from J. G. Sutton, M.A., formerly Principal of Dale College, King William’s Town, praying for an increase of pension, or for other relief.

from Florence Pringle and others, inhabitants of King William’s Town, praying for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Veto whereby men and women may decide by ballot on the continuance, reduction or issue of liquor licences, or for other relief.

from A. P. van Straten, of Bloemfontein, who, from 1881 to 1897, was in the service of the Orange Free State, praying for a pension, or for other relief.

as Chairman, brought up the second report of the Select Committee on Pensions, Giants, and Gratuities.

The second report is as follows:

Your Committee, having considered the various petitions referred to it, begs to report. I. That it recommends: (1) The award to C. Gaskell, widow of the late J. H. Gaskell, gardener. Houses of Parliament, of a gratuity of £100; (2) that the temporary pension of £2 per calendar month granted in 1911 to A. Winder, formerly of the Public Works Department, Cape, be altered to a permanent grant of the same amount for the period of the petitioner’s lifetime; (3) the award to J. Mokhosi, formerly Native Corporal, Orange Free State Police, of a pension of £12 per annum, to take effect from the 1st April, 1913; (4) that the break in the service of Hannan Nicholson, teacher, from 1st July, 1905, to 31st December, 1906, be condoned, being regarded as special leave, not counting as service, but preserving for petitioner the benefit of her previous service; (5) that the break in the service of A. F. van der Lith, teacher, from 1st August, 1894, to 30th June, 1902, be condoned, being regarded as special leave, not counting as service, but preserving for petitioner the benefit of her previous service; (6) that the break in the service of B. P. Eybers, teacher, from 1st January, 1911, to 31st December, 1912, be condoned, being regarded as special leave, not counting as service, but preserving for petitioner the benefit of his previous service; (7) that the break in the service of G. v. W. Eybers, teacher, from 1st January, 1908, to 31st December, 1909, be condoned, being regarded as special leave, not counting as service, but preserving for petitioner the benefit of his previous service; (8) that the petitions of B. M. J. Heydenrych and J. F. Koekemoer, teachers, be referred to the Government with a view to the condonation of the breaks in petitioners’ service by the Education Department (Cape).

II. That it is unable to recommend that the prayers of the following petitions be entertained: (1) E. C. Haupt; (2) C. M. Marais; (3) W. Gifford; (4) M. Grindrod; (5) D. Adamson; (6) C. Thompson; (7) A. H. J. Doubell; (8) P. C. King; (9) J. Shoyer; (10) F. J. Smallman; (11) A. A. L. James; (12) H. Sundstrom; (13) G. F. Smith; (14) G. P. Esterhuizen (with supporting petition from G. Schweinsberg and 131 others); (15) N. H. M. Cole; (16) J. G. de L. van Alphen; (17) J. J. Noone; (18) H. W. Coley; (19) C. Jameson; (20) A. Molefe; (21) D. Sullivan; (22) Lady F. C. Gallwey; (23) F. J. Brown; (24) G. Schalkwyk; (25) A. C. Wallis; (26) T. C. Mulligan; (27) A. A. Spotswood; (28) H. G. A. Meldam; (29) E. Parker; (30) P. Quinn; (31) A. Jaeger; (32) M. E. Blyth; (33) J. W. Goldsworthy. 34. With reference to the petition of M. E. Carstens, your Committee is unable to make any recommendation thereon, as the subject matter of the petition is one to be dealt with departmentally.

The report was set down for consideration on Thursday, the 10th inst.

laid on the Table certain rules of the Supreme Court of South Africa.

Papers relating to disposal of agricultural lots on farms “Nelskop North,” “Klippe Kraal,” “Nelskop South,” “Harde Vlei ” and “ Dikdoorns (West),” Calvinia; excision of farm “Olifants Hoek” from list of demarcated forest areas.

These were referred to the Select Committee on Waste Lands.

said that when he moved the adjournment of the debate some hon. members opposite, and one in particular, seemed to think that he had done an extraordinary thing, and that hon. gentleman went outside the walls of this House, and the public were informed of this debate. He must congratulate the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, that he was not the one who did that. The hon. member seemed to think that the omens were rather favourable and he was very much alarmed lest this important question should not be reached during the present session, and he felicitated the hon. member on the fact that it had again been reached.

The hon. Minister proceeded to say that he would not deal with the question of laboratories. The Prime Minister had already dealt with that matter It was an important question on which he was very well aware there was considerable difference of opinion. Nor would he deal with the question of the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth that they should have an enquiry by Select Committee. He would only say this in answer to what was said, that it was not quite so easy to pick up experts who would diagnose this disease, so that they would know how to deal with it. They did not pick up men like Dr. Theiler very easily. They might be obtained, but not easily.

The question he referred to the other day was the proposal to enquire into the management of Elsenberg, and the reason why he spoke of it was because it was while he was Minister of Agriculture that the then manager’s services were dispensed with. He (the Minister) took the whole responsibility of that, and he wanted to tell the House why he acted as he did. He was rather sorry the other day to think that by a side remark the impression was given (he hoped he was wrong) that there was some feeling because one man of one nationality succeeded another man of another nationality.

Opposition cries of “No,” and “You’re quite wrong.”

Well, I am prepared to accept that, and am glad to think that I am wrong.

We never said anything to give such an impression.

I am not insinuating that you did.

You are—you always are. (Opposition cheers.)

proceeding, said he wanted to deal with this matter on its merits. When he came back from England he had a report presented to him from Mr. Holm, whose chief duty it was to supervise the affairs of the different agricultural colleges. He was a gentleman with a very high reputation, and, certainly, the institution under his control had proved a very great success. Well, that report, to his (the Minister’s) mind, showed satisfactorily that the management of Elsenberg was not efficient. He read this report very carefully, and came to the conclusion that the only way to deal with it was by discontinuing the services of the manager, who was then in charge, and had been for a considerable time. He (the Minister) happened to know, personally, a good deal about Elsenberg, having lived in the neighbourhood and taken a great interest in the institution, and having heard from the students themselves how things went on. He knew pretty well the position of affairs at Elsenberg, and what he had been told agreed with Mr. Holm’s report. He knew that anybody reading that report could not but come to the conclusion that the state of affairs was very unsatisfactory. Personally, the relations between himself and the principal were of a most friendly character.

The general opinion in the neighbourhood of Elsenberg was that there was a want of discipline, and a want of sympathy between the manager and the staff, and also between the staff and the students: and the fact remained that the institute, which not long before had 45 or 47 students, had come down to 17, and they were carrying away to different parts of the country the report that the management of Elsenberg was unsatisfactory, and consequently the number of students had fallen off very considerably. He wanted to say, quite apart from the fact that, in his opinion, there was sufficient evidence to terminate the then existing agreement with the manager, there was a special clause in the agreement appointing the manager, that, without assigning any reason whatever, the Government could terminate the agreement by giving three months’ notice. He might say that, in his opinion, where they had appointments of that sort it was necessary that there should be some such arrangement. They could not have interminable agreements. Therefore, they acted strictly within their legal rights. If the gentleman himself had wanted to leave, he could have given the Government three months’ notice, and they would have had to accept it, so it was a reciprocal arrangement. But he (the Minister) did not want to act in any other manner than that consistent with the public interest. He did not want to act in any way harshly or inconsistent with the gentleman’s interests, and he, therefore, gave the manager three months’ notice. They had heard a good deal about the condition of Elsenberg.

The condition of Elsenberg had unfortunately been for years unsatisfactory. It was as unsatisfactory before Union as it was at the time this change was made. What was the reason for that ? He had heard it often said the institution was not properly equipped; that they had not sufficient machinery, and that they had not got the best stock. The reason, and as a rule the only reason, why an institution of that kind was unsatisfactory, was because the management was unsatisfactory. When they got a good manager they had a good institution. Look at the position. They were assailed on the one hand because the state of affairs at Elsenberg was unsatisfactory, and to remedy it they took the only possible steps. If they had neglected their duty after seeing that report, and that report had been laid on the Table of the House, he did not think there was one hon. member who would not have said that the time had come for a change. They took the only possible steps to remedy what everybody admitted was an unsatisfactory position. They did not do it in any way to hurt this gentleman’s feelings or interests, but they put somebody else in his place. He did not know if the new manager was going to be a success. He had never met him before, but put him in with the approval of the permanent head of the department. He had a long conversation with the gentleman, and told him that being an expert was a secondary matter in managing such an institution. The thing was to be able to manage men,, and especially young men. He told him that with his expert knowledge, the best in South Africa, as regards viticulture, he should make the institution a success, and teach those young men to make first-class wines.

He had told him that if he was not a success, he would have to go, just as his predecessors went. The difficulty in making this institution a success was the difficulty in finding competent men. Take all their agricultural institutions in South Africa, he did not think that they were such a success as they might have been. Elsenberg was the most lamentable failure of all. At one time it was a success, but on that occasion they had a very competent manager. The position was this: that they had made a change and did as they were compelled to do, yet they were asked to appoint a Select Committee. If they had not done what they had done then, it would have been, perhaps, necessary to have appointed a Select Committee, but there was no reason for doing that now If the institution continued to be a failure, the time might come when Parliament would say: you must submit to a vote of censure, or have an inquiry into affairs; hut they had taken evidence, and, under these circumstances, it would be a great mistake if they had a public inquiry without giving the new management a trial, and seeing what could be done. He hoped the future would be more successful than the past. Elsenberg, he thought, should have experimented more for the purpose of seeing what particular grasses would grow in the Province for fodder. He should have thought that, in other parts of the world, where they had the same climatic conditions, that they might have been able to get the same grasses that were grown in these parts, so as to promote the dairy industry. Notwithstanding the amount of money that they had spent upon it, Elsenberg has absolutely failed in this respect. He had seen a lucerne patch which was in a very much worse condition than he had seen upon the farms in the neighbourhood. With regard to the agricultural future of Elsenberg, Elsenberg should specially direct its attention to the fostering of agriculture, as it specially referred to the Western Province. These were the reasons that prompted him to do what he had done, and if he had to act again, he would do exactly the same. If any remark that he had made had given offence to members opposite, then he must unreservedly withdraw it. His first duty was not to conceal the position of any officials from the public. It was at all times unpleasant to terminate the career of any public servants, but where it was necessary in the public interests, they should do so.

