from G. H. J. Sadler, of Simon’s Town, a teacher under the Education Department, praying for the condonation of a break in his service, or for other relief.

a similar petition from Margaret H. Cooney, a teacher in the Durbanville Public School.

a similar petition from Esther M. Parker, of Stony Vale, Graham’s Town, a teacher under the Education Department.

said that on page 704 of the Votes and Proceedings his name appeared as voting with the “Noes.” He was not present in the House when the vote was taken.

The votes will be corrected.

said his name was not recorded in the first division list on page 704 of the Votes and Proceedings. He voted with the “Ayes.”

also stated that his name was omitted in the division list, although he had voted.

having called upon the tellers for both lists, who examined the lists, they reported that the name of Sir David Harris was erroneously inserted in the list for the “Noes,” instead of that of Sir David Hunter, while the name of Mr. P. G. Marais was inadvertently omitted from the list of the “Ayes,” and the lists were ordered to be corrected accordingly.

Further correspondence (between April, 1911, and July, 1912), respecting a Bill to regulate Immigration into the Union of South Africa; with special reference to Asiatics; further correspondence between January and April, 1913, on the same subject; Census Report, 1911; Regulation under Act 34 of 1891 (Cape) relating to dentists; Regulation under Act 30 of 1903 (Natal), and Act 3 of 1906 (Natal), relating to issue of Certificates of Identification to persons temporarily leaving Natal; Report of Second Delimitation Commission appointed under South Africa Act, 1909.

Statement of Accounts for year ended 31st March, 1913, in accordance with regulations for administration and investment of South African Constabulary Benevolent Fund.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs whether, having regard to the undertaking given to Transvaal postal and telegraph assistants that after five years at their maximum of £250 without promotion they would proceed on a relief scale up to £300,he will allow this to be applied to officers who have qualified for it in respect of their position on the Transvaal scale, not withstanding that under the Union regrading part of their Transvaal salary is now treated as allowance?

replied: The transfer to the relief scale after five years at £250 per annum, if promotion to the next higher grade is not secured in the meantime, can only be made in the case of an officer who has stood for that length of time at the Union salary of £250, and cannot be applied in any other case.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) What is the present grading of telegraph clerks in Johannesburg; (2) what are the rates of pay applicable to the different grades; and (3) what is the average length of service and emoluments of officers in the lowest grade?

replied: (1) The postal and telegraph assistants in Johannesburg have been graded either as general body or first-class assistants, according to the class in which they were found upon reorganisation being effected. (2) The Union rates of pay are: General body: Commencing salary £90, plus £36 local allowance, rising by £10 annually to £250, plus £52 10s.local allowance; after five years at £250, if promotion to the first class is not secured in the meantime, further increments of £265annually are granted up to a maximum of£300 per annum, plus £60 local allowance. First class: Commencing salary £265 per annum, plus £54 15s. local allowance, rising by £15 annually to £340 per annum, plus £64 local allowance. All officers who, at the date of Union, were upon a scale having a higher maximum or higher rate of increment than the Union scale, are being permitted to advance in accordance with such scale until the maximum thereof is reached. (3) Nine years and £263 per annum respectively.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours: (1) Whether he is aware (a) that the S.S. Thoger was towed into Durban Harbour from Quilimane for repairs last month; (b) that the necessary repairs were not executed and the vessel left the port of Durban for Falmouth or some other European port without a certificate of seaworthiness, and (c) that the men signed on for service under a special agreement, clause 4 reading, “ The employee hereby acknowledges that he is made acquainted with the fact that the shin is leaving the port of Durban without a certificate of seaworthiness, and the employee hereby binds himself to do all in his power in his said capacity to get the ship brought safely to her final port of destination”; and (2) what steps the Government has taken to prevent the vessel putting out to sea in a condition likely to endanger the lives of the crew?

replied: (1) (a) and (b) I understand that the facts are substantially as stated. (c) I have no authoritative information as to the form of agreement entered into between owner and crew. (2) The Government did not interfere with the movements of this vessel. She sailed under the Norwegian flag, and in the case of foreign-owned vessels the Government has no power to detain them pending certification of seaworthiness.

asked the Minister of Mines: (1) How many visits have been made by Mine Inspectors to the Orient Shaft, Benoni, during the twelve months ended 20th April, 1913, and under what circumstances; (2) whether he is aware that skipmen have to work twelve hours per shift, and that other cases of excessive hours of labour exist, at this shaft; and, if not (3) whether he will cause inquiry to be made, and should such state of affairs be found to obtain whether he will issue instructions for their immediate discontinuance?

replied: (1) Eight inspections have been made during the period mentioned, three being underground inspections, two accident inquiry inspections, one ordinary official visit re change house, two machinery inspections. (2) Inquiries show no cases of excessive hours of labour. Skipmen work 12-hour shifts, but the bulk of these duties are on man haulage, and the skipmen are classed as onsetters, and are exempted from the provisions of section 9 of the Mines and Works Act under Government Notice No. 325 of 1912.

asked the Prime Minister: (1) Whether it is a fact that messengers and others employed in the Houses of Parliament have to assist as waiters and in other occupations at balls, dinners, and other Government House and Government functions; (2) whether on such occasions the men referred to receive extra pay for such extra work, and, if not, why not; and (3) whether he is aware that there are unemployed men, capable, willing, and anxious to perform such duties, and whether he will in future regard their claims for consideration?

(1) The answer is in the negative. There is no rule forbidding messengers of the House to apply for any occupation of this nature after their official hours. (2) The matter of remuneration is one entirely between the Governor-General’s staff, or the department concerned, and the applicants. (3) The Government Labour Bureau has only four barmen or waiters on its unemployed list at the present time. The employment of casuals for such duties is naturally out of the question. Employment at such functions must be given to well-known and steady and reliable persons, and public servants are generally the best suited.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) Whether during the past few weeks one Kruger, a postal assistant, recently employed at Cradock, or Cradock station, resigned his position in the service and whether he was offered a special increment to remain in the service and refused it; and, if so (2) whether he can give any explanation as to why special advantages were offered in this case?

replied: (1) Mr. Kruger resigned from Rosmead, whither he had been transferred from Cradock. Representations were made that his salary, which as he had only recently received his appointment was necessarily small, was insufficient to meet his expenses, and, as is done in practically every case where a junior is transferred from the town in which his home is situated to another station where expenses of living are greater, the question of granting Mr. Kruger increments in advance of the scale was under consideration. He, however, resigned his appointment before a decision was come to. (2) The treatment proposed to be accorded in this case was not exceptional, as I have just explained.

asked the Minister of Lands: Whether he will lay upon the Table of this House a return showing all landed property dis posed of by the Lands Department during the year 1912 under Acts or laws other than Act No. 40 of 1895 (Cape) and the Land Settlement Act of 1912?

replied: As requested by the hon. member, I lay on the Table of the House a return showing all landed property disposed of by the Lands Department during the year 1912 under Acts or laws other than Act No. 40 of 1895 (Cape) and the Land Settlement Act of 1912.

asked the Minister of Railways and harbours: (1) Whether railway stewards and others in railway employ are compelled to render service at Government House on the occasion of balls, dinners, and other entertainments; (2) whether these men receive overtime pay; and (3) whether he will, when in future his department is asked to furnish such assistance, take into consideration that over 8,000 men, who made application to him for employment and were unable to obtain the same, are still out of work?

replied: (1) and (2) On application, the Administration has, on rare occasions, authorised a chef and one or two men engaged on dining-cars to render services at Government House functions; but on such occasions the men are relieved of their ordinary duties with the Administration, and their wages paid to the Administration by Government House. There is, however, no question of compulsion. If they work beyond their ordinary hours of duty, this is a matter for arrangement with the men. (3) The Administration is not concerned in the engagement of assistance for functions at Government House but it may be mentioned that, of the 8,500 men whose names appear on the Administration’s records as applicants for employment, very few, if any, would be suitable for the services required at Government House.

asked the Prime Minister: (1) Whether he will take immediate steps to provide employment for the large number of unemployed in this country; and (2) whether he will issue instructions to at once put a period to the system of double work and overtime at present obtaining in the various departments?

replied: (1) The question of dealing with unemployment has had the attention of the Government for some time. At present there seems to be no immediate necessity for unusual measures, except at Pretoria, where, owing to the closing down of some of the rough work which has been in progress during the last two years unemployment among unskilled whites is on the increase. The White Labour Department is dealing with the question. (2) In every department overtime is frequently required to carry through special work which cannot be done by casual labour and can only be efficiently performed by the staffs acquainted with the work, and it is only resorted to with reluctance and when absolutely required in the public interest. I am not prepared to advise the alteration of the system at present obtaining in the various departments.

asked the Minister of Native Affairs what is the annual revenue derived from the native location, Maitland?

replied: The following revenue was derived from the Ndabeni Location, Maitland, during the period mentioned:

asked the Minister of Lands: (1) Whether he is aware that the delay to proclaim Erasmus village in the electoral division of Pretoria District, South, a township is causing the inhabitants there not only damage, but considerable inconvenience; and (2) whether it is his intention to cause the said village to be proclaimed a township at an early date, and if so, when?

replied: (1) No. (2) I am advised that section 12 of Act No. 33 of 1907 (Transvaal) must be read as preventing the Government proclaiming Erasmus township until the conditions of the section have been complied with, that is to say, until there has been constituted a local authority (as defined in that section) for the township. The establishment of a local authority at Erasmus is a matter that falls to be dealt with by the Provincial administration.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) Whether he is aware that considerable unrest exists among the general assistants— late third and junior assistants—in the Transvaal; (2) whether it is a fact that a large number of these assistants have resigned; and (3) whether he has any know ledge of the reason for this unrest, and, if so, whether he will state the reason; if not, whether he will cause enquiry to be made and, having ascertained the facts, remove such cause?

replied: (1) I am aware that certain junior officials in the Transvaal are not satisfied with their position in the Service. (2) A considerable number of resignations have taken place within the last twelve months, which have been filled in the ordinary course by the promotion of learners. 13) There is no reasonable cause for unrest. These young men are now on a scale of pay which, with local allowances, varying according to locality, will take them to £545 or £360 per annum, and other higher grade appointments are open to them as vacancies occur. They receive extra pay for overtime and for Sunday and public holiday duty and also enjoy the usual leave and pension privileges.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) Whether it is a fact that the Stores Branch staff at the General Post Office, Cape Town, have had a great deal of extra work imposed upon them since Union; (2) whether the staff of bag makers and stencillers consists of four, all of whom are married men with large families, and who receive from 7s. 3d. to 7s. 6d. a day minus pension fund deductions, as against 9s. a day paid to carpenters; (2) whether bag makers and stencillers before Union received 10s. and upwards a day; (4) whether a few members of the Stores Branch staff recently received an increase in pay varying from 3d. to 1s. per day, which was dated back for one month, whereas in other departments the increase was dated back for three months; (5) whether great difficulty is experienced by members of the Stores Branch staff in obtaining annual leave; and (6) whether the Government will cause inquiries to be made with a view to removing any grievances that may at present exist in the case of the Stores Branch staff?

replied: (1) Pressure has been experienced in the Stores Branch since Union, but the staff had not been called upon to work beyond the usual hours. (2) Yes; there are four bag makers and stencillers receiving pay ranging from 7s. to 7s. 6d. per diem. There is no carpenter drawing 9s. per diem in the Stores Branch. Two packers who are presumably the carpenters referred to are in receipt of 8s. 4d. per diem. (3) No. (4) Yes; the circumstances of the two classes of employees were, however, quite different. (5) Recently, owing to pressure of work, leave in some cases had to be restricted. Linder normal circumstances there is no difficulty in this respect. (6) The conditions of service of the employees referred to both as regards pay for the class of work performed and in other respects, are regarded as satisfactory and no inquiry appears to be necessary.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours: (1) Whether under the new artisan staff regulations, which came into operation on the 1st January, 1913, the maximum substantive rates of pay for shipwrights is 13s. a day; (2) whether the shipwrights at Cape Town Docks are still drawing a maximum of 12s. 6d. a day and if so, why; (3) whether other branches of the artisan staff are getting the maximum substantive rates of pay to which they are entitled under the new regulations, as from the 1st January, 1913 and if so, why the shipwrights are not treated likewise; and (4) whether the Government is prepared to consider the advisability of paying the shipwrights 13s. a day as from the 1st January, 1913?

replied: (1) The reply to this question is in the affirmative. (2), (3) and (4) The maximum rates of pay laid down in the new regulations are only intended to apply to men who are fully qualified and who can be recommended for the maximum rate and this principle has been followed generally in giving effect to the new regulations. Only one of the shipwrights employed at Table Bay Docks is fully qualified and entitled to the maximum rate of 13s. and this employee’s rate of pay has been increased to that amount, the increased rate applying as from the 1st January, 1913.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) What were the receipts of the Post and Telegraph Office at Marquard during the first six months of 1912, the last six months of 1912 and the first three months of 1913, respectively; (2) whether he will lay upon the Table a complete return of the staff at Marquard during those periods and showing their salaries; (3) whether it is a fact that the postmaster, in addition to the ordinary work done as postmaster, is also a telegraphist and a telephonist; and, if so; (4) whether it does not prove very inconvenient to the public?

replied: (1) £502 15s. 1d., £551 1s. 9d. and £379 15s., respectively, including collections for other departments. (2) Yes. (3) The postmaster of Marquard, like postmasters at all other single-handed stations, is required to attend to all classes of business transacted at his office. (4) There has been a complaint recently of inconvenience and this is now under inquiry.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours: (1) Whether under the new artisan staff regulations, the maximum rate for labourers is 6s. a day; (2) whether labourers at the Cape Town Docks are at present receiving a maximum of 4s. a day, though some have been in the service for 2⅟₂ years and longer and are married men with families; and (3) whether the Government is prepared to take into consideration the advisability of increasing the maximum of labourers to 6s. a day as from the 1st January, 1913?

replied: (1) The reply to this question is in the affirmative. (2) The reply to this question is in the negative, as certain labourers are at the present time receiving over 5s. per diem. (3) Increases dating from the 1st January, 1913, are being granted to 102 artisans labourers at Table Bay Docks. The rate of pay is fixed according to the capacity of the men and the nature of the work on which they are engaged and it is not the intention to increase to the maximum rate men who are not thoroughly efficient or the nature of whose work does not warrant that rate of pay.

, for Mr. W, D. Baxter (Cape Town, Gardens) asked the Minister of the Interior whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the correspondence (subsequent to that published in Blue Book U. 7—1911) which has passed between the Imperial Government and the Union Government on the subject of the Immigration Restriction Bills, 1911, 1912 and 1913?

replied that he had laid the papers on the Table.

asked the Minister of the Interior when the maps showing the new electoral divisions in the various provinces will be available for issue and what is the reason for the delay?

replied: On account of the great expense which would be involved in issuing specially prepared maps of the new electoral divisions in the various Provinces, I fear it will not be possible to provide an entirely new print for sale to the public. Steps are being taken to prepare some sets of maps from the material already at our disposal, showing the new boundaries and these will be exhibited at Magistrates offices for the information of the public.

moved: That the House at its rising tomorrow adjourn until Friday, the 2nd May, at 2 p.m.

The motion was agreed to.

moved: That on and after Friday, the 2nd, May, the House suspend business at 6 o’clock p.m. and resume at 8 o’clock p.m. on Fridays.

The motion was agreed to.

moved for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law in force in the Province of Natal relating to marriage by banns.

seconded.

The motion was agreed to.

The Bill was read a first time and set down for second reading on Wednesday, May 7.

moved that the petition from H. J. Macdonald, of Kenhardt, who served in the Police Force from 1874 until 1900, when he was taken prisoner by the Republican Forces and subsequently tried for high treason and acquitted, praying the House to consider the circumstances of his case and to grant him certain arrear salary and a pension, or other Relief, presented to this House on the 26th April, 1912, be laid upon the Table and if agreed to, that it be referred to the Select Committee on Pensions, Grants and Gratuities.

The motion was agreed to.

moved that the petition from E. O. Oliver and 10,600 others, inhabitants of the Transvaal, drawing attention to the fact that the mining companies of the Transvaal have entered into an agreement, by means of the Witwatersrand Labour Association under which a proportion of the pay of the native labourers recruited in Portuguese territory for the mines will be deferred and paid in Portuguese territory and praying for legislation whereby the said and any similar existing agreement may be annulled and the future introduction of the system in question prohibited, presented to this House on the 12th March, 1913 be referred to the Select Committee on Native Affairs for consideration.

The motion was agreed to.

moved that the petition from J. L. Ham man and others, inhabitants of De Lagers-drift and neighbourhood, district of Mid-delburg, Transvaal, praying for the appointment of a district surgeon at De Lagersdrift or for other relief, presented to this House on the 28th March, 1913, be referred to the Government for consideration.

This was agreed to.

had given notice of his intention to move that the petition from A. J. du Plessis and 128 others, inhabitants of the districts of Boetsap, Kuruman and Taungs, praying for the establishment of a township on a central site in those districts or for other relief, presented to this House on the 11th April, 1913, be referred to the Government for consideration.

The motion dropped.

moved: That the Government has ceased to possess the confidence of this House. The hon. member said that they had tabled that motion with a full sense of the responsibility attaching to it and they were quite aware that, for a motion in these terms to come from a party numerically as small as theirs or in fact, from any party not prepared to form an alternative Government, was not according to the traditions of Parliament and attaching as he did an immense value to the traditions of Parliament, yet he said that these traditions were subservient to the one great tradition of Parliament what was conducive to the greatest interest of the public. Like every tradition which served as a guide, a situation arrived when it could be departed from and those who departed from it, in doing so, must take upon themselves the responsibility of their action; and in departing from that tradition, he left it to the country to decide whether they were justified or not because what was the position? The Parliamentary machine had ceased to act. A motion in those terms might come from other quarters of the House, but from reasons best-known to themselves and which he would not go into now, they had not thought fit to move such a motion. It was becoming daily more evident, not only to them in that House, but throughout the country, that the interests of the country would not be served with the continued co-existence of that House and that Government. (Labour cheers and Ministerial laughter., Hon. members over there might laugh, but he ventured to say that those hon. members could not stand up in their places and go back to their constituents and say that. Therefore it was essential, in the interests of the country, either that they should have a new Government or anew House; and that motion was framed for the purpose of bringing that matter to a head. Proceeding, Mr. Creswell said that they had gathered from Lobby rumours and statement in the public Press that there was some idea that they (the Labour Party) had been acting in collusion with he did not know how many different sections of the House; he did not think they had been charged with acting in collusion with the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman), but they had been charged with acting in collusion with one or other quarters of the House. He categorically denied the truth of such statements. They in that party were guided, after consultation amongst themselves, by what they considered the best means of advancing the interests of the country. (Labour cheers.) That motion had been expressly framed in the terms in which it had been put down. He did not ask hon. members who differed from them in regard to the things which they (the Labour Party) advocated, as widely as the poles, to express by their concurrence with that motion, concurrence with the reasons which they (the Labour Party) advocated in support of the motion. The motion merely stated that the Government had ceased to have the confidence of that House for any effective government of the country. They had heard rumours of an amendment in that sense or another sense, but might he say that any amendment to that resolution could not but be designed to defeat the object of his motion? Others who might speak would, no doubt, state what their reasons were for their lack of confidence in the Government. His reason for that was that the Government had ceased to perform one of the most essential duties of Government the duty to guide the deliberations of that house by proposing those measures which it thought were in the public interests and to stand or fall by the reception of those measures by the House. It was perfectly clear that, unless the Government guided that House and proposed measures with a sense of the responsibility attaching to those measures, the business of Parliament was at a standstill. He would take as his text the words which the Government had placed in the mouth of the Governor-General at the opening of that Parliament, when that Parliament first met, “ The South Africa Act has laid the foundation of a new nationality in this country and under its provisions you are to establish, protect and strengthen this new nationality in the true spirit of this Act.” Continuing, Mr. Creswell said that if that was the first duty of that Parliament, obviously one of the first duties of his Excellency’s advisers was to establish and strengthen that new spirit. Let them examine what were their conceptions of their duties in that respect. When they had first met, Ministers had greeted them with a long list of measures which would be introduced that session, which the hon. member read. That was quite an instalment in establishing, protecting and strengthening that new nation. That clearly showed that work was considered to be necessary, and it had been put down at that time. They had done a certain amount in the first session, but not under very able guidance. There had been a good deal of putting off and in regard to one measure the Government had turned as many somersaults as they could possibly do; and the matter was left for another year. Then came the session of 1912, when the Ministers had not much new to put before them. The hon. member referred to the Bills mentioned in the Governor-General’s speech at the opening of that session. Still, from that “prolific machine” a considerable amount of discussion had gone on and there had been a considerable amount of work for that Parliament to do. The Factory Act, which they had promised in the previous session, had, however, not been mentioned.

Now they came to the opening of the present session and the output of that fertile brain had almost entirely stopped. They found the meagre leavings just a few of the leavings of last session. The hon. member touched on the Bills which had been introduced that session. He went on to say that it appeared, on the face of it, that two deductions were to be drawn. Either Ministers had come to the conclusion that in order to establish, strengthen and advance that new nation there was no other legislation which required to be submitted to Parliament. Was that their opinion? He ventured to say that they knew that that was not their opinion. The other alternative was that, while the Government were convinced that much more legislation was required, yet they were shirking the responsibilities of their high office and afraid to put those measures before the House, because they felt that they did not have that confidence of the House as to be able to administer such measures. Why was it? It was the position which had arisen since the last session. The position had been manifested and indicated by the extraordinary meagreness of the legislation indicated in his Excellency’s speech at the opening of the session.

That brought him to the second point in his indictment, that the Government had neglected to place foremost in its consideration in the guidance of its conduct, the welfare of the country and had subordinated those things which were in the interest of the country to keep something like a semblance of party unity in its own ranks; and the position which they had been in the whole of this session had been due to the schism which had taken place in the party which supported the Ministry. It was hardly necessary, perhaps, for him to expand on that theme, but to put it in a few words, compared with previous sessions, the position of the Government was that they were in a position of stalemate. In former sessions, when the Opposition or the Labour Party called check the Government wriggled out of it, but now that the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) apparently had called “Opposition squares in check,” the Government did not dare to move over. Why? If the Government could carry through their measures in previous sessions and it was no ignominy at all to carry through their measures with the help of the Opposition, why had it become a crime to do so today? They all remembered very vividly the extraordinary skill and untiring industry with which the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, conducted, with the aid of the Minister, the Post Office Bill through the committee stage. (Laughter.) But any such proceeding as that today was a crime which the Government could not allow itself to be a party to. And that position resulted in the condition of paralysis which was making that House the laughing stock of the country that House, together with the Government, because they were all involved. It led to a position where the Government made an exhibition of themselves, as they did in regard to the Financial Relations Bill. They had three years in which to consider that problem, but they were not able to formulate what were their own convictions and place them before the House and failing that the Government had put before he House a botched up measure which was admittedly of a temporary character. Then look at the University Bill. It was brought in three or four years in succession. The last time they withdrew the second reading. He was not an old hand at Parliament, but in his reading on the subject he did not think he could remember any more pusillanimous conduct than that, with the exception of the celebrated occasions when Disraeli would bring in a Reform Bill about once a week and withdraw it when he found he could not secure support.

