from T. Byrne, of Woodstock, formerly engine-driver in the locomotive department of the South African Railways, who, owing to failing sight caused by an injury sustained whilst on duty, was placed on pension on the 1st March, 1913 praying for an increase of pension or for compensation for the said injury, or for other relief.

from Edith L. Gunn and 96 other women, members of the Young Women’s Christian Association, Port Elizabeth, praying for legislation whereby women, on attaining the prescribed qualifications, may be admitted to practise any branch of the legal profession; and a similar petition from Alice I. Ramsay-Denny and six other women, inhabitants of Walmer.

from W. H. Brauns, of Cape Town, ticket examiner on the South African Railways, who entered the service of the Cape Government in 1889, praying for the condonation of a break in his service, or for other relief.

from C. Murison, of Woodstock, who was employed in the Customs Department as an outdoor officer for 16 years, praying for a pension, or for other relief.

from M. Emma Macintosh and others, members of the Women’s Enfranchisement League, Port Elizabeth, praying for legislation whereby women, on attaining the prescribed qualifications, may be admitted to practise any branch of the legal profession.

from the Rev. Dr. McClure and 55 others, inhabitants of Cape Town and district, praying for the total prohibition of the sale or supply of intoxicating liquor to natives throughout the Union.

from E. Norodien, president, and B. Dasai and M. Dasai, joint secretaries of the Cape British Indian Union, praying for certain amendments to the Immigrants Restriction Bill.

from C. Groenwald and 43 others, inhabitants of Pretoria district, praying for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Veto, whereby men and women may decide by ballot on the continuance, reduction, or issue of liquor licences, or for other relief; and a similar petition from G. Long and 34 others, inhabitants of Salem and Seven-fountains.

from A. C Joubert, of Paarl, a teacher under the Education Department, praying for the condonation of a break in his service, or for other relief.

from Rosalie M. Hirsch and 27 other women, inhabitants of Port Elizabeth, praying for legislation whereby women, on attaining the prescribed qualifications, may be admitted to practise any branch of the legal profession; and a similar petition from Kate G. Hirsch and others, members of the Victoria Memorial Home Committee, Port Elizabeth.

from J. Harvie and 157 others, inhabitants of Wellington, praying for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Veto, whereby men and women may decide by ballot on the continuance, reduction, or issue of liquor licences, or for other relief.

from Eliza J. Pratt, widow, of Cape Town, whose late son, George Pratt formerly in the Cape Town Police, was killed whilst on duty in 1904, praying for consideration of her circumstances and for relief.

stated that when this debate was adjourned on the 16th instant, the question before the House was a motion by the Minister of Finance: That the House do now resolve itself into committee, and that Mr. Speaker leave the chair, upon which an amendment had been moved by Mr. Creswell: 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.”

resuming his speech, said that in the course of his remarks yesterday, he made a statement that one person in thirty in Britain was in receipt of pauper relief. That statement, he found, was not quite correct. The statistics that had been supplied to him this morning showed that the figure was one in fifty-five—(hear, hear)— but he wished to add that if they included the persons in receipt of old age pensions, and who were getting assistance from the Government, it reduced the figure again by one-half. So that really if they included those who were receiving assistance from the State and old age pensions, the average worked out at about the number he had stated. Proceeding, he said that the other day he asked a question as to how many men had been discharged from the railways at the age of 60 years owing to the fact that they had reached the age limit.

He asked hon. members if they recognised the fact that at 60 years of age these men were turned away, and turned upon the streets without money, unless in some special cases? What he wanted to ask the Government was this: there had been no attempt made to provide for the sustenance of aged persons in this country. No person had taken the question up, and when it came to the point that the Railway Department had turned away a large number of their men at the age of 60, that would mean that these men were thrown upon the streets with no gratuity of any kind. Surely this House ought to pass a resolution that no man who was able to work should be turned adrift. Supposing they turned adrift all hon. members of the age of 60 in that House, that would mean that they would lose some of the finest intellects. (HON. MEMBERS: No, no.) What he suggested was this: that the Government should do something with regard to those men, and not turn them adrift. He had a case which he would direct the attention of the General Manager of Railways to. He would have brought it forward as a special motion, but he was told that the case was going to be reconsidered. This man was 60 years of age, and he was turned upon the streets, minus a leg, with £19 as a gratuity. He asked the House if any private firm would have done this? He had another case at Port Elizabeth. This man had reached the age limit, and was entitled to a very nice pension. After leaving the service of the Government, he entered a private firm at a larger salary. Surely the Government were reasonable, and should not turn away skilled men whose places were difficult to fill. Proceeding, the hon. member said he had been told that the hands of the Government, were tied, and that they could not put through their Bills. There were a number of Bills, however, which they could nut through. The Bankruptcy Laws could be assimilated very easily. They had now been three years in Union, and nothing had been done. Surely the Government could not be in earnest in not assimilating the Bankruptcy Laws of this country, or they would bring in a Bill. He asked the Government what they had done with reference to closer settlement? Gould they name a single instance where they had nut the Bill into operation? Closer settlement was a thing they required, and if the country felt that something should be done, he was sure the country would require the Government to answer for it. It was no use to say they had no land. They had a million morgen in Bechuanaland, and they had land in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. He had hoard that they were going to provide for the families of 30 woodcutters. This was not actually land settlement, but simply transferring these people from one place to another, and giving them a piece of land. Then with regard to the University Bill—look at the time that that Bill had been before them! Where was it to-day? It, was in committee. He had heard a rumour that it was going to come back into the House with the hon. Minister as undertaker and the other eight members of the committee as pallbearers. (HON. MEMBERS: No, no.) Another question that he would like to ask the Minister of Telegraphs was this: Every person in the Transvaal and Natal could have a telephone for a rental of £5 per annum. Why was that principle not extended? In the Cape Province they had to pay £10. What was the matter that they should have this difference in the price among the Provinces? He hoped the Government would reduce the price in the Cape Province to the level of that in the other Provinces. (Hear, hear.) He saw the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) now in his place, and he would like to have a word or two with him. (Opposition laughter.) He had listened to the speech of the hon. member upon the Budget, and would say that it was one of the finest speeches ever delivered upon such a subject in that House, and showed thorough knowledge. It certainly left the House richer than any other speech spoken upon the same subject, but—(laughter)—“I remember,” continued the hon. member, “once looking at a collie dog, and I noticed its fine eyes and massive body. It was really a fine animal, but it had no curl in its tail at all. (Laughter.) That condition was something like the speech of my hon. friend the member for Uitenhage. It was a most massive speech; it had a fine body and good points, but the natural man came out in the tail. (Loud laughter.) Proceeding, the hon. member said he held no brief for the Ministry. They did not want him to defend them, but the hon. member for Uitenhage mentioned that the Minister of Railways had said that he hoped Dutch would be used for many years in this country. The hon. member made a point of that, but what the Minister meant was that Dutch would always be used. The hon. member for Uitenhage’s life had been spent in three forms—first as a student at a great University; secondly as an editor, with the aid of encyclopædias and Blue-books writing leaders in a newspaper that nobody could understand. (Loud laughter.) The Minister, being a bilingualist, could not be expected to have the same grasp of the niceties of the English language as the hon. member, who was a University man.

He is a University man too.

There are universities and universities, but anyone calling him a University man in the presence of an Oxford graduate might be laughed at. They had the cult of Oxford and Cambridge, and when they compared these Universities with any others, it was like comparing a Carlton dinner to a 4½d. one (Laughter.) What the Minister meant was that Dutch would be used as long as English was used.

Proceeding, he said he could not understand the logic of the hon. member for Uitenhage, who first said that he followed the right hon. gentleman because he wanted the position, and then that he would not follow his right hon. friend because he did not want the position.

I did not say that.

That is the sense of it. (Laughter.) You may have got beyond your depth, but that is the sense of what you said. (Laughter.) Continuing, he said he did not know what his hon. friend said at the great meeting at Uitenhage, hut he thought he held his position as much because of his individuality as his party. By strict attention to railway matters his hon. friend had held his constituency in the hollow of his hands.

I said before the election that I was not prepared to pledge myself to follow the right hon. gentleman or any other hon. gentleman.

That confirms the position. (Laughter.) You know no leader but yourself. (Laughter.) In a Reuter’s telegram I read something about a leading article.

Yes.

Did you see it? (Laughter.) Why don’t you go to your constituents? (Laughter.) Why don’t you resign? (Laughter.) Continuing, the speaker said that he deprecated the remark that had been made concerning the hon. member for Ladybrand, and he thought that his view was taken by most hon. members in that House. (Hear, hear.) Continuing, he said there was a family squabble going on; they found quarrels in the best regulated families. The hon. member for Barberton read his (the speaker’s) side of the House a lecture, and he had yet to learn that the Opposition should get its instructions as to what should be done. When anybody on the other side of the House advised them to do anything he found it best to look round the corner, because they generally wanted the Opposition to do something they would not do themselves. Let his hon. friend try Barberton for a change. (Laughter.) He would not say what the result would be. (Laughter.) He held the greatest respect for the hon. member for Smithfield. When he was in office he (the hon. member) found him fair and just, and honourable. But when the hon. member got on his feet he seemed to go off his head. (Daughter.) That was the reason of all the trouble. (Laughter.) He did not seem to know what he said until he read it in the newspapers. (Laughter.) Legislation was not going on as it should, because there was a family squabble going on. It did not affect more than ten per cent. of the members on the other side, and he did not see why ten per cent. should prevent the legislation of the country being carried on. Let the Government do its duty to the country, and if they brought in measures that the Opposition thought were right they would get the support that they required. There was a Bill for the Administration of Estates, which was a useful piece of legislation. Then why did not the Minister of Railways bring his Bill forward.

He hasn’t got any money

Well, you can always get money for railways. In conclusion, he thought that if the Government gave to other things the attention it did to agriculture much good would be done, and it would leave an imprint on the legislation of this country.

said he wished to say a few words about a matter that had been forced on the country by hon. members opposite. The point was that the country had been misled with regard to this matter, and he thought it was time that a true version was placed before the House. The point had first been forced by the official Opposition opposite. Then it had been taken up by the irresponsibles on the cross benches, and now it had been taken up by certain members on the Ministerial benches, who declared they had no confidence in the Prime Minister though they still sat on his side of the House.

