, without being satisfied that the grossest misrepresentation took place, amongst others, a misrepresentation as to the existence of guarantees from time to time, and there, I am sorry to say, certain distinguished people who have been mentioned by the Minister were parties to sponsoring those guarantees. It was stated in various advertisements by Mr. Rosenberg of this size in the “Sunday Times” [produced] that the company had deposited securities to the value of over £25,000 as guarantee or security to the purchasers. Mr. Alexander Aiken, whose reputation stands high, examined that statement and said there was not a jot or tittle of evidence in support of it. But certain distinguished people who were mentioned by the Minister of Labour as people who vouched for Mr. Rosenberg’s character, sponsored those guarantees and they are in the position to day of having sponsored what did not exist, of having sponsored a fraud on the public. That is the only interpretation we can put on the evidence of Mr. Alexander Aiken, given after a complete and thorough examination of the books of this company. On oath Mr. Rosenberg gave evidence in regard to the origin of this company, and his purpose in offering certain land for sale. I now read that, because it has a very grave bearing on the whole of this matter. Mr. Rosenberg stated on oath—

[Time limit.]

I think one ought first to congratulate the hon. member who has just spoken on the clever way in which he has evaded the rules of the House and obtained leave to make a 40 minutes’ speech in a way which he, could not otherwise have done.

Order.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is the Minister in order in suggesting that, for 40 minutes, the hon. member has evaded your vigilance?

I do not think the Minister said he evaded my vigilance deliberately or even imputed it.

When you were not in the chair, sir, and the hon. member was interrupted by the hon. member acting in your place, it was pointed out to him that he was dealing with precisely the same subject as had been dealt with by the hon. member for Klip Ri ver.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, has the Minister the right, when your substitute has left the chair, to impugn his ruling when he is no longer in the chair? Has the committee not a right to expect you to defend your substitute whose action was not impugned while he was in the chair?

I may just point out it is quite true that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) did expatiate upon the very same subject upon which the hon. member for Klip River moved his motion, but, unfortunately for me, it is due to the rule.

Why unfortunately?

Because I do not think the same subject should be repeated under the 40 minutes’ rule, but the amendment moved by the hon. member for Illovo covered more subjects. It is a larger motion, the greater including the smaller.

On a point of order

I was rising on your point or order.

You rose too late. Under these circumstances, Mr. Chairman, must you not call upon the Minister to withdraw the statement he made which impugned the fair and impartial ruling of your substitute while he was in the chair?

The right hon. gentleman was rather alarmed that I was impugning the ruling of your substitute, Mr. Chairman. I purpose to do nothing of the sort, I was merely proceeding to say that when he was interrupted the hon. member told the committee that this was only a portion of the things he was going to deal with, and he had other matters, and he obviously kept the other matters until his 40 minutes were expired, and I think my criticism of the hon. member’s conduct is quite justified. I will continue, if I may. Have I the right hon. gentleman’s leave to continue?

You must not take this opportunity of getting at your hon. friend.

I was not impugning his ruling in the least. The hon. member informed the committee and the Chairman, in defence of the course he was taking, that this was only part of the matters he was going to raise.

Where was the evasion there?

Oh, I will leave it to hon. members to judge where the evasion was.

I think hon. members should not interrupt so much. The Minister is subject to the 10 minutes’ rule.

With regard to the whole of this matter, it is a tremendous big mountain out of a molehill. The object altogether of all this debate is quite clear. I think we may all of us go away with the perfectly assured conviction that, so far as the tenant-farmers are concerned, and these unfortunate individuals, the hon. members who have spoken on that side, why, they don’t care a brass button about that aspect of the case.

You have no right to say that.

The main object appears to be to call attention to the infamous character of a certain Mr. Rosenberg, with whom the Government concluded a contract. That has been the burden of their song all through.

With whom the Government should not have concluded a contract.

Well, as far as my knowledge goes, I absolutely endorse what my hon. friend has said, that in this transaction at all events, Mr. Rosenberg has behaved perfectly fairly and squarely. With regard to the other point that they make, it is obvious it is purely an electioneering show, and it is such a great pity that we cannot have them together when they go round the country, because we have the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) with tears in his voice pointing out the wickedness of my hon. friend in inducing these people, holding out to them the inducement that for the sum of £150 they are being induced to forego the magnificent prospect which they might have had if only they had stayed there, and a moment later we have the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls)—who, by the way, so far as Government funds are concerned in assisting, well, Umfolozi, has tapped the Government to a pretty large extent, but then, of course, they were settlers of the right type and not these people we have here—we have the hon. member explaining it with a wealth of figures, and I could not help thinking of the old tag that “figures cannot lie, but Good Lord, how you can work them”. Proving to the committee that these opulent prospects were being induced by the “malevolence” of my hon, friend, the Minister, and given up for the miserable £8 a month after ten years. The plain story of this thing is that the tenant-farmer’s scheme was found not to work satisfactorily, because it was found to depend on too many factors—the farmers, the land and the character of the tenant. An extensive scheme was adopted successfully in the Hartebeestpoort area, because, as far as possible, they would be placed in a position where they should have more permanent prospects. This Doornkop scheme was undertaken in good faith, but from the very commencement my hon. friends over there did their best to damage it. They said it would not grow sugar, and they have been proved to be wrong. They said a mill would not be put up there, and they have been proved to be wrong. Then they sowed so much distrust with these men who were being sent down there, that they eventually succeeded in persuading them that they were being swindled. Then we come to this stage—that there was a legal difficulty. It was not my hon. friend’s fault. All we can do is to submit it to the proper law advisers. It came back that it was perfectly correct, but it was found afterwards that this contract could not be carried out. As my hon. friend pointed out, with regard to the new contract, Mr. Rosenberg was willing. But the work these hon. members have been doing has been too successful, and the men on the estate would not work because a feeling was sown that they were working for “this Johannesburg Jew.”

Is that your considered statement?

It is my considered statement that you sowed so much discontent that they did not want to go on with the work. A good number had left because they did not want to go on. I do not want to chop logic with the hon. member, but there is the fact. It was due to the propaganda carried on by hon. members over there that these men became so dissatisfied that they did not want to continue. The next thing we get was that we concluded a contract giving these men an option for them either to go back or to go on, and if the terms did not suit them they would still be able to get their £150. Every scheme which enables men to get on their own feet this committee should encourage. We have been hampered in the only way in which hon. members over there could succeed; they sowed such a spirit of discontent and distrust that a scheme of that sort could not continue. If the settlers are of the “right type”, and at Umfolozi the Government can be tapped for £400,000, but because this is the scheme (Doornkop) it must be damned.

May I add to what the Minister of Defence has said, that the reason we have heard nothing about the Umfolozi scheme from hon. members over there is also because they had company promoters at their back, and it has run the Government into a liability of something like £350,000. After listening to some of the speeches from the Opposition benches, I cannot imagine anyone giving them credit for honesty and sincerity in their new-found enthusiasm for the unemployed, or anyone thinking that their enthusiasm is quite so sincere as they would like us to believe. If they are really concerned about the Dutch-speaking unemployed, they would have welcomed them on the railways in Durban.

We are educating 200 of them in Durban.

The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) and the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) have contradicted themselves. The latter has answered all the attack which has been made about the manner in which these Doornkop settlers have been alleged to have been betrayed. Further, he pointed out that in reality what has happened is that if these men were left as they were, they could not possibly have got £150 each. I wonder whether these hon. gentlemen are concerned really with the losses which the Government is likely to have to bear as a result of the scheme. I can hardly imagine that that is a matter of very much concern with them, except that, perhaps, after the losses on the Umfolozi and the Kopje scheme, the erection of the grain elevators, and the flour scheme carried out by the late Government, and involving the loss of a large sum of public money —perhaps, as a result of all those experiences now they really are concerned over the present Government losing money in helping the poor. There is, of course, a vital distinction between the two cases—the losses that the late Government made were for the benefit of contractors and speculators, whereas the scheme of the Minister of Labour was calculated to benefit the poor working classes. If the Doornkop scheme has not been entirely successful, I believe the venom which has been poured upon it by hon. members opposite has been largely responsible for anything in the nature of a partial failure. I believe that there is another motive in this attack—it is not concern for the poor whites, or the tenant-farmers, and not even hatred of Mr. Rosenberg; I hold no brief for that gentleman, I do not believe he is the angel some people paint him to be, or the devil that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) tries to make him out to be. I believe he is a very hard-headed business man. I believe the motive in this attack is the desire of the Natal members of the South African party to make party political capital, and to indulge in a species of baiting of the Minister of Labour. I believe that the mistake the Minister made was to treat the scheme as an ordinary tenant-farmers’ scheme, instead of treating it as a scheme run by State enterprise in which the people concerned should have been treated as State employees It would be bad business to take poor people who have been, driven off the land and who have lost their initiative to try and make them landowners of sugar magnates. We would have been better advised to utilize the scheme in order to grow sugar and to employ the people usefully for their own benefit and for the benefit of the State. I believe another motive behind the attack is due to the fact that the Natal sugar growers do not like competition. If such a scheme in which the Government were interested had proved a success a large number of sugar planters might have come along and said that in future they were going to be independent of the sugar factors. I hope the Minister will still persist with the idea, but, instead of establishing the scheme in the manner by which private enterprise with all its evils shall have sway, he will establish it in such a manner that the industry which is essentially a national industry, shall be for the benefit of the State and that the people who are working it shall be servants of the State, working it for the benefit of the community and for their own benefit.

The last speaker has shown his ingenuity in finding motives for this attack, but the motive he did not find is the merits of the case. He did everything but deal with the actual merits of the case, and that is what I waited to hear and what the public will want to hear. The hon. member dragged up a large number of other cases in which he said similar failures had taken place, but he has not been able to tell this House of one single scheme which has been forced on the country almost at the behest of a man like Mr. Rosenberg, whose character has been so scathingly dealt with in this House, and where a credulous Government has given such enormous credit to a man of that class.

It is distinctly amusing to hear the Minister, the leader of the Labour party, on a socialistic stunt backing up a capitalistic company. The Labour party now is pleading for the Government to go on with this capitalistic scheme, and in order to draw the herring safely across the trail, they bring in the co-operative company of Umfolozi. What on earth has Umfolozi to do with it? Umfolozi is a paying proposition, and it is one of the best investments the Government has ever engaged in in this country. When Umfolozi comes before this House as a failure the hon. member can get up and talk about it. The agreement discloses that the whole of the capital of the Doornkop concern is to be paid back within a certain number of years.

Business was suspended at 12.25 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

I would like the Minister to clear up some doubt which exists in my mind regarding the time when the cooperative society was to have been formed and registered. In view of the fact that the Minister is not here, I move—

Before that motion is put, may I say that it seems to me a legitimate proposition to make? We are discussing an important question in which serious charges are made against the department whose vote is under consideration, and the Minister is not here.

On the Minister of Labour entering the chamber,

In view of the Minister’s arrival, I will now withdraw my motion. I was saying that I want the Minister to clear up some doubt which exists in my mind regarding the time when this co-operative society was to have been formed and registered, because it seems to me that the Minister has been shifting his ground from time to time in regard to that particular question. The Minister said last night that the tenant-farmers were given to understand that when the Trade Facilities Board were repaid and the amounts advanced by the Government had also been repaid, the co-operative society would be formed and the shares allotted in the proportions of two-thirds to the tenant-farmers and one-third to the company. I understood the Minister to say that there was to be no registration of the co-operative society until the outstanding debts had been liquidated. Was I right in understanding the Minister to say last night that that was the time when the society was to be formed, that is after the redemption of debts?

Not all the debts. The British Trade Facilities.

If that is so, I say that view of the position is in conflict with the agreement in regard to what it is there provided should be done in the 1928 season [clause read]. The Minister has tried to put all the blame for the disaffection among the tenant-farmers on members on this side, because of the criticisms they have levelled against him in connection with his administration of this scheme, and I wish to tell him that I think this clause in the agreement, under which the tenant-farmers were led to believe that the co-operative society would be formed in 1928 and which was subsequently varied so that the tenant-farmers would have to wait for an indefinite period for the registration of that society, is one of the causes of the disaffection which existed on the Doornkop estate. I know there were other causes. The Minister very courteously granted me access to the petition which the tenant-farmers had submitted to him, and from that I gather that what they wanted was that the Government should buy up the whole concern, including the store, and that they should look to the Government entirely, instead of having to deal through Mr. Rosenberg. They certainly had just grievances in regard to the store, because, according to their own reports, notwithstanding the undertaking given by Mr. Rosenberg that he would sell goods there at cost price plus 6 per cent., the tenant-farmers found they were able to go some miles to Stanger and neighbouring stores and get their goods at a lower price than they were paying at Mr. Rosenberg’s store. I put a question to the Minister a few weeks ago regarding this matter as to when the co-operative society was to be formed, and the Minister in his reply said—

I want the Minister to pay particular attention to the reply, because I said just now that he has been shifting his ground from time to time, and it is no wonder that the tenant-farmers complain that they do not know where they stand, or how they stand in regard to the rights promised to them in connection with this co-operative society. Here we have him placing on this agreement the interpretation that in 1928 the tenant-farmers were to receive their two-thirds share in this concern, and then he goes on to say that the question of registering the society is under consideration. I want to prove to the Minister that it was not under consideration, because in a supplementary question, which I put to him on the same day, I said—

I asked him whether negotiations were proceeding between the department and Mr. Rosenberg over the question of either Mr. Rosenberg or the Government acquiring all the assets in the estate. This was his answer—

I refuse to answer any further questions in this matter.

If negotiations were proceeding at that time it would have been quite easy for the Minister to give me a direct reply, but he did not, and I concluded the negotiations were proceeding and the Minister was not disposed to disclose anything at that time. The Minister nods. If negotiations were proceeding, I want to know how he can reconcile that with the statement that registration was under consideration.

All these points were involved in the negotiations.

Then I want to ask the Minister whether he was negotiating for the registration of a co-operative society in March, 1928.

They were negotiating for readjustment of the whole arrangements which included registration of a limited liability company, seeing we could not do it under the Co-operative Societies Act.

But at the same time you were considering disposing of all interests to Mr. Rosenberg?

We were discussing all the aspects.

I must say the Minister’s explanation is very weak. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just spoken has spent a considerable amount of time during this debate in asking for information, and every time he has received information he does not believe it. What does he keep on asking for information from the Minister for when he does not believe the Minister when he gives him the information? Why waste the time of the House? Every time a statement has been made by the Minister the hon. gentleman has cast doubt on the accuracy of the Minister’s reply. Then why ask for information?

Because I cannot get a direct answer, and I want one.

The hon. member should be frank enough to say that what he is really out for is not to receive information from the Minister, but he is out for political party propaganda.

Rubbish.

The hon. gentlemen, like him, on that side of the House wish to get a certain number of speeches made, they want them broadcast in the newspapers, they want to cast doubt on everything said by the Minister, and they are out for political party propaganda and nothing else. The hon. gentlemen over there have made statements to the effect that they are thinking of the poor tenant-farmers, and that is the whole thing that concerns them, weeping crocodile tears and conducting a miniature Jameson Raid on the Government over this question. The hon. members say all they are out for is to see justice done to the tenant-farmers. How did these hon. members set about helping them? It cannot be too often repeated that members over there did everything possible to damn this scheme in the public mind in South Africa. Nothing truer could he said than the speech by the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) last night when he said that hon. members there were grieved at the fact that the Dutch section of the population were going to Natal. It has been repeatedly stated by prominent members of the South African party in Natal that they do not want this influx into Natal. They have said the Government have deliberately drafted Dutch-speaking people into Natal in order to strengthen the Nationalist party. Hon. members over there talk as if they were deeply disappointed at the failure of the scheme. They are only too delighted, because the scheme has failed. I would like to ask some of those hon. members who are concerned with the sugar industry in Natal, whether it is a fact that they refused to crush the cane from this particular settlement.

No.

Well, I understand that is so, and they were compelled to erect their own mill because the other proprietors of mills refused to crush the cane, and formed a ring against them. When we look at hon. members on that side, at the hon. gentlemen who have been taking part in this debate and making such a fuss, I would not like to suggest that there was a great, deal of hypocrisy about the case they have put up. If I did, you would rule me out of order, so I shall not say it— but it is a most peculiar thing that members on that side who are continually concerned with keeping a monopoly in connection with the sugar industry in Natal are now so disappointed at the failure of this scheme. I believe, if the truth were known, some of the members who are raising the biggest fuss are only too pleased the scheme has been a failure, but for political purposes they want to have it both ways. They do not want to see the scheme a success, but they also want to make political capital out of it.

An excellent argument.

Yes, it is an excellent argument, and it has the advantage of being true, and the hon. member knows it. If you look up “Hansard” you will see that hon. members on that side said this scheme was going to be a failure right from the start. They said they were not the right type of planter. Look up the speeches and you will find it. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) said it. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) said this—

I have not the time to go through this, but if the hon. member wishes to get the particulars, he will get them all in “Hansard.” Their objections to this scheme were that the land was no good, and that you did not have the planter type. Hon. members over there cannot deny that they created mistrust in the minds of the people there, and acted as agitators on them. They must admit that these men were discouraged from the start, mainly by speeches of hon. members in this House who were interested in the sugar industry in Natal and for whose benefit it would be if this scheme proved a failure. On their shoulders must rest a large measure of responsibility that these men did not put their best foot forward.

It is significant that not a single hon. member on the Government benches has got up really to defend this scheme since this debate started. What really happened was that the Minister of Defence and the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston), who are past masters in drawing a red herring across the trail in matters of this sort, threw out smoke screens, and not one hon. member has been able to put up a single good argument against the arguments we have put up. We condemned this scheme from the very beginning because it was bad economically and the whole basis of the agreement was bad. We have not at any time said one word against the men who were brought there, and I challenge any hon. member on the other side to say so. As a matter of fact, these men have proved splendid workers; but the Minister had got hold of a dud scheme as he has got hold of a few dud branches in his party. Which of these two duds has given the Minister more trouble and sleepless nights? It would be hard to say. The reports of the Minister’s own department in the “Industrial Review” go to show that up to January, 1928, there was perfect contentment there. Among the trainees. [Extracts read from “Industrial Review.”] They were all satisfied to go on at Doornkop, but when they ascertained the conditions under which they were there, like birds on a branch without any security whatsoever, they sent a petition to the Minister to buy out the property so that they might be certain of their future, and of their title, and reap the full fruits of their work. The excuse of the Minister that the scheme failed because of the agitation from this side of the House is absolute nonsense, and to any reasonable man an excuse of that sort has no foundation at all.

The hon. member who has just sat down got up for the first time to protect the smaller clas3 of farmer and wage-earner. For the first time in the history of this Parliament the hon. member in that corner has taken up the cry that the small man shall be protected. The hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) has been preaching the doctrine, “Codlin’s your friend, not Short.” The hon. member reminds me of what the old grandfather said in the “Old Curiosity Shop,” “Alas! Poor little Nell.” An excellent scheme has been broken down.