In the circumstances, what was the clear duty of the Government? Was it its duty to stick in office and refuse to dissolve, although they knew perfectly well that they could not efficiently perform the functions of the Government of the country as long as they had this present House through which they had to carry their Bills? If there was going to be a Government, let them make up their minds what they wanted and give effect to their proposals in this House. The worst possible Government the country could ever have was a Government which could not make up its mind; but, if it could make up its mind, could not make up its mind to go forward lest it be defeated. They had got to make up their minds to these Parliamentary earthquakes and regard dissolutions as things that had to come and before this country was very many years older they would have to recognise that it was very rarely that a Parliament of any usefulness lived out its statutary five years. But why was the Government pursuing the present policy? The reason why the Government had taken the course they had, and had refused to do one thing or another, was simply because they were sacrificing their own express convictions of what the country really required, merely to the interest of their party and they (the Labour Party) said that the parties were made for the people and the people were not to be sacrificed for mere party considerations. He did not hold any brief whatever for either of the two contending parties, but he held this and he wished to express his entire disagreement with the remarks made by some hon. members, that these disagreements had nothing to do with the House. He held and he thought with a good deal of reason, that when dissension in the Government party reached such a pitch that paralysis of the business of the country ensued, it was very much the business of the House to have it fought out in this House. It was for that reason that very early in the session he asked the Prime Minister for some explanation regarding the negotiations that had taken place during the recess in connection with the re-organisation of the Cabinet. The fact of the matter was that, in the circumstances that had arisen, the business of this Parliament was paralysed and the Government had refused to take one of the two courses open to them, either to fight it out in Parliament or to go to the country.

The third count in his indictment was of a more general character. (Government laughter.) Hitherto he had been dealing with matters which would induce a great many to vote for this motion, but he wished now to explain to the House some of the reasons why they, who sat upon the cross benches, more particularly regarded the Government with no confidence whatever and desired, at the earliest possible date, to see that Government give place to another. Another Government of hon. members from that side, he was perfectly sure, would be no more acceptable to them than the present Government—(laughter)—and he did not think, from his experience of the House, that would come as astounding news to the House. But they objected to the opposition of the Government and its incapacity to make up its mind on the great question that had to be settled if this new nationality was to be established, protected and defended. He wished it to be clearly understood at the outset that in their objections to the Government and the Prime Minister they took no part whatever with any objections that were raised to him on racial grounds. (Hear, hear.) In his opinion, in the face of very great difficulties, the Prime Minister, from the time he took office in the Transvaal in 1907, had steadily set himself to keep in the whole of his administration an even balance between the two white races in this country. (Hear, hear.) But the time had gone by when that was one of the principal questions before the country. There were very few members in that House who would say that any Prime Minister in this country would stand a possible chance of receiving support if he used his high position to look after the interests of one great race against the other. (Hear, hear.) Those days had gone by; and not the least sign that they had gone by was the schism which had occurred in the ranks of the Government party, because that showed that many people in this country had felt that the day when any Prime Minister or any Government in this country could set itself deliberately to ill use or suppress or deprive of their rights, either of the two races in this country, would not live for any appreciable length of time. But that was not their objection to the Prime Minister. Their objections to him and the policy of the Government were based on other grounds. He would take some of the Government’s actions in regard to some of the measures which had been passed in that Parliament. He would take first the action of the Government on the question of miners phthisis. Could the Minister really consider that the Government’s pledge had been carried out?

Absolutely.

Oh! And that the Prime Minister, when he said before the elections, that he pledged his Government to take immediate steps to put a stop to this and protect the miners and that he would see to it that it was dealt with as workmen’s compensation had that been fulfilled? And was it said when the Prime Minister made those remarks that upon the least opposition from members on the Opposition side he would not carry out that policy and that he would not treat it as workmen’s compensation, but would give them something else?

The Government had not the pluck to come to the House and insist that the House should carry the measures that they laid before it, or get in a new Government. Let them take the Mines and Works Act, for which the present Minister of Finance was responsible. The question of Sunday labour was discussed and after a debate the matter was adjourned for three or four weeks, when the Minister came forward with the announcement that he would send the matter to a Commission. Well, that Commission had not yet reported and he supposed that the longer the Commission took to report, the better the Minister would be pleased. The Government was as bad with regard to its labour policy. There was the great question in that country of the importation of the quasi-servile black labour, on which industries were based, instead of being based on white workmen. What did they find in this regard? They had the Minister of Native Affairs getting up and saying that for twenty years he had been opposed to the importation of this sort of labour and the next afternoon the Prime Minister made it clear that the importation of this semi-servile labour was in the interests of the Union’s progress. With regard to the land, the Government refused to do anything. He had shown the other day that five million morgen of land was owned by the Transvaal Landowners Association, which would not be used in the best interests of the people of South Africa. The Government would not tackle a question like that. Were they going to allow the Government to go on subordinating the interests of the people to the interests of members of the House who supported the Government in a spasmodic and divided way? The Government should look into these matters, but they refused to do anything. The Government argued that the present state of affairs was right, but they were only concerned with the prosperity of the few, instead of the prosperity of the multitude of the people of this country. They, on those benches, brought in a Contract Labour Bill, but the Government would not consider it. Then there was the Electoral Bill, which was dropped altogether. Was it not necessary now that they should see that the people were properly represented? Were there no reforms that might be made in the system at present? Then there was that other policy of the Government, that once a man was employed by the Government he should be deprived of his citizen rights. Continuing, he said that the general administration of the country was carried on with a callous disregard for the interests of people who did not hold large interests in the country. Mr. Creswell went on to refer to the question of wage-reduction by the Minister of Railways and Harbours, who said that while 20s. a day might have been the ruling wage in Johannesburg twenty years ago, it was not the ruling wage at the present time. Of course, what Ministers who got three thousand a year always wanted to know was why these fellows wanted higher wages. He wondered whether the hon. member for Randfontein told his constituents that he was going to support a Government that would reduce wages. He wondered what support he would have got if he had told his constituents of this fact. He would like that hon. member to go back to his constituents now. With the Minister of Native Affairs it was the same sort of thing. There was the careless and callous way in which he had fixed that agreement with the Mozambique Government. In the Mines Department, what steps had been taken by the Government to investigate cases where mines had stopped working. The Government had the power to deal with these mines; he supposed the Government had come to the conclusion that it was no part of their business to go into questions of this sort. Of course, they would do nothing to annoy those people who were their peculiar charge. He suggested that the people of the country would be better served if these mines were run by the Government, who could run them just as well as these private people could. Then there was land settlement.

They passed a Land Settlement Bill and what had the Minister of Lands done? It was suggested at the time that the Government were going to spend four or five millions of money on land settlement and irrigation. This suggestion no doubt raised joy in the hearts of shareholders of the land companies. But the effect of the Act had been such that, he thought, the House might well have saved the time that they devoted to that measure. He hoped that he had been able to indicate clearly the reasons why members on those benches had lost confidence in the Government of the country. The Government protected the vested interests of the few in that country instead of defending and protecting the general interests of the people of South Africa. While there were members in the House who did not agree with all he had said, he thought they would support the simple proposition that he had put before the members of that House. He did not ask hon. members opposite to agree with what he had said. (Laughter.) He heard some laughter. The Minister of Education seemed to find the matter very amusing. Did the Minister imagine that they on those benches had learned no lessons since they had been in the House? Did he think that they had forgotten those numerous divisions when the Labour members had voted against the rest of the House? He was satisfied that a large number of members would agree that the Government had lost the confidence of the House and the country. He was satisfied that the Government were simply concerned in keeping together some semblance of party. What he asked hon. members to do was to affirm that the Government had ceased to possess the confidence of the House.

He would turn to the Unionist Party sitting upon these benches and he would appeal to them to support the motion whole-heartedly and entirely. He did not desire to disguise the fact that the Labour Party and the Unionists were in natural opposition. Their grounds of difference were radical.

You say that.

Sir Starr Jameson, when he sat in that House, said in so many words that the Unionist Party were in natural opposition to members on the cross benches. They did not deny that there was a fundamental difference between them, but that was no reason why they should not give their whole-hearted support to the motion. They on the cross benches represented, he believed, a body of thought and general principle and they could see very little difference between the question of domestic policy followed by hon. members on both sides of the House. Therefore they considered that they were in natural opposition to both parties. The hon. member proceeded to quote from a speech by the hon. member for Pretoria, East (Sir J. P. Fitzpatrick), in which he was reported to have said that when the Labour Party came to make divisions among progressive thought, broad-mindedness and patriotism, they were a pernicious influence and ought to be stamped out. (Hear, hear.) By voting for this motion the hon. member would have an excellent chance of proving his words. The country also would have a chance of stamping them out. But if the Labour Party went under it would only be for the moment. (Labour cheers.) They would grow up again because they represented principles that were growing in the world. (Labour cheers.) He trusted that the united party which the hon. member led would vote for the resolution. He did not want to slur this over at all. They had heard of rumours of amendments; they had seen a wide diversity of opinion among members, but he would just point out that any amendment would simply have the effect of weakening the possibilities of the desired effect of the resolution being achieved. He wished to put another matter to hon. members who like himself came from the Witwatersrand. They all appreciated the fact that when the Prime Minister had dismissed the hon. member for Smithfield from his Cabinet, it appeared that there was more than one reason for his dismissal and they now understood that the differences between the Prime Minister and the member for Smith-field and the latter’s following, were of the utmost importance and of such a fundamental character that they (General Hertzog’s followers) distrusted the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Well, he was prepared to leave it entirely to them (General Hertzog’s followers) to say that the cleavage between them and the Prime Minister was of such a nature that they must support this motion, so that they would be true to the words which they had spoken in this House and outside.

Now he also wished to address a few remarks to the hon. member for Smith-field and the latter’s friends. He did not wish to ask the hon. member to express himself in agreement with any remarks which he (Mr. Creswell) had made, but he only asked him to express himself in favour of what this motion now before the House conveyed. (Labour cheers.) They did not yet know what were the precise differences, grounds of differences and real cleavage between the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Smithfield. As far as matters of concrete policy were concerned, they could say very little from the pronouncements which had been made from the Treasury benches. If the grounds were merely racial they took up the same attitude as they had always done. They deplored this continual wrangling on this racialism. They felt that there was before this House a nobler task than that of defending the rights or prospects of one or other section. The nobler task was to defend the interests which were going to affect both classes in this country. (Hear, hear.) They asked the hon. member for Smithfield and his friends to be true also in regard to what they had said in this House. If they held these views with many of which he might even differ then he held that it was their duty to support this motion. He asked, therefore that if they were true to these expressions, they should record their desire for an immediate appeal to the country and see that this motion was carried by this House. The right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) was not in his place, but he wished to address a few remarks to him. If he were there he was afraid that his (Mr. Creswell’s) words would fall on deaf ears, because he (Mr. Merriman) was at one end of the pole and he (Mr. Creswell) at the other. But extremes might meet. (Laughter.) The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Merriman) stood for the usefulness and high respect of Parliament and on that ground he would ask him to support this motion, because he, more than other members of this House, must know that the present position was not conducive to good Government. More than any other member, he (Mr. Merriman) had expressed his lack of confidence in this Government and they now asked him to act up to the high esteem in which he was held and to help them to bring this present state of paralysis to a close and restore to Parliament its usefulness and make it more a Parliament to reflect the opinion of the country. (Labour cheers.) He was also going to ask those gentlemen from Natal who had been returned as Independents to vote for this motion. (Hear, hear and laughter.) These gentlemen who had stood as Independents had a perfect right to do so, but they had now joined the Government side and he thought it their duty to go to their constituents to ask them whether they approved of their action. Their constituents had given these hon. members carte blanche, but they should now go and ask their constituents whether they approved of the manner in which they had availed themselves of their licence. He could hardly expect the Prime Minister and his friends to vote for this motion. (Laughter.) Yet he believed that there were many of the followers of the Prime Minister who, if they expressed all they felt, would vote for it. (Laughter.) Because even among hon. members there was a great deal of dissatisfaction, amounting even to distrust, at the way in which the Parliamentary proceedings of this country were being conducted. (An HON. MEMBER: Nonsense.) These hon. members, he held, should also go to the country and ask their electors whether they would sanction the attitude taken up by them. In conclusion, Mr. Creswell said he hoped the motion would be carried and that Parliament would be brought to an immediate conclusion so that the country might have an opportunity of sending back representatives who would more accurately represent the people’s feelings and interests than the present representatives did.(Labour cheers.)

seconded.

rising at 3.31, said he would not detain the House long in replying to this somewhat ridiculous motion—(laughter) ridiculous because, under the circumstances, it could not be anything more than an academic discussion. (Hear, hear.) It was almost a pity that we should be wasting our time—(Ministerial cheers)—which might be devoted to getting on with the business of the country which the hon. member had been so anxious should proceed (Ministerial cheers)—instead of embarking on a discussion which he (Mr. Burton) was bound to say he found it difficult to refrain from describing as almost a disgrace to Parliament. (Hear, hear.) It was a ridiculous motion which never had a chance of success from the very beginning and it had no chance of success now. (Hear, hear.) It did not appear to have been a Very popular motion and it did not seem to have been attractive to any part of the House. Apparently what hon. members on the other side of the House had been engaged in was finding out the best way to run away from the motion. (Laughter.) In that way the hon. member had managed to score a little trifling success, because he had made the positions of hon. members in certain sections of the House difficult. If the motion were taken on its own merits, no notice whatever would be taken of it by hon. members. (Laughter.) But the mover had taken advantage of special circumstances which existed in the country today, and he (Mr. Burton) regretted to see that the hon. member had done so, he (Mr. Burton) thought unfairly. The hon. member had taken the advantage of exceptional circumstances to cause more strife and to stir up more mud-(ministerial cheers)— and to cause discord and disunion where they were entirely unnecessary. The hon. member had created difficulties, but he had been perfectly candid in this respect, that apparently, although he hoped to secure support for his motion from various parts of the House, he did not expect anyone to support the motion on the grounds that he himself had given. He (Mr. Burton) welcomed this candour. There was not the slightest doubt that if the hon. member’s motion and his reasons stood on their merits, he and his faithful three or four would be left a small minority by themselves.

He (Mr. Burton) did not know whether the hon. member had now and then disclosed a turn for humour in the past and he did not know whether this was intended by him as a stupendous joke, but it was stupendous impudence. (Laughter.) What earthly object could the hon. member have for bringing forward the motion at the present time?

To turn you out.

There is not the faintest chance of that. A more ridiculous thing I never heard of. The hon. member, I regret to say, seeing how perfectly hopeless the thing is, under the circumstances, the hon. member has been actuated by a desire for notoriety—(hear hear)—and has chosen another useful opportunity for self-advertisement. (Hear, hear.) Much as one has appreciated certain qualities of the hon. member, I do think he is beginning to show signs of a lack of a sense of proportion. (Laughter and cheers.) He is beginning to suffer from megalomania— in fact, it is difficult to find any situation which will really equal that in which the hon. member and his friends find themselves than the parallel of those celebrated gentlemen who issued that famous national document, beginning “We, the people of England,” but, when the signatures were examined, they were found to be those of three tailors from Tooley-street. We have had a long speech, a resounding voice and we are told about the people of South Africa; but when we ask who they are, they are the hon. members sitting on the cross-benches, numbering only one more than the famous tailors of Tooley-street, only hon. members there are a rather more mixed lot. (Laughter.) I hope the House will not think I am attempting to trifle with it, but I find it difficult and I am expressing the view of the Government to treat the motion seriously. The hon. member has given us the same old song. He has packed his old tunes together in one compendium; we have the well-known old tunes, but this time he has lumped the lot together and the end of them is the demand that we should have a general election. We have never heard of so delightfully naive or ridiculous a proposition. The Government has a substantial majority in this House, the people have sent their representatives to this House, but the Government must, in order to meet the hon. member and his friends, proceed to appeal to the country to see if the hon. member and his friends cannot, by some means or other, reduce that majority. (Laughter.) It is an almost childlike and bland proposition and it has no precedent in the history of any Parliament. The hon. member has given certain reasons, but I find it difficult to treat the proposal seriously and I do not think the hon. member is himself serious. Continuing, Mr. Burton said that the hon. member complained that the Government had not guided the House and had not put through legislation sufficiently fast. If the hon. member and his friends continued in the course they had adopted in the past and took up the time of the House (Ministerial cheers)—by absurd motions of this sort, they could not blame the Government for not getting on more quickly with the work.

He admitted that there was one thing in which they possibly had been remiss, he thought that perhaps they were to blame, in not having carried through legislation in one direction and that was legislation in order to control the extremely long-winded eloquence of hon. members on the cross-benches. (Hear, hear, and A VOICE: “The gag.”) The hon. member had gone through a string of things, but he Mr. Burton) was not going to weary the House with any reply. He had charged the Government with not having produced a Factories Act and not having done what he wanted them to do about imported native labour and they had not had a land tax and they had not proceeded fast enough with land settlement and a variety of other things. Each one of these things had been debated on its merits in that House. He did not know what hon. members in other parts of the House felt about his speech, but it seemed to him that when the whole thing was lumped together the net result was a very lame one. He (Mr. Burton) had nothing new to say (hear, hear) and he was not going to weary the House by saying what he had said over and over again in the past, simply because hon. members over there chose to waste their time by bringing these matters up in what they might call “damnable iteration.” The hon. member had proposed a vote of no confidence in the Government. He had appealed to various sections of the House to support him for one reason or another, He (Mr. Burton) had nothing to do with the attitude of hon. members opposite. If they as a responsible body, a body capable of action in that House, of substantial action, although they were not capable yet of turning the Ministry out of their seats, if they had moved a resolution of this sort it would have been done in earnest and it would have warranted the attention that such a motion coming from an Opposition would have got from those benches. The hon. member had addressed himself to other sections and really it almost seemed as if he were going to try by some means or other to gather up a few oddments in other parts of the House. The hon. member would very soon find out. He would very soon find out whether be was able to place the Government in a minority, because they were going to give him an opportunity that very day. They would proceed with this debate until they came to a conclusion. (Hear, hear.) They were going to remain there, although the matter was very unimportant—(hear, heir) —as coming from the quarter whence it did, but they knew perfectly well what use might be made of these proceedings—(hour, hear)—and they were going to remain there and let the hon. gentleman come to a vote. (Hear, hear.)

Let him say to the hon. member that if he, instead of paltering with the time of the House and trifling with the time of the House, addressed himself to championing in the true way the cause of the people whom he represented, he would be doing them a much greater service. (Ministerial cheers.) In his charges against them he had endeavoured to stir up strife, agitation, distrust, discord amongst the workers of this country, and he (Mr. Burton) said that if the hon. member had gone upon other lines he would have done them much greater service. (Ministerial cheers.) He was happy to say that the hon. member and his friends had so far signally failed so far as the great army of workers in the Government service were concerned. (Hear, hear.) It was a pity that he should adopt the course he had. His policy in regard to white labour in South Africa had a good deal of sympathy. The House was not an unsympathetic House, but when they had got that policy put before them in the method in which the hon. member put it before the House he said that one was not surprised to find how little progress they were making. He had spoken about the traditions of Parliament. He (Mr. Burton) knew of no one who flouted and brought Parliament into contempt as the hon. member and his friends did. It mattered little to them what took place in that house, whether they succeeded or failed in that atmosphere; they had been using and continued to use the walls of this House simply as a sounding-board. He really began to doubt the sincerity of the hon. member. He (Mr. Creswell) had admitted that no alternative Government that could possibly come in would champion his tenets. He had suggested this combination and that. But with whom did he intend to combine? The truth of the matter was that there was no possible Government in this country that would satisfy the demands of the members on the cross-benches, except a Government of the hon. member for Jeppe, from which he hoped this country would long be defended. (Ministerial cheers.) Might he suggest finally to the hon. member something in which he might more usefully try his skill? He had moved a vote of no confidence in the Government. He would advise the hon. member to try a confidence motion in himself. (Laughter.) If he were to test that in this House, a motion of entire confidence in the hon. member, he would very soon find out what the feeling of the House was. He hoped that the House would deal with the hon. member’s motion in the way that it deserved to be dealt with. (Ministerial cheers.)

