from J. A. Petersen, who in consequence of a wound received during the late Anglo-Boer War is unable to carry on his former occupation as transport rider, praying for consideration and relief.

from O. Harms and others, teachers in the district of Rustenburg, Transvaal, praying that the House may take into consideration during the present session the desirability of introducing a Bill, more suitable than Act No. 19 of 1908 (Transvaal), providing for pensions to teachers, their widows and children.

from W. Matthew, principal of the public school at Hoggsback, praying for the condonation of certain breaks in his service, or for other relief.

from W. A. McMurray, stationmaster of the Claremont Railway Station, who entered the service of the Cape Government Railways in 1893, praying for the condonation of certain breaks in his service, or for other relief.

as chairman, brought up the fifth report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, as follows, viz.: Your committee begs to report that it had re-considered the terms of its third report, which was referred back by order of the House, dated the 27th March, and recommends that the estimate under head No. 26, Cartage Services (Harbours), remain as printed on page 32 of the Estimates of Expenditure of the South African Railways and Harbours for 1913-’14, with the exception that the words “Less amount provided under Head No. 9 ” be substituted for the words “Less recoveries from railways.”

The report was set down for consideration on Monday.

moved that the first report of the Select Committee on Internal Arrangements be referred to the Committee of Supply.

The motion was agreed to.

Special report by Assistant Controller and Auditor-General in regard to charges for work performed and services rendered by open lines on behalf of lines under construction.

The report was referred to the Select Committee on Public Accounts.

asked the Minister of Finance if he could give the House any information with regard to the Union Loan?

said the hon. member asked him a few days ago with regard to the issue of a loan, and on that occasion he (General Smuts) told the House that the report was premature, but subsequent to that a prospectus of a £4,000,000 loan was issued in London. (Laughter.) The prospectus asked for the money at 4 per cent. at par. Three millions of the loan had been underwritten in London, and one million would be taken up by the Public Debt Commissioners. As soon as he had any further news about the progress of the matter, he would communicate it to the House.

: What is the amount of the commission?

Underwriting 1 per cent., and brokerage ¼ per cent.

That Standing Order No. 74 be suspended, in order to afford members who have not spoken on the motion to go into Committee of Supply on the Estimates of Expenditure an opportunity of debating the Budget on the question, “That Mr. Speaker leave the chair.”

seconded.

wished to know whether it would be necessary to amend the motion, for, as it was now worded, he feared it would prevent the House having the pleasure of listening to the reply of the Minister of Finance to the criticisms directed against his Budget statement ?

The hon. the Minister will have the right to reply.

said that representations had been made to him by both sides of the House to allow the continuation of the Budget debate. Originally his intention had been to give another two days for the continuation of this debate: but after he had expressed his intention in this regard, he had been asked by both sides of the House to allow an open debate. He thought the decision of the House on Friday on this matter was the outcome of a misunderstanding. Hon. members had been under the impression that if the amendment proposed was negatived, the debate could proceed. Well, he agreed that the debate on the Budget was the most important debate of any session. Members could discuss and criticise the policy of the Government in that debate, and the Government could prove that its policy was the right one. In these circumstances, he had considered it best to allow an open debate, but he appealed to hon. members opposite not to draw out the debate too long, especially in view of the fact that the mistake was made by hon. members opposite. (Hear, hear.)

said he wished to move an amendment. He moved to omit all the words after “to” in the second line down to “ Budget” in the fourth, for the purpose of inserting the words “permit debate.” The motion would then read that standing order No. 74 be suspended in order to permit debate on the question “ that the Speaker leave the chair.”

What difference does it make?

Well, the motion seems to deprecate any member who has already spoken, speaking again. Proceeding, the hon. member said the Minister of Justice shook his head scornfully. Personally, he was not going to intervene at any great length, and he did not believe that any member who had already spoken would raise the same points again, but if he had some specific point to raise which he had not raised before, he should be allowed to do so. It was his intention to have moved an amendment, and it was only fair that any member who wished to speak should be allowed to do so upon it.

seconded the amendment.

said he did not want the whole matter opened up de novo, when the matter had already been discussed. That was why he thought the original motion should remain.

Well, there is one member the whole House wants to hear who has already spoken, and that is the Minister of Finance.

said he did not want to claim any further rights. He thought the Government had gone a great way to meet them, and he hoped the motion would be accepted as it was.

said, of course, the House would be delighted to hear the hon. member for Jeppe again. (Mr. CRESWELL: Hear, hear.) He was glad to find that the House generally recognised that the Government had done all that was possible to cure an accident.

desired to know how far this debate could be carried on.

withdrew his amendment.

The motion was adopted.

That the Select Committee on the Administration of Estates Bill consist of Sir Henry Juta, Messrs. Van der Riet and Cronje, Sir Jan Langerman, Messrs. Nathan, Neser, Wessels, Andrews, Robinson, Brown, P. G. W. Grobler and the mover.

The motion was agreed to.

The question before the House is that I should leave the chair.

said he desired to move an amendment to omit all the words after “That,” and to substitute “this House regrets that in the financial proposals for 1913-1914 the Government have not arranged for the more equitable adjustment of the incidence of taxation by substituting a tax on the unimproved value of all land, agricultural, mineral, and urban, for taxes which are at present raised on the necessities of the people.” In objecting to the debate proper an extraordinary position arose, and he wished to call the attention of the House to its duty upon that occasion. Surely, in every deliberative assembly of the world where speeches were made directing criticism which was searching and damaging, the Government thought them worthy of being replied to. He contended that when they on the cross-benches had endeavoured to bring matters before the House to try and get the Government to declare themselves the Opposition had united with the Government in preserving this state of discreet silence. One thing he wished to draw the attention of the House to, and that was the innovation that was made last year for combining the motions for going into Committee of Supply upon the consolidated revenue and Railways and Harbours funds. This method did not tend towards the betterment of things in having these matters combined in one resolution. It was stated that by this method they got a better idea of the full financial position. But that argument had lost its force as soon as the Railways had ceased to be a taxing machine and the Harbours had ceased to contribute to the general revenue. Another justification for the combination was mentioned by the right hon. member for Victoria West, who said that in case of a deficit the general taxpayer would have to make it up. That was the strongest reason he (Mr. Creswell) believed for keeping these two discussions apart.

Discussing the Railway Budget without the railway construction proposals of the Government before them led to them having no hold on the Government. If they had the railway construction proposals of the Government before them at the time they discussed the Railway Budget they would be able to control expenditure more adequately and efficiently than by dealing with the two resolutions as they were doing at the present time. It was also very confusing to the people of the country. He thought that the criticism of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth favoured the separation for the reason that the total expenditure gave the idea of increased prosperity. Dealing with the speech of the right hon. the member for Victoria West, Mr. Creswell said that that hon. member added up figures upon figures to show the number of men they were keeping in the railway service and spoke of this as something to be deplored. Far from the right hon. member keeping these servants, these servants were keeping him, and he thought they should congratulate themselves on the fact that the number was so large. Dealing with the general Budget, he said that during exceedingly fine weather the Finance Minister had been taking money which should have been put aside for a rainy day. That was an unsound policy; the danger of this course was perfectly obvious. But it was only consistent with the attitude of the Government on the many important questions that concerned the country. The attitude of the Government had been to avoid dealing with any important question until it was absolutely forced on them. In order to avoid putting definite proposals before the House the Finance Minister snatched at everything he could. The three speakers who had criticised the Budget had urged upon the Government the necessity of economy, but had failed to put their fingers on the departments where this extravagance was taking place. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth had said that he had tried to collate the expenditure in the different departments both before and after Union, but had failed owing to the changes that had taken place. But what happened in the committee room upstairs. Chiefs of departments had told them that they were working their departments as cheaply as possible. It was no use thinking of cutting down expenditure by cutting down the salaries of their officials; they should rather see that the services that were being paid for were really required. He was inclined to think that waste occurred for the reason that 40 horsepower machinery was doing 9 horse-power work. He thought that better work would be done by the committee if it investigated department after department, and ascertained what services the country could really do without. He strongly protested against the suggestion made by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Sir E. H. Walton), the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. J. W. Jagger), and the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. J. X. Merriman) that economy could be effected by cutting down the salaries of their servants. He protested against the unworthy jibe of the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. J. X. Merriman) at the Civil Service. He talked of the Civil Service as though only a parasite would enter that Service.

Quite true.

Language of that sort is unworthy of this House. Such language should not be directed against the men of the public service of this country upon whom we have to depend for the carrying out of the government of this country. Continuing, he said that important as the question of economy was, he thought they should direct their attention to the way in which money was raised from the people. They knew that the wealth produced in the country was sufficient to provide all the revenue that was required for the carrying on of the government. They were confident that that revenue could be increased without any inconvenience to the average citizen of this country.

If a change in the policy of taxation were adopted, it would probably be to the great advantage of the citizens generally, and it was to that he wanted to draw the attention of the House. They had heard opinions expressed in that House on the Budget, of persons blessed with that world’s goods, but there were a large number of people who were not in that condition, and who were “disinherited.” When one looked at the estimates or revenue there were only a few of those items which seemed directly to concern them. There was a cigarette tax and Customs duties on a wide field of articles which were absolute necessities to the people of that country—those who had possessions as well as those who had not. What they raised on foodstuffs and other necessities were taxes which were paid mainly by the great class of workers, and not the possessing class in that country. When he used the term “ workers ” he meant those who depended for their living on a daily, weekly, or yearly income, and that it depended on their own work. The ordinary man was not going to have sleepless nights when he heard that the profits tax on the mines had been increased or diminished. It was not going to matter a button to him. He knew perfectly well, as a worker, that the owners of these mines were going to pay him as little as they needed to, and his remuneration was not affected one bit by the wealth produced. Might he point out one absurdity in that way of arranging taxation? The man with a family paid more in proportion to his family responsibilities than a bachelor, and if that commended itself as a fair way of raising revenue to hon. members, it did not commend itself to them (the Labour Party). The hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), and men in his position paid Customs duties, but the ultimate taxpayer paid to the Public Treasury the Customs duties on the articles he consumed. No. 1 paid to the Treasury and No. 2 paid to the private tax collector, and had to pay interest on the money the latter had paid to the Treasury, but there were other things, other items of taxation, which the “ disinherited ” man had to pay, such as ground rent on the place in which he lived, which was not an inconsiderable item, and also ground rent on his place of business, and on all that he bought. The hon. member, to give an instance of the high value of property in the towns, said that the valuation of land at the corner of Pritchard and Eloff streets, Johannesburg, was at the rate of £6,000 per morgen, and that meant that £30,000 per year had to be provided somehow, and that tax was taken out of the back of the man who went to buy anything there. That was the economic rent for a site which went to provide the private tax collector. The hon. member went on to point out that the average wage-earner was entirely in the grip of the owners of the resources of the country. The gold production of the Witwatersrand during the first six months of 1911 had been at the rate of 32¼ millions per annum, and for the same period in 1912 it was 37 millions, an enormous increase in the production of wealth. And what about the white wage earners? Their participation in that increase had expressed itself in that way: that whereas the total wages earned had been £8,234,000 for the first period, it was £7,823,000 for the second period, so that it was perfectly clear that they had not participated in the great increase of wealth produced.