said that before putting the question he would like to deal with the remarks that had fallen from the Treasury benches. Before doing that he would deal with the remarks which had fallen from the Minister of Justice, who had said at the end of his speech that he withdrew a remark which he (Sir T. W. Smartt), however inadvertently it had been made, thought should not have been made by any gentleman in that House, and especially by a Minister. Their business was to deal with the business of the country, and he did not think it was possible to deprecate enough remarks of that sort—falling casually upon the floor— in sufficiently strong language. There were enough matters in this House to divide them without insinuating in any way that the question of nationality came in in any way. The Minister seemed rather surprised that members upon that side of the House should have taken exception to the extraordinary manner in which the debate was adjourned, and the Minister said that this had given full justification for the adjournment, but when matters of this description were brought forward it was better that they should plainly express their opinions. He would like to deal with the criticism that had been passed upon this matter, but before he did so he would like to make it perfectly clear that he had no intention or desire of questioning the qualifications or character of the person who was in charge of Elsenberg at the present moment, but he considered that everything possible should be done to allay any feeling of apprehension. Elsenberg had done very good work in this country, and many of its students were carrying on very good work in the country at the present moment. The Minister of Justice and his colleagues said that Elsenberg had been conducted in a very unsatisfactory manner. The blame for that lay with the Government, but the point was that when this strike of students took place the late principal was not in charge. When this gentleman had been five years with them, so highly did the Government think of him, that they had offered to renew his contract for a further term of three years. It was unfortunate that they should take a person’s reputation from him. After this gentleman had served the Government eight years and was out of the country on sick leave it sent him a cable stating that his services were dispensed with. That, as he (Sir Thomas) had observed on a previous occasion when a similar thing occurred —(Ministerial cheers)—was not the proper way to deal with men of standing, and was not the manner in which to encourage first-class men to enter the service of the State. (Cheers.) When he proposed the motion the other day, the Minister of Finance said the question dealt with two entirely different subjects—Elsenberg College and chemical research. But the Minister must have forgotten the fact that under the scheme adopted by the Government, the agricultural colleges were supposed to take up the question of chemical investigation.

However, in order to facilitate matters he (Sir Thomas) was prepared to withdraw the portion of the motion which referred to Elsenberg. (Cheers.) But in doing so he took the strongest possible exception to the principles laid down by the Minister of Finance in his dealings with chemical laboratories. The Minister had said that it was not the duty of the House to inquire into the internal arrangements of any of the Government departments. If the Minister maintained that Parliament was going to be governed by a bureaucracy and that Parliament had no control whatever, then he (Sir Thomas) acknowledged the Minister’s attitude was correct. But he (Sir Thomas) maintained that under responsible government it was the duty and prerogative of the House, if it considered the administration had not been carried on in the general interests of the country, to appoint á commission of inquiry. (Hear, hear.) It would be possible to make these inquiries without levelling charges at officers who had no opportunity of defending themselves in that House, for the Ministers themselves were solely responsible to Parliament. The great argument raised by the Minister was that the reorganisation Commission had gone fully into the question and had recommended that the agricultural colleges should become the centres of research. Three years, however, formed a fairly reasonable time in which to equip the colleges for their new duties, but if three years were not sufficient it was a pity that the old organisation was broken up before the new one was ready to take its place. It was a pity, too, to break up the life work of a chemist who was favourably known by his works, and who was looked upon as an authority in his own branch of research. (Cheers.) Sir Thomas having claimed the Prime Minister as the strongest advocate of the proposed committee, said that why he (Sir Thomas) felt so strongly on this question was because he felt our energies were being dissipated, and that the carrying out of casual investigations of the soil would lead to nothing but chaos. We would spend a good deal of money, but have no results worth speaking of. Soil investigation should be carried out on a definite basis, and should be co-ordinated from time to time. (Hear, hear.) Further, it was essential that investigations of the soil should be conducted on the same principles. We had made some advance, and he believed we should make still further advance, but we should never make such advance unless we had, as they had in the United States, a chemical department under one chief, with branches throughout the Union, so that there would be some means of coordinating the results, and there would be no waste of energy and reduplication of the work which had been carried out.

The hon. member went on to quote from an address given by Professor Van der Riet, of the Victoria College, as president of the Cape Chemical Society, in order to emphasise the absolute necessity of systematic soil analyses, and, in concluding, he intimated that, with a view of having this subject thoroughly inquired into, he would withdraw the second sub-section of his motion, dealing with Elsenberg College, and he would appeal to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to depart from the position they had taken up, and grant this committee, in the interests of the whole country.

With the leave of the House, sub-section (2) was withdrawn.

said that he would withdraw his amendment.

With the leave of the House, the amendment was withdrawn.

said he considered that such activities as those referred to in the motion should not be carried out by the Government at all. They were always bound to result in such dissatisfaction as they had experienced on this occasion. If the leader of the Opposition had brought up a resolution for the abolition of such institutions as Elsenberg and the chemical laboratories, he would have had his (Mr. Fawcus’) hearty support.

said that they on the cross-benches would support the motion. They could not understand the feeling of the Government towards the motion for the appointment of a Select Committee, when they remembered the way in which, when his hon. friend behind him brought in a motion for the appointment of a Select Committee on railway matters, Ministers were vieing with one another in proposing different kinds of committees.

put the amended motion, viz.: That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon the arrangements by which chemical laboratories, under separate control, are attached to the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, and declared that the “ Noes ” had it.

called for a division, which was taken, with the following result:

moved, as an unopposed motion, that the report of the Select Committee on Fidei Commissary Bequests be referred to the Select Committee on the Administration of Estates Bill, as this would greatly simplify the consideration of the matter. Hon. members would then be able to make the remarks when the report of that Select Committee was before the House.

The motion was agreed to.

said that one of the undesirable results of having addressed the House at nearly six o’clock, when the debate was in progress previously, was that there were several misleading reports of what was said. He, personally, had been inundated with reproaches for what he had not said. Therefore he would take the liberty of referring again to points he had dealt with at that time. On the general question raised by the mover (Sir Thos. Cullinan), the conservation of water, they had pointed out that they were not in the position of other countries where there were strong perennial streams suitable for irrigation. The streams in this country were small and the flow in them was confined to one period of the year. Conservation by individual owners would not be effective for a very long time, and would not be generally beneficial to the country. He thought it was generally accepted, at any rate in theory, that something had got to be done by the Government, and that the real work was far too big for individuals. He had pointed out that they had, broadly speaking, two or three of the big rivers, the Vaal and the Orange.

And the Crocodile.

Which Crocodile—the Limpopo or the other?

No, the Limpopo.

Yes, but I don’t think the country is, at the present time, quite suitable for closer settlement in that neighbourhood. Proceeding, he said the point to which he drew attention was the very significant statement made by the Prime Minister. He (the hon. member) had been tackled with having made an attack on the Vereeniging Estates, because they had a monopoly of the Rand water supply. He never referred to any estates or any schemes for the Rand water supply, but he had dealt with what the Prime Minister said with regard to the water supply of the Rand. One was the Witwatersrand area water, and the other the conservation of the main streams in other areas. In regard to the first, the position of the Government, he understood, was, if not one of indifference, one of doing nothing. He would put it to the Government: Supposing they had an agricultural area as important to the finances of this country as the Witwatersrand mining industry, and that was threatened by drought or curtailment. Did they think the Government would shrug their shoulders and say: “Well, you must worry this out for yourselves?” Did they think they would risk the agricultural industry? They would not risk one fraction of it, but that was what they were doing in regard to the Witwatersrand area. They had a severe drought in this country. In some ways it was not severe enough. It was quite evident it had not been severe enough about Cape Town, or they would not have a water supply at all. They had had that in Johannesburg. The general distress that must follow, as it unfortunately must follow, to the mining industry would be greater than it was now. If there was a curtailment that curtailment would be felt throughout the whole of South Africa from one end to the other. Broadly speaking, the water supply upon the mines was just about a half of what it was last year.

That is the storage.

Sir J. P. FITZPATRICK: Yes; the storage. They might have luck, they might have heavy rains, which might just save them. They talked about unemployment. Why, the place might be seething with unemployment, and where were their farmers going to sell their produce? Where were the railways going to get their returns if the mines had to shut down for lack of water.

They did not want any grandmotherly interest taken in these things. They wanted the Government to take that interest in this industry just in the same way as they would do with their own assets. As soon as a shortage of water actually began, the townspeople would begin to complain to the Municipality, and the Municipality would complain to the Water Board, and they would complain to the mines. Who were responsible? Surely the Government were responsible to see that the assets of the country were properly protected. He simply asked that the Government should take steps now to avert disaster. He was told that there was a supply available, but it was objected to by a few farmers. Was that a sufficient reason? He did not care what provision was made, as long as it was adequate, and kept the industry going, an industry upon which they were so largely dependent. The right hon. gentleman told him that it was not possible to expect a large storage of water upon such rivers as the Orange River, the Vaal River, and even the Limpopo. He said that the Government could not spend a million of money upon the conservation of water merely to improve the position, and to provide private owners that were lower down with water. He quite agreed that they could not do that. It was bad enough that land had increased so much in value and no taxes upon it, but they had here a whole district. The Government would not do this because the right hon. the Prime Minister said the owners were asking already as much as £30 per morgen along irrigable lands. They talked about closer settlement. They talked about the poverty of the poor whites. The right hon. gentleman knew better than he how many thousands of people were willing to take up agricultural work, but could not do so because they had not the land and they had not the capital. This was the only young country in the world where all the land was taken up and held, and the Prime Minister told him they could not take it up because farmers wanted £30 per morgen.

in rising to a point of order, said he had said distinctly that he personally was not in favour of starting large schemes now, but that he favoured small schemes, which would be more useful to the country. He had pointed out that large schemes would cost a million to one and a half millions. The value of the land where these large schemes would come was already very considerable; £30 per morgen, and even more. It would, in these circumstances, not be possible to use that expensive land for the settlement of poor people.

said he was much obliged for the correction, but it did not materially alter the facts, because they knew it was a fact that farmers were asking £30, £40, or even £50 a morgen for land along the river bank, which could be irrigated. Where was a poor man going to find land to do that? The position of the Government was this: that they could not do this, because the land was privately held, and people could not buy land, and the Government could not, because it was too poor. He had noticed that it had been stated that people who lived on the river banks enjoyed a monopoly. The only reference that he had made in this way was that, under the existing conditions of the country, the owners of the river frontage enjoyed the monopoly of the water supply of that river. If a man had got a mile of frontage, it was possible that he might get the water upon his land by ordinary gravitation; but come to the small owners. A man that had got to try and farm two or three hundred morgen of good land along the river. Gas and steam plant for pumping were very well developed, but they were not the same as gravitation, and so they came back to the point raised: that unless they had conservation, no legislation or scheme that they might adopt would be sufficient to meet the needs of the country. Proceeding, the hon. member said that where the Orange River joined below Kimberley, and runs away there, that river ought to be as big as a sea. There was a settlement there, a settlement that he would like to see duplicated in other parts. He referred to Kakamas. Where was the water there? It had all gone to the sea last year. There were no weirs or dams, and this one settlement alone was starving for want of water. Was this in itself not a lesson to bring home to the Government the seriousness of the position. Did they not realise that something had to be done. He knew what the answer would be. Whom were they going to benefit under existing conditions? Then the development of the country might be arrested, but their responsibilities as a Government would not cease, and they would have to meet a bigger bill in the future. It would hit the land-owners. The hon. the Minister of Finance stated that there would be a deficit, and to meet that there would have to be further taxation. The Minister knew in his own mind that this was necessary.