said he wished to make his position in regard to the motion perfectly clear. His main reason for delaying the House was to draw attention to certain three telegrams he had received. These telegrams told him to vote for the motion. The first telegram was from a certain branch of the South African Party in Bloemfontein district, instructing him to vote for the motion, the telegram saying that “ members of that branch had no confidence in the Government.” The second telegram was from the district executive of the Bloemfontein district, representing seven branches of the South African Party, where fifty members of the South African Party had met. That telegram also told him to vote for the motion owing to their lack of confidence in the Government. The first reason mentioned by the district executive in their wire was the “ petty conciliation policy of the Prime Minister.” Of course that was simply a matter of opinion. The second reason why he should vote for the motion was “the long delay in the introduction of a Native Affairs Bill. ” This was highly unfair, he held. Considering that the present Minister of Native Affairs had only recently taken over that office and had now introduced a Bill which should satisfy every fair-minded person, he held that reason was unfair. The third reason given was that General Botha was supposed to have said that this country should increase its contribution to the British Navy. General Both a had never said that, the hon. member contended and therefore that reason was very trivial. So far as the question was concerned, the speaker said they gave £85,000 per year to the British Fleet and no other motion had been agreed to either by the Government or by the House. All these complaints which they had to listen to, Mr. Steyl proceeded, were the outcome of incitement and agitation based on incorrect information. The hon. member went on to point to what he termed “the unfortunate speech delivered by General Hertzog at Smithfield on the 11th of January,” in which all sorts of complaints had been made. Then, again, there was the manifesto sent out on the 10th of March and further there were all these meetings held in the Transvaal and Free State, the objects of all of which were to put the people against the Government while the members of Parliament were many miles away. The third telegram which he had received was from no one less than General De Wet and in that telegram General De Wet said that as a true friend he advised him to vote for the motion, as otherwise his (Mr. Steyl’s) electors would be against him. The hon. member deprecated an action like that, especially from a man like General De Wet. He was prepared to take any step which he thought might be in the interest of the country but it would be against the people to vote for this motion. If need be he would give up his seat in Parliament and had formerly given up more than that for the sake of the country. He was not going to be frightened at things of that sort. He disapproved of all those meetings in the Transvaal and the Free State, as they could lead to nothing but division and the destruction of the South African people. If General De Wet persisted in this attitude, he feared the day might come when that brave man might wish that he had thrown himself into the ocean with a millstone tied round his neck before having attempted to incite his people. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Steyl) had been prepared to stand by General Hertzog to get him reinstated in the Cabinet, and they had continued their efforts up to the 18th March last and if the hon. member had only continued to follow a moderate course the position today would have been far more satisfactory. But General Hertzog had been led away by the advice of the hon. member for Uitenhage. (Hear, hear.) Why had General Hertzog not proceeded in his original attitude and why had he not tried to show where the Government had forsaken their principles? Woe to their poor language, woe to their poor people, woe to the country, Mr. Steyl proceeded, if they ever became dependent on the hon. member for Uitenhage. They could find ample proof of what the position would be in the speech he had recently delivered at Richmond. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Steyl) had nothing to do with personal quarrels between General Botha and General Hertzog and so long as the Government upheld the principles of the South African Party, so long would be support them. (Hear, hear.) The telegrams which the speaker had received were very insulting. He had been elected as a party man to support the Government. The hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) had made many charges against the Government. It was not so long ago when he (Mr. Steyl) and others had asked General Hertzog, who was then Minister of Justice, “Is there not something wrong here or there? ” and the Minister had always satisfied them. They had asked him, “Do you think that General Botha is the right leader for our people?” and he had replied, “Absolutely; General Botha is the right man in the right place and the right leader.” (Hear, hear.) If General Hertzog had remained in the Cabinet, all these iniquities of which he now complained could apparently have gone on unchecked and none of these wrongs of which he now so bitterly complained would have been put right. Now, however, the hon. member tried to put the people up against the Government. Well he (Mr. Steyl) could not agree with such an attitude and therefore, he would not vote for the motion. After the session he would go to his constituents and if they were then dissatisfied they would be able to punish him in a constitutional manner. He was solemnly convinced that it was not in the interests of the country and the people that the motion should be agreed to. (Hear, hear.)

said he would lay a return before the House which would show that hon. members on the cross benches had lost all sense of proportion. The reason why the Parliamentary machine was clogged was because of hon. members on the cross benches. Looking through the proceedings of the House during January, he found that those hon. members took up a third of the time that month and to the end of February they had taken up one-sixth of the time of the House. By March 20 they had still taken up a sixth part of the time of the House and up to the end of April 22 they had taken up one-seventh of the time of the House. They had called for no less than nineteen divisions. (Labour cries of: “Shame.”) On private members days they had taken up a quarter of the time of the House. He thought that these figures showed that the real reason why they should throw out the Government was because the Prime Minister was too considerate in allowing hon. members on the cross benches to waste the time of the House.

said he thought that the Minister of Railways and Harbours would have placed the position of the Government before the House, but he spoke as though he were being punished, and he dealt with the matter like an attorney who had a bad case. He did not answer one single point raised by the hon. member for Jeppe and hon. members who had spoken on the other side had said that the hon. member for Jeppe had been animated by self-advertisement. The hon. member for Clanwilliam had shown how much time had been taken up by members on the cross benches. But they had not been sent into the House to listen to the Government or the Opposition. If their constituents had been satisfied with the Government or the Opposition they would not have been in that House. That fact proved that they had been sent there to talk even on academic questions. The Minister had said that the hon. member for Jeppe had taken advantage of extraordinary circumstances. That was not to be wondered at and he pointed out that it was only in accordance with modern methods of warfare. His hon. friend was perfectly right if he found the Government in difficulties in attacking the Government on every possible occasion. They could quite understand the indignation of the hon. Minister of Railways, but they paid little attention to it.

They had been accused of all kinds of things, but he believed it was generally conceded that what they said they meant, and that they generally voted according to their opinions and their arguments. When the hon. Minister told them that they would reach a division upon this point that day, that was what they wanted. They wanted to see what the opinion of this House was. He was anxious to see what hon. members upon their left had to say upon the motion. This strong Opposition that had been elected had told the Government that they represented the electors, but they let the little party of five do all the fighting and they (the Opposition) took all the plums. (Laughter and Labour cheers.) Well, they were welcome to them. They took this matter very seriously. They were not satisfied with the way in which business was being conducted in that House. They were not satisfied with the way in which legislation was being conducted. The Prime Minister when he came into office had an opportunity second to none in the history of the world. The ball was at his feet, there was a United South Africa; he had a big majority and behind him was an Opposition that said it would only oppose him if the right hon. gentleman went in the wrong direction. What had the right hon. gentleman done for the interests and benefit of the vast masses of the people of South Africa? He had done nothing. He had just done the least possible amount of good in order to save his face. At the last election, when the right hon. gentleman was addressing the country, great prominence was given to matters affecting the progress of the country. There was not so much heard then about fencing, land banks and irrigation, it was largely workmen’s compensation, the eight hours day, a factory act and miners phthisis. These were matters that they brought before the Government, not only by members of the Government, but also by the Opposition. In regard to this question of miners phthisis, in looking over the files of papers during election time, he came across speeches in which it was stated that this miners phthisis should be brought under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Why, then, did the right hon. gentleman go back upon his words? What was the reason? What was he afraid of? What were the influences brought to bear upon the Prime Minister to make him go back upon his election speeches on miners phthisis? He could only assume that influences were brought to bear by those who were responsible for keeping the expenses of the mines as low as possible. These influences must have emanated from those who, in a great measure, guided the policy of the Opposition Party. Now they found that miners had to pay 2⅟₂ per cent of their wages in order to compensate them for this disease. Not only had the Prime Minister departed from his pledges, but the whole of the Workmen’s Compensation Act needed the consideration of the Government. They heard little about a Consolidating Bill. Was it not necessary that they should have a Consolidating Bill dealing with workmen’s compensation. They had an Act in the Transvaal, there was one in Cape Colony, but that was less satisfactory. But there was no workmen’s compensation at all in the Orange Free State or Natal. They had not heard anything from the members of the Orange Free State or Natal asking that the Workmen’s Compensation Act should be extended to these Provinces.

Immediately on being elected they forgot the people whom they flattered and told they were hard-headed, level-headed working men, led away by agitators. The hon. Minister of Railways and Harbours had said during the afternoon he hoped the men on the railways would long remain in their present satisfying condition. He (Mr. Andrews) hoped they would not. He hoped before long that the hon. Minister would find that those men were not content with the position in which they found themselves at present. There was such a thing as divine discontent and progress had been made in this world as a reason of discontentments. That was a growing feeling which they welcomed amongst the workers of this country and elsewhere, with their lot under present industrial conditions. He would ask the Prime Minister if he would condescend to answer what they were told was a frivolous proposition, if he would tell them why Bills had been brought into the House in considerable numbers affecting the welfare of the mining, commercial and similar interests and very little legislation had ever been attempted for the Opposition could not be blamed altogether—calculated to be of benefit to the vast majority of the people of South Africa. He was not going to make a long speech. (Hear, hear.) An hon. member said hear, hear, but nobody else seemed anxious to speak. (Laughter.)

There was another important matter which the hon. member for Jeppe had touched upon and in connection with that there had been a promise to the workers of this country. That was a Factory Act; but they had not even seen a print of the Bill. The Factory Act should be made very far-reaching in this country, not only with regard to men and women, but also to the children. Many were working long hours for low wages, under conditions which were not calculated to be for their physical or moral welfare, but that did not seem to matter. There was no question of dividends or vested interests. Such things as he had referred to were shelved except by the despised members of the Labour Party and if they drew attention to such things they were wasting the time of the House in talking of the sacrifice of human life which was going on in South Africa in proportion to its population just as much as it went on in the older countries. He attacked the Government because it had neglected the people. It had neglected its opportunities because it had betrayed its trust. The Government had failed under the Prime Minister and he would say unhesitatingly that the people had been betrayed. They had asked for bread and were given a stone. The Prime Minister must have been aware of the conditions which prevailed in the country. Members on the cross-benches were jeered at by the fat, comfortable landowners who sat, or rather did not sit, on the Government benches, they followed more congenial occupations than attempting to legislate. Did not the Prime Minister think there should be such things as factory inspectors to see that employees engaged in such trades as shoe making and tailoring, etc., should not be allowed to work under insanitary conditions. Men and women were herded together in the most awful dens in Cape Town, Johannesburg and almost every town in South Africa. To his mind it was a growing scandal that in this country they should find blacks, whites and coloured people all herded together in these places, working at high pressure for long hours in a foetid atmosphere for miserable pittances. Such things needed the attention of the Government. Professional men and others found it possible, by reason of their superior intelligence and well-being, to combine themselves together, for protection. They formed themselves into associations and got the sanction of the Government to their associations. Even the skilled manual labourers were adopting that policy. They formed Trade Unions and linked up their Trade Unions into federations in order to avoid having to work under bad conditions for low rates of pay; but there were thousands of workers in this country, particularly women and children, who could not do anything of the kind. They were isolated, miserably paid and defectively educated. Often they had not the capacity for education and they were engaged in what was called the sweating trades. Sweating existed in this country to a larger extent than even the Government knew of. Then there was the question of shopmen and shopgirls, who worked long hours and under conditions not conducive to their wellbeing. The Government ought to undertake to abolish the system under which many of those people worked.

So they might go on all the afternoon, detailing points vitally affecting the welfare of the working classes which the Government had neglected to attend to. They did not confine their appeal to the workers who happened to speak the English language. They had seen great distress and possibly greater, among the poorer classes of the community speaking the same language as the Prime Minister—(hear, hear) —owing to the supineness of the Government and its neglect of its duty. Were they to believe that the last words the Government had to say were those of the Minister of Railways? What was the Opposition doing? Was it going to allow the debate to fizzle out? Some of the members of the Opposition represented industrial constituencies. Was the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) not going to speak? Did he not represent a constituency where poverty was rampant and men were dying from miners phthisis? The Prime Minister, on some future occasion, would probably speak about what the Government had done for the miner. But the people had asked for bread and the Government had given them a stone. The Government had been encouraged to do so by what was sometimes called the strong Opposition in that House. He (Mr. Andrews) entirely endorsed every word the hon. member for Jeppe had said. The hon. member’s motive was not to gain self-advertisement or to stand in the limelight of the country. Not at all. His hon. friend and the other hon. members on the cross-benches were in this House for business. (Hear, hear.) They came here not to play at politics but to get something done. They were in deadly earnest over this matter. The Minister of Railways seemed to forget that they did not come here on their own account, but that certain people sent them here. The Minister had also overlooked the fact that at the last general election quite a large number of men, holding identically the same views as the Labour members did, stood as candidates for Parliament and received quite a considerable number of votes. It was only a question of a few months or years when the Labour minority in many constituencies would be turned into a majority. The five representatives of Labour on those benches did not adequately represent the vast amount of feeling which was going in the same direction. If the opinions they held were sufficiently represented their numbers would be three or four times what they were. They were the party of the future and they would not be laughed at when they had the power. It was commonly supposed that wisdom came from the lips of those in power and that the talk of those not in power was but the babbling of fools. That had always been the case.

, rising at 4.47, said: A few weeks ago, when the Budget was under discussion, I took it upon myself to charge my hon. friends who sit opposite with a conspiracy of silence— (hear, hear)—and the House will remember that I was rather severely taken to task, not only by the leader of the Opposition, but by the Prime Minister. The latter on that occasion, in replying to my observations, immediately jumped to the conclusion—a perfectly wrong and unjustifiable conclusion—that I had included him in that conspiracy of silence. From the vehemence of the attack made upon me by the leader of the Opposition, my suspicion that a conspiracy of silence existed on the part of the Opposition was very strongly confirmed.

Hear, hear.

It is quite easy to understand why there is that conspiracy of silence. The whole conduct of the Opposition right through has been one of not embarrassing the Government. They say that they are not able to form a better Government themselves and therefore they are afraid to speak out. But if that is the attitude they are going to adopt, I don’t think the country will ever return them to power. Since an attack was made on me by the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition, because I ventured to suggest that a conspiracy of silence existed, a very significant change has taken place. The newspaper which is commonly reported to be the chief official organ of my friends who sit opposite—

Which newspaper?

The “Capo Times.” Mr. Hull went on to say that the “Cape Times ” was officially acknowledged to be their principal organ. (Laughter.) He was glad to hear this laughter and he wondered how hon. members who sat upstairs would like it. Was this also another repudiation? Was the “Cape Times” to be repudiated now also? It had been most instructive and interesting to see the attitude of this official organ of the Opposition.

Why official?

The conspiracy of silence with which I charged hon. members opposite has been adopted by the official organ of the opposition.

Why official?

Because, surely my hon. friend is not going to repudiate this worthy-newspaper now? It has been notorious that this paper has always been—I won’t say subsidised, but in the employ of the Opposition. (Opposition laughter.) Proceeding, he said that this newspaper, which was now, he saw, being repudiated, had been counselling hon. members opposite what attitude they should take upon this motion, and it argued the case quite openly in its leading articles and said: “Don’t support this, because you will embarrass the Government. Continue in the policy of silence. Don’t say a word about it. You don’t mean anything.” Let him remind the House of something which took place there about a fortnight ago. He wanted to address a few words more especially to the hon. member for Fort Beaufort. A few weeks ago his hon. friend made a very grave attack upon the Government. He said that the Government had completely forfeited the confidence of Parliament and of the country. (Opposition cheers.) That was one charge.

That is a policy of silence!

said that the hon. member for Fort Beaufort said also that the business of Parliament was paralysed, that the Ministry was utterly useless and should be got rid of.

Is this called a policy of silence? (Laughter.)

All these things were said. If these are the opinions of hon. members opposite, then I say they are either humbugs or other things.

A policy of silence.

proceeding, said it would be very interesting to watch the divisions on this occasion—(Opposition laughter)—and they would see then whether the recorded opinion of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort was really his honest view, or whether it was all humbug and make-believe. (Hear, hear.) In spite of the description which had been bestowed upon this motion by the Minister of Railways and Harbours, viz., that it was a ridiculous motion, he intended on his part to support and vote for it. (Labour cheers.) He did not intend to refer to the criticism directed by the Minister of Railways and Harbours to the hon. member who had moved the resolution. The Minister thought that the motion was not only ridiculous, but it was entirely academic, that the object of the motion was to stir up mud, that the hon. member was actuated by a desire to obtain notoriety, that there was a complete lack of sense of proportion on the part of the hon. member who moved it and that he was suffering from megalomania. He (Mr. Hull) could not help being struck by the attitude of the Minister of Railways and Harbours at the time when he described the hon. member for Jeppe as a man who was suffering from megalomania. The Minister’s attitude indicated that the term “megalomania ” was equally applicable to himself. (Hear, hear.) He intended to support this motion on two simple grounds. He might say at once that he did not for one moment subscribe to all the charges made by the hon. member for Jeppe. He had no doubt, although the Government regarded the motion as ridiculous, they would be able to controvert some of the charges made against them. He intended to tell the House the grounds upon which he intended to support this motion. First of all, he said that the House as at present constituted did not truly reflect the opinion of the country and did not represent the political views of all sections of the electorate. The second ground upon which he intended to support the motion was that the Government had shown by its recent conduct and actions in the management of the public affairs of this country that it was no longer competent to carry on the business of Parliament and of the country. (Labour cheers.) In regard to the first point, he thought that anybody would admit that a properly constituted House, a truly constituted House, should be a reflection of the political views and political opinions of the country. Could anybody say that the House as at present constituted was a reflection in miniature of the political wishes and the political views of all sections of the country? He did not think in discussing this question they need get excited. Let them examine what the position of hon. members in that House was and the position of Parliament.

Hon. members would remember that when the general election took place some few years ago there had been three or rather he should say four, political parties, seeking the votes of the electors of the Union of South Africa. The three or four, political parties were styled respectively: Unionists, who were represented by hon. friends sitting opposite; South African Nationalists, who were represented by hon. members sitting on his side of the House; by the Labour people, who were represented on the cross benches; and then there was a fourth lot—the Independents. He could dispose of the Independents at once, because they had been re-labelled since they had come into the House. Some had found refuge and comfort on the Government benches and those who had not had found refuge and comfort on the benches opposite. (Laughter and an HON. MEMBER: No.) The position of political parties that day was that that House had represented in it three political parties— the Unionists, the Nationalists and the Labour men—but they had seen during the recess and since the previous year, that a very striking alteration had taken place, not only in the party opposite, but also in the party on his side of the House. They had seen, since the House rose last year, that the political parties labelled Unionists no longer went under that label, but it had been somewhat altered during the recess and that party opposite now consisted of two main divisions; one division being the “Young” Unionists and the other—well, he supposed he ought to call it the “ Stale ” Unionists, if he might say so without offence. (Laughter.) And might he say that that House was not representative of their own political sections. Were the “Young” Unionists properly represented on the other side of the House? Were the “Stale” Unionists properly represented?

We have received no telegrams. (Laughter.)

I have no telegrams. Continuing, he said: But that was not all. They had seen that, since that motion had been tabled, the “Young” Unionists had been most active and had, as he (Mr. Hull) did, objected to the “conspiracy of silence.” They did not want to take the lead given by the “Cape Times,” the official organ, or the late official organ or the recently deposed organ, of the party opposite. And the “Young” Unionists of Johannesburg had indicated quite clearly to the “Stale” Unionists what their attitude was, and had sent a telegram too. (Unionist cries of “No!”) He (Mr. Hull) refer red to that merely for the purpose of emphasing his point, that hon. members opposite today were not truly representative of their own political following. (Cries of “Question.”) Apparently, the “Young Turks,” if they were not very strong, were very loud and had made their voices heard to some effect. (A laugh.)

What was the position of the parties on these Ministerial benches? Since the recess also, that party had split into two factions. Since the recess a serious difference of opinion had apparently occurred—he regretted it very much—in the party which sat on these benches and he did not think that his hon. friends opposite could deny that there was a serious difference of opinion. (A cry of “Why?”) Hon. members opposite took a special delight in their organs; not in the organ now deposed, but in the organs at Johannesburg, in ridiculing the Government being a happy family party. They had suspected or knew, that a split was imminent in the Government party, but be that as it might, there was no question that the party on his side of the House—the rank and file—were hopelessly divided. All that had taken place since the general election. As to the split in the Government party, it was not confined to the rank and file only, but it had unfortunately extended to members of the Cabinet. (Hear, hear.) Surely, when such a state of affairs existed he put it to hon. members on both sides of the House that it was the duty of the Prime Minister to dissolve the House and go to the country. (Mr. MADELEY: Hear, hear.) If the House was no longer truly representative of all political sections in South Africa and moreover a great split existed in the party on his side of the House and in view of the strong differences of opinion which existed among Ministers themselves, he said it was the duty of the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament as soon as possible, and give the people of the country an opportunity of choosing their representatives, by means of a general election. His right hon. friend the Prime Minister might deny that there was a want of harmony, but on a previous occasion he (Mr. Hull) had challenged him on the same matter and not a single Minister had replied, although he had given them an opportunity of doing so.

He only had to remind the House of what took place on the discussion of the Naval Contribution. One day the Prime Minister made a statement, a deliberate and considered statement, indicating what was his policy and the policy of the Government on that question. Immediately after the Prime Minister made that statement, the leader of the Opposition, on behalf of himself and his supporters, expressed himself as satisfied with that statement. What happened the very next day? The very next day one of the Prime Minister’s colleagues came into the House and utterly and entirely repudiated, in the presence of the Prime Minister, what the Prime Minister had said the previous day. (Hear, hear.) Was that unanimity of policy? He knew at times the Government had been jeered at for speaking with two voices. Was that not a just charge to make in regard to those matters? Then take the question of the Native policy. He wondered how many members of the Cabinet were agreed upon that policy. Take again, the case of the declaration of policy that was made in this House with regard to the recruiting of natives in Mozambique territory. Could a more explicit statement have been made than that made by the responsible Minister? He was the responsible Minister charged with the duty of seeing to the natives and he came into the House and made a most clear and most discreet declaration of policy regarding this question. What happened? A few days afterwards the Prime Minister, in order to get even with the repudiation which had taken place a day or two before, repudiated that policy of his colleague.

That is nonsense.

He says that is nonsense. Well, it is very easy for my right hon. friend to say that is nonsense and obtain a certain amount of cheap applause from the back; but my right hon. friend must only refer to his own speech and the speech of his colleague and he will see exactly what is recorded. Continuing, he said, for the purposes of his argument, that the House no longer contained a true reflection of the political views of the country, that was substantiated by those points to which he had referred. He wanted to refer to another point which made his argument all the more strong. All those differences of opinion; all those political developments in the Opposition and the Government parties had taken place since the last general election. They could not get away from the fact that there were these political developments. They had politicians who belonged to the party sitting opposite who were in advance of the older politicians on that side and they had wings on the Government side who were sometimes described as reactionaries and sometimes as something else. But it showed they had political divisions on both sides and those divisions had occurred since the last general election.

Well, if they desired to see this House a truly representative House, representing the young Unionists and the old Unionists and all the other sections of the community, then surely it was the duty of this House to tell the Government so and to insist that the Government shall dissolve Parliament and go to the country. (Hear, hear.) Then he had referred in support of his proposition, that the House was not truly representative, to matters that must be acknowledged as facts. It was a fact that hon. members opposite were divided into, he would not say factions in the disagreeable sense, but they had two divisions in their party and the fact remained that on the Government side also they had two divisions, or probably more than two. He wanted to refer to some other arguments in support of his point. He admitted that these further arguments he intended to use were open to debate, in so far that they were not matters which rested so entirely on facts as the others. First of all there was the constitutional question: whether in view of the fact that, technically, a new Government had come into office, constitutionally it was not the duty of the Prime Minister to go to the country. The matter had been argued before in this House, but many hon. members and many of the people outside the House thought there was a strong point in the constitutional point and that was why he referred to it as another reason why this House should be dissolved and the Prime Minister should go to the country.