Are those the total wages?

replied in the affirmative, and went on to say that a good deal of that decrease, the hon. member would find, was due to the completion of large construction works during the intervening period. But what he wanted to point out was that the considerable increase in the amount of wealth produced was not proportionate to the increase of the wages earned, and that the decrease had taken place through the whole gamut of the industry. The hon. member went on to refer to what the hon. member for Victoria West had said the other day when he had stated that the industry in the Witwatersrand was the highest paid in the world. Probably, said Mr. Creswell, it was one of the lowest paid. The right hon. member had the faculty of remembering the native when it suited him, and forgetting him when it did not. The average wage for an individual engaged in the industry was not £322 per year as the right hon. member had stated, but something like 4s. per day, and when it came to compensation, then the right hon. gentleman thought that £8 per month was ample.

He wished to add some further figures for the right hon. gentleman’s information, because one felt that the worst enemy of the wage-earner in this House was the right hon. gentleman. He simply chortled over it when he found a wage-earner receiving £300 a year. If he would refer to the figures, he would find that the number of men earning that sum had greatly decreased in the last few months. The right hon. gentleman said that there were 10,000 such men. His figures showed that in the period quoted there were 10,559, but the last return showed that that number had decreased by about 1,600. Whether the working men who were unemployed and the men who were receiving less than that amount were as equally delighted as the right hon. member would be might be doubted with a great deal of certainty. Then the hon. member made some remarks about the natives, as if he were the champion of the natives. The right hon. gentleman flung over to those benches the taunt that they did not care for the natives. They did not profess the extravagant regard for the natives that he did, but what they lacked in words they made up in actions. He would like to know exactly what the right hon. gentleman’s ideas were about the natives. They were to hand them over to the employer as far as possible, to pass a Labour Regulation Act which made his refusal to work a criminal offence, and thereby gave the employer just that security in his recruiting that he wanted, and to prohibit him saying that he would not work. That was very much to the interest of the employer, but not to the interest of the natives. When it came to voting, the right hon. gentleman supported that Bill from start to finish. And when they raised the question of the tropical natives and their mortality, did the right hon. gentleman take any action on that? Yes; he shed a few crocodile tears; but when it came to voting he voted for the continuance of that heavy death rate.

He wished to point out to the right hon. gentleman that when he took it upon himself to rebuke them, it would be wiser if he directed some attention to his own actions, and compared them with his own words, because his speeches, delightful as they were to listen to, because they had the charm of the unexpected, and had the further charm that if he did not contradict what he said in some other speech, or contradict at the end what he said at the beginning, he would contradict the speech by his vote. He hoped some people would not attach so much importance to what was regarded as charming and delightful, but which was merely eloquent trifling The point he wished to get at was that the earner was the prey of the public taxpayer. He was preyed upon by the private tax gatherer, and his earnings were whittled down and restricted to an extent which bore no proportion to the wealthy producer. Broadly speaking, it amounted to this: that their system of taxation and their laws did not encourage activity on the part of the private man. On the contrary, they tended to put a fine upon it. It was the business of the Government to remove any obstacle that grew up between the activities of the people and the natural resources of the country. Here they had obstacles placed between the activity of the people and the resources of the country, and the one aim of the Government seemed to be to strengthen the obstacles, so that the toll gatherer could levy the biggest possible toll. They had heard a great deal about their importing so much and exporting so much, that they paid this that and the other, and it was extraordinary now they used that word “we.” But when it came to actual business they found there were one or two senior partners in the country, and the rest of the population were so junior that they were almost in swaddling clothes.

The wealth of this country was produced by hand or brain. Would somebody tell him what the landowner produced in his capacity as landowner? He was not talking of a working farmer, because in his capacity as a working farmer he produced a certain amount of wealth, but what wealth did he produce as landowner? He proposed to compare some instances of unearned income. He did not want to accuse hon. members opposite and their constituents of being “lazy farmers.” He wanted to put it to them whether it was not a more legitimate subject to tax land than the loaf of bread and boots, and the paraffin with which he lighted the house of the worker of this country—that they should place taxation upon the mere land value, the mere ground rent of the landowner. Let them tackle, first of all, those sources of wealth which were really taken out of the people’s pockets and went into private pockets for no services whatever rendered. He did not wish to weary the House. (Cries of: “Hear, hear,” and “Go on.”) He desired to take this opportunity of making clear their position. The working farmer would be a great deal better off if a change were made from this indirect taxation. If they would base the taxation on the unimproved value of all land, direct taxation, they would be a great deal better off. Let the taxation be taken off the other articles. They were paying more as it was every day through Customs and so on. The effect of it would not be to transfer taxation from the town population to the country population, but to transfer taxation from the worker in the town and the country on to the man who was holding up the resources of this country and not turning them to any account. (Labour cheers.) He wanted to show hon. members opposite that that taxation would fall just as heavily upon people in the town as upon people in the country. He was going to confine himself in his figures of valuation to town figures. When they talked about land values they did not mean simply a few outside country values. They meant all land values, all site values throughout the Union. He would take the Witwatersrand Township Companies in the three divisions of Jeppe, Doornfontein, and Wolhuter. They had done nothing through their own exertions to improve the value of that land. The value had increased owing to the activities of the people. The increase was shown by the fact that they had sold off land now valued at £251,000, and they still held land valued at £199,000. That meant an increase from £40,000 about 14 to 20 years ago, to £450,000 to-day. Going down Commissioner-street they passed a fine building called Exploration Building. There was next to it a vacant stand called Tattersall’s site, he believed. The purchase price of that land was £24. It was now valued at £6,500. He wanted hon. members to consider this question, whether it was not a more worthy subject of taxation, that instead of taxing the man who was working himself, and who had to pay taxation on his bread, his boots, and so on, they should tax the owner of this land, who reaped such immense advantages from the activities of the people, and no advantage from his own activity. He would quote one other figure. He would take Marshall’s. This land was originally bought for £1,200, and in the space of about 20 or 25 years its value had increased to no less than £1,588,000. The value of that land was entirely due to the activities of the people. Was not that a more fitting subject for the Treasurer to lay his hands upon, instead of carrying on a time-honoured sort of Dick Turpin system of simply looking round and determining whom he should tax by two considerations—first, whether his pocket was bulging enough to be taxed, and the other whether he was big enough to hit back if he was taxed.

That land is taxed.

The hon. member says the land is taxed.

So it is.

Municipally taxed. That is so.

Hear, hear.

I only wish the hon. member for Vrededorp were really taxed as he should be. It is a new principle of taxation to say that because you live in a municipality, and pay municipal rates, you should be exempt from taxation. Proceeding, he said that national taxation and municipal taxation should rest upon this unimproved value of land, which merely represented the degree to which the owner may levy a private tax upon the worker. (Hear, hear.)

Let them take the agricultural population. The working farmer paid taxes on every cup of coffee and loaf of bread he consumed. The proposal was, not that the working farmer should be taxed any more, but that the burden of taxation should be shifted on to the shoulders of the owners of tens of thousands of morgen of land, who were probably doing nothing with their land, and who were probably living elsewhere. The burden should also be shifted on to the shoulders of the large land-owning companies, which did not contribute anything in taxation, and which held up the land, waiting to sell it to Government for settlement purposes. Every railway that was built, and every penny that was spent on the Agricultural Department, was enhancing the value of the ground held by these people and companies, who did not pay adequately in taxation. Everywhere where the system of taxation he advocated was adopted, the result had been that the large land-owners either turned their ground to account for the benefit of the country, or they allowed others to do so. Was it to the benefit of the farmers that South Africa should be as thinly populated as it was? A few months ago he was in the Low Country of the Transvaal, where immense tracts of land held by land companies. Where were our sons to get land if such people continued to hold it up ? If members would go over some of the new railways, they would find that they traversed large tracts of depopulated land belonging to land companies; thus the taxpayers were spending their money in increasing the value of the owners of these concerns. The effect of his proposal on mineral land would be very great. Hon. members had not been told how the difference between our exports and imports was made up.

The fact was that we paid five millions in tribute to the shareholders of mineral companies. In other words, we had to pay interest, not only on the cash paid into the company, but on the capital value which those who had taken claims for a song had put upon them. What would be the position suppose people who held claims had to put a value on them, on which they had to pay a tax? He did rot suppose that they would put a value of £300.000 on a block of claims under these circumstances, quite as readily as they did when everything was under their own aegis. People who had claims which they were waiting to float into a company until, as it was termed, the market took a turn for the better, would have a heavy tax to pay on their unworked property, and consequently they would take thundering good care either to work the claims themselves or sell them to someone who would work them. There was a fallacy about this taxation that was frequently repeated, viz., that somehow or other the landowner would pass the tax on. But John Stuart Mill had shown that a tax on economic rent could not be passed on. The activities of the people of South Africa annually produced £38,000,000, which we sent over the water in exchange for imports to the same value; but, in addition, we had to pay £24.000.000, which went out in the shape of tribute. He wondered how much De Beers had put into this country as cash capital, compared with the interest sums it had received. Under this capitalist system we were just as much a tributary Province as any that Rome had (Hear, hear, and an HON. MEMBER: Nonsense.) The hon. member who said “ Nonsense ” and his friends were the representatives of the old Roman autocracy. He (Mr. Creswell) appealed to the farmers to investigate the matter for themselves, and if they did they would find that it would serve their interests better than they thought, besides which, it would get rid of many of the evils from which the people were suffering If the Government saw that the present system was reducing South Africa to more and more restricted opportunities, he believed that they would put their backs up and try and see that a better situation was brought about. Another matter that he wished to refer to was the bewaarplaatsen. What was the Minister’s intention with regard to this. Did he mean to give the proceeds to the surface owners; if he did so then he took a very peculiar method of doing it. Why did not the Minister let them know what these rights were, so that they should know whether they agreed or disagreed. For his part he was amazed when he heard the great speeches of the great economists of the House. When the case of the workers was being pleaded his hon. friend the member for Cape Town, Central, said they must remember the taxpayers. The hon. member relied upon that report of the excellent Commission.