Do you agree with the scheme?

Will the hon. member allow me to put my case; I have never interrupted the hon. member. There are numbers of leading sugar planters in Natal who have said this is an excellent scheme, but it has been broken down owing to the consistent attacks from the group in the corner. How can men work together on a farm if this poison is always being thrown and seeds of discontent scattered? The “Natal Mercury” sent a man to Doornkop and he reported in favour of the scheme. The editor of the “Mercury” can do no wrong, and he is unbiassed. Mr. Gundelfinger, and other leading men in Natal, said it was a good scheme. It was put forward by the Minister with the object of taking people from the streets and placing them on the land. Why should he be attacked? Because we know the hon. members on the other side would rather see the Dutch placed under the land than on the land.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

I went to Durban during the election, and because I spoke in Dutch to a number of Dutch-speaking people at a meeting, the crowd howled at me. There is an enormous amount of racialism in Natal, so much so that when an English civil servant went down from the Free State to Natal, he was glad to return because he said he could not stand the racialism in that province. This Government has been attacked for sending its own people down to Natal, but if these people had come out under the 1820 Settlers’ scheme nothing would have been said about it. This is the point I want to get at. The hon. members of the S.A. party who are attacking this scheme seem to forget that the blue books are full of their schemes which have gone wrong. Let us take a few that the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) had a hand in. What about that land purchase he made near Cradock? Look at the purchase of the Somerville estate in the Free State—£65,000 was paid for bare land which the administrator refused to hire at £300 a year. Right from A to Z under the late Minister of Lands (Colonel Mentz), they bought land all over South Africa, but never had one success. Look at the Sundays River Settlement, to which men were attracted from all over the world, with the result that a number of unfortunate men taken from good billets from England were pumping bilge water from the ships in the docks.

That was not done by the late Government.

By the S.A.P. Government and some of your front benchers were on the board. Let us take the Umfolozi mill. If there is anybody in this House who should have been beholden to the Government, it is the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls). I have an enormous respect and regard for him, but I cannot understand his criticism after what the Government has done to save his bacon and that of his constituents. The sum of £400,000 was sunk in a mill.

Don’t you think that shows his honesty?

I never said anything against his honesty. No one has attacked his honesty or the honesty of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). I would not dream of doing such a thing, but I think they are wrong. It is problematical whether the money spent on the Umfolozi mill will ever be seen again, and the probability is that when the next floods occur the whole of the mill will be carried into the sea. The Doornkop scheme has been attacked because a Labour Minister has been in charge of it. I have never seen Mr. Rosenberg, and I don’t want to see him, but Mr. Rosenberg appears to have done his best. [Laughter.] Hon. members sneer, but I don’t suppose he was there for the benefit of his health, but hon. members who have been attacking him here are afraid to go outside the House and say a single word against him. After all, if he were really a blackguard, the hon. members with their usual courage would go outside and say so. The only judge who ever sat on him gave him a good character. Mr. Rosenberg has been attacked because hon. members want to assail the Minister of Labour. Hon. members who have been attacking this scheme have done more to weld the Labour party together than anything else could have done. If there is one thing the Labour party is out for, it is to see fair play to one of its Ministers. Hon. members have attacked a Minister who has honestly done his best, and is absolutely honest.

The Minister lent Rosenberg £60,000.

The Minister of Labour will be a Cabinet Minister long after the hon. member for Klip River has passed into that oblivion from which he should never have emerged.

The hon. member who has just spoken, said the scheme broke down owing to the misrepresentations made by members on this side of the House. There were no misrepresentations made in the early days when certain of my friends behind pointed out to the hon. Minister that his scheme was based on a false foundation and was bound to fail. As time went on and he stuck to his scheme, and heralded it as a successful attempt to solve the unemployment question, naturally its development was watched with very keen eyes. If there is a considerable sum of public money at stake and if the interests of a large number of settlers are at stake, surely it is the duty of some member of this House to ventilate the matter. To say that the scheme has failed because of statements made from this side of the House is pure nonsense. Supposing an attack was made on any of the successful forestry schemes, at Frenchhoek and other places, does any sane man believe that the settlers there would throw up their jobs and wish to be sent elsewhere? No, their outlook is good, they are contented with the conditions and things are going well. The scheme has failed because it was inherently wrongly based. The foundation and the whole principle was bad, and the Minister lent too ready an ear to a gentleman who was too cute a business man for him. That is the whole truth about the matter, but the Minister does not like to be told these truths, and naturally his supporters wish to help him to save his face. The hon. member is quite wrong when he says there is an objection to the presence of Dutch people, poor whites, in Natal. The objection that the Natal press made was that the Government was sending a large number of men down to Durban to work for less than a living wage— whether it was 3s. 6d. or 5s. or 6s. matters not. A large number of these people and their families were thrown on the philanthropy of the people of Durban. They said: “Why should we be asked to support these people whom the Government sends from other parts of the country?” That was the complaint made in the Durban press, and the complaint that was made when I went to Durban about two years ago. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) has already said that instead of being opposed to the poor whites being sent there, he put forward a scheme to the Minister of Labour to utilize several hundreds of them, possibly 1,000, in what he considered was more useful work, and in which they would have better prospects than in the Doornkop scheme. The scheme the hon. member put forward was approved of by quite a large number of Natal people. It is quite untrue to say that the Natal people have no sympathy with these poor people. In the past, Dutch and English in Natal have lived together in amity. An hon. member says no.

I say, Oh, it is surprising.

In the old days of Crown colony government, with the approval of the people, a certain number of Dutch-speaking members of the Legislative Council were nominated. I knew them personally. There were either three or four. After we got responsible Government, out of about 12 members of the legislative council who were nominated by English-speaking Ministers for 10 years, there were three Dutch-speaking men. Several Dutch members were elected in English-speaking constituencies. I, myself, lived in a district that was represented by a Dutch-speaking man for some years, and Dutch and English farmers lived quietly and peaceably together for years, and are doing so to-day. It is totally untrue to say that there is anti-Dutch feeling in Natal.

The last speaker might be correct when he says there is no anti-Dutch feeling in Natal against a certain type of Dutch in Natal, but there is not only feeling, but something almost amounting to hatred for the poor Dutchmen being in Natal. If the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) will look up the Natal press, he will find in a leading article in the Durban morning paper, in effect that these poor Dutch who were coming into Durban and Natal were referred to as white kaffirs. It was said they were being brought down there for political reasons. It was at the time of the agitation when hon. members over there preferred to have the Asiatic rather than the white man, working on their railways, if the white man was poor Dutch. You are asking for it and you will get it. I was ashamed when one morning I read in the Durban morning paper that these poor Dutch were referred to as white kaffirs. The Dutch and English of a certain type might have lived and work well together in parts of Natal. There is no doubt they have, the Labuschagnes, the Nels and so forth, but when it comes

On a point of order, I would like to ask whether this political harangue has anything to do with the subject now under discussion.

Absolutely.

I will tell the hon. member (Maj. Richards) what it has to do with it.

I want the Chairman’s ruling.

Right from the inception of bringing these men down to Natal there has been a very strong feeling against their being brought there at all. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) did not share that feeling, I think, although they are in his constituency, but it has been said that these 100 poor whites at Doornkop were being brought down there in order to influence the election against the hon. member for Zululand. I want to deal with the point made by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), where he, after slandering, libelling, under the privileges and protection of Parliament, Mr. Rosenberg, turns round and, in effect, tries to include me in the category of those who would deliberately mislead and enter into a “false contract” with these poor, un fortunate people. He says that I am personally responsible for entering into or making a false contract with these people and misleading them, and being guilty of a breach of faith. What did he base his argument on? He based his whole case, not on the contract, not on the conditions under which these men were recruited, but on a promise which the department got from Mr. Rosenberg subsequent to the recruitment of these men. In the event of any of these men dying after they had completed their work, or if for any other sound reason they were compelled to leave the place, the promise Mr. Rosenberg gave the department was that in respect of cane which was ready to be cut and ratoon cane, he would pay the department in respect of that plot £10 per acre, out of which the department would naturally, first of all, take the cost to the Government of placing the man there and making it possible for him to do the work, and then the department would give the balance to him or the widow, as the case might be, for the work done.

Did you not include that condition in the contract which you sent to them?

That was not in the contract. It was not included as a condition of the contract, and the men knew nothing about it until they reached Doornkop.

Here is the original letter.

I challenge the hon. member for Illovo on his false statement

Order.

I beg to raise a point of order. Is the Minister entitled to accuse me of making a false statement?

Yes, if it is a false one.

I challenge any man to come here arid say so.

I say that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has made a false statement when he says that I was guilty of entering into a false contract.

I did not quite catch what the exact words were that the hon. member used when he referred to the false contract. If he insinuated that the Minister participated in a false contract, I am not going to ask the Minister to withdraw.

On a point of order, do I understand you to rule that the Minister is entitled, on an incident that took place when you were not in the chair, to use such terms towards me in this House, because, if so, I shall challenge your ruling?

The hon. member may do so.

I shall ask that your ruling may be referred to Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member may do so.

On a point of order, I ask you to take down the words that the Minister used. He said that the hon. member who sits behind me made a false statement. I ask you to kindly take down those words, and, having taken down those words, I ask for your ruling.

Exactly. I will take down the words. I want to make it quite clear what my position is. Not when the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow), but when I was sitting in the chair, the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) used a certain expression upon which I had some doubt. I understood the hon. member to say that the Minister participated in a false contract, and if the Minister had got up and asked me to direct the hon. member to withdraw, I certainly would have done so. Now the Minister has denied and tried to refute the allegation that he entered into a false contract. Under the circumstances, I think I cannot ask the Minister to withdraw until the hon. member for Illovo has withdrawn what he said.

You are now in the chair and controlling the deliberations of this committee. During the course of the discussion a statement was made by the Minister of Labour, which he does not deny, and which you yourself say you have heard, that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) had made a false statement. If the hon. member for Illovo had said anything in the previous course of the debate when you were not in the chair

But I was in the chair.

it was the province of any hon. member to call the attention of the chair to the fact. That not having been done, and the Minister having stated, while you were in the chair, that the hon. member for Illovo had made a false statement, which I think you will agree is not a parliamentary expression, I call upon you to ask the Minister to withdraw.

On this point of order, I submit that you are holding an even balance between the hon. member and my hon. friend. It is just as wounding to any man’s honour to be accused of making a false contract, and when that is done an hon. member is entitled to say that it is a false statement.

I want to submit this to you. I was not in the House when the statement was made by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), but here we have a definite statement by a responsible Minister charging a member of this House that he was making a false statement. I submit to you that, whether that statement is true or not, it is unparliamentary.

That is my first submission. My second submission is this, that this is the first time in my parliamentary career that I have ever heard that an occupant of the chair, either Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, has set off the commission of one offence against the commission of another offence, the commission of one offence which was never mentioned or referred to, and the chair, of its own motion, comes forward and sets off a statement which is alleged to have been made some time ago in this House. Mr. Chairman, what we claim from you is this, that the Minister of Labour is guilty of an unparliamentary expression, and we ask you to protect the dignity of this House and the rights of members, by asking the Minister to withdraw it.

May I submit, with great respect, that there is only one Chairman of this House; it does not matter what individual occupies the chair from one moment to another. If, while there is a Chairman in possession of the House, and an expression is used which in itself is unparliamentary, you yourself have only one position to take up, and that is to rule it out.

It is also part of my duty to see that justice is done. There is such a thing as provocation. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), if I understood him correctly, has used the very same language towards the Minister as the Minister himself has used.

May I explain on that point? When I first referred to the contract, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) was in the chair, because I referred in the first place to the divergence between two different contracts, and I think you will bear me out also that at that stage I referred to the existence of the contract produced in this House, in this volume, and the contract produced before the Supreme Court, a copy of which is found in this volume. I put these two things by my side, and I said, “These two documents agree.” I then produced the document which the Department of Labour had sent to the tenant-farmers and I read the covering letter to the contract. I then mentioned that this contract which purported to be a contract arrived at between the tenant-farmers and the Government had in it an additional condition which did not appear in either of these documents, and I said that document which was sent to these unfortunate farmers under cover of a letter signed for the Secretary for Labour, was a contract which I had no hesitation in describing as a false contract because of the additional condition which had been imported into it, and which did not exist in either of the two official contracts which had been laid on the Table and produced before the Supreme Court.

Do I understand from the hon. member that he does not wish to insinuate that the Minister participated in a false contract?

No.

Yes, you did.

I purposely referred to the signature on the letter and that is why when the Minister was referring to it just now said, “I have the original letter here.”

I understood the hon. member had insinuated that the Minister had taken part, had participated, in something false.

So he did.

I have all along charged the Minister with neglect in entering into a contract which was wrong. I have never once said that the Minister was the man who signed this latter or that he imported that condition.

You said he was a party to it.

A party to what?

To that letter.

I have said nothing of the sort. I am very careful about my language as a rule. It is only when I am provoked, as I have been in this House, that I have ever spoken in a manner which I have afterwards been sorry for. “Hansard” will show what I said.

I think the Minister must accept the word of the hon. member for Illovo that he did not impute any mean motive to the Minister. In these circumstances I think the Minister should withdraw his words.

Well, Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member for Illovo now says that he did not impute any false charges against me, or that I was a party to entering into a false contract, if he says he did not mean that, then I unreservedly withdraw my charge that he made a false statement.

I willingly do that. When I referred to the Minister being a party to certain contracts, I did not impute that he was a party to a false contract. I have pointed out the contracts he entered into, and I have criticized them, and I shall continue to do so.

I will just remind the House that the hon. member not once, but on several occasions

No. The Minister must accept the word of the hon. member.

I am accepting it, but the hon. member on several occasions

No, that is the end of it.

kept on emphasizing the Minister’s personal responsibility.

You are personally responsible.

I do not want to shirk or evade any responsibility at all. There is nothing that need be covered up, there is nothing we need be ashamed of, or afraid of, but the way it has been handled by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has been such a way as to suggest that there has been on the part of somebody the most serious malpractices for the purpose of deceiving these tenant-farmers. What are the facts? He talks about two contracts, and he says in the second contract the Department of Labour had imported into it a new condition and, therefore, there must have been a false contract. The explanation is quite simple, and hon. members will see the reason of the action taken. When these men were recruited they were recruited in terms of the contract which was laid on the Table of this House. I want hon. members to appreciate the point, to appreciate how the hon. member for Illovo is trying to twist an honest attempt to protect the interests—

On a point of order—

This is not a Sunday School.

A few days ago I used the expression “twist” and I was ordered to withdraw it. Is the Minister in order in using that same expression?

I want to emphasize—

Withdraw !

The Minister must withdraw.

Is “twist” an unparliamentary expression? Very well, Mr. Chairman, I will say, how the hon. member with his mental ingenuity is trying to “turn” a straightforward and honest attempt on the part of the department to protect itself and the tenant-farmers, into a breach of confidence and an act of bad faith. It is too extraordinary. When I have explained what happened, hon. members will see that instead of being an act of bad faith, it was an act of good faith. What happened was this: The tenant-farmers entered into this contract under certain conditions. Those conditions, that contract, was laid on the Table of this House. When they had been recruited, and when they got to Doornkop, when the conditions were again explained to them, the department then told them that since they had entered into the agreement, it had obtained from Mr. Rosenberg a promise, not to the tenant-farmers, but a promise to the Government. The promise was made to the Government for this reason, that, if after the scheme had been going for some time and before the co-operative society was formed, that one of these farmers died, were we going to let the whole thing go over to Mr. Rosenberg? If one of the tenant-farmers, for any sound reason whatever, did leave the place, what were we going to do with the work he had done? So Mr. Rosenberg gave a promise to the Government, Furthermore, in order to reassure the tenant-farmers that we were protecting their interests, a copy of this promise was attached to their contract. I will read it out—

That was attached as a separate memorandum at the end of the contract.

With a covering letter which read—

What the hon. member is trying to interpret in the position I am not clear upon. They went to Doornkop under those conditions. After they were there the department thought of this additional protection and got Mr. Rosenberg to promise the department to pay this sum, and attached this to the contract. You may see that under certain conditions they were provided for, and now the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) tries to twist and interpret that—as if we, having two contracts, were guilty of a false contract with the tenant-farmers. Anything more despicable and disgusting has not happened in this House. An honest attempt was made to protect them. It was not meant to meet a wholesale clearing out of the tenant-farmers, as will be seen, but if one died or went away, we agreed to put another in his place and they must pay us £10 per acre for each plot cultivated, and out of that £10 we were entitled to get hack the money the Government spent on that plot, and the balance was to go to the tenant-farmer. Surely that was fair and honest. It was never intended that the money should be handed over to the tenant-farmer. The estate is under an obligation to pay back the money which the Government spent on those plots. This is now being interpreted as part of the contract that the men were to get £10 an acre after 18 months. This was never intended, and I defy the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), or any other hon. member to put into this addendum what they are trying to do, for political and party reasons. The men are actually getting more than this resolution provided for. They are in 50-acre plots; £10 per acre is £500. If we were asking Mr. Rosenberg £500 we would take £450, which it has cost, and give them £50, but we are not doing that. We are giving them each £150, so that they are getting £600 instead of the £500 provided for. The value of the plot under the present arrangement is £600. The Government will get £450 for their expenses. The Government can call on Mr. Rosenberg to do this; if I was to call on him to meet that obligation I would ask £500, and take out £450 for the Government’s share and give £50; instead of that we are giving the men £150. With regard to that straightforward and simple method of trying to protect the men’s interests, the whole thing is being turned and interpreted as if we had been guilty of making a false contract and as a breach of faith. There has been nothing more despicable and disgraceful inside or outside this Parliament.

The hon. Minister should moderate his language.

It is very difficult in dealing with the type of the hon. member for Illovo. Still, I shall do so. However, he is true to his type all right. I am glad there are not many of them in this country. He is the only hon. member in this House of whom expressions have been used similar to those which have been used against him. Someone asked that the dignity of the House should be protected; it wants permanent protection against the hon. member for Illovo.

Are the settlers paying Mr. Rosenberg’s fertilizer bill?

The settlers are paying the Government back the amount the Government has spent on each plot to bring it to its present stage of development. That is the obligation they have to meet, and they are going to meet it.

And the survey?