There was another strong point. It was this: He did not think that the political parties as they were constituted at present were natural parties. (Hear, hear.) He thought their political parties were based entirely upon wrong lines. He thought their party divisions were not based upon reason; they were not based upon sound sense and they certainly were not based upon fiscal questions. Take the fiscal question, for instance. He wondered how many hon. members sitting on the Government side of the House were in complete disagreement upon the vital fiscal questions. He wondered how far the Minister of Education and the Minister of Justice saw eye to eye upon the important question of Protection. He wondered how far those two Ministers, both of whom occupied important positions in the councils of the party, saw eye to eye upon one of the most important and vital questions that would have to come up for solution before long in this country. The hon. member for Pretoria, North, had been chaffed because he had the ear of the Government. He wondered how far he would be able to carry either the Minister of Railways and Harbours or the Minister of Justice in regard to his proposals. He referred to these things in order to show that in his opinion the parties as at present constituted were on entirely false lines. What he had said about hon. members On the Government side applied equally strongly—perhaps more strongly— to some hon. members opposite. He knew the leader of the Opposition held very decided views on the question of Protection and he knew that the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, held precisely opposite views. Hon. members on that side who came from the North, and who represented the mining industry, he thought, held very strong views upon the question of Free Trade and Protection. He wondered how far they were going to be able to enforce their views upon the leader and upon the hon. member who was going to be their Treasurer when the Unionist Party took office.

He referred to these matters to show that the parties in South Africa were wrongly arranged. There was the further question of land taxation, but he would merely mention it and not go into details. Upon financial and fiscal questions there were divisions in both parties in the House. The sooner the Government made up its mind in view of the changed conditions of politics, to dissolve the House and go to the country, the better it would be for the country. What had been the result of all this political development? The result had been that the Prime Minister and the members of the Government had not been able to proceed with any legislation of any importance. The hon. member who sat behind him told the House the other day that the House had done more work this session than it did last session and he noted that the Prime Minister and the Minister without Portfolio applauded his sentiments to the echo. That was a ridiculous state of affairs. To pretend that the work of this session could be compared to the work of last session was simply preposterous nonsense. One of the Bills passed last session—the Irrigation Bill-—was worth all the legislation this year.

What about the Financial Relations Bill?

said that the Financial Relations Bill was on the stocks last year and only the finishing touches were put to it this session. Ministers cheered the Chief Whip to the echo the other night when he included the Natal Poll Tax Bill as part of the work done. It was only a matter of a few clauses. The Minister introduced the Bill without a speech and not another hon. member opened his mouth. Yet the Prime Minister and the Minister without Portfolio cheered to the echo this wonderful piece of legislation! Then let them go to the Other House and inspect its records. The Senate had not done one hour’s work. That was no fault of the Senate, but that was certainly a test of the value of the work that had been done by the House this session. Did hon. members on the Government benches think they were doing their party any good by continuing to carry on business in this way? If they came back the next session and carried on business in the same way and have another session like the present, he would entirely agree with the hon. member for Smith-field that they would be killing the South African Party in South Africa. Unless they could show a better record of work than they had done the people of South Africa would be justified in refusing to return the majority of them in the Parliament again. He thought that the Prime Minister would be well justified in his own and the interests of the party if he took into consideration the circumstances and dissolved Parliament at the earliest possible moment. (Hear, hear.)

said it appeared to him that hon. members were afraid to speak. He would have liked to wait a little before he had deal with the remarks of the hon. member for Bloemfontein District (Mr. Steyl), because it would have been far easier for him to have deal with a number of speeches of this kind at the same time. He would not deal with the hon. member very long, however, because there were more serious matters which he had to discuss. It was necessary, however, to make a correction. He only wished to say this, that he had always sympathised with the hon. member because he was anxious to save a weak man and there was nothing more painful for such a man than to have to come to a decision in a matter of importance. The speaker could well understand how painful it must have been to the hon. member to come to a decision. The hon. member for a long time had been unable to decide how he should act on this matter and on the 18th of March, he (General Hertzog) had helped him to decide. He denied that the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) had anything to do with the decision come to on that day. In trying to help the hon. member the speaker had told him: “ If you can go with me, then you can remain with me, for I wish to have men who will act and not confine themselves to words.” He regretted that the hon. member had acted as he had. The hon. member had very much reminded him of a monkey. His constituents had trodden on his tail and now he turned round to bite him (General Hertzog). (Laughter.) He did not want to contradict the hon. member as to what he was alleged to have said in regard to the Prime Minister. He wished to help the hon. member and not to contradict him. He would only tell him that he was always quite prepared to take full responsibility for anything he had said or done, and there was no necessity for him to try and throw the responsibility on the hon. member for Uitenhage—that attack was unfair and undeserved. But the hon. member for Bloemfontein District had always followed the speaker from the very beginning of the session. He did so no longer and in order to justify himself to his constituents he was angry with the speaker. Still, he forgave him and would not trouble about his remarks.

Now he came to the motion before the House. He did not care what were the reasons which prompted the hon. members on the cross benches to introduce this motion. He had no common cause with them, except in so far that in anything which they chose to achieve from time to time everyone who was not blind must admit that there was much truth in what they said and that a man with intelligence must endorse a good deal of what they were trying to achieve.

gave an ironical “Hear, hear.”

The place of the hon. member for Vrededorp was not in this House. (An hon. member: “That is not for you to judge.”) They were not here in this House only to look after the interests of those who could help themselves. They had a greater duty to perform, to look after those people who could not help themselves, the poor people. (Hear, hear.) As regarded hon. members on the cross benches, they would always have his sympathy when they tried to improve the lot and the life of the poor man in South Africa. Whatever might be the reasons which induced the Labour Party to bring forward the motion, they left the speaker indifferent; but with many of the reasons for bringing this motion given by the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) he quite agreed, because they were good, sound reasons. In the present case the reasons did not matter.

This was a matter where it made no difference whether he threw in his lot with hon. members on the cross-benches or with hon. members opposite or with anyone, so long as he achieved the object to show the House, the people and the country, that the Government no longer had confidence of the country. The Government, at any rate, should not have the confidence of the house and certainly had not got the confidence of the people. He regretted the necessity that he should have again been called upon to make an attack upon the Government, but the fault lay with the Prime Minister. He was not going back to matters which occurred before the session, but he wished to point out that at the end of January he had personally said to the Prime Minister that if he wanted to have peace in South Africa, if he wanted to have satisfaction in his party, there was only one way, so far as the speaker could see in which he could achieve that and that one way was by letting somebody else take his (General Botha’s) place as Prime Minister. He (General Hertzog) would have been prepared to stand down as well, and had said so. What he wanted to see was peace in the country and a proper Government. But the Prime Minister had not seen his way to do as he was asked, and perhaps he had even laughed at that suggestion. Since then the Prime Minister had found out that there were a good many others who held the same opinion. However that might be, the Prime Minister had refused to accept the proposal and so there remained no alternative—the speaker had already referred to it—but to dissolve Parliament. Recently he (General Hertzog) had urged that there should be a dissolution of Parliament. He had pointed out to the Prime Minister that it was his duty to dissolve Parliament because there was division and dis cord in the country and the people should be allowed to decide it. The Prime Minister had not done so, and on that occasion the Prime Minister had acted in a manner which was unworthy of him. He (the Prime Minister) at once started to banish General Hertzog and other people who agreed with him. He would see that the discipline of the party was maintained. He said that unless they blindly followed him they were to take their place opposite. Really, the Prime Minister should sit opposite after all he had said and done. The Prime Minister had upbraided people who sat in this House and he had called some people Mbongo, and he did not know what else. Well, if the Prime Minister wanted to look for Mbongos, he need only look around him. He should not go and upbraid people who differed from him on a difficulty which had been created by himself. That was criminal conduct for which he would one day have to pay the penalty. Finally, the Prime Minister had attributed motives to certain people simply because they disagreed with him. If the Prime Minister wanted to attribute motives he should again look round him and he should ask himself why so many of these Mbongos were so faithful to him. The speaker would confine himself to drawing attention to the unworthy attitude which the Prime Minister had adopted towards the speaker and towards other people who differed from the Minister in the wisdom of a procedure which he could not justify to the public, except when he had permission to pervert the facts or utter untruths. In that case he would perhaps succeed. The speaker would not say that had been done. Perhaps he might say it later. If the Prime Minister came out with the truth, then the public would certainly disapprove of his conduct. That was why the speaker regretted the necessity of speaking again. General Hertzog went on to refer to a number of rumours which had been spread throughout the country. The Prime Minister had continually refused to follow the way shown by him and by a number of other hon. members. Instead of that he said: “ I am in my nest and there I shall stop.” That nest hung on the party tree. The poor tree was at present bled to death by the Prime Minister. The poor farmer was led to this by the Prime Minister himself and if anyone happened to pass underneath that tree and happened to shake it a bit, he was at once bitten in his leg by those who had taken shelter under the branches of that tree. Well, he was going to vote for the motion. The reasons why he was going to vote for that motion were many. The first reason was that the policy adopted by the Prime Minister was calculated to lead to deception and fraud. The second reason was that the Prime Minister had become unfaithful to the principles of his party.

’ asked why.

The hon. member asked why. He hoped that hon. member was really anxious to know the reason, because so far he had always found that members were not anxious to know it and in fact, members always closed their eyes, but he could assure them that the time would come when they would have to open their eyes.

The Prime Minister, he said, had broken faith with the South African Party, but furthermore he was responsible for all the divisions and the trouble which at present were noticeable in the country, yet he was not prepared to make amends, though the duty rested on his shoulders to do so. Well, he would not do so voluntarily he must be compelled to do it, and he hoped this House would see to it. However, he had not much belief in the attitude which the House was going to take up, because he felt that the attitude taken up by the hon. member for Bloemfontein district was one which was going to be taken up by a number of other members. The speaker sympathised deeply with them. Unfortunately, there were so many members who were continually hesitating and never able to decide. They were in a never-ending state of doubt and would not make up their minds because it was too painful. How, under these circumstances, could they expect the party to flourish? Well, he had said that his first reason for having no confidence in the Government was that the policy of the Prime Minister was calculated to lead to deception and fraud and this he was going to prove. The Prime Minister must naturally stand for the principle of the South African Party, but the attitude taken up by him was that none of those principles must be expressed. Nobody must speak about those principles, not even when they ought all to be in agreement about them. The man who spoke about them was removed from the Cabinet and if possible expelled from the party. Could anything more misleading be thought of? But when it concerned one of the cherished principles of the Prime Minister, then it could be disavowed, provided they agreed with it. The leader of a party who spoke in that way about principles could have no other object than to mislead. He (General Hertzog) held that a party should openly come out with its principles and should not try to hide them and the Prime Minister also should openly follow them. What was the result of trying to cover up and hide these principles? Where the matter concerned the Imperial Government there must be naturally lack of confidence on their part towards the British Government. That could not fail to be the result. Where it concerned the Opposition there must again be lack of confidence on their part if the Government tried to hide their principles and again how could the party itself have confidence if their principles were not allowed to be dealt with. He did not say that the Prime Minister should announce all his actions to the whole world. There were matters which prudence required to be kept confidential. In war there were methods for deceiving their opponents. But when it concerned great principles which they were forbidden to discuss, then he asked how the Prime Minister could expect him and others to believe him. With what right could he demand that the people would believe in him when he broke from the principles of the people?

The Prime Minister went further and said that if a member spoke about principles it was his right to remove such member from the Cabinet. Therefore he held that the whole policy followed by the Prime Minister aimed at misleading the country people. How could he expect anybody to believe in his honesty if he followed a policy like that? He held that this policy of deception and fraud must have a most detrimental effect on the character of the people and especially on the character of what they called young South Africa. He would give a few examples of what he meant.

There was the question of immigration in the first place. In a recent debate the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Neser) had attacked him, because he (General Hertzog), in regard to immigration, had differed from the Prime Minister. There were many members of the Opposition—the hon. member for Pretoria, East (Sir Percy Fitzpatrick), for instance—who hoped it was so. Well, he wished to say something here on this matter. The Prime Minister himself had said to him (General Hertzog) that he quite agreed with him in regard to the immigration question. The Premier’s constituents at Losberg had been rather troubled about the matter and had asked the Prime Minister what his views were on the matter and had asked him whether he agreed with the views expressed by him (General Hertzog), whose views they themselves shared. General Botha himself had told him that he had taken the two speeches on the subject and had compared them with each other and that who had said that there was no difference in the views expressed. The Minister said that the Losberg people had been quite satisfied with that. Exactly as the speaker had stated it there, had it been stated to him by the Minister. He would not have repeated it but for the fact that at a secret meeting the Minister had made a grievance of it as against the speaker. The speaker had there upon replied exactly as he had just done. Now the hon. member for Klerksdorp came here and told the House that he (General Hertzog) differed from General Botha. How long was this policy of saying the one thing to one man and another to someone else going to be kept up? Its effect was to mislead the entire population. Did the Prime Minister by that attitude not try to mislead the people? If the Prime Minister doubted what he said he would ask the Minister: Do you agree with me on the subject of immigration-yes or no? Since his return from England the Prime Minister had never dared to declare that he differed in opinion from the speaker. At Losberg the Prime Minister had made a speech which was exactly in accord with what had been said by him (General Hertzog). He would appeal to the hon. member for Pretoria, East, to say whether that was not so. The hon. member knew how the Prime Minister had been attacked by the hon. member and others day after day in the newspapers in regard to that question. There had been complaints about the Prime Minister “speaking with two mouths,” so much so, in fact, that the Minister had taken over the expression and applied it to the speaker on the one side and to himself on the other.

Recently another big matter had been brought forward and the speaker did not doubt that the Minister would act in that as he had acted with the other. He would surely get alarmed again, if only they shrieked out sufficiently. He referred to the question of the two streams. No doubt the Prime Minister would deal with this question in the same way as he had dealt with others—he would get scared of it and regard it as an awful “gogga.” (Laughter.) In his manifesto the Prime Minister had referred to his (General Hertzog’s) Pretoria speech in which he had referred to two streams and in his remarks the Prime Minister had expressed his astonishment at the attitude which he (General Hertzog had taken up at De Wildt. In that speech he (General Hertzog) had remarked that he had been accused of taking up a policy of opposing the conciliation of the two races. He had challenged anyone to point out anyone else who had tried more than he to bring about true reconciliation. He had been blamed because he had referred to the two streams of their nationality— the Dutch and the English speaking. These two streams, he had said, must come together in a spirit of true Afrikanderdom. Well, in his manifesto, the Prime Minister had expressed his surprise at the totally different attitude which the speaker was alleged to have taken up at Smithfield. The hon. member went on to refer to a speech made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Sauer) at the Mount Nelson Hotel on the 18th January, in which he had dealt with his (General Hertzog’s) expulsion from the Cabinet. The Minister had sent the speaker a copy of the “ South African News ” as evidence that the report of the speech was correct. The Minister had asked himself what was the reason for the removal of General Hertzog? Imperialism? Oh, no. In regard to Imperialism, the Minister had said that General Hertzog had said nothing more than any good Australian or Canadian would have said. Conciliation? No, the Minister had said, “Words, idle words.” The Minister went on: “Why did General Hertzog go? Why did his colleagues let him go? He meant that General Hertzog spoke and it was to him a great sorrow, of the two white races flowing in two streams. If that was going to be the future, the country was going to be damned.”

Did the Minister still say that? Yes, he said it still. Now he wanted to know what the Prime Minister said about that. This was a great question. He (General Hertzog) was being attacked from all sides, but what was the Prime Minister’s view? Now, he (the speaker) was entitled to ask whether the Prime Minister, who had referred with approval to this, agreed with him. Why should these great principles of party not be referred to. To keep them covered up could only mislead the people. He left it to the Prime Minister to say where he stood with regard to the great principle of the two streams. He (General Hertzog) wished to say that afternoon that never had he said anything in regard to the two streams as they must be in the future. He had only dealt with facts as they were today. If his similes were bad—well, they were bad; he had simply referred to facts. He desired to say that he did not wish to attribute any wrong motives to the Minister of Justice which that Minister had not had. Apparently, however, the Minister of Justice was under the impression that he, the speaker, thought the Dutch and English people of South Africa could socially or politically be kept apart. He must say he never had any such intention in his mind.

It would have been absurd on his part to say that they must strive to be kept apart throughout South Africa. He had acknowledged that there were Dutch-speaking and English-speaking people each of whom had their opinions or customs and their usages, and none of them had a right to do anything by which either section should be placed in such a position that they could not speak their language or could not freely make use of their customs. The Prime Minister should not allow continual attacks to be made in the newspapers on him (General Hertzog) or on other members of his party, but should say either that he agreed with him (the speaker) or with the Minister of Justice and he should not sit still and be silent; that was cowardly. He now came to another point. There was the conciliation question. The Prime Minister regarded that question as his special territory and considered that rocking-horse should belong to him and to nobody else. He knew that was not right. What he wanted was this, he now had chosen that rocking-horse and now he wanted all of thorn to come and sit behind him on his saddle. Now, he (General Hertzog) knew of somebody who had fallen off, but he (the speaker) had been thrown off. The Minister of Justice had fallen off and he had given a good kick to that rocking-horse. That was on the same occasion, he thought, which was referred to. To him (General Hertzog) the Prime Minister said: “ This was one of the reasons why I had to get rid of you.” That was conciliation and he (the speaker) must say that it had rather astonished him that the Prime Minister had not done the same to the Minister of Justice, because the Minister of Justice at a much more critical time, when everything was in a tangle and the whole country was like a lot of bees round the head of the Prime Minister, said: “ Conciliation-words, idle words.” (Labour cheers.) And the Prime Minister sat with his arm round his neck and kept him in the Ministry. When he acted like this towards one and like that towards another, the Prime Minister could not possibly have any self-respect. Conciliation was so sacred to him that he ought to take up a manly attitude and say that anyone going against conciliation would be put out of the Cabinet. Apparently only the great kings were kept in the holy territory of the Prime Minister as regarded conciliation. “ I am kicked out because King Sauer is kept in, because the Prime Minister is afraid to kick him out,” added General Hertzog. These things did make him say lots of things in regard to their policy.

He wanted to know from the Prime Minister whether there was a real difference of opinion between them as to principle. The Prime Minister had urged him that they (General Botha and himself) should together issue a manifesto and say that they were in agreement. It was quite clear to him that they were not in agreement. That had been shown clearly on 11th December. But it was also quite clear to him that the Prime Minister was still engaged in throwing dust in the eyes of his supporters and that he was still trying to make the people believe that this was a personal matter. It was not a personal matter. From the very beginning he had told the Minister he did not wish it to be treated in that light and had never regarded it in that light. Now he asked: Was there a difference in principle? What was the result of this policy of hiding principles and of being silent on principles? The “Argus” for today said “Yes,” but the “ Cape Times ” took up an extremely moderate attitude, an attitude which must have astounded members of the Opposition as much as it astounded him. As a matter of fact, the paper said “ Tusschen die bast en die boom ” (between the tree and the bark of the tree). The speaker did not know whether there were any more titles to be given away or what was going on. If they did not find out today they would perhaps learn tomorrow. The paper would not say that there was a difference in principle, but merely wrung its hands. Then there was “Ons Land,” the paper of the Ministry—(laughter)—because the papers not belonging to the Opposition belonged to Ministers, with the exception of a few small ones—or rather they belonged to Ministers, not to the Ministers. Well, the one paper said there was a difference of principle and the other said there was not. Why was that? That was simply the result of the attitude of the Prime Minister, who had not the manliness to come forward with his opinion, as behoved the leader of the party. He would neither state what a principle meant, nor allow others who were quite as good as himself to discuss questions of great importance. No, that must not be. The result was that they got conciliation a Prime Minister and that was where the policy of deception and fraud started. There had been clever men who had been able to keep up a policy of deception on one or two subjects, but they could never succeed in keeping up a general policy of deception and fraud, and the Prime Minister certainly was not able to do it—not even if he adopted a practice of misleading in order to cover a policy of misleading. And what had been the result? He now came to the question of Imperialism, on account of which he had been expelled from the Cabinet. That was a matter of the greatest importance.

The Prime Minister in his open letter had said that the reason why he had been expelled from the Cabinet was because he had said that Imperialism was only good for him so far as it is good for South Africa. The Prime Minister had embraced Imperialism with both arms, and was pressing it to his bosom, and nobody was allowed to touch it. But what did this mean to South Africa? If there was one question for which statesmen in South Africa and not only in South Africa but also in Canada and Australia, had struggled for years and years, it was this question of Imperialism. That meant to say, Imperialism as from time to time pronounced from Downing-street. The present Minister of Railways, the present Minister of Justice, the right hon. the member for Victoria West and many others, had for years fought on this subject and had said that Downing-street should be kept out of South Africa. There were hon. members on the Opposition side of the House who had said the same. They had said: “ Our self-government should rest with us. Downing-street must remain on the other side.” One of the great results which had been achieved shortly after the war was that Canada and Australia had been granted a degree of self-government such as they had never possessed before or better, he should say, that within the last twelve or thirteen years the degree of self-government which had been granted the Dominions of England had been so large as had been unheard of before. Canada and Australia had appreciated it. The people in the Cape had fought for it to keep Downing-street outside and now the Prime Minister must be the first man in South Africa to say: “ Imperialism, good or bad, is the policy for South Africa.” That was what the Prime Minister had said.

interposing: That is absolutely untrue.

continuing, said he was glad to hear it. But he would refer the Prime Minister to what he had said in the manifesto. In that document General Botha had said that at De Wild the (Gen. Hertzog) had said he did not know what conciliation meant. He did not know what loyalty meant. The people who spoke so much about loyalty knew the least about it. Well, the Minister of Justice had said exactly the same in January at the dinner in the Mount Nelson Hotel. There the Minister of Justice said that conciliation and loyalty were vain words. They would see therefore that the Minister of Justice and himself were in agreement on that point. But this the Prime Minister said in view of what had gone before had made it impossible to retain him in the Cabinet. Why had not the Prime Minister had the courage to expel Mr. Sauer? Was the reference to Imperialism the real reason of the speaker’s expulsion from the Cabinet? It was the only reason remaining to explain the causes of the crisis. But he would produce further evidence from the Prime Minister’s own words, showing that the Minister himself had given it as the reason for the speaker’s removal. What did the Prime Minister say just before? He said that Minister Leuchars had come to him saying that unless the speaker put his declaration in another form, Leuchars would not remain in the Cabinet.

said the reference should be to the “hon. member for Umvoti.”

continued that the hon. member for Umvoti went to the Prime Minister and said that unless the speaker put his statement in another form he could no longer remain in the Cabinet. The Prime Minister admitted that on the occasion when the speech was delivered which caused the hon. member for Umvoti to complain, there were only two other principles laid down by the speaker. The first was that the interests of South Africa came before those of the Empire. The Prime Minister could not remove the speaker from the Cabinet on that ground, as on that ground they ought all to be in agreement. How, then, could the speaker put in another light a point on which they ought all to be in agreement?

