from Florence J. Brown, a teacher in the Huguenot Girls’ High School, Wellington, who has been engaged in teaching since 1908, and whose name was placed on the official list of Government teachers in 1912, praying that her services from 1908 to 1912 may be added to her Government service for pension purposes, or for other relief.

Report of Commission appointed to investigate the question of quitrents.

: Papers relating to grants and leases of lands (Nos. 1 to 18).

These papers were referred to the Select Committee on Waste Lands.

moved that the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours consist of Sir David Hunter, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, Sir Jan Langerman, Messrs. Searle, Oliver, Nicholson, Chaplin, Boydell, Maasdorp, Whitaker, Cronje, Colonel Leuchars, Mr. Heatlie and the mover.

seconded.

, on a point of order, asked Mr. Speaker whether, seeing that the member for Pretoria District, North (Sir Thomas Cullinan), moved for and obtained the appointment of this committee, he should not in terms of Standing Order No. 221 serve as a member of the committee?

ruled that in the circumstances the hon. member for Pretoria District, North, should serve as a member of the committee unless specially exempted from service thereon by the House.

Whereupon, on the motion of Sir Thomas Cullinan, he was exempted from service on the Select Committee.

The original motion was thereupon agreed to

, resuming his speech, said that he quite recognised the largeness of the concession made by the Government, in regard to that Bill, and it seemed to be a very fair proposal that the matter should be taken into consideration, and he had no doubt that that would go very far to remove the objections of those who objected to the maintenance of the Provincial Councils. As to what the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Fawcus) has said, that different treatment should be meted out to Natal, he thought something of that kind would be possible in Natal at the end of four years, if it still maintained its present attitude with regard to the Provincial Councils. He hoped there would be no movement on the part of any section of the House to prevent some Bill passing before April 1st. When they came to the Bill itself, he felt bound to point out some grave considerations, in which the Bill was not satisfactory in meeting the needs of the country at large. He would like to express his regret once more at the extremely scanty information given to that House, and he asked why the Government had not taken more interest in regard to the question of statistics. He did trust that as soon as possible that grave lacuna would be filled up, and that the House would be put in possession of the essential facts. The figures put forward by the Minister of Finance differed most gravely from the figures put forward last year by his predecessor. As regards the Cape, the figures of the surplus had been actually doubled. They had no information as to how those estimates had been arrived at, but he had grave reasons for doubting them. With regard to transfer duty, anybody who was familiar with public finance knew that it was a proceeding extremely questionable to build public finances on transfer duty, as it varied so much. In January last transfer duty had dropped no less than £9,000 in one month. With regard to the speech of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan), he would like to point out that the hon. member had spoken as if the pound for pound principle was the principle of that Bill, but he would like to point out that it varied entirely in its operations and incidence according to the system of taxation. One system was that founded on licences and transfer duty, but if they transferred the mining taxes they had a totally different result, therefore the pound for pound principle was certainly not the only ground principle of the Bill, and without differing from that principle altogether, one might suggest alterations in the Bill which would revolutionise the whole measure. With regard to the pound for pound principle, he would like to say that with regard to the Cape they had had experience of it for many years in regard to their schools, and they had found that the system meant helping the rich more than they helped the poor, and the result was that that system had been completely abandoned in the Cape. It had first been undermined by the hon. member for East London (Col. Crewe) in the Bill which he had introduced. In the Cape they had departed from that system because they gave the coloured and the natives one pound for 10s., but they had given the white people more, because the white people could produce a pound more easily than the coloured people, and the same would be experienced by the Free State, which would not be able to produce a pound so easily as the larger provinces. He went on to say that in regard to the Cape also, he thought there would be some difficulty. The Commission’s proposals had been departed from to a considerable extent. The original Bill had departed from the proposals of the Commission, and had given an almost infinitesimal advantage to the Cape, some advantage to the Free State and Natal, which he did not object to, and a considerable amount of advantage to the Transvaal. Now the Minister had given nothing to the Cape and the Transvaal, and a further concession to the Free State and Natal. He was bound to say that that House had no reason to suppose that that measure, as altered by the Minister of Finance, would enable the Cape Provincial Council to do its business satisfactorily—(hear, hear)—and therefore he felt bound to press that matter upon the attention of the House, whether they were enabling the Provincial Council of the Cape to do its duty towards a large section of the people of South Africa. (Hear, hear.) He did not ally himself with those members of the House who said that the Cape had been badly treated since Union. (Hear, hear.) He did think that when Union had been established the Transvaal knew what it was “in for,” and knew that it was the wealthiest province of the Union, at any rate, as far as current revenue was concerned, and knew that it was intended to distribute the revenue throughout the different parts of the Union. But they should not be reminded every time of their poverty, and of the wealth of the Transvaal. (Laughter.) He recognised that the Cape had been the greatest gainer, and the Transvaal the greatest loser. (Hear, hear.) But they had been led to suppose that they were gradually going to work in the direction of equalisation in regard, to taxation. His hon. friend the Minister had surprised him when he had spoken about Ireland, and either the Minister must have made a slip of the tongue or he (Mr. Fremantle) must have misunderstood him. The great difficulty in Ireland was that the incidence of the same taxes in that country was different there than it was in Great Britain. The great grievance in Ireland had been that, although they had, generally speaking, the same taxes, the incidence was different. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) had said that there was no reason for equalising transfer duties and licences any more than native taxation, but Parliament was free to deal with the taxes not assigned or transferred, whereas the Bill tied up certain parts of the revenue, and when once they passed that Bill they no longer dealt with live questions—transfer duty, licences, road rates, school rates and Provincial expenditure.

Therefore there was a real reason for equalising the taxes dealt now with in the Bill which did not apply to other taxes, and consequently he ventured to think that the criticism of the hon. member for Fordsburg had not been so sound as might have been thought at first sight. Then there was the question of expenditure. The hon. member for Yeoville had alarmed the House with regard to the growing figures of expenditure. If there was any waste that could have been stopped, but the trouble was that there was an essential need for further expenditure on a larger scale and it could not be curtailed without stunting education in the Cape and Natal and in the Free State and the Transvaal to a certain extent. In the Transvaal there had been a constant demand for a special branch of the education office to deal with rural education, but under this Bill this important improvement could not be carried into effect. He thought that his hon. friends from the Cape and Natal would find that the measure before the House made it impossible for the Provincial Councils to do what was absolutely necessary in the interests of the people. The Transvaal was in a somewhat peculiar position and better off than the other Provinces, and he did not think that the House should lightly agree to the maintenance of the difference between both scales of expenditure in the different Provinces. Since the evidence on which the Bill was founded had been taken, and the report of the Commission, the report of the Education Commission had shown that large additional expenditure was necessary for the poor people of the towns and the poor people of the country. No regard had been paid to that in the Bill or the report of the Commission; or in the alterations that had been suggested by the Minister. Since the Bill had been drafted the Education Ordinance had been passed by three of its Provincial Councils. The House had agreed to a solution of the language question, which it knew meant paying heavily. (Cries of “No.”) He referred to the Majority Report. (Cries of “Oh.”) The change that had been made in the Majority Report did not entail expenditure. If the money required for carrying out this Ordinance were withheld it meant that this ghost of the language question was bound to reappear, and it would be said that they had agreed to a solution, but the Government had refused to pay, and that meant they had no solution at all. He hoped the Minister would consider whether in view of the Language Ordinance it was not necessary to introduce certain changes in this measure with regard to all the Provinces, with the exception of Natal, which had not adopted the Ordinance and which would not have incurred much extra expenditure if it had passed the Ordinance. He felt bound to put before the House the necessity for further expenditure on education in the Cape Province. The scale of expenditure differed so enormously in the Provinces that it was only natural there should be a strong feeling in the Cape that it was not being fairly dealt with in this respect. Taking three coloured children to one white child as the basis of his calculation, he found that the cost per head in the Transvaal was £13, in the Cape £7, and in Natal rather less. The result was that educational progress in these other Provinces was being starved. He did not believe there was any waste in the Transvaal, but the difference in the scale of expenditure was not alone due to local differences. It was idle for the hon. member for Yeoville to talk about limiting this expenditure.