Whatever the Volksraad had done, they laid it down that the right of mining for minerals should belong to the State. Consequently, when this bewaarplaatsen was proclaimed the freehold, as far as minerals were concerned, belonged to the State. One Volksraad did promise that they would give a present to somebody. It would be a scandal if the Government departed from its position that the revenue belonging to the freehold should be given away. As members of the House, they were trustees of the people, and if the Government promised to give away rights that they had no business to do, it was their duty to look after the taxpayer with a little more consistency than the hon. member for Capo Town, Central. These claim owners were entitled to half a claim licence. Let them receive half a claim licence from the time that these bewaarplaatsen were used as mining ground. Personally, he would welcome a full inquiry into the whole business, because there were many things that might beneficially be re-opened. Only one other matter, and that was that he wanted to direct the Minister’s attention to revenue he might tap. Let him take hold of the unconsidered trifles that were going into the pockets of the diamond industry outside the country. Let them realise that in this country they had only to put sufficient taxes upon diamonds to have a diamond cutting industry here. Don’t let them be frightened by the idea that diamond buyers in America would not come to South Africa in fact, American diamond buyers would be delighted at a fortnight’s voyage, and would thank the Minister for the chance. The world wanted diamonds, and would have them, whether they bought them in South Africa or Europe. The Minister would not be able to juggle with figures in his next year’s Budget. If the Government was in office another year he would welcome a thumping deficit, so that the Government would be compelled to face the position of increased taxation.

seconded the amendment.

said if the hon. member for Jeppe had moved for something practical in his amendment, he would have been prepared to have given him a good deal of support, but he had injured his own case because of the extravagance of his argument. No one who had listened to his speech but would realise that if such absolute Socialism was carried into effect the state of the country would not be as prosperous as it was to-day. (Cheers.) There was no getting away from the fact that the country upon the whole was in a very prosperous condition. The terms that the Minister announced concerning the raising of the loan showed that in the face of the condition of the money market the position of South Africa was a very satisfactory one indeed. The Minister, having this prosperous state of the country behind him, had been emboldened to go further than he might have done in trusting to chance for the future. He said he thought he might turn this estimated deficit into a surplus by economy. There was a good deal of the “ may be” in the Minister’s statement, and he hoped that this “ may be” would be turned into “will be.” What they had to remember was this, that in a period of prosperity they had a deficit. This was the more remarkable considering they had had the benefit of £455,000 from the railways which the South Africa Act never intended they should have. The Minister argued that he was justified and, of course, they knew that legal opinion bore out this contention. But he did agree with the General Manager of Railways and the view of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce that the payment of this money from the railway should not be made to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and he hoped at some future time the law would be made much clearer on the point, and that the up-country people would get the benefit of this money. The common-sense view of the position of the mining industry was this: they had got large deposits of ore. Most of these deposits were of low grade and must be worked cheaply, and so far as deep level mining was concerned it took years before they got a return. The investor from oversea had to be given some attraction, and it was difficult to get much money into the country at the present time. The hon. member for Jeppe had said that the profits tax should be increased, but he forgot that if that tax was increased they would proportionately decrease the inducements to the investors. There would also be a possibility of them having to cut down wages, and that was, of course, a thing the hon. member for Jeppe did not want. They would have to do either one of two things, they would either have to pay less in wages or no new mines could be started. He thought the provision should be considered fairly, and they should not put more on the mining industry than it could bear. The mining industry had never been opposed to contributing a reasonable amount for the development of the country.

What they were entitled to claim was that all the money taken in that way should be properly and economically spent, and that in other things, where it was possible to do so, sympathetic treatment should be given to the industry. In many respects the Government realised that, and had helped the industry in many ways, but there were occasions when he thought the importance of a matter was overlooked. He thought that when a question of policy was considered this point should be borne in mind by the Government more than it had been in the past. The right hon. gentleman opposite had said that the profits of the mining industry were not increasing in the same proportion to others. That was quite true, and for that reason the Minister would have to be careful in his estimates of revenue derived from this source in the future. He thought, however, that the Minister said that he did not expect any great increase, and he thought that was a right point of view to take. The question was, how was this state of affairs to be remedied? How were they going to increase the general prosperity of the country? The right hon. gentleman had referred to people who had gone to Canada and elsewhere. Somebody on his (the speaker’s) side of the House said that these people had gone elsewhere because they could not get land here. He could not see anything that would enhance the prosperity of the country more than the gradual adoption of a policy of closer settlement and the settlement of people on the land. The hon. member for Jeppe argued in the same fashion, but he went the wrong way to work. There were hon. members who would support a reasonable policy of this kind. The hon. member for Jeppe advocated the same policy, but in an aggravating form. His whole argument was that somebody must be robbed, but that was neither sound politics nor good business. Before the Government were forced to levy any great amount of fresh taxation they must do something in the way of economy. When they talked of economy he did not think it followed that it was synonymous with cutting down the salaries of Civil Servants or the ill-treatment of Civil Servants. He did not think there was justification for that argument. At the risk of being called parochial he wanted to consider the position in the light of the up-country taxpayer. They knew that people from the coast like his hon. friend the member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), were always ready to see what was fair and just in the interests of up-country people. Continuing, Mr. Chaplin pointed out that the taxation in the Transvaal was borne by the people of the Witwatersrand.

By the people of the Witwatersrand?

By the people who live on the Witwatersrand. Continuing, he said he knew the argument of the hon. member that it was paid by people in England. It was only a new way of putting the argument of the hon. member for Jeppe. But the hon. member knew perfectly well that the argument was worn out, and he (the speaker) hoped that such a hoary argument would not again be advanced. When it came to a question of having things done, it was the Transvaal that had to pay, and when it was the Transvaal that was asked to pay, it was the Witwatersrand that had to pay by far the greater proportion. Continuing, he pointed out that further relief was being granted Natal and the Free State under the Financial Relations Bill. He had never seen any suggestion that some measure of relief should be given to the Transvaal. With regard to the pass fees, it was not the Transvaal that paid, but the Witwatersrand. The same thing applied when they came to the question of unpayable railway lines. There were a good many complaints from the Witwatersrand on this score, and the Minister had recognised that this was justified.

The incidence of taxation in the Transvaal was by no means equal, and that was a point that was very often lost sight of. It was absolutely the same to the people of the Witwatersrand whether the nonpaying lines were in the Transvaal or in the north-western districts of the Cape Province. In paying railway rates it was said that they were only paying for services rendered, but there was no reason why they should pay a shilling when sixpence should be the amount. He thought that what the Minister had said about the building of these lines in a less expensive way was, to some extent, an admission of the justice of what they had said. In their opinion, the time had arrived when, to some extent, they had to bear a greater amount of taxation than at present, and sooner or later hon. gentlemen on the other side would have to make up their mind to face some more taxation, and if they wished to avoid that, it should be put off as long as possible—and he was not an advocate of imposing taxation for the sake of robbing someone, because they all hated taxation—when they got the chance they should co-operate with them (the Opposition) in seeing that efficiency and economy were obtained in the public service. The hon. member alluded to a speech made by a supporter of the Government, Sir George Albu, on the Rand, in which he indicated taxation on the profits of the ostrich feather industry. He went on to say that the people of the Witwatersrand would not be prepared to pay increased taxes in the way of increased Customs dues, as the cost of living was sufficiently high already. It had become an accepted thing that the Witwatersrand should pay for things such as unpayable lines, and should be the source from which assistance and contributions were given to the other Provinces. If the Minister had to put on fresh taxation, he should put it on where it could be borne reasonably, and not add to the burdens under which the up-country people were already suffering. (Hear, hear.)

said that the principal charge which had been made against the Minister of Finance in connection with that Budget, had been that he had dissipated the surplus for 1912-13. That was a charge which had been made in the most solemn terms by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton), repeated by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), and somewhat emphasised by the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman). If it could have been shown to the House that the Minister had taken that surplus, and deliberately used it for purposes for which there was no necessity, or deliberately used it that year to anticipate charges which could legitimately fall in subsequent years, the House could say—

That is what he has done. We have shown that over and over again.

Did the hon. member give one tittle of proof that his statement was true? Continuing, he said that he found that a sum of £259,018 was a proper charge against 1912-13—charges which any Minister, even the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had he been Minister of Finance, would have had to admit as proper charges against that year. There was £250,000 which the Minister had taken from the surplus of the year to provide for capital for a Defence Stores Fund. Did the hon. member object to that?

Yes.

And the advice the hon. member gave was this: put it into the sinking fund this year, and take it out and use it again next year! (Ministerial cheers.) Proceeding, the hon. member said that of the balance remaining, £53,000 had been voted to wineries, and £15,000 came back as a surplus and went back to the repayment of debt, and as to the £38,000, would the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, say that it was not proof of the payment of that debt by the State? Who was responsible for the creation of that debt if not the hon. member for Port Elizabeth. Central, himself? (Ministerial cheers.) Yet he had the effrontery to say what he had said. The Opposition had challenged that vote on the one item only, and he was not sure that all members of the Opposition had voted together even on the appropriation of the wineries. If hon. members on the opposite side had been sincere, they ought to have challenged every item, and said that they took no responsibility for that money. Turning to the revenues that the country had raised by taxation to meet its expenditure, he thought that perhaps it would be of interest to the House if he took the sources from which their revenues were raised in a concrete form, so that the House might realise, roughly, the sources from which it got its taxation. Taking the revenue for the year, if they eliminated the interest they received on the railway debt, which, of course, had to be paid out, as it was on railway loan, and if they took off the cost of collection and administration of the Customs, Excise, Post Office, Mines, and Inland Revenue, they found that the net revenue would be somewhere about £10,000,000. The revenue from the Post Office was about a million and a half, and the expenditure was roughly the same, although he believed that there was a small profit shown by the Post Office. Taking all these items of revenue together, Excise, Customs, and the Post Office contributed half of the total of £10,000,000. As to expenditure, half of the ten millions might be taken to pay for agriculture expenditure on loans, and the Provincial grants, defence, and public works, amounting in all to £4.705,000. Then, if they passed on to mining revenue about 2¼ millions, or over one-fifth of the total of ten millions, although he could not agree that it all came from the Witwatersrand, it did come into the Government’s pocket, and was available for expenditure. That would pay for administrative charges, while the revenue from loans, licences, stamps, and miscellaneous, amounting to over 2½ millions, or a quarter of the total, would meet the charges for justices, police, etc. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth had done very good service to that House and to the country in calling attention to the difference between the figures in 1907-S and the figures of this year, and he had very properly challenged the Minister of Finance to show justification for this increased expenditure. “You have been extravagant,” he said, “and have wasted your substance in riotous living.” (Laughter.) But neither the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, nor the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had produced any evidence to show that the Minister had spent the money extravagantly.