The second proposition was that Imperialism was good for the speaker only so far as it was good for South Africa. That was the proposition, and no other, which the Prime Minister required the speaker to put in another aspect. Well, if the speaker had been removed from the Cabinet for saying that Imperialism was only good so far as it was good for South Africa, then he could come to no other conclusion than that the Prime Minister accepted Imperialism, whether good or bad, and under all circumstances.

Did the Prime Minister want to say that Imperialism, whether good or bad, must be accepted for South Africa? One of the fundamental principles on which their party was based was that it should work to promote the national interests of South Africa. Was the Prime Minister going to promote those interests by accepting Imperialism when it was fatal for South Africa? The Prime Minister must either admit that he was now going back on his position or that he stood by it. He would advise the Prime Minister to adhere to his former attitude. In this whole matter there had been quite enough lack of courage and manliness on the part of the Prime Minister. He (General Hertzog) intended to go all over South Africa and to ask whether the Prime Minister was going to stand by his original attitude, or whether he was going to shuffle again. As showing the evil effects to which conciliation had led, he would refer to the speech of Colonel Leuchars, who had said he (General Hertzog) was not sufficiently conciliatory. Colonel Leuchars had only blamed him originally in regard to the interests of South Africa and Imperialism. In that respect Colonel Leuchars said General Botha had conciliated him, and he supported him on that subject. The acceptance of Imperialism, good or bad, was the price paid by the Prime Minister to keep in with the member for Umvoti and the Natal members. He (Gen. Hertzog) said that the policy of the Prime Minister consisted in securing the favours of the Opposition and his other friends by placing the interests and the children of South Africa on the altar of Moloch. The Prime Minister had to pay for that by accepting Imperialism and by divisions and splits and schisms in the ranks of his own party, and he was going to suffer even more. General Botha had forsaken one of the greatest principles of the party in accepting Jingoism for the party, and if there was no other reason that was a sufficient one for his ceasing to occupy the bench on which he was now sitting.

Following such a policy must eventually lead to unpleasant things. It was clear to anyone who knew what was happening outside that it was essential for the Government to go to the country and prevent further lies and perverted truths from being published in and outside the House. He did not wish to attribute these untruths to anybody, but they were being uttered all over the country. That brought him to the speech of the member for Colesberg (Mr. Louw) at Richmond, in which he had told an untruth. He said that a Minister had been approached by Mr. Tatham, who had offered him the Premiership, provided Mr. Tatham, Mr. Fremantle, and himself were given seats in the Cabinet. Mr. Louw and himself were good friends, but why did not that member think it his duty to come to him (General Hertzog) and tell him that these rumours were going about, and ask him whether he denied them? But, instead of that, Mr. Louw had accepted these lies, and proceeded to spread them. These were, to a large extent, the practices which were being indulged in to make good the cause of the Prime Minister. It looked as if political agents were appointed to make good the cause. He wished to submit to the House a telegram which he sent to Mr. Tatham. He was glad that the Minister without Portfolio was in his place, because he was the Minister who was alleged to have made the statement quoted by Mr. Louw. The telegram read as follows: “Graaff alleged to say you approached him, offering him Premiership if you, I and Fremantle included in Cabinet. Did you make such or similar proposal? If so, on what authority? Please reply.” He would next read Mr. Tatham’s reply, viz.: “I have offered no one the Premiership (Laughter.) Sir David approached me three times on January 26. He urged me to persuade you not to press for re-entry into Cabinet, and offered me Cabinetry. (Loud laughter.) I refused without you. (Renewed laughter.) He said Botha would go to his farm, if he advised Botha to do so. Five names for Premiership were discussed, including your name and his (Sir David Graaff’s). Fremantle’s name as Cabinet Minister was not discussed.” (Repeated laughter.) He (General Hertzog) had telegraphed to Mr. Tatham, asking him if he might use that gentleman’s telegram, and he had replied: “Certainly Use my telegram freely.”

Did they see what was going on? A Minister of the party had not even the decency to say to him: “Have you ever said that?” No, he went to a member like Mr. Louw, and told him, in order that he might say the same thing in the Karoo. Was that a position which could be tolerated? Could they reconcile such an action with the baronetcy held by the Minister? It seemed that members who called themselves friends took every opportunity to spread these false rumours. It was said that he and his friends had incited people. He challenged anyone to show him that any single person acting with him had done so anywhere in the country. General De Wet and himself had never been in communication except that three weeks ago he (the speaker) wrote to General De Wet a few lines in which he said he only desired to point out that he had never written to him, because he did not wish it to be said that he asked General De Wet to act on his behalf. In that letter he had congratulated General De Wet on his disinterested and spontaneous action without the intervention of the speaker or anybody else, which had been taken solely in the interest of the public. The General had acted entirely on his own responsibility. There was a spontaneous feeling among the people that there was something radically wrong, that injustice would not be tolerated, and out of that feeling had been born what was happening outside and the protests of the people. He wished to say to the Prime Minister that he might talk of keeping the party together as much as he liked, but he would not be able to avoid a split by continuing his present tactics. If the Prime Minister wished to avoid a further split there was only one way for him to do so, and that was to dissolve the Parliament this year. If that were done, there would still be a chance of preventing a split in the party.

If he declined to do this there was no one else who could prevent such a split. If he attempted to rob the party of its principles, and to cover them up, then he (General Hertzog) would be the first to place the axe on the neck of that party. The party existed for its principles, and not the principles for the party. All sorts of efforts were being made to get out of the difficulty, and it was hard to come to a clear and definite decision. But it had to be done. They could not go on any longer as they were. If a party could not retain its principles, then he (the speaker) would abandon it.

The clamour to silence General De Wet only aimed at getting out of the painful position, but the condition would only be made more painful and difficult. They could not go on as they were with a party which had not the courage of its convictions. He intended to vote for the motion because the Prime Minister and the Government were responsible for the division outside, and the division could not be mended unless the Government put an end to its term of office. Unless they dissolved they would get more and more bitterness, but a healthy solution never. If both parties had equal opportunities to tell the people what was going on matters might be different, but the newspapers were exclusively in the hands of the Ministry. He could well understand that the Prime Minister said: “Wait, wait, wait" for another couple of years. They had both the newspapers and the party. Even the party organisation was being used against him and the poor people who with him had been banished. Whatever was said in the newspapers, whatever the Government said, the people would always feel that the whole matter was not before them. He was going to do his utmost by voting for the motion to see that the Government did its duty. (Cheers.)

thought that the debate should be adjourned.

shook his head.

said that he thought the adjournment of such an important debate would be in the interests of the country. He moved the adjournment.

seconded.

put the question, and declared the “Noes” had it.

called for a division, but subsequently withdrew.

I would ask my right hon. friend—

Oh, no.

I would ask my right hon. friend if he will suspend business for half an hour.

The hon. member must wait until I get the leave of the House to the withdrawal of the division.

Leave having been granted,

asked if the Prime-Minister would come to some understanding to suspend business for half an hour in order to allow the officials of the House and members to get dinner. (Ministerial cries of “No.”)

said that the only time that course could be adopted was with the unanimous consent of the whole House at the end of a session when awaiting Bills. He would be prepared, however, if the whole House was unanimous, to accept a motion to suspend business. But there must be no objection.

said he would agree, and moved the suspension of business until 7.30 p.m. He would tell hon. members, however, that the debate would finish that night.

seconded.

said if there was one thing that was remarkable—perhaps more remarkable than anything else about this debate—it was the extraordinary silence upon the part of the Opposition. When he used the word “Opposition” he meant the so-called Opposition —the Unionist Party. Since 2.30 they had had a debate reaching round a question of the utmost importance to that House and to the country, and they had not heard a single word either in approbation or in opposition of it by those members who sat on the left of Mr. Speaker. Surely at that stage of the proceedings they were entitled to think that they would have some idea of what was the intentions of the Opposition? He was glad to see the hon. member for Von Brandis in his place upon such an occasion as that. The hon. member for Barberton when he spoke upon that question twitted the hon. member and drew a parallel between the Opposition and the hon. members on the Government benches. He said there was a split upon that side of the House just as much as upon his side of the House. There might be a certain section of the Unionist Party which called themselves Young Unionists, but the fact was that the whole of the party was dominated by one or two interests—in fact, he might say, that it was dominated by one interest only. The Young Unionist dared not speak of vote, or tell them which way they were going to jump without getting orders from his particular boss. He must say they were very loyal in that way. The answer of the hon. Minister of Railways to the charges made by the hon. member for Jeppe consisted of sneers about the hon. member himself; not one answer to the charges made did the hon. Minister make. What sort of a manner was that to treat the House or any member of the House on the part of a Minister? They would give him pride of place in the matter for his contempt. The hon. Minister did not consider that an answer to the charges existed in his category of the delinquencies of the Government.

The hon. member for Jeppe had raised the question of the present position of Miners’ Phthisis Compensation. He (Mr. Madeley) challenged the whole of the Government, particularly the right hon. the Prime Minister, to give hon. members on the cross-benches, and to give the whole country, a direct reply to the charges made by the hon. member. Did he not, during the elections, the result of which placed him in power in that House definitely, state direct from the public platform that he was going to place miners’ phthisis under workmen’s compensation? He could not deny that.

It was dealt with last year.

said he knew it was dealt with, and he was going to deal with the way it had been dealt with. That was one of the charges. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Finance pledged their Government, if they formed one, and themselves personally, that they would, by every means in their power, bring about such a state of affairs whereby men suffering from miners phthisis would receive compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. In the first session of Parliament a Bill was brought in which gave compensation to the men suffering from miners’ phthisis on the same lines as ordinary accidents. The sums were not quite so large, but the fact remained that that principle was laid down in the first Bill, but owing to the opposition of the hon. member for Yeoville particularly, who represented in that House the industry which dominated the party. (An HON. MEMBER: “No.”) He definitely asserted it. The hon. member for Yeoville opposed the principle of workmen’s compensation being applied to miners’ phthisis, and as the result of no other intervention—not because the Ministers themselves came to the conclusion they had made a mistake, and not because they thought it was not in the interests of the men concerned—but simply because the hon. member for Yeoville insisted it should not be, the present Government withdrew that Bill. They brought in a second Bill and a third. It was remarkable how many efforts the present Government had made in coping with that disease to give compensation. The Ministers were exceedingly vacillating. Proceeding, Mr. Madeley wondered if hon. members had ever taken the trouble to consider the plight of those men. In the first place, owing to the intervention of the hon. member for Yeoville, they withdrew the principle of paying a lump sum, and agreed to pay out this money in doles of £8 a month. He would like hon. members of that House, if they could, and would, mentally to accompany him into the household of one of those individuals who were suffering from miners’ phthisis. He would like them to realise the position of a man who was dying from miners’ phthisis.

At this point the hon. member stopped speaking to draw attention to the fact that hon. Ministers and hon. members on the Government side of the House, judging by their animated conversation, were not particularly interested in the state of those men for whom they had legislated in the fashion they had legislated. Proceeding, he said that all those men who were dying from miners’ phthisis were young men, the average age of their deaths was 30 to 35 years. If they lived four years they would die just at the time, in the case of married men, when their children were the most expensive. They expected these men, who had to pay for doctors, medicine, and extra food—for their appetites for substantial food were gone—to pay these extra expenses and the heavy rent, for four years, if they lived as long, out of that small allowance. If they (the Labour members) only accused the Government of being lacking in their duty towards that particular class of men they had said sufficient to prove that the Government had lost the confidence not only of the House, but of the country.

It is the men’s own fault.

What a ridiculous interjection that is. If hon. members could not say anything more sensible than that they had better preserve a golden silence. According to the report of the Miners’ Phthisis Board, as many men were applying for compensation at present as at any other time in the history of the Board. The hon. member for Yeoville argued that the men would take more care if they had a contributory scheme. That contention was as ridiculous as the interjection they had just heard.

If those who got the profits were taxed they would make it worth their while to crush out miners’ phthisis. The Miners’ Phthisis Act was one of the many bad laws the Government was responsible for. But if the Government laws were bad their administration was even worse. Take the Mines and Regulations Act, under which arrangements were made for the inadequate control and inspection of mines. The Minister of Mines had told him that the Apex Mine was closed down for want of capital, but it was strange that no correspondence had taken place between the company and the Mines Department, and that no pressure had been brought to bear on the company to resume mining operations. There was another instance of the Government’s failure to carry out its own laws. The Transvaal law made provision that when a mine was closed down the Government had the right to work it itself if it so decided. The Apex Mine was closed down on account of the incompetence of the people who controlled it. They installed a reducing plant which had proved a failure on another mine, and in endeavouring to get that plant to work satisfactorily the sum of £80,000 was wasted. That was the reason that mine was closed down. Another reason why operations on that mine were not resumed was market manipulation. When these people wanted to make a “bob or two” they took a mine in which they did not hold all the shares and closed it down, or in some other way depreciated the value of the shares. Then the people in control bought the shares in at a low price, and suddenly a rich patch was discovered. The shares then went up, but only to be once more off-loaded on to a confiding public. One mine, went on Mr. Madeley, was closed down in order to supply an argument in favour of the importation of Chinese. He had worked on a mine, helping to instal the pumping plant, costing several thousand pounds, and after it had been got to work for half an hour, work was stopped and the plant was pulled up again. The E.R.P.M. was another instance of capital being frightened away. It was on this property that 13,000 ounces of gold were mysteriously lost—dissolved into air. (Laughter.) That day the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs had given a reply to a question which he (Mr. Madeley) had asked in reference to the unrest amongst the postal staff in the Transvaal. From this it might be imagined that these men might rise to a salary of £300 or £360 a year. What were the facts? He thought he could not do better than refer to a petition which had been sent by these men. In this they appealed to the Minister to consider their case. They stated that they were not receiving sufficient salary to enable them to marry and support a wife. Eight of these men were in receipt of £13 6s. 8d. a month, and the maximum, according to the reply of the Minister, to which they could rise, was £150 a year.

He now wished to refer to the failure of the Government to grasp the educational needs of this country. From figures published in the “Cape Times” he found that in the Cape Province 79,496 out of 138,923 children were attending school; in the Free State, 16,580 out of 38,163; in the Transvaal, 48,907 out of 82,968; and in Natal, 13,933 out of 19,833. Why was it that these children were not being educated? His own investigations in the Transvaal showed him that in the majority of instances it was because there was no school accommodation. School Boards stated that they could not build schools because they had not got the money. That was another item in the indictment which was sufficient to prove why the Government should not have the confidence of this House or of the country. The hon. member for Georgetown had pointed out one case where 60 odd children out of a school of 230 had had no breakfast before they went to school. What was this Government doing in the direction of providing those poor innocent children with food before they went to school?

Another point in connection with education was the quality of the teachers. He did not want to complain of the abilities of the teachers, but what he did want to complain of was the scandalous salaries and the lack of inducement to practical teachers of the highest class in the country. Why should an educated person go to a farm school and be expected to teach for £40 to £50 per annum—and it was not only in regard to farm schools that such low salaries were paid. The hon. member proceeded to read educational advertisements from the “Cape Times.” (An HON. MEMBER: Did the Government put those in?) He said it was the direct result of the very meagre salaries which the Government paid to their teachers. Did not members suppose that if teachers got higher salaries from the Government, people would put in advertisements like that, offering £40, £50, or £100 per annum for teachers? Advertisements were also put in the paper to the effect that a lower salary would be given to teachers with lower qualifications. Here in Cape Town, the Mother City of South Africa, they had lady teachers receiving the magnificent salary of £5 per month, and there was no question of board, or lodging, and washing, there at all, as he would like to point out to the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey). Could that House or the country any longer have confidence in a Government which allowed such things to go on? The Government seemed to be taking it very easy, and did not seem to fear a division. Why was that? He thought that perhaps they had had their eye to the cracks of the caucus room, which had been referred to the other evening by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort—(laughter)—and perhaps each side was aware what the other side was going to do. And he thought it was “up to” the Opposition, to use a vulgar word, for once, at all events, to try to be a strong Opposition. They had not succeeded yet—if they had ever tried.

on rising, was received with cheers. He said he had hoped that the Leader of the Opposition would have given some indication earlier as to what his intention was in connection with that motion. The hon. gentleman had, however, up to now sat still and had merely listened to the debate, and yet he had the largest party in the triple combination. The speaker hoped that the hon. member would indicate clearly in what direction his support would go. The speaker had often been accused of cooperating with the Opposition, and he would now be glad to see how the Opposition comported itself. It would be a fine combination which would vote for the motion, and would provide a lesson for the people outside. When they reached the end of the debate that evening there would be too many arms to embrace the necks of the different leaders, and some of the Mbongos would have to embrace their legs.

He had listened with the greatest attention to the hon. member for Smithfield, and felt bound to say that it required much understanding to grasp what the hon. member had actually said. It was the most curious piece of mental gymnastics the speaker had ever seen or heard of. He had done his best here and there to seize hold of a sentence of what had been said, but had not succeeded very well. He could, however, congratulate the hon. member on one thing, and that was on the strong rapprochement to the Labour Party which was contained in his address. That was a development which he had not expected. He could now understand why the motion had been moved, and could also explain other matters which had taken place. After the handing in of the motion, there had been a secret meeting at Bloemfontein. They called it the Vigilance Committee, and there had been motions to the effect that the Government should resign. Addresses had been delivered in that secret council, but it was not known what had taken place. No doubt they would get to know later on. But a motion of no confidence in the Government had been sent round. The Government must resign. By whom was all the information supplied of what had taken place here? He was bound to suppose that the hon. member for Smithfield had been writing letters.

denied this.

said in that case he did not know who kept the people informed. He knew that Mr. Tatham had been here to pay a visit to the hon. member for Smithfield, and perhaps that gentleman had given the necessary information. It, could not have been the hon. member for Uitenhage, for he had gone to another place in order to try to establish a vigilance committee there. In any case, after the present motion had been brought forward, resolutions had been taken at Bloemfontein, and thence had come all those telegrams. The speaker accepted it that the hon. member for Smithfield spoke the truth and that he had been inciting nobody else. He was prepared to take the hon. member’s word for that. What, however, had the hon. member done to oppose the agitation?

said he had done nothing.

said in that case everything was apparently done with the approval of the hon. member.

admitted this.

said the hon. member sat still and allowed other people to do the work. He could then afterwards, with an easy conscience, rise and say it was a spontaneous movement of the people. But the speaker knew the people of the country. (Hear, hear.) If the hon. member wished to maintain his dignity as a son of the country, then it was his first duty to see that he himself suffered rather than that the people should be distracted and destroyed. (Hear, hear.) If it came to the speaker’s turn to give up his seat, then he would not in the first place go and cause division. (Hear, hear.) The speaker would not allow such a thing, and had never allowed it. That appeared from his past history, which was perfectly well known. He had never yet scrupled to advise his people what he thought it was his duty to advise them. He differed in that respect from the hon. member for Smithfield, as he feared that the hon. member had failed to give the people worthy advice such as he ought to have given. The hon. member, however, allowed to take place all those things which were taking place, and what were the public to conclude from that fact? The speaker had for years before the war sat in Parliament, and after the war too he had had a good deal of experience, but had never yet received from his constituents a letter asking for his immediate resignation as an alternative to supporting a motion of no confidence. The people were animated with a sense of justice, and the speaker trusted them accordingly. (Hear, hear.)

What was the principle at issue? The hon. members who supported the speaker were receiving letters and telegrams requiring them either to resign immediately or else to support the motion. That was a practice for which the hon. member for Smithfield would afterwards feel compunction. (Hear, hear.) It was clear to the speaker that the hon. member was not advising the people in a worthy manner.

said he did.

said that the hon. member always acted in such a peculiar manner, and if they pointed out to him his error, then he became angry. When men could not work together in the same Cabinet, and when they parted, must it necessarily be a personal enmity? He wished to declare that he still regarded the hon. member for Smithfield as ranking amongst his best friends, and he would not offer one word of insult to the hon. member or any word which might possibly give him pain. The hon. member could refer to the speaker in whatever terms he thought fit, but his reply would be that, however much they might differ on points concerning the business of the country, he would always recognise the patriotism of the hon. member.

The hon. member for Smithfield had now had opportunity for three months to move a vote of no confidence in the Government, but what had he done? He had delivered speeches and accused the Government of the most serious things, and had discussed matters which ought not to be discussed in the House, but he had never yet stood up to move a vote of no confidence in the Government and to challenge the Government to a division. But when he spoke, then the whole world was called upon to hear: “I am the only Afrikander.” The hon. member had astounded him. The hon. member was a zealous Afrikander, eager to stand beside his people, and yet thought fit to kick the speaker because he wished to do the same. The hon. member would afterwards see that he must live and let live, and that he should not only respect his own opinion but also the opinions of others, and when new difficulties arose he should not too readily accept new advisers.

The speech which the hon. member had delivered had from the beginning to the end nothing to do with the motion. The whole speech was nothing but a personal attack on the speaker. Was that consistent with the dignity which the hon. member wished to show, and with which he wished to appear before the public? Anybody could make a personal attack, and the speaker would not answer it. He would leave it to the conscience of the hon. member whether he should use all those abusive expressions about him. In return he would try to do what was just and fair. (Hear, hear.)

The hon. member came now and told them that nothing remained to do but to dissolve Parliament. Was the advice honourably and fairly meant? Would it repair the breach in the party? The speaker had always thought, and still held, that differences in the party should not be discussed in Parliament. (Hear, hear.)

That was a question that ought to be settled in the bosom of the party. Regulations had been made for that express purpose, and they should make use of the institutions of the party.

asked what the Minister had done in that respect.

asked in turn whether they should not submit to the decision of the Parliamentary party. (Hear, hear.) He had done something more in the direction indicated. A representative of the hon. member had asked the speaker to call a special congress, and he had replied: Draw up the points for submission and I will immediately call the Head Committee together in order to lay before them the request for a special congress. These points for submission had, however, never been produced. The first thing that was done was to break away from the organisation of the party. It was clear that what the hon. member declared was not what he felt in his heart. The hon. member wanted in the very beginning to divide the party. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to say that, because when an understanding was at tempted, the hon. member proposed that the Ministry should resign.

interposed, saying that he did that because the Minister could suggest no other course.

asked why the hon. member did not declare his readiness to submit to the decision of the Parliamentary party or of that of a congress to be called? What did the hon. member want? A dissolution. Not to make peace. They were asked to go and consult the people whilst they were angry with each other, and it was expected that when they returned from the election all angry feelings would belong to the past. (Laughter.) He could not conceive worse or more foolish advice to give to the public. If they wanted to unsettle and divide the people of South Africa then they would hold an election. They would get four parties. The fifth party was not named. It was the wolf in sheep’s clothing amongst them.