As recently as the previous night the hon. member for Pretoria, East (Sir P. Fitzpatrick), had made use of that argument as to why they should appeal to the country. The charge made was that the Government was impotent and paralysed. (Opposition cheers.) It was charged with not being able to carry on the business of the country. (Opposition cheers.) He wondered if the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), would say “Hear, hear” after he (Mr. Krige) had finished. Another charge against the Government was that it had no programme before the House, but the previous year it had been thrown against the Government that the paper was overloaded and overburdened, and that every day Bills were introduced. (Opposition cheers.) Now the Opposition followed the contrary course again, and said, “Where is the programme?” and “Where are the Bills?” On that comparatively unimportant matter of the arrangements of the programme of the House —(Opposition laughter)—hon. members opposite held no firm conviction, and they wanted to tell that country that they were the people who were destined to lead that country to political salvation. (Ministerial laughter.) It was common cause between those three Opposition parties in the House that the previous session had been a most fruitful one in regard to useful legislation, and the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), would not deny that. Proceeding, Mr. Krige referred to a number of Bills which had passed the previous session, amidst Opposition cries of “Select Committee.” He would deal with the “Select Committee” afterwards. Dealing with the records of the House, the hon. member referred to the progress made during the present session, compared with the previous session, and said that last year up to the 11th of April the House had passed five Bills (third readings). During the present year, during the same period, they had passed nine Bills (third readings). (Ministerial cheers.) Last year the House had gone into Committee of Supply or May 23, and if he judged correctly from the tone of the House, there was every probability that they could be in Committee of Supply on the following day, so that the financial proposals of the Government were in advance of last year by over a month and the financial business of the country is the most important part of any Parliamentary programme. Now, the Government was blamed for sending measures to Select Committees. He submitted that anyone who had the interests of the country at heart could not deny that in bringing in important consolidating measures dealing with a Union hardly three years old, the interests of the country demanded that these Bills should go to Select Committees. (Ministerial cheers.) If the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), would read the constitutional history of other countries which had become unified, he would find that there were standing committees which dealt with such measures, and he would strongly urge upon the Government that they should also have such a committee. He would defy the hon. member opposite (Mr. Jagger) to say that non-contentious matters had been referred to Select Committees. (Mr. JAGGER dissented.) Another complaint against the Government was that the Senate met and had to adjourn again; but what had the Government done last session? It had endeavoured to hasten legislation and important consolidating measures had been introduced in the Senate. But what had the Senate —a non-party body—done? It had referred those Bills to Select Committees, which had come back towards the end of the session.

Where are they now?

Here they are now —on the paper. (Opposition laughter.) The hon. member went on to say that as to the Estate Bill, which had come from the “other place,” and which had been considered by a Select Committee there, hon. members on the other side of the House had claimed that should again be sent to a Select Committee by this House. That showed what the Opposition itself had done. If the Government were to ask hon. members opposite to sacrifice their interests on the altar of the country, and not adjourn at 11 o’clock at night, hon. members opposite would very soon cease accusing the Government of not making progress. (Ministerial cheers.)

said that the Government, it seemed, was unable to make revenue and expenditure balance in these prosperous times. The man in the street did not understand the financial policy of the Minister when he told the House, on the one hand, that he wanted a million of money, and on the other hand gave up the right under the South Africa Act of taking the money from the railway surplus. How did the Minister propose to wipe off that deficit? He had suggested that he would take £200,000 of the Government’s proportion of the bewaarplaatsen proceeds, under the terms of the Mining Act of 1908, and also be allowed to “collar,” to use a vulgar word, £770,000 of the surplus standing over from the year 1910-11 and which should have gone to sinking funds.

We seemed to have a rather light-hearted Minister of Finance, who spoke of a million here and there as if it were not of much value. He believed the Minister had underrated his revenue and had overrated his expenditure. The essence of finance was economy. The Public Accounts Committee, although it had had the Estimates before it for some time, had discovered little or nothing, which proved that it was almost useless to send the Estimates to the Public Accounts Committee. (An HON. MEMBER: No.) The committee should become the eyes and ears of Parliament to see that all the expenditure rested on the vote of Parliament and be a final check on both the Minister of Finance and the Auditor-General. But it should not be allowed to deal with current expenditure, and much less the financial policy of the Government. Any self-respecting Ministry would not allow its responsibilities to be encroached upon by any such committee. The Government should keep its hands tight on the finances of the country, and it should not allow any committee to dictate to it. Referring to the recent £4,000,000 loan, Mr. Henwood said it was a pity that a country like South Africa, with such wonderful assets, should have to pay 4 per cent. on its loans. Had the Minister gone into the market a few months earlier he would have got the money at 3½ per cent. There was something wrong somewhere. The difference between the amount that would be spent in interest on a 3½ per cent. loan and a 4 per cent. loan with a duration of 50 years would, at compound interest, amount to two millions. So really the Government had expended two millions more in raising the four millions than it need have. (An HON. MEMBER: Oh.)

Referring to the alternative main line in Natal, Mr. Henwood said the Minister of Railways had been punctual in carrying out the inspection he promised a few weeks back, but he (Mr. Henwood) was afraid the inspection would be of little use to the House or the Minister. A proper survey should be made before it could be compared with the present line, so that they should be enabled to say definitely whether they were going to have an alternative main line or not. Continuing, Mr. Henwood said the Natal people had as much right to ask for a coal line as the Transvaal people had, and in the latter Province a coal line had been built from Witbank to Germiston, which had paid for itself over and over again. If a coal line were built in Natal it would also pay for itself over and over again in a few years. As to the improvements to the existing main line to Natal, it was maintained that those improvements would increase the carrying capacity of the line by 100 per cent., but during the past 14 years the line’s carrying capacity had been increased five times, and were they not optimistic enough to believe that the country would advance as much in the next fourteen years as it had in the past fourteen years?

This question was raised on Wednesday, March 12, on the motion of the hon. member for Umlazi, and that motion was carried. The hon. member cannot repeat a discussion that has taken place before.

Is not the hon. member entitled to refer to the survey that has been made since that discussion took place?

The motion that was carried was for an inspection.

The hon. member is now dealing with the discussion which was disposed of.

referred to the coal rates, pointing out that whereas there was only one rate for the conveyance of coal from Witbank, there were three rates in Natal; an export rate of 5s. 10d. per ton, a bunker rate of 6s. 8d. per ton, and a local rate of 10s. 4d. per ton. It was only fair that local people should have the same advantage in regard to coal rates as those who were foreigners, and he did not use the word in an unkind sense. He understood that it was likely that coal would be brought to Cape Town from the Transvaal at something like 12s. 6d. per ton. He saw that the Minister shook his head, and said “No.”

Oh, no.

proceeding, said he was going to claim that they should be placed on the same basis in regard to their coal rate in Natal, in which case the rate would be 2s. 8d. per ton.

He would like to say a few words in reply to the hon. member for Greyville, who had asked what benefit the country derived from the sugar industry. The sugar produced last year in Natal represented something like 1½ millions of money, which was circulated to great advantage throughout the Union. Taking the hon. member’s own figures, the industry employed 636 Europeans. Many of these were married men, so that the sugar industry was at any rate sustaining 1,200 or 1,400 whites. The industry was second only to the coal industry in Natal. The hon. member for Troyeville had said the other day that it was almost impossible to make jam within the Union, because of the dreadful duty of 3s. 6d. per 100 lb. on sugar. He believed the hon. member now said that he had said nothing of the kind. It was really marvellous how one’s ears should have deceived one. If the hon. member had not said that in so many words, that, at any rate, was his meaning. He would tell the hon. member that the duty worked out at a little over one farthing per lb. On jam, there was a duty equal to £21 per ton. The real cause of no one being able to produce jam in the Union was because in Australia they had a heavy duty on sugar, and a light duty on jam. They produced more than they required for their own use, and dumped the surplus in the Union and elsewhere, in order to keep up the price in their own country. Some of the farming members opposite laughed. He would remind them that they got £16 a ton protection on butter. Then, again, there was a 25 per cent. duty on biscuits. The hon. member for Von Brandis stated yesterday that far too much money was spent on defence. He would remind him that they could not make omelettes without breaking eggs, nor could they build up a Defence Force without spending money. The Minister of Defence, if he erred at all, erred on the side of economy: He never spent 4d. where 3d. would do, and the country was indebted to him for the splendid defence scheme that he had built up.

said it was rather refreshing, after the charges of extravagance which had been made, to hear that the Minister never spent 4d. where 3d. would do. That was a complete answer to those charges.

On a point of order. I would like to say that I referred to Defence. I wish to qualify the statement.

That is not a point of order.

said that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had compared the spirit of optimism in the Government and in the Minister of Finance to the spirit which was in the Gadarene swine. If that were the spirit in the Gadarene swine, he was afraid the hon. member himself would have been choked long before this. He had certainly been down some very steep places, for year after year, when he was in charge of the finances of the Cape, his estimates were too high and now he attacked the Minister for estimating his revenue too low. The critics of the Government seemed to be unable to distinguish between expenditure that was justified and extravagance. If they compared the expenditure of the Union per capita with that of other countries, he thought it would be found that we were not so much astray as people asserted. He had extracted the following expenditure per capita from Whitaker for 1913: Germany. £2 4s.; France, £4 10s.; Australia. £2 17s.: Canada. £2 16s. 6d.; United Kingdom. £4 1s. 5d. Taking the population of South Africa at 6.000.000 and the expenditure at £17,000,000. the expenditure per capita came out at £2 16s. 8d. (Hear, hear.) If they had no native population here, they would not have to spend 2½ millions upon defence and police. There was also a large expenditure in connection with other departments which was caused by natives, especially in the criminal courts, lunatic asylums, magistrates’ and Superior Courts, leprosy,. East Coast fever, prisons and reformatories. Then they had to spend a considerable sum on native education. It could not, therefore, be said that the native was simply a contributor, and not a receiver. There was not one department that the honourable member for Port Elizabeth could pick out which he could charge with extravagance. When they had such a great country as South Africa, they must go on spending money; they must endeavour to keep up with progress in every department.