We have got the figures.

replied that the hon. members took for their purpose a year in which the expenditure was the lowest in all the four colonies, and they compared that with the present year. The hon. members did not say how they would have reduced the expenditure. They did not produce, one tittle of evidence to show that the money had been spent wastefully. They had gone through the Estimates from year to year, but still they had no recommendation to make. (Ministerial cheers.) Nor did they give the Minister a single atom of credit for the contributions which had been made to the sinking fund since Union. It would have been fairer if they had said that, whereas formerly heavy expenditure used to be charged for loans, it was now true that the Minister had charged that expenditure to revenue. The hon. member quoted from the “Economist,” the contentions in which, he said, were the same as they had heard the other day from the hon. member for Victoria West. There was not one word of credit given to the Government for the accumulation of sinking fund, or of the expenditure out of revenue which had previously been charged out of loan funds. It stated that the Estimates were based on the most lavish scale, and that the number of officials were out of all proportion to the number of the population. Then there was an extraordinary paragraph regarding the charge of £644,000 for redemption, as if that were an additional crime. The total debt was £117.000,000, and, no doubt, hon. members on the opposite side were alarmed at the amount of the debt. He would read what the Public Debt Commissioners thought with regard to it. It was highly important that the country, and the people of England, should know what a sound position the Union was in at the present moment. The statement of the Public Debt Commissioners was to the effect that the reproductive and remunerative assets of the country amounted to a total of £112,000.000. and that left a total of unproductive and unremunerative debt at the small amount of £5,000,000. (Ministerial cheers.) Had the writer in the “ Economist ” given credit to the country for that state of affairs, he would have rendered a great service.

These are not Government assets.

said that the hon. member for Cape Town. Central (Mr. Jagger), who often, in his remarks, added some of his own imagination to the facts before him, in his recent speech, had forgotten that his colleague, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, was one of the Public Debt Commissioners, when he said that these Public Debt Commissioners had invested £800,000 in non-South African securties.

I never said so. The statement is incorrect.

said that in looking to the future of the country one would see that if the expenditure remained as it did at the present day the country would be faced with a deficit. At the same time they must remember that since Union they had had to recover from a serious period of depression and expenditure had to be made in order to make up lee-way, A point that would have to be considered in the near future would be the position in regard to taxation between the Union Government and the Provincial Councils. Unless some direct measure of taxation was made by the Union Government they would have to get money in some indirect way, and it would be left to the Provincial Councils to levy direct taxation. He hoped the Government would take into consideration the advisability of the Union Government assuming its fair share of direct taxation instead of leaving everything to the Provincial Councils. Though he would not go into details with regard to the Railway Budget, he thought there was a real danger in the railway tying up surpluses. They knew, of course, that it was the fault of the Act of Union, but there was the danger that a needy Treasurer, in a time of depression, might be tempted to come to the House, with a majority at his back, to ask the consent of the House to the suspension of that part of the Act of Union dealing with railway balances. Proceeding, the hon. member said he thought it was highly improper for the Minister of Finance to also carry the portfolio of the Minister of Defence, as was the case at present, and he did hope that the arrangement would not be regarded as permanent. He did not think that the country need be alarmed at the present state of affairs. It had been in the happy position of having a surplus every year since Union, and being able to contribute four millions to the sinking fund, which more than covered the additions to the public debt since Union. He hoped that state of prosperity would continue, but he would sound a note of warning to the House and the country that if the expenditure continued as high us at present, sources of taxation would have to be found. He also hoped that the Minister would give the House figures in connection with the increase of expenditure to show whether that money concerned reproductive or administrative expenditure. He thought that if those figures were supplied the House would recognise that the Government had exercised the wisest judgment in the expenditure of this money.

said he thought the House must be rather surprised at the speech which they had just listened to. The hon. member for Maritzburg, North (Mr. Orr), having found that all was going well, proceeded to lecture the Minister of Finance for also holding the position of Minister of Defence. The hon. member had said that it was impossible for one man to hold the two positions. If they were to take the statement as true, it meant that some other hon. gentleman should be given the position, say, of Minister of Finance. With the exception of his last few remarks, the hon. member for Maritzburg North, seemed to be satisfied that there was no want of economy and that everything was in the best possible order. He found the greatest fault with hon. members opposite who argued that instead of disposing of sums that had accumulated, the Minister of Finance should have endeavoured to find some system of effecting economies. Apparently his opinion was that by having the Railway Budget discussed at the same time as the general Budget the Minister of Railways escaped criticism. He was satisfied that he was going to escape criticism from the hon. member who had just sat down, because he had hardly been in the House.

He will be here in a minute.

He is like a flitting ghost, he comes in for a second, and disappears again. He certainly could not have taken any interest in the proceedings this afternoon. Proceeding, he said that because this country happened to be in a prosperous condition was no reason why in our financial methods we should not show prudence. (Hear, hear.)

He thought, for instance, that the Minister of Finance had made an announcement that afternoon which was extremely prudent. He had taken the opportunity, before the war came to a conclusion, to make arrangements for the subscription of a large sum of money, which this country had to borrow. He (Sir L. Phillips) believed that it was generally considered likely that immediately hostilities ceased a great many demands would be made upon the money market by people who were waiting until the atmosphere was a little clearer. He had no doubt that the country would benefit by the Minister having arranged to borrow this money before the war came to an end, and at a price which, he thought, the whole country would recognise to be moderate, and to show that our credit was good in the European market the Minister told them that £3,000,000 of this was to be subscribed in England. There was a million, he understood, to be subscribed by the Debt Commissioners. He would like to raise one note of warning in connection with the raising of loans, and that was that the Minister should raise his funds at the other end of the world, and not attempt to raise funds in this country. All the money we had in this country at present was being used in the actual development of enterprises in this country, and money which may be at disposal in this country which was not used in these enterprises was on fixed deposit or invested in some way at the other end of the world. There was certainly a remarkable speed in the period of time when the Minister was able to tell them that this loan had happily been arranged and the time when he was obliged to tell them that the announcement of it was premature and unauthorised. He imagined that negotiations must have gone somewhat far when the Minister was obliged to tell them that the announcement was premature and unauthorised. Hon. members who had spoken had dealt very fully with the figures placed before them, and the trade returns of the country, and he therefore would not find it necessary to detain the House at any length. We had passed through a period of considerable prosperity, both in agriculture and in mining.

He was glad to welcome into the ranks of those who stood for the welfare and the protection of the mining industry no less a distinguished disciple than his right hon. friend opposite (Mr. Merriman). He read with the greatest possible interest and pleasure the very eloquent and able speech which the right hon. gentleman had delivered in the course of this debate. Of course, he knew there were occasions upon which the right hon. gentleman did not always tread in the same good path, but although at times he hit out, there was at least one thing they could say of his speeches, and that was that they had the purity of grace. (Hear, hear.) Johannesburg had been referred to by the right hon. gentleman as a “university of crime.” He thought that in any place in the world, any industrial centre in the world, where they brought the barbarian first into contact with civilisation, he was bound to learn some of the worst sides of civilisation.

Not if you look after him.

But we do look after him.

No, you don’t.

As a matter of fact, when natives are first brought into contact with people all over the world, they are not brought into contact with people of the learning and refinement of my right hon. friend.

Why don’t they learn it in Kimberley?

Well, sir, they learn a great deal in Kimberley, but there is an inestimable advantage in Kimberley, and that is that the natives are put into compounds. There the control is better, and I have no doubt the civilising influences of Kimberley are greater than those of Johannesburg, where the native has greater freedom. It might be better from the standpoint of the welfare of the natives to put them into compounds. If the right hon. gentleman wishes to do that, I think he would put his head into a hornet’s nest—(hear, hear)—at any rate, I should be sorry to propose it. Proceeding, he said he noticed that it was a common practice in the Press, especially here, when they gave them any information about other parts of the country, to treat them to a description of some revolting case, some theft, outrage, or something of that kind. They very rarely saw a report of the more refined and more intellectual doings of any other part of South Africa. He should like to see, not reports of out rages, not merely reports of agricultural shows, confined, more or less, to telling them that some feathers were stolen, or something of that kind, but he should like to see from Johannesburg, Natal, and the Free State, and any other part of this country, descriptions of things which were of a better kind, because he believed that was all in the direction of creating a good national spirit. He thought it was quite possible to cater for the better tastes of the people, and not descend to their very worst instincts for the purpose of making things pay.

The right hon. gentleman had spoken a great deal about the gold mining industry. There was always an anxiety about the life of the gold mining industry. No one could put down a definite date for that industry. He could say this, that South Africa as a whole was a highly mineralised country, and he firmly believed that neither in this century nor in the next century would they cease to get minerals in this country. As far as the Witwatersrand was concerned, the life of the gold mines there must depend upon a certain number of factors. The first factor was the question of the temperature of the earth. In this part of the world there was a phenomenon rather, in the fact that the increase of temperature in the earth as they sank below the surface was only at the rate of one degree Fahrenheit for every 250 feet they sank, whereas, normally in the world, the temperature of the earth’s crust rose at the rate of one degree for every 60 feet they sank. The consequence was that they could sink in those mines without abnormal heat to a much greater depth than they could normally in the world. The next point was the question of rock pressure. Up to the present the world’s knowledge of mining was confined to a depth of something like 6,000 feet vertically. They did not know much about rock pressures below that, but, as far as their engineer’s advice was at present, they would be able to sink very much deeper than that. Therefore, ho thought they might safely say that, given reasonable conditions, the working of the gold mining industry of the Witwatersrand alone would not be finished in this present century. (Hear, bear.) There were several other factors which he could not take into account that day without speaking at inordinate length, such, for instance, as the question of whether they would be able to get the same amount of gold per ton as they were able to get to-day. As far as indications went, if they excluded the first 300 feet from the surface, he did not think there were any indications of impoverishment as they sank down in the mines. They were able to work extremely low-grade propositions there. He had previously spoken on this aspect of the question, but he thought he might put it this way: if they took the whole of the members of that House and rolled them into one man he would weigh something like 19,000 lbs. or a little more, and if he had gold in him to the same extent as they had gold on the Witwatersrand, and they extracted the whole of the gold out of that 19,000 lbs., they would have a little nugget of three ounces of gold. He did not presume to say, however, whether the amount of gold found on the members of that House would be greater or less than would be found in the reef of the Witwatersrand. The question of working costs was a serious one, but he thought it would be found that rook of a lower grade than that now mined would be able to be worked at a profit.