What is the cost per head in the Free State?

£8 9s. Continuing, he said his hon. friends had pointed to the increase in the expenditure on education. But last year the Cape administration had devoted £90,000 beyond the estimates to education. The money did not go in increased salaries, because they remained the same in the Cape, and despite that amount of £90,000, schools had been closed in the Cape. In the country districts there was grinding poverty in regard to education, and he appealed to hon. members on that side of the House to give him their support. The five per cent, limitation proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville was impossible with regard to education, and he hoped that part of the proposal would not be pressed.

He hoped that if he pressed the proposal to limit the grant to the Provinces he would only press it in regard to other branches of expenditure. He wanted to point out to this House how serious and how urgent the matter was. He would like to appeal to the hon. Minister without Portfolio. Some years ago he started a system of bursaries at his birthplace, Villiersdorp, the result of which was that though they only had a second-class school it had attained to the highest standard of educational success. Many people who would have been in a state of educational destitution had been given the chance to rise to the highest possible point of educational opportunity in this country. But they had to wait for the efforts of private donors all over the country before something was done? The hon. gentleman must know that there was a similar system of bursaries to bring the country children to the town schools, but that system had been brought to a standstill. They had only to read the report of the Director of Education in the Transvaal to see what an enormous amount of good was being done by this policy that they in the Cape could not carry out. To show how serious this matter was in the North-West of this Province an investigation was made by a Select Committee of the Provincial Council. It was found that actually half of the white children in that part of the country of school-going age were not in school at all. If they looked at the Native Territories they would find that nothing approaching that was the case. In some cases five-sixths of the native children were in schools, whereas, in the North-West, half the white children were not in school at all.

: They tax themselves in the Territories.

Yes, but while they tax themselves they do not pay school fees. In the North-West they pay taxation and also pay fees. Proceeding, he said that in regard to the form of education, they had nothing, or hardly anything done in this country in regard to what was generally known as vocational education, a matter that was engaging the attention of educationists all over the world. Day after day in that House they discussed the question of extending the sphere of labour for white men, yet they were neglecting this matter of vocational education. Further, there was the education of defectives in this country. They had also a large demand for teachers, so large, in fact, that though the great majority of the training was done in the Cape, a large number of teachers trained in the Cape went elsewhere because of the better salaries they could obtain. And they knew that the standard of the education of the teachers was below the proper educational level. There was also the question of the coloured children.

The churches were breaking down under the strain of this education, and in their towns they had growing up a generation of hooligans, both boys and girls, that was going to be a danger and a menace. It might be that in the country the education of the coloured child was not such an important matter; but in the towns, by neglecting them, they were preparing a rod for their (the Europeans) own backs. The question that was felt most in the Cape, however, was that of teachers’ salaries. It did seem to him an intolerable state of things that in this country, supposed to be unified, they had a perpetual struggle between the Provinces to see who would get the best teachers, because of the difference of the salaries. He was perfectly certain that Natal and the Cape Province did not get the best. (Cheers.) The Director of Education in Natal told him that large numbers of the teachers trained in Natal were being drained off to the Free State because of the big salaries paid there. And they found that the best teachers of the Cape were being drained off to the Transvaal by the same attraction. He wished to put it to the mind, and conscience of the House, whether they were doing their duty to the children of the country, who were, after all, the children of the Union, whether they lived in the Transvaal or any other Province. This matter had been pressed by the Teachers’ Association, both English and Dutch, in the Cape Province, and they had stated that they were quite prepared to labour under the present scale of salaries provided this scale were adhered to and the Government instituted a new scale for newcomers to the service. He hoped his hon. friend would be moved by the resolution passed by the Cape section of the South African Party Congress in Pretoria a month or two back. This resolution demanded that the Financial Relations Note should provide for the gradual equalisation of taxation and expenditure, and especially teachers’ salaries, and commended this to the earnest attention of the Government. He was afraid that the Government had not shown its earnest attention in this Bill. That resolution, at any rate, showed the feeling of the Cape section of the South African Party. This matter was also pressed upon the Government by a gathering of the churches. There was a remarkable Conference, about the first of its kind ever held in this country, convoked by the Archbishop of Cape Town and attended by the Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, and representatives of the Wesleyans, the Baptists, and the Catholics. They represented the majority of the people in this country, and they said they recognised the absolute necessity, in the interests of the people they represented, of large alterations being made in the educational system in the Cape, especially in regard to vocational education, the education of defectives, the training of teachers, the education of the coloured people, and the raising of the salaries of their teachers. They appointed a deputation to wait upon the Prime Minister, who received them in a kindly and sympathetic way.

The same deputation went to the Administrator of the Cape, and he thought the results of the visit to the Administrator made plain the necessity of a pause before they agreed to this Bill, because he gave them information which this House had not got at all, and which was essential to form any judgment as to the effect of this Bill. This Bill provided, according to the Administrator, £140,000 for education in the Cape beyond what was provided last year. He (the Administrator) thought that the normal increase in educational expenditure would be £60,000. That left £80,000 for improvements in their system of education. He proposed as a minimum, to make even a beginning for the carrying out of the Language Ordinance, to spend £40,000 on training institutions, and £20,000 for dealing with an outside fringe of the question of industrial education, and there was left £20,000 altogether for all the other educational problems. The salaries of teachers amounted to £800,000. This £20,000, if used for nothing else, would mean an increase of 2½ per cent, on teachers’ salaries. They could not get sufficient teachers to-day. As long as this Bill was in operation the country schools would be left without properly qualified teachers and a dearth even in numbers of teachers of that class. Under this Bill they had the alternative of additional taxation on the community in the Cape Province, which was admittedly already overtaxed, or, on the other hand, stagnation in regard to their educational system. In the Free State he found very much the same thing. Even in the Transvaal it was evident that additional taxation was necessary. In regard to Natal, it went without saying that additional taxation was necessary. Therefore it seemed to, him that the question before this House, and before the country, was whether they were going to put Provincial Councils all over the Union into such a position that education would be starved, or whether they were going to tax, and, if they were going to tax, whether it was right that the Provincial Councils should be compelled to tax with very slender resources, or whether it would not be better for this House to take the business of taxation into its own hands.