The survey cost £300 out of £45,000. What are you worrying about that for? The only reason the hon. member brings in the survey is because a member of the Natal Land Board (Mr. Warner), a well-known Natal sugar expert, was employed as surveyor, and the hon. member has never forgotten that incident. Serious charges have been made against Mr. Rosenberg, and the Maxwell case has been referred to. I have a cutting from the Johannesburg “Star”, which, under the heading, “Doornkop Case Settled”, reports that a settlement had been reached, the plaintiffs having expressed their willingness to withdraw all allegations of charge and fraud against the defendants who were willing to repurchase their shares. The plaintiffs had put £10,000 into the old scheme. They were mill contractors, but they did not get the contract for the erection of the mill, because the Trade Facilities Board refused to advance the money in consequence of a bad report on the farm—a wrong report—from the principal of the Cedara College. Consequently, Mr. Rosenberg could not proceed with the erection of the mill, and the plaintiffs said they would sue him for breach of contract, which they did. They made all sorts of accusations against Mr. Rosenberg, but subsequently those accusations were unreservedly withdrawn, and the plaintiffs received back 25s. tor each £1 share. From the beginning, however, Mr. Rosenberg had offered to return them their money. Again, every one of the men who went to Doornkop under the original scheme have got back every penny which they put into it. I challenge any hon. member to deny it. About 30 men put their money into this original scheme, which was attacked in this House. That is another instance of the bona fides of Mr. Rosenberg in trying to do the fair thing. Nevertheless, he is hounded, villified and attacked inside and outside Parliament. No matter what he does, a section in this House will follow him up and hound him down. They are hounding this man who has done no wrong, and when the Government attempted to rehabilitate 100 poor whites in conjunction with Mr. Rosenberg, he has been hounded like no other man in South Africa. On every occasion he has given us a fair deal. If the lion, member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) and his coterie will only go outside the House and make one-tenth of the accusations and malicious statements they have been making in the House, under the cover of parliamentary protection, it will be a bad day for them. But they dare not do it. No matter what Mr. Rosenberg does, they will accuse him, slander him, and villify him inside this House, but not outside the House. Now we come to the store. The hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) said the men were being plundered and bled by the storekeeper, and that there was no other store within 10 or 15 miles. As a matter of fact, there is another store nearer to many of the settlers than is Mr. Rosenberg’s. Will the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) tell his colleague, who has been mouthing this afternoon, that the settlers are not tied down to a monopoly, but that there is another store?

But they cannot get credit there.

One of the curses of the thing is the credit system. We have been doing our best to stop the men getting credit. I have compared the prices and find that some of the prices charged by Mr. Rosenberg were higher than those at the other store, but on the other hand, some of his prices were cheaper. I was satisfied that so long as there was an opposition store close to Mr. Rosenberg’s he had no monopoly, and the settlers were not tied down to him. Therefore, so far as the store is concerned, there is not much in it, although it caused discontent among many of the settlers. We had to put our foot down and try to stop the credit system, otherwise the stores would have had every penny the men had. I am prepared to defend the scheme as a scheme. All the foundations, and the principle on which it was established, were sound. The only thing it failed in was the human factor, which allowed the men to be disaffected to such an extent as to refuse to work any longer under the then existing conditions. The hon. member (Mr. Nicholls) poses as an economic expert. He has been trying to prove that economically the scheme was unsound. If that were the case, he ought to congratulate me on getting the men out of ah unsound scheme.

It would not have been unsound if you had followed my advice, and bought them out.

We had an option to buy the mill and the company out, but what a howl there would have been in this House if we had landed the taxpayers with a scheme which the Opposition had condemned. They would have said that we had been wasting the taxpayers’ money and had been left “to nurse the baby.” They are trying to have it both ways, and it cannot be done. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) last night said he was very doubtful whether they would get 20 tons to the acre.

On the average.

Previously we were told that cane would not grow at all. Then we were told we could not get anywhere near 20 tons to the acre.

I did not say that.

You did not, but other members on that side did. When that statement was made last June a sugar farmer adjoining Doornkop, not a Nationalist, probably South African party, Mr. Keith Fraser, sent me a telegram—

He has only grown cane for three years.

Here is a letter he sent to the “Natal Mercury”—

Mr. Patrick, a well-known sugar farmer, adjacent to Doornkop, has had 35 tons per acre. Therefore, when we base our estimates on 20 tons per acre we are taking a very conservative estimate under the circumstances. The hon. member for Zululand talks about getting a return of £80,000 from next year’s proceeds, and then he starts to deduct certain charges. Certain of those charges I am prepared to accept, but when he says you have to take £4,000 a month for running the mill, and that is £48,000 gone to start with, I ask the hon. member if he works his sugar mill twelve months in the year. No. Yet he based his calculation on £48,000, and before you knew where you were he had almost wiped out the £80,000.

What will you do during the remainder of the year?

Does it cost £4,000 a month to keep a mill closed? No wonder Umfolozi is a failure if that is the method adopted by the hon. member for Zulu-land.

What is the mill at Umfolozi worth?

I know it has cost this country £400,000, and you have tried to make an old mill into a new one. As the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) said, half the old mill was in the sea, and the good portions have been added on at Government expense at the request of the hon. member for Zululand. If there is one man in South Africa who ought to hold his peace as far as sugar failures are concerned, he is the hon. member for Zululand. Yet be gets up here and poses as an expert and condemns the scheme which has proved itself to be sound except for the men refusing to carry it on any longer, because they have been told that Mr. Rosenberg is a scoundrel, that the scheme is no good, that they are working for a “Johannesburg Jew,” and that they are not going to get anything out of it. These are some of the things which hon. members have said, and which have caused disaffection. [Extracts read.] This is the sort of poison on which the people who are supposed to work this scheme have been fed inside and outside this House. What are they getting? None of these men have been there longer than two years. They were taken from forestry settlements. They were of the down-and-out type— good fellows. All those who have been there 18 months are to get their £150. In addition to that they will have received, by way of maintenance allowance, over £100. so that for 18 months’ work at Doornkop they will get £250 and they will have had free housing, free medical attention, free milk—they each had a cow, and grew their own vegetables and kept poultry. In addition they get £250 for 18 months’ work.

Have you ever been to Doornkop?

I have been several times, a good many times. I was there in December last, just before Parliament met. These farm labourers who were doing ploughing and planting work which is done by natives and Asiatics on the neighbouring farms, will for 18 months’ work have £250 and have lived rent free and have had these other facilities I have mentioned. Will you find any other farm labourers who for 18 months’ work will get £250 and so forth?

All out of borrowed money.

Now you are changing your, ground.

I was replying to the argument that these men have-got nothing out of it. I was pointing out that every man who has been there 18 months will get £250 and will have lived rent free during that period, and they are doing farm labouring work. Then the hon. member comes to borrowed money. All the tenant-farmers’ schemes are borrowed money. There is not a tenant-farmers’ scheme running in South Africa that is not borrowed money. Condemn all your tenant-farmers’ schemes if you like. Every one of them is based on borrowed money and money that is non-interest bearing. The hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) keeps on saying about this £60,000 being non-interest bearing. That is money which has actually been spent. It is not a loan which we are going to give them. It is non-interest bearing in exactly the same way as every tenant-farmers’ scheme in the country is non-interest bearing.

Non-interest bearing for six years.

Yes. When the hon. member came to see me this morning I explained the position to him and said that the negotiations on that point had not been finally completed, but the £60,000 for six years free of interest is only being treated in the same way as any other tenant-farmers’ scheme. I think I have dealt with most of the points. I have tried to convince the House that as far as I am concerned I am satisfied that the foundations of the scheme were sound, and we have proved that we can put men of this type, the peasant type, on small holdings in Natal successfully to grow sugar with white labour. That has never been proved before.

It has not been proved now.

We have proved that this type of man is suitable and able to do it, and I say that by doing that alone we have done a good thing for South Africa, because all the sugar plantations in this country have been run by a few wealthy magnates with Asiatic labour. The individual farmer, like the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), employs native labour.

I have not got a single Asiatic.

Most of them employ Asiatic labour. Well, we will say native labour in the case of the hon. member for Zululand. He employs native labour to develop and work his sugar farm. This is the first time in the history of South Africa where sugar farming has been proved to be possible with white labour. To that extent we have proved the experiment successful. The only reason why it has failed is because two partners refused to continue in agreement any longer.

The Minister makes the assumption that this scheme has proved the soundness of white labour. It has proved nothing of the kind. This scheme has not proved a success, in fact it is a failure. This scheme has not paid, and, judging by the figures we have here, it is not going to pay. To say that it has proved that white labour is a success on a sugar farm, well, I think my hon. friend has more common-sense than that. My hon. friends here have, I think, had their condemnation of this scheme amply justified. As the thing has been presented already in this debate, it is not going to prove successful. To say that these men have been pushed off or have left because they have been made dissatisfied is pure bunkum. These men have been thoroughly disgusted with the results that have been obtained so far, and they have cleared off the farm, because they have seen, after two years’ labour, that they are going to get nothing out of it except a load of debt to the end of the chapter. I want to ask another thing, how is the State to come out of the business? We are liable for £230,000, at least, as far as I can see. Where are we going to get paid? Where is the State going to get its money back from this scheme? I cannot see it. It seems to me that the State is going to lose money on this proposition. I would not like to have a mortgage on that place, that is all I can say. Unless there is very careful management indeed, the people of this country will certainly drop money, and I would warn the Minister of Finance to look well after the interests of the State.

I think the Minister is to be congratulated on the fact that apparently in respect of the administration of the Labour Department there is only one subject on which our friends here have anything to say. I want to raise another matter which other people in South Africa happen to be interested in, beside our friends on the Opposition side. That is the matter of the wage determination in connection with the clothing industry in the Cape Peninsula. The position is that on the Witwatersrand very considerable concern has been expressed not only by the employees, but also by the employers in the tailoring trade at the delay in making the recommendation of the Wage Board in connection with the tailoring trade in the Cape Peninsula a determination. The position is that the clothing industry on the Rand to-day is working under an agreement under which their employees are actually being paid 25 per cent, to 30 per cent, more than will be paid to the employees in the Cape under the Wage Board’s recommendation if it becomes a determination, but in the clothing industry in the Transvaal the employers are quite satisfied to pay that additional amount because their methods are more up-to-date than those in the Cape, and because they have greater efficiency there than, unfortunately, exists at the present time in the Cape. What they say, and with perfect justice, is this, that while they are prepared to meet competition to the extent of 25 per cent, to 35 per cent, lower working expenditure than they pay, they are not prepared, and it is not right that they should be called upon, to meet any greater competition than that. They point out that unless the determination is made in the Cape it will mean not only will their trade be wrongfully taken away from the Witwatersrand, but there will he unemployment on the Witwatersrand, and the conciliation work which has been going on there is likely to break down completely in the near future unless the Minister takes some definite step to make a determination of that award. I would like the Minister to tell this House and the country when that determination will be made, and also, if necessary, the reasons why there has been any delay in the matter. Both the employers and employees are very concerned about it on the Witwatersrand. Another point is this. Recently in dealing with this department I mentioned the fact that there had been few determinations in respect of awards made by the wage board. When I spoke I think only three had been made. I understand that many recommendations have been made by the wage board, and I would like the Minister to make some statement showing not only how many determinations have been made and how the industries and the employees are affected, but also how many recommendations have been made which have not become determinations and what are the reasons. There is another point in connection with the work of the wage board. I think on all sides of the House the principle and the idea of colour bar legislation is gradually breaking down. It has broken down in connection with the Liquor Bill, and I have accepted that position and I believe now everyone will have to work in the direction of dealing with these maters on the basis of paying a wage in accordance with a civilised standard without differentiation of colour. Would the Minister explain how it is in the recommendations made by the wage board from time to time, so many distinctions are made that when you come to the last distinction, unskilled, it is impossible on the scale recommended by the wage board for civilised people to get opportunity of being employed in those capacities, and I would like him to see whether something cannot be done in dealing with wage determinations to make arrangements by which people will be able to get work at a standard on which civilized beings can live in South Africa without any colour distinction at all. Then, I would like the Minister to tell us to what extent he has been able to make progress in connection with the negotiations with the provincial council and municipalities as to extending opportunities of employment.

Before the committee gets led off again on the delectable subject of Doornkop, I would like to reply to a circumstance brought before the House whereby through insinuation the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) rather cast a reflection on my department.

Wait until he comes.

I want to get it disposed of. It is really a matter of public reference. I have had an inquiry held into the charge of espionage made by the hon. member for Klip River at Doornkon on the part of the postmaster, and I have received the following report of the inquiry. [Report read.]

I do not wish to reply to the last arguments of the Minister, but to say a few words with reference to his speech. I listened attentively to all of it, and one thing became clear, namely that he is defending Mr. Rosenberg so well as one of the best of men, and as an angel in order to defend himself. That was what his defence amounted to. Mr. Rosenberg was an angel, a man who absolutely had no thought of himself, but was only out to assist the poor people. And then he uses the other argument that the scheme was not a success because the people were incited, I have never heard a more ridiculous argument. If it was such a good thing there would have been no chance of agitation, but because the people were not confident that they would be justly treated—and it turned out that their distrust was well founded—they made trouble. They were told how rich they would become, and what chances they would have, but what have they to-day? They have nothing, and Mr. Rosenberg has everything. The good man, the angel! Undoubtedly the whole scheme is a hopeless failure, but I should like to add a few words as a Dutch-speaking South African, and express my disapproval of the way in which he has dealt with the statement of the Natal newspapers with regard to white kaffirs. The whole question is how the Government treats the people. Is not the Government treating the poor whites as white kaffirs in Durban? They are brought to the towns, get 5s. a day, and have to live on it. The conditions are undoubtedly terrible. Do hon. members know how these people live in the big cities. I understand they live among the Asiatics and natives in Durban, people who are honest, and have a high position morally and in every respect. They are thrown into the greatest misery to-day, and the Government brings them to the big towns where they are no better off than natives. I think no one can deny that. We have only to go and look in the cities here where the people live. We have a Department of Labour which costs a lot of money, but the poor people of high character are brought to the towns and have to live amongst natives and Indians.

Are they better, or worse off than formerly?

I am astonished that the hon. member is satisfied with that condition. Possibly they were bywoners on a farm and now have to live in one room together with other people. They are living amongst coloured people and natives. It is a scandalous state of affairs. A Department of Labour was established, and hon. members go about saying that they are solving the poor white question, but all the time the people are being forced into greater misery. Because the people live in that state in Durban they are called white kaffirs, and because the Government do not treat them differently from kaffirs. I think this is a scandalous thing. The whole policy of the Government is to lure people away from the countryside, and they go under in the towns. I want to ask the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Mr. I. P. van Heerden) to go with me to see where the people who were appointed on the railways live. And then it is said that the people are being given work. Can a man keep body and soul together in the towns on 5s. or 6s. a day? And then hon. members ask if they are better off. The people are suffering hunger, and as an Afrikaans-speaking person I protest against the Minister’s getting up and wanting to make political capital, because, under the circumstances, the people are called white kaffirs.

After the imputations made by the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) I must rise. He states that the Government lure people to the towns, that the housing is abnormally bad, and that the people suffer from hunger, etc. I think I am better acquainted with housing conditions in the towns than the hon. member. Last year I accompanied Archdeacon Lavis, of the Anglican Church in Cape Town, on a tour of the slums. Five minutes away from this House there are people living in a miserable state, people who lived there in that state before this Government came into power. The conditions are often repulsive, and they have been living under them for some time?

They are still living under those conditions.

Precisely, but they were there before the present Government came into office. This Government has done more than any other in trying to solve the housing question in South Africa. I challenge hon. members to deny it. And then I want to tell the hon. member something else. In 1925 this Government introduced the Wages Bill, and the other side of the House fought us tooth and nail, because we wanted to give the workers a wage which was not a starvation one. We wanted to see that the people got a wage in the factories on which they could live. If the hon. member wants to know what the position was under the previous Government he should read some of the evidence, like that of Miss Steenkamp, the social worker of the A.C.V.V., who worked among the Dutch-speaking South Africans. Then my Natal friends will see in what conditions people were during their Government, the Natal friends who hate the Dutch-speaking South Africans.

That is not true.

You are not a Dutch South African, although you sometimes try to speak Afrikaans.

When we introduced that Bill in 1925 the S.A.P. fought it with all their might. It was ten months after we had come into office, and the position in Port Elizabeth was such that white girls and boys had to sleep in the same room. I should like to have the figures of the department in connection with the number of white people who are to-day still employed on the railways, and who were lured away from the countryside. It is not the people who are still on the countryside, but the people of the relief works. They were not lured away from the countryside by the previous Government, but were driven away from there by their policy. I admit that a mistake was made in putting the people on the countryside, in putting them on settlements and works like Doornkop. I admit it for the sake of argument, and ask whether the previous Government made no mistakes? I admit it is no argument to say that because the previous Government made a mistake, we may also make one—

You have a large Department of Labour; what is it doing?

They have done much good work in the country, but if hon. members opposite were to say that there was a possible overlapping from the various departments I would concur. It happens constantly, however, in our public life, and I always said that settlements ought to be the work of one, and not of various departments. But the hon. member comes and points out the bad housing conditions, and says that it is the fault of the Government. It is not right, but it would in any case be better for us to give more attention to it, than to talk for another day and a half about Doornkop, which was an attempt to put the poor whites on their feet.

The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) deserves the thanks of the country for bringing out the facts of this scheme—a scheme which has shown itself to be open to very grave criticism. It was hoped that the House would discuss the question on its merits, and the hon. member confined himself entirely to the merits of the case. It was not until the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) introduced a new atmosphere of a very unpleasant character that the debate developed into a wrangle which has done the credit of the House no good. As regards Natal, this province can well face any investigation as to its attitude towards these settlers, and poor whites generally. The books of the benevolent societies of Durban and Maritzburg show what contributions have been made in giving relief to the relations of people sent to work in Natal at starvation wages: These books show that Natal has been, and still is, most generous of people. No people have been more generous also in subscribing to drought distress relief funds than the people of Natal. With the exception of two other towns Maritzburg contributed more than any other town in South Africa for the relief of distress in Nationalist districts in the Cape, its contribution being over £2,000. That, from a province which is vilified every time a Pact member refers to Natal! There is no Natal member on this side of the House engaged in farming who does not employ two or three of these poor whites to every Englishman he may employ, and we are glad to do it, because we find that after some months in our employ many are changed from had Nationalists into good South African party men. I have had these men say to me: “This is the first time I have been treated as a human being.” Now what complaint has the Labour Party against us? They should be thankful to the hon. member for Illovo for what he has done, for according to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) his attitude in this particular debate has helped to cure the cancer in the Labour party. The Doornkop agreement, which I have before me, is quite on a par with a number of other agreements drawn up by the Government. Anyone reading it would come to the conclusion that when the Government has an instrument of this nature to draw up, the first thing it does is to send for the attorney representing the other party to the agreement, and to ask him to draw up an agreement under which the opposing party is well looked after, and the Government is not protected. There is not one single clause in this agreement which gives the slightest security for the Government’s advance of £145,000. The Minister contends he has a notarial bond on all the movables, but in another clause he gives absolute freedom to the mortgagee to sell everything in the place provided the money is used for the improvement of the estate. There is no clause which controls the manner in which the money is to be so spent. I cannot understand why the Minister should guarantee the settlers’ store accounts. What has it to do with the Minister if the men’s canteen bills are not paid? It is absurd to assert that this matter has been brought to a crisis by criticism from this side of the House. The land is second-class land.