They must begin by releasing the land, by taxation which would not fall on those who worked their farms. Besides that, they wanted power of expropriation; but he would be sorry to see those powers arbitrarily used If they put a slight, but persistent, pressure on the land-owners, they would not have to exercise powers of expropriation. Why he did not like these powers of expropriation was because they did not work automatically, but depended on the judgment of a Minister, and onlookers would say that Government showed partiality by paying too much for a man’s land, or that Government displayed vindictiveness by taking a man’s land away from him. People who allowed their land to lie idle were keeping off the soil poor whites and immigrants. (Cheers.) One way of putting an end to this state of affairs was the taxation of unimproved land values—the prairie value. He was not a Socialist—(Labour cheers)—but he went with the Socialists up to the point when they said that in the interests of the country it should be made impossible for people to hold large areas of land unless they paid for the privilege. These people should be told that the alternative to taxation was to work the land themselves, to sell it, or lease it. He felt very strongly in support of the motion, which he hoped hon. members on the Government side would take up. It was not sufficient for Government to accept this as a pious hope or recommendation. Hon. members opposite who had put the Government in power should see that Government did something to justify its existence. (Hear, hear.) No Select Committee was required, for all the information was in the possession of the Government. Then why had Government not done anything in the matter? Government had the information, and it knew the necessity, but it was wanting in the courage or the will to do what was necessary. But Government would not get that will except under pressure, and it would not get the courage except it was the courage of despair. (Opposition cheers.)

said the Government had been accused of not taking active steps in the matter. He would like to explain the attitude Government had taken up, and he thought the House would see that Government had done absolutely all in its power to bring the serious state of affairs which might arise on the Rand to the attention of the people more directly interested. The Government had recognised from the commencement that on the Rand it must look to the Rand Water Board, which was constituted for the purpose of consolidating the different interests which had existed there. If the Government were to step in now the result would be very much the same state of affairs that existed before the constitution of the Rand Water Board. (Hear, hear.) Shortly after Parliament rose last session a communication was addressed to the Rand Water Board, drawing its attention to the serious state of affairs which might arise there. The Board reported that it had great difficulty in bringing the different interests together. It was recognised that a new catchment area was needed. The Board investigated different schemes. It decided upon one, but when it endeavoured to obtain options over the land which it would require for the carrying out of the scheme, the Board found itself very considerably hampered, owing to the information having got abroad that it had decided to recommend the adoption of a particular site. It was curious that whenever anything of that kind was taken in hand in connection with the Rand the information leaked out and the authorities’ hands were tied. Past experience made one rather chary in interfering in matters of that kind. The scheme adopted by the Board was submitted to the Government, but as the result of assistance given by the Director of Irrigation the scheme was abandoned in favour of an alternative one recommended by the Director of Irrigation. He remembered writing a letter to the Rand Water Board pointing out that, unless they brought in their Bill and published the details of it in good time, they would be too late for this session of Parliament. As a matter of fact, the alteration of their scheme necessitated a delay, and it was impossible to introduce the Bill this session.

Cannot you help them ?

said that they must deal with it by way of private legislation, because private interests were involved.

The Board very soon realised that, even if they could bring forward their general scheme during this session, that would not give them immediate relief. It was calculated that, whether it was the first scheme or the alternative scheme, it would take about three years before the water would be actually available. On account of this delay, that period would be increased to four years. The Board approached the Government by deputation, of which the hon. member for Germiston was a member, and suggested that the Government should give them assistance or temporary relief by pumping from the East Rand, as well as from the West Rand, out of the dolomite. The matter was investigated, and it was found, as far as Welgedacht was concerned, there was no difficulty in giving consent, as far as the riparian proprietors and other parties were concerned. The Government gave what assistance they could, as far as the East Rand was concerned. So the matter stood until a little while ago, when the Board realised that, even with the assistance they got from the East Rand, it would not give them a sufficient margin. If anything unforeseen happened, they would have no reserve. That was the question with which the Rand Water Board was faced at the present moment.

What are you doing to help them ?

I am coming to that. Proceeding, the Minister said that he had said that the Government must work through the Rand Water Board. As regarded the water on the West Rand where there was a mine which had been flooded out in the Mooi River area, the Government as early, he thought, as October last, informed the Rand Water Board that this was dolomite water which flowed down underground through what was supposed to be a defined channel, and, therefore, according to the terms of the Irrigation Act, they could not take that water and pump it away for other than industrial purposes without legislation in this House. Before that reply was given, the matter was submitted to the Director of Irrigation, who said that, although he could not say definitely that the water flowed from this point to that point underground, there could be no doubt whatsoever that private rights may be affected.

“ May be affected. ”

And probably are. Proceeding, the Minister said that under these circumstances the Government said: “We cannot give you permission, and Parliament alone can give you that permission. Private interests are affected. It must be done by a private Bill, and, if you want to do it by private Bill, you must obey the rules of the House.” That was told the Rand Water Board. Instead of taking steps to bring in a Bill to obtain temporary relief, they were, he thought, a little bit remiss. They had since approached the Government by deputation, but the Government found that they could not possibly go back on the position they had taken up. With the opinion of the Director of Irrigation facing them, they found that it would be out of order to proceed in any other way than by private Bill.

said that this question of the Rand water supply was going to become a really serious question in the coming dry season. Whether the Board had been remiss or not, it was for the Government to tackle the question in good time. They had heard in this House about miners’ phthisis. One of the points upon which everyone was agreed in connection with that matter was that a plentiful supply of water underground was necessary. While the mines pumped a great deal of water from the mines, in many cases that water was not fit to be pumped back again. It was essential that everything the Government could possibly do should be done to prevent anything approaching a great tendency to try and restrict the use of water for this purpose, if no other. He had always had the gravest doubts as to the wisdom of combining the municipalities with the mines in one institution in the form of a Board. He thought what the Minister had said about people buying land ahead of schemes of the Board, supplied a good argument for the taxation of unimproved land values all round.

He would suggest to the Minister that some way must be found out of the emergency which seemed likely to arise, that throughout the Witwatersrand there would be a stinting of water underground and water on which life depended. The Government had it in their power to help. They knew that a Private Bill was coming before Parliament next session, and they could take every step to see that that Bill passed through Parliament so that that work could be undertaken immediately. Surely ft could be arranged without giving general leave to pump from that locality— —that, subject to an assurance being given that the other scheme would be proceeded with, they be given permission to pump from the dolomites. He thought Mr. Kanthack would agree with him that the pumping of water from the dolomite during the drier months of the year would not affect the outflow of water from the dolomite. It was the duty of the Government to help the people to get over the present position. He was heartily glad to hear that the Rand Water Board was going to build a big storage reservoir. He was not one of those who believed in the pumping of water from the dolomite for general use. He hoped the question of having large storage reservoirs would receive the attention of the Government. If the hon. member who introduced the motion could only be converted to the obvious corollary of this question of the conservation of water, which was the taxation of the unimproved value of land, he would be doing a service to the country.

said he could not from the debate get to know what the Opposition wanted. Last year the Government had passed the Irrigation Bill and they could hardly be expected to do more. The first part of the debate concerned the general preservation of water, but now it dealt with the shortage of water on the Rand. The hon. member went on to refer to Government enterprises of the past, which, it was said, had resulted in failure. Kakamas had been referred to. Well, when the settlement was laid out, the engineer estimated that the waterworks would cost £29,000. Then the public said: Give us the money and we will do the work ourselves. That was done, and the first work cost £5,000. The north dam was afterwards constructed at a cost of £15,000. With a little help the people on the Orange River at Keimoes would take the water, but the Minister of Lands would not give it. The Government had constructed the Rooiberg dam at a cost of £64,000, but that was a failure. The Boegoeberg work cost £7,500, and that too was a failure. Private persons could do the work better. Mr. Johannes Maritz, of Kameelpoort, in the Hay district, had built a dam in 2½ years at a cost of £150 in cash, which was 1,800 feet long. The wall was 36 feet high, and the dam contained 27 feet of water. The Government should lend more money to private individuals. He thought Government should be very careful in their large schemes.

said he would support the motion. The future of this country as far as irrigation was concerned depended on the conservation of water more than anything else. They had their rainfall, but most of the water ran away to the sea, doing a lot of damage in washing sluits. He thought the time had now come for them to go a step further than they had gone, and the law they passed last year gave them every facility to go a step further by providing power to expropriate storage sites where required. They had done a great deal up to the present by means of co-operative schemes, but those mostly carried out by Government loans were more distributing schemes than anything else, and to make them more useful they should have a greater development in the direction of conservation of water. Many of the South African rivers were dry during several months of the year, and conservation in most cases would be quite out of reach of the ordinary farmer, and he thought the Government should do more in that direction than had been done up to the present. Speaking of the condition prevailing on the lower stretches of the Breede River, he said there was an excellent opportunity there for the conservation of water, and it would be of great value if there was some provision for storage on a large scale. There was an excellent system of distribution, but for three months in the year there was no water. He hoped the Government would be able to do something there. He particularly wished to direct attention to the Brandvlei site. He regretted that it had not been possible to lay before the House the Worcester-Robertson Canal scheme. He did not wish to blame the department for not having this scheme ready, for he recognised that they had done all they could to get it ready, but had been short-handed; and as a consequence of this a number of progressive farmers would be delayed for twelve months in putting a large tract of land, at present unproductive, under irrigation. They should be thankful that the hon. member for Pretoria, North, had brought such an important matter forward, as, in his opinion, the time had arrived when more attention should be paid to the storage of water, which would be of great benefit to the country.