Now, they knew that the Minister of Finance was in funds. He had got an enormous surplus, he was bound to have a surplus, which he (Mr. Fremantle) had seen calculated at a million and a half— (dissent)—but which he calculated at the very least at £675,000. Apart from windfalls, etc., the Minister would have a sum of over £400,000. We were more than paying our way to-day; our imports were enormously over our exports so that the increase in our revenue would balance any increase in the expenditure. It appeared to him that it would be possible to deal with this question in this House. If they had £400,000 to spare, which they ought to have, and the Provincial Councils were going to have their taxation limited, as they all intended, the question was whether it would not be a wiser thing for this House to tax rather than compel the Provincial Councils to tax. If they were not going to have a land tax, what sort of a tax were they going to have?

Ministerial Voices: Bioscopes.

Yes; bioscopes have been taxed in more countries than one, and the result of taxing things of this kind is that they bring in a little money and cost a lot of trouble in collection.

: We have got a land tax in the Cape now.

We have got a local land tax, but the Cape is going to be confronted with more difficulties than the other Provinces, and the result is that you may have to put on a super-tax. Proceeding, he said that under these circumstances it appeared to him that the House ought to go more carefully into this matter, and he would urge that this Bill should not be passed without further information and without going into the whole question, in view of the new facts which had come to light since the Commission reported and the Bill was originally drafted. The House was tied by its rules, and could not deal freely with this question. Surely it would be better to get a Select Committee of the House together to go into the whole of this question and get the information which could be collected, and inquire whether a more equitable and efficient system could be devised than the system proposed in the Bill. He would propose that the order for the second reading be discharged and the matter be referred to a Select Committee; and, in doing so, he would like to say that he did not think it was necessary to expend a large amount of time in this matter.

He trusted the Minister would see the fairness of allowing further consideration before the Bill went into Committee, and in order to give the House a free hand, he hoped the Government would agree to the matter going to a Select Committee. He had no objection to taking the second reading first if the Minister preferred, and if it was clear that this did not limit the power of the House or the committee to amend. On that point he would like to hear the opinion of other hon. members. Mr. Fremantle then moved the following amendment: To omit all words after “that,” and to substitute: “the order for the second reading be discharged and that the subject matter of the Bill be referred to a Select Committee with leave to bring up an amended Bill which shall make provision for regulating the financial relations between the Union and the Provinces according to fixed principles applying equally to all the Provinces and enabling the Provinces, if they so desire, to remove the existing discrepancies in regard to transfer duty, licences, school tax and all other equal sources of Provincial revenue, and in regard to the salaries of teachers and school inspectors without imposing fresh local taxation; the committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers and to consist of eleven members. ”

seconded the amendment.

said the House had pretty clearly indicated that it wished the Bill to be read a second time. He regretted that a most extraordinary position had been taken up by the front benches in regard to the interests of the Provincial Councils. They on the back benches were told that the Constitution, as drafted by the National Convention, was a wonderful document, embodying all the latest principles of government. Now, however, they were told by the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) that there was nothing in the South Africa Act entrenching the Provincial Councils. (Mr. MERRIMAN: Hear, hear.) He begged to differ from the right hon. gentleman entirely, because he found that section 152 of the Act of Union was as follows: “Parliament may by law repeal or alter any of the provisions of this Act: Provided that no provision thereof for the operation of which a definite period of time is prescribed shall during such period be repealed or altered, and no repeal or alteration of provisions of this section” (or of entrenched sections, viz., 33, 34, 35—Number of members of Assembly, voters’ qualifications, etc—137 Language) was valid unless passed by a joint sitting, and two-thirds agreed to the third reading. Section 20 said: “The Senate shall not be dissolved within a period of ten years after the establishment of the Union.” Section 24 read: “ For ten years after the establishment of the Union, the Constitution of the Senate shall, in respect of the original Provinces, be as follows: … as to elected Senators … they … shall hold their seats for ten years. If the seat of a Senator so elected shall become vacant, the Provincial Council of the Province for which such Senator has been elected shall choose a person to hold the seat until the completion of the period for which the person in whose stead he is elected would have held his seat.” Section 25 stated: “Parliament may provide for the manner in which Senate shall be constituted after the expiration of ten years.” Section 64 read: “All Bills abolishing Provincial Councils or abridging the powers conferred on Provincial Councils under section 85, otherwise than in accordance with the provisions of that section shall be reserved for the signification of the King’s pleasure.” Then section 85 placed “education, other than higher education, for a period of five years, and thereafter until Parliament otherwise provides, under Provincial Councils.” Therefore, not only must Provincial Councils exist for five years, but for ten.

Continuing, Mr. Struben said it was a wise provision that matters dealing with the fundamentals of the Constitution should be entrenched for some time, because if we were going to start now, after not giving the Administrators decent facilities for carrying out their work in the way in which it should be carried out, but put them in the position of accepting doles from the Government, we might be doing a very dangerous thing by breaking up the Provincial machinery. Then South Africa in 20 years’ time might find itself in the same position as the British House of Commons was, with no chance of bringing matters of local interest before Parliament. His dilemma was this, that if the Bill were thrown out they would have an unseemly scramble from the Administrators to get as much from the Union Government as they possibly could, but on the other hand, if the Bill were passed as it stood originally, the House would simply stereotype the crudities contained in the Bill. In the Bill as drafted, credit was given to the Cape Province, which was not given to-day, for money locally raised, but, there was no suspicion of a proviso saying that if other Provinces started divisional or district councils they would get credit for the money they raised locally. It seemed to him that if taxation were imposed in the Provinces the subsidy should be paid on the money locally raised, and credit should be given to the Cape Province for the sums it obtained through its Divisional Councils. Dealing with the suggestion of the hon. member for Yeoville (Sir L. Phillips), he said it seemed to be a good cheek on extravagance, and put a good inducement on the other Provinces to raise their funds locally, and was better than if they gave them a free hand to raise money by loans. He would certainly not object to see a limit as suggested in the Financial Relations Report. Continuing, he said that one of the most serious things was the position of education in the Cape Province when the Cape had come into Union. It was notorious that the salaries of the Teachers in the Cape Province had been cut down to a most lamentable extent, with the result that many of the schools of this country—although he did not like to say so—had a stamp of teacher which was not what the country deserved. He went with the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) when he said that something should be done to better the conditions of the schools of the Cape Province. The number of school inspectors was insufficient, and school buildings had been cut down very much indeed. The hon. member went on to quote figures with regard to school attendance in the Cape Province, and the amount expended on education, and said that the figures showed either that the Cape was trying to do too much work for a little money, or else the work was being done inefficiently. The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) had not told the House at all how much of the increase under Union was due to expansion, so lamentably cramped during his time of office, or to extravagance. The question of licences seemed to raise a very difficult question indeed. Although it would be advisable to have as much uniformity in licences as possible, if the Union were to take all licences under its control it would entrench too much upon the operations of the Provincial Council. Might it not be as well to leave the matter in abeyance for the present? At the present time taxation was extraordinarily high sometimes. Some of the licences in the Cape could be quoted as a very good case in point. As to the statement that licences might be used as a means of protection as between Province and Province, under the South Africa Act there had to be free trade throughout the Union. The hon. member went on to read clause 89 of the South Africa Act, and said he did not think an extension should be made and power given to the Provincial Administration in regard to warrants. The Government proposed in that Bill that certain matters could be referred to the Provincial Council, and that subsequently other questions might be referred to the Provincial Council on resolution of Parliament. Well, the South Africa Act in the most clear terms in section 85, subsection (13), laid down that outside of the subjects set out in section 85, other subjects might be referred to the Provincial Councils, but only by Act of the Union Parliament. He submitted that it was a most dangerous doctrine to refer matters to the Provincial Council by resolution of Parliament, especially as it was in express contradiction to the section he had just read. He had also strong reasons for supporting the Bill, because he found the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt) and the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) in an unholy alliance to wreck that Bill. From what fell from the hon. member for Ladybrand, there seemed to be good reason for maintaining the Provincial Councils of the Union, and what the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Fawcus) had said was entirely justified.