First class cane is grown there.

No; it is really second class, not first class. Then it is also very hilly country, which adds immensely to the cost of production and transport. The weather has also been against the scheme, and all this has assisted to bring about a state of doubt and unrest in the minds of the settler. But this is not all, for the settler now realizes for the first time that he has no hope of drawing one single penny of the profits for at least nine or ten years. Anyone who knows anything about, the matter knows that an enormous liability of £145,000, plus interest, on a sugar estate cannot be cleared off for eight or ten years. This mere pittance per month they do not even handle until the trader had got his store account paid his pound of flesh out of them. This scheme offered no prospects to the men who were doing the bulk of the work. The result was that they said you can put us where you like, but do not leave us at Doornkop. In this last agreement those who remain have no protection, and they are told even at the last moment that Mr. Rosenberg may gather them together in any corner of his estate and put them in barracks. The Minister need not shake his head. Here is the clause that they may be put together collectively wherever the manager likes to place them. That means he will gradually get them together. It breaks my heart to hear the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) vilify the people of Natal. He knows that when he incites feeling against us on racial lines he is doing a wicked and an untruthful thing. On the few occasions when he rises in this House he vilifies the people who have sent him here. If ever a man ought to be grateful to Natal it is the hon. member, and yet how bitterly does he always attack our people whenever he gets an opportunity. [Time limit.]

I want to say at once that I want to thank the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards) for the efforts made on behalf of the necessitous people in the midlands. I want to acknowledge it, and express my appreciation.

You did not say that the other day.

I appreciate that help, but I have not made a single attack on the hon. member for Umvoti (Mr. Deane) in connection with it, but I criticised the hon. member because he recently objected to a certain amount for the purpose. I should not have spoken on this matter, were it not for the crocodile tears of the hon. member for Cradock. Those crocodile tears about the housing conditions here in Cape Town. Over and above the Government’s having already spent millions on better housing, it is a matter for which the municipalities are responsible The hon. member for Cradock uses it as an argument, but he knows just as well as I that it does not concern this Government. The hon. member also knows that Doornkop was just an attempt to keep the people on the land, and away from the towns and their demoralising conditions.

An attempt which hopelessly failed.

How many political schemes of the previous Government were not a failure?

That is no argument.

Has it not been proved? The hon. member sits on the Select Committee on Irrigation Schemes which enquires into them, and he knows just as well as I that the Government will have to agree to the recommendations of the select committee to write off millions from the irrigation schemes of the previous Government.

Why did you call them political schemes?

The hon. member can speak again if he wishes, but I listened to him, and now he can listen to me, but he must not make statements he cannot support. My hon. friend says that the Government is treating those people as kaffirs. Does he not remember that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) drove the white people off the railways and appointed natives? There were 4,000 Europeans less, and 8,000 natives more on the railways at the end of that hon. member’s period of office. The present Government has supplied work to the Europeans,

At a starvation wage.

It is better to pay the people a small wage and enable them to live, than to let them die. These people are very grateful to the Government for the opportunity given them to become probationary lessees. The hon. member will remember how every attempt of the Government to assist the people, and to enable them to make a living was opposed by the hon. members from Natal.

Very little has actually been done.

More has been done than the previous Government did during the fourteen years they were in office. What did that Government do? The present Government has tried to prefer Europeans to natives. The hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) said that no one on this side had defended the scheme. I admit that I knew nothing about the Doornkop scheme, but now I know all about it. Of all that has been said by hon. members opposite, there is not a single thing I worry myself about, not in the least. If it were not for another reason that I am defending the scheme, then I should have done so on account of the way in which it has been attacked by the hon. members for Klip River (Mr. Anderson), Newcastle (Mr. Nel) and Illovo (Mr. Marwick). There has not been a single effort made by this Government to assist the poor people which has not always been attacked in the most bitter way by the hon. members for Klip River, Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), Newcastle, and Illovo. I hope the hon. member for Newcastle, who is dragged along by the other Natal members, will admit that not a single attempt has been made on this side which has not been attacked, rightly or wrongly, in every possible way by my hon. friends on the opposite side. As a quiet listener to hon. members opposite, I might possibly have come under the impression that, in some fraudulent way or other, things had been done with regard to Doornkop, and that the Minister of Labour had played into the hands of a “fat Jew-boy” from Johannesburg, and that the Minister had looked after his own interests and those of Rosenberg. That is certainly the impression about the action of the Minister one gets from listening to hon. members opposite. So far I have not been able to get a single possible proof that anything wrong has ever taken place in that way. The reputation of the hon. members for Klip River. Illovo, and Zululand is very well known to us now, and in all humble simplicity I want to say—

I should be sorry if my reputation were no better than yours.

I am glad the hon. member says that about himself, and I am prepared to agree with it, but he is known for his race hatred, and in that he is only surpassed by the hon. member for Illovo. But an attack has also been made here on the pay of the tenant-farmers, and in spite of their strenuous plea that more should be paid to the people they nevertheless acknowledge that the land was worth £10 a morgen. My fear is that the settlers, the Duvenages. Du Preez, Oliviers, Vorsters, Wasserfals, Delports, etc., have listened too much to the agitation that was started amongst them, and that that is the reason why they want to leave. The people have been swept up by the Natal members, and now that they have incited them against the Minister they come and say that it is a failure. I believe that the hon. members from Natal are glad about the failure. I came to the conclusion that the scheme did not fail, as stated by hon. members opposite, because of the policy of the Minister of Labour, but that it may be a success, and that a success can still be made of it, and I hope the Government will make every effort to effect that. I have no time for Mr. Rosenberg, and I do not bring him into the picture at all, but a success can be made of the scheme if the hon. members from Natal will only assist a little in that direction. Then it will be a success irrespective of whether the name is Olivier or Delport or any other.

I am sure the House must be heartily sick of the charge and counter-charge which have been hurled across the floor in connection with the Doornkop settlement. Take the remarks of the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards)—not what he said regarding myself nor the attack that he made and then, like a true South African party gentlemen, left the House before anyone could reply to him. The hon. member asked the Minister what was to become of the settlers at Doornkop. I desire to submit a practical suggestion to the Minister, and I hope he will listen to what I have to say. When the late Hon. Joseph Baynes died in Natal in 1925, he left his estate of some 23,000 acres of the very finest land in Natal to the nation, for the benefit of the people of South Africa.

A typical Natalian.

A board of trustees was appointed to manage this estate. It is not, after all, very far from Doornkop. The board of directors are Mr. C. W. Francis Harrison, who is the chairman, Senator the Hon. James Schofield, Dr. T. R. Sim, Mr. John Grant, the general manager of the estate, and Mr. J. S. Marick, M.L.A. I wish to suggest to the Minister that he should get into negotiation with the board of management of the Nels Rust estate in Natal, and, if the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) is genuinely concerned about the fate of the settlers at Doornkop, he will do everything possible to assist the Minister of Labour to carry out this proposal, and that is to transfer the 100 tenant farmers and their wives and families, numbering in all, I am told, between 400 and 500, right away from Doornkop settlement and place them on the Nels Bust farm. I understand the board of management of the Nels Rust estate are negotiating with the 1820 Settlers’ Association to bring a number of young men to Nels Rust, and I have no doubt they will be the type of settler that will be welcomed in that particular part of Natal. I think that the hon. member for Illovo would do a great deal to combat the many charges that have been made against him if he were to co-operate with the Minister of Labour and bring these unfortunate settlers—I regret very much that the scheme has been a failure—from the sugar lands of Doornkop on to the fine rich soil of the Nels Rust estate, which belongs to the nation.

I am glad that the hon, member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) has referred to the matter he has just spoken about, although I cannot for the life of me see what a question of this sort has got to do with the Labour vote. As a matter of fact, the hon. member himself, inspired by some persons whose identity it is not difficult to recognize, put a question on the paper not long ago, but ran away from it when the question was due to be asked. He first put a general question which purported to find out who were the life directors appointed by the late Mr. Joseph Baynes and other details. Various other questions he asked. He wanted to know whether this place was a sort of recognized orphanage I believe. [Question read.] The Minister of Agriculture found it necessary to answer that question in such a way as to imply that the board of administration had certain obligations to the State which they had not performed. He said the Government had received no money from this estate. The will left by the late Mr. Joseph Baynes was a perfectly clear one. There is not a line which implies any obligation to pay a single penny to the Government, and as far as the Government is concerned there is no obligation nor will there be at any future time upon the trustees to pay a penny to the Government. In reply to that Joseph Bayne’s Board of Administration put forward a specific reply to every question asked by the hon. member, and I am surprised to find that the Minister of Agriculture did not put that reply upon the Table. It was completely altered so that it did not reflect the terms of the will. The terms of the will briefly are these, that the board of administration is empowered in the first place to extend and develop the estate. That is its primary duty. When it has built up a sufficient fund there are a number of purposes which are set forth which the board of administration is empowered to take into consideration, but it is entirely for the board to decide what matters shall be done, and it stands to reason that nothing can be done until sufficient funds have accrued. The Minister of Agriculture did not disclose to this House until he was asked a question by the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) that the late Mr. Joseph Baynes left an overdraft of £15,000 owing, and for a whole year the board of administration was prevented from coming to office because the estate was being administered by the bank. Since the board has come into office it has paid off the £15,000 overdraft; it has paid over to the Standard Bank £6,000 in the way of administration fees, and it has accumulated something like £8,000 which is available for the carrying on of the estate, and for the work of the estate. Among the other various objects that the board is enjoined to take into its consideration are (1) the beautifying and development of the estate, (2) extending and developing the existing industries or creating further or new industries for the objects set forth. These are the three primary objects which the board is enjoined to observe. Then it says, it may consider the object of scientific agricultural research. This was the one body that helped Colonel Watkins Pitchford in carrying on his investigations when the Government failed to do anything for him. Another object is—

Under that the question is being considered of a training farm for settlers, but in that connection not a single penny is being spent by the estate in establishing that school. If it is to be established it will be established by a grant from funds given by Sir Robert Horn, ex-Chancellor of the exchequer in England, towards establishing a training farm at which any young men coming from overseas or this country to take up farming can receive education.

Is that to benefit the nation of South Africa?

Does the hon. member contend it is not to benefit the nation of South Africa?

What did Mr. Baynes want?

What he wanted is set forth very clearly in this will. It goes on—

That is on the way. Dr. Sim is undertaking the supervision of that side of the work—

That is the reply I have to give to the hon. member, in return for which I would be glad if he could tell me why this matter is brought up if it is not brought up in such, a way as to suggest I have been failing in my duty. I venture to say if the hon. member for Illovo had not been among the directors not a word would have been said by the hon. member. Perhaps he would go a little further and tell us who suggested this question should be put forward and why, when the information had been supplied to the Minister of Agriculture did the hon. member run away from his own question and withdraw it on the very afternoon when it was due to be answered, and when it would certainly have been followed up by supplementary questions. The Minister of Posts and Telegraphs brought up a matter with his customary light-heartedness this afternoon. He said we had made a charge of espionage. I understand no such charge was made. It was merely suggested in the question that there was a certain letter addressed primarily to Mr. Anderson, but enclosed in an envelope to me that had been interfered with. I have never communicated with Mr. Delport in my life, and only when this letter was received by me had I had any communication with the settlers at Doornkop. This letter was sent to find out why the Minister did not reply to the petition of the 27th December, 1927. It is dated 8th April, 1928. The question on the Order Paper was put there on the 20th. On the 19th these men were sent for by the manager of the settlement and threatened with punishment for what they had done—writing the letter. The Minister of Labour, to whose notice the matter was brought, said—

From that date to this the Minister of Labour has not vouchsafed a single word as to the reasons why any man should be threatened with punishment for having communicated, on a reasonable question of this sort, with any member of Parliament. It seems to furnish evidence of a particularly unfair attitude towards tenant-farmers who are on this estate. [Time limit.]

I was very sorry to hear the remarks of the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards). He said that the people of Maritzburg had “been good” to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan), as they had taken him from a shop, and had made a gentleman of him. I think it is a disgraceful thing to say about another member of Parliament. What the hon. member has said about a Labour member, no gentleman would say in this House. It is not wrong for well-to-do members of the South African party to receive £700 per year salaries as members of Parliament, but it is very improper for a working man to receive the same amount. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) was a gentlman before he went into Parliament. I can see that the people of Weenen did not succeed in making a gentleman of the hon. member for Weenen. In my opinion the people of Pietermaritzburg honour themselves by putting the hon. member (Mr. Strachan) into this House. I simply draw attention to that, by the way, to show that a remark of that sort savours of the worst form of English snobbery. These remarks prove that Natal has a good many snobs, and I now know what a real snob is. To get back to the question of poor whites, hon. members over there may say that the people of Natal always welcome them with open arms, but on the 11th November, 1927, the “Cape Times bad a report from its Maritzburg correspondent about the influx of poor whites, which was headed” Poor whites rush to Natal;; Maritzburg seriously alarmed; Cape labourers for railway.” The message states—

I am very sorry that the high tone of the city has been lessened by the advent of these persons, but it is really because they are potential labour voters that you have these objections, and when the time comes these men will show how they resent the suggestions that they are unworthy citizens not only of Maritzburg but of the Union of South Africa.

It is becoming quite clear that the nearer this Government or this Parliament comes to its end the more nervous the Government party is getting in regard to those definite promises they made to the country and electorate in regard to the solution of the poor white question. If there is one issue upon which the Pact scored in the elections, it was the definite promises they made to make a radical attempt to solve the poor white question. I ask, what have they got to show to-day to redeem those promises?

Russian gold.

The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Snow) has now brought forward again that national sore which has been eating into our national life for years past—the flocking of the poor whites into our big cities. I am not surprised that Cape Town, Durban and Pietermaritzburg and other big centres are alarmed at the influx of poor whites.

They prefer kaffirs.

The Pact told the electors that they would try to prevent that rush to the towns. All the statements made by the hon, member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) are correct. As soon as the poor whites and their families go to the big cities without previously arranged housing they have often to live under conditions of depravity in slums and are forced to take up their habitation with sections of the people which debase them. [Dissent.] It appears to me that my remarks are going home—the Pact is getting very nervous.

You blackguard my people. We object to your insults.

The Minister of Railways has endeavoured to employ poor whites on the railway. The employment of poor whites in principle was adopted by the party sitting on these benches. But what does the Government do now? Without inquiring whether these people would not be better off on farms, they are employed on the railways at 5s. or 5s. 6d. a day. There are a large number of these people in my constituency who are sorry they ever left the farms to go on the railway. To-day they are endeavouring to return to the farms. For one thing, they are moved from place to place, and they cannot afford to live in the big towns. Many of them would have been far better off if they had been left on the land, but without discrimination or proper inquiry they were given work on the railway. Is there one land settlement which the present Government has established with success? They have, it is true, built on the Hartebeestpoort settlement. But who founded that settlement? The Minister of Labour and his predecessor in The late Government. The Minister of Labour and his predecessor in office (the present Minister of Defence) established a poor white settlement in my constituency at Elgin. They did this against the advice of all the farmers in that locality, who warned them that the place was entirely impossible for any respectable European. That settlement has cost about £18,000, but I do not think there are 10 settlers there, although there is room for 300. So the Government has been rushing into all sorts of madcap schemes like Doornkop. I want to draw attention to another very important point, the housing question. The late Government voted £1,500,000 as loans for the building of houses. What has the present Government done in that line? The administrative expenditure of the labour department since the present Government came into power has enormously increased, for you cannot create an additional portfolio without the taxpayer having to pay for it. In 1923-’24 before the Pact came into power— the total number of persons in the mines and industries department having charge of the factories and labour divisions thereof was 86, but this year the number is 181, an increase of 95.

All pals.

Friends must be provided for.

In 1923 and 1924 the above factories and labour divisions cost £41,000. This year we are voting £87,000 for the labour-department, an increase of £46,000 in order to keep the eleventh Minister going. The people of this country are being over-governed. That was my strong objection to the mutilation of the constitution, which said there should be 10 Cabinet Ministers. You cannot have another Minister and his clerks without the taxpayers having to pay for it. The Wage Board alone is responsible for an expenditure of £7,000 per annum. On the Estimates is the sum of £5,000 for a compulsory work colony. During a previous sitting about a month ago, the Minister said in reply to a question from this side of the House that he intended to commence the operation of his Work Colonies Bill at Elgin, where all the other people ran away. There he is going now to try another settlement. This time it is compulsory. [Time limit. J

In regard to the last point of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) it is the intention of the Government, as soon as they possibly can, to get that work colony going in the salubrious constituency of Caledon. The Elgin settlement has been depleted of inhabitants, who were working on the forestry settlement, in order that the way might be clear for the starting of a labour colony there.

Did they not run away?