Besides the gold on the Rand, we had diamonds, tin, copper, and zinc in South Africa, and he had no doubt other minerals as well. In fact, it would be reasonable to expect that still more minerals would be discovered. One indeed was brought to his notice the other day which might prove of the utmost importance to South Africa. He had been told that there were practically unlimited deposits of hematite in the Cape Province. If that were so the time would come when we should have here the most important industry of iron making. With regard to agricultural exports, the Minister of Finance stated these amounted to £1,800,000. There was an increase of £54,000 in the export of whale oil, but he hoped the Government was getting some advice as to whether whale fishing was not being overdone. (Mr. BAXTER: “ Hear, hear.”) Those who followed the calling to-day should not be allowed, for the sake of an immediate small extra profit, to destroy an industry which might be of permanent value to South Africa. There had been a falling off in the export of bark, but he hoped that was only temporary. He understood that this was due to a disease among the wattle trees. The falling off in the export of copper to the extent of £140,000 was, he took it, also only of a temporary nature. Previous speakers had referred to the great expense—£17,000,000—of governing this country. The question that concerned him was whether we were getting full value for this £17,000,000, and the more so because the Minister of Finance had told the House that he was unable to resist the demands of the Provincial Councils, if the Minister could not resist those demands, was he able to resist the demands of the heads of departments who said it was absolutely necessary to have certain things done? That led him (Sir Lionel) to the question whether sufficient time was given in the investigation of expenditure to lead to that economy which the country was entitled to demand. He was very sorry to see that the £280,000 which were to be spent on land settlement still remained in the hands of the Government. This was an instance of a lack of organisation on the part of the Government—(hear, hear)—for with a proper organisation it would have been possible to have spent that money with advantage to the country. The fact that that money had not been spent manifested a lack of interest in a vital subject, not only for the progress of the country, but for peopling it with a larger number of white persons. Reference had been made to an Immigrants Restriction Bill, but nothing had been heard about a Bill to encourage immigrants—which was much more necessary.

He would hardly have felt inclined to make a reference to the bewaarplaatsen question at all had it not been raised again in another quarter. The Minister of Finance had told the House that there were still points in connection with this under consideration, but the question was a simple one, and could be put in six sentences. In 1896 the Transvaal Volksraad passed a resolution that the proceeds from the sale of bewaarplaatsen were to be divided between the Government and the freeholders. In 1898 the Volksraad confirmed that resolution, and then certain persons spent £535,000 in buying those right. After that a Select Committee and a Commission, which were appointed to investigate the matter, both came to the conclusion that the freeholders and the Government were each entitled to one-half. Any investigations into other matters had nothing to do with the real case before the House If anyone could find justification for departing from what the Volksraad did in this matter, he would be astounded. Of course, there were certain people who were quite ready to take the property of others and to divide it up. (Cheers and laughter.) The bewaarplaatsen money had been accumulating in the hands of the Treasury for the last three years, and if anyone was entitled to a portion of the capital, they were also entitled to a portion of the interest. It would be highly improper for the Minister of Finance to delay bringing forward a resolution so that the matter could be discussed in that House. As he (Sir Lionel) had some interest in the matter, he begged to state that, as nearly as he could calculate, whatever interest he would get out of this, he would give away. He was making these remarks on this subject in the interests of good government and sound, honest dealing with the money of people who were at the other end of the world.

Then he had a few words he wished to say upon the subject of the railways. He was very sorry the responsible Minister was not in his place.

He will return.

He is always going to.

Move the adjournment of the House.

Send a friend for him.

Has he a friend you could send for him. (Laughter.)

said he thought that when one of the principal debates of the whole year was on, the Minister in charge of so important a matter as the railways should be in his place. (Opposition cheers.) He must have assumed that he was not going to be subjected to any criticisms.

Then he has presumed upon his majority. (Opposition cheers and laughter.)

said that, needless to say, the railway was in a very prosperous condition. During the past year they had seen a very considerable rise in goods and passenger traffic, and in spite of the, reduction of £440,000 in rates, and the paying of £455,000 interest in connection with the matter the hon. member for Germiston referred to, there was still a surplus of £300.000 net. With regard to the amount of £455.000 interest, he entirely agreed with the hon. member for Germiston. It might be legal, but it certainly was most inequable. Because they had spent something like thirteen millions out of profits on construction, it was most inequable that they should actually charge interest upon that sum of money. It was a very sound policy from the point of view of those who lived at the coast, but those who lived inland had to pay, and had to pay unjustly. He thought it would have been much more fair and just to have got that amount of £455.000 from the Customs, when everybody would have had to pay for it. The Minister of Railways had told them that the depreciation account was not sufficient. That, was to say, that according to the advice he had, sufficient money had not been written off for depreciation. That was mentioned in the House last year, and they then hoped that some sort of steps would have been taken to get a valuation of their stock. If they found that the railway was as valuable as it was shown to be in their books, they would have been well content. He hoped that next year they were not going to have the same statement that depreciation which should be written off, and would be written off by an ordinary commercial firm, had not been written off.

Now he came to the question of the Railway Construction Bill. The Minister was asked the other day when he was going to introduce the Railway Construction Bill and his reply was, “Wait and see.” Well, was that a right answer to give in this House? Surely it was a slight upon Parliament, and it was an insult to the country, to tell an hon. member in this House he must wait and see when the Railway Construction Bill was going to be introduced. The Prime Minister, in this House the other day, said that, as a rule, such measures were introduced after the Budget. Well, they were introduced after the Budget in this House, but it was a most improper procedure, and it was net in accordance with the King’s speech, because in that speech they found it said— he was not giving the exact words—that an early opportunity will be given of submitting to the House the reports of the Railway Commissioners and proposals for new lines. Well, was an early opportunity being given? Was it right, towards the end of the session, when the House was tired and the country had no opportunity to consider the matter, that they should be asked to vote millions for railway construction? Last year they had the report of the Railway Board laid on the Table, and certain lines were recommended. One of those recommendations startled him. It was a recommendation that they should build 222½ miles of railway line in the Karoo at a cost of £5,000 per mile. What were they to think when they had a report like that placed on the Table, which, had it not been for the lateness of the session and the absence of necessity, would have been forced through. He was very pleased to hear the Minister say the other day that he was in favour of giving communication by means of light lines, so that produce from the interior could be brought to the markets. Everyone knew that the development of this country must proceed from railway lines, and these lines must be built on an economic basis. How the Railway Board was induced to recommend to the House a line on such a basis as they had he did not know.

But they did know this, that the Minister then took to himself a right which he did not have under the Act; that he took to himself the right of a casting vote on the Board, to which he was not entitled under the Act. The present Minister of Railways had told them that he was getting on very nicely with the Board. Well, they knew that he was a most genial person, and no doubt he made full use of his persuasive powers. They were very anxious indeed to see the Railway Board’s report and its recommendations. If the hon. Minister did not intend to go in for railway construction this year, then the sooner he told the House so, the better. He knew that this year the Government had had great difficulties, and he sympathised with them. He (Sir Lionel) was the last to do anything to embarrass the Government and thereby handicap the interests of South Africa. But because there were difficulties which the Government had to face, was that a justification for the neglect of the ordinary matters of government which should occupy their attention? So they saw in every branch of the Administration insufficient attention being given to it by the Minister. That was why they had before them the other day the motion in regard to the laboratories, and that was why they found chaos everywhere. Under present conditions the country was being practically run by officials, the chief of whom were spending their time hanging round the House to answer questions. He did not think the government of the country could be properly carried on along those lines. The sooner, therefore, the Government found some means of settling all these differences and difficulties the better it would be for South Africa, because he was sure they had among the Ministers here men who, under normal conditions, could do much better work than they did to-day, and he only hoped that when they met again they would be faced by a solid phalanx of united ministers, who would be able to deal with questions affecting the internal welfare of South Africa, unembarrassed by other difficulties. (Opposition cheers.)

said that the hon. member for Yeoville concluded his very interesting speech by expressing regret that he did not have someone he could punch, but as the Ministry as a whole could not be punched, and as he wanted to punch someone, he gathered he wanted to punch the most unfortunate Minister of Railways and Harbours. He was the smallest man in the Cabinet. (Laughter.) But he did not know anyone who was better able to defend himself in this House than the hon. Minister of Railways and Harbours, and he did not think he would thank him (the hon. member) if he offered to defend him. But the hon. member made such extraordinary charges against the Minister and against the Government as a whole in regard to the Railway Construction Bill that he had to say a word or two in reply. Could his hon. friend the hon. member for Yeoville produce one case in the whole history of the Parliament of the Cape Colony or of the Union where a Ministry had brought in its Railway Construction Bill before it had got into Committee of Supply? The great test of the strength of the Opposition and the House’s confidence in the Government was the ability of the Opposition to prevent the Government getting into Committee of supply. If the hon. member had changed places with the Minister, he would have adopted the same tactics. He was never more surprised than to hear the hon. member for Fort Beaufort cheer the sentiments of the hon. member for Yeoville. His hon. friend (Sir T. W. Smartt) had brought in many railway construction Bills, and he hoped he would bring in many more.

Not at the end of the session.

Did my hon. friend ever bring any construction Bill into the House until the end of the session? (Ministerial laughter.) My hon. friend brought, in, among other Bills, the Cape Flats Railway. He brought it in during the closing days of the session, much to the regret of the taxpayers of the country. (Hear, hear.) Proceeding, the hon. member said he would like to say a word or two with regard to the position of the country to-day as set out by the Minister of Finance. Those who were privileged to hear the speech, were somewhat disappointed when he stated that he expected to close the financial year with what was but a nominal balance of £48,000. The promptitude with which the returns had been submitted to the country reflected the very greatest credit on all those connected with the Treasury, because these returns were of the utmost importance. From these returns they had been led to expect an enormous surplus; a larger surplus, in fact, than the country had ever known. The forecasts in the Press went to something like a million pounds; most people expected a surplus of £750,000, but it was rather a heavy drop to come down from that amount to £48,000, which was, after all, little more than nominal. When the Auditor-General, however, finished with the accounts, he hoped that there would be a balance of £48,000, but that excellent official had a habit of always adjusting his accounts against the Treasury forecast, so that he thought the £48.000 might possibly disappear. If the hon. the Minister would allow him to do so— although he believed that Ministers disliked anything in the nature of panegyrics from their friends—he would like to congratulate him upon the position with regard to the loan account. He did not think that anybody, when they came to look at the position, could doubt for a moment the prosperity of the country. Since Union they had issued practically £9,000,000 by successive Treasurers. In spite of that the debt had been increased by not more than £4,000,000. That was extraordinarily satisfactory, and in the interests of the public he would like that fact to be spread broadcast. Never in the history of the country had they occupied such a good position.

What about the Transvaal balances?