said he was afraid that they would only be able to deal with the measure that was before the House from a provincial point of view for the simple reason that the Bill dealt almost entirely with provincial matters and members were expected to represent the views of their constituents. One feature of the debate that had struck him was the strong hostility shown to the measure by the hon. members for Cape Town, Central, and the right hon. the member for Victoria West. He recalled the speeches that these hon. gentlemen made two years ago when the House was considering the question of appointing the Financial Relations Commission. Both these gentlemen took a different view of the Provincial Councils to that which they did at the present time. He thought that members of the House agreed that the Commission that was appointed to deal with the question had been a strong and efficient one. He would point out that those who were so strongly opposing the measure at the present time did not raise any strong objections to the first Bill, which was drafted in 1912. It was difficult to see what difference there was in the 1912 Bill and the measure before the House that day to account for the great reversal of opinion that had taken place. Perhaps it was the allocation of the £150,000 to the Free State and Natal that had made all the difference, and if that was so he was surprised at the attitude of members of the Cape and the Transvaal, who raised such a fuss over such a small sum. He thought that his colleagues had clearly shown that far from Natal gaining any additional advantage by coming into Union, their neighbours were getting more than they were really entitled to. Natal did not want, and did not ask for, any doles from any part of the Union. She had paid her way up to the present, and would be able to go on paying her way if she was only left alone. The hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had argued that the £ for £ principle would tend to great extravagance, but he thought that the principle was as fair a one as could be obtained. He did not think that it would tend to greater extravagance, but would make the people of the Province far more careful than they had been in the past. He was certain that that would be the case in Natal at any rate. The Provinces would not needlessly spend or throw away a sovereign in order to make the Government waste another. Much attention had been paid to what had been referred to as the enormous growth of expenditure since Union came into being, but he would point out that owing to the general prosperity of the country the expenditure would have gone up in any case, even without Union, as all public works had been starved in the years before Union. Then allusion had been made to the fact that the expenditure on education had increased to a considerable extent.

He would point out that between the years 1910 and 1911-12 the increase of State expenditure under this head had been £32,000 in the Grange Free State, £47,000 in the Transvaal, £37,000 in Natal, and no less than £238,000 in the Cape Province. He thought that the figures which he had quoted clearly showed that the Cape had been allotted a fair share of the extra expenditure that had been, going on. He denied that the extra expenditure had been due to the fact that the Provincial Councils were obtaining their money from the Treasury. He contended that this increased prosperity in the Union would have come about whether Union had come into being or not and he maintained that the extra expenditure had simply been due to the fact that they had increased revenue and the ability to devote money to covering defects that came into being during the lean years. In view of the part that the right hon. the member for Victoria West had played in the Convention in the building up of the Provincial Council system which had been called his child, he (the speaker) thought it was cruel to hear the right hon. member say that these were bastard Parliaments and that the Administrators were autocrats. If that was a proper description for the Provincial Council of the Cape, then he thought that it was up to the Cape members of the Union Parliament to see that the Council was placed on a proper footing. He was glad to say that the description which had been given by the right hon. gentleman could not be applied to the Provincial Council of Natal, and the people of Natal were quite satisfied with the work that had been done by that body. The only complaint made by that Province was that the Provincial Council did not get enough work to do. He thought that the Provincial Council system was a step forward and not, as some members of the House had said, a step backward. The Councils had the machinery ready for doing a great deal of useful work. The Councils were composed of men of ability and some of the best men of the country, and if they were only given more work to do he was sure that they would do it well. He agreed with the Minister of Finance when he expressed the opinion the other day that the Divisional Councils would never be able to take the places of the Provincial Councils and that if such a change was carried into effect the confusion would be worse. They were in the third session of the Union Parliament, and he contended that Parliament was in a state of paralysis and was not exercising its proper functions. It was not legislating for the good of the people of the country at a time when the country was crying out for legislation; the country was being kept back by Parliament. Yet some of the hon. members of the House wanted to take back some of the work that had been carried out by the Provincial Councils.

He would like to refer hon. members to what Sir Perceval Laurence said on this question. He told them that it would be difficult and in some parts impracticable to try to put Divisional Councils in the place of Provincial Councils in this country. Another objection brought forward in connection with this Bill was that it would tend to perpetuate the principle of federation. He, for one, wished they had federation in this country, because then those Provinces who were desirous and were able to go ahead, would be able to do so without having to wait for the less enlightened and less progressive Provinces. (Cheers.) That was the idea of Union they had in Natal. They sent their representatives to the Convention to advocate the federal idea; but they came back and said they had been unable to get it, and only got the system of Provincial Councils by threatening to withdraw from the Convention. And now, less than three years after, the proposal was made to abolish that system of Provincial Councils. The Provincial Councils were one of the corner stones of the Convention and the Act of Union, and they should not be tampered with. When they brought forward that argument in connection with this matter, they had the right hon. member for Victoria West calmly telling them that Parliament could override the Convention. He (the hon. member) would ask if that was a proper reply to give. What would they say if a Natal member brought that argument forward in connection with the dual capitals or the dual languages. They could point out that there was more extravagance, more waste, more inconvenience, and more inefficiency in the country because of the dual capital system and the dual language compromise than anything else. (Hear, hear.) It had been proposed to continue the present state of affairs for another year, and to appoint a Commission to enquire into the whole matter of local self-government. He could not see either the necessity or advantage of such a proposal. The country had been calling out for a long time for some proper system of financial relations between the Provinces and the Union Government, and the sooner they had some system fixed the better. It might not be possible to deal with this matter next year, and the present admittedly bad arrangement might continue indefinitely. He would like to know if the proposal of the hon. member for Ladybrand was supported by the other members for the Free State. He would be very surprised to hear that it was. Those hon. members were always insisting on having their Province governed on the lines of their own laws, and if that did not mean federation then he did not know what did. It seemed to him there was something behind the proposed amendments. It was a strange thing that the amendments should have followed exactly upon the lines of the suggestion put forward by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central; and it was a strange thing that it should have been so strongly supported by the hon. member for Victoria West; and it was a strange thing that the hon. member for Uitenhage should take up the same line. He would not be surprised if the hon. member for Ladybrand stood up soon to withdraw his amendment in favour of that of the hon. member for Uitenhage.