He had expected that the hon. member would steadily work with them for the purpose of building up and not of breaking down. Could he justify himself by dividing South Africa? What would be the result? There would be the bitterest division. It was a vice the root cause of which was with them. There was now a Vigilance Committee agitation over the whole country. The people were being divided and excited whilst the matter in question was only shown to them from one point of view. That was totally wrong. If they got the true information there would be no more telegrams to members of Parliament who had been elected as representatives of the district.

The crisis came in December last. Parliament met at the end of January, and a meeting was held to ask for a motion of no confidence. It was therefore all done with art and machinery—why and by whom? It was easy to kindle fire, but difficult to extinguish it.

He hoped the hon. member would not continue in a course which would end in making him a leader of a small faction of dissatisfied persons. He had not deserved that fate. A general election now would be in strife with the true interests of South Africa and opposed to the true interests of the people who were represented by him and by the hon. member.

The hon. member delivered speeches which did not agree one with the other. Compare his speeches at Pretoria and Smithfield, and it became almost impossible to believe that they were delivered by one and the same person.

said the two speeches were entirely consistent.

said the great fault of the hon. member in his speeches was that he always tried to be cleverer than anyone else. That slimness brought the hon. member into difficulties, as he did not know how much evil he was doing by it. It would be better if the hon. member would be more of a mere ordinary man and wander about in the clouds a little less. He would then be much more practical in his addresses on the earth. (Laughter.) The whole question lay in the fact that the hon. member wished to be again a Minister.

asked whether the Minister meant that that applied to the present Cabinet.

said he was exceedingly sorry for the hon. member, but was it fair, he asked, to excite the public in the most unconstitutional manner which had ever been known in South Africa? Could a Government which had a majority and a mandate to govern the country do such a thing? Because a few members wanted to bring about a lot of commotion amongst the public and go to extremes, must they all submit? Was it good tactics?

If the speaker followed that advice, he would one day be the most detested man in South Africa. When the party was divided, crushed, and destroyed it would rise up and declare that it was all due to the speaker’s miserable weakness in dissolving Parliament. (Hear, hear.) They would say: “You had the majority, and you should have used it for the benefit of the people.” He declined to adopt such weak tactics. If a motion of no confidence was accepted, then the responsibility was no longer the responsibility of the speaker. But so long as he had a majority he would ask nobody how to use it in order to rule South Africa—(applause)—and would consider himself still bound to the principles of his party.

The speaker had been accused in bombastic terms of misleading the people, and of deceit, and so on. But if the majority did not differ from the hon. member on that point, he would not be sitting where he was. It was not in the interest of those who were represented by the hon. member that he should use such language towards the speaker. The speaker had never been unfaithful to his party principles. The hon. member had in that particular expressly and knowingly stated an untruth, and had produced no single fact to prove where or how the speaker had been disloyal to those principles. (Hear, hear.) But because he differed from the hon. member, it was now said that he was violating certain principles. If the speaker had been guilty it was the duty of the hon. member to rise up and show where and how it had been done. The hon. member spoke of a “rotten party tree.” The speaker had never expected that the hon. member would refer to the party in that manner, a party which had been formed by the hon. member himself, and a party which was managed by the hon. member in his capacity as a member of the Head Committee. The party had not earned such treatment from the hon. member. The speaker was proud of the straightforwardness and of the co-operation which their party always gave them. They were a loyal party. That appeared among other things when the hon. member for Barberton was abandoned by the electors of Germiston, when the speaker’s party had elected him. (Hear, hear.) The speaker esteemed actions of that kind in his party, and in his people. The people were full of pith, a dignified people, and they should not be spoken of as a rotten tree.

The speaker had been accused of holding opinions which he feared to discuss in public. That was another of the wild things stated by the hon. member. (Laughter.) In the programme of their party there were laid down the principles according to which both the hon. member and the speaker had obtained directions to deal in the matter of the two races. What principles had he refused to discuss in public? Did the hon. member mean the question of South Africa first, and then the British Empire? It seemed so. Well, the speaker was astonished at the hon. member. The hon. member—“I”—wished to be everything to South Africa and all others were to stand on the other side. (Laughter and cheers.) The hon. member had no reason and no right to suspect the speaker of taking up an attitude on a question such as that of the precedence of South Africa different to that adopted by the hon. member himself. How came it that the hon. member conceived he had the right to be suspicious of the speaker? The speaker took it for a fact, that, with an odd exception here and there, everybody in South Africa would agree that South Africa must come first. Not only Dutch speaking people thought so, but also English speaking people. The right hon. member for Victoria West and others had fought for that principle through thick and thin in the days when an attempt was made to suspend the Constitution of the Cape. It was too ridiculous to suggest that they could differ and quarrel over such a thing now. However, it was quite unnecessary to deliver academic addresses on the subject. The speaker accepted as a fact that both sides of the House agreed on the point, even as Canada and Australia supported the same principle. It was absolute nonsense to say to-day that Afrikanders, whatever their origin, thought otherwise, or if there were any such people, they were only a small faction. South Africa was of age, owing to Union, and stood equal with the other parts of the British Empire under a free Constitution. If they were going to awaken suspicion concerning our attitude to the British Empire, and then to have an election, he would ask where is South Africa going to? The only result of such a thing would be that the Dutch speaking people and the English speaking people would be for ever divided into two camps. (Cheers.)

The speaker felt he had another reason to complain of the hon. member. Whilst he was in Europe the hon. member delivered frequent addresses about immigration and other matters. Was that necessary? No. There was quite sufficient work in the office of the hon. member Hundreds of Afrikander people, including women, were being sent to prison because of the illicit liquor traffic. Did the hon. member devote his attention to that matter, by which the people were being most deeply demoralised? That would be the touchstone of the future of the people. That was the proper work of his department. But what did the hon. member do? Instead of attending to the work of his department he rode about the country announcing that the importation of immigrants would be a crime.

said that was not true. It was clearly on record what he had said, viz., it would be a crime to use the funds of the State in order to introduce immigrants before their own poor whites had been helped.

said that was precisely his own standpoint. In that House, however, the hon. member had voted for a Bill which permitted the importation of immigrants, and the speaker had not heard from the hon. member a single word of protest. The hon. member attacked him as if he only was for immigration and the hon. member only for South Africa. The hon. member had said that if money were spent in order to bring in English people it would be a crime. Now a man was not only responsible for the words which he used, but also for the impression which he created by those words. The impression which was made by the hon. member in such talk as that was that the speaker had become anglicised and that he stood for imperialism in an unfavourable sense.

Hundreds of persons had come to the speaker to complain, and had asked him how it was that only he was in favour of having English immigrants, whilst the hon. member wanted to support their own poor people. That impression had been created amongst the people by the hon. member, and in that respect the people had been misled. It was one of the principles of the party that the immigration of desirable persons was to be encouraged, and that the immigration of Asiatics was to be opposed. That document had been signed both by the speaker and the hon. member. On that programme of principles referred to, which the speaker had announced and explained at a large public meeting in Pretoria in the presence of the hon. member, they were both elected. Both at that meeting in Pretoria and also at Losberg the speaker had declared he was in favour of immigration, but not until the thousands and tens of thousands of suitable people in South Africa had been helped to obtain land. What object had the hon. member now in using such expressions, if it were not for the purpose of exciting suspicion amongst the Government and to cause division amongst the public?

The hon. member stated that the speaker had employed improper methods, and that he did not protect the members of his own party. Such an accusation was inexplicable. The speaker protected his party, but the hon. member allowed Vigilance Committees to work in order to destroy the party. (Hear, hear.) The speeches which the hon. member had delivered at Nylstroom, De Wildt, Pretoria, and Smithfield would never be thought to come from the same man by one who did not know it to be a fact. (Cheers.) Speeches of that character were not the work of a responsible Minister, and it was that difference between the speaker and the hon. member which led to references about “talking with two mouths.” The public thought there was a quarrel between them, but in fact the hon. member had never come and told him that he differed in opinion, nor had he differed in opinion in the course of their mutual consultations. The hon. member only did that outside. The speaker could not believe that the hon. member had a wrong motive in it, but at the same time he could only take note of the impression which the hon. member made, and the hon. member should try to see that.

The speaker now came to the question of the two streams. That metaphor appeared in another speech by the hon. member for Smithfield, viz., at Vrededorp. It was to be regretted that the hon. member had delivered speeches of that character, because they misled many people, and he ought not to mislead the public on such a question as that. The hon. member had stated that the speaker should show where he differed from him. Well, he wished to do that. He differed from the hon. member concerning the two streams theory in South Africa. The speaker was in favour of having one nation, and in that sense one stream, in which both sections of the population maintained their language and traditions. It would be a criminal policy if they were to follow a two-stream policy, for then they would get dissatisfaction and suspicion. But if they formed one nation in which both sections maintained their language and traditions, there could never again be a serious racial quarrel in South Africa.

asked where was the difference.

asked in return why the hon. member spoke of two streams, and gave another impression. The speaker called it one stream. (Hear, hear.) He would read a little out of the party’s programme. The programme read: It has as an object the development of a South African spirit of national unity and independence by obtaining a genuine joining together of the different sections of the population. (Hear, hear.) It was clear to the speaker that his policy was the only true and right policy in order to make South Africa happy. He would read another paragraph: The preservation of the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the avoidance of all causes of estrangement and misunderstanding between the different sections of the population. (Hear, hear.) The speaker said he had loyally carried out these principles of his party.

He next came to a very tender point, namely his conciliation policy. With that policy he meant nothing else than to give effect to the two clauses of the party programme to which he had just referred. Such was the conciliation policy to which he was bound.

The hon. member for Smithfield had made attacks, and quoted things out of newspapers, but the speaker would not go so far. If he started doing that and quoted everything that the hon. member had written they would never get finished. The hon. member would do better to listen to his real friends, friends who were more trustworthy than those who now surround him. He would earnestly press the hon. member not to break down their party for the purpose of making his own blanket a little bigger. They should all sleep under one blanket, and it was not right to break up the party. Let them go steadily along their path, and remove all difficulties out of the way. Let them be less wild, and act more like true Afrikanders, and then there would be a spirit of more confidence. (Hear, hear.) What the speaker felt sharply was that for nearly three years the hon. member for Smithfield had sat with him in the Cabinet, and had never come to complain that the principles of the party were being broken. He had never yet come to say that the speaker was so bad that he could no longer work with him. Yet the hon. member was scarcely out of the Government before he had made out that the Ministers were the worst people they could possibly get.

said there were still worse people.

said the hon. member had inspired himself with something that did not suit him. The speaker had known him for a long time, and it was something which now appeared for the first time. If the hon. member wanted to attack the Government, he should do so in a manner worthy of a great man—the great man he was. He should emerge from the ditch of meanness, and then he would be surrounded by people who would stand by him and love him. Now the hon. member said the speaker had abandoned himself to Imperialism and that he had said farewell to South Africa. What right had he to say that?

said the Prime Minister should read his own letter.

replied that it was like the case of an attorney or law agent. The hon. member came there with strong expressions about Downing-street. They had a late Minister of Justice speaking about Downing-street! They had heard of such a thing during the time of the Crown Colony Government, but it was now an unknown thing in South Africa. (Hear, hear.) The Constitution of South Africa was just as free as that of Great Britain, and the Union stood on an equal footing with Great Britain, and although the Union was a portion of the British Empire, it was a sister State in that Empire—(hear, hear)—and now the hon. member came there and wanted to frighten him with Downing-street, and say that Downing-street ruled here! The right of Downing-street to intervene had ceased to exist in South Africa since the Union. The object of the hon. member for Smithfield was this: He wanted to create again the impression that the speaker was only for the English and that the hon. member himself stood only for the Afrikanders. That was his object. But the hon. member would find himself wrong there again, as before.

The speaker’s principles concerning the British Empire were quite clear. The Union was a portion of the Empire, but there was no reason to seek for a quarrel with that Empire. The Empire had treated the South African people in a fair and just manner, and the people were grateful for it, and had good reason to be grateful for it. (Hear, hear.) And now to go and talk about Imperialism as was done at De Wildt was not right. In view of the history of this country, and after the unhappy time of only ten years ago, they should be prudent, and take care not to wound a portion of the population nor to awaken suspicion.

Those were the four points which had been referred to, but facts had not been produced in support of the accusations made. If the hon. member could produce no better facts than he had, then he should not tell such tales. It was more manly and more honourable to move directly a vote of no confidence in a Government than to deal in that House with personal questions. That sort of self-exaltation was not in the interests of the country.

Mention had been made of the division which now existed, but if the hon. member had preserved the same dignity with which he spoke in Pretoria he would have been a greater man. The hon. member had, however, called together a tag-rag and bobtail following and did things which were opposed to the interests of the party. Meetings had been held and speeches delivered which had awakened the greatest bitterness in South Africa, and the hon. member was wrong in doing that. The speaker knew the people well, and knew that they considered and weighed and thought before finally deciding, and would not easily be led into a wrong course. The people would gladly stand by a man, but it was not for the hon. member, and it was not for the speaker, to divide them. The hon. member would see that he might break, but the people would continue to stand. (Hear, hear.)

The mistake which the hon. member for Smithfield had made lay in the fact that he had not warned them against division. The principles which had been announced by him would lead to a break in the party. That could not be tolerated, and the speaker would not permit that hon. members in that House should vote for a motion of no confidence and continue to sit where they were. If those members were men, and honourable men, then they should rise and cross over to the other side. Otherwise there would always be such an atmosphere of suspicion afterwards as would make consultations impossible. If a member sat there as a party man, then he should follow the party. Two parties, such as was suggested by the hon. member for Barberton, the speaker would not permit. The South African people were a noble people, and would not submit to being kicked about like a football. They would be led, but they would not be driven. The hon. member for Smithfield was now sending his people around—

said he had sent nobody.

continued that if they kept to the party organisation nothing would go wrong, but the hon. member was employing all his strength to break down the organisation and constitution of the party. If ever the time came when the hon. member was called on to form a Government, he would be bitterly grieved over his present action.

The hon. member for Barberton had announced his intention to vote against the party. The speaker could only say that it had looked as if that would happen for a long time past. He was sorry that the hon. member had broken with him and with the party, but was glad that, if it must come, it should come from the side of the hon. member. He would leave it to the world to judge how he had been treated. When he had formed the Transvaal Government some members of the party were opposed to the inclusion of the hon. member in the Cabinet. The speaker had then stood by the hon. member, although his best friends had warned him: “Take care, he will bite you.” The speaker had then replied that they did not know the hon. member, and that he was better than that. The speaker had suffered enmity from his best friends, but had loyally stood by the hon. member, and this was what he got in return for it.

There was no justification for the motion of no confidence, and the hon. member for Jeppe had abused his position in moving it If the motion was to come on at all, it should have come from the Opposition. There had already been a motion of no confidence in the debate on the Estimates, but on that occasion all the members on the right had voted for the Government. There was no precedent in Parliamentary history for five members bringing forward such a motion of which any notice was taken. The speaker had taken notice of the motion, and would take a vote over it, and he would allow the public to answer the decisions taken at Bloemfontein and elsewhere. (Cheers.)

said the right hon. gentleman, in his speech, had shown what he (Mr. Fremantle) had always contended, that there was no difference of principle between the right hon. gentleman and the hon. member for Smithfield. The right hon. gentleman had spoken, personally, in the friendliest way of the hon. member. The only thing he regretted in the speech of the Prime Minister was the phrase “Jan Rap en z’n maat.” Considering that General De Wet and President Steyn had taken

No, no, I did not mention them.

said he did not suggest that the Prime Minister had referred to General De Wet or ex-President Steyn. Considering that those two distinguished South Africans had stood by his hon. friend, he thought that that phrase might have been omitted, because he understood from the speech of the right hon. gentleman that he was anxious to get

I never alluded to that.

I know.

I never spoke of that.

said that his right hon. friend spoke of his hon. friend’s friends. He (Mr. Fremantle) did not know who he meant. He spoke of his hon. friend’s friends. Perhaps he was alluding to him (the speaker). But the phrase might well have been spared. He had thought that his right hon. friend would have furnished an explanation as to why his hon. friend had been ejected from the Cabinet. No answer was given to that. He intended to support the motion because of that. There was a widespread feeling in the country simply on this one point, and he thought that the right hon. gentleman might have given due respect to the depth of feeling that had been created in connection with this matter. He went on to refer to the article of the party constitution that had been quoted by the hon. member for Ficksburg, and now alluded to by the Prime Minister, and said that article was double-barrelled. That article stated that where there were differences in the party, these might be dealt with by the head committee of the party, and in all differences the head committee had power to interpose. The head committee had not intervened in this case. Why had not the right hon. gentleman put this machinery into operation? He could not blame the hon. member for Smithfield for not having placed that machinery in motion. If a solution of this difficulty could be brought about by the application of the machinery that was provided for in the article, then he thought that all the members of the party would be delighted. The right hon. gentleman had suggested that the hon. gentleman should bow to the party caucus. That, he considered, was a most unfair proposal. The proposal that had been made by the right hon. gentleman, and which he had been able to carry out, was to eject his hon. friend from power and make him powerless in the country. That was not a thing that anyone could accept. It was not a fair proposal. The right hon. gentleman had believed what hon. members opposite had said and what the opposition newspapers had said. They had repeatedly insisted that there was a fundamental difference between the policy of the Prime Minister and the policy of the hon. member for Smithfield. The right hon. gentleman now said there was no difference except on one point—the two streams. As to this the Prime Minister had attributed principles to his hon. friend which were not his hon. friend’s principles, and principles which his hon. friend had repudiated throughout the country. If there was no difference between the right hon. gentleman and his hon. friend, why did his right hon. friend expel his hon. friend from the Cabinet? The Prime Minister showed the most dubious part of his case when he said that men were responsible for the interpretation of their words. Who was to be the interpreter? The opposition Press? The Prime Minister had suffered a good deal in that way and he was suffering again. The speaker had never believed that the Prime Minister had considerably abandoned his principles.

But the Prime Minister knew himself that there were statements about him in the Press and elsewhere which he would immediately repudiate, and he would say that they were unfair, and that they should take him by his own interpretation, and not from those attributed to him. Moreover, the Prime Minister had not always been the darling of the English-speaking Press. There were times when it was necessary to defend the Prime Minister from perverse interpretations just as it was necessary to defend his hon. friend. He could not understand why the right hon. gentleman, after having to defend himself against these interpretations, should not stand by his hon. friend in the same way as he needed protection some years ago. That was a point where he was unable to follow the Prime Minister. They first heard that his hon. friend was ejected from the Ministry because of his attitude towards Imperialism. The Prime Minister now said that that was purely an academic question, but he would point out that the party in England which was in favour of Free Trade for the British Empire, if they came into power, intended to call a congress of the various British Dominions and ask them to accept a policy that was contrary to the Prime Minister’s policy. He could not understand why the Prime Minister should think that they ought to be so tender upon that subject, or that they should hesitate to express their dissent from imperialist shibboleths. They might not only accept the doctrine of his hon. friend when he said that he was prepared to support Imperialism when it was in the interests of South Africa, but also say that they were only prepared to support Imperialism when it was in the interests of the British Empire, because he found that Imperialism was usually contrary to the interests of the British Empire. His hon. friend the member for Umvoti now said it was no longer Imperialism that was the trouble. It was now conciliation, but the Prime Minister said it was not Imperialism nor conciliation, but the doctrine of the two streams. That seemed to show the unsoundness of the position that had been taken up. With regard to this doctrine of the two streams, if that means a doctrine to separate the two races and prevent them working together, then he, for one, would never be in favour of such a doctrine. He had found, however, from the action of his hon. friend that he was more against that policy than anyone else. His hon. friend had stated the doctrine of one stream in South Africa better than the Prime Minister. He said that he was really anxious that the Dutch and English people should work together in peace as one South African people. The Prime Minister went against the studied statement of his hon. friend. He ventured to ask the House or those who were imbued with the new spirit of conciliation, whether they could have a better expression of the doctrine of one stream than that in the manifesto of his hon. friend. He was glad that the Prime Minister had expressed himself so definitely, and the effect of his speech was clearly to show, in regard to that most important matter of two streams, that he was in complete agreement with his hon. friend the member for Smithfield. That being so, he (Mr. Fremantle) asked again why his hon. friend had been dismissed. There was no answer this time, and he would certainly record his vote in favour of the hon. member for Jeppe.

The Prime Minister had made some remarks which were not quite worthy of him with regard to voting for the motion. He suggested there was some collusion between his hon. friend—and those who worked with him—and hon. members on the cross benches with regard to that motion. Perhaps it was more than a suggestion. If the Prime Minister would think over that, he would see clearly that it was impossible to suppose there was any collusion on that matter. It was not in their interests that the motion should be brought forward, any more than it was in the interests of hon. members opposite. People of this country should vote in politics according to the merits of the case and not according to the merits of the gentleman who happened to propose a particular resolution. (Labour cheers.) The whole country had been against some of the votes recorded by their representatives in that House. He gave as an instance a meeting at Richmond a few days ago, when every one was in favour of a motion then before the House, and all his hon. friends from the country districts voted against it because they wanted to vote with the Government. (An HON. MEMBER: The 7½ per cent. question.) Yes, and nobody said a word against it. At that meeting they felt very strongly about it. His hon. friend the hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. Louw) did not say a word against it on that occasion. He (Mr. Fremantle) was not always going to vote against the Labour Party. If they did that would have some queer results in the House. The members of the Labour Party had supported members on that side of the House in their darkest days. They had supported them when they had not the help of their friends on the Opposition side of the House. He had often voted with the Labour Party, and as a matter of fact so had every hon. member on that side of the House. On the language question they had always voted with the Labour Party.

They have voted with us.

Yes, they have. But he was not prepared to take his marching orders either from the Labour Party or anybody else, but would vote in accordance with the merits of the case. The Prime Minister had said they ought not to discuss differences in that House. It was not in the interests of the country or the party that those matters should not be discussed. The Prime Minister of Australia gave good advice to the people of South Africa when he said if they had differences let them honourably and straightforwardly discuss them openly in Parliament. That was advice they had too much neglected. If they discussed matters openly they would come to an understanding with one another. To do otherwise led to misunderstanding and ill-feeling throughout the length and breadth of the country. In consequence of not discussing matters with the hon. member for Smithfield the Prime Minister had attributed to his hon. friend opinions which he did not hold, but had expressly repudiated. That was a distinct proof of the desirability of discussing those matters frankly and openly in the House.

Proceeding, the hon. member said he was hopeful he would be able to perform a useful part on that occasion. He thought he might claim he was probably the most unpopular man in the House. (Hear, hear.) At any rate he hoped he was. He expected no quarter from hon. members opposite. He never had expected any. And now his hon. friend the member for Colesberg (Mr. Louw) was prepared to put all the sins of his hon. friend the member for Smithfield on his shoulders.