No, we transferred them. We have been transferring them to other forestry settlements in order to clear the way for the establishment of a labour colony in the settlement at Elgin. The delay has been caused by the difficulty we have had in getting the right type of superintendent. We think now we have got the right man with the assistance of the Education Department. With regard to the increase of expenditure, the hon. member is quite right. They never had a Labour Department in their day. They preferred strikes. The amount of increase in the expenditure to-day on the Labour Department, as against the officials of the Mines and Industries Department who administered these affairs then, is not as much as the other side spent on paying out 300 strike breakers. On one dispute they spent £47,000, in order to give 300 men a certain sum of money each. Was that to go and work? No it was to get out of the way—to Durban, as far as they possibly could. The total increase in the cost of the labour administration as against those days for 12 months is not as much as one dispute costs South Africa when the other side paid £47,000 to strike breakers, to get off the Kleinfontein mine. When there was a strike there, the Minister of Mines and Industries (Mr. F. S. Malan) went there and the terms of the settlement were that the men would not go back unless the strike breakers were removed out of it, and the South African Party Government out of the taxpayers’ pockets paid £47,000 one night. I know hon. members do not like it, but they have to have it. The hon. members passed an Apprenticeship Act, but they did not put it into force. This Government has put it into force, and to-day we have nearly 8,000 boys in South Africa who are being properly apprenticed and trained in skilled occupations. We have 30 apprenticeship committees, doing excellent work, and our officials are required to do the secretarial work. It is a good thing for South Africa that its boys are being properly trained. Before, they could not get a job in competition with trained men from overseas. The Wage Board was a good investment for South Africa to stop employers sweating these people. £2 10s. 0d. a month is the wage being paid to adults in Cape Town in some of these stores. I say money spent in removing a social scandal of that description is a good investment. With regard to the total expenditure on the Labour Department’s vote, to-day we have the unemployment vote under the Labour Department, instead of two departments separated. The unemployment vote is included in that of the Labour Department. Let me give figures: In 1922-’23, the unemployment vote was £600,000 under the late Government, and administration £47,000: in 1923-’24, a total of £350,000 unemployment vote; in 1924-’25, £474,000; 1925-’26 Labour Department, £500,000; ’ 1926-’27, £375,000; 1928-’29, £270,000. Those are the figures. The increase in the cost of officers to-day is £86,000 as against £41,000. The decrease on the total vote has been considerable. As I have mentioned, the unemployment and administration vote is only about 60 per cent, to 70 per cent, to-day what it was in those days. There has been a big increase in administration costs because we have done a tremendous amount more work. We have to administer the Apprenticeship Act, the Wage Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act; and the industrial peace which we have had and the good work which has been done by the Labour Department have more than justified this increase in the expenditure The policy of the other side when they were in power was not to prevent disputes, to give the trade unions a fair deal and to preserve good relations between employers and employed, but to take the side of the employers every time and let things develop and let the country pay for the consequences. During the five years before this Government came in, there were 175 strikes in South Africa, costing in wages alone over £2,000,000. Is it not worth £40,000 of £50,000 to the counery in order to have industrial peace? Hon, members opposite have not got a leg to stand on when they come to criticise the Labour vote. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) has asked what the position is in regard to the clothing industry. I regret the delay which has been occasioned in the clothing industry determination. It has been due to certain supplementary investigations which have been made. Only yesterday I received the last minute in connection with these further investigations and I am hoping at an early date, perhaps to-morow, that the Government will consider this matter and deal with it. I have done my best to expedite it as much as possible, but owing to circumstances over which I had no control, there has been delay and we are doing now all we can to expedite a decision on the question. In regard to the number of determinations, the total number which has been made and put into force by the wage board is 11 (enumerated) Owing to a certain judgment only five of them to-day are actually operative, but the other six are now in process of being put into force. Then, there are two recommendations which have been published waiting for objections. There are also certain recommendations which are about to be published and which have been submitted to the department. Further recommendations which are now in hand concern the shop assistants throughout the Union, store houses and warehouses at Durban, the Oudtshoorn tobacco industry and the whaling industry. The arbitration award is one in the mining industry. The number who are affected by the wage board determinations which are in operation are 5,964 employees, 385 employers. Those that are being investigated include 9,000 employees and 1,352 employers. The hon. member also asked whether I could make any statement on the unemployment question. I have a long list of figures which goes to show what this Government is doing to provide employment for civilised labourers. It is too long to read out, but compared with five years ago—well, there is no comparison—but of course yea cannot eliminate unemployment entirely, and I for one, have never professed to be able to do so. As fast as you absorb one lot, you might have an industry closing down for some reason or other and then there is further unemployment, but compared to five years ago there is no comparison whatever as to the extent of unemployment in South Africa.

The times are much better.

We have made them much better.

What rubbish.

By protecting industries and promoting industrial development. South Africa has gone ahead. There have been fewer insolvencies. The country has gone ahead on sounder and quicker lines than ever before. Hon. members there say we are lucky. Of course before we took office there was going to be ruination, industry would stagnate and capital would leave the country! There has been peaceful progress in industry in every town in South Africa. Take Port Elizabeth. Look at the number of factories that have sprung up there in the last 4 years and the number that have extended their promises.

And those you have closed.

There have been very few closed during the last 4 years. Take our building industry. For the last 3 or 4 years in every town in South Africa, there has been, and is to-day, unprecedented building activity. Is not that a sign of confidence and progress? Only this morning I saw in the “Cape Times” the annual meeting of the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce and what was the big heading?— “Prosperous times ahead.” If the South African party comes into power and if they adopt the policy which they adopted before, then you can say good-bye to your prosperity in South Africa and you can say good-bye to your industrial peace in South Africa. If the people of South Africa are foolish enough to return the South African party to power we shall go ack to the days when there was nothing but tremendous unemployment, stagnation of trade, industrial disputes and upheavals costing the country-thousands of pounds and creating much bitterness. That is unless the leopard can change its spots. If it can, things might be different, but otherwise we will go back to the old days that South Africa has been very glad to get away from. I will give any hon. member that likes a copy of the details of the number of unskilled labourers we have placed in occupations who, had we not been in power, would have been out of work on account of the policy followed by the late Government.

I think that every Afrikaans-speaking member of this House has been painfully struck by the way in which the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) spoke about the poor white South Africans. He gave an impression that they are so bad that when they go to the towns they lapse completely. The hon. member said that when they came to the towns they deteriorated entirely, and my contention is that if they have good wages in the towns they can stand the course. The hon. member for Caledon has come out again to-day in the right colours of the South African party. He has again come forward as the spokesman,—we cannot put it in any other way,—of the South African party which has always fought us when we do anything for the poor whites. When we commenced giving work to the poor whites on the railways, did we get the least, assistance from the other side? They always opposed us, and what did the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) who was sitting next the hon. member for Caledon do? When he was Minister of Railways he put white people onto the streets and appointed natives in their place.

That is absolutely untrue.

The hon. member for Caledon indirectly advocated that natives should again be employed on the railways, let the poor whites manage as they could. As a South African I have always been sympathetic towards the poor Afrikanders in the country, and I know that this Government has done everything in its power to solve the poor white question. The hon. member for Caledon talks of going back to the land. We all say that, but I want to ask him whether this Government has done less than the previous Government.

Has it done more?

Much. Where the previous Government had a settlement system on a one-fifth basis we have made it one-tenth, and I can assure hon. members that owing to that very many bywoners are to-day landowners. I can mention numbers of such cases in my district where former bywoners are now land-owners. I must honestly say that the hon. member for Caledon has bitterly disappointed me to-day. We expect that sort of thing from the Natal members, and are accustomed to such speeches, but the hon. member for Caledon has again shown to-day how he is influenced by the atmosphere around him, and how the jingoistic Saps, have induced him to make such a speech, to look down on his own people, and to create the impression that our poor whites are so bad they cannot live in the towns. The hon. member for Caledon always claims to be such a true South African, and that he has so much sympathy for his own people, but to-day he has clearly shown what will happen if the South African party come into office again. I hope that will not occur for the sake of the interests of South Africa, but the hon. member has clearly proved what future there is for the poor whites if the S.A.P. does come into power, and it is good for the country to know it. A man on the front bench, the hon. member for Caledon, has spoken in that way, and I shall be very sorry for the poor whites if they come into power The hon. member spoke about wild schemes, did he mention one? If I were to enumerate the wild schemes which were undertaken by the previous Government then I should not be done at 11 o’clock to-night. How many millions of pounds have we not had to write off on irrigation schemes? How much on settlements? They kept on buying ground. For whom? For returned soldiers. Provided a man had a uniform he could get ground. Who paid for it? The taxpayer is to-day saddled with all the deficits and the writings down caused by the previous Government, and from whom did they buy the ground? All from S.A.P. supporters. There is, e.g., the scheme in the Hoopstad district which is called the Hendrik Theron settlement. How many settlers are left there to-day? I do not believe there is one. The opposite side ought never to speak about wild schemes. The party ought to feel ashamed. South Africa is flourishing to-day under this Government. The Minister has shown here what the Department of Labour is doing. I say that department has certainly justified its existence if it were Only for one thing, namely that strikes have been prevented, thereby enabling sound development of the country to take place. The strikes and riots have been succeeded by peace and quiet in industrial matters. Formerly, when all the strikes and unrest prevailed people became afraid to invest money here, but to-day anyone is prepared to do so because there is a Government which they know will preserve peace in South Africa, and that under it the investments are safe. I go so far as to say the Department of Labour has alone justified its existence by preserving the peace. I say again in conclusion that we might expect speeches like that of the hon. member for Illovo because we know that in his heart he hates everyone bearing an Afrikaans name, but we do not expect it from the hon. member for Caledon. I think that the hon. members in all their criticism are only thinking of the next election.

I only want to say that in my love for my people I do not refer to the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. M. L. Malan).

What about your speech?

In South Africa it is the old fixed policy of all of us, and of the whole Dutch Church to keep the poor whites away from the towns. Does the hon. member for Heilbron wish us to bring these people to the large cities?

We are going to give them just as big a chance there, and much more than on the countryside.

Then am I to understand that the hon. member advocates the people swarming into the towns?

If people die of hunger and we can give them a chance here, yes.

I hope that the doctrine of the hon. member for Heilbron will not be preached right through South Africa. It is a doctrine which will cause misfortune to our people more and more. It is generally acknowledged that we must do everything to keep them away from the towns and must try to employ them in agriculture, and my complaint against the Government is that it promised to solve the poor white question, and I say that it has not solved it in the way that it told the people it would, namely, that they should be kept away from the towns. If there is one thing to which the people and our whole Dutch Church is opposed then it is the flocking of our poor whites to the big towns and villages.

What if they have no work?

Ask any minister of religion working in the suburbs what the condition of the poor whites and their families is in the town.

I am speaking of the poor unemployed people.

I am speaking of the poor whites who are suited to the countryside, and I say that they must not be brought to the towns. I recently had a conversation with a minister of religion working in one of the suburbs, and he says that the great difficulty from day to day is the people who come from the country to the towns without a penny in their pockets.

I agree with that.

That is what I am advocating.

You did not put it that way.

The result is that when they come to the towns they get into surroundings where they sink still lower.

Did you not speak about the people employed on the railways?

The complaint is that the Minister does not make proper enquiry as to where the people come from. I know of young fellows who came from farms and bitterly regretted it, and who later told me privately that they ought to make thorough enquiries about the people employed on the railways. Our policy must be to keep the people on the land as much as possible. That is all I meant by my criticism, which is that I think that it is not enough. It is no use giving 22,000 poor whites work on the railways.

You admit therefore that we have done more than you did?

There are 22,000 people on the railways to-day—

It is better to earn 5s. than nothing.

I say that we must try everything to keep the people away from the big towns, and to encourage them to work on the land, and develop there as a healthy section of society.

I must really say, along with the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. M. L. Malan) that it is long since I have been so indignant as I was about the speech the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) made here this afternoon. It is quite true what the hon. member for Heilbron says, that, where the Natal newspapers and the press speak about the poor whites employed on the railways as “white kaffirs,” and When we hear how another newspaper says that it introduces a lowering tone into a town when the Afrikaans-speaking poor people come there, then we may expect the Natal members to talk in that way. We heard the other day of a high official in Natal who says that since poor whites have come there things are worse.

Who says that?

It is a highly-placed official; I do not wish to mention names.

Hon. members can read it in the newspaper, and I am prepared to give the hon. member the name privately. If then such comments are made by hon. members from Nata], we may expect it, but not from a man who states he loves his people so much, who has so much love for his people and his church, and says that the Afrikanders are sinking in the towns, and accuses us of luring the people at a wage of 5s. or 6s. from the countryside. No one is sent to the countryside to say to the people: “Come to the towns.”

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.8. p.m.

When the House adjourned I was expressing our indignation at the remarks of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige). He moreover used a very ugly expression which I will not repeat.

What was it?

State it.

The hon. member for Caledon said that the poor whites who come to the towns cohabit with a bad part of the population.

No.

I accept that the hon. member does not know what he said.

Shame.

The hon. member cannot deny that he used the words, we all heard them, but I take it that at the moment he did not know what he was saying, or that he did not mean it in that way. I do not want to be unfair to him.

To a point of order. I said that when the people came into the big towns they got into surroundings that degraded them. Those were my words.

The hon. member then admits that he used the words, but I accept that he did not know the meaning of the words, or that he made a slip of the tongue. I do not want to be unfair, and I want to accept his statement. The hon. member further said that this Government was engaged, and he said it repeatedly in attracting the poor white from the countryside to the towns.

That is so.

The hon. member says that it is so. There has never yet been a Government official on the countryside inviting the people to come to the towns. The people came to the towns of their own accord, and it has not only gone on recently under the Nationalist Government, but there has been for years a stream from the countryside to the towns. For the last 25 years people have written and spoken about finding means of looking after the people who flocked into the towns, and if they could find no work to send them back to the land. If hon. members look at the census figures for previous years they will see how alarmingly great the rush from the countryside to the towns has been for years. But what we did was to give the people on the countryside as much as possible a livelihood, so that they could remain on the land. By land settlement schemes and the like we have tried to help them. We have assisted thousands of people to remain on the countryside in settlements. Under the new Land Settlement Act more than 11,000 people have been assisted, and are to-day landowners. That is the way we have assisted, but we may not lightly take people from the towns to the countryside. We cannot, for instance, just put them in the dry Karroo. Many of the people from the towns cannot do anything on the countryside. They will perhaps stand it a few months, but will then die of want and and return to the towns. It is no use sending country people who cannot make a living in the towns hack to the countryside. Irrigation works have first to be provided, and we cannot make them available in a short period, and tell the people that they can go and live there. Where therefore in recent years there has been a strong industrial development in the towns it goes without saying that the people stream from the countryside to the towns. In most towns large industries have arisen, and why should we prevent the people from earning a proper living there. That is why we are now seeing that the factory wages are not too low, so that the white factory worker can make a proper living. With that object the wages in the factories are being inquired into by the Wage Board, and they are at present going into the wages in shops. Hon. members will have noticed from the evidence given at this enquiry whit starvation wages are paid even in the Cape Town shops. It is a scandal to see from the newspaper reports of the enquiry the wages paid to people who have been with an employer for six or seven years. We must make provision for the people living on the countryside, but also for those in the towns. As our industries develop we must see that the poor people also get their share. We find an example of it at Port Elizabeth, where 20 years ago a small congregation of the Dutch Church was established with 150 members. It was a poor congregation, but to-day it numbers 3,000 members, and they have two parsons. The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Gibaud) will admit that those people living in the towns are very respectable people who earn their living well, and one need not be ashamed to go into their houses. They lead a respectable life and we must see that the people get a living, and a proper wage so that they shall not sink, and they can give their children a good education.

What about the poor people working on the railways?

When a man goes under on the land, and cannot make a living, then we do not act like the previous Government and allow them to fail, but we say: “Come and work on the railways. Yon will not earn much, but if you behave well and do your work you will be promoted.” In that way we have already put on the permanent staff 5,000 young men who joined as ordinary labourers. That is what the present Government has done. It is different from the action of the previous Government, who drove Europeans off the railways, and employed natives.

There is just one point.

I want to correct the statement made by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. M. L. Malan) when he said that I dismissed Europeans in the Railway Service.

You replaced them by natives.

You are just wrong. I happen to have here the evidence on this point This is the evidence given before the select committee on railways just recently. Dr. Visser was in the chair and the evidence is dated the 8th of March. This is the question that was put by him to Mr. More, “Have you any information to place before us?” The reply was. “Yes, on Thursday last the chairman requested to be informed how many European staff were actually displaced by coloured or black people during the period 1922-’24.” That was when I was in office. Then Maj. G. B. van Zyl asked whether any European was dismissed during the same period to make room for coloured or black labour, and, if so, how many. The answer is, “during the period 1922-’24 European staff were not displaced in the sense that their services were terminated to make room for non-Europeans.” I am just giving the evidence that is here. That is clear enough.

You filled the white wastage with black labour.

You are wrong. Here are the figures—

Well, that is all light, that is not dismissal, not a single one. These were transferred from lines like the Hutchinson-Carnarvon-Calvinia line, the worst paying of the system. The evidence shows that the position during the period in question was that the European staff in 1922 was 38,409 and in 1924 39,819; the non European staff had also increased from 37,731 in 1922 to 47,787 in 1924. Statements have been made which are absolutely untrue. I never dismissed European men from the service for the purpose of replacing them with coloured men or natives. I know it served a very good purpose to serve up this falsehood during election time, and it is repeated now, but it has been proved to be absolutely untrue.

The evidence has not been sought by myself, but has been brought up by the Select Committe on Railways and Harbours, of which I am not a member, of which the hon. member for Vrededorp (Dr. Visser) is the chairman. The Minister lays tremendous stress on the fact that during the last four years there has been no unrest, but everybody who knocks about in the world knows that in the first place the “leaders of disturbance” are now in office where they have the big plums, and scores of their supporters have also got minor plums. We saw it to-day—there are scores of men who have been taken into office in one way or another and have been found billets—put on commissions—and of course it stands to reason— that naturally these men are going to keep the peace. When one of them is particularly obstrepeous he is provided for. Only the other day a man was provided with a billet as a director of a company —as the Government representative.

Do you really believe that?

It is not a question of belief, but of knowledge. Out of office they would not have the same incentive to keep the peace.

That is a very strong argument in favour of keeping these men in office.

I quite agree, but it is rather an expensive business, all the same.

I think if a balance sheet was made up it would be found to be on the right side.

So long as you find jobs for them they will keep the peace. My hon. friend (Mr. Boydell) claims that this Government brought prosperity on the country. A bigger piece of folly I have not heard for a considerable time. As a matter of fact the tide turned, or was on the point of turning when the last Parliament was dissolved and if we had remained in office for another three or six months we should have had the benefit of that. There is not the remotest shadow of a doubt about that.

I did not say anything.

My hon. friend has more sense.

Why does the hon. member think I said so?

I am referring to your friends who are supporting you. It is a mistake we made, going out of office a little too early. There would be a little more prosperity still if we had kept in.

The “tide was turning” for ten years when you were in office.

Let the Minister stick to the truth.

You were always “turning the corner”—for ten years

There is another matter to which I would like to draw attention—the way in which industries are being harassed. We are being overwhelmed with inspectors of all kinds. [Time limit.]

I should like to say a few words with reference to the speeech of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) who is such a champion of the poor whites to-day. He spoke as if we were drawing the poor people from the countryside to the towns and the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) said what great champions of the poor whites they were, and the hon. member for Caledon made the impression that the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. M. L. Malan) was in favour of the poor people being brought into the towns. What the hon. member for Heilbron said was that the people who to-day get 5s. a day at Government work are people who went under with their families in Cape Town under the previous Government, and that we are now assisting them Under the S.A.P. Government they were in a terrible vondition, and were left to their fate, and the hon. member for Heilbron wanted to show that the people were very grateful for the opportunity of working and of earning 5s. a day.

Do you think a man can live on that in Cape Town?

It is much better than nothing. How will the hon. member live on nothing? The hon. member for Caledon made out that the people were being drawn away from the farms and brought to the towns. I now want to ask hon. members opposite whether they have ever supported any attempts made by the Government to help on these people, whether they ever assisted the Government in this difficult task? The hon. member for Heilbron clearly showed what was being done by land settlement. The countryside is evidence of it. The amount which must be paid as a first instalment has been made much smaller, and the time for repayment much extended. This has assisted thousands of people to remain on the countryside and become land-owners. I want to give a few figures to show what the Government has done. During the last four years of the S.A.P. Government the following amounts were spent under the Land Settlement Act: £613,000, £450,000, £350,000 and £520,000. The Nationalist Party Government during its four years has spent: £700,000. £850,000, £663,000 and £760,000, and when we talk of what the Government is doing we must not forget the £200,000 which has been made available under the Agricultural Credits Act. Has the S.A.P. Government ever made an attempt to assist the class of man who has absolutely no credit? The Agricultural Credits Act is one of the best institutions for the countryside, to keep people on the farms. If a farmer has two sons and cannot give them a farm, then they can get a loan under the Agricultural Credits Act, even if they have not the least credit, while otherwise they would probably sink down to the town. I want to give a few more figures in connection with the Land Bank.