It had been said by hon. members that they had reached the crest of the wave of prosperity. He took exception to that; he believed that they were only rising upon the wave of prosperity. (Cheers.) The scientific knowledge that was becoming available for the development of agriculture, and the increased knowledge of fertilisers of the soil, were going to bring them higher and higher upon the wave of prosperity to a height of which they had little conception. (Cheers.) Of course, they had a comparison of the exports and imports of the Union, and he wanted to say this, that after all was said and done, and although their export of minerals exceeded their exports of agricultural products, they must remember that though most of the gold went out of the country, most of the agricultural products remained in it. Then with regard to the work of the present session, the Government had been charged with extravagance, but when they came to look into the matter they found that many demands were made by the Opposition. The hon. member for Bloemfontein wanted new public buildings. The hon. member for the Gardens required greater asylum accommodation. The hon. member for Woodstock wanted to improve the conditions of the houses in the leper settlement. The hon. member for Kimberley required £75.000, and the leader of the Opposition wanted a new department of his own for chemistry. Then the hon. member for Durban (Point) wanted a larger contribution to the Navy.

How do you know that he wants that?

Does the hon. member deny that he wants an increased contribution? That was a demand which was approved upon both sides of the House. On the cross-benches they wanted increased contributions for the Phthisis Fund.

No; we don’t want any more money from the Government.

Then the hon. member is quite satisfied, and does not want the wages of railway servants increased?

Oh, yes, we want that.

said that on the Government side they had application for increased water conservation, and for more railways, and all these requirements, many of them just demands, were being asked for while the Government was being charged with extravagance. Proceeding, the hon. member said he took exception to the tone of the right hon. member for Victoria West when referring to the Civil Servants. He held no brief for them, but he deprecated remarks classifying them as parasites and as burdens upon the taxpayers. It was a poor way of encouraging members of the Civil Service. Surely the right hon. gentleman did not want to encourage them or he would not talk about them in this way so often. He just made these few remarks because it touched him upon the raw when he heard such aspersions made upon servants of the Government. (Hear, hear.) He was not one of those who believed that after Union there would be a decrease in the cost of administration. (An HON. MEMBER: They All said so.) He had hardly heard a single speech in which that was urged as a reason for Union.

Oh, nonsense.

I am talking about Natal. You can have your nonsense in the Transvaal. Proceeding, the hon. member said that he made these remarks because he took exception to the statement that everybody was recommending Union because it would cost less. Another point that he wanted to refer to was with reference to the speech made by the hon. member for Liesbeek the other day, who had quoted largely from a book. The moral of these quotations, he gathered, was that an attempt should be made on the part of the Government to consolidate the laws of the country, and the complaint was that certain laws had not been consolidated. They should not be too much in a hurry to consolidate the laws of the various Provinces, because the men who had to administer the various departments of the Government should have a full opportunity of making themselves acquainted with how the different laws worked in the Provinces, for the purpose of preserving the best from the various laws when they came to consolidate and not merely go upon the basis of the laws to which they were accustomed. Then with regard to their criticism that legislation of the country was being carried on by Select Committee, he would like the Opposition to refer to Hansard, and to see what they had said upon that question during other sessions. Instead of jeering at Bills being sent to Select Committees, he thought that hon. members should study Hansard and find out what they had said on previous occasions. He regretted with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, that nothing had been done with regard to the Customs tariff. It had been said that the sugar industry—(hear, hear)—was costing the Union Government half a million of money. This was based upon the Minority report by Mr. Martin to the report of the Industries Commission. Mr. Martin argued that if the 99,661 tons of Natal sugar grown in 1909 had not been produced, the duty on that amount of imported sugar would have been £300,000— and he recommended the abolition of the duty. Now it is evident that if the duty were abolished the amount of revenue would not be raised, so that more revenue would not be gained if the duty were removed and the industry killed. As regards the preferential rates amounting to £154,000 it would be better if the rate were abolished, and the amount added to the duty at the port, as it ought to be. With regard to what had been said by the hon. member for Troyeville, he would like to remark that the protection on jam was equal to the whole cost of the sugar that was employed in its manufacture. He thought that the industry was well treated. The cost of sugar to Cape Town jam manufacturers was £15 12s. 6d. and £15 5s. to sweet manufacturers. Before a Commission on the sugar industry in Australia the largest jam manufacturer there said that his com-paid £19 7s. 6d. for its sugar, and yet notwithstanding the price, that company was able to export jams to this country. He thought that this destroyed the argument that the duty on sugar was destroying the jam industry. The making of jam was encouraged by the present tariff. The imports had decreased as follows: jams and jellies from £62,000 in 1906 to £41,000 in 1912, or 43 per cent. He thought that the hon. member for Troyeville also benefited by the tariff in regard to biscuits and cakes since the imports had fallen from £86,000 worth of biscuits in 1906 to £55,000 in 1912, or 43 per cent., and cakes from £17,400 to £10,000. Notwithstanding all that hon. member had said about butter, he (the speaker) would point out that while 000 lbs. of butter were imported in 1906, only 262,000 lbs. were imported in 1912. To a certain extent they were all Protectionists, and he alluded to questions which had been asked by the hon. member for Roodepoort with regard to orders for goods that had been sent out of the country. He wanted Government to pay more for the local product than to import from oversea—and rightly so—but that was Protection in its most aggravated form. That hon. member had said that Bismarck had been a protectionist. He (the speaker) did not care whether Bismarck had been a protectionist or not: what concerned him was the result of his policy. America, Canada, Germany and Australia had had protection for a generation and grown wealthy upon it. Let South Africa have it for a generation and grow wealthy—then let the next generation do as it pleased. He thought the figures quoted in the House showed that it did not make any difference so far as poverty was concerned whether there was Free Trade or Protection in a country. A great deal of the poverty that existed in the United Kingdom was not due to economic reasons, but to the immense drink bill of £162,000,000. He went on to point out that the sugar industry provided work for a large number of people and many railway servants.

For years the railway lost money in carrying it.

For years the planters lost money. (Laughter.) He pointed out that many villages and most of the people on the coast were dependent on the industry. As regards railways, there was always a tendency amongst those who had railway facilities to forget the needs of those who did not have them, and he trusted that the claims of those who did not have railway facilities would not be lost sight of. As to the Land Bank, he regretted that a change had been made, and that the delays were so long and tedious. He did not blame the department for this, but the change of system. In spite of all the criticism which had been hurled against increased expenditure, while the country was satisfied that the expenditure was being spent in the right direction—and he thought it was satisfied—while they looked forward to a proper development of that country, they would be prepared even for increased taxation to meet that increased expenditure.

said that the Budget did not seem to present much of interest to the people of the country, and it seemed like a statement of accounts which might be presented to the shareholders of a company—a long catalogue of figures, with no human interest in it. There was no indication in the Budget of bringing taxation into line with proper principles; and its whole outstanding feature, in common with other Budgets, was that the last possible fraction was going to be squeezed out of the consumers. It seemed that, when the present debate had not been on racial lines or was a personal quarrel on the Government side of the House, it had been a fight as to who should get the most and pay the least. Well might the Minister be called an opportunist Finance Minister, depending, as he did, on windfalls and things like that! They found £473,711 spent on the Agricultural Department; £115,000 on the Irrigation Department; and £76,000 on the Lands Department. This pointed to the fact that the hon. members who were the support of the Government—the landed and farming interest—came in for a considerable slice of the revenue of the country. He had no doubt that they needed it, and that they were a poverty stricken crowd. They looked it and one could see from their appearance that they needed it. He had no doubt that much of that money was spent for the benefit of the country; but they found a most significant item of over £1,000,000 spent on police: £479.000 on prisons and reformatories, and £427,000 on magistrates’ courts—a matter of nearly two million pounds for these three items, to say nothing of the other courts. Spending that amount on what? Catching thieves, putting lunatics into asylums, and the like! There must be something wrong if they spent so much on these things. (Labour cheers.) The most conspicuous features they saw when they were travelling round the country were the prisons and the magistrates’ courts. It was time that the Government and the Minister inquired as to why the prisons were constantly becoming too small, and the accommodation had to be increased. He said, unhesitatingly, that the cause was unfair laws and conditions under which they in that country, in common with other countries, had to live. Poverty, unemployment, under-employment, under-payment of men and women, were some of the causes, if not the greatest cause for that huge vote they saw for prisons, reformatories, and the like. He did not say that the police got too much pay; but his point was that such a colossal sum should not be necessary in such a country. They voted the sum of £115,000 for agricultural education, which was a necessary thing in that country, and he had no quarrel with it; but it seemed to him that money could be spent to better advantage in preventing the manufacture of criminals than in dealing with them after they had been manufactured by an unjust system such as they had to-day.

Dealing with the differences on the Government side of the House, the hon. member said that they wanted to know what the trouble was all about. That there was trouble, they could see. He wanted to know what particular policy those who had been criticising the Government wanted. Would the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle), the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog), or one or two other hon. members who were supporting them, come forward and say that they were criticising the Government for such and such a reason? If they would make it perfectly clear that they disagreed with the Government because the latter was not sound on the native policy, or that the Government was too much in the hands of the Opposition, and was pandering to the financial interests of the country, that the Government was paralysed and impotent because it dared not bring in any measure which had not the favour of the leaders of the Opposition—(Labour cheers)—then they could understand the hon. members’ position. But the rebels, as they were called, had not told the House that—they had left loopholes for escape. He unhesitatingly said that they had a magnificent opportunity to rally the working-class section of the community to their support. The hon. member for Uitenhage must realise that the old shibboleths of this country were not going to hold good much longer—(Labour cheers)— and that the real cleavage was not between what was called the older and the newer populations, but between the people who worked and the people who profited by their labour. It was difficult to know what was Government’s policy. It was a policy of “conciliatie” all right, but who was Government trying to conciliate.

The Labour Party.

said the whole of the efforts of the Government had been to do nothing to offend its good friends on the Opposition side of the House. (Hear, hear.) That was what was meant by conciliatie. It seemed that the Prime Minister was of opinion that if he could conciliate the Opposition he was really conciliating that vast section of the population which did not speak his language.

Oh, no.