It looked very much like a combination of the forces opposing the Government to try and embarrass them; but he hoped the government would stand to their guns —(cheers)—and he hoped that the Government would put this Bill through as it stood. They had, he thought, acted very fairly in this matter. They had appointed a Commission; they put the best men obtainable on it; they had considered the report, and adopted, in the main, the recommendations of the majority, and were prepared now to put it into law at the earliest possible date. He trusted, therefore, that the Government would receive the support of all fair-minded hon. members in the House to put an end to this unfortunate squabble regarding the finances of the Provinces. (Cheers.)

said he was very glad to be able to come to the rescue, to some extent of the hon. member who had just spoken. He would vote for the second reading of the Bill on the understanding that a Commission was appointed to inquire into the matter of local self-government. But he was hot prepared to go the whole length with the hon. member for Durban, Berea. There was no doubt they could get a better and simpler form of local self-government than that provided for in the Act of Union, but he thought that the Provincial Councils, for the time being, performed a very useful purpose. They certainly had the liberty and time to pass legislation which they in that House never get through. They had been sitting here for three years, and, he was sorry to say, they had not touched the fringe of the things they should have dealt with. He thought that in passing this Bill now before the House they should take very great care to indicate very carefully to the Provincial Councils that what was wanted was a system of local government all over the Union on the footing of the Divisional Councils in the Cape, though the powers of those Councils might be extended to include education and other matters. This Commission would serve a useful purpose in educating public opinion to the necessity of a change. He did not share the view of the hon. member for Newlands as to Provincial Councils standing for ten years. He did not think that the difficulty referred to by the hon. member about electing Senators was insurmountable. He considered that it would be unwise to limit the whole scope of the Bill to a period of four years merely. If they were going to give the Provincial Councils a fair chance they must not make them feel that they were only going to live for a period of four years. He thought it would be unwise to give, for instance, special subsidies to some of the Provinces for a period of ten years, and he was of opinion that to that extent the operation of the Bill should be limited to a period of three or four years, as there may be a danger of the special subsidies being perpetuated. At the end of that time they could make other arrangements.

He thought it would be wrong, as the Minister had suggested, to assign transfer duty, shop licences, and native pass fees to the Provinces. By this course they were going to make the Provincial Councils very popular, but exceedingly inefficient. It would be far better to hand over the sources of revenue to them, and say that three years from the date of this Act all the laws in reference to transfer duties, shop and refreshment licences, and native pass fees stood repealed, so that the Provincial Councils could make provision for themselves. He would say that no transfer duty whatever should be imposed by Provincial Councils. Transfer duty was a relic or inheritance from feudal times. (Hear, hear.) It was a barbarous tax, because it was a tax on the acquisition of property. Native pass fees should be put on an equal basis throughout the Union. In regard to shop licences, the Bill provided that representatives of foreign firms should not be interfered with by the Provinces. He thought they should provide in the Bill that no higher scale of licences should be imposed by any Province than the lowest amount payable in any of the Provinces at the present time. These licences were in restraint of trade, and had to be paid indirectly by the people. He thought they should transfer the sources of revenue to the Provinces, and put the Provincial Councils on their mettle to find ways and means. He was prepared to admit that it might be in the nature of a land tax, but that tax would be far better than the taxes now in vogue. We should never have peace throughout the Union until there was equality of taxation. He thought a fair chance of equalising taxation would thus be given. What he wished to see were Councils which really represented the people, and which were directly responsible to the people, whose money they got. It was desirable that they should know when taxes were levied on them that the money was spent in the vicinity. He thought it would be far better for the people to know that these taxes were imposed for their own benefit, rather than by a Union Parliament, which sat at the shank end of the Union. He was prepared to vote for the second reading of the Bill, and was glad that it was to be referred to a Select Committee.

said that when they looked at the drastic constitutional changes which this Bill involved, the large sums of money which it involved, and, generally, the far-reaching effect of this measure, he did not think it was any exaggeration to say that this measure was in its importance second only to the Act of Union itself. The adjustment of the financial relations between the Central Government on the one hand and the Provincial Governments on the other, had been in every country where it had been dealt with a matter of the greatest difficulty and complexity. Touching briefly on the history of the present measure, he pointed out that great changes had taken place since the first Bill was introduced. The liability of the Treasury under this gill had been increased since May last by £382,000 per annum, and they would place a further liability of something like £30,000 a year under the amended Bill that they were promised, by the compensation to the Orange Free State for the reduction of transfer duties in that Province. The increase under this Bill, as against the amount of liability under the Bill of last year, was something like £400.000 a year. It was unfortunate that the Commission appointed in regard to Financial Relations, and on which were four South Africans, brought in two reports. Two took one view, and two took a diametrically opposite view. The Government wholly disregarded the Minority Report, and very largely so, the Majority Report. The Bill moved merely along the line of least resistance. (Hear, hear.) The people of this country, prior to Union, were promised equality of treatment in the four Provinces, and so recently as July last the Prime Minister, when travelling through the South-western Districts of the Cape Province, dealt with this question on more than one occasion. Speaking at George, he assured South Africa that it was the Government’s aim to bring about equality between the various parts of South Africa. But (proceeded Mr. Currey) not only were the four Provinces not treated in the same way, but three different courses were adopted. Natal and the Free State got grants in aid, revenue, and special subsidies; the Transvaal got a grant in aid and revenue assigned to it, but no special subsidies; while the Cape got a grant and assigned revenue, but it had to contribute in local taxation £490,000 a year. Hon. members unfortunately were forced to make comparisons, and, by so doing, they ran the risk of offending the susceptibilities of hon. members who did not represent constituencies in the same Province as he did.

He was not going to follow the hon. member for Maritzburg, North (Mr. Orr), in the extraordinary maze of misleading figures to which the hon. member treated the House the other day. (Hear, hear.) That speech showed the consumption of a great deal of midnight oil. (Mr. ORR: Hear, hear.) But what pleased him (Mr. Currey) about the speech was its extreme modesty. (Mr. ORR: Hear, hear.) Because the hon. member not only assumed the powers of a Government with a big majority, but he also assumed the Royal Prerogative. (Laughter.) The hon. member said: “If you do so and so we will use our majority, and we will alter the capital.” Not content with that, he said: “If you do something else which we don’t like we will have a general election.” (Laughter.) In fact it was a case of “If you do what we Three Tailors of Tooleystreet don’t like, we shall exercise our Royal Prerogative.” (Laughter.) If the hon. gentleman would allow him to make a suggestion to anyone in such close proximity to the Ministerial benches it would be that he (Mr. Orr) should not take any liberties with the Royal Prerogative. What they had to aim at (continued Mr. Currey) was the absolute equality of the four Provinces, and as far as possible the equality of taxation. They must all recognise that it was impossible by a stroke of the pen to equalise taxation in the four Provinces, but he had heard with dismay, almost with despair, the views of the Minister of Finance on the subject. He regretted exceedingly the Minister’s reference to Ireland: he regretted that the Minister was not able to avail himself of a less unhappy comparison than that of Ireland, because if we could look forward to no better prospect as the result of Union than the establishment of a similar state of affairs as that which existed between Great Britain and Ireland, then God help this country.