said that if he had to give a name to the motion he would call the present motion a “slim” one. The hon. member had brought it forward at just the right moment. The hon. member was a wealthy man, and he could therefore talk about these great and expensive undertakings. But not all of them were in that happy position. There had been a good many speeches made on the motion, but they were impracticable, and the speaker was afraid of those big works. They wanted to catch up all the water that now went to the sea. But what would happen in the dry years? No doubt the top dam would be filled, but what would be the position of the lower riparian owner? The one member believed in bores, and another member did not believe in them, whilst still another favoured deep boring. Opinion differed very widely on the subject, and it was impossible for the Government to give effect to the motion. The Government could not construct enormous dams, for the public would have to pay for their construction. The Irrigation Act of last year gave power to the Government to lend money both for small and large works, and if proper use was made of that provision it would be unnecessary for the Government to lay out great works. Even if the Government dammed up the Orange River, they did not own the land along its banks. That ground was in the hands of private persons, who refused to sell it. He could not, vote for a motion which called on the Government to construct big works at the cost of the State, and which for the general taxpayer would only prove to be white elephants.

said the question was one which had always inspired him with interest. He was disappointed at the attitude which had been adopted by the members of the Opposition, who had given no advice, but confined themselves entirely to the Rand. The Rand was undoubtedly a great asset to the country, but the Rand was not South Africa. By the construction of irrigation works they would develop the country and at the same time make agriculture the greatest asset. Irrigation works calculated to meet the requirements of two or three months were not sufficient. They should be made sufficient to meet a year of drought. If they took steps to conserve as far as possible their water supply, then they would be fighting drought. That was why he had always been opposed to the construction of big irrigation works by the Government. It was true that many of those works had proved to be failures, but they could not deduce from that that the Government should not undertake any further irrigation works. Such works should be constructed not merely with a view to the conservation of water, but they ought to know how to deal with the water. In the North they could build big dams, but they did not know how to deal with the water. In Oudtshoorn they understood that part of the problem, with the result that that district was an example to the world. Private persons there had done all that was possible for them to do, but they could not now get any further, and the Government would have to come to their assistance. If the Government would construct four dams near Oudtshoorn, then it would become the most thickly populated district in the Union. There were living there even now 64,000 people, but if the four dams were built there would be room for half a million of people. In Oudtshoorn all the people knew how to handle water. The farmers there were building a long sloot from the Olifants River to catch the flood water. The sloot would cost £3,000, but the farmers concerned would themselves pay for it. With their experience of irrigation, the Oudtshoorn farmers had done a lot of good. They had bought farms in Aberdeen, ground which was only worth £1 to £2 per morgen. Irrigation works had been constructed, with the result that the land was now worth from £100 to £200 per morgen. Reverting to the consideration of the large irrigation schemes, the speaker said that if the Toverwaterpoort were closed, one of the very finest of such schemes would be carried out. By means of these large irrigation schemes the population would be enormously expanded, and he would accordingly give the motion his hearty support.

said that the Minister had given them very clearly some of the history of the proceedings. So far as they could see, unless there was an exceptional rainfall there would be shortage of water on the Witwatersrand during the dry months, which would be prejudicial to the mines and the health of the residents. The Minister had quite correctly stated that the Water Board had for some time past been engaged with a new catchment scheme to enable them to become less dependent on the subterranean sources upon which they at present relied. It had been difficult to get people to meet them in this matter, because it was obvious people who had quite enough water of their own did not care to consider any scheme in which they were not interested, and which would involve them in taxation, especially when the scheme involved an expenditure of a million and a quarter. An expenditure of that extent needed very careful investigation. As the Minister had pointed out, it would be some four years before that scheme could be brought into operation, and what they were concerned now was with the temporary measure to enable the Board to tide over the period until their larger scheme came into operation. The Board had done everything possible to increase the supply from all the sources that law and circumstances allowed them. They had spent a very large amount of money in providing temporary supplies, but these supplies were only temporary, and the money would be largely wasted when the new scheme came into operation. They had exhausted all these temporary resources by a large expenditure, but although they had considerably increased the supply of water, unfortunately it did not seem this increased amount was going to meet the requirements of the Rand, therefore the Board had to consider closely what would have to be done to tide over the great difficulty with which they were faced.

The Government had been asked to come to the assistance of the Board. The Government had been requested to facilitate pumping water from a disused mining shaft, which could give four million gallons of water a day. It had been suggested that the Minister could give authority under the Irrigation Act for the water thus obtained to be sold to the Water Board. The mine was not at present working, and whether an artificial working, purely for the purpose of obtaining the water, would be sufficient to comply with the wording of the Act, was a moot point. It appeared the Government could not give the Water Board the necessary assistance without an Act of Parliament. It had been suggested that, in order to tide over the time until a new scheme came into operation, an Act of Parliament of one section should be passed, giving the Government the power to grant at their discretion authority to pump from the mines in question. Having acknowledged the assistance of the Director of Irrigation, Mr. Chaplin remarked that the question had now become one of policy. The Government had put forward certain conditions, to which the Rand Water Board had agreed. The first was: that the Board should be allowed to pump, not exceeding 2,000,000 gallons of water per day; and, secondly, that this right should be granted for twelve months only, year by year. Other conditions were that the Board should pay compensation to the agricultural proprietors, who might be prejudiced by the Board’s operations; that the Board should proceed with the main scheme, and that no water should be pumped on the mine in question unless it was absolutely required. Although these conditions were considered to be somewhat onerous, and although their adoption would have caused the expenditure of a large sum of money, the Board would have agreed to proceed on these lines; but the Government put forward another condition, namely, that the Board should abandon the rights which it at present possessed in the Klip River, on the acquisition and equipment of which they had spent three million pounds. To that the Board could not agree. The Minister had complained that the Water Board should have foreseen that a measure of this kind involved the introduction of a private Bill. (Mr. MALAN: Hear, hear.) He did not think that could reasonably have been foreseen—(Opposition cheers)— because the Irrigation Act—sections 25 and 26—undoubtedly did interfere with rights which private people had in water, and it never occurred to anyone that the proposals of the Rand Water Board would entail the passing of a private Bill. The Water Board could not possibly introduce a Bill at that stage of the session. It was now practically certain that, unless they had exceptional rains on the Rand, they would be very short of water, and the consequences would be very serious. As far as he could see, the "Water Board could do nothing more, and he hoped that, even at that late hour, the Government would reconsider the matter, and see if it could not find legal authority for bringing in the requisite Bill. (Opposition cheers.)

thought the Government had become timid as far as irrigation and water conservation propositions were concerned, but the motion might strengthen Government’s hands. Even in the distribution schemes, he thought that the Government would have to come considerably more to the aid of the people of the country than they were at present willing to do. The Government would not point out even to a number of farmers what they could do. The Government were practically afraid to do that kind of work. When the farmers came to the Government with a scheme, they got all the assistance possible. Unless the farmers could co-operate, these schemes would be indefinitely delayed—in fact, some of them would never be carried out. One way in which the Government could help the farmers was in enabling them to obtain labour-saving machinery. The hon. member went on to refer to the pioneer work done by the Government in regard to the introduction of water bores, and expressed the hope that the Government would not lay too much stress on what had been said about deep boring. He trusted that they would not go in for expense of this kind, unless they were sure that they would get flowing artesian wells. He thought their salvation lay more in the direction of conserving the water than boring.

said that he was entirely in sympathy with the motion and he hoped that the Government would take the matter very seriously in hand. While he was in sympathy with the conservation of water throughout the country, he wished to draw the Government’s attention to an important question concerning the distribution of water, in relation to the necessities of the Witwatersrand. He was very much concerned about the condition of Johannesburg and its population, if there were going to be a scarcity of water. He claimed that they were asking the Government to do what they could do very easily. He hoped the first thing the Government would do in regard to this was to give the Water Board permission to bring in water which was lying about in large quantities.

said they seemed to have gone far afield from the subject matter of the motion when they discussed what temporary aid the Government should give to the Rand Water Board. He wished to emphasise what had been said by a colleague that the Government had tried to assist them as far as possible; but when they got up against practical impossibilities they could not expect the Government to do what was either illegal or grossly unfair. He had tried to get legal advice in order to see if they could bring in something to assist. He hoped the hon. member for Jeppe would excuse him saying that though the Government was often accused unjustly of doing things it should not do, he must not expect them to get round, illegally, a certain section of the law. The working of a mine must mean bona-fide working of a mine and not merely the putting down of a shaft round a borehole. He wished them also to remember that they must be careful in trying to meet one class of the community they were not doing a gross injustice to another class. First of all, it had been argued that because certain private rights had been interfered with they must go on interfering with them whenever opportunity arose. There had been a sad controversy in the past regarding the pumping from the dolomite, and the Government was going to be very careful to protect private rights after that, especially after seeing farmers ruined because of the illegalities in the Klip River valley. In regard to the Mooi River valley they wanted to be quite sure that no rights would be affected without the holders having their cases put plainly before Parliament. (Government cheers.) The rest of the debate had been interesting and edifying to a certain extent. The Government agreed with this motion because it agreed that this question of the conservation of water was an important one which deserved attention, and it had to be dealt with sooner or later.

Meanwhile, he thought they should look into the practical requirements of the case at present—what they had done, what they could do, and what they were doing. They were prepared to consider it. It had been edifying to find that no one had gone further than admit that it was highly desirable to do something; but he would challenge anyone to show him one practical suggestion made as to how the Government should go about it. The works, in so far as they were required, had not been confined to small Works. When the Prime Minister spoke of small works he meant small in comparison with what hon. members liked to speak about works of a million pounds. They had not a huge white population in this country, and if they were not ready with the men, was it not better to supply the demand for very small schemes which were growing larger and larger every year. He did not think hon. members had studied the subject sufficiently when they said the Government had done nothing. One hon. member said the Government gave advice, but did not initiate anything. As a matter of fact, the old Cape Government suggested most of the big irrigation schemes now in operation, and when they compared what was being done now with what was being done a few years ago, they would see that at this moment there were no less than five large schemes actually working that would not have been dreamt of years ago. He might say, without any fear of contradiction, that next year they would have to provide over half a million sterling for ordinary loans to private individuals. But, at the same time, he would admit they should be ready to work on larger lines. They had had their attention drawn to what had been done in other countries. In India, irrigation works were initiated, because there was a large and starving population waiting for work and food, and they could call on labour by the million. In Egypt, it was the same. However, the experience lately had been that they had overdone large schemes in their enthusiasm. They were not returning sufficient to the Government

Not under the reclamation survey.