Nothing could be further from the truth, for the Opposition no more represent the British section of the population than hon. members on the Government side, and probably not so much Continuing, Mr. Andrews said that when the hon. members for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt) and Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) attacked their Government, did they hear the Opposition rejoice? Not at all. Instead one of the Opposition’s most influential members was put up to soundly rate the rebels on the Government side for stabbing their Minister in the back. (Labour cheers.) Then the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Brown) that very afternoon seemed to do everything he possibly could to strengthen the hands of the Government. Again the hon. member for Yeoville (Sir L. Phillips) had said that he would be the last person in the world to embarrass the Government. Why not? There were such trifling matters in the air, and still unsettled, as the bewaarplaatsen question. Perhaps it would not be wise to embarrass the Government at this juncture, and a complaisant Ministry might be just as useful as being in office one’s self. Again, there was a question of the disposal of Government mining areas on the Rand. (Hear, hear.) Then they heard rumours of the possible consolidation of the diamond mining laws, and a Commission was sitting on the question of a diamond tax. All these matters might make it inconvenient for the Opposition to have the Government turned out, if it were willing to be friendly to the Opposition’s interests, and to have a Government placed in power which might possibly be influenced by principles such as the Labour Party advocated.

The president of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines had stated that the Government Mining Department and its officials had been studiously fair to the gold mining industry. Praise from that quarter he (Mr. Andrews) looked upon with great suspicion. When they found the president of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines saying that the Government had been studiously fair they might be led to the conclusion that the dice had been loaded in favour of the mining’ industry. Not that he blamed the mining industry, which was out for business, but he would blame the people of the country—realising how their interests were being bartered and sold—if they sent the Government back to power when they had an opportunity of turning it out. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) had said that he did not wish to give an opinion on the bewaarplaatsen question. Evidently it was inconvenient for the hon. member to give an opinion on the subject, and it was not because the hon. member had not made up his mind as to the justice of the case. If the hon. member went in one direction he might offend his friends, and if he went in the other it might be very awkward for him when he again sought the votes of Fordsburg. The hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Long) laid particular stress on the consolidation of various laws of the Union, but although he and several other hon. members had called attention to this matter, none of them had laid emphasis on the necessity for the consolidation of those laws which more immediately affected the welfare of the working classes. It might be retorted that it was the business of the Labour Party to do that; hon. members had told them that they allocated to themselves the right to represent the workers of that country, but argued that they represented the workers as much as the Labour Party did; then why did they not do more in the interests of the working classes?

There was a Workmen’s Compensation Act in the Transvaal, which was the best in the Union, defective as it was. They had an inferior Act in the Cape Province, and no Act at all in Natal, and he believed he was right in saying that there was none in the Free State. Why was it that no one had raised the matter of the extension of the Transvaal Act to the other Provinces of the Union? Evidently nothing had been thought of it at all Then, what about the Bill needed to amend the Miners’ Phthisis Act? Miners’ phthisis was not lessening in its ravages, it was claiming as many victims as ever it did, and the so-called compensation was ludicrously inadequate, and was administered in such a way as not to give the full benefit to those who were entitled to compensation. He referred to the refusal of the Board, although he was not criticising the Board, to give men a lump sum to which they were entitled, if there was a good case for asking for it, instead of £8 a month as at present. The hon. member read a letter from a miner, which, he said, was typical of very many cases, which stated, on that particular point, that it was a matter affecting 200 men, who were entitled to receive compensation. The writer was asking for a lump sum, and pointed out that he had a wife and family, and wanted the lump sum, instead of in monthly payments, so that he could make an effort to secure provision for his wife and family if he died in two or three years. Matters such as that might still receive the attention of the Government; it was not too late in the session to introduce a Bill which would put matters right in connection with the Miners’ Phthisis Act. If the Government did not do something, the members sitting on the cross-benches would be confirmed in their opinion that the Government’s chief concern was for the safeguarding of property, rather than the drawing up of regulations and laws which concerned human life.

Proceeding, the hon. member said there was also the much-needed Factory and Workshops Act, which was long overdue. They had sweating and insanitary conditions even in this new country, just as they had in Europe and other places. The Government had already promised they would bring in this much-needed Act. Why have they not done it? It was not even printed yet. The hon. member went on to quote from a Rand paper—not a Labour organ—regarding wages paid to tailors at one particular shop in the Johannesburg district. The foreman got the oft-quoted £1 a day. Eighteen received wages at from 6s. 8d. per week to £1 10s. per week. (An HON. MEMBER: Women.) Yes (went on Mr. Andrews), men and women—adults. He had yet to learn that if women were doing the same work as men, they were not entitled to the same wages. The highest paid amongst those workers, with the exception of the foreman, received £1 10s. per week. They were not told anything about the hours, but every hon. member was aware of the long hours and the kind of dens that such people were working in. Surely it was necessary to see that those people got more reasonable wages than they were getting in Johannesburg and other places in the Union at the present time. Such things ought not to be allowed. It was necessary that the conditions in which they worked should be opened for inspection, and if the buildings were not properly ventilated, or not large enough, they should be abolished as workshops, and the employers should be forced to construct suitable buildings and work their employees suitable hours, and pay wages which would at least allow them to live in decent comfort. Referring to the mining question— the question of an eight hours’ day—Mr. Andrews said that members of the Government, when before the electorate, promised that they would bring in an eight-hour day. In the mining regulations, they had an eight-hours’ day for underground workers only. There had been no attempt on the part of the Government to bring this eight-hour-day regulation into force. Excuses were made for violating the regulation. The hon. Minister of Finance knew that the law was being evaded, but it was the duty of the Government, which made laws, to see them rigidly enforced.

The hon. member said that he would not at that time touch upon other laws which were needed in this country in the interests of the working population, but turning to the criticism which had been made on the amendment moved by the hon. member for Jeppe regarding land taxation proposals, said that the hon. member for Fordsburg was the first to contend that the proposal should be seriously considered. Other hon. members had dealt with it briefly or ignored it altogether as something which did not very much matter, and the hon. member for Fordsburg had added that he could not vote for the amendment. It was the case that when a proposition was put forward from the labour benches, no matter how sound it might be, they were told they had adopted a wrong time, a wrong method, their manners were not what they ought to be, or they were making dirty speeches. Certainly they did speak sometimes more plainly than hon. members cared for. The hon. member for Germiston, he thought it was, in his criticisms said that although the principle was a sound one it was spoilt by extravagant argument. It should not matter to hon. members of that House whether a proposal could be called Socialistic or any other “istic.” The question should be: was it calculated to be for the benefit of a great mass of the people of the country? Having considered it from that point of view, it was the duty of the House. Opposition or Government, to put a just, fair and reasonable proposition into force, irrespective of consequences, but the Government was afraid and was always looking behind. One of the serious objections the hon. member for Fordsburg instanced in regard to this question was that he could not assess this land. He wondered if the hon. member was serious when he made a statement such as that. Did he believe that he was impressing the House by such an argument? Surely he was trying—to use vulgar parlance—to pull their legs? He only wished that the hon. member had a block of claims and see whether he would not be able to assess them. He would draw the attention of the House to one particular instance.

When the Old City Deep was floated with a nominal capital of £600,000 in £1 shares, that amount was divided as follows: the vendors received 380,000 shares. What did that represent? Not a spade had been put into the ground, nor a pennyworth of work had been done, except that certain pegs had been driven in. That represented the unimproved value of these mining rights. The working capital was £220,000, the actual money put into the working of the mine. He would also like to remind the House that these shares were quoted at £3 each. That was a point he wanted to make that there was no more difficulty in assessing the value of mineral land than in assessing the value of urban land or farm land. He said this that these £1 shares were issued at £3 each—and he presumed they were worth it. The vendors of these unimproved claims and mineral areas pocketed the nice little sum of £1,140,000. He would like hon. members on the Government side of the House to remember this: they were under the impression that hon. members were anxious to tax the land, to rob and dispossess farmers of their land. That might be the meaning they might attach to hon. members on the Opposition benches, who, perhaps, wanted to shift the taxes from themselves to the farming population, but hon. members must remember that enormously valuable land in urban areas and in mining centres would come in for taxation as unimproved land, and the burdens of the farmers would not be any heavier than they were at the present day. If they really understood the basis on which these taxes were to be raised they would support the Act—not from any sentimental reason—but because it was in their interests in the long run. It might be argued that this was all very well in the case of new companies, but they could not do it with regard to going concerns. In reply to that, he would say that there were always unworked claims that could be sold or bought, and these could be assessed. Then there was another point of the hon. member for Fordsburg, and that was that some mining land within the municipality paid the profits tax. Well, land within the municipal area received certain advantages, and they had a right to contribute towards municipal expenses, because of the benefits they enjoyed, but that was no reason why the hon. member for Fordsburg should argue that they should escape this tax. They had a right to pay their municipal taxes, because they were receiving benefits just as any other company. “I am getting a little bit tired,” continued the hon. member amid cries of “hear, hear.” “Oh, not in the way you mean. I am going on for another hour yet. (Laughter.) I am getting a bit tired of the young Unionist members’ talk about vote catching. How these hon. members can come into this House and talk to the Labour members about vote catching I cannot understand.” Proceeding, the hon. member said these young Unionists seemed to him to be nothing but political decoy ducks for the party to which they belonged. He was very sorry to impute any insincerity to any hon. member, but after the speech of the hon. member for Fordsburg he had very little faith in all the pretty speeches that he made all over the country, at tea parties and other gatherings. The young Unionists were put down as desperate people who were going about trying to wreck the Unionist party, but somehow the desperate villains seemed very much in the nature of stage villains, something that the Unionists could dress up as they pleased. He thought that the young Unionists’ game was played out. There was another amusing point. They had decided to tackle and gibe and laugh at the hon. member for Uitenhage. He was not there to uphold the hon. member for Uitenhage. He might have the honour of opposing him in his own constituency, but they sneered at him for attacking his Government and still remaining on the Government benches. A young Unionist did not have the hon. member’s courage. Who had ever heard of a young Unionist rising up and attacking his party. They would have to go far before they found an hon. member among the Unionist Party who had given up his Portfolio for his convictions like the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog), or who had spoken like the hon. member for Uitenhage? The hon. member for Weenen, speaking on the Land Tax, complained that it was not the same as the Natal Land Tax. That was the way he wound up his argument. He told them what had been done in Natal, and how successful Natal had been in putting people on the land. He said that because the Land Tax was not based upon that of Natal he would not vote for it. Proceeding, the hon. member said he liked within limits for a man to be loyal to his country or his particular Province, but he failed to see why the House should be impressed by that argument, especially when they found how little the Land Tax had done in Natal. The hon. member for Weenen said it had been a great success, and that closer settlement had been a huge success in Natal. Yet the white male population had decreased in Natal by 4,000 according to the last census. Well, if that had been the result of the Land Tax in Natal, then the House could not honestly be satisfied with such a Land Tax. Certainly the hon. member should not come there and say that the Land Tax in Natal had been a huge success. The hon. member also stated that people would not put their money into land that was not freehold, but a good many people would only be too glad to put their money into land that was not freehold, especially in Johannesburg. He believed it was a fact that in London very little freehold land was held—(hear, hear)—yet people invested in it. The hon. member for Umlazi had just reminded him that that land was freehold. He was quite aware of that so far as the dukes were concerned, but that was not the case so far as the people who used it were concerned. They were not in favour of leasehold when the rent was paid to a private freeholder, but they were in favour of leasehold, in favour of maintaining a rent or tax to the State, to the whole of the people, for the privilege which the State allowed the leaseholders for using certain lands for certain purposes. They might not be able to carry the people with them with regard to this tax at the next election or the election after that, but the time would come when the truth would be recognised in this State, as by the people of all other States.