His hon. friend said the other day that he (Mr. Fremantle) was actuated in his present course by a desire to have £3,000 a year as a Cabinet Minister. “I am conscious,” remarked Mr. Fremantle, “of having given the hon. member for Smithfield a good deal of advice, and I am conscious that some of it was not of the best possible kind”—(laughter)—“if hon. members will go through his speeches at Smithfield and elsewhere and attribute everything wrong to me, I will gladly go into the wilderness on condition that they make peace with my hon. friend.” The doctrine of conciliation was being pushed to rather strange lengths, continued Mr. Fremantle. The hon. member for Bloemfontein District had spoken about him that evening without a tittle of justification, and he (Mr. Fremantle) had not the slightest notion what the hon. member meant. But why was it that his hon. friend, who had been on terms of friendship with him, had not expostulated with him in private? The hon. member had said: “Woe to the Dutch language if it depended on the hon. member for Uitenhage.” He (Mr. Fremantle) wondered what the hon. member meant. Did he mean what some hon. members of the Ministry meant who had been going round and sowing dissension because he (Mr. Fremantle) had always stood for the principle of equal rights and because he was not prepared to see English put in a position of subordination to Dutch any more than he was to see Dutch put in a position of subordination to English. If that were the reason, let him (Mr. Fremantle) say that that was a queer form of conciliation, and he could not expect a single Englishman to sit on that side of the House if that doctrine were going to be enunciated. These mutterings, these accusations, this stirring up of bad blood, which hon. members had been carrying on in the past few weeks were not in the spirit of conciliation. (Hear, hear.) They were absolutely inconsistent with the doctrines preached by the Prime Minister. He (Mr. Fremantle) must listen to speeches from his hon. and gallant friends who sat on the back benches, who knew nothing of the history of members of Parliament in this part of the Union. Accusations were made against him that he played an unworthy and dishonourable part during the war. He knew of nothing that they had to go upon, but it seemed to him that bad seed had been sown on those benches, and he was not sure that the hon. member who had been sowing them was sitting far from him. That hon. Ministers, like himself, had an easy part during the war. Let him make his accusations openly, and then they would be able to meet them. But do not let the hon. member spread false witness—

That is not Parliamentary. The hon. member has no right to say that another hon. member bears false witness. (Hear, hear.)

If I did say the hon. member spread false witness, I withdraw it. These accusations among members of the South African Party will, I hope, come to an end.

It is idle to have these accusations in the lobby, and then preach in the House about conciliation. It is idle to traduce the character of an Englishman who stood by them in the dark days, to traduce those who parted company with the men of their own race, in order to protect the Dutch speaking people in the time of their trouble, it is idle to traduce them now on ground which will not bear the light. These things don’t affect me. I have been accustomed to being traduced for many years. But I object to them, because they lead people outside to think that the Dutch-speaking people are not to be trusted to deal fairly or even tolerably by their English friends Continuing, Mr. Fremantle observed that the Prime Minister had again stated that those who differed from him had no right to sit on the Government side of the House. Where did the Prime Minister get that theory from? The Prime Minister had referred to Mr. Chamberlain, but he (Mr. Fremantle) had seen Mr. Chamberlain sitting on the side of the Liberals, while he was opposing them through thick and thin. The first seat he (Mr. Fremantle) held in that House was on the cross-benches, and he came to his present seat soon after the Union Parliament first met, in order to sit by the hon. member for Smithfield, because he sympathised, and because he wished to stand by him in difficult times. Don’t let the Prime Minister talk about new friends. He (Mr. Fremantle) had always stood by his hon. friend in times of difficulty, and he would continue to do so. If differences should arise between them, they were very much more likely to come in times of prosperity than in days of difficulty. He (Mr. Fremantle) was not elected to support this Government, nor was anybody on that side of the House. (Laughter, and a MINISTERIAL MEMBER: “I was.”) The hon. member for Humansdorp attributed an extraordinary feat of prophesy to his constituents if he were elected to support a Government that was not then in existence. (Laughter.) This Government was elected to a large extent, not to support the Prime Minister alone, but to support the hon. member for Smithfield also. He felt sure of this, that if an election had been held on the cry that his hon. friend (General Hertzog) was to be ejected, very few of his hon. friends would have come back from the Free State with a mandate to support a Government of that kind—very few, indeed, if any. He was not elected to support any Government, nor was he elected to support any party, and that with the full knowledge of the Prime Minister and his (Mr. Fremantle’s) constituents. In his election manifesto which he had sent to the Prime Minister before publication, and to which the Prime Minister had made no objection, he expressly said that he should cease to support the Prime Minister or his party, if, in his opinion, they ceased to work along the lines which he advocated at the election.

He refused to support any longer the Prime Minister and this Government, because, in his opinion, they had ceased to work along those lines, and had constantly abandoned what he, in his manifesto had emphasised, and it is regarded as the most important principle of their party, namely, the avoidance of all causes of estrangement and misunderstanding between the different sections of the people. He had said that he supported the Prime Minister because of his broad and tolerant policy and anxiety to help all classes of the community. But was it tolerance to refuse to tolerate one’s friends, could anyone who knew the people in the country districts at the present time deny that the expulsion of his hon. friend (General Hertzog) had caused more than anything had done in the past estrangement and misunderstanding between the different sections of the people?. It was in that that he considered the Prime Minister, without meaning it, had departed from the principles of the party. So anxious had he been to create friendships with those who had not agreed with him in the past that he had created estrangement and bitterness with those who had agreed with him in the past. He (Mr. Fremantle) had always regarded the position as this, that the Prime Minister was possessed of a passion for uniting the two sections of the people, but in following that out he had been led into a perverse course of action which had operated in precisely the opposite direction to that which he had intended. He thought it was a great pity that this matter had been complicated by false charges of one kind or another. He wished to thank the hon. member for Umvoti (Col. Leuchars) for having pointed out to him an error into which he was unconsciously led, and he wished to make full recognition of that fact. He had read out a report from a newspaper, according to which the hon. member had attended a certain dinner party, and been to some extent induced by the society he had met there to take the course of action which he did in resigning from the Government. He wished to thank the hon. member for having told him that that was without foundation, and to express his regret that he had said that without consulting the hon. member first. He wished to confine himself to this one fact, and he did not wish to go a word beyond the statement made by a respected member of the present Ministry, the Minister of Lands, who said that General Hertzog had been removed from the Cabinet on insufficient grounds, therefore unjust. He entirely agreed with that. That appeared to him to be entirely justified by all the course of events and by the speech that the Prime Minister had made that evening. He could not understand how any hon. member in or outside the Ministry could continue to support the Government when they were formed on the basis of an unjust action. What he could not understand was that hon. members should say that the injustice had been committed and yet should continue to support the Prime Minister.

We have had enough of it.

The hon. member I am not particularly addressing on this question. I am addressing a fairly large section of the community of this country who think it is desirable that this matter should be made as plain as it can be made. Continuing, the hon. member said there was no principle which had been assigned for this difficulty which could for a moment bear the light. If the Prime Minister said he differed from the hon. member for Smithfield, then he differed from the policy which they had all agreed to. If he said he did not differ, then came the question, why had he not agreed with him?

The hon. member has repeated this argument at least five times. I must call the hon. member’s attention to rule 82, “Tedious repetition.” (Cheers and laughter.)

reply was inaudible. Proceeding, he said he would like to make it clear that this House was elected most clearly according to the statement of the leader of the Opposition, to support a totally different policy, a policy of broad tolerance as they conceived it, a tolerance in which his hon. friend was included. Since that time a change had come over the whole face of the scene. The questions which were dividing the country at the time of the elections had been settled, and who had they been settled by more than the hon. member for Smithfield? (Laughter.) The language question which was convulsing the Free State in 1910 was convulsing the Free State no more, and it was because of what his hon. friend had done. And though his hon. friend was in a better position than in. 1910, yet they were asked to support a policy of intolerance which the country most deliberately disapproved of at that time. They had no reason to think that the country was prepared to support this. He had received many unsolicited telegrams from different parts of the country supporting the hon. member for Smithfield. It might be difficult to prophesy and to analyse the feelings of the country, but one thing was certain, that they had no reason to suppose that the country had changed its mind since 1910. Parliament was continuing here in defiance of what might be the wishes of the country.

As regarded the effect of this motion if it was carried, it would mean an election, which would be no doubt undesirable. But it might be the least of two undesirable things. It seemed to him if they continued in the present way it would increase the bitterness in the country, and it was bound to end in a rift in the whole fabric of the social life in the country districts. If there had been no question of difficulty between the hon. member for Smithfield and the present Government, there were other reasons which weighed very much with him (Mr. Fremantle), and which made it extremely difficult for him to deny assent to the motion. He was bound to say that, caring as much as he did for the finance of this country, he could not express confidence in the present financial policy of the Government. On the contrary, he was filled with misgivings. For another thing, when he looked at the condition of education, he was bound to say that he could not have confidence in the Government. The present Minister of Education had rendered great services to the cause of education; but he was bound to say that when higher education, which was a matter specifically entrusted to this House—when he considered the revolving policy of the Minister with regard to that, he could not assent to the proposition that that policy deserved the confidence of the country. He was bound to say that weighed very much with him in persuading him to vote for the motion now before the House. Beyond that there was a graver matter. They had in this country grave industrial problems which had not confronted them before. In the future those problems with regard to the towns were bound to affect the country population and the whole population of this country. Was it possible for those of them who had cared for these things for many years to feel confidence in the Government in regard to that matter? The Minister of Railways and Harbours spoke of those matters with a confidence he envied and with an assurance he had never any hope of attaining. The Minister spoke of these matters, and gave decisions on these matters which did not convince those who had been interested in these subjects for years. He was supported, unfortunately, by a large number of members on that side of the House, although they knew that some of these things were wrong. When the industrial revolution came in England the governing classes and the national church had failed to recognise the change or to deal with the industrial problems as they arose, and as a result they had lost much of their influence. He hoped the same would not happen here, but he did not think that the Government took a serious enough view of these questions. He had no confidence in the Government as regards industrial questions. He was not satisfied with the policy of the Government with regard to finance and education. He could not support a Government which separated itself from the hon. member for Smithfield and the principles and people he represented. It was for these reasons, and with deep regret, that he supported the motion of the hon. member for Jeppe.

said that those people who once hailed the hon. member for Smithfield as a saviour, were now prepared to crucify him. He supposed that that was the sort of thing that they might expect. He supposed that if the hon. member for Smithfield came back into power, those who now condemned him so lightly would rally round his banner. It was sad to see hon. members on his side of the House sacrificing their friends. The Prime Minister had stated that the hon. member for Smithfield was animated by a desire for revenge. He thought that that was an extraordinary position. He had been supported by ex-President Steyn, and surely the right hon. gentleman would not say that there was revenge in the case of ex-President Steyn. Then the Prime Minister had said that if he were defeated at the polls, he would show the people what a patriot he was. He thought that now was the time for the Prime Minister to show whether he was a great patriot or not, and prevent the schisms that were in the party. Proceeding to refer to a suggestion that had been made that he had attended the Bloemfontein Conference under a false name, he said, amid laughter, that that was merely a mistake that had happened over the telephone. The Prime Minister said that he was prepared to do what was right by the hon. member for Smithfield. The right hon. gentleman had won the race, and now he was protesting that he was doing his best for the hon. member for Smithfield. Then the right hon. gentleman had said that the South African people would not be driven, but yet he had tried to drive General De Wet from the Head Committee. He would like to refer to what the Minister of Railways had said. He said that the motion had no chance of success, and therefore it had no right to have been brought before the House. He thought that was an extraordinary position to say that because it had no chance of success it should not be brought up. It was ridiculous to say this. The hon. Minister suggested that as it was introduced only by four or five members it was not worthy of attention, but surely they must remember that great reformers were always in a minority at first, although their opinions were eventually adopted. The hon. member for Bloemfontein, North, claimed that as a friend he offered his advice to the hon. member for Smithfield, but he placed too high a value upon the friendship between himself and the hon. member for Smithfield. Proceeding, the hon. member said that he supported the motion not for the reasons enunciated by the hon. member for Jeppe, but for reasons which he would disclose. He would endeavour in these reasons to show how wholly unfitted the Prime Minister was to occupy his present position, and to point out how the business of the country was conducted at the present time. He would like also to show that in smaller things the Prime Minister had shown himself to be wholly undeserving of the confidence of the country, and he proposed to quote from the “Cape Times.” Now, he had been told some time ago that the “Cape Times” belonged to the Opposition, but he was now beginning to wonder whether it did not belong to someone else. Why was that? Was it in the hope of favours, not favours received, but possibly favours to come, not perhaps money, but there were such things as personal favours. He supposed that the Prime Minister would say that the support of this paper was in order to discredit him. He supposed that if hon. members voted against this no confidence motion it would also be in order to discredit him. The attitude adopted by the Prime Minister was in the sweet name of conciliation. How did he expect to retain the confidence of the people with that as the principal plank on his platform? That had broken down, so that he could not even conciliate his own people. What other plank was left ?

Proceeding, Mr. Fichardt referred to the Prime Minister’s Budget speech. They might call it a Budget speech, but it seemed to be a speech which dealt with anything but the Budget and was mainly directed as an attack upon certain of those whom he desired to follow him blindly. He had referred to the hon. member for Uitenhage as a Mbongo, that should have been entirely beneath the Prime Minister. Had he any serious objection to a Mbongo? And was not his quarrel with the hon. member that he refused to be his (the Prime Minister’s) Mbongo? He was surprised that the sneers of the hon. Minister at Mbongos. He was surprised that he did not think it was offensive to his own large following. If he had any objection to Mbongos let him “smell out” in his own immediate neighbourhood some very prominent Mbongos; it would not take very long for the Prime Minister to discover the original Mbongo who nodded his head in estactic approval while interjecting “Hoor, hoor.” The less the Prime Minister said about the hon. member for Uitenhage the better, for the hon. member had in the past been his Mbongo; but he had no objection to that. He was, however, severe when the hon. member for Uitenhage was somebody else’s Mbongo. The position was that they might be Mbongos without giving offence so long as they were acting in that capacity to the Prime Minister. If the hon. member for Uitenhage had no confidence in the Government, said the Prime Minister, he should have had the manliness to cross the floor of the House. (Ministerial cheers.) There was a delightful suggestion of Mbongoism about those cheers. The invitations issued to them by the Prime Minister tended to his (Mr. Fichardt’s) mind to strengthen the suspicion that there was a very close relationship indeed between the right hon. gentleman and, should he say, the Leader of the Opposition? He heard only yesterday that there was some sort of understanding between the hon. gentleman on the Government side of the House and the hon. gentleman opposite, but he did not know it was so close as to enable him to issue invitations to hon. members on that side to join the Opposition. He did not know whether the Prime Minister had that right, but at any rate they had the indisputable right to refuse, and he would exercise that light. In any case, whatever might be the rights or the wrongs of that matter, long before the Prime Minister threatened him with punishment as well as the humble back-benchers, might he suggest in the interests of the party, that before turning him out, the right hon. gentleman might try first turning out the right hon. member for Victoria West, and when he had banished him he might turn his attention to his old and valued friend the Minister of Justice. He might then ask the hon. gentleman who disagreed with him on the naval policy to take a seat on the other side, and perhaps then it would be the turn of the hon. member for Losberg, who spoke at Losberg, and called the Prime Minister, who spoke in London, to account, and ask him to cross the floor. In that way he would carry out his conciliation policy and they would all be on the other side in a short time. It opened up a vista of a delightful millennium which he could hardly believe they would hardly see in this country. But that would be a peculiar way of carrying out the policy; to suggest that they should arrive at it by kicking everybody out.

Proceeding, Mr. Fichardt said he wished to refer to a personal attack which the Prime Minister had made on him. One of the charges made against him (Mr. Fichardt) was that he had changed. Last year the Opposition made an attack on the hon. member for Smithfield, and he spoke in defence of him, receiving encouraging “Hoor, hoors,” from the Ministerial benches, and congratulatory handshakes from the Ministers. (Laughter.) He was still standing by the hon. member for Smithfield, but he wondered whether Ministers would again take him round the corner and shake him by the hand. (Laughter.) He wished now to refer to the article from which the Prime Minister quoted with such gusto the last time the House was discussing the Budget. He (Mr. Fichardt) desired the article to indicate that, although the Free Staters were prepared to wait, they were not prepared to accept the position that their member of the Ministry was to be kicked out. As far as that article was concerned, it was clearly understood that the Free Staters stood by the position that they were prepared to help wherever they could, as long as there was any hope, but that, when they realised that there was no longer any hope, then they were prepared to go out and fight. There were numberless caucus meetings held, and the result of them even appeared—he was going to say in the Prime Minister’s paper —(laughter)—the “Cape Times”—and they were urged to keep the peace, so as to give the negotiations a chance of success. He had the impression that peace was almost arrived at. A statement was asked for in that House. The reply to that was that either a manifesto would be issued or a statement would be made, but that the authorities would be consulted before that was done. There was no statement made, but the very next day a manifesto appeared, so that, while the Prime Minister told them that he was consulting the authorities as to which was the best course to adopt, that manifesto was issued. (Ministerial cries of dissent.) That document was either in the hands of the Prime Minister or in his pocket—(hear, hear)— but that was not all, but it was almost sufficient to make one lose confidence.

He (Mr. Fichardt) had an intense and national devotion to the man who led them in the Free State, and he (Mr. Fichardt) was prepared to make peace, and he was therefore a ready tool in the hands of clever manipulators. The Prime Minister urged them to keep the people quiet. The matter had a humorous side. “I came down,” proceeded Mr. Fichardt, “with the intention of helping to make the peace. I was buttonholed in the lobby by a very loyal colleague of the right hon. gentleman, and he took my arm. This sententious colleague hinted that a certain newspaper in the Free State, in which I had some interest and influence, was not quite playing the game, and he suggested that if only we could keep the people quiet, and if the country could be made to leave the matter in the hands of negotiators, the position was not altogether hopeless. I was carried away by this, and I that if only we could keep the people quiet, and if the country could be made to leave the matter in the hands of negotiators, the position was not altogether hopeless. I was carried away by this, and I said I would write an article, and the offer was accepted with very great pleasure. I wrote the article.

Was he a Minister?

Oh, yes, of course! (Laughter.) I was under the impression that I was helping. What is the result? Immediately that was done, and having used me that far, they turned round and flung it in my face. I have learned a good deal since this crisis began. (Laughter.) Continuing, Mr. Fichardt said the Prime Minister asked sneeringly why he had changed his opinion. The thing was extremely simple; he issued his manifesto. His advice to the hon. member for Smithfield up to that point had been to bide his time, but when he discovered that the manifesto had been issued his advice to the hon. member for Smithfield was no longer to bide his time, but if he wanted right from the Prime Minister to fight for it, and as far as he (Mr. Fichardt) was concerned, his humble services were at his disposal in that fight. General Botha, according to the “Cape Times” report, asked what had taken place to make Mr. Fichardt change his mind, and he went on to say did he not perhaps receive a telegram telling him how to vote. He (Mr. Fichardt) never received any such telegram. Let him say this, if he had, and it bore evidence that he had in some way or other broken faith with his constituents, he would have done as they told him, or resigned. (Hear, hear.) The Prime Minister seemed to have little appreciation of his position. Having used the Free Staters to get into power, he now ignored them. Had he endeavoured to form his first Ministry without the hon. member for Smithfield he knew as well as he (Mr. Fichardt) did that he would not have come back to power in that House.

The last election was not fought on measures; it was emphatically fought on men. The Prime Minister came into power on the backs of the Free Staters, because he, first of all, picked out the hon. member for Smithfield and said: “This is the man I take from you; will you support me because he supports me?”_He (Mr. Fichardt) therefore said that the Prime Minister had no right to say that he stood to support the Government the people had put in, and he had no right to continue in office. He never got such a telegram as had been referred to, but in a private letter, written by an intimate friend in the district, there was added a postcript to this effect: “I hope you will continue to support your old leader.” Now he had a great suspicion amounting almost to a certainty that he should have to ask the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs how that came out, because it was a private letter, and it passed through a Government Department. He wanted to say something about that extraordinary petulant cry of the hon. the Prime Minister that he had been stabbed in the back. He would like to know who stabbed him in the back? He conceived it his duty, if he had an objection, to bring it out here in the open Parliament. There was stabbing in the back going on now. To sneak about and spread the suggestion that a certain member, because he no longer supported the Government, had no right to a certain Government seat, was not that stabbing in the back? To sneak about and say that because the hon. member for Uitenhage was an anti-Krugerite during the war, he was not entitled to credence to day, was not that stabbing in the back?

He had a very vivid recollection of the time when the Prime Minister himself was an anti-Krugerite. And what about other hon. members on his side of the House? Even colleagues of his in the Government were not only anti-Kruger, but also anti-Botha at one time. As far as he (Mr. Fichardt) himself was concerned, he thought it was distinctly mean to put up a colleague of his to say that when the war broke out he was thousands of miles away. (Hear, hear.) He did not say he was not safe. For two years of the war he was much safer than he liked being. (Laughter.) Then there was a suggestion that he had received a telegram. There was no such telegram. In reference to the unfortunate remarks that were made about what a man did before, during, or after the war, it seemed to him that there were certain men who thought that before they did their duty yesterday it justified them in failing to do their duty to-day, and in sitting on the fence. If the hon. member who made those remarks about him personally was satisfied to adopt a position on the fence, he was quite welcome to it, and the Prime Minister was welcome to any support he could give him. As showing how absolutely out of touch the Prime Minister was with the Free State, he would again refer to the speech of the right hon. gentleman on the Budget. He said: “He had lived a long time in the Free State, and knew them to be more manly there. They did not want any member to come to Parliament and ask for doles.” What had hon. members done. Everyone had stood up and pleaded for something from the Prime Minister. Then the Prime Minister said: “Fools! You are calling for doles. Your people do not want doles.” Then they cheered. If the Prime Minister had been so long out of the Free State that he did not know they still wanted things, then the sooner he visited that Province the better. The Prime Minister went on to say: “If such an explanation had been desired by Mr. Hull, or anybody else, he should have asked for it, and it would have been made”—that in regard to their request that there should have been some statement made in the House in regard to the important changes in the Ministry. Well, they did ask for some statement. He thought that was the duty of the Opposition; but whether the Opposition was going to ask or not was immaterial to him; but they and the people of the country could not be blamed if they thought there was a conspiracy between the Government and the Opposition when the Opposition said nothing. He would like to give what appeared to him to be the causes for the loss of confidence in the Prime Minister. He would take first of all the immigration laws. He would like to know whether that law was being shaped along the lines laid down by their party. They laid down the principle that they should settle their own people on the land first; but what had they done for their people? The Government was not following out the principles of the party. In regard to the naval contribution, what did they find? Last year the Prime Minister said they were too poor to consider it. This year—well, they were all off to London, and having been in London himself, he had a shrewd suspicion of what would happen. Seeing that he had nothing to give away, he thought they might send him. (Laughter.)