Yes, under the reclamation survey. I shall have pleasure in showing it to the hon. member.

Some of their new schemes are very good.

Oh, yes, but some of them are getting into the hands of the speculators. Continuing, he said it had been said that the Government should go in for making large dams. He would ask who was to pay for the Oudtshoorn scheme? Not the Oudtshoorn man. Why could not they come and get their Bills? Let them stand the expense. If, on the other hand, the Government first carried out these schemes, and then looked about to see who was to pay, it would be a case of calling upon the general taxpayers of the country. Rather must they see that the land-owners on the spot, or they who were going to be the land-owners, should be in a position to pay. It were better that Parliament should not pledge itself until they got further information, and in the meantime they should utilise the very useful Act that was passed last session, especially with regard to the loan section, so that the smallest holders of land could get loans, and they and other individuals could have the advantage of irrigation. The hon. member was wrong when he said they had got to the end of distributing schemes. Many places had been placed in a position of prosperity by that means, and there was scope for others to be similarly placed, but the time was not ripe for the sinking of the money of Parliament in big schemes. They must be practical, but there had not been a practical suggestion. That, however, was no reason why they should not consider what could be done, and be prepared.

in reply, said that the right hon. member for Victoria West seemed to think it was not a Government function to undertake the development of the country. That was the position his hon. friend took up. He said it was for the people of the country to come to the Government and ask for schemes, and that the Government should not undertake these schemes, but that they should be left to the people of the country. In that respect, he (Sir T. M. Cullinan) could not agree. If in this country they had a Government that was not going to undertake the development of large schemes—schemes it was not possible for the people of the country to undertake— then it was not the Government they should have. (Labour cheers.) The development of a country was just the same as the development of a mine or any other business. Supposing they decided not to develop a mine except on a small scale, would that benefit the country? Certainly not. If the Government did not undertake development schemes, there was going to be no advance. The hon. member for Victoria West said that young men were leaving the country for other countries; who was to blame? It was the policy which had been adopted in the Cape Colony for the past forty years, and he put it at the door of the right hon. member for Victoria West, and other hon. members who had legislated in this country, that they had never put the country in a condition whereby the people could live on the land. The hon. member altogether missed the mark if he thought that he (the speaker) wanted to go in for these small schemes, and not develop the country on broad lines. That was not his idea at all. He knew that people could get money for their small schemes, and he did not want to stop them; but, on the other hand, wanted the work to go on. But he also wanted them to consider the bigger question—the system of the conservation of water, which would bring about an alteration in the rainfall and develop the country on larger lines. The question of bore-holes had been brought up. That was quite opposed to his idea; thousands of bore-holes would lead to the same condition of affairs as was existing in Johannesburg at the present time. One of these days, if they kept on drawing water from the dolomite, after three or four years of drought, they would find that the supply was exhausted. It was a case of drawing on capital. The hon. Minister said there had been no practical suggestion. Surely the whole world had gone through the condition before. There was India and other places where huge dams had long been in existence. The hon. member abruptly concluded by hoping the Government would take the matter in hand. He took the opportunity of asking Mr. Speaker to put the question before business was suspended.

The motion was agreed to.

Business was suspended at 6 o’clock p.m.

in moving the second reading of the Railways and Harbours Regulation, Control, and Management Bill, said that the measure before the House was really one, to a very large extent, of consolidation of the existing legislation of the various Provinces of the Union, with regard to the relationship between the railways and the public at large. It covered practically the whole field of their efficiency, and although, no doubt, there were some new provisions, still, he took it that no member would object to the principle. They could not get along in their relations between the railways and the public unless they had some measure of this description. They must have a Bill of some sort to regulate the aspect of the railways and the public, because unless they had some Bill of this sort they found that they were constantly meeting with obstacles in the work of the railways. As far back as 1861 they had a Cape Act, but that was drawn up at a time when there were comparatively few lines of railway, and when they looked at the provisions of that Act, they could not but be struck by the fact that it seemed to be framed for dealing with the relationship between the railway company and its servants. It had been found that this Act was quite inadequate to meet modern conditions. In Natal they had a Control and Regulations Act since 1882, but this had to be reenacted annually. Eventually its provisions were crystallised. In the Transvaal there was an Ordinance in 1903 which dealt with these matters. That Ordinance was carefully framed, and was based largely upon New Zealand and Australian legislation. Certain deficiencies were observed in this Act, and amendments were made, until at last, in 1908, the Railway Regulations Act of the Transvaal was passed. This Act was found to work very well. He might tell the House that this particular Act affected the Orange Free State as well. The present measure which he submitted to the House was based largely upon the Transvaal Railway Regulation Act. That was the measure they had adopted, because it was the most up-to-date Act in the Union. Some of the provisions in the Bill had been taken from the old Cape Ordinance—matters like ox-wagon competition, private railways, and catering rates. He would endeavour to explain a few of the leading features of the measure, and he might at once say that in the Bill it was specifically provided that all rights existing under the present legislation were protected. No person was to be prejudiced in his position at all. Proceeding, the hon. Minister referred to clause 2, in which definitions were set forth, and especially to the definition of what was a warehouse, which, in some respects, was novel. The reason for this was a tangible one, it was simply taken over from the existing legislation in the Transvaal, Natal, and the Orange Free State.

He now came to Chapter 1, dealing with the general powers of the Administration. There were certain provisions in regard to stevedores. He had correspondence complaining of the comprehensive nature of these provisions. (Hear, hear.) No doubt they were quite comprehensive, but when he had explained them to the House the somewhat alarmist views taken in some quarters in Durban, perhaps to some extent in Port Elizabeth, and he knew also in Cape Town by some of his hon. friends, would perhaps be removed. What was intended was not to carry out stevedoring in competition with stevedoring at present done by private people. In Natal to-day the Administration did the stevedoring in connection with the coal business. It also did it here in Cape Town, not only in regard to coal, but in regard to general cargo as well. In regard to the business in Natal, it was only proposed to regularise the existing system in connection with the bunkering of coal at the Bluff, but not to interfere with stevedoring any further. They had no intention of constituting a Government monopoly in regard to these matters, but the Administration claimed that it should have some share in the matter of licensing the people who were to carry on the business of stevedoring. The practice of licensing was in existence to-day, and it was preserved under the Bill.

He now came to a very contentious point, viz., the question of transport by road. There had been a great deal of excitement about this, mainly based, he thought, on misapprehension. It was idle to ask him to eliminate the provisions for road transport from this Bill, because, in the first instance, he should have to shut out entirely any project he might have for having motor transport from one place to another.

Oh, no.

Of course, I should. It would shut out altogether motor transport.

The Bill can he amended to meet that.

Of course, it could be amended to do anything. I say it is idle to ask me to eliminate the provision for motor transport. Without that provision you cannot have your motor from Bot River to Hermanus. You cannot deliver goods from the railway to the store where you are expected to deliver them. Proceeding, the Minister said the complaint was not that they conveyed only from the railway to the point of destination, but that they conveyed by road transport what ought to be conveyed by rail. It was a vexed question, but as long as he maintained, as he was prepared to maintain, that in no case whatever would they start anything in the way of competition with private enterprise in the way of cartage by road, and provided they delivered by their cartage only what they undertook as a carrier to convey, goods consigned from point A to point B, then he could not see that there would be any objection to it. They were common carriers—(a Voice: No) —and they were the greatest common carriers in the country, and so long as that was the case, and they did not convey from a spot where there was no railway, it would be an utterly wrong thing to say that these were things that were going to compete with private enterprise. Coming to the question of pilotage, the Minister said that the Bill provided for the exemption of the Administration from liability for faults of the pilot, and on the other hand the exemption of the pilots from liability beyond a certain amount. These provisions were regarded as revolutionary, but they were nothing but the existing system in England. He said this to show that it was not a novel thing at all. He thought he was right in saying that it was the existing system in Australia as well. East London and Port Elizabeth were under the present regulations compulsory pilotage ports. They were only regularising in the Bill what existed now.

He now came to one matter which showed how necessary it was to have an Act for the Union which would enable the Railway Administration to secure uniformity. He referred to the question of separation of passengers in different parts of the train. This matter, whether it applied to any difference they liked to make between male and female passengers, or any difference between European and coloured passengers, this difference they were unable under the existing law to apply and deal satisfactorily with in the Cape Province to-day. They could not insist upon a person, simply on account of his colour, travelling in one particular carriage they might set apart for him. If he bought his ticket he was entitled to travel in any carriage of the class corresponding to the ticket which he held. They had got legislation in the other Provinces which enabled them to a considerable extent to deal with the matter. Power was taken under this Bill—and he hoped objection would not be taken that these were new powers—as far as the Government were concerned, to reserve accommodation for Europeans on the one side and for natives on the other. (Hear, hear.) It was a perfectly right and proper thing which he thought both Europeans and coloured people would appreciate. (Hear, hear.)

Clause 7 of the Bill provided that the Administration could prevent people who appeared to be lunatics or who were suffering from contagious or infectious diseases from travelling on the railway, and for the first time (and this was a very desirable provision) they could prevent people from travelling who were under the influence of liquor—such people were not merely a nuisance, but a danger to others who travelled in their neighbourhood. Then there was a provision also for dealing with injuries sustained by travellers on the line. In that connection there was a wise provision dealing with the Carnarvon line only —a light line built primarily for agricultural purposes. This provided that the Railway Administration should not be responsible for damage done to any person on the line. The line was not meant for passenger traffic. The Cape legislation on the subject was perfectly satisfactory, and they were prepared to incorporate that. Section 38 dealt with injuries to stock. Under the Transvaal law the liability regarding injuries to stock was limited to where injury took place in the daylight. It was provided in the Bill that they should be liable in all cases except where the fault could be traced to the owner or the servant employed by the owner. In the Transvaal law they were exempted from liability in cases where the stock was in charge of a shepherd, but in this case the exemption applied to all cases except those where the owner or the servant was to blame for the stock being on the line. The question of compensation was fixed on a fair and reasonable basis.