The hon. member for Three Rivers had attacked the Labour benches very severely, and he had not stopped to hear if they had anything to say in reply. He merely wished to draw attention to the hon. member’s attitude in regard to the quarrels of the Government. The hon. member said that “family quarrels” were no business of theirs. If the Government saw fit to dispense with a Minister, and if the Prime Minister resigned and formed another Cabinet, and the whole country was excited over this event, it was no business of the Opposition, but simply a “family quarrel!” A new Government, and it was not the business of the Opposition to take any notice of it! What was the Opposition for? He had never seen or read of such a sorry exhibition as the Opposition had presented in this House during the last few weeks. They went out of their way to put up certain of their members to attack and abuse and belittle the men who were attacking the Government that the Opposition were supposed to oppose. Yet they called themselves an Opposition! He was convinced that the country was under no delusion on the subject. So far as they on the Labour benches were concerned—he thought he spoke for his colleagues—they were absolutely dissatisfied with the whole conduct of Government business during this session, and in fact throughout this Parliament, and they would leave no stone unturned, although there were only five of them, and they were small and weak, to turn out the Government and give the electors of the Union of South Africa an opportunity of saying what kind of Government they would have in that House, what kind of measures they were in favour of, and what kind of policy they wanted. “We are not,” said Mr. Andrews, in conclusion, “in alliance with any particular section of the House, but we are going to support any section of the House that is willing to upset the present Government.” (Hear, hear.)

said that the hon. member who had just sat down, in his reference to the expenditure on agriculture, seemed to overlook an important point. The hon. member, no doubt, was well acquainted with the condition of affairs with regard to the Rand mines. In a limited number of years many of the most important mines of the Rand would cease to give such large returns as they gave now. It was in view of that ultimate possibility that the Government, he thought wisely, had resolved to foster agriculture and develop it as much as possible, so that when the mines ceased to yield the revenue now derived from them, they would have some other resources to take their place. In his opinion that justified the expenditure on agriculture to-day. Even in these times, under the stress of the demands made upon the Government by East Coast fever, the Minister of Agriculture had been able to make a decrease in expenditure of £16,000 odd. The hon. member (Mr. Andrews) had said one thing which gave him the greatest satisfaction, and, he would admit, some surprise, too, when he said that the hon. members on that (the Ministerial) side of the House were looking after British interests even more than hon. members on the other side. He (Mr. Wiltshire) thought that was, or should be, a source of the greatest satisfaction to them all. He was glad to see that, with the acute observation which the hon. member possessed, he had discovered this fact. During the debate the Estimates had been drastically criticised by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, and other members. He thought that the criticisms which had been made were not unfair, but while they talked about economy and while they asked for economy, as the hon. member for Three Rivers had pointed out, the criticism was all destructive and not constructive. They all asked for economy, but no one pointed out how economy was to be effected.

Start on Ministers’ salaries.

said that if they looked at the Estimates they would find that some of the largest items were in salaries and pensions. He had pointed out that a small beginning had been made. In what way were economies to be effected? They could not repudiate their pension list. What could they do? It must be recognised that growing expenditure was the result of the natural development of the country. Turning to the railways, he appealed to the Minister to see that the employees shared in the prosperity that existed. He acknowledged that the General Manager was most sympathetic and was doing his best to remove grievances, and that the Minister was supporting him. Touching an Appeal Board, he hoped that the Minister would find the request of the men on this point to be just. Dealing with railway construction, he pointed out that Natal had her needs, which he hoped would not be overlooked in the future. He believed that if their roads were improved motor traction could be more largely used, and thus do away with the necessity of spending large sums of money on new branch lines.

said that the hon. member for Caledon had said that the legislation of the country was more advanced this session than it was last, but, of course, hon. members had their own views on that subject. The hon. member for Caledon said that the Budget debate last year was not concluded until some time in May. As a matter of fact, the Budget debate last year was concluded on April 12, and for some reason or other the House did not go into Committee of Supply until some time in May, so that really they were behind last session so far as the Budget was concerned. It was remarkable how the business men of the House were always able to tell the farmers what they should do in regard to agriculture. The hon. member for Troyeville spoke of the imports of butter, eggs, bacon and ham, and milk and other things, but he (the speaker) was understood to say that he did not think it was necessary to import people into this, country to produce articles of this kind. He thought, however, hon. members did not take sufficient notice of the export of farming produce from this country. He thought that if people were brought into the country for the purpose of producing things which they now imported, they would find that these people would go in for ostriches, instead of rearing pigs and hens. Then it had been said that they should treat the white immigrant to this country better than the people in the country who wanted to go on the land. He thought that that was unfair. If they took the articles on which they paid duty as an index of the character of immigrant they wanted here, he thought they would find that the people would be required for factories in the towns. Speakers who compared South Africa with other countries forget that South Africa had a teeming native population and it must not be lost sight of that these natives occupied some of the best land in the country.

Immense tracts of land occupied by natives produced nothing which went toward the support of the general population. He was perfectly convinced that if they lowered the standard of their white population in that country they were going to have right through the country what they had in the Cape Peninsula—a yellow population. The true way of keeping up the white people in that country was to keep up a white aristocracy, and they must not lower the white standard in the face of native competition. The hon. member pointed out that as far as white labour was concerned, they had a law in the Cape Province that white people could be imported on assisted passages. Why did not those who spoke so strongly in favour of white labour, such as the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) and the hon. member for Pretoria, East (Sir P. Fitzpatrick), take advantage of that law?

I employ white labour on my farm.

There seemed to be an intention to force people to employ white labour, but he asked if they were going to employ white labour on the farms and on the mines, what would be the prospects of the black man? Why compel the farmer to employ white labour when he could get black labour very much cheaper and it was much better fitted for the work he wanted done. The hon. member went on to speak of taxation of land, and said that if they were to follow the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell), they would have to tax land and nothing else. Had there ever been such an example of a party wishing to get rid of taxation from their own shoulders and putting it on to somebody else? The farmers paid just as much in Customs as anyone else. (Ministerial cheers.) In the Cape Province they already had land taxation on a pretty high scale, based on a principle which he considered immoral. In his constituency farmers had to pay quitrent out of all proportion to the value of the land, and they paid higher taxation on land than in any other constituency. There was a Bill before the House which proposed to perpetuate that system for another four years, and he hoped the hon. members would be prepared, when the time came, to remove the inequality with regard to the taxation of land in the Cape Province. The hon. member pointed out that he had a farm of 3,000 acres, on which he had to pay over £25 per annum on road rates alone, and he also had to pay quitrent and education tax. He dare not build a dam or erect a fence or shed, or go in for any other improvements without thinking that that was going to add to the valuation of his farm. He said that that was an unjust taxation, and he said that no hon. member should come and advocate additional taxation on land unless he was prepared to remove the present disability. He had no objection to the taxation on the unimproved value of land. (Labour cheers.) In conclusion, the hon. member said that he was disappointed that there had been no effort made by the Government in regard to the equalisation of taxation such as he expected would have been made under Union, and he thought that some effort should have been made with regard to making the conditions of the tenure of land the same throughout the Union.

expressed his regret that the question of the exclusion of the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) from the Cabinet should have been raised in this House. This was a party matter which should have been dealt with in camera. No doubt the public of the Free State were dissatisfied about this exclusion, but the same public wished the difficulties settled in a constitutional manner according to the programme of the party. Such speeches as had been made could only have the effect of fanning the fire which had been started, and speeches of that kind could only damage the party and the whole country. A general election, instead of removing bitterness, would increase bitterness. (Hear, hear.) He regretted the allegation by the hon. member for Fauresmith that those hon. members who were not in favour of a general election were afraid to face their constituents. The allegation was an unjust one and practically meant that members who disagreed with the hon. member (Mr. Wilcocks) were afraid to lose their £400 a year. Many of these members had in the past been prepared to sacrifice more than £400, and had been ready to sacrifice their life for their country. Therefore these allegations were unjust. He did know how to represent his electors and would do his utmost to represent these electors in the best possible manner. He had been appointed to represent certain principles, and he would support the Government which carried out those principles. If the Government ceased to do that, he (the speaker) would cease to lend them his help. He was going to support the Government, which he thought was looking after the interests of South Africa, and he would support that Government so long as he thought they stood for the interests of the country. He must, however, contradict one statement, namely, that made by the hon. member for Potchefstroom, that the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) had created unrest in the Free State. That was not right, and the hon. member (General Hertzog), who was highly respected in the Free State, far from having created unrest, had always done his best for the Free State.