Who established that?

There was a Land Bank in the Transvaal and the Free State, and it was subsequently amalgamated into a Land Bank for the Union, but the S.A.P. Government did not establish it. In the last five years of its Government the Land Bank was given: £300,000, £250,000, £500,000, £500,000, £500,000, while the Nationalist party Government voted £850,000, £1,025,000, £558,000 and £400,000. Did the hon. member for Cradock and his friends assist the Government in connection with the poor whites? Then just let my hon. friends say how it is that they criticise the policy of the Government every year in appointing Europeans on the railways. If they are so anxious to help, why do they attack the Government every year? What has happened with regard to the Wages Act? During the last few years it has come out how the people in the large crites have worked for native wages. Now it is always said that the Government will apply the Act to the farmers as well, but has the Government made an atempt to do so? Do the hon. members support the Government to see that proper wages are paid to the people in the towns? Those champions of the poor whites did nothing during their fourteen years. They merely crossed their hands, and then they come and say we pay native wages, but they oppose every improvement and every scheme which the Government undertakes to help the people.

Year by year when we are in Committee we have the same kind of discussion that we have heard this evening [Hear, hear.] I am glad of these “hear, hears,” because I realise that the hearts of hon. members opposite burst with patriotic feeling for their less fortunate fellow-countrymen. The patriotism, however, is of such a high character, that it only impels them to spend the money of the State in assisting their unfortunate fellows without spending any money of their own. I am prepared to throw out the challenge, not only to the farming members, but to every member on the Government side of the House, to give me a schedule showing how many of these unfortunate white people—for whom their hearts bleed—they employ and what remuneration they pay them. Although I am not South African born I am prepared to give a schedule of the number of those employed by all the farming operations with which I am associated and the remuneration they receive. When I travel through the country, and when I listen to hon. member opposite—I do not want to mention their names—and when I hear the patriotic sentiments they utter, and when I compare that with the very few stesp they take to spend their own money to improve the position of these unfortunate people, then I can only describe their patriotism as a hollow cry thrown out for the purpose of catching votes.

Have you been to my farm?

I have given you the challenge. The challenge is not to you alone, but to every hon. member opposite. My experience has been that a large number of people—unfortunately also the farming population—-who bleat so loudly in public in the interests of the poorer section of the population, do not go so far as to put their hands in their pockets to find them employment. When the question of providing them with work arises, the reply we very often get is—

(I prefer a black man to a white, as I can kick him when I want to.)

If these gentlemen would employ only one family each it would not be necessary to have the condition of affairs that now exists. You must not always knock at the Treasury doors, but should say that you are prepared to do your duty. Then it would not be necessary for these unfortunate people to leave the land to find employment in towns under conditions which are entirely unsuitable to them. Hon. members opposite assert that the late administration never did anything for these people. Will the Minister of Labour tell me how many people are employed on his forest village settlements?

Eight hundred.

When I left office, 1,000 were employed, and they and their descendants totalled 4,000. Not alone were they employed at 6s. 4d. a day, but I said that those who so desired could do piece work, with the result that some of them made from £20 to £21 per month, many of them working by lamplight so as to accumulate as much money as they could in order to re-establish themselves on the land. A large number of them succeeded in doing that. When we dealt with Hartebeestpoort 450 of them did gangers’ work, and when it was necessary to reinforce the foundations of the dam, in order to prevent heavy loss they worked right through the winter, and the engineer in charge reported that he had never had finer workmen under him in Europe. The order issued by the late Government that when those lands at Hartebeestpoort were given out the men who remained behind and finished that work were the first to get an opportunity of taking, under State assistance, small irrigable blocks under the Hartebeestpoort Dam. When you hear these gentlemen praising so much what they, and they alone, have done for the people of the country, perhaps it is rather necessary that the truth should be told. I would like again to see in to-morrow morning’s “Die Burger.”

In the “Cape Times.”

Anyhow, the “Cape Times” does not issue cartoons to divide the two sections of the people of this country. That could only be expected in the gutter press. Cartoons at a time of this sort for the purpose of dividing the people, are to my mind among the most scandalous things, even for political purposes, that it is possible to contemplate. Let each one of the hon. gentlemen opposite, who have done so much for employing these people, give to that paper a schedule of the number of these people they employ, and of the wages they pay them.

In an insulting speech the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) has praised himself a good deal tonight. He has already on many occasions praised himself a good deal in this country, and yet the country has found it out, because after he had been a Minister for a short time the country saw to it that he should no longer be one, at any rate for a long time. I will not follow him in the insulting way he addressed the House. He says that he does not know whether he must call us hon. members or not. I think that a member who has the title of right honourable, should not make himself guilty of such speeches in the House. What does he say? He says that the farmers in the country do not employ any white labourers. If he will accompany me through my constituency he will see that no farmer, who can afford it, can be found who has not at least one or two Europeans with their families employed there. I challenge the hon. member, I must say right honourable, because that is his title, that I will take him to many places where the are families of white labourers, and they are not farmers who are using money of other people under the name of a syndicate, but who are working on their own account. They are not people who come and make speeches of self-praise here. I wonder what dividends and interest the people got who are connected with the hon. member for Fort Beaufort in farming. I wonder what interest and dividends have been made in the last 20 or 30 years out of that farming.

He will not listen.

That is his way. He is an older member, and right honourable, and we must listen to what he says, and to his insulting speeches and inaccuracies he perpetrates in his excitement. I do not know whether it is necessary to deal with such speeches, because the public outside have found the hon. member out, notwithstanding all the speeches in which he praises himself, and notwithstanding the “Cape Times,” “Cape Argus,” and all the newspapers behind him. The people in the country know how they must treat the speeches. The hon. member did not make a success of his farming in the past, nor of his politics. But I now come to the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). He also made an unworthy speech. In the first place I want to say that it appears from the figures he quoted himself that during the period he was in office, the number of white officials on the railways increased by less than 1,000, whereas the non-Europeans increased by 10,000.

1,500 Europeans.

No, it was not so much, but even if it was 1,500 it proves our statement. The railways are extending, and the policy of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) was that, notwithstanding the large extension, the number of non-European workmen increased by 10,000 and the Europeans by a small number. I know what took place in my constituency.

I have the figures here to contradict the lie.

I will not ask the hon. member to withdraw that. He is old enough to know better than to use such language. There was a porter in my constituency who was transferred, and a native appointed. It is said that it was a branch line. On the line to Klaver white workmen, people who did gangers work, were transferred to places like Natal, and many felt so ill at home in that hospitable Natal, which is represented by a small body of people who shout so much and have too much representation here, that they preferred to leave the service to remaining in Natal. Why was it made so very unpleasant for them. Because they did not belong to the race to which most Natal people belong. Instead of the men who were sent to Natal, non-Europeans were appointed.

How many votes is a speech like this worth?

The hon. member is trying to be funny, but he is only making himself ridiculous. Hon. members opposite say that they have laid down the basis for improvement in the country, and that this came when the Nationalist party came into office. The S.A.P. so frightened the country about the Nationalists that many people gradually commenced to believe the stories and had no confidence in the country and its future. As soon as a change of Government came things changed, because people placed confidence in the new Government, and prosperity came which we still have to-day, and as long as a population of a country has confidence in its Government the country will progress. May I refer hon. members to the speeches of the directors of banks, of the Reserve Bank, the Standard Bank and the Barclays Bank. Notwithstanding the drought the country has prospered in such a way, and the director of the Reserve Bank says that a good and successful future may be expected. I only want to say in connection with the drought that hon. members opposite argue that we ought not to allow people to come to the towns. Now I want to tell hon. members that in my constituency there are places where it has not rained for three years. When a man comes and says, “I have not had rain on my farm for three years, and am dying of starvation, get me work on the railways,” and I can then get work in Cape Town or elsewhere, am I to tell him that he must remain and die on his farm? Does the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) want that? Must the man die of hunger in the Karroo, and not come away from it?

See that he has a house when he comes here.

We are improving his position, I do not know what the hon. member did formerly, whether he was a bywoner or lived on his own land, but I say that the previous Government allowed the people to die of distress, while this Government is doing something. Notwithstanding the great capitalistic press which is opposing the Government, the country knows what the Government is doing.

The right hon. the member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) always gets excited in his post-prandial speeches. One must excuse him. What an agument to put forward on Government policy ’ The hon. member, after all, runs his farm with other people’s money, because I take it that in the Smartt Syndicate he is not the only shareholder. Now the hon. member must not get excited. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) must also not get excited. In the Smartt syndicate the hon. member for Fort Beaufort has, naturally, got shareholders with him, and they have done a certain amount of good, but that is no reason why these people should get up and challenge men on the other side to say how many white people they employ. If you were to carry that argument to its logical conclusion the best man in this House is the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) because he is the largest employer. The second best man is the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) and the third best is myself, on the score of employing people in South Africa. That is how we work out in Parliament—the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) first, then the hon. member) for Newlands and then myself. But that is no argument, because if wo were to reduce it to an absurdity the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards) would be very, very bad, because he employs a large number of natives at a very low wage, and no white men at all. The hon. member says that is not quite correct. I would like the hon. member to give to this House the police report on the natives on his farm. Let us carry it a little bit further. Then we have to talk about the wages given to these people, the things that we have seen in the “Cape Times” during the last few days about the wages that are being paid by some of the wealthy people of Cape Town, all supporters of the Labour party, I have no doubt, all supporters of the Nationalist party, I have no doubt. Some of the largest people in Cape Town are paying some of the poorest wages in South Africa, sweated wages.

made an interjection.

I am including the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Sir. Jagger) for one moment. I do not want to attack the hon. member, for whom I have an enormous regard. I am only pointing out that the low wages paid in Cape Town have been shown up through a certain amount of expenditure on the part of the Labour Department. It is probably the most scandalous state of things this Parliament has ever heard of. I do not want to go into that, because the board is still sitting, and it would not be right for me to do so. My hon. friend, the Minister, has been attacked on account of the expenditure of his department. Let us take the expenditure of the S.A.P. Government on account of the disturbances on the Rand in 1922. It amounted to £225,000. That was only money. Let us take men. On the side of the Government there were killed or died of wounds 76 people, wounded 237. On the side of the strikers 140 men were killed, and 287 wounded. Among the natives there were 31 killed and 67 wounded, making a total number of casutlties in that particular strike of 828 people. Further. 651 citizens were sent to gaol for various terms, 11 were sentenced to death, and 4 were executed. That is the South African party. It cost the country £225,000 and all these casualties. Surely it is much better for this country to spend £200,000 a year on a Labour Department, and save these lives and have no industrial disputes at all. That is the answer, that this is the only dominion in the British commonwealth of nations which for years has had no serious strikes. The result to-day is that there are a large number of capitalists who, though they are S.A.P. in their political outlook, would not like to see this Government go. They get to-day proper rest in their industries. I do not want to hear this cheap talk from Natal, which is really a part of Madagascar and not a part of South Africa. I want to point out that this country to-day is enjoying rest in its industries, and is forging ahead, and instead of losing ground, we are gaining ground. We are now on the fringe of enormous development right through the country. It is due to the fact that we have got rest here that we never had before. I do not want to go much further. I have been in public life for a long time, on and off—

And many phases of public life.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort need not worry. He says, “and many phases.” As a reporter I remember the right hon. gentleman a member of the Bond, and I remember the right hon. gentleman taking a somersault and becoming a member of the Progressives, and then I remember his going a little bit further and becoming a Unionist. Then he became a Progressive again, and then, to get a seat in the Cabinet, he became an S.A.P. If there has ever been anybody in South Africa who has turned political somersaults, it is my old friend, the hon. member for Fort Beaufort. Let that be. It is only his Irish temperament, I was going to say this, and I say it with all seriousness, I have never heard a more dastardly attack upon the Dutch-speaking people than I heard from the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) tonight. I took the hon. member’s words down, because I was surprised that he made it. Speaking about the Dutch-speaking people who had been divorced from the land he said they come to the towns, and as soon as our people come to the big cities, they suffer from the depravity and cohabit. Then he shut up. I took the hon. member’s words down here.

made an interjection.

The hon. member cannot get away from what he said. There are 40,000 miners on the Rand to-day who are divorced from the land. Are we to take it that these men are depraved? There are thousands and thousands of people who were born and bred on the land who to-day are working on the railways and working on the mines. Are we to take it that they are depraved because they have gone to the towns? If that is all the Dutch-speaking people are worth, then there is no hope for the South African nation. But it is untrue. It is an insult to one of the best parts of our stock in South Africa, an absolute insult, and I am sorry it has come from a Dutch-speaking man. It is an insult to say that when your people come to the towns they become depraved. It is worse than an insult because the hon. member is not the only one who said so. I am talking about a statement made in cold blood by one of the leaders of the South African party in this House.

It is not correct.

Of course it is not correct, but if the hon. member will allow me to make my own speech I will make it. I say the hon. member sitting alongside him the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Sir William Macintosh) he did not say these people were depraved; he called them civilised loafers. The right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) called them white kaffirs. The hon. member (Sir William Macintosh) cannot get away from it. If the hon. member will turn up his Hansard he will see there is a dagger where he corrected it. The dagger is there because you took it out, that is why. If he looks at my Hansard he will never find a dagger there because I never change them. I am prepared to stand by what I say, not to say things and then change them. The hon. member said it and he cannot get away from it.

Tt is not true.

It is true: He called them civilised loafers. I ask the hon. members here who sneer at the people who come to the towns, is it true these men become depraved? Take the drivers of your railway engines. They were all men who came to the towns and made good. Take a thing I know something about, the printing offices in South Africa to-day. Most of the men working on the linotypes and the big machines, men earning up to £12 a week, are the sons of men sent into the towns, Dutch-speaking men. The best thing this Government has ever done was to bring these men into industry.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) said that he never looked at Hansard, and never corrected his speeches. I think that is the most sensible thing he can do, because then he takes no responsibility, and can say that he never revised them. He says he has been long in politics, and those who have been with them know how much value to attach to what he says. Now it has been continually said to-day that the S.A.P. did. noting during its period of office.

Very little.

You did a lot of harm.

The hon. member for Boshoff (Mr. van Rensburg) said at the end of his speech that the previous Government sat for fourteen years with its hands crossed and did nothing for the poor whites. Does he believe that?

Yes.

Then he is so ignorant that I do not know how to describe it.

Let us hear a little of what you all know.

Who commenced the afforestation with the definite object of giving proper work to unemployed-people, together with housing, and proper pay and advantages for the education of their children?

Started, but not prosecuted.

The hon. member is saying something which he knows not to be correct. The S.A.P. commenced, and prosecuted their work, and if the Minister of Agriculture were here he would say that he had taken it over in a flourishing condition. Who commenced the policy of employing poor whites on the railway?

They were discharged afterwards. That is no use.

It was the idea of the late Gen. Botha, and when the S.A.P. Government resigned there were already some thousands employed on the railways. Someone here says that there were 38,000, but if that is not right perhaps the hon. member for Boshoff (Mr. van Rensburg) will correct us. The Land Settlement Act was started by the S.A.P., and progress was made. I admit in this connection that the S.A.P. Government said that, if a man paid one-fifth, the Government would pay four-fifths, and that this Government has reduced it to one-tenth.

Is that not a great deal?

Yes, but I am afraid that it is a little too much. I fear we shall find out that there will be cases where such people will not succeed, and that we shall suffer much loss in consequence. Besides, as far as I know, it was a Bill which was found in the office when the present Minister of Lands assumed duty. The S.A.P., therefore, had already thought of going so far, although I think it is going too far. In any case it is a legacy from the S.A.P. Then there is the Industrial Conciliation Act. It is one which was passed by the previous Government, and from the time it became law there were no further difficulties in connection with strikes. There are other matters. Mention is only made of strikes and what they cost in life and money, but it must not be forgotten that when the troubles came and there were strikes, and the leaders of the S.A.P. did all they could to prevent trouble, that the leaders of the Opposition then assumed a different attitude. Did not a deputation go to the present Minister of Justice in Pretoria? What did the present Prime Minister do? There was a secret meeting at Witbank and, up to to-day, we do not know what took place there, but the day afterwards one heard everywhere in the streets, “You can go on, help will be given.” When a Government has trouble in connection with a strike, and the leaders of the other parties do all in their power to incite the strikers, then it is practically a matter of course that it is impossible to prevent trouble, and it came. Therefore I think that more responsibility and guilt for blood actually rests on the leaders of the Opposition. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) said that the result of their policy was not to bring the people from the country to the towns. I think in fact that it was one of the results.

We say that we do not lure them.

What is luring? If I call fowls, I throw mealies on a spot, and the fowls come there. I do not know what the hon. member for Gordonia means by luring, but I can quote two cases of families who were lured away from the countryside. The two men came and asked for more pay. The farmer said that he could not give it, and that he could actually manage without them, but did not want to stand in their way. The men then said that they would rather go and work for the Government because they would get more money there.

What was the Government to do.

The Government should give work to people who are unemployed, hut they must not take people away from their work. I know of a friend of mine who had a capable young fellow, who gave notice and left. When he saw him again he was in the railway service. The same happened with two other labourers. I therefore say that the policy of the Government has the effect of many people being drawn away from their jobs, and that they go away because they get work under the Government. Political capital is now being made of what was said by the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige). [Time limit.]

I was trying to remain quiet, and did not intend to speak, but one really has to ask whether people are in earnest in such speeches as have been made here. I have listened since last night to the speeches about the unfortunate Doornkop affair, and it surely cannot be argued away that the Minister of Labour made a big mistake by mixing himself up with the kind of people who are always around every Government like a lot of birds of prey. It was possibly the same under the previous Government. This kind of people always come with great schemes for solving the poor white question, merely to fill their own pockets. I think the Minister has learnt a great lesson, and that hon. members who have pointed out the scandalous conditions have rendered a great service to the country, although some members have taken exception to their action. That kind of person always represents himself as a great patriot wanting to put things right in the country. Hon. members opposite now say, notwithstanding that they know better than when we were in power, nothing was done for the poor people, but surely they were to put everything right. They have not yet been five years in office, and the troubles are already starting, and one sees what mistakes they have made.

Have you never yet made a mistake?