My hon. friend is so provincial. I give credit for the Transvaal balances, but I am taking the position of the country as a Union. Where the Union got its money from doesn’t matter. Proceeding, the hon. member said they had spent £9,000,000. and only increased their debt by £4,000,000. That position was most satisfactory With regard to the floating debt, the hon. member for Barberton (Mr. Hull) laid great stress upon the desirability of reducing the floating debt, because it was felt in all quarters of the House that the floating debt was unduly large, and he was glad that steps had been taken during the last few days for its reduction. He was sorry that the Minister of Finance had not caused to he published the returns of the Postmaster-General, which he said he had in his hand, because there were certain figures in connection with the post office that it was essential the country should have. There was nothing that indicated the prosperity of a country more than the figures of the savings banks. It was, therefore, most desirable that they should have these figures. In dealing with the figures for the financial year ending March last, if they would look at the year ending 1909-10 they would find that at the close of the year there was an increase in the balance of £516,000 In the next year the increase was £687,491, while in the year 1911-12 it had fallen to £416.761.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

resuming, said that to himself he thought it was a matter of grave concern that they, at that stage of the Union, should be budgetting for a deficiency of at least £1,159,000— (hear, hear)—more particularly at a time when, according to the Budget of his hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Harbours, he was making no provision whatever for any surplus on the railway account. The position of the country, as he understood it from the Minister of Finance, was as follows: If it was decided that half the bewaarplaatsen receipts were to go to the owners and half to the redemption of the debt, as recommended by the Transvaal Commission, the deficiency for which they were budgetting would amount to £1,319,000. Against that deficiency they had the nest-egg, if he might term it so, which the hon. member for Barberton (Mr. Hull) had left behind him at the Treasury; but if the estimates of expenditure of the Government were realised and the proposals of the Government were adopted, the net deficiency of the country would be £229,000 for the current year. That sum, it was hoped, would be wiped out by economies of the Government during the present year; but he frankly admitted that the experiences of the financial year 1912-13 in the matter of economies were, to his mind, not particularly encouraging. (Hear, hear.) The estimates of expenditure for 1912-13 were £17,130,000; the current expenditure was £17,196,000. But they had not carried out certain public works which had been authorised by Parliament, amounting to £238,000, and if they had been carried out, as it was hoped they would have been, £17,434,000 would have been the expenditure for the year; but as against that expenditure, they must deduct, to his mind, £330,000, being expenditure debited to 1912-13, because they had a surplus, but it would really fall into 1913-14. (Opposition cheers.) He did not know whether the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg, North (Mr. Orr), would agree with him as to that amount, but it was roughly that. The net expenditure of the Government for 1912-13 was therefore £17,104,000, so that their saving on the original estimate was only £26,000, equivalent to ⅛ per cent. Their estimates for that year included, of course, the supplementary estimates which the Minister of Finance said he would lay before them—a total expenditure of £16,371,000—and if the Minister was going to effect a saving of £229,000 on that, he would have to economise, not to the extent of ⅛ per cent., but to the extent of nearly 1½ per cent., which was a very marked increase. He thought he was doing only ordinary justice to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton), when he said that the House, as he believed— or it certainly ought to be—was extremely indebted to him for the interesting comparative statement he had laid before the House as to the expenditure incurred during a number of years. (Cheers.) From his own experience in a matter of that kind, he must say it must have involved an enormous amount of labour. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Currey) had tried his ’prentice hand at that sort of thing, too, and he was glad that the figures that had been laid before them by the hon. member had been confirmed by the Controller and Auditor-General, so that they might take those figures as the last word on the subject. He hoped that his hon. friend, when he went through and corrected the report of his speech, would make it quite clear that that amount did not include the amount of interest on the national debt, for, according to the report, that was not quite clear. But, on the other hand, if his hon. friend would allow him to say so, he (Mr. Currey) thought he had rather overstated his case by including in those figures expenditure on railways, and without one word of explanation as to the difference in the railway system now and the railway system prior to Union. (Hear, hear.) A stranger listening to the hon. gentleman or a stranger reading a report of the hon. gentleman’s speech might gather that the railway system to-day was the same as it was prior to Union, and, of course, he was sure that his hon. friend had no intention of misleading the House. But anyone reading the report would think that the systems were the same. The hon. gentleman had also not made it quite clear that in comparing the total expenditure of the country with the expenditure prior to Union, the Railway Administration had 826 miles more railway at present than it had prior to Union; and that blew to the winds any comparison his hon. friend had made, because millions of train miles more had been run, and that was putting it on a completely different footing. The hon. member went on to say that he would deal with the general expenditure of the country outside the railway system, and the expenditure in the Estimates now before the House, as compared with the actual expenditure for the twelve months prior to Union, exclusive of railway expenditure, and exclusive entirely of the amount required for the interest on the national debt—which no Government had the power of reducing—showed the following actual position: Their expenditure was very nearly, but not quite, £2.000,000 more than it had been prior to Union. That increase they must take as correct. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton) said that he had tried to find reasons in detail for the growth of that expenditure, but he had failed. But he wanted the Minister of Finance during the recess to instruct the Treasury officials to prepare a statement showing the (increased expenditure in each Province. He understood that the hon. member for Maritzburg, North, concurred in that view.

No, before the recess.

Well, it is only a matter of weeks. Proceeding, he said it seemed to him a work of supererogation, and it was almost impossible, for this reason, that the departments differed today, and had differed ever since Union, with the departments as constituted prior to Union. (Hear, hear.) They had actually got less portfolios to-day than there were a few months ago. He frankly admitted that the difficulty in dealing with these figures was that they had not got before them the details of Provincial Council expenditure. That expenditure involved something over three millions. In these Provincial Councils they had provided salaries for something like 6,000 employees.

He Would endeavour to reply to his hon. friend’s question as to how this increased expenditure had been incurred. Of this increase of two millions, the alarming feature, to his mind, was the increase in the actual cost of government—(hear, hear) —an increase for which the House was equally responsible with the Government. (Hear, hear.) Take the Auditor-General’s report for the eleven months prior to Union, and adding thereto one-eleventh, in the twelve months prior to Union the actual cost of government, as represented by the salaries of everybody, from the Governor of those days down to the lowest messenger, was £5.240,000. The increase in the Estimates for last year for government was something like £600,000. He pointed out then that, the actual figures were something like £725,000, but he deducted £125,000 for the expenditure charged to East Coast fever, and debited to Loan Account in the Cape Colony and Natal prior to Union. To-day, in the Estimates before them, as against a total expenditure of £5,240.000 prior to Union, the expenditure for the Union alone apart from Provincial Councils, was £5.325.947. That meant an increase of something like £85.000 a year. To that vote they had got to add the salaries of those employed in the Provincial Administration. Taking the Provincial Councils’ Estimates of last year they had to add to this figure of £5,325.947 an amount of £1.031.506. bringing up the grand total to £6,357,453. That was exclusive of the salaries of teachers employed in the Cape Province paid from another source altogether. The increase in the salary vote since Union was £1,117,433. (Hear, hear.) The increase on this year’s Estimates alone was £498,000. There was an increase on the Defence Vote of £523,000, which, of course, seemed to wipe out at once the net increase of £498,000, but there was a saving on the Police vote, which had been transferred to the Defence vote, of £260,000, so that the net increase under the head of Defence was £268,000. The Post Office, which, of course, was a growing department, accounted for a further increase of £74,000, but, making allowance for these increases, the increase in their salary vote to-day was £150,000, as compared with last year. He put it to this House, as the custodians of the taxpayers’ purse, had they come to an end or were they to go on every year piling on an increase of £150,000, over and above the Defence vote and the Post Office? His point was that they were budgetting for a deficiency of over a million in face of the fact that they had £150,000 increase of salaries, exclusive of the Defence vote and the Post Office. He did not think these increases would be begrudged if they could say they had a contented Public Service, or if men were tumbling over one another to join the Service, but he was afraid that such was not the case. He was certain of this, that the country would not stand these large annual increases in the actual cost of government.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton), was very eloquent on the subject of Ministers’ salaries. He thought the hon. member, in taking the salaries of Ministers in relation to the expenditure, was particularly unfortunate, because, with the exception of the votes for Governors, the vote for salaries of Ministers was the only one which showed any substantial reduction. (Opposition laughter.) It was the only vote, outside the vote for Governors, that showed any substantial reduction compared with what it was before Union and at the beginning of Union. They were only paying £22,000 a year for the best Government in the world. (Laughter.)

Is that sarcastic?

said that, as against that, at the beginning of Union the cost was £31,000, so that there was an actual saving since the first days of Union of £9,000 a year. (Hear, hear.) Did his hon. friend complain that Ministers got more than they deserved? If so, he (Mr. Currey) might reply by saying that perhaps some of them did not get as much as they deserved. The concern of Parliament was to see that the total expenditure should not be beyond the requirements of the country.

When they set out under Union they had two great objects in view’. They wanted to bring about a better feeling between the two great European races in this country and to bring about economy in the cost of government Their success in regard to the first matter had exceeded the most sanguine hopes of even the most optimistic, but he did not think they had been equally successful in repaid to the second matter. To increase their expenditure by £2,000,000, of which £1,000,090 was for salaries, and to budget for the deficiency of £1,000,000 was a matter which seemed to him of great concern. They had failed in reducing the actual cost of government. The hon. Minister of Finance had been but a short time in that position, and if he had time he would, no doubt, give the matter his serious attention, because he must recognise what was taking place. By economy in the cost of government only did their safety lie. (Cheers.)

said that the matter of expenditure was one which brought the subject of Union very closely indeed before the members of the House. He noted that the first two hon. members who spoke were very careful to say that their criticisms had no reference to the railways and harbours; and as no one had taken up that particular branch he ventured to make a few remarks for the information of the House, and to give such guidance as he might be able to afford. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg, North, had touched upon the subject, but, just when he appeared to be going to give some information, he promptly slid off the subject.

Proceeding, Sir David said he would like to refer to the subject of the harbours, and especially to an item in the Estimates affecting the harbour of Durban, in which, needless to say, he was especially interested. There was an item of £7,000 odd, which he saw was to be saved in the matter of dredging in Durban Harbour. He took it that this saving in expenditure was due to the decreased dredging of the outside harbour works brought about by the operation of those works. Unfortunately, in the carrying out of these works under the Natal Harbour Board, acute differences of opinion arose as to the best means of achieving the results desired. The chairman, his honoured friend, Mr. Harry Escombe, afterwards Prime Minister of Natal, whose name and great services will never be forgotten by the people of Natal, had, as the result of long and enthusiastic attention to the subject, adopted one theory, which relied mainly on dredging, while the engineer of the Harbour Works, Mr. Cathcart Methven, held that success could only be attained by relying principally on the construction of permanent seaward works. It would be unprofitable to enter into the details of a now past controversy; but it was always painful to him to think that the officer who persisted in his views, which were afterwards confirmed by the engineers of world-wide eminence, who were subsequently called in—Sir Charles Hartley and Sir John Wolfe-Barry—should have suffered the loss of his position, and to a large extent of his professional career, through one of those political exigencies which sometimes unintentionally inflict grave injustice on individuals. He spoke the more frankly upon this subject, because having been a member of the first Harbour Board with Mr. Escombe, and afterwards intimately associated with him in many relations, through a long colonial life, he (Sir David) knew that had his valuable life been spared a few years longer, he would have used his great influence, and his strong and generous personality, to do justice to the man from whom in public service he had differed. He (Sir David) was sure that even after this lapse of time, the House would gladly support the Minister in recognising the great services of Mr. Methven, whose plans, now carried out and tested by time, had converted Durban from a lagoon entrance with a depth on the Bar of only 6 ft. 6 in. when the first Harbour Board was formed, into one of the 14 or 15 first-class ports of the world. (Cheers.)