Mr. Cronje proceeded to rebuke the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt) for the provincial attitude taken up by him. He (Mr. Cronje) held that the Free State had certainly benefited from Union. For instance, to-day the Free State had 400 more schools than before Union. Although a good many children were yet going about uneducated, they hoped that these children would soon be provided for. Furthermore, the railway tariffs in the Free State had been greatly reduced since Union. They were not so badly off as the hon. members (Mr. Fichardt and Mr. Wilcocks) had led the House to believe. Up to the 31st March £44,000 had been spent on telephones in the Free State as against £32,000 in Natal. The question of roads and bridges were settled by the Provincial Council. In regard to the £110,000 earmarked for bursaries by the Free State Government in accordance with Act No. 34 of 1910, he hoped the Minister of Finance in his reply would state that this amount would be devoted to that purpose. The hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt) was a member of the Public Accounts Committee last year, and that committee had discussed that question of the £110,000. On that occasion, however, the hon. member had not lodged any protest at all. (Hear, hear.) Before the Union they had in the Free Stale £150,000 which was allocated to schools and boarding houses, and it was complained that the money had been taken by the Union Treasury. It had however, been handed over to the Free State Administration. If they had not brought about Union the Free State would have been unable to apply that amount of money to that particular purpose. Mr. Cronje went on to point to other benefits of Union and although he agreed that there was delay in the building of bridges, he observed that if all these works had been taken in hand at once it would have involved an enormous expenditure. A speech such as that of the hon. member for Ladybrand could only create dissatisfaction among the people of the Free State. Now, the hon. member (Mr. Fichardt) said Bloemfontein had received no money for an art gallery or a Court of Appeal, but he did not seem to care about the rural districts. The Government could do as much as they liked for the rural districts, but if nothing was done for Bloemfontein there was dissatisfaction. (Hear, hear.)

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

resuming his speech, said if it had depended upon Mr. Fichardt, the farm at Modder River would never have been purchased last year. He (Mr. Cronje) said the Free State urgently required an agricultural college, and he hoped the Government would take steps to hurry matters up. He was glad that an amount had been placed on the Estimates for this purpose. If the advice of the hon. member for Ladybrand had been taken last year the farm near Bloemfontein would not have been bought. The Free State had been waiting for the college a long time. The case of the Free State Government officials should be looked into carefully, as they should receive higher salaries. A Civil Service law had been passed last year, in which provision was made for the grading of officials, and the Civil Service Commission ought to see what could be done for the Free State officials. He hoped they would as speedily as possible make the necessary changes. The Government themselves were not so much to blame. A department where he thought something was wrong, was the Department of Justice. He had often urged that, a justice of the peace should be appointed at Excelsior, but nothing had been done yet though a sum of £120 had been granted last year for a special J.P. Surely appointments of this kind had not to be dealt with by the Public Service Board? He also referred to other appointments in country districts in regard to which he thought that Department was remiss, and drew attention to the fact that in one case a magistrate had gone on sick leave without an assistant being appointed in his place. Ministers were perhaps not kept informed of such matters. He asserted that there was plenty of work to be done in the rural districts, and contended that some officials might well be sent from the larger towns to the small villages. At Winburg they had to work up to 9 0’clock in the evening, whilst in the post offices, the postmasters often had to do all the clerical work, and at the same time act as telegraphists. Delay and inconvenience to the public were the outcome of such a state of affairs. In one remote village the postal official received a salary of £130 per annum, out of which he had to pay office rent. The Estimates showed an increase of £82,000, and it was to be hoped that that sum would be spent in the country districts. He urged the necessity of improved and increased postal communication for the rural districts. Turning to the cross-benches, Mr. Cronje said hon. members on those benches talked a good deal about land taxes and about the burden of taxation. It was all very nice for them to talk about such things; they had good postal arrangements and other facilities of the larger towns, but the farmers in the rural districts had no such facilities, no railways and no postal services and the farmers should not be called upon to pay larger taxes. Seeing the views of the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell), he hoped that hon. member would never become Prime Minister. (Ministerial cheers.) If he did there would be a great revolution, with expropriation and taxation of land. They had better watch the Labour policy closely. They demanded that even a shepherd should receive £1 a day. Proceeding, Mr. Cronje appealed to the Minister of Railways to give railway facilities to those parts of the eastern Free State which at present were neglected. These parts were rich in agricultural respects, and should be enabled to get their products to the markets. The grain lay on the ground at Marquard, Korannaberg and those districts.

Another important matter was the establishment in the eastern parts of the Free State of co-operative creameries, the benefit of which would be great, and the immediate effect of which would be that South Africa would no longer have to import its butter, cheese, and eggs. So far they had been a great success, and promised to become a greater. He hoped the Minister of Agriculture would use his influence with the Minister of Railways to get a line built so that farmers could get their cream to market by train. In conclusion, Mr. Cronje congratulated the Minister of Finance on the healthy state of his finances. He hoped he would be able to bring about such economies as would make it possible for him next year to come to this House with a surplus, instead of a deficit. He was glad that no new taxation was required and hoped it would be the same next year. (Ministerial cheers.)

said he rose not so much to criticise the remarks made by the Opposition on the Budget, but more to criticise some of the remarks that had fallen from his side of the House. They on that side of the House, of course, knew what value to place upon the remarks made, but unfortunately the public did not know. He was specially referring to the financial measures of the Government. The public naturally discounted any criticism laid against the finances of the Government by the Opposition. They discounted them because they knew it was the duty of the Opposition to criticise the Government, and the criticisms of the Opposition did not do nearly so much damage as those emanating from what were called “the candid critics” of the Government. They called themselves candid friends of the Government, but he was rather inclined to call them subtle enemies of the Government. He was referring particularly to the remarks made by the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) and the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey). These two gentlemen were looked upon by the public as friends of the Government, and they thought it was their duty to criticise the financial measures, and greater importance was therefore attached to their words than otherwise would be. The Government were able to persuade some underwriters in London to undertake a loan of four million pounds, and what was the result? (An HON. MEMBER: Nobody can say.) He believed that on account of the speech of the right hon. member for Victoria West the underwriters were unable to complete the loan, and he attributed this to the speech of the right hon. gentleman. Speeches of this sort had a most detrimental effect upon the Union. (Ministerial cheers.) The right hon. gentleman had got into the habit of crying stinking fish, and he was forced to say that he believed that the right hon. gentleman did not do this because he thought it was his duty to the country, but on account of pique and chagrin. He respected the right hon. gentleman personally, but he made his remarks for the instruction of the public. They all knew that this country was in a most prosperous state; in fact it had never been in a more prosperous state since it was a British colony. But these speeches did incalculable harm. (Hear, hear.) He had a word to say to his late colleague, the hon. member for Barberton. He did not like to say what he really thought of his speech, but he would content himself with saying that he thought it was unworthy of the hon. gentleman. (Hear, hear.) He got up and criticised the Opposition for not dragging across the floor of the House this unfortunate quarrel. This was another case of a disappointed politician trying to get a little of his own back. Politicians were not there to get a little of their own back, but for the purpose of legislating for the good of the country. The speech made by the hon. member for Ladybrand was prompted by the speech made by the hon. member for Barberton. He made his speech so that this quarrel might be brought upon the floor of the House. (An HON. MEMBER: A good thing, too.) As there had been an endeavour to make him (Col. Leuchars) a sort of Hamlet in this play—(laughter)—he would be glad to say a few words upon the matter. He was returned to Parliament to support the Prime Minister and his policy of conciliation, and he joined the Government to help them in that policy. One of his late colleagues in the Ministry made a speech in which he said he did not believe in a policy of conciliation and other questions, too much of this had been going on, and he could not be a party to it. He (Col. Leuchars) then felt that it was his painful duty to tender his resignation. He felt that his position was untenable, and not only his position, but those hon. members from his Province who were supporting him. He was glad to say that the Prime Minister supported him in his duty. Those members who had thought fit to throw in their lot with his late colleague had decided to come to the House to tell the Ministry that because they were breaking pledges of the party, the Prime Minister should dissolve Parliament and go to the country. He never heard anything so ridiculous. For any member to get up in his seat and suggest that because he had fallen out with the policy of the Government, hon. members should be put to the inconvenience of a general election was perfectly preposterous. (Ministerial cheers.)

All he could suggest to the hon. gentleman was that he retire to his Chamber, and wrap his head in a wet rag for a few days; it might take longer than a few days. (Laughter.) It was curious to find hon. members on these benches attacking the Prime Minister on the policy which he was pursuing. It was an attitude the Prime Minister had always maintained, and it was included in his manifesto. After reading one or two paragraphs of the Prime Minister’s manifesto the speaker said he would like to ask the hon. member for Smithfield whether he thought that his recent speeches had tended in that direction. If he thought so, all he (the speaker) could say was that he could not agree with him. He thought they tended in the opposite direction, or his hon. friend had an unfortunate way of expressing his meaning if he thought that those speeches tended in the right direction. The hon. member for Smithfield would not have dared to have expressed those sentiments at the Convention. He was sorry to have to fall out with his late colleague, whom he had respected, but unfortunately the politics of the hon. member for Smithfield were not his politics and there was no room for them in the same camp. He hoped, however, that he still retained his friendship even if he could not agree with his politics.

said that he heartily agreed with the remarks of the last speaker. He only felt deep regret that in the hon. member’s opening remarks he had made an attack on two members of the party—the right hon. the member for Victoria West and the hon. member for George—which was not deserved. He had called them subtle enemies of the Government, and he could only say that he did not think his hon. friend knew those two gentlemen. They adhered to the Bond Party in the Cape Parliament during its days of gloom, and never deserted it, and they were still members of the South African Party, doing their duty faithfully. (Hear, hear.) If they thought it necessary to criticise the financial policy of the Government he thought they should rather welcome their remarks than blame the speakers. He could only think that the hon. member was not thinking when he spoke in that way. Continuing, he said that the Budget debate had taken a turn, and he thought it necessary that he should say a few words on the subject that had been introduced into that debate. Thus far, as far as he was aware, only one Cape member had spoken on this question. There was a change of personnel in the Ministry some time ago, which created a sensation in the country. To many in the country that change came as an agreeable welcome. They welcomed that change because to a very large extent the usefulness of the Government was impaired, its measures could not be put through with so much facility, its business could not be carried on in the way they should have liked, and they could come to no other conclusion than that it was owing to a split in the ranks of the Ministry. Whether the hon. member for Smithfield was the only one to blame they did not know, but the Prime Minister decided that the hon. member for Smithfield should not longer be member of his Cabinet.