From the railway point of view.

said that if compensation was favourable from the owners’ point of view, one of his first critics would be the hon. member for Cape Town, Central—he would be the very first to take exception. The compensation was quite a fair one, in fact it was a higher rate than that prevailing in the Cape at the present time. Regarding that part of the Bill relative to the harbours; the principal matter was that in connection with the appointment of the Advisory Board. At present a couple were elected, and that was not satisfactory, and in addition it was inconvenient. Instead of that method the Government would appoint them all, and two are to be appointed in the interests of the shipping people. It was proposed to take over Simon’s Town and Mossel Bay harbours. In the case of Simon’s Town there was no objection. There would be trouble with the municipality in respect to the money matters involved, but the Bill provided for compensation. All the Admiralty rights were preserved, and control of the harbour was to be taken over and invested in the Administration. The same thing applied to Mossel Bay. The famous “ Jagger ” Act was also to be incorporated in the Bill, which provided for the detention of goods brought by ships until the authorities were satisfied that all the charges had been paid. That was a very desirable piece of legislation, which was being embodied in the measure, and it was a system that had been in operation for many years. In regard to the Cape there was nothing very revolutionary except an improvement in the liquor licences. They were making a concession so far as the lessees were concerned —those people who held licences under the Administration—they were to be, with certain exceptions, generally subject to the liquor laws of the Province in which they held their licence.

It was provided for in the Bill that existing private railways should retain the duties and rights of the legislation which created them; that provision they could not avoid, but the Bill provided an exception in the case of fares. In the future no fare or freights on the private railways could be higher than the fares or freights on the Government railways, except with the consent of the Government. In many ways he felt that that was an extremely valuable piece of legislation. Referring to an interjection by Sir T. W. Smartt the hon. Minister said that his hon. friend was too impulsive. It would be very desirable to check exorbitant charges made by these railways, but although the Bill contained that provision he wanted to tell the House that the principal clause on that point he proposed to withdraw. (Hon. members: Why?) Because the interests of the public were protected sufficiently in the case of South Africa, except in one section of the new Cape Central Railway. There was one section of that railway where there was no protection of the kind afforded, but elsewhere there was a sufficient protection for the public. Therefore he thought it better, instead of proceeding with that particular clause of the Bill to drop it, and put in its stead another clause which was entirely satisfactory. What he proposed to do was, instead of having this clause in the Bill to introduce a clause which would provide that all rates and fares for goods and passenger traffic should, at all times, be charged at the same rate for all people. The last important provision of the Bill was that which dealt with the inspection of private lines and the stock of those lines. He thought after the Blaauwkrantz disaster it was obvious that the Government should have the right to inspect these private lines. (Hear, hear.) Broadly speaking he thought hon. members would admit that this was a measure they must have in order to conduct their business satisfactorily in their relations with the public. He wanted to say that he proposed, as, of course, he could not do otherwise with a Bill largely technical, and largely relating to matters of business, relating to matters of management of the railway, that before the second reading was passed to move that the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on Railways, where it could be discussed in detail. He realised that there were many points where it might be improved and, therefore, he wanted to put to the House, in moving the second reading, that although he welcomed full discussion he hoped it would be remembered that this Bill was going to a Select Committee. (Cheers.)

said there were one or two points in the Bill which he thought this House should take into serious consideration. He agreed with the hon. Minister that the measure was absolutely necessary; but the Minister went further, and took certain powers. He claimed the right and privileges of common carriers. That was all right. He could quite understand it. But why did he not go further. A common carrier would not be allowed to differentiate as the Minister did in this Bill. Here he proposed to forbid differentiation on the New Cape Central Line, or any other private line, and quite rightly. It was forbidden in England, Canada, and Australia; but so far as the South African Railways were concerned it provided for differentiation. It, was a case of heads I win and tails you lose in favour of the Railway Department. If there was one feature about this Bill it was that it took extensive powers for the Railway Department. How much was laid down in black and white, and how much was left to the discretion of the Department, in other words the Minister himself, because the ultimate power rested with the Minister, the Railway Board being a purely advisory Board. (Hear, hear.) In clauses 3 and 4 hon. members would see the extensive powers the Minister proposed to take into his own hands. It appeared to him that everything possible had been put into those clauses in accordance with the general policy of the Government, which had always been to put as little into the Bill, and as much into regulation as possible. Let them contrast that with what was done in the State of Victoria, which the Minister quoted a few days ago. In their codified law they had a statute dealing with harbours alone, which ran to over 200 clauses, while this Bill had only 69 clauses, and dealt, not only with the railway, but also with the harbours. He noticed that under clause 3 the Government had the right to donate property. Then they also took power to enter into an agreement with any Government in reference to any matter dealing with the railway, even be that Government outside the Union, without asking Parliament to sanction the agreement. Then in sub-section (g) they took the power to erect lighthouses. Well, lighthouses were perfectly right and proper in themselves, but it seemed that if they had sufficient money in a certain fund in the railway, they could erect the lighthouse without coming to Parliament at all.

Then let them look at clause 4, sub-section 2, which dealt with the matter of the carrying trade. Nobody wanted to take away from the power of the Railway Department to cart goods and fetch goods from the store to the railway station, or from the railway station to the store, and nobody wanted to interfere with the business done by the railway by motor from Bot River to Hermanns, because that was from a station. But what one objected to was when the Minister took power to take goods from say, Cape Town to Wynberg by road without the goods going on the railway at all. That was an interference with private enterprise that should not be allowed. What was to prevent the Railway Department, in the future, undertaking a sort of Pickford’s business for the removal of furniture. He thought they ought to protest strongly against this encroachment on the part of the Railway Department. And the curious thing was that hero the Minister wanted to compete with private businesses, and yet in another branch of business he asked to differentiate in favour of the Railway Department. He (the hon. member) was aware that they differentiated in regard to the ox-wagon traffic at East London in the Cape Colony, and he was a party to it, but that power should now be done away with for several reasons. For one thing they were introducing a principle into their railway legislation which was vicious. What applied to private railways surely should also apply to the South African Railways. There was another reason. They should not make themselves the laughing-stock of the people. They had just legislated in regard to shipping rebates. They had just made a law that if any shipping companies differentiated against any persons they could proceed against them. What was going to be thought of that Parliament if they were going to make one law for private companies and another for themselves? (An HON. MEMBER asked what the hon. member himself had done.) Well, if one had made a mistake, could one not admit it and take the best steps to remedy it? (Hear, hear.) There was an added reason since that mistake had been made, and that Ministry had taken a decided step with regard to their policy. They had legislated against the shipping company, and surely the Minister did not want to take rights to himself and his own department which he denied to other people? A lawyer like his hon. friend had introduced a clause like this, and all he could say was that he was astonished at his hon. friend. He went further and hoped that before the House finished that Bill it would insert an identical clause as it had inserted in regard to private lines and forbidding the South African railway differentiating in any shape or form against any citizen, as was done in other countries. Dealing with the railway bookstalls, the hon. member said that the management of these was not as satisfactory as it had been under private enterprise, but that was not all.

He would have thought that when his hon. friend took up that trade he would have put himself under all the obligations imposed upon shopkeepers in the locality, but he wanted to keep open at any hours he liked, not withstanding what restrictions were imposed on other shopkeepers. Well, that was going above the law of the land. As to clause 59, instead of being willing to subject himself to the ordinary licensing law of the country, the Minister wanted to set up another licensing court in the shape of himself or the General Manager of Railways. In case of any refreshment-room being leased to private individuals, he wanted to give the General Manager of Railways, in conjunction with the Magistrate, power to issue a certificate so as to obtain a licence for that refreshment-room. Then he proceeded as to what the licence should be, and then he proceeded further and fixed the hours at which that place should remain open. In other words, he went into the business, and wanted to release himself from the ordinary regulations pertaining to that business. They entered a trade, and wanted to be eased of the irksome regulations in connection with that trade. Coming to stevedoring, the hon. member said that, at the present moment, in regard to stevedoring, the Harbour Board competed with private stevedores. There was no objection to that, but his hon. friend wanted to get what was stated there in that Bill; and he (Mr. Jagger) took objection to that. He had not the slightest objection to the position as it stood in to-day, but the Minister wanted to create a monopoly for the Railway Department in regard to stevedoring. He (Mr. Jagger) had been connected with the harbour for a good many years, and he was perfectly well aware that the Harbour Department wanted to get stevedoring in its own hands. As to the matter of private lines, here these private railways had been constructed, and capital had been put into them on certain conditions, and the people concerned knew exactly the conditions under which they had put their money into these concerns. Now the Minister wanted’ to alter these conditions. Was that the way in which they wanted to get capital into this country? It was not fair for the people who had put money into these concerns. His hon. friend claimed the right under that Bill to send inspectors and have these lines inspected. He did not take objection to that, but he did take objection to this: that the inspector made a report and said that certain things were necessary. Then the owners of the line would be compelled to make those repairs, and, failing that, the line was closed down. In. Australia, under similar circumstances, the commissioners could make an inspection, but before they could close down the line, they had to go to the Supreme Court and obtain judgment. He thought that was perfectly fair.

Meanwhile the people fall over the bridge. (Laughter.)

said that they had not fallen over any bridge on the Cape Central line. He was at one with the Minister that an inspection should be made, but before the extreme step was taken of closing down the line, a clear case should have been made out. In reference to the appointment of members of Harbour Advisory Boards, these members were entirely the creatures of the department, although he did not want to say so offensively. There was nothing to prevent the Minister, according to that Bill, appointing these nominees for life. Nothing was said as to how long these people should keep office, and he did not think that was satisfactory at all. He thought it would be far better and fairer to appoint them for twelve months, and then re-elect them, if necessary; and he would advise his hon. friend to go back to the old system, which was not as cumbersome as he thought. Let the wharfage payers have some say in the matter. The whole object of the Bill was to get as much power as possible into the hands of the railway authorities. He hoped that many of the powers which his hon. friend claimed under that Bill would be taken away, or reduced, after the Bill had been sent to a Select Committee. There was a tendency on the part of the department to get as much power as possible into their hands, and invade private enterprise. The work of the Railway Department was railway carrying, and not going outside of that. Their railways were one of the largest systems in the world under one control, and there were few lines in America of 8,000 miles which were under one control. Not content with that, the officials of the railway must go outside, and go in for other business. He hoped that the House would lay down that the Railway Department must confine their activities to railway carrying, and that in an efficient manner.

said he welcomed a measure of this kind, because it was a consolidating measure. He agreed with the last sneaker, however, that the Railway Administration claimed for itself powers to which it was not entitled. In clause 3 they not only asked for powers to acquire all sorts of property and rights, and to enter into agreements with any government or any person within the Union or elsewhere, but to destroy businesses that had been built up after many years and take away the livelihoods of people and their dependents, and to do all this without coming to Parliament for sanction or confirmation. The powers they were asking were so extreme that he did not believe the House could grant them, no matter how strong was their confidence in the Railway Administration.