We all make mistakes. Possibly the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) as well. Let me admit that the previous Government made mistakes, but this surely does not justify hon. members in saying that the previous Government did nothing to solve the poor white question. The hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. G. A. Louw) just mentioned what I wanted to say. I will not repeat it, but it is true, that our Government commenced with land settlement and afforestation and the jobs on the railways for the poor whites. When We discuss the poor whites everybody gets very serious, but it seems to me that the votes of those people have much to do with it, and things are being said which they do not do themselves. I think that I have had to do with the poor white question as much as anyone here. I do not like praising myself, but if there is anyone who has greatly assisted the poor white people to get work, and also Government employment, then it is I. I must say that when people came to me for work, it was mostly a pleasure to me to do anything for them. I got work for many people on the railways under the previous Government, and also under this, but it cannot be argued away that several of them have not been a success. There are people in my constituency who went to the towns poor, and who were a success, and went ahead, but on the other hand I have had bitter disappointments with some people who went from the countryside to the towns. We cannot argue away that people come into touch with wrong elements and are not a match for the kind of blackguard you find in some towns. We must admit that some people have retrogressed, although I admit that others have progressed. There is no doubt that the spirit on the countryside is to go to the towns and villages, but we must be careful that we do not bring too many people to the towns. Too many people are being given Government jobs to-day. Where five or six are required, ten are employed, and the people are paid 5s. without any chance of advancement. What chance have they to get on? They get 5s. and have to remain at that.

Suggest what ought to be done.

The hon. member now asks my advice, but they were going to put everything right. I like to advise if I can, but the poor white question is a very difficult one, and it will remain as it is for a long time. Unfortunately, politics are always dragged into it. We must try to get rid of that. We must commence with ourselves and try to do something. I do not want to accuse the hon. member for Boshoff (Mr. van Rensburg), and other hon. members; perhaps, they are doing their duty, but there are people on the countryside who are not doing it. I do not say that there are hon. members amongst them, but we can point out what can be done for the poor people. I agree with the hon. member for Fort Beaufort. (Sir Thomas Smartt) when he says that we shall be much nearer the solution if every white man will employ a few of them on his farm. I do not want to praise myself, but I have lived to see the fruit in connection with the people and their children whom I have assisted to get work. We must not come here and insult each other, let us begin with ourselves. Hon. members must not say that the South African party have done nothing, it is a difficult matter, and, perhaps, they did not succeed in all respects, but they did a great deal. Take Hartebeestpoort. The South African party Government commenced that and hon. members opposite are now reaping what we sowed. The poor people must be assisted in such a way that they have a chance of living and getting on. We cannot employ people in the Government service, and give them no chance of advancement. Have we not got enough officials in the country?

I move—

By Labour, too !

The gag !

What did the hon. member say?

The gag.

Will the hon. member withdraw it immediately?

rose and bowed assent.

Upon which the committee divided:

I move—

from the item “Minister”, £2 500.

On a question of public policy.

It must be a round sum.

£220 then. On a question of public policy—the wrongful expenditure of public funds in transport expenses in carrying the Minister by Government garage car from his residence at Benoni to Pretoria, and also at Pretoria for other than public purposes. No doubt members who take some interest in the Auditor-General’s report will have noticed that the Auditor-General has called the attention of this House and of the country to the lavish expenditure of the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs and of Public Works. He points out that the highest expenditure recorded in the annals of the Parliament of this country has been expended by the hon. the Minister, namely, £949 in motor transport in one year. Now the next highest expenditure by any Minister, as pointed out by the Auditor-General, was in 1924-’25 of £459. That was also by a Pact Minister. The rule governing the transportation of ministers is exactly the same as that which applies to civil servants, and that is that it is no concern of the State how one reaches the place where normally his duties are carried on, or how he gets back to his place of residence. The only exception to that rule is the one that applies to the Prime Minister, who has a motor-car at his disposal. Recently the Pact Government has seen fit to alter that rule by providing that Ministers shall be entitled while Parliament is sitting to have the use of a motor-car to transport them from their residence to Parliament. I do not for one moment say that the Minister did this knowing that he had no right to use the car between his residence at Benoni and Pretoria. I believe he thought this was one of the “sweets of office” which he was entitled to enjoy; and he had a large appetite which it was difficult to satisfy. I think the Minister was not aware that he was not acting in the terms of the rule that had been laid down in respect of the use of motor-cars by Ministers. The Auditor-General noticed during his audit that the Minister was spending 14s. every day travelling from the railway station, apparently, to the Union Buildings. He states in the report that he went and saw the Prime Minister to ascertain whether the rule which had been laid down had been altered in any way. The Prime Minister, according to the Auditor-General, replied that the rule had not been altered. The Prime Minister then asked the Auditor-General whether he would overlook this matter on account of the Minister not being aware that he was not entitled to travel by car from the station to the Union Buildings. The Auditor-General, in his report, says: “Under the circumstances, I waive my objection,” but, shortly after this, it came to his notice that the Minister was travelling from Pretoria all the way home to Benoni on many days at a cost to the State of £5 to £6 a day.

Good gracious !

When the Auditor-General noticed this very heavy expenditure, he thought it was time to put a stop to it, and he reported the matter, according to his report, to the Minister of Finance. He gave the Minister of Finance a comparative statement showing the expenditure of Ministers. The Auditor-General, in his report, goes on to say that the comparative statement shows that the Minister of Justice has only spent an amount of £14, as against £581 up to that date by the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and £272 by the Minister of Lands. This comparative statement the Minister of Finance promised to lay before the Cabinet, with the result that he was told the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs would personally pay that portion of the Bill that he could not satisfy the Auditor-General was incurred for public purposes. The Auditor-General then took steps to debate an account so as to ascertain exactly what amount the Minister had used for other than public purposes. The Minister’s private secretary, who, I understand, is called “Charlie”, then debated the account with the Auditor-General, and £221 15s. was the agreed amount which the Minister had used for other than public purposes; in other words, that he had used for his own private use. The Auditor-General thereupon called upon the Minister to pay the amount, and, according to the Auditor-General, on the 8th April, 1927, the Minister agreed to accept liability for the amount. I must say that when I read that report of the Auditor-General I certainly had a sneaking admiration for the manly way in which the Minister said: “I admit I am liable for this amount, and I will pay it. I offer to pay in monthly instalments of £20”. But when this offer was made to the Auditor-General he referred it again to the”Treasury, and he was advised by the Minister of Finance, who is a colleague of the Minister sitting there, that he could not accept the repayment of this liability by instalments of £20, but that the whole amount had to be paid by the 31st March, 1928. I may mention, for the information of the House, that the Minister had offered to meet this liability in monthly instalments of £20, reckoned from the 1st October, 1927. Upon the Auditor-General calling upon the Minister to pay the whole of this liability, in terms of the Treasury instructions, by the 31st March, 1928, the Minister felt that it was too much of a good thing to have to pay the whole of this amount in such a short period, that it was lopping off part of the “sweets of office” which he was enjoying, and he then went whining to the Prime Minister, and said: “Please help me out of this trouble”. That is where I blame the Minister. Had the Minister carried out his admission and paid the amount, I am certain that all members in this House would have acclaimed the Minister as having done what was right and his duty, but the Minister, when he was called upon to pay, ran away from the liability. The Prime Minister then wrote to the Auditor-General. [Letter read.] In point of fact a portion of that statement is not correct, that portion which states that the rule was that Ministers were entitled to use motor-cars for travelling from their homes to wherever their offices are. I say the Prime Minister’s statement that that was the rule is incorrect. I now refer to the reply which the Auditor-General made, namely—

The Auditor-General makes it perfectly clear that ever since he was Auditor-General the rule that was laid down was, there was no exception so far as Ministers were concerned in travelling from their homes to their place of business. The only exception was when last year, or the year before, the Pact Government allowed themselves a few more sweets of office by deciding that, in Cape Town, Ministers would be entitled to use Government cars from their homes to Parliament. I think it is perfectly clear, according to the Auditor-General’s report and according to the existing rule, that the Minister is liable to refund the amount for which he admitted liability. I view the Minister’s tendency to waste public funds in joy-rides as a very serious matter, serious because it creates an atmosphere of extravagance and is a bad example to the staff and the service generally. The action of the Prime Minister also does not commend itself to me. The Prime Minister, I submit, had no right to ask the Auditor-General to overlook the Minister’s liability, and the Auditor-General made it perfectly clear he was not willing to do so, and he left it to Parliament to decide whether the Prime Minister should be allowed to cancel the liability. The Prime Minister has no right or prerogative to flout his own regulations, because the regulation governing the use of cars by Ministers is laid down in a minute of the Prime Minister of June, 1925, which is the same regulation as that previously made under a minute of 1921. Other Ministers who have done the same thing have had to refund the amount, and I want to ask the Minister why he was not manly enough to pay this amount for which he has admitted liability. The expenditure of this Government is growing to such an alarming extent that many taxpayers realize that the time is coming when there must be an alteration.

What a hope!

The Minister, for the sake of his own good name in the eyes of the people, should pay this amount, and should not have cavilled at paying it. I can quite visualize the hon. Minister travelling backwards and forwards at a cost to the country of £5 or £6 a day in a luxurious car, sitting with his private secretary, because, according to the Auditor-General’s report, his private secretary travelled with him. I can imagine him sitting with Charlie and saying to Charlie: “Charlie, what a happy day is this. How times have changed. Let us make hay while the sun shines, for we know not the day when a complete change may take place.”

May I tell you it was raining most of the time.

I think some blame should be attached to Charlie. I think Charlie should be compelled to pay half this amount. It is rather hard to call on the Minister to pay the whole amount, seeing that, according to the Auditor-General’s report, Charlie was also a culprit. Charlie was a grocer in Benoni, and I have no doubt it was very convenient for him to go back every night to count up his takings during the day. I would like to know from the Minister whether we may regard this as a criterion of what socialism in our time will be like, and if this is what the country might expect if by some miracle socialism in our time should come about in this country, and if this is a sample of what might happen. The matter is a little more serious than that. I say the Minister has not had any regard for the tax-payers or for economy, and he has wastefully expended the public funds, and that is my reason in introducing the motion as I have done. The Minister should have known, his common-sense, if he has any, should have told, him, that he had no right to spend £5 or £6 a day travelling from Pretoria to Benoni or Boksburg North. It sets a very bad example to the public service. We have many times complained about the enormous expenditure in the transportation of the public service and of Ministers, and this is the very thing that sets a bad example. I hope the Minister will now realize that in going to the Prime Minister and whining to the Prime Minister to let him off paying this amount, he made a very great mistake. Had the Minister paid this amount, I do not think anything would have been said in this House, because I take it the Minister did not know, although he should have known— and if he did not know, his secretary, Charlie, should have known—that he had no right to travel all the way from Pretoria to Benoni and hack. It is a matter which the country should take cognisance of. If we have Ministers spending £990 in motor-car expenses, then I say the time has come when this House should take cognisance of that. I do not know whether the Minister of Finance, who controls the purse of this country, agrees that a lavish amount of £990 is a fair amount for a Minister to spend in this way. The Auditor-General has pointed out this is the highest expenditure that has ever taken place by any Minister. The Minister of Finance gave instructions that the total amount was to be repaid by the 31st March. Had the Minister of Finance not given that instruction, I believe the Minister would have continued paying his £20 a month, but when he found he had to pay the whole amount, he thought “this is getting too thick. I must try and save the situation.” He has been fortunate so far, but I hope the House, by its vote, will show its disapproval of the Minister’s extravagance.

I should like to reply to a few points raised by the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel). Let me say at once that I am surprised that the hon. member for Newcastle who is a member of the Select Committee on Public Accounts made the attack this afternoon, when he knows that the whole matter is being dealt with by that Select Committee. The hon. member knows what is going on, and he knows that three-quarters of what he said is not correct, and yet he comes. I may say, in a shameless manner, and represents something which is not only admitted by the Nationalist members of the Select Committee as incorrect, but fortunately also by the sensible members of the South African party. But the South African party is politically so bankrupt that they take the least opportunity of getting a benefit from it. The hon. member knows that when the Select Committee’s report appears he cannot say what he said here to-night, and be cause the report is to be published to-morrow he got up to-night to make his attack. The hon. member knows that what he said is not correct, it is a pity that I may not make use of the report, but without it I shall endeavour to show that the hon. member’s statement was wrong. The use of Government motors between the office and residence of Ministers has been confined by the present Government to Cape Town only. I must say at once that I do not agree with that. Why cannot the Minister continue as in the past to make use of Government motors for official purposes in Pretoria and any other place? The right has always existed, but the Prime Minister has curtailed it.

That is not so.

It is so. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is not aware of the fact. If he waits until the report is published he will see what the evidence is of the officials for whom I have the highest respect. The difference is that while the present Minister used the motor to go from his house to his office or to public works, that in the past—this is no secret—Government motors were used by Ministers to fetch vegetables from the market. Motor cars were then used, and no note was kept of the distance travelled. The motors were used from morning to night and for all purposes. Hon. members know this, and especially the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel). He dare not wait for the report, and wants now to hurriedly try to create the impression in the public mind that the Minister has done something wrong. What is the position in connection with the Minister of Posts? The hon. member knows it. The Minister was not aware of the position and used the motor from his house to the office. That was a practice which was always recognised in the past.

Oh, no.

I do not say that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) did it, he has enough money to use his own motor car, but what about the previous Ministers for Defence and Finance? Wait until the evidence is published to-morrow, then hon. members will see The Minister of. Posts used the motor from the Pretoria station to his house, and of course at the end of the year the Auditor-General referred to it and let me say that the Auditor-General is not so infallible as some people think. In his last report there are a number of mistakes, undoubtedly made in good faith, but still mistakes, and this is one of them. The Minister’s attention was drawn to the fact that he must refund it, and he did so, and only subsequently after enquiry he found that that was the practice, and he was covered by the regulations, and the matter was referred to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, according to the practice under the previous Government, said that it was not necessary to refund the money. If the position of the Minister of Finance was that if the Minister of Posts had admitted that it was for private purposes, he ought to have repaid the amount and the Minister of Finance was also brought under the impression that that was the position, but it was not so.

Did not the Minister go and fetch vegetables?

Fortunately not. He only used the motor car to his office, and that was permitted under the regulations of the previous Government. The only difference is that the present Prime Minister restricted it to the office only, and I think the attack is not fair and reasonable. I think that the Ministers who occupy responsible positions ought to have the right to use motors from the station to their homes, instead of having to use the tram. We expect dignitaries to maintain their dignity, and I think that no fair person will find any fault with it. Fault was found with the amount of £900, but if we go into it—and the hon. member knows it well—then we find that at least £700 was used for actual public purposes. The Minister has done his duty and gone through the country, which was never done before, and has ascertained what the position is. Under these Labour Ministers we have got great telephone extension on the countryside, which we could never obtain before, and the Minister has actually investigated the neglect of the countryside by the S.A.P. He went into all the matters which the previous Government neglected. I must say that I am astonished at the hon. member for Newcastle. How he as a member of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, who knows that what he is saying is untrue, could make this attack I cannot understand. The report will he out to-morrow and hon. members will see how the S.A.P. members voted. Unfortunately I cannot refer to it, but it will clearly be seen that the Auditor-General made a mistake. Our Ministers have never yet been stigmatized like previous Ministers. They cannot be accused of going with their wives and children to Europe, and even allowing the Government to pay for tips they gave. Of this our Ministers have never been guilty. May I say here that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Tagger) was the only member who voted with the hon. member for Newcastle? It will further appear from the evidence what happened in the past.

The hon. member may not discuss that evidence.

He is doing so.

The hon. member is glad that I may not discuss it. He is thankful that the Chairman is stopping me.

I did not intend to join in this discussion, but for the speech of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. J. F. Tom Naudé). I believe that what the Auditor-General says is correct, and I believe that if any Minister had a secretary who knew his work and had been a member of the public service, he would have pointed out to his chief that the condition of affairs that has been detailed by the hon. member who sits behind me is not in keeping with the rules of the public service. It is the duty of a Minister’s private secretary to make himself acquainted with the rules and regulations, and if he has an unfortunate, silly Minister, to tell him what the rules of the public service are. It is all very well for the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) to talk, because it does not matter to him whether he pays for a motor car or not, but it makes a considerable difference to me. When I was a Minister and when I was at Pretoria and used a car from the Government garage, on public business, The State paid for it, but when I used the car on private business I paid for it.

Will all the late Ministers say that?

When you used a Government car at the end of your trip either the Minister or his secretary signed for it and stated the nature of the trip. If you do not sign that your trip was on Government service, it is the duty of the people who look after the garage to see that you get an account for it. The Treasury and the Auditor-General went into the question of the motor rides of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and surcharged him with a certain amount. If the Minister went from his office in the Union Buildings to Benoni in a, Government car he had no right to-do so, and his secretary had no right to sign a statement that the journey was on official business. The Treasury having demanded payment of this amount, the Prime Minister even in his official capacity had no authority to forego payment. The Prime Minister had no authority to spend the money of the country except in the public service of the country, or unless the authority of an Act of Parliament, except to authorize expenditure on the ground that it is for unforseen circumstances. It cannot be considered for one moment that payment of this nature could be construed as for an unforseen service. What effect are occurrences of this nature going to have on public servants when they see their responsible Minister, who should set them an example, being lax in transactions of this kind? Even if—as I believe—the Minister did this unknowingly and his private secretary did not know what the custom was, surely in the general interests of the service, when the Auditor-general surcharged the amount, the Minister should have been only too willing to pay the money at once. After all, the emoluments of a Minister are not very high, but they are not too small, and I do not think it should be necessary for a Minister to wait twelve months before paying an account of this discription. I am sorry the Prime Minister is not here. When I saw he had over ruled the Minister of Finance—

That is not quite right.

I understand that the Minister went to the Prime Minister and the latter in the goodness of his heart said the general revenue should pay the bill.

I think if there has been one unfortunate intervention in this debate it is that of the right hon. gentleman, because he is either ignoring facts deliberately or he is suffering from a tremendous loss of memory. He made a definite statement that when he was a Minister and was in Pretoria he never used a Government car except upon Government business other than when he paid for it. That is not true, because unfortunately for the right hon. gentleman I have all the vouchers in my possession for many years past signed by she right hon. gentleman for trips he has made which in my case he characterizes as private business. Let us be absolutely specific on the matter. He characterizes Government cars as being used on private business when the Minister concerned uses them to go from his private residence to his office.

Where?

It does not matter where; it is a matter of principle.

From Stellenbosch to Pretoria, I suppose.

The hon. member for Drapery is again drawing a red herring across the path. I am being attacked, and I am not going to sit on a flimsy interjection like that of the hon. member.

I wish to ask the hon. the Minister not to use the epithet “the hon. member for Drapery”, I think the hon. the Minister ought to apologize.

On a point of order. I understood the hon. Minister to refer to the hon. member for depravity—not drapery.

I may say I took no objection to the hon. Minister using language like that, because I know that kind of vulgarity will come from him.

I asked the right hon. member to withdraw that too.

I regret that in the heat of the moment I allowed myself to be tempted into using the expression that I did. I withdraw it most unreservedly, and apologize.

The hon. the Minister has withdrawn, and I ask the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) to withdraw his remark.

I accept the hon. the Minister’s apology, and I withdraw my remark.