It was a strange thing that that should be brought out on the floor of the House. It was entirely a party matter. It was a Cabinet matter first, and a party matter afterwards, and it was decided before this matter came before the House that they should support the policy of the Prime Minister. It was curious that hon. members who supported that should now insist upon a dissolution of Parliament. Why did they want this dissolution. The Prime Minister had not changed his policy. It was a policy which some people latterly had thought fit to ridicule. But it was a sound policy, and a policy which he would support—the policy of conciliation. He did not think there was anything laughable in that. It was thought good enough at the time of the election, and they were sent to Parliament upon that policy, and they merely carried out the policy that was pursued at the Convention. The Prime Minister, though he still adhered to this Policy was asked to dissolve Parliament. Why should he dissolve? He still had a majority, even if the few left them. Why should they go to the country because the hon. member for Uitenhage desired it? Supposing the Prime Minister was foolish enough to go to the country. What policy would they lay before the people of the country? (Hear, hear.) They could only go to the country, as the hon. member for Standerton had said the previous night, with two sheets of paper, one with the name “Botha” and the other with the name “Hertzog.” Were they going to fight an election on a personal matter of that kind? He thought it would be a very foolish policy to pursue. There was a far deeper significance in this matter, and they must approach it with caution if they did not want to incur the greatest misfortune in South Africa. The Prime Minister had his policy. He adhered to it. What was going to be the policy of the hon. member for Smithfield? The policy of the Prime Minister was one of conciliation. The policy of the hon. member for Smithfield, as far as he could make it out after studying his career, was a policy of the two streams. Was that a policy to put before the country? Were they going to tear the country asunder again? Were they going to send it into a war again? It would be the policy of two streams against the policy of unification. He said that if they did that they would plunge the country into one of the most wicked racial wars South Africa had ever seen, and it had seen some bad enough days in the past. It would not only result in a race war, but it would tear away this South Africa Party of theirs that was working for the good of the country. That was the effect it would have. It would have a far-reaching effect which might take years to wipe out. Such a policy would only have the effect of destroying the credit of the country. South Africa required credit and capital at this point in its history. Were they going to frighten away capital? Under the Prime Minister’s policy there had been development and great activity, and South Africa had been given new life.

In the Cape the development was marvellous, and that development was solving some of our difficulties. Some people were always wanting to solve problems, such as the poor white question, which was going to be with us for a long time. But this very development was solving the poor white question. (Cheers and counter cheers.) Because of this many a man who hitherto had not an outlook on life could see some daylight. (Cheers.) But all this was going to be checked if this unfortunate policy of the two streams was going to be persisted in. Some people talked of solving the native problem, but time alone could solve that, although the development would assist. We could never hope to develop South Africa unless the two white races pulled together and worked on the lines laid down by the Prime Minister, who he would gladly always support so long as he continued his present policy. (Cheers.) He did not believe the Prime Minister was going to do what he had been asked to do— that would be a calamatious thing. He did not think there would be any difficulty in voting supplies. Would that not be sufficient to show the country that they had implicit confidence in the Prime Minister and his colleagues? What was the object of a vote of no confidence? They were going to pass a vote of confidence to-night. (Hear, hear.) Although he looked upon himself as a follower of the Prime Minister, one might offer a little bit of criticism in a friendly spirit. It had been said that day that the Agricultural Department was in a splendid condition, but he must caution the Prime Minister that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction in connection with it. (Cheers.) He believed there was some ground for that dissatisfaction. There was a feeling that the department was not sufficiently in touch with the farming community. On the Estimates was the sum of £473,000 for agriculture proper. Some of this money was spent in research work, but why did not the experts make annual reports so that the farmers could know what was being done on their behalf? (Cheers.) The reports were very much overdue, but in the Cape annual reports were issued which were most instructive. (Hear, hear.) Why, asked Mr. Maasdorp, did not the Government come forward with a proper Customs tariff? (Hear, hear.) The precipitating cause of Unification was the very question of a Customs tariff. (Hear, hear.) This uncertainty as to what the future was going to be in regard to the tariff had an unsettling effect on trade. We could not expect capital to be invested in this country unless people knew there was going to be some security and some fixity of tariffs. (Hear, hear.) He would caution his farmer friends not to be too much enamoured with Protection, because he very much feared that the farmers would have to pay the piper, because they produced very few things which could be protected. Let them be exceedingly careful how they became captivated with these ideas of Protection. (Hear, hear.) Although he would not go in for a heavily protective tariff, yet some articles produced here must be protected. And he was not prepared to say he would remove the protection afforded to the grain farmers, but he would caution them not to ask for more protection, for possibly they might get less.

There was one industry that stood by itself—the wine industry—which was one of the country’s oldest industries, and it had a civilising effect upon the whole of South Africa He regretted that they were adopting a heavy protective policy with regard to the dairy industry. That was a most selfish and immoral policy. The farmers of the country were not laying themselves out for dairy farming. The question was asked: why did they not do in this country as in Denmark. Some people had got an idea that all countries should be fashioned in one mould. What a dismal world this would be if that were the case. It paid Denmark to produce butter, but here we had got sheep, goats, ostriches, and so forth, and it did not pay, although we were producing it as a subsidiary product.

The hon. member was enthusiastic on the question of railway development. If they wanted to see agricultural prosperity in South Africa, he said, they must have railways to open up the country. Certainly it wanted money, but they had never yet lost by their railways, which, indeed, had brought in a fairly good return, and at times a very large return. By all means let them open up the country by railways. (An HON. MEMBER: Water.) That would come. The farmers were doing that, but they could not deal with the matter of railways, and that was why he urged upon the Government to come forward, and not be afraid to develop the country by means of railways. The credit of the country was good enough at present, if they did not destroy it by mad political squabbles. The development that was going on in the country was enormous, mostly on the lines of the railways, but in other directions as well, especially in the districts where the ostrich industry was carried on; but if something happened which would cut off those districts from further development, the expense of moving produce from such areas would be entirely prohibitive. The hon. Minister of Railways might possibly have some comprehensive scheme in his mind, and would be able to satisfy every part of the country.

said the possible strictures of the hon. members for Ermelo and Winburg notwithstanding, he was going to be somewhat provincial in his remarks. Mr. Cronje had painted a picture of the benefits which the Free State had enjoyed since Union which might be true in the east of the Free State, but he could not agree, so far as his own constituency was concerned. In the first place he complained of the lack of telephonic communication in the rural districts. The western part of the Free State, for instance, was going to receive only 69 miles of telephone line this year, while the district of the hon. member for Winburg was going to receive 300 miles. In all the western parts would get 1,000 miles of telephone lines, while the eastern parts received 1,800 miles. The Minister told them by way of defence that three-fourths of the population of the Free State lived in the east, but he did not keep to those proportions. He devoted £18,000 to telephones in the east and only £1,000 in the west. No wonder the hon. member for Winburg was jubilant. In regard to postal facilities, the western parts were treated equally badly, notwithstanding the representations which he had made on this matter year after year. Mr. Van Niekerk went on to plead for an improvement in the conditions of the postal officials, who were not being fairly dealt with at present.

Postmasters, in the small villages especially, had a very bad time of it, one man frequently having to serve as postmaster, telegraphist, and to fulfil other functions. He was often badly overworked, but got nothing extra for it. A further complaint was that it was extremely difficult in the Western Free State, where it was very dry to obtain water-bores. In some instances, however, there was a shocking waste of money through Government sinking bore-holes at places where there was no water at all. Four holes had been made at a cost of £600 in one case, and water was found in only one of them. An air pump was as necessary to the farmer as any other agricultural machinery, and he thought the railway tariff on those pumps ought to be diminished.

Turning to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Van Niekerk pointed out that during the recent visit of the Circuit Court to Boshof, the Judge had been accompanied by a Registrar who apparently could not speak Dutch, and who had addressed the jury— which was purely Dutch—in English. Surely in an English centre like Graham’s Town, for instance, the Department of Justice would not dream of having a Registrar who was unable to speak English. All the proceedings of the Court had been conducted in English, and thus the Court could not exercise that moral influence which it was necessary that it should have. Proceeding, Mr. Van Niekerk referred to the spread of tuberculosis and consumption among the native races, such as the Basutos, etc., in his part of the country. This spread was becoming dangerous to the whites, and he hope the Minister would take some steps. Recently, the hon. member for Barkly had made some railing remarks about the period for simultaneous compulsory dipping having been spread over nine months. The hon. member should have realised that in the Western Free State to the south of Jacobsdal rain had not fallen for months up to a, month ago, and in these circumstances it had been impossible to fix too short a period. Another complaint was that during the drought the scab inspectors had hot exercised that discretion which they should have done and had prosecuted in cases where it was not desirable to do so. In regard to compulsory dipping, Mr. Van Niekerk held that it was not fair that farmers should be compelled to dip their sheep in caustic soda and sulphur, if these farmers believed in other kinds of dips. The Prime Minister recently denied that farmers were required to do that, but the Department had insisted on Mr. D. Badenhorst doing it, and it was not fair. Referring to railway matters, Mr. Van Niekerk urged the necessity of a Bill being introduced to define the duties of the Railway Board. He regretted that the Minister of Railways had not yet seen the neglected western districts of the Free State.

I am coming.

Well, he hoped his visit would have the result of something being done for these parts. These parts had great potentialities, but farmers should be able to get the products to the markets. Railway construction in these parts, besides, would be extremely cheap. Other parts of the country had fine bridges, continually requiring repairs. These bridges stood there as monuments, causing great pain to those parts of the country which possessed no railways at all.

He wished to congratulate the Minister on the fact that no further taxation would be imposed on the people. If under the present unfortunate circumstances they had to go with additional taxes to the people, he did not know what the end would be. He hoped the Minister would bring about such economies as would make it unnecessary to propose further taxes next year. There were many high salaries which ought to be reduced. (Hear, hear.) Proceeding, Mr. Van Niekerk twitted the hon. member for Von Brandis with his lack of logic. That member had said that the costs of the Defence Act were too big, but that notwithstanding, he wanted to see the subsidy to the navy increased. What logic! He did not agree with this, and considered that for the present nothing more should be subscribed to the navy.