They quite understood that these regulations were drawn up by the officials of the railway, who were trying, of course, to get the fullest power into their own hands, but it was their duty to look very carefully into these Bills. He wished to refer specially to the clause referring to stevedores. The Minister had said that the powers he asked for were in force at some of the ports, but at the port that he was acquainted with they had no such powers. It was true that at Durban the Government undertook to do the work of coaling at the Bluff, but that was done by special machinery, and private individuals were not able to do it, but the Government did not even do that themselves, but let it out to a private firm. A considerable amount of coaling was also done in Durban by private enterprise. Ordinary stevedoring really means the taking goods out of the hold of a ship, which the ships themselves paid for. It was really wrong for the Government to interfere in such a matter as that. Another matter which the Minister did not go into was what was meant by asking for powers regarding the landing, shipping, and delivery of goods at the ports. The Minister knew very well that that work was now done by private individuals. There had been a strong suspicion that it was the intention of the Government to interfere with this, for which there was no reasonable excuse. The work was so well done at Durban by private individuals that captains of vessels freely acknowledged it was more satisfactorily dealt with there than anywhere else. He would like to have some assurance from the Minister that it was not the intention of the Government to interfere with the livelihood of the 313 or so Europeans who were concerned in the landing, shipping, and forwarding of goods.

said he had very great difficulty in understanding the attitude of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger) in some of his speeches. He spoke with a great deal of heat of the enormity of the Railway Administration in carrying goods, but if there was one thing that he (Mr. Creswell) understood the hon. member to believe in, it was the virtue in competition. He would like to know, therefore, why it was that the hon. member objected to the entry of another competitor in the carrying trade. He wanted to know from the hon. member if they had been less happily situated, and if they had a company like the Great Eastern Railway running a line up to Wynberg, whether he would object to having the carting and carrying done by the railway. He believed that the hon. member would be the first to say that there could be nothing better than having an efficient service for the carrying of the goods to Wynberg. Proceeding, the hon. member for Jeppe said that he was very glad to hear the plea put in by the hon. member for Durban, Berea. He quite agreed with the view he took with regard to stevedoring in Durban. The Government should not interfere with the livelihood of these men. He thought these people should either be taken into the Service or compensated. He hoped the Minister and the Select Committee to which this Bill was going to be referred, would give this matter every consideration, because it was manifestly unjust to take away a man’s livelihood without compensating him in some way. Let them recognise that these people were their fellow-citizens, and give them an opportunity of taking part in this Service, without depriving them of their citizens’ rights, or compensating them as they would compensate a landowner whose land they took for the public service. It was one of the best things that this country had ever clone when it started its railways on the lines that they were originally owned by the State, though of course their collective action only went half-way. (Laughter.)

said he did not want to enter into this Bill because he did not understand it, but it looked very much like some of the prospectuses of joint stock companies he had seen that took power to do everything, and he could not understand the speech of the hon. member who had just sat down, because he wished to get the Government to undertake all these things, and the moment the Government were induced to do so—because they naturally listened a great deal to people of that sort —(laughter)—they came down and assailed the Government for mishandling the people they employed, and the whole House rang with denunciations of the infamous treatment of the wretched people in their service. (Laughter.) He wished to draw attention to the grievances of a body of men whose voice was seldom heard in that House, viz., his constituents. (Laughter.) He wanted to draw attention to clause 8 (2), and he did so in the hope that the Minister and the Select Committee, when this came forward, would study this subsection and endeavour to get some amelioration. Why should a man, because he happened to be unfortunate enough to travel on that excellently-conducted line from Pampoenpoort to Carnarvon, if the Government broke his legs or damaged him in any other way, why should he alone, of all the passengers in this country, not be able to come upon the Government? The whole thing was a great stretch of the prerogative. If a man had his leg broken a mile on this side of Pampoenpoort the Government would compensate, but if it happened a mile on the other side he got no compensation. The thing arose simply in, this way, that, when the line was opened, the people were very anxious to have it opened, and of course they signed the usual conditions for a line under construction, i.e., they did not hold the Government liable for damages on the line. The line had been open for years now, and he did not see why it should be separated from the ordinary railways of the country. It was not run at an excessive rate of speed. It sometimes ran at ten miles an hour, but generally it ran at eight miles an hour. (Laughter.) It was simply putting a premium upon inefficiency. They could easily imagine the Government, reckless creatures that they were, dashing along at eight miles an hour over a railway which they had allowed to fall into disrepair. (Laughter.)

said that one effect of this Bill was that the transport riders between Humansdorp and Port Elizabeth would be snuffed out, and would go to swell the ranks of the poor white. In regard to the harbours, his opinion was that they had not improved under the management of the Railway Department, but that things were now in a worse state than before. He thought the Railway Department had as much as they could do if they stuck to the railways. He represented one of the minor ports. The term of the Minister was that the two ports of the Union were Durban and Cape Town.

No.

said that he represented what might be called a minor port, but it had always borne the name of the “honest port,” and it had always paid its way. What was the result now? It had been gradually starved down through what he considered the working by the Administration of the harbours. When the Government took over the landing and shipping at Algoa Bay he considered that the port was equipped up to the mark. It had gradually been starved down in order to equip other ports. Under Chapter 3 the Government seemed to arrogate to itself the power not only to undertake certain work, but to delegate such powers to any person it might appoint. He was fully convinced that the hon. Minister did not quite realise what he was doing. He (the speaker) would do all he could to assist the Government, but he was sure the time was coming when the whole of the harbours of the Union would have to undergo some change. The Government adviser was always at Durban, to the advantage of that port, and his contention was that that officer should visit the different ports.

said he did not want the Minister to think, as he would, if no one on that side spoke, that everyone there was satisfied with the measure, although he applauded the principles of the Bill. He was pleased that the Bill proposed to deal with intoxicated people on the railway. He had never seen so many drunken people in the Transvaal on the trains as here in the Cape. He agreed with Mr. Jagger that the Minister was trying to take too much power into his hands. In Johannesburg there was the Transport Riders’ Association, which did good work, and the members of his association feared that the Government was going to crush them out, and they had accordingly made strong protests. The Railway Department had quite enough to do, and should not extend its activities, the more because it was impossible for private individuals to compete against the Railway Administration. Farmers would also suffer, because the Railway Department would eventually create a monopoly—and they had had quite enough of monopolies, and quite enough Civil Servants as it was. At present they had one official for every six people. Were they going to increase that number, and have one official to each ordinary man ? Moreover, it was wrong for the Government to interfere with vested interests. Mr. Geldenhuys went on to object to the granting of liquor licences on stations, and held that, seeing that they had ordinary liquor laws in the country, there was no necessity for such a provision. Personally, he favoured the abolition of all liquor licences on the outlying stations. Passengers could get all the refreshments they wanted on the trains. He supported the second reading.

said that the hon. Minister had disarmed a great deal of criticism from the beginning, by informing the House that he was going to send the Bill to a Select Committee. He (Sir H. H. Juta) did not wish to take up unnecessarily the time of the House, but there were one or two points upon which he felt impelled to speak. The hon. Minister had said that it was not the intention of the Administration to affect existing rights or to create monopolies. When he (the speaker) heard that, he thought of those unfortunate men last year, the baggage agents of the Cape Town Harbour, who, at a few minutes’ notice were deprived of an occupation which many of them had carried on for years. After they had invested the whole of their time and energy, and the whole of their capital, without a single penny of compensation they were kicked adrift into the world by the Administration of the Railways. He would never forget his feelings when he headed the deputation in connection with that matter. The hon. Minister said it was not the intention of the Administration to deprive people of their rights, but if they once allowed the Administration to get the power, the good intentions of the hon. Minister would be constantly dissipated to the wind, and if the House did not wish existing rights to be interfered with, then they should not grant these powers unless there were sufficient safeguards, otherwise similar positions would be arising as those of the unfortunate men last year. The hon. Minister had said he did not wish to create a monopoly, but he took the power of competition away. The Cape Town Harbour and the merchants and people connected with them had had an experience of what it meant to have one private individual dealing with matters. There was one private individual who dealt with the work there, and it had cost £75,000 to get rid of the work; but they were going to perpetrate the same thing again. How could the hon. Minister say there was no intention to create a monopoly if the Administration took to itself the right to stevedore, land, ship, tranship, warehouse, deliver and collect, the whole of the business of the harbours, and grant the right of these things being placed in the hands of one person. That was giving power to create an enormous monopoly, and a power which certainly never should be in the hands of a Ministry to be dealt with. No Ministry should have the right to put into the hands of one person the whole administration of the harbours and the whole of their money-making powers. Quite apart from that, it was not a good system, and if this House did not wish to see that sort of thing perpetrated, they should not give the Ministry those powers.

Sticking still to the harbour part of the Act, he wished to refer to the Harbour Board elections. He listened particularly to the Minister for reasons why he was altering the present system, but all he could gather was “For reasons.” He would like to know what those reasons were, and the people who had been having the privilege, and exercising it, of sending representatives to the Harbour Board would like to know that also. He knew of no reasons. He knew of no wish or desire on the part of the people who now exercised that right that they should be deprived of it, and the whole of the selection put into the hands of the Government. He thought they would like it the other way round—a little more power of selection and a little less of delegation. He wanted to refer to the liability of the Government generally. As far as he read this clause—sub-section 1—the Government was only to be liable for loss of life or personal injury caused by want of ordinary care, diligence, or skill on the part of its servants. But that seemed to leave out a very large part of the property of the Administration, which might cause loss of life or serious injury. There was nothing said about their lines, the condition of their works, the state of the locomotives. The Minister would remember that one of the most prolific sources of litigation on the part of country people against the railway was damages for fires caused by sparks that came from locomotives and things thrown out of the trains. But there was nothing said here about that or the permanent way, its condition, or the rolling-stock, and he did not know if it was the intention of the Government to legislate itself out of this liability, or whether their idea was that this clause should include it. But ordinary care, diligence, or want of skill would not cover improper construction. They did not want to hold the Government free from liability for loss caused by the railway.