You can give sympathy. (Laughter.)

Yes, I can give that. If they sent the Minister of Justice, he added, he would be quite satisfied, but he had his doubts about the Prime Minister. One of their principles was that there were to be no Asiatics to be allowed into this country, but the Bill that was before the House would allow them to come in just as well as keep them out.

The Bill had either been framed in London or Pretoria, or at least conceived in London, and he did not think that the Prime Minister was standing by the principles that they sent him in upon. With regard to agriculture, he said that the position was worse in the Free State than when they were under their own Government. But nothing was being done. Then there was the Minister of Lands and irrigation. He believed that there had been one or two very flying surveys in the Free State. They did not want a small dam here and a small dam there but a scheme the same as was on the Nile. (Laughter.) He believed—he was told by engineers—that in his own constituency there was an opportunity of building a big dam that would be of the greatest benefit. But they could not get anything done. He proceeded to criticise the policy of the Government with regard to education, more especially in so far as the schools in the Free State were concerned. In the Financial Relations Bill the Government did not—

Why don’t you tell us why you have no confidence in the Government?

I am dealing point by point with the matter. I am telling hon. members why I have no confidence in the Government.

Nonsense.

I am quite prepared to take that hon. member out on the floor of the House and talk to him in some other way. (Laughter.) Continuing, he said that in Free State Union had been almost repugnant to them because they were frightened of the native question and they had contended at the very outset that it should be placed in the foreground. Very little had been done with regard to that question. It had been truly said that the Prime Minister had his heart in the Johannesburg Press and his eyes on London.

Nonsense.

That hon. member says nonsense. I suppose that is all we can expect from that quarter. (Laughter.) In conclusion, he said that it was because he believed that the Prime Minister had his heart in the Johannesburg Press and his eyes on London that he supported the motion of the hon. member for Jeppe.

said he wished to refer to the fruits which they had gathered from the conciliation policy of the Prime Minister. Was the present position of affairs one of those fruits? Was not the difficulty which existed between him and the hon. member for Smithfield the result of the conciliation policy, and were there no other difficulties of which it was also the cause? Had there been no difficulties in the Cabinet with Sir Frederick Moor, of Natal, with Mr. Sauer, and with Mr. Hull

It was laid down in the party programme that all causes of estrangement and misunderstanding between the races ought to be avoided. Had that policy been followed by the Government? Was that principle comprised in the conciliation policy? No. They were only finding as a result of it more division in the party, in the Cabinet, and in the country. Was not that the result of the conciliation policy? The Cabinet itself spoke with two voices. The Minister of Lands had recently published a manifesto in which he stated that the late Minister of Justice had been wrongly dismissed from the Cabinet, but the Prime Minister did not admit the fact. There were therefore two voices in the Cabinet, and there were two voices also in connection with a contribution to the fleet.

The Prime Minister had been returned at the elections in great strength, but had he not forfeited that support? He who refused to recognise that the Prime Minister, owing to his own action, had lost his power in the House, was like a blind man endowed with the power of sight. The work of the country was being delayed owing to the exclusion from the Cabinet of a man who was strong and whose career had been as proud as that of any other man. The hon. member had been expelled from the Cabinet, with the result that immense dissatisfaction had been created.

A Select Committee had made recommendations at the first sitting of the present Parliament in connection with lower education. That committee had reported that the education laws of the Cape, Transvaal, and Natal showed partiality in favour of the English language. That partiality was not found to exist in the Orange Free State, and it appeared therefore from those facts that the ex-Minister of Justice had taken good and fair account of the rights of the two sections of the population. Equal compulsion was found in the Free State law, but in the other Provinces they found unequal compulsion. But the man who brought about the acceptance of the just law in the Orange Free State had been driven from the Cabinet. Why was such an injustice committed? That man had followed a policy for the good of the country and the people. But he had been removed from the Cabinet, and the result was that the Cabinet had become crippled. By that act the Government had been made impotent, and had ceased to answer to the great expectations of the country. The speaker intended to support the motion, without regard to the side from which it emanated. He could not always agree with the policy of the Labour Party, as a struggle between capital and labour was wrong, just as was the proposal to tax the land, as proposed by that party. Nevertheless, the hon. member for Jeppe was quite correct in saying that the House had ceased to have confidence in the Government.

rising at five minutes to twelve, said: For the second time during this session this House has experienced an extraordinary division. For hours and hours we have listened to a quarrel going on between members on the opposite side of the House, taking up the time of the House, and preventing us from attending to the business of the country. If there was anything necessary to show us that the Government is incompetent to keep the House under control and to carry on the business of the country, it is the lamentable exhibition we have had to-night (Opposition cheers.) I don’t wish at this late hour—

More Mbongos.

The hon. member for Barberton has had his say, perhaps he will be good enough to allow me to have mine. (Opposition cheers.) I can thoroughly understand that he is still writhing under the lash I found it my duty to administer to him. He has had a month in which to recover from the wound. Perhaps he will give me an opportunity of speaking now. (Opposition cheers.) I have no intention at this late hour of detaining the House at any great length, because our views have been very freely expressed as to the manner in which we think the Government has lamentably failed in carrying on the business of the country. (Cheers.) I think it is now just a month ago that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, moved what the Prime Minister has rightly referred to as a vote of no confidence in the Government. (Hear, hear.) In the motion to go into Committee of Supply on the Estimates the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, moved that the estimates of revenue and expenditure should be referred back to the Government for reconsideration in order that the ordinary revenue and expenditure should be made to balance. That amendment to the proposal of the Government was seconded by myself on behalf of the Opposition. The Prime Minister has very justly referred to that as a vote of no confidence of a constitutional character, which hon. members on this side of the House moved at the very first opportunity. (Opposition cheers.) There are many ways of moving a vote of no confidence in the Government, and in the majority of cases opportunity is taken to challenge the policy of the Government. We took that course, but unfortunately the House was not prepared to support us. During that debate we gave the reasons which actuated us in expressing our want of confidence in the manner in which the Government as at present constituted is carrying on the business of the country. (Opposition cheers.) At the present moment there is a great issue before the House. The issue is whether this House has or has not confidence in the administration presided over by my right hon. friend, and in the manner in which it transacts the business of the House and the country. Nothing in connection with that proposal before the House has to do with the manner in which it has been organised or advertised. (Hear, hear.) The clear issue before the members on this side of the House is whether we do or do not approve of the policy of my right hon. friend and his colleagues. I would like at once to dissociate myself and my friends from the source from which this resolution emanates, and especially to dissociate myself from the socialistic doctrines uttered by hon. members who sit on the cross benches. (Opposition cheers.) But that (proceeded Sir Thomas) could not in any way deter them from registering their oft-expressed convictions that the Government of his right hon. friend the Prime Minister was not a Government which could command the confidence of hon. members who sat on the Opposition side of the House. (Opposition cheers.)

There was another point to which he would like to refer, to make his position perfectly clear and to prevent any misunderstanding, and that was that there was a change in the personnel of the Government since last session. They upon the Opposition side of the House must approve of the action of the right hon. the Prime Minister in severing his connection with the hon. member for Smithfield, because that was a policy which for three years they constantly urged upon the right hon. gentleman. (Opposition cheers.) Consequently, so far as that was concerned, they must recognise that the Prime Minister did deserve some consideration from them for carrying out what they had urged. But, notwithstanding that his right hon. friend had dissociated himself from the hon. member for Smithfield, his right hon. friend the Prime Minister, in the conducting of the business of the country, had given them unmistakable evidence before, and again to-night, to which he would refer later, that though he had dissociated himself from the hon. member, the policy which had been advocated by his friends and the small phalanx which supported him, had always been able to bring sufficient pressure to bear on the Government to make them depart from their own principles. And that was the reason why they could feel no confidence in the Government that sat upon the Treasury benches at the present moment. (Opposition cheers.) If there was any doubt as to what the position was and whether the Government really was going to stand by their principles, that doubt had been removed by the very extraordinary and interesting letter which his right hon. friend the Minister of Lands considered it necessary, the other day, to put in the public press, in which he stated in unmistakable manner that he was only sitting in the Cabinet as the watchdog of the hon. member for Smithfield, and the advocate of the policy of the people who supported that hon. member. (Opposition cheers.) He thought that was a very fair interpretation to place upon the letter of which he understood his right hon. friend was so proud. (Laughter.) Now he would say to his right hon. friend the Prime Minister, that he thought the time had arrived when they were justified in saying that they wanted more than pious opinions.

The time had arrived when they wanted principles advocated to that House and to the country, and if his right hon. friend the Prime Minister desired their sympathy, he must be strong and determined and come out and tell the country that he differed from the hon. member for Smithfield. (Opposition cheers.) He (the speaker) had expected that his right hon. friend would give them those principles, and what happened? As on the Budget debate, so that night for over an hour the Prime Minister was eloquent—on what? Eloquent in dealing with the quarrel which only affected a section of the people, eloquent in referring to his people and his volk. Had not the time arrived when the Prime Minister should deal with all the people of the country? (Opposition cheers.) Were they to sit quietly by and hear the Prime Minister turn round and speak as if there were only one people in this country, and one section deserving of his eloquence? Though he did devote the last two or three minutes to the motion before the House, was his right hon. friend justified in taking up the time of the House for a considerable period and speaking in such a way as if one section of the people of this country only deserved consideration? (Opposition cheers.) He thought it was a matter which it was his duty to bring forward, and he was surprised to hear the Prime Minister, in defence of his attitude, turn round to his supporters and say that there was no difference in the principles advocated by the hon. member for Smithfield and those advocated by himself. He understood him to say that there was no difference. (Hear, hear.) On the question of immigration and land settlement they had heard the most extraordinary doctrine. They had heard the Prime Minister say that, so far as that principle was concerned, it was practically the same principle as the principle of the hon. member for Smithfield. He thought that they had been correct and justified in calling attention to the speech which the Prime Minister made at Losberg. In that speech he departed entirely from the principles which he enunciated at the Eighty Club in London. Then he said that, until the 10,000 people in this country were placed on the soil, he would have nothing to do with the policy of bringing people into this country. Did that agree with the statement that he made in London when he said that they would welcome people once the arrangement was fixed up with the shipping company, and that the Government were prepared to spend large sums of money to bring into this country thousands of people to settle on the thousands of acres that were lying idle? The time had arrived when his right hon. friend, in order to secure the confidence of a large section of the people of this country, must carry out the principles he had advocated on many occasions. Continuing, Sir T. W. Smartt said that, as far as the policy of that (the Unionist) party was concerned, it remained to-day as it had been in the past. They had had no change. They had been told, and they were again told that night, that there was no difference in the programme, as enunciated by hon. members on his side of the House, and the programme as enunciated by hon. members on the other side of the House. There might be very little difference in the programmes—on paper—but there was a difference in the honest desire to bring these principles into practice, and it was in regard to that that they differed from the Government. They recognised that, as at present constituted, and under the extraordinary state of affairs which existed in the country, so long as that (the South African) party existed as it did, the Government were paralysed from carrying out any legislation in the interests of the country. The interests of the country had got to suffer from the narrow party considerations in the country, and the period of usefulness of his right hon. friend the Prime Minister and his Government had ceased to exist. Surely his right hon. friend knew that his Government, as at present constituted, was not an entirely harmonious body? His right hon. friend knew it, and had even been told so by many of his own supporters; and under these circumstances it had been shown that it was utterly impossible that the Government of the country could be carried on efficiently. Surely, they ought on his side of the House to have the right to say that the right hon. member should go to the country and let the electors of the country decide. It was for that reason that they were compelled, owing to the views they had expressed in that House, irrespective of who was the direct mover of the motion of no confidence, to register their conscientious opinion that his right hon. friend the Prime Minister was unable to carry out the high principles which he had enunciated, and consequently was unable to carry on the Government.

said that he rose to congratulate the hon. member who had just spoken. One would have thought that the leader of the Opposition would have moved a vote of that kind, if he believed half of what he had said; and when that morning the hon. member and the members of his following had got out of bed they did not know how to vote. (Laughter.) They had caucus after caucus and they could come to no agreement, and it was only that morning that they took their courage in their hands and agreed. (Laughter.) After notice had been given of the motion an hon. friend on the opposite side said: “It will be very awkward for you, but I told him,” added the hon. Minister, “it would be very awkward for him.” (Laughter.)

Really, when he heard hon. members talking about principles and the difficulties of the Government, and that the time must come when they must vote for this vote of censure, he asked his hon. friend, if he was a competent leader, why did not he move a vote of no confidence himself. Why did he allow himself to be dragged at the heels of the Labour Party? He had managed to make himself look conspicuously ridiculous; in fact, the whole procedure reminded him of the situation in the Balkans, where his hon. friend the member for Smithfield represented Servia, and he would not apply the illustration of the Bulgarians to the Opposition, because Bulgarians were fighters. (Laughter.) And with regard to those on the cross benches, he did not know what to liken them to except that they seemed to be like the Turks. How were they all going to work together when they carried this dissolution. A more hollow piece of humbug was never submitted. He would like to know where the hon. member for Fort Beaufort would be if there was a dissolution. Why, he would lose half his seats to the Labour Party. He had heard conversations in the lobby, and there was nobody but was aware that there was nothing so horrible as the prospect of a dissolution to the Opposition. They did not want a dissolution. They knew perfectly well that a great many of their following would go. (Sir T. W. SMARTT: Your following would go, too.) The hon. member for Fort Beaufort had said that the Opposition had agitated for three years that the Prime Minister should get rid of the hon. member for Smithfield. They had also agitated to get rid of him (the Minister of Justice), but the Prime Minister nor himself would never be deceived into the belief that if the Government did what the Opposition wanted, the Opposition would be grateful to them. (Hear, hear.) The Prime Minister had been accused of being in a conspiracy with the Opposition, but that was a piece of sheer humbug and hypocrisy. The only regrets he (Mr. Sauer) had was that so good a man as the late Minister of Justice should be associated with people who when they thought he was prosperous had never a good word for him. The Government had been challenged and it would come to a decision. He could detain the House a long time on the question of the conduct of the business. He had an illuminating piece of paper showing how the business of the Government of which the leader of the Opposition was a member, was conducted. It showed how important measures had been thrown out and how the Government was defeated time after time almost every week. At last the Cape Parliament decided that it would not give them any money to proceed with business.

Not the Assembly.

No doubt we have our defects and our faults.

And your disagreements.

Are there no disagreements on the other side? We shall see when we come to vote.

Where is the hon. member for Victoria West?

You will see in the paper to-morrow where he is. Continuing, Mr. Sauer said this resolution which should have been proposed by the Opposition, was moved from another quarter of the House, and it had led the Opposition, against its will, to support a proposal which it hoped would be defeated, for its success would be the Opposition’s ruin. Well, he would only say this in conclusion, that when they talked of delay in the business, let them look at what had happened. For sixteen long, weary days they had had discussions in that House which had considerably retarded business. (Uproar and cries of “What about the caucus?”)

On both sides. Continuing, he said he supposed that all the well-behaved men were on the Opposition side of the House, but he must say the interruptions he had had—well, if he were a nervous man— — But it was gratifying at least to know that what one was saying was unpalatable. But now they would come to the vote and they would see who were in the conspiracy. He hoped the atmosphere would be cleared and they would be able to go on with the business. (Cheers.)

said he would not have spoken on this matter, but reference was made to himself by the hon. member for Smithfield in connection with a telegram which had been received by an hon. member which was read to the House to-night and which was to the affect that he had approached a Mr. Tatham and offered him a portfolio. (Laughter.) And, furthermore, that the hon. member for Uitenhage’s name was never mentioned in connection with any Ministerial appointment. (Cries of “Shame,” and laughter.) “Well,” said the Minister, “I would like to give an unvarnished statement of what happened. I was requested by Mr. Tatham for an appointment. I was requested on two or three occasions before the appointment was granted. When. I met that gentleman—

What gentleman?

I am sorry the hon. gentleman will not agree with me.

I thought you said a general.

I think he is able to take charge of a commando. (Laughter.) When I met Mr. Tatham he discussed the differences which existed in the South African Party, and he said to me, “You are the very man—(Cries of: “Oh,” and loud laughter) —whom we want. (Renewed laughter.) You are liked on both sides of the House —(cries of: “Oh,” and loud laughter)— you have not committed yourself the same as other members. If you will consent we will make you Prime Minister—(loud laughter)—on one condition; and that condition is that you must reserve for us three portfolios.

Is that all?

So I inquired who was “the ring,” and he said “I must tell you that the one portfolio, first of all, is for myself —(loud laughter)—the next portfolio is for General Hertzog, and the third portfolio is for Mr. Fremantle. (Renewed laughter.) But if you have any serious objections to Fremantle we will just throw him over— (laughter)—as in my opinion he is not of much consequence.” (Renewed laughter.)

He (the speaker) inquired if he had been sent for or had the confidence of the hon. member for Smithfield. Mr. Tatham made answer, and said, “I come from General Hertzog now. I came down with him from the Free State direct from President Steyn’s house, where all the wires that have passed between President Steyn and the Prime Minister and other members of the Government have been placed at my disposal. (Cries of: “Oh,” and laughter.) I may further inform you I am General Hertzog’s chief and principal adviser. (Laughter.) We have now arranged it, and he will not do anything without my sanction. (Laughter.) Mr. Tatham looked at him in a Napoleonic way—(laughter)—and asked: “Is there business in this?” He said: “Probably for you, but not for me.” (Laughter.) “If General Botha offered me the Premiership I would refuse it.” (Opposition cries of: “Oh,” and laughter.) On that he left Mr. Tatham. Furthermore, the gentleman had forgotten to mention that he had spoken to somebody else on the subject. Mr. Tatham left him under the impression that he came with the confidence of General Hertzog, and he was surprised that the hon. member for Smithfield should have inquired that night whether he (the speaker) had satisfied himself that Mr. Tatham was authorised or not. He did not make any inquiries— in the first place, because he did not entertain the suggestion. In the second place, he thought there was no occasion to make any inquiries from the hon. member, for he did not think it was worth his while. He was glad to hear, however, that he had disowned Mr. Tatham. (Laughter.) He thought that the hon. member for Smithfield would be acting in his own interests and the interests of the people of the country if he gave up his other advisers also.

For you.

said it was the hon. member’s new advisers that had led him into all this trouble. He had his (the speaker’s) sympathy, but unless he abandoned his present advisers, he would experience great difficulty in extricating himself from the position he had got into. He thought it only fair that he should make this statement in view of the statement made by the hon. member for Colesberg at Richmond and the telegram from Mr. Tatham, which the hon. member for Smithfield read to the House.

, in replying on the debate, said that, as to the remarks made by the Minister of Railways and Harbours, he wished to say that if there was an unhappy state of affairs in the party to which the Minister belonged, it did not surprise him (Mr. Creswell), if the courtesy extended by the Minister to members of his own Party was no greater than the courtesy which he extended to members of that House. It was difficult to read in the annals of Parliament a more ill-bred statement than that of the Minister. He (the Minister) was on a high pinnacle of innocence and what he did was pure—(laughter)—and what he (Mr. Creswell) did was “merely self-advertisement” and “the stirring up of mud.” He would not take any more notice of the Minister than to say that if he came to the constituency of Jeppe he would soon find out that they would not like their member to be alluded to as half a member. A member had a right to put down any motion on private members’ day, as he had done; and from the attitude of the Minister they could well understand why a good deal of unrest existed on the railways. The Minister had not ventured to contest the arguments with which he (Mr. Creswell) had supported his motion. He had known that the case was up, and that the country’s business was being paralysed through the position of the Government. He (Mr. Creswell) had categorically denied that there was any collusion between the Labour Party and any other section of that House in regard to that motion, and he must repeat it, and when he (Mr. Creswell) made a statement in the House it was true. The insinuation of the leader of the Opposition was that this motion had been tabled after collusion with hon. members opposite, and he would take upon himself the privilege of addressing a few words to the hon. member. When the Prime Minister was called to form the Ministry, he was in an unfortunate position, because he did not accede to the suggestion of the former leader of the Unionist Party and include several Unionists in his Cabinet. Then the right hon. gentleman formed a new Cabinet and left a member out. He was told that a new party was to be formed, but he trusted they would not follow the example of the hon. members and come out with the same policy, or practically the same policy, as the Opposition. He might be wrongly reading the course of coming events, but he would tell them honestly that from the bottom of his heart he welcomed anything that would split up both the Government party and the Unionists. He would only call the attention of the House and the country to the fact that not one single bit of defence had been put up by the Government for the indictment laid to their charge. The reason they were unable to carry on the business of the country was because they had not the pluck to go to the country for a mandate. Between the policy of the Government and the policy of the Opposition there was no difference. Let them, therefore, go to the country, and let the country decide what policy it would have.

Of course, the Opposition had to vote for the motion. It was in a cleft stick, and could not get out of it. (Ministerial cheers.) He wished to expose this hollow hypocrisy. If the Government were a bad Government, it was largely so because we had the sham Opposition, and the sooner the latter ceased to cumber the ground, the better for the country. (Laughter and Labour cheers.) The hon. member for Fort Beaufort had referred to the occasion on which the Opposition took what he (Sir T. W. Smartt) described as a constitutional course of attempting to turn out the Government, but on that occasion the Opposition was not able to keep the debate up for three hours. The Opposition had another opportunity to attempt to turn out the Government a fortnight later, on the motion that the Speaker leave the chair, but it neglected it. The country would know perfectly well that the Opposition, when it had an opportunity on a vote of no confidence to point out every weak spot in the Government’s armour, abstained from taking part in the debate, lest the discussion might extend over several days, and little by little the Government might be weakened. The Opposition abstained from attacking the Government until it knew that its votes would not turn the Ministry out. If there was one thing the Opposition did not desire, it was to turn out the Government, because the interests which the Opposition served were better served by the Government remaining in power, for the Opposition was thus able to wring from the Government more than the Opposition would dare to give to the interests it served. Could the Opposition blame the Government for not taking the matter seriously? He had appealed to the Opposition to support the motion, but if they could have avoided it or if they had thought it would turn the Government out, they would have declined to support it. The fact of the matter was that besides having a rotten Government they had an absolutely contemptible Opposition. (Labour cheers.)

On being put to the vote, the motion was declared negatived.

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