I do want to say that here I am being deliberately attacked in a most unseemly manner by the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) reinforced by one who ought to know better because he is well acquainted with the inner facts of the matter. I am going to remind the right hon. gentleman of his knowledge of the inner facts. I want to say that all through the tirade of the hon. member for Newcastle I did not interject one solitary word despite the fact that the hon. gentleman knew quite well something I have learnt through the speech of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) that he knew quite well that the whole of this matter in all its hearings, and all the evidence such as I am going to quote to-night from a different source altogether, was in his possession, had been accepted by the Public Accounts Committee and they had decided by an overwhelming majority in my favour and not in the hon. gentleman’s.

Not at all.

That is my information. Whether it is right or not I ask the hon. member at least to have a feeling of fair play. What other facts with regard to the right hon. gentleman. He states definitely that his knowledge of the rule is that no Minister may regard travelling from his home to his office as Government business. That is his private business and therefore should be paid for privately by the Minister concerned. Further, he never transgressed in that regard. I am going to show that he not only transgressed, but systematically and regularly transgressed, and that all his other colleagues did precisely the same. I must be forgiven if I am rather severe in my strictures on the Auditor-General. I have a right to draw attention to the facts of commission and omission on the part of the Auditor-General which seem to point diametrically towards myself, largely I believe because I am a Labour Member and not a. South African Party Minister. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) is himself not an infrequent offender in that regard in this House.

What about? What is the offence?

I have a right to express my resentment sometimes at the interjections and sneers of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) which are prompted by a snobbish outlook that is associated generally with that side of the House. The hon. right member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is very unfortunate in that in my office I have in my possession the vouchers signed by the right hon. gentleman. I have got a list of them. I do not suppose the right hon. gentleman questions them, because I can produce the vouchers. He was never surcharged. It is only when my conduct comes to be reviewed that it is found necessary to pass strictures upon the expenditure on motor cars from residence to office. In passing, may I say that the Auditor-General has raised the query as to my daring to take a motor car from the station to the office. How frequently that has been done both by members opposite when they were in power, and by public servants.

They were going on a State journey, not a private journey.

What do you call a private journey, going from your house to the office?

Thirty miles.

I am talking about from the station. I say the query was raised in regard to my going from the station. It is a most significant fact that the question was never referred to me by the Auditor-General. I was never made acquainted with the objection of the Auditor-General until the whole of this expenditure had been incurred, and let me say that this is not twelve months, it is nearer 18 months, and the comparison which is made of my expenditure with other Ministers is not twelve months to twelve months, but eighteen months of mine and twelve months of theirs.

You took six months to admit liability.

I have never admitted liability. Rather than make a fuss, I was prepared to pay it, but I have never admitted liability and you will find nothing on record which shows that I have admitted liability.

Clever.

No, it is not clever. It is merely straightforward, which you don’t understand. I was prepared to pay rather than make a fuss. Here may I say to the right hon. gentleman that the Minister of Finance never put his imprimatur upon the insistence of my paying this amount. All he did was to apply a general Treasury rule that money outstanding as a debt to the Treasury, must be paid by the end of that financial year. It was when, in the euphonious words of the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) I thought that that was too thick, that I kicked. I said I was not liable. I never had been liable, but I was prepared to pay, but if I had to pay under circumstances that made it inconvenient for myself, I was not going to pay. I would like to know, judging from our experience of this set of vouchers, what Minister of the ex-Government would have deliberately agreed to pay a sum which he him-self did not think he was liable for. Let me give some of these.

The Minister of Agriculture.

Yes, the Minister of Agriculture, Sir Thomas Smartt, so that there shall be no doubt “January 14, 1922, club to Union Buildings.” Let me say hero I can claim this for myself, that the only journeys I had were from my home to my office. I never used the cars, as the hon. member tried to make out in an unwarranted way in Pretoria.

I did not say that.

Yes, you did. I took your words down. If I wanted to go down town from the Union Buildings for my lunch I went in a tram. I never used a motor car. I only used a motor car on what I considered was Government business, and on the occasions when it was used for private business I endorsed the voucher, “charge to my private account,” and I have paid it. The same day, January 14th again, the right hon. gentleman goes from the club to the Union Buildings—twice in the same day. I think, in future, we shall have to refer to the late Minister of Agriculture as the oscillating Minister of Agriculture. Once again on the 14th, he arrives at the club and there is no record anywhere in this account of the right hon. gentleman having paid one solitary silver sixpence for it. There is another interval. He allows eight days to pass. I am not going to go through the whole list. I am only going to give a few specimens, but on the 22nd he arrives at the club and apparently he remains at the club from the 22nd to the 26th, because the next trip we have on record is from the club to the Union Buildings. What a magnetic influence that club seems to have exercised over the right hon. gentleman, because, again on the 26th, he goes from the Union Buildings to the club, and back to the Union Buildings.

At the taxpayers’ expense.

At the taxpayers’ expense.

Shame.

And this is the Simon Pure who gets up and dares to accuse me of using Government motor cars opposed to the best interests of the country. Let me say here that the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) has badly used his figures. That is the only thing I can say. I may say this also, that he was, in anticipation, very successfully backed up by the Press, where they tried to lead people to believe that I had expended nearly £1,000 in one year in travelling from my house to the office. I will say this to the credit of the late Ministry, that only one of the Ministers in all their public utterances has dared to refer to this matter, and that was the late Minister of the Interior, and he was very caref to make no reference as to the impropriety of any Minister using a motor car from his house to his office. He only refers to the amount. He only says a Minister ought to be very careful how he spent the money. I will deal with the late Minister of the Interior, now the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) later on. I have got all their little dockets and it is a charming history, I can assure you. There was nothing wrong about it, except when they visited the club I never did that. I did; I beg your pardon, but never in a motor car at the right hon. gentleman’s invitation— not at the expense of the State.

What time of the year was it?

Hon. members must not inquire too closely into all the circumstances. Let us confine ourselves to a bare recital of the facts. There were various trips—from the club to the Union Buildings and from the Union Buildings to the club, up to the 31st of January. He did not live at the club, because part of the time he was at the Union Buildings. Then the right hon. gentleman thought he would have a change of venue; he gets into August, and decides to turn over a new leaf. He decides for the time being, at all events, and starts the month by turning his back on the club, and now he starts from the Grand Hotel, not the Grand Hotel. Johannesburg, but that in Pretoria, and he finds it necessary, in view of the terrible strain upon his legs, that it is much too far to walk from the hotel to Church Street; that is what he decides. So he takes a motor car at the State’s expense. I want to know what the (late) Minister of Agriculture went to Church Street for: I wonder whether he went to see whether they grew chestnuts there! Was it on the State’s business? He goes from Church Street to the Union Buildings, and he goes to the station, where I am debarred from going, mark you. I am not allowed to go to and from the station at the State’s expense; but the right hon. gentleman can go on a round trip—the Union Buildings to the station and back to Bryntirion. The whole list is here.

What is the total expense?

Mark you, he has not the excuse of having to travel 30 odd miles to get from his home to his office. He travels round the town, the foci being the club in the one case and the Grand Hotel in the other. With regard to these little trips, he utilized £171 worth !

I challenge you to produce the vouchers; your statements are incorrect.

I will produce the vouchers. The accusation has been levelled against me in particular and the Government in general, that since we have been in power we have not followed the old standing rule that Ministers. shall not use Government motor cars under certain circumstances in Cape Town. If that is so how comes it that the late Minister of Agriculture has been able to spend in Cape Town almost as much as he did in Pretoria?

On my own private business?

Going to the office

I want to know that they are.

“July 10, 1922, Mowbray Station to Stellenbosch.” I suppose he went there to look after the agricultural activities. It is a remarkable coincidence that his house happens to be at Stellenbosch. “Civil Service Club to Muizenberg.” Of course planting an oak avenue on the sands. “Civil Service Club to Simonostown; Adderley Street to Docks; Civil Service Club to Somerset Strand.” Another agricultural community. “Town to Stellenbosch,” and so it goes on. The right hon. gentleman wants the vouchers. He had better have them, but, we will not let him burn them.

Disgraceful.

You have deliberately gone out of your way to decry me in the eyes of the country. The right hon. gentleman knew quite well that he had done all these things himself and vet he was trying to pose as a Simon Pure.

You know that that is not true.

I know it is perfectly true.

You know it is not.

He did not hear me squeal. Why is he doing so? I will pay him this compliment that his motor car bill was practically the lowest of all the Ministers of the late Government. I come to the late Minister of Finance. I have been accused of doing something that members of the late Government never did. In 1922, the late Minister of Finance who ought to have known better, in 9 months expended £440 of which he paid back not quite £25. The nett amount, if their contention is correct that no Minister should use a motor car from his house to his office, which the late Minister of Finance, Mr. Burton, should pay back for 1922 in £415 3s., and there is not a word from the Auditor-General. When a Minister who is a Labour member dares to use a motor car he is not sufficiently high-toned to be allowed to use it. The Auditor-General stated that ever since he has been Auditor-General the practice he laid down in his last report has obtained. If that is so, why on earth has he never called attention to the delinquencies of Mr. Burton and of the late Minister of Agriculture? He is the same man, he was appointed in 1919. I am going to give some other evidence of bias as I go on. In 1923, for nine mouths that gentleman incurred an account of £301 5s., and to keep himself sweet he repaid £22. Under the argument of the right hon. gentleman there is an amount due to the State from Mr. Burton for nine months of that year of £279 16s. In 1924 for six months he used £304 7s. worth of cars and he repaid sufficient to make his nett liability £248 5s. I have expended £221 in 18 months. The balance of £581 which has been expended on motor cars is the measure of my efficiency. If I had accepted all the requests from the countryside to go and visit those parts—I am going to do it yet—that bill would have been very much larger. That money marks my activities in going about the country meeting the people who are under my control. That has never been done by any Minister on that side of the House; therefore I have a right to claim that that amount is the measure of my efficiency. There are one or two items in the list of the right hon. gentleman where he visited the Country Club. I had forgotten that. No, he did not pay. He may have paid at the Country Club—I don’t know—but he certainly did not pay at the garage. While in Cape Town the cost of cars by Mr. Burton from his house at Retreat to town— what is the difference, I ask the hon. member for New-lands (Mr. Stuttaford) between Mr. Burton, Minister of Finance, who ought to know better, travelling from his farm at Retreat to his office here in Cape Town, and my travelling from my farm at Boksburg North to my office in the Union Buildings, whereas he had a train alongside of him that he could go by, and I had not.

Why hadn’t you?

I will see about it. In travelling from his house at Retreat to town during the 1922 session £353 10s., 1923 session £275, and 1924 session £240 6s. 9d. And this does not take into account the nice little sums the State had to pay for dinner parties to his prospective voters. It does not take into account, and my bill does, my railway travelling about the country in my efforts to do my duty as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and Minister of Public Works in the proper manner in which I conceived it ought to be done. Let us get back to 1921. Remember this system has only been in force since the Pact Government has been in control. I did not know we went back to 1921. I have got this itemized monthly. In March 1921, Mr. Button expended £80 7s. 8d., in April £107 16s. 8d., in May £109 14s. 10d., in June £114 0s. 3d., in July £113 11s. 9d. for railway and motor cars—and that is one way in which we have never been able to disguise our motor car activities from his house at Retreat to his office in Cape Town, and then as Treasurer he authorized the payments of the amounts. £525 11s, 2d. in five months. Not one word from the Auditor-General. I am sorry to have to hit—

Fire away. We don’t want your sorrow. We will take it as it comes.

There is one member in this House for whom—

I want to appeal to the Prime Minister, won’t he now accept the adjournment?

I am going to finish this first.

I want to call the Prime Minister’s attention to an important point. There has been a grave charge made against one of the chief officials of the Government.

Let the Minister finish his speech first.

I think the Government will have to take action in this matter You will have to take action on this. A very serious charge indeed has been made.

Well, let him finish.

I want to say this, that if there is one member of this House for whom, despite his detestation of myself, I have great regard and respect, it is the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). That is so. And in all my thunderings at that side and the late Ministerial representatives on that side, the one bright spot in them all is the hon. member. He practises what he preaches. He would not knowingly get up and do me an injustice. I know that, even although he has not very much love for me. Can anybody tot it up quickly? In four years, but not four whole years, remember, two nine months, two six months and one five months, altogether 35 months, less than three years, the expenditure of Mr. Burton in the way in which you are objecting to my expending money was £1,444 0s. 5d. Of course, one does not like to bring in these other things, but you have to have it all. These amounts do not take into account the amount that Mr. Burton had to refund, which he would not have done had he not been compelled to do so, for using Government motor cars to take his farm produce to market, a thing that no Pact Minister would ever think of, that the team of all the talents have been deliberately fleecing the State all this time and these are the Simon Pures who get up and accuse me of having misused Government motor cars. Let us come to the late Minister of Lands, then I will be done. I won’t pursue the subject any further after I have done with the Minister of Lands.

Go on !

I think this is really the richest of the lot It is the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) and it is most significant; that side of the House knew or must have known that this attack was going to be made upon me. They knew the whole principle was going to be dragged into the light, and they knew that everything would be dealt with. Knowing me of old they knew I would not sit down under anything they would say to me, they knew it would be a boomerang hurled back at them, and look at the absence of the people who used to be Ministers from their places. I am not going to deal with the ex-Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, who also was a delinquent and is prepared to admit it. I am perfectly certain. I have his vouchers as indeed, if ever a misguided country seen him back to my office he will have my voucher and can verify every word I say. I won’t deal with him beyond saying that.

Oh, no, go on.

I don’t want to paint the lily or gild the rose.

I shall be delighted.

I am sure you will. It compares very favourably with the late Minister of Agriculture. Nor will I deal with the late Minister of the Interior, who, in a lesser degree than the late Minister of Finance, and the late Minister of Lands, was an equal culprit with them all. They were continually using motor cars from house to office, and let me say here the ex-Minister of the Interior, the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) accused me in a public speech of not serving the interests of the State in not going to live at Pretoria. He said that a Minister ought to go and live there. He forgot to say when addressing that audience, that he was going to tell the people that if I had cone to Pretoria and if I had based my expenditure on that of ex-Ministers of the South African Party Government, there would be anything from £500 to £1,000 to furnish a house for me. All your motor car expenses, as I have been detailing here this evening, are plus cost of furniture. Colonel Mentz, the late Minister of Defence, not only expended quite a lot in motor cars, and incidentally on cement, plus a few farms; he rushed this country to the tune of over £1,000 for furnishing his house in Pretoria, and supplemented that with another £1,000 for furnishing a house in Cape Town—all at the State’s expense.

Why did not the Government proceed against him?

They ought to have done. The Auditor-General commented on the furniture, but accepted the position on a Prime Minister’s note. On that he accepted that expenditure. The ex-Minister of Lands did not spend very much; in four months in 1924 he spent £96 3s. in 1923 £27 18s. and in 1922 £33 16s.—the lightest of the lot, it seems to me—but the principle is exactly the same; this was all expenditure from house to office, and plus furniture. But now comes the tit bit. On April 20th, 1924, the ex-Minister of Lands (Col. D. Reitz) started a trip and took a Government motor car (hired), and you want to remember that in those days most of the motor cars were paid for in hard cash. To-day it is an interchange of accounts between one department and another; my account comes under my own vote, the Post Office; that is by the way. He started from Mark’s buildings, and hiked himself away by a Government motor car to Port Elizabeth. He left on a Sunday at 8 a.m., and arrived at Port Elizabeth; and by a singular concatenation of circumstances, a most extraordinary coincidence, that visit of the ex-Minister of Lands synchronized with the opening meetings of his election campaign.

Impossible !

Almost, not quite; because he did it. He accomplished the impossible! Yes, you are talking about me; but where is the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nell?

He has left

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) in that little jaunt to Port Elizabeth traversed 1,552 miles at a cost to the State of £93 11s. 6d. or just under half the whole of my expenditure for 18 months. He did this at the taxpayer’s expense and the Auditor-General winked the other eye.

That is not fair of you; you ought to know the Auditor-General’s side.

You have to have my side. You have used your Press to deliberately misrepresent every item of my expenditure and you are going to get public attention directed to the delinquencies of the late Ministry.

Fire away.

If there is anything that merits the reprobation of hon. members on all sides of the House it is this little trip to Port Elizabeth by the hon. gentleman who is conveniently absent to-night I cannot but think that these gentlemen have deliberately kept away because they knew this attack was coming on. Everything has been done to focus public attention on my terrible misdeeds so far as motor cars were concerned.

That is quite incorrect.

Well, let us be generous to them and say they forgot to come. I do not propose to deal with any more of these motor car bills. I think I have said enough to show that I was perfectly justified in using the cars. I think there was no ground at all for the Auditor-General acquiescing in the use of motor cars in Cape Town where either buses, trams or trains pass every door, and if the principle is good in Cape Town it is good in Pretoria. I see no reason why I should be debarred from using a car to convey me from my house to my office in Pretoria. If the principle is right in one place, it is right in another. However, this Government has decided that we shall not use official cars from our homes to our offices in Pretoria. It is the first time that such a fiat has gone forward although it was the usual thing with Ministers in the late Administration. If the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) did not know it he was singularly unobservant. No, he was attending too much to sacking white men and taking on kaffirs.

I contradict that flatly.

I do not use a motor car in Cape Town. Personally I prefer to walk, but if I want a conveyance I use a tram. In Pretoria I have required that motor car because I am rendered inefficient as a Minister if I do not use it. It takes me two hours longer in the day to get to and from my office without it. The motor car is not a luxurious one, even with Charlie accompanying me, and it is a rough road. It is not an attractive journey at all, but it means if I do not use the car I have to take nearly twelve hours to do six hours work, whereas with a motor car I take just over nine hours to do seven hours work. There is the difference. This is a singular thing showing the bias which I have a right to resent. There is an express train from Germiston to Pretoria every day in the morning. It passes within three miles of my place, but in order to catch it I have to go to Germiston. I asked the chief railway official in charge of that service to be good enough to stop that train at Rietfontein. He refused.

I am surprised to hear that.

He would not stop it for me, and I did not want to embarrass my colleague, the Minister of Railways, and did not press the matter. I used the motor car. At the same time, the present Leader of the Opposition could hold up his finger at any time and have that train stopped at “Irene” for him. Have I not a right to complain and to suspect that there is snobbishness behind it all or at all events, political bias? I move to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Before you report progress I want to ask the hon. the Minister if he will lay on the Table the vouchers to which he has referred to-night, and I want to state publicly that so far as I know, and I should imagine as far as my private secretary knew, I have never used for any purpose on private business a Government motor car when my instructions were not, that the account was to be sent to me. I make this statement publicly, and I ask the hon. the Minister to put all those vouchers on the Table, and then it will be possible to get the head of the Agricultural Department, and my late private secretary together and I am prepared to prove what I say.

Might I add to the request of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) that the papers and vouchers be referred to the Public Accounts Committee.

I have no objection to that at all.

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

House Resumed:

Progress Reported; to Resume in Committee Tomorrow.