The hon. member for Pretoria, North, referred to the existence of the railway system of the country which they now possessed as being due to the efforts of the present Government. That seemed to be rather a violent statement to make —(cheers)—because having a little knowledge of that particular subject he (Sir David) knew that these railways which were brought into Union some three years ago, were the work of many years of persistent and expensive operations on the part of the various Governments of which the Union was now composed. He would like also to say that the value of the railways which according to figures, meant a capital sum of £79,000,000, had been largely due to many men who by assiduous attention and persistent effort had made them the success they had been during the past 30 years. He said that out of good feeling for many of those, his old comrades, who were not now amongst them. They were indebted to those men for the great success of the railways of the country.

He had been looking into the estimates of the railway department with a view to afford the House some information with regard to them, although the system of organisation which prevailed to-day was not the one to which he had been accustomed, consequently he had found some difficulty in following the various departmental divisions. The House itself had practically no responsibility in the matter, and could be absolved from blame for the system which obtained, and which was introduced immediately after Union without its sanction. The system now in force was generally understood by railway authorities to be facile princeps in the creation of a multiplicity of offices.

First of all came the Minister, with three secretaries and nine other officials, costing £16 000 a year. The General Manager’s staff cost £33.000. The Chief Accountant’s Department, with a staff of over 500, cost £126,000 a year. The Auditor-General’s Department of the railway cost £10,000. He did not agree with the Audit Department of the railway coming under the Railway Department. He did not see why it should be debited to the Railway Department, because the same thing was not done with other departments of the Service. In the Transportation Department there were four assistant general managers, with 400 superintendents, assistant superintendents, principal clerks, inspectors, agents, etc., and cost £230,000 a year. Running superintendents, assistant running superintendents, clerks, etc., to the number of 130, cost £41,000. There were 36 traffic superintendents and assistant superintendents, costing £15,000 a year. The Cartage Department officers cost £41,000 a year; the Catering Department, £97,000 a year; bookstalls and advertising. £18,000 a year; stores, £117,000 a year; electric department, with a staff of 30, £60,000 a year; mechanical department, with a staff of 300, £1,067,000; engineering department, with 64 officers, £27,000, and the railway construction department £10,000 a year. Continuing, he said there was a very big army of superintending and supervising officers in the Railway Department, and it was extremely necessary that they should scrutinise these positions. But that was not all. Not long ago he asked for a return of the travelling expenses of officers of the Railway Department. He found that for one year the travelling expenses amounted to £54.000, or over £1,000 a week was spent in travelling allowances. He knew, of course, that a certain amount of money must be spent on travelling expenses, but he knew of nothing so capable of being increased as travelling allowances which could be drawn at will for inspecting and other work that could be very well done at home. He noticed in a magazine the other day that a committee, of junior officers he presumed, were travelling about looking into the subject of rents—he presumed the rents of houses used by railway employees, who paid house rent. It occurred to him at the time that surely one capable clerk, with a good head, and one accustomed to get at facts, would have been able to get all the information without finding it necessary to go travelling about the country inquiring into the subject.

These figures seemed to indicate that for every 50 miles of railway they had of one rank or another, a supervising official. When one considered that over considerable portions of the railway only one train ran a day, he could not see they needed such a large army to carry on the work. The right hon. member for Victoria West had spoken of the salaries of officials in the public service, and he had attributed many of the high salaries to the fact that Ministers themselves had commenced the habit. That prompted him to look into the figures from a different point of view, and he found that in the Railway Department there were two officials drawing £3,000 a year each, three drawing £2,000 a year each, 28 whose salaries ranged from £1,000 to £2,000, and 162 whose salaries ranged from £400 to £900. (An HON. MEMBER: They are well paid.) This showed the railways were well staffed and well paid. The House would excuse him if he did not tell them the number of lower grade officials; but he might say that they were as thick as “autumn leaves in Vallambrosa.” Dealing with depreciation, the speaker said that on March the 31st, 1911, there was a balance to credit of £2,379,760, while £1,185,785 was voted for the year ending March 31st, 1912. For the year just closed the amount was £1,366,060, amounting in all to about £5,000,000, which had been set aside out of the general revenue and placed into this fund. In reply to a question the Minister said that these amounts were included in other railway balances, and placed in the hands of the Public Debt Commissioners for investment. Proceeding to deal with this point, the speaker said that the value of the permanent way material of the railway was taken as £12,855,000, and the Railway Board had actually calculated depreciation at the rate of 3⅓ per cent. per annum, amounting last year to £420,000. He pointed out that the permanent way was always undergoing renewal out of working costs, and yet this sum, for some extraordinary reason, was set aside to pay it over again in a period of 30 years! The amount asked for in the last financial year was £1,366,000. which, according to a reply given to him by the Minister, should have been handed over to the Public Debt Commissioners. But he (Sir David) was surprised when he received the Act of Supply to find that the word “ depreciation ” had disappeared, so far as the railway estimates were concerned. He did not understand, on examining the Act, how the repairs under the heading of maintenance and rolling stock had so largely grown beyond the amount in the Estimates, but he found that this £1,366,000 had been put down to working expenses, divided between those two items, so that this large sum of money had been authorised to be spent, instead of being handed over to the Public Debt Commissioners. That also needed some distinct explanation.

There was another point—the fund for equalising rates. Last year the Auditor-General went to the General Manager of Railways and asked him about this fund, but the General Manager said he knew nothing about it. He (Sir David) brought that matter before the House last year, but it was passed by in solemn silence. In this year’s Estimates, however, the sum asked for this fund had come down to £50,000. He felt inclined, when the House went into Committee of Supply, to move that this sum be reduced by £49,000, because they were voting money for a purpose which no one understood; was evidently not required, and was a temptation to the Government to apply it to some convenient purpose. He had nothing to say with regard to his friends who were connected with the railways as commissioners and managers, and he would not say anything disrespectful about them; but the Government’s railway policy wanted to be defined. (Hear, hear.) Sufficient experience had been gained to put things on a much more satisfactory footing than they were at present. He was convinced that, until the duties of the Railway Board had been defined, and the whole system had been put on such a footing that the Board was responsible, it was hopeless to expect any reform. (Opposition cheers.) The Railway Board was not endowed with the power that was needed to govern the railways properly. The Railway Board ought to be the initiating body—(Opposition cheers)—and until it was so, he was quite sure there would be no permanent or valuable improvement. The Board should be responsible to Parliament direct, and in that way some satisfactory result would be achieved. The first duty of the Railway Board should be to place before Parliament a full railway programme. (Opposition and Labour cheers.)

said he would like to say a few words as one of the disinherited of which the hon. member for Jeppe spoke. (Laughter.) He was not very much endowed with these world’s goods, but still he had the courage to support legislation, not in the interests of one class, but of all classes of the community. The hon. gentlemen on the cross benches were so wrapped up in their grievances—some very real, but mostly imaginary—that all their thoughts were concentrated in the present, and they had no time left in which to regard the future welfare of the country. The hon. member for Jeppe would not discriminate between the Customs dues for the purpose of raising revenue, and those imposed for the purpose of building up industries. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Nicholson) did not pay more for the necessaries of life that were produced in this country under an adequate protective duty than he did before those duties were imposed. He thought the House recognised that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir E. H. Walton) was becoming more of a pessimist every year. If the Minister of Finance presented a bright Budget statement, the hon. member twisted it about in the hope of finding a dark spot, and if he did find it, he rejoiced greatly. On the other hand, if the Minister presented a dark Budget, the hon. member’s inquisitiveness ceased, and he did not look for bright spots unless the point was his own, when he magnified it. When the hon. member told the House that the Minister had had to budget for a deficit, he absolutely ignored the fact that our reproductive assets had substantially increased, while the debt accruing from expenditure of loan funds of the Union had not been enlarged in proportion. Although £9,000,000 of loan money had been spent since Union, less than £4,000.000 had been only added to the debt, and that was undoubtedly one of the reasons why they had been able to float a loan on the London market on such favourable terms as they had done. Since Union we had paid into sinking fund and for the redemption of debt nearly £4,000,000, correctly speaking £3,996,000, whilst the debt of the Union had only been increased by £3.699,000. He quoted from an article in the “Cape Times” of the 15th of March, and said that even the “ Cape Times ” had had the generosity to admit that, while the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had made no mention of it. He rather fancied that, notwithstanding that doleful expression of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, and his talk about impending insolvency, the hon. member was laughing in his sleeve and rejoicing in his heart at the very sound financial position of the Union. The hon. member made no mention of the additional vote in regard to Defence and higher education, both of which he had favoured, and the loss on the wineries, for which he was absolutely and solely responsible. Last year the hon. member for Port Elizabeth had suggested that the then Minister of Finance should follow the example of Joseph when he had been Treasurer-General of Egypt—(laughter)— and build a huge reserve fund against lean years. Well, that was the use the present Minister was making of the money. He was using the surplus or balance of the £855,000 of last year, now £770,000, to meet the estimated debt balance of deficit for this year. He was using a portion of the £800,000 to pay off the deficit. After utilising that £770,000 and half of the proceeds of the bewaarplaatsen, and after writing off £100,000 as the Government contribution to Miners’ Phthisis, there would be a deficit still, unless they got the full proceeds of the bewaarplaatsen. He asked whether they were justified in taking that amount of money. Some said it would he an act of piracy. Others thought differently. He had always maintained that the mineral wealth of the country should belong to the State— (Labour cheers)—but the question was whether the freehold owners were entitled to half of the proceeds. Proceeding, the hon. member said that nothing should be done to shake the confidence of investors and the general public in the integrity of the Government, as the confidence in the country had in the past been shaken enough by company promoters. One point he was in thorough agreement with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, and he believed that in future years the prosperity they had had during the past three years would be considered their normal state, and he did believe that their prosperity would be increased ten-fold if they had stability in their Customs Tariff. He felt sure that the Government knew that, but he feared that they were divided on that question, but it would come, because 80 percent, of the, people of the country were in favour of it, and were against a Customs Tariff for revenue purposes only. Dealing with the furniture industry in the city, the hon. member said that people wanted to put their money into it, but dreaded doing so on account of the want of stability in their Customs Tariff. Then there was the blanket industry, and the people wanted to put money into that, but they were afraid to do so owing to the tariffs not being stable. There were hundreds of other industries. He believed that the blanket industry was adequately protected, and yet they could buy blankets as cheaply as they could long before there had been any protective duty on those articles. He went on to speak of workmen and artisans driven to “Protection-ridden countries,” which, however, were prosperous.