: Quite right.

resumed: Did the financial position of the Union justify them taking that somewhat pessimistic view? After the first ten months of Union we had a balance of £800,000, after the second year a balance of £600,000, and apparently we were going to have a surplus of £600,000 or £700,000this year. In other words, we had accumulated since Union surpluses amounting to two millions. Was it to go forth from this House that despite that we could do nothing, or next to nothing, to equalise taxation? (Hear, hear.) Surely the be-all and end-all of Government finance was not to come down with large surpluses yearly; surely there was a higher aim—that was to reduce taxation, and not to bother about having enormous surpluses. The country would demand that it was the bounden duty of the House to do something more than it had done to equalise taxation. If the present inequalities in taxation were allowed to continue, then our Union was a mere paper Union. (Cheers.) Those who did anything to rivet such a system permanently — or for any length of time—on the people, would be extremely sorry for it. (Hear, hear.) He was extremely glad that the recommendations of the Majority Report of the Financial Relations Commission had been disregarded. Its proposals regarding the way to make up the deficiency by levying a rate on owners and occupiers of fixed property seemed to be the most hopelessly impracticable suggestion that could be made. With regard to valuations in the Cape Province, in some districts they had high valuations and low rates and in other districts low valuations and high rates. There was an absence of system in the Cape Province, whilst feeling in the other Provinces was almost unanimously against such a system, apart from the fact that there was no official valuation at all. He regarded that portion of the scheme as impracticable. He would like to say a word or two with regard to the position of the Cape Province. The total expenditure of the Cape Province under this Bill during next year was estimated at £1,626,000. Under the original proposal the Treasury proposed to grant the Cape £813,000, to assign a revenue which was expected to bring in £443,000, that was £1,256,000, and the balance of £370,000 had to be found by the local ratepayers, which would be increased to £490,000 if the transfer dues were reduced to 2 per cent. The ratepayers in the Cape under that Bill got no consideration whatever. The only possible advantage they did get was the reduction of the transfer duties from 4 per cent, to 2 per cent. To-day there was no relief for the rate-payer, and if the Provincial Council, as they had the right to do, abolished the School Board rate of one-eighth of a penny in the £, which brought in about £48,000, it would have to be found by the Provincial Council elsewhere, and they would have some excursions into the realm of amateur finance which would be extremely interesting. (Laughter.) There was a laugh raised during the afternoon about the suggestion of a bioscope tax, but it was coming as surely as night followed day. (An HON. MEMBER: Why not?) Well, had they one in the Transvaal? The point was that if they reduced the School Board rate the Cape would get no relief. They had got to find the money elsewhere, and they would find that through the bioscopes and the football matches the poor working men would have to pay.

: He does that now. Put a tax on the land.

The Provincial Councils cannot do that. I am thinking of the working man, while my hon. friend only talks of him. Proceeding, the hon. member said he would remind the House that they in the Cape had been paying this local taxation now for three years under Union. It was proposed they should go on paying it for four years more, in other words, if, under that Bill, the period was reduced to four years the Cape would have paid, between the date of Union and the end of the proposed term of four years, in local rates 3½ million pounds. The other Provinces would have paid nothing. He congratulated his hon. friend from Natal, as he did also his hon. friend from the Free State. They would have paid nothing in the way of local rates, but would have got in the way of subsidies £400,000. He quoted from the Majority Report to show that the Cape ratepayer was also a Union taxpayer, and made contributions that were not made by the other Provinces. That was an anomaly, and yet they were asked to have it for four years to come. The assignment of revenue was part of the local government scheme introduced in England by Mr. Goschen in 1880, and it had by universal consent wholly failed. By nobody was the proposal to assign revenue more completely condemned than by the Bill itself. They were taking away transfer dues from the Provincial Councils, and nothing remained except liquor licences. They said in effect to the Provinces: “We will give you the money we collect, but will allow you no authority or power to legislate.” That gave away the whole question with regard to the assignment of revenue.

He was afraid that the effect of that assignment of revenue would be that year after year that lobby would be filled with gentlemen clamouring for other revenue; and gradually the power of that House would be lessened and lessened. It was a danger that had been threatening that House and was threatening it to-day. In the other place, which should be a chamber of review, legislation had been initiated more than once. Year by year the agitation would go on for more money to the Provinces. They were told that they must consider the dignity of the Provincial Councils; he was not concerned with the maintenance of that dignity, but what he was concerned with was the maintenance of the privileges of that House as custodian of the public purse. (Hear, hear.) Ever since they had had Responsible Government in that country, and from time immemorial in the Old Country, the power of the purse had been in the House of Commons, and it had never been relaxed for more than a year at a time. No consideration of the dignity of the Provincial Councils should weigh with the power of that House in respect to the public purse. (Hear, hear.) Now they proposed in that Bill to give away, roughly speaking, a quarter of their expenditure, and have no control over that sum for four years. Who could say that the Minister of Finance in three or four years’ time would be in a position to pay out 3½ millions of money like that? Could anybody look so far into the future with any certainty? But they ran a risk if they took out of the hands of Parliament the complete control of millions per annum (Hear, hear.) Supposing that Parliament did not live, its full life, or the next Parliament did not live its full life, it was not beyond possibility that the second Union Parliament would not have control. That House should see what money it could give for the next financial year, and no longer. (Hear, hear.) In the case of the Provinces, it was still more important that they should maintain an annual control of the purse, because they had an irremovable executive. To hand over to gentlemen who could not be turned out of office sums of money over which Parliament had no control seemed to him to be departing from the first principle of responsible government. (Hear, hear.) The minority report had considered a most equitable method of giving provincial grants on the basis of population. He agreed with what the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) had said as to the extreme difficulty of arriving at a fair per capita basis, but he did not care what figure you took, or what basis you took, if they took it per capita the Cape under that Bill was most adversely affected. The hon. member quoted figures to bear out this view, and went on to say that the per capita was the only fair and equitable basis for grants in aid. Proceeding, he said that he did not share the view that the time had arrived when the Provincial Councils should be abolished but he thought hon. members would all admit that if in the other Provinces there had been the same amount of local government as in the Cape Province in the last fifty years, there would have been no Provincial Councils at all. As regards the Cape Provincial Council, if they took a poll of the Cape Province to-day there would be an overwhelming opinion in favour of its abolition—

Why?