The hon. member next dealt with the causes of the dissatisfaction in the Free State, one of which was that the Government made certain promises and was extremely tardy in fulfilling them. The hon. member for Albany had stated that Free Staters were dissatisfied because they obtained no bridges. The Free State was not to be bought with bridges, but demanded what it had a right to. What did the Government mean by putting down buildings every year on the Estimates, and then doing nothing? They had been promised a house for the magistrate in Boshof in 1913, and the amount still appeared on the Estimates. It caused dissatisfaction amongst the people. He regretted the absence of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (Mr. C. L. Botha), but he was rarely or never in the House. The hon. member was like a certain kind of beetle who was always at his best when in the neighbourhood of disagreeable things. That hon. member had said that all he knew about Boshof was that that constituency had elected him (Mr. Van Niekerk). Well, he (Mr. Van Niekerk) knew something more, and that was that Mr. Botha had been elected by Bloemfontein, but also that he had been elected to represent the interests of that constituency. The hon. member did not do so, because during this session he had been absent for 95 per cent. of the time. As a matter of fact, he had seen a letter in which another hon. member was asked to look after the interests of Bloemfontein, as Mr. Botha was always absent. Then Mr. Botha had accused Mr. Fichardt of having stabbed his Government in the back. If that was so, Mr. Fichardt must have learnt that from Mr. Botha, who twelve or thirteen years ago had understood that art well. In those days when he owed allegiance to his Government he (Mr. Botha) had sent a lampoon out against his own Government under the protection of the guns of the enemy. (Laughter.) That was a stab in the back for his own Government. It was the hon. member’s own fault that he had no longer any influence, and if he could not get anything for Bloemfontein. As regarded sitting on the fence, if Mr. Fichardt had sat on the fence, he must have learnt that from Mr. Botha, who was very good at jumping over fences, but never jumped off on the right side. When the hon. member came to Sea Point during the war for the purpose of persuading his constituents to take up arms against their friends he got off the wrong side of the gate then, and left portions of his garments on the gate. (Laughter.) The hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens, had complained of the small number of sheep in South Africa compared with Australia. The hon. member did not know his history. Did he not know that during the war nearly all the sheep were needlessly destroyed. He was silent then, but now he reproached the farmers for it. Then the hon. member for Winburg had tried to upset the figures of the hon. member for Ladybrand, but had only referred to three of them, the remainder being too dangerous. The hon. member knew that in the matter of the workshops at Bloemfontein an injustice was done to the Free State, and ought therefore to have kept silent. Mr. Van Niekerk next turned to the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Van der Merwe), whose remarks in regard to Mr. Fichardt had not been quite fair. That hon. member had said that during the war Mr. Fichardt was thousands of miles away. That was not so. At the outbreak of the war Mr. Fichardt was Consul of Belgium, and so great had his love been for his country that he gave up that position to take up arms General T. Smuts had said that he was not provincial in his views. No wonder; because he had everything he wanted, and need not be provincial. Now he came to an unpleasant subject which he would have wished it had not been necessary to touch on. On the 14th or 15th of December last something had been done by the Prime Minister which had given a shock to the whole of South Africa. And the effects of that shock could not be argued away. If ever a mistake had been made by the Prime Minister, then it had been made then. The exclusion of General Hertzog from the Ministry was deeply felt by the people, and the many resolutions passed on the subject clearly proved that. In his opinion the Prime Minister had not had the right to take the step he had done. He might have thought that he had taken that step in the interests of South Africa, but the effects had not been in the interests of the country, and the bitter effects would long yet be felt. General Botha had said that he had received the instructions of his party to carry on. Well, let the people confirm these instructions. Let the matter be submitted to the approval of the people. Only then could there be satisfaction. Either General Botha or General Hertzog had gone away from their principles. If it was General Hertzog they should be told so.

Not General Hertzog —the hon. member for Smithfield.

said that if this exclusion was silently passed by the people then within the next hundred years no Afrikander would stand up for the rights of the people like the hon. member for Smithfield had done, because people would feel that their actions were not appreciated by the people. It had been asked why, if General Hertzog had no confidence in the Prime Minister, he had remained so long in the Cabinet? The answer to that could be found in General Hertzog’s open letter. But on the other hand, if General Botha had no confidence in General Hertzog, why had he allowed the latter to remain in the Ministry so long?. Why had he not raised the matter in the congress of the South African Party? If that had been done all this present bitterness would have been avoided. Proceeding, Mr. Van Niekerk said he feared there had been a lack of outspokenness between the Prime Minister and the member for Smithfield. Col. Leuchars had spoken very seriously this evening. Had that hon. member ever had the courage of speaking clearly to General Hertzog? If he had, this present situation need never have arisen. If ever a man would have on his grave the words “Here rests a man who has done much mischief to South Africa,” then he feared it would be the hon. member for Umvoti. (The PRIME MINISTER: Shame.) Well, he held that opinion. Mr. Van Niekerk went on to say that General Botha had not been outspoken in his attitude towards General Hertzog. If the Prime Minister had gone to General Hertzog and had spoken to him about his grievance the present trouble would never have been created.

Turning to Mr. Neser, Mr. Van Niekerk said the remarks of that hon. member that General Hertzog had always created unrest were unfair. Moreover the statement was not true. He challenged the hon. member to repeat these words in the Boshof constituency, and was prepared to pay his railway fare, but would not guarantee his return. (Laughter.) The hon. member should be careful in his remarks. He had no right to say that the supporters of General Hertzog were the cause of the present bitterness. Such remarks were dishonest, he held. He also rebuked the hon. member for his strictures of the hon. member for Barberton. Why had Mr. Neser, with his great financial ability, not made all his remarks earlier? Why did he only make them now?

The hon. member (Mr. Neser) had further accused the hon. member for Barberton (Mr. Hull) of sitting on a fence. There must be many fences in this country. Had the hon. member himself never sat on a fence? If his memory served him right, then in the past there had been a certain J. A. Neser who had sat on a Progressive fence, a Chinese fence, an Independent fence, a Het Volk fence, and many other fences. Was this Mr. J. A. Neser the same gentleman, he wondered, who now represented Potchefstroom? The hon. member had made an allegation that the whole situation was due to agitators. Who were these agitators, who paid them, and who sent them? The hon. member was fighting the clouds and was wildly swinging his sticks. (Laughter.) The hon. member said that the hon. member for Smithfield and the Prime Minister were in agreement on the question of immigration. Did not the hon. member know there was a big difference on that point between the two? Compare the Minister’s speech in London with that delivered by the hon. member for Smithfield at Smithfield. There was thus a substantial difference of policy between the two leaders. Mr. Van Niekerk next took the Prime Minister to task over his remarks that the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) had misled the people. He held it was the Government’s duty to make an announcement in Parliament when there was such a revolution in the Cabinet. So many changes had taken place that it should have been considered worth while to make an announcement in Parliament. Last year, when the Minister of Finance resigned such an announcement had been made.

After it was asked for.

said the Prime Minister had said that Mr. Fichardt’s remarks had reminded him of the (Lamentations of Jeremiah. (Laughter.) That might be so, but the House should remember that Jeremiah had prophesied that the king would lose his head. (Laughter.) The hon. member for Smithfield had suggested a solution of the difficulty, but had the Prime Minister ever done so?

Yes, I suggested that both General Hertzog and myself should submit to the decision of the party.

said that such a solution had not been acceptable to them. They could not go on like this, as the household, the church, the people, and the nation were being shaken to their foundations. The hon. member for Ermelo had complained of the use by the hon. member for Fauresmith of an expression, the meaning of which had been twisted. The expression was that an English-speaking member was preferred to a Dutch-speaking member if he was a more capable man. It was impossible to extract poison from an innocent remark of that sort. When General Hertzog was excluded from the Ministry he (Mr. Van Niekerk) thought someone would be appointed as Minister who would be free of racialism. But he had been surprised to see that the new Minister was not a man who was free from racialism. He referred to a speech in which Sir Thos. Watt had said: “If they assault our freedom and liberty we shall cut the painter.” He (Mr. Van Niekerk) might be called a reactionary, a “remschoen,” he was even called a rebel, but he was not prepared to cut the painter by a long way. Mr. Van Niekerk then referred to a speech in the Natal House, in which Sir Thos. Watt was accused of being the greatest hater of the Ditch in the Natal Parliament. He (Mr. Van Niekerk) highly respected Sir Thos. Watt, but thought the Prime Minister had not been successful in getting a new Minister who was free from racialism. The hon. member went on to say that the people felt this matter very deeply, and they felt so deeply that they were prepared to take action. If they went on like this, feeling might run so high that it might be impossible to dam up the stream. The speaker respected the opinion of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn in matters of finance or irrigation. He had said that the Afrikander people thought. Well, they could also act. The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Mr. Maasdorp) this evening had lectured this House in such a fashion, that he (Mr. Van Niekerk) had nearly taken him for an archbishop on pension. The hon. member had referred to his loyalty to the Government, but what value could they attach to an assurance of that kind? How often had that hon. member himself crossed the House to vote with the Opposition. The hon. member should not preach anything he did not practice. The hon. member then turned to the Minister of Education, who, he said, had by many pinpricks greatly hurt the former Minister of Justice. He referred to the appointment in the Department of Education in the Free State of a gentleman from the Cape who was an arch-enemy of the ex-Minister. That was a dangerous policy, he held. If it had been deliberately adopted, the Minister would not fail to get his reward. A man who played with fire would be sure to get burnt. In conclusion, the hon. member appealed to the Prime Minister, for the benefit of the people and the country, to try and come to a settlement, so that members need not go back to their constituents with matters unchanged. He feared the poor Free Staters would be the sufferers. The people of the Free State prayed that a solution might be found. They should not delay any longer, but settle their difficulties as soon as possible. The Prime Minister could not bridge over the difficulty which had arisen, and he should not allow the opportunity to pass. If they waited longer the split would grow wider and the feelings of the people would become the more embittered. The Prime Minister should listen to the appeal from the people. (Hear, hear.)

moved the adjournment of the debate.

The motion was agreed to.

The debate was adjourned until tomorrow.