To-day we had nothing to offer to immigrants. Employment would be the attraction that would bring immigrants here, and that they could only provide under a protective tariff. In 1911 Australia imported £600,000 of ready-made clothing and over £1,100,000 of cloth to be made up in the State. Canada imported £270,000 worth of ready-made clothing and £1,900,000 of cloth to be made up in the State, whilst in South Africa we imported over £2,000,000 of ready-made clothing and only £300,000 of cloth to be made up in the State. He was in favour of cloth being placed on the free list until such time as South Africa could manufacture its own material, and placing an adequate protection duty on ready-made clothes. In reference to those who were leaving the Union for British East Africa, all he had to say was that he had not the slightest objection to it. It was all making towards the expansion of the Union which would take place eventually, all this applied to Rhodesia as well as the States of Africa. Of course, it was to be regretted that men were leaving the Union for other countries beyond the seas, but they were leaving because they could not find employment. It was not for want of land, but because, from want of experience as farmers, they had found that they were bound to be failures. With an adequate protective tariff we might in time, the hon. member declared, hope to become the predominant partner in the Empire of the future, whereas without it, and when our minerals were exhausted and we had no other industries to fall back upon we should only remain an appendage of the British Empire. In regard to the drought and its after effects, he thought that one result would be an increased importation of wheat, but under normal conditions he believed that in ten years no more wheat would be imported into this country. (Hear, hear.) He was optimistic enough to believe that he would still live to see bread and meat the chief exports of the Union. Touching on dry-land farming, the hon. member spoke in glowing terms of wheat he had seen grown on the Springbok Flats, which had converted him on this subject. The Springbok Flats would in future be known as the granary of South Africa. If that country were assisted by a railway —(cries of “Ah!”)—he believed it would, even with a railway like the Pampoenpoort railway, which travelled at six or eight miles an hour, become the granary of South Africa, and we should be able in time of war, when we were blockaded, to feed our forces from there. In regard to non-paying branch lines, he maintained that 10 per cent. of the profits made on main lines should be credited to the branch lines in view of the produce which was raised directly as the result of the construction of those lines and sent forward to the main line. The Minister of Railways said that the products might find its way to the main line by other methods of transport, but without branch lines there would be no products, no production. In the district he referred to no butter had been imported for the last eight years, until now, this was owing to the drought, and while they were paying 2s. 6d. for imported butter, and while they were paying 2s. 6d. a lb. not a hundred miles away, they were using large quantities for the purpose of making soap. This was owing to want of transport facilities.

They could not reverse the laws of nature, proceeded the hon. member. In that colony there was a certain time of the year when there was a large quantity of grapes, and at another period grapes were imported. That was because they could not reverse the order of nature. The same thing applied to eggs. (Laughter.) There was a time when eggs were at a discount, and at other times they were hardly procurable. The fault was one of organisation and want of co-operation by poultry farmers. (Renewed laughter.) There should be co-operation among the egg farmers, and then they would find that exportation would exceed the importation. He was looking forward with anxiety and hope to the hon. Minister visiting the district, more especially as he had promised to visit with him (Mr. Nicholson) that granary of South Africa. If they properly developed every means of transport—there were no engineering difficulties—it was one of the finest proposals possible, and it would be one of the few branch railways which would pay interest from the day it was run.

said it had pained him to listen to the remarks of the hon. members for Jeppe and Germiston, who only wanted to tax the land and the farms, even if they themselves suffered under that. Mr. Grobler went on to criticise the Government in regard to the administration of the railways, which had been given in the hands of the Railway Board. There was an enormous transport traffic, and the profits for it had hitherto been devoted to various purposes. That was no longer to be done, as the railway was in future to be run on business lines. Their management was in the hands of a Board, which consisted of only four persons. That Railway Board was a kind of government by itself —a government within a government, an autocratic government in a democratic government. The members of that Board were practically irresponsible persons. No matter how much they in that House criticised matters, nothing was done. He held that the railway surpluses were not properly dealt with; they should be applied for railway extension, but nothing was done. It was not to the credit of the old Cape Governments nor to the credit of the Union Government, that certain parts of this Province with great possibilities and enormous areas had not got the railways yet. There was a large area of land to the west of Beaufort West with the greatest possibilities. All along the banks of the Zak River in the direction of Fraserburg fine irrigation schemes could be started. Then in the Free State some of the most fertile parts had not yet got their railways. There were other parts rich in diamonds which had no railway communication, and he considered that branch lines ought to be laid down. The old Volksraad of the Orange Free State had constructed a line to Fauresmith and Jagersfontein, the intention being to extend it further. The speaker believed there would be more mines discovered in that district. The Minister had said that the branch lines did not pay; the Jagersfontein line, however, paid well. There was in that vicinity, however, a group of rich mines, and it was disgraceful that a rich mine like the Koffyfontein Mine had no railway. In times of drought hundred of poor whites working on the mine had to be retrenched, because the mine could not keep going. He held a rich industrial centre such as this required a railway line connected with the western railways. Mr. Grobler went on to urge the necessity and the merits of such a line. Why was the line not built further than Fauresmith? The Railway Board was spending the money in a wrong direction, and he contended that too much was being spent in railway improvements. Were these improvements so important, he asked, that new lines had to stand down for them? He did not feel able to say that betterment and renewals were of more importance than an extension of the railway system. All these beautiful bridges, culverts, and other improvements would stand there as a monument of foolishness—as a sort of white elephant. Mr. Grobler proceeded to deal with the question of labour colonies which aimed at enabling the children to get proper education. There were not sufficient white people employed on the railways. The children at present being educated in that manner would in days to come prove their gratitude to the Government in no uncertain manner. They had a great quantity of good white labour at the Goedemoed labour colony, and on the railways there was abundant scope for the employment of poor whites. The members of the Labour party were constantly urging that the field of white labour should be enlarged, but wanted them to pay a minimum of 8s. per day. The farmer could not pay that. Unfortunately, however, that did not seem to trouble the Labour party. He complained that in the Cape there were too many coloured people employed on the railways. The Minister of Railways and Harbours had stated that in 1911-12, about 1,500 additional whites had been taken into the service of his Department, whilst the number of coloured persons in that year had diminished by the like number. Since then, however, the number had not been further reduced. It was difficult to persuade the Railway Board to take on more whites in the service of the railways. In the Cape better care was taken of the education of the coloured persons even than of the whites. There were 30,000 more of the coloured people enjoying an education than white children. Then there was another grievance in connection with the use of the two languages on the railways. The speaker here gave some illustrations of this, and protested that the question was not given the attention which it deserved. He considered that the Agricultural Department was well managed, and was not prepared to follow the members of the Opposition who were continually attacking that Department. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had complained of the fact that they were still importing eggs. The Government were, however, taking vigorous steps in that direction. He had no remarks to make on the management of the Department, as it was constantly dealing with the greatest determination with the various cattle diseases which afflicted them. The speaker trusted that the Minister of Finance would be as rigidly economical as possible. He considered that the salaries paid to the head officials were too high, and particularly referred to the salaries paid to the officers of the defence force. A salary of £2,000 was much too high. And then why was £10,000 set aside for uniforms? That was not economy. He pointed to what had been done in the old Free State Volksraad in 1888 in connection with economy. They did not hesitate to cut down the salary list, even of members of Parliament. The Minister of Finance was seizing all sorts of straws in order to show a credit balance, and the speaker could not forgive the Treasury for seizing a fund of £110,000 which had been created in the Free State in order to provide bursaries for the education of children. He would not rest until that fund was given back to the Free State. The right hon. member for Victoria West had referred in an objectionable tone to the fact that £4 10s. was paid annually in the Free State for the education of each child, but ought not to have forgotten that not all of it went in education. The public there knew how to put their hands in their own pockets. The Minister of Finance hoped to make revenue and expenditure balance by making use as far as possible of the produce of the bewaarplaatsen. In the speaker’s opinion the Government had a perfect right to that money, and he trusted they would not give it to the mining magnates. The Government paid them too much as it was. There was one item of £170,000 in the Estimates in connection with miners’ phthisis, and in his opinion it was the duty of the mining magnates to pay everything involved in fighting that disease. That was their duty. Another Department in regard to which he felt a grievance was that of Posts and Telegraphs. In the Free State the officials in that Department were too badly paid. They received too much to die, but too little on which to live. A change ought to be made in that respect. In connection with the Department of Lands he had several grievances. Last year an Act had been passed, one of the provisions of which was to settle poor whites on land belonging to the Crown. Land owners also were to be helped. In accordance with that law numerous applications had been made by the public, but the speaker regretted to say that practically nothing had come of all the promises made. Then another law was passed last year to assist immigration, and again in that direction nothing had been done. What had been done too in the direction of the establishment of new industries? If only they established the new industries, the immigrants would come of their own volition. At present they exported their wool, and got it back in the manufactured form. Why could it not be manufactured here? They must create and maintain their own industries here, and then they would have thousands of immigrants. He had no objection to immigrants of that sort, though he objected to those who would come here at the expense of the State.

said he had listened with astonishment to the criticism of the Budget statement. A good many figures had been quoted to demonstrate the increase of expenditure. He was in favour of the limitation of that expenditure, but had to admit that since Union each Department had had an increase in its work. Before the Union the present Opposition had spent a lot of money at Elsenberg, and yet a panic had arisen. There had been a lot of work done since Union on behalf of agriculture, and the increased expenditure had been usefully bestowed. The farmer had been assisted and been made acquainted with modern methods of farming. The Government were proceeding in a good direction, and they would afterwards be able to reap the fruits of it. He congratulated the Government on its work. The Minister of Lands did his duty last year, and placed suitable land at the disposal of poor whites, but the Government had not yet helped those who wanted help most of all. The Government should devote its attention to this matter, put out the money that had been allocated for the purpose, and indicate the available farms. If the money which had been devoted to agricultural schools had been spent on taking back the poor people on to the land, the best results would have been obtained. One could not learn better than by work itself. The Government should, therefore, at once open up the farms, and in the north-west there were many such farms available for poor people. But railways were required there, and many of the farms were without water. They would have to bore in order to find the water, but the very first thing was to get the railway there, and put the poor white in a position to fend for himself. Of course, those poor people must not be made dependent on the Government, for if that were done, they would be always looking out for more support. Piquetberg was not far from Cape Town, and yet a good deal remained to be done even there. Before the railway reached that district there were a good many farms which were uninhabited, but now that the railway was there the district produced as much corn as the district of Malmesbury. There was still a good deal that was unsatisfactory in the postal service, as was shown in the fact that if he wrote home it was three weeks before he obtained an answer. A telegram took just as long. The district was entitled to a better postal service, and better telegraph and telephone communication. The transport in the district was not very easy, as the roads were sandy.

At this stage Mr. DE BEER moved the adjournment of the debate.

The motion was agreed to and the debate adjourned until to-morrow (Friday).