Why? Because it is a costly and cumbersome administrative excrescence. He went on to say that he recognised that it was impossible at present to abolish the Provincial Councils, because they had made a promise—implied, if they liked—that primary education of the Provinces should be in the hands of the Provincial Councils for five years. Having made that promise, they were bound to maintain the Provincial Councils for a period of five years. He would like to see the Commission which had been promised appointed that day. It could deal with the whole question, and bring up a report to the 1915 session of Parliament, so that, after five years of experience, they would know the best course to follow, and the legislation that should be carried out. He now understood that the system was going to last for two years longer. He thought that they were losing time, but he was glad that the Government agreed that the time had come for a more detailed inquiry into the whole matter. He was sure that the Government would appoint a strong, able, and impartial Commission. They would look forward to the report of that Commission with a great deal of interest, and he hoped the result would give the country a measure of real local government, for which the experience of half a century in the Cape Colony showed that the genius of the people of the country was so well adapted.

said that Griqualand West would not be in favour of the abolition of the Provincial Council, and as a member representing a Cape constituency, he would like to say that there was another side to the question. He remembered, during the existence of the Cape Parliament, their schools were scarcely fit for occupation by scholars. They made application after application without gaining any redress, and the result was that the members of the School Board had to pledge their own credit in order to get money to carry on the work of education. Then there was the Barkly Bridge question, about which they applied to Government without gaining any redress. But as soon as Union came into being, all these things were changed; and he was surprised—very much surprised—that the members of the Cape should object to the subsidies that it was proposed to vote to these two Councils. They had received money for new schools, and hon. members who had spoken had forgotten the benefits which the Cape had derived from Union.. They had only looked at one side of the question. There was another side. Supposing there was no Union in force today: would the income tax have been abolished? Would railway rates have been reduced? He would say that the country had benefited to an enormous extent owing’ to the reductions that had been made in this direction. The constituency which he represented had benefited enormously through Union, and he thought it only right that, if he were the only Cape member who could say so, he should get up in his place and give the House his views on the subject. He was pleased to be able to get up and express his gratitude to Union for having relieved them of a great many disabilities. (Hear, hear.) What would have been the position of the Cape had Union not come into being? They would have been paying large sums for income tax, their railway rates would not have been reduced, and the Cape would still have been taking three-quarters of a million from Griqualand West for the purpose of spending in Cape Town. Griqualand West was the milch cow then; now the Transvaal was the milch cow. (“Hear, hear,” and laughter.) Before Union the Transvaal had enormous surpluses. Of whatever subsidies were paid to the two Councils, the Cape would pay nothing, the Free State nothing, Natal nothing—but the money voted to these Councils would come from the surplus revenue of the Transvaal. That was the way he looked at the matter, and he could assure the House that he had given careful study to the question. He considered that they would never do away with this feeling of Provincialism until they got equality of taxation. (Hear, hear.) He simply rose in his seat for the purpose of telling the House how grateful the people of his constituency were at the benefits they had derived from Union, more especially in view of the fact that so many of the Cape members had spoken on this subject, and had not alluded to those benefits. (Hear, hear.)

said he had no intention of making a long speech this afternoon, but he considered it his duty to say a few words on this important subject now before the House. In the first place, he wished to assure the hon. member for Durban, Berea (Mr. Henderson) that he quite agreed with the views expressed by him when he said that they would be guilty of a breach of faith if they consented to the abolition of the Provincial Councils—a breach of faith to Natal in the first place. There could be no doubt that with the Natal delegates to the Convention the question of the Provincial Councils was practically the most important point of all, and all these delegates had expressed themselves very strongly on that point. The Free State delegates also felt very strongly on that matter. At the time of the Convention, he (General Hertzog) was a strong supporter of the Provincial Council system, and he had not changed his views since that time. (Hear, hear.) He did not wish to go so far as to say that the future of the country depended solely upon these Provincial Councils; but he wished to emphasise that, under present-day circumstances, the Provincial Councils were absolutely essential: (Hear, hear.) The hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt) had spoken as if the people of the Free State were against these Councils. He was convinced, however, that if one were to go to the Free State people, they would express their opinions very strongly in favour of the maintenance of these Councils. (Hear, hear.) He agreed with the hon. member for Durban, Berea (Mr. Henderson) that they would have to sympathise with the Union Parliament if all the work which was to-day being done by the Provincial Councils was referred to the Union Parliament, and he, for one, would condole with the country. (Hear, hear.) They had already been in session for a full month, and what had been done? (Hear, hear.) Under present circumstances, it was absolutely impossible to contemplate the suggestion of the Union Parliament properly dealing with its own work and at the same time taking over the work of the Provincial Councils. He had seconded the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle), and his reason for having done so was that he was opposed to a Commission again dealing with the subject. The hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt) wanted that, and his proposal had been seconded by Mr. Merriman. The Minister had also said that he wanted a Commission appointed. Well, to him (General Hertzog) that attitude seemed most inconsistent and ridiculous. (Hear, hear.) They had had an assurance from the Minister in regard to this Commission which had sat on this matter—a Commission which had been appointed in terms of the Act of Union—a Commission whose recommendations were contemplated as final by the Act of Union itself. They had been told that that Commission was the most capable they had ever had, and the most capable which they would ever get; but, notwithstanding that, the Minister now suggested that they should again refer this matter to a Commission—a Commission which would not be as capable as the first one— and that Commission would have to report. What was the good of that, what was the object of it? Why should that work again be referred to a Commission, and what was more, to a Commission less capable than the one which had originally dealt with the question? (Hear, hear.) The Minister must either have some new facts justifying him to come to other conclusions and to make fresh recommendations, or he had no new facts. If he had new facts, why did he not come to this House and say: “ I have to depart from the recommendations of the old Commission, and I propose a new Commission.” But if he had no fresh facts, what could he then expect from another Commission—from a less capable Commission? Did he merely wish to gain time? The Bill ought to be passed during the present session, and for the following reasons. The right hon. member for Victoria West said, and other hon. members repeated it, that the Provincial Councils did nothing, or did not do that what they were expected to do. Well, what did the Provincial Councils say? They contended that the cause was that they were not treated by the Union Parliament as they should be treated. Fixed principles should be laid down as to the duties of the Provincial Councils. They got something to do today and something to-morrow, but after all, what did it amount to? They never got enough. The hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) had dealt with the education question in the Cape Province. Well, he (General Hertzog) wished to show them the injustice which was being done to the Cape in this respect—and he wished to point out that he had spoken in a similar spirit in the Convention. (Hear, hear.) An injustice was being done to the Cape through the delay in the solution of this question. In the Convention he had said that, as regarded education, the Union could not possibly continue to have education paid for in the Transvaal and Free State out of Union funds, while in the Cape the people should tax themselves locally and bear all the expenses locally. (Hear, hear.) It had been said that that must be one of the matters which must be solved as soon as possible by the Union Parliament. Well, what did they have now? They should go to the Provincial Council of the Cape Province and allow it to do its duty towards the children of the Cape Province by placing it in possession of the necessary funds; but the Cape to-day was still exactly where it was before. (Hear, hear.) How could they expect the Provincial Councils to do their work, when they handicapped them in the way they had done? He emphasised that as soon as possible the Provincial Councils, especially the Cape Provincial Council, should be able to have the necessary funds to which they were entitled. (Mr. JAGGER: Hear, hear.) The Minister had suggested that they should pass this measure for a period of four years. The elections for the Provincial Councils would then be past, and there would be another Provincial Council, and they would then see where they were. What would that mean? The Provincial Councils instead of living from hand to mouth would then get a period of four years. But would that bring them any further? The result would be that every time they had elections they would hear all over South Africa of the injustice which was being done to these Councils, but especially to the Cape Provincial Council. (Hear, hear.) And in the Union elections, which would be with them in another two years, he could foresee what argument would be used. Instead of them getting a great and noble programme for South Africa, they would get all these minor local points brought up over and over again. Therefore they should see to it that they got a law passed which would regulate the relations on a proper basis. He therefore supported the amendment, because it said that the relations between the Union and the Provinces should be laid down according to fixed principles, applying equally to all Provinces. What did they find in the Bill now before them? The Minister seemed to have gone to Natal and seemed to have asked them “what will you take to be satisfied,” and he seemed to have gone to the Free State and asked them “how much do you want.” And so he had come to the Cape, where he could not so easily succeed. He had said, “well, I must do something.” The Minister was embarrassed by the existing position in regard to the inequalities of taxation. He ought to have taken up a definite attitude. At present there were eight or nine such inequalities, which he could call points of difference; there were the transfer duties, the licences, school taxes in the Cape. These matters would have to be tackled one day; why not tackle them in a manly way and solve the difficulties? But instead the Minister had approached the Provinces and asked them: “How much must I pay you?” He should have told them “that is the standpoint taken up by the Union Government,” and he should have taken up a firm attitude and come to this House with some definite proposals. He should have come to the House with proposals on which they could judge and come to a definite conclusion. The Minister had tried to find a way out with regard to transfer duties by putting them at 2 per cent, and handing them over to the Provinces. In that he had taken a definite attitude, but why had he not done the same with regard to education? He should have adopted one of the three existing school systems and made it general. It was immaterial to him whether this Bill was referred to a Select Committee now or after the second reading had been passed. But he wanted it to go to a Select Committee so as to have laid down on a proper basis these matters which were of so much importance to the Provincial Councils. This Bill might be to the advantage of the Free State now. The Free State might fare well under these proposals, but it was a matter which concerned the whole Union, and how long would that last? Ten or perhaps fifteen years, and then, what would happen then? Then they might experience the same difficulties again and the Free State might not come off so well. He (General Hertzog) wished the Select Committee to go into all these points of difference, these matters of inequality. These points should not be left to the indefinite future, but settled now. That was the reason why he supported the amendment.