Lastly, he would draw attention to the legislation proposed in regard to private rights, and he thought the House should really pause for a moment before adopting that portion of the Bill. These private railways had been constructed under private Acts passed by the various Legislatures of the Union. They were in the words ordinarily used when this question came before a court of law “contracts,” and it was, to a great extent, a contract between the Government, or the people of the country, and private individuals, giving them the right to make certain railways on certain terms and conditions. The question was: was it fair that, after these people had constructed their lines, they should now impose terms and conditions on them, however desirable, and he knew some of them were exceedingly desirable. Was it right?

Their Acts remain.

I know, but you are imposing additional conditions.

Not inconsistent.

Not inconsistent, but additional. That is the point. You are going to impose terms and conditions not inconsistent with their private Acts, but you are taking the power to impose additional powers and conditions not incorporated in their Acts. Continuing, he referred to chapter 2, the provisions of which he said were exceedingly wide. There, again, there was a limitation of liability. He did not think there should be any limitation of their liability from injury or death: but there were a number of clauses in chapter 2 with regard to liabilities which were different from some of the private Acts governing the railways of this country. He did not see why there should be a limitation in favour of the companies or why there should be additional burdens put upon these companies, which were not contained in their private Acts. Then in sub-section (b) the private railways were subject to further conditions, namely, the maximum charge for the conveyance of passengers and the transport of goods if it exceeded that in force on the South African Railways. Then in section 2 all matters referred to in section 4 of this Act may be proclaimed with regard to private railways.

Section 4 was the section which gave very large powers with regard to making regulations. They could regulate their speed, their loading and unloading, their rolling stock, and the collection, receipt, and cartage of goods; in fact, all those great powers which the Government were taking in regard to its own railways might be made applicable to every private railway. That seemed to him to be going too far. They ought to maintain the contracts made with these private railways. They had got their Acts, money had been put into these concerns on the basis of those Acts, so the House should not do anything that might give rise to the idea that in allowing the private Act to pass they would not keep to their Act. (Hear, hear.) That was the view he took with regard to that matter. It would be better for the country to expropriate those railways rather than that there should be any opportunity of casting stones at the Government. (Cheers.)

said, in view of the very high passenger fares and goods rates ruling on the New Cape Central Railway, he derived very great temporary encouragement in regard to what the Minister had said in regard to the controlling of those rates. He understood him to say that, except in regard to a small section, the Government retained a controlling power over the rates of that railway. But he, the hon. member, found he was right in the view he took of the position. He found that on the section from Ashton to Swellendam the company was allowed to charge no higher rate than obtained, at that time, on the Worcester-Ashton section. Further, the rates from Swellendam to Riversdale were identical with those embodied in the section dealing with Ashton-Swellendam. Then Riversdale to Mossel Bay differed slightly in this respect—that the fares obtaining on the Worcester-Ashton section shall apply, but, in the event of that line paying more than 5 per cent., the Government then shall have a controlling voice in the rates. So they only had a small section of 60 miles out of a total of 209 miles over which the Government had a controlling voice. Then with regard to differentiation, he hoped that the Ministry would have the power to protect people on these railways, because it was common knowledge that differentiation did obtain upon them. In regard to the Government’s intention of taking over the landing and shipping of goods at Mossel Bay, of course if that meant lower rates the public would be glad to see it come into operation, but he hoped, if it came about, that the Government would take over the employees as well.

said he welcomed some of the provisions of the Bill, although it seemed to him that some of the powers asked for were excessive. He understood that the power the Minister sought to have was to be able to transport goods from a railway station to the place of business, or from a place of business to a railway station, but not to transport goods from one place to another without touching the railway at all. He gathered that the Minister did not intend to do this.

That is the principle.

said he was very glad to hear that the Bill was to be referred to a Select Committee. Then with regard to the refreshment rooms. He had received many complaints with regard to the selling of liquor in connection with these refreshment rooms, and from the statement that he had in his possession it would appear that the conduct of these rooms was not at all satisfactory. It was complained that it was unfair competition with people who paid licences. There were complaints also about the sale of liquor to natives. Police reports would show that recently, contrary to law, and by subterfuge, this had been done at Park Station. Monthly boarders were also taken, and at some of the refreshment rooms public dinners were provided. The unfairness of this was recognised by the Liquor Commission, because it was against the Ordinance. The Commission stated that there was no reason for the Railways running restaurants for persons not using the railway, and should be run only for the convenience of passengers. When railway employees were sufficiently numerous they could form a club, and if they were not sufficiently numerous they could use the ordinary hotel.

referring to chapter 2, section 5, where it stated that the regulations should be laid down in English and Dutch, said it seemed to him unnecessary that this statement should continually recur in various Bills, as it was laid down in the Act of Union.

said he noticed with regard to the licences for refreshment rooms that the method formerly pursued was to be changed.

Mr. Speaker, there is not a quorum in the House.

Well, if there is no quorum in the House now, there was no quorum when I began to speak.

A quorum having been obtained, the hon. member went on to say that this would virtually make the Government a competitor with the ordinary liquor licence holder. It was actually proposed that the lessee of these refreshment rooms should obtain a licence from the Minister, and be able to compete with the ordinary licensed victualler. It was not a matter merely of supplying the passengers by the trains, but the lessee of the refreshment rooms would naturally try to push the sale of liquor like any ordinary licence holder. Mr. Schreiner referred to the way in which natives formerly bought liquor on the most wholesale scale at stations, and said he was afraid that this Bill would enable such an undesirable system to come into vogue again. He thought that, seeing there were dining cars on almost every line where passengers could get all the liquors they wanted, there was little or no need for liquor to be sold at the refreshment rooms! but if there was, let the supply be sold as it is on the dining cars, by an official of the Catering Department, and not by a person who pays a high licence for the right to sell liquor, and who naturally will push the sale for all he is worth. But if a licence is to be granted to these refreshment rooms, then he submitted that it should be subject to all the laws applicable to the sale of liquor. In the large towns these licensed liquor shops will unfairly compete with the regular liquor establishments and tempt people to drink who would not do so otherwise. At the country stations they would prove a curse to the farming population.

said that, judging by the paucity of the attendance of members, the debate was not causing a great deal of interest, and he therefore suggested the abolition of night sittings, and that the House should sit instead from 10 o’clock in the morning till 6 p.m. (Laughter.)

The hon. member must keep to the discussion.

said that so far as he could see there was no provision in the Bill whereby the Government was to have power to manage its railways; on the contrary, the power was being taken under clause 3 (t) to assume the control of railways not belonging to the Union. In order to explain his point, the hon. member read the clause, both English and Dutch versions, both of which referred to railways “ other than those which were the property of the Union.” He thought the object of the Bill was to deal with the railways belonging to the Union. If the hon. Minister would read the clause he would find that there was some force in what he (Mr. Nathan) had stated. No doubt the statement that the Bill was to be sent to a Select Committee had disarmed a great deal of criticism, but he thought that what he had to say would be of interest to those who were to be appointed on the committee. He regretted to see the differentiating clause, because under the Post Office Act the object there was of doing away with the rebate and to have a free market. The differentiating clause had a distinctly opposite effect, and furthermore did away with the livelihood of a large number of people. They had been considering the case of the baggage agents, but this differentiating clause would deprive many a farmer of his living who had made it by means of ox transport. He trusted that that power would not be allowed after the Bill had come out of the Select Committee stage. Powers were asked for to frame regulations in cases of contravention of regulations by servants. This was all very well, but power should not be given to constitute new crimes by regulation. He regretted to see that there were two penalties imposed under clause 4. Surely a principle of British justice was that once a man had been punished, he should not be punished twice for the same offence. An extraordinary provision occurred in clause 9, whereby a servant of the railway or Post Office was deprived of his common law right. If that was the intention of the clause it should be altered otherwise. It appeared that if a railway or Post Office servant travelled as a passenger he was not included as a “ passenger ” in case of injury. At the very least he should have a right similar to that under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of the Transvaal. He maintained that the railway servant or post office servant should have the choice if he wanted the choice, but could not have both rights. It was an extraordinary principle to deprive him of his common law rights without giving him something else, but if his common law rights were preserved he would be satisfied.

Then in regard to people who sustained damage, they had, under clause 33, to send in their claim within seventy-two hours of the damage being done. What was the position of the unfortunate man who did not know of his injury until after the 72 hours? He had to express his surprise at the silence of the gentlemen opposite, who were constantly sending cattle by rail, and their not protesting against this clause. Then there was the limit in regard to damage which people might claim for loss. In section 29 there was a provision that if an increased premium was paid on the goods increased damage might be claimed, but that was not so under section 3S, where the damage was limited. He thought that where the increased premium was paid increased damages should be claimed. Then there was a clause which was going to raise a good deal of contention, and that was the powers of the department to issue licences for selling liquor at refreshment stalls at railway stations. In his opinion, and in the opinion of many people, it was a wrong principle for the Minister to have the power, with the assistance of a magistrate, to decide where licences should be granted. It was a very fair safeguard that the decision should be in the hands of the Licensing Court. In the Transvaal there was a very good provision that licences should be limited to the number of the population, one licence being granted for every 250 people. He would also point out that these restaurants at railway stations competed with people who had to pay for their licences. These places were open all day long for the sale of liquor and refreshments to people other than people who were bona fide travellers.

said he wanted to direct attention to the ox-wagon traffic clause. At present a farmer could not carry anything to his next-door neighbour without paying the railway rate upon it. In the part where he came from, they were getting a large number of poor whites. This result had been caused by the cessation of this traffic, which drove these people into the towns. The committee would take evidence upon this, and he believed that the Minister would sit in sackcloth and ashes when he heard the evidence. Then with regard to a time limit. He had often seen cases where a person overslept himself in a train and had been fined. He thought that a clause should be put in covering this.

said that the point that he wanted to raise was this: It had been stated by the right hon. the member for Victoria West that he could not understand why members of the cross-benches were supporting the taking over of the stevedoring and landing and shipping when they were always against the Government. The objective of the Labour Party, which they were endeavouring to attain, was that all the means of production should be under the control of a democratic State in the interests of the whole community. The hon. member, proceeding, referred to the people engaged in stevedoring and other employment which the Government intended to administer, said they should be compensated, or taken over on the best possible terms. He would like also to make a few remarks in connection with the clause dealing with additional punishment. He was glad that the Railway Committee was to be called together. Up to the present it had been still-born.

The motion was agreed to.

The Bill was read a second time and referred to the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours for consideration and report.