said that the hon. member who had just sat down was a member of the Government during the last session, when a Bill similar in every respect to the one now before the House was brought up and presented to the House for adoption. They were always informed that there was no disunion in the Government, that they were one happy family, and that they had consulted and conferred with each other on all the matters which were brought before the House. He took it, therefore, that the hon. gentleman must have been perfectly cognisant with all the provisions of this Bill, yet he now came forward and condemned and tore it to shreds, and blamed the Government for the position that the House was in. This was the second time within a few days that they had had to listen to such statements. They had one, unfortunately, yesterday, when a late member of the Cabinet accused another one of— well, he would not say what, but, at any rate, the Minister denied utterly the truth of what the hon. gentleman had said. They could only say that this brought Parliament down to a very poor level, and when they went back to their constituents it would be difficult for them to justify their existence. Now, he was one of those who thought that the Provincial Councils should be continued. The Councils were conducted with very great decorum and dignity, and deserved to be supported. He was one of those who in the late Cape Parliament, when the matter was considered, were strongly opposed to Provincial Governments. He then thought that they were unnecessary, that they would be very expensive, and that the Union Parliament could discharge all the functions that it had been necessary for the Colonial Parliaments to discharge in the past. His experience during the last two and a-half years in this House had led him to take a different view. The congested state of legislation here and the difficulty of getting through any legislation at all had entirely altered his opinion, and he was perfectly sure that for the good of the country they could not do better than try and improve the position of the Provincial Councils. There was diversity in the requirements of the Provinces, and yet they were all dependent entirely on this House for the amount of money allowed them. The estimates framed by the Provinces were under the present system submitted to the Treasury, and the Treasury, without any knowledge of the local wants of the Provinces, ruthlessly cut down whatever sum they liked. It was not a question of the local wants of the Provinces, but simply a question of the exigencies of the Government with regard to finances.

The estimates were often sent back to Provincial Councils, which had practically no voice or say in them. The Councils must either take the estimates or leave them—they could not even discuss them. The complaint of the members of the Provincial Council was that they had had practically no voice in their own affairs. This condition of affairs could not possibly go on, and if the Provincial Councils were to be successful they must be given financial responsibility. (Hear, hear.) Would municipal councils be as economical as they were now if their funds were doled out to them by a central authority? A good deal had been said with regard to extravagance. He was not prepared to say that the Provincial Councils had been extravagant, but he did say that the proposed system had a very great tendency towards extravagance. (Hear, hear.) No system under which money was doled out to local authorities would ever be successful. The pound per pound principle had led to extravagance. The only way was to assign revenues to the Provincial Councils, and to make them responsible should they require any further funds. The Cape had been starved, and even at the present time there were white children in the Cape Peninsula penned up in iron school buildings, which were not fit for human beings to live in—simply because the School Board could not obtain money for the erection of new buildings. He admitted that the Cape had benefited under Union, and they could all say that Union had been a blessing to South Africa. (Hear, hear.) But he wished they could have less provincial spirit and try to come to some uniform arrangement by which they would not give occasion for the inhabitants of South Africa to say that there was inequality as between one Province and another. The proposal of the Government would perpetuate this system of inequality. It had taken them three years even to get to the present stage, and they must be convinced that there was much inequality. The first thing should have been to try and equalise the financial position in the various Provinces before bringing in that Bill as they had done. If they had had a Commission appointed or had given the late Commission greater powers, something would have been done.

There was one objection to the Minister of Finance controlling in that autocratic way the amount of money which was needed by the Provincial Councils; practically he became the Administrator, because unless the Provincial Councils had the money, naturally they could not carry on the work. Education was suffering, roads were suffering, and there were other interests. They had a source of wealth at their doors in the fishing industry. That was a great industry, which only wanted a few thousand pounds spending upon it, and it would develop enormously. It would provide food for the people of this country, and anything which they could do to try and cheapen the cost of living they should do. With regard to the Provincial Councils, he would remind the hon. member for East London, when he was Colonial Secretary in the Cape Parliament, of the difficulty he experienced in trying to get a measure through the House for the benefit of local government. For ten years they had a Municipal Bill in the pigeonholes, and found it impossible to make it law. What had been done by the Provincial Councils? Only two years had passed and they had one of the finest municipal laws ever passed. They had to thank the Administrator that these Ordinances had become law, and he thought it was only due to him to say that if they continued these Provincial Councils and gave them greater power than they had at the present time, they would solve the question of local government being extended in the other Provinces as well as in the Cape. In the last session of the Cape Parliament they had passed a Rural Council Bill, and if the principle contained in that were extended throughout the other three Provinces of the Union, the question of local government would be solved. What he would advocate, as one who took an interest in local government, would be the dividing up of the country into what they might call small counties, and giving them powers such as County Councils had; and have one body to deal with roads, bridges, municipal, school board and hospital affairs. At the present time they had four bodies dealing with these affairs, and if they had the one body they would have better men, he thought, better results, and greater progress in the country. In conclusion, he read an extract from Mr. Justice Laurence’s report, showing the necessity for trying to keep on with the Provincial Councils.

moved the adjournment of the debate until the following day.

The motion was agreed to.