from C. A. Smith and 12 others, inhabitants of Port Alfred, praying for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Veto, whereby men and women may decide by ballot on the continuance, reduction or issue of liquor licences, or for other relief.

a similar petition from L. S. Cooper and 38 others, inhabitants of East London.

from J. H. R. Barnard, who lost the sight of one eye whilst employed by the Cape Forest Department in 1909, praying for consideration of the circumstances of his case and for relief.

Return showing various services rendered to local authorities by Government engineers in connection with schemes for town or village water supply and drainage since Union, etc.

drew attention to the remarks made by the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Fichardt), who, in all his speeches, now posed as the champion of the Free State and condemned the Minister of the Interior. The hon. member should recollect that when he was still a child-in-arms, the Minister of the Interior had already started drafting Bills. (Hear, hear.) A great change had taken place this last year in the state of mind of the hon. member for Ladybrand, who in his pleadings, seemed to wish to step in where angels feared to tread. If it were possible to repatriate the Asiatics without injustice he (the speaker) would gladly have it done, but unfortunately that could not be done. Some hon. members had given the impression that the Bill maintained the existing Provincial legislation, but that was not the case. He (Mr. Theron) thought this Bill gave better protection from Asiatics than they had ever had before. He deprecated the suggestion made by other members that the Free State should be thrown open to Asiatic immigrants. He urged that places where Asiatic competition did not exist should remain closed to such competition, as if the Free State were opened up for Asiatics the dealers in other parts of the country would suffer in consequence. Much of the criticism which they had heard would have been more appropriate in the Committee stage. It had been suggested by some people that the Bill was so strict that it would keep out desirable immigrants, but he did not agree with that view. A law to prohibit Asiatic immigration had to be strict. He hoped therefore the hon. member for Ladybrand would withdraw his amendment, and that the Bill would be carried into law this session.

said the greater portion of this Bill, as he understood it, was necessitated very much by the exigencies of the Empire of which they formed part. The right hon. member for Victoria West deprecated Imperialism, and Imperialists. Personally he had never been an ardent or rigid Imperialist, but he was still proud that he was a subject of the King of Great Britain. (Hear, hear.) The Crown had never refused the right of any self-governing Colony to guard itself against the influx of aliens, more particularly coloured immigrants, although there had been many difficulties upon that subject. After the great Indian Mutiny, the Crown declared itself bound to the natives of India by the same obligation as to its other Dominions, and it was in view of that proclamation that they had now to consider this Bill. He said this because of the remarks which fell from the hon. member for Ladybrand, and he must say that when the hon. member spoke last session he led them to believe that he had a sort of contempt for the British Empire, and led them also to believe that the last thing they ought to consider was the British Empire. This was one of the occasions which, if the interests of the Empire and South Africa should by any misfortune conflict, it was then for some gentlemen on the opposite side to say that South African interests should be predominant. The hon. member for Smithfield, in his speech that he delivered there, had been understood to say that having read the correspondence on this matter, and which had been laid upon the Table of the House, they would see what an extremely vague and deplorable standpoint had been taken by his colleagues regarding his statements. He had seen the correspondence for the first time when it was laid upon the Table, and he felt indignant when he saw the intention in respect to the Free State. The hon. member referred to the story of the fox that had lost his tail, and tried to persuade all the other foxes to have their tails cut off.

He wondered if the hon. member knew the story of the wise men of Gotham. The people of Gotham kicked up their heels and incurred the anger of their monarch, and they consulted some of the wise men as to how they could appease their king. The wise men instructed them that the only way they could allay the monarch’s resentment was to act as if they were born fools. (Laughter.) In following out this advice one thing they did was to take a number of pigeons and enclose them in a bosjes kraal, and then let them fly out on the king’s arrival. This would show what fools they were, because only fools would think that they could prevent pigeons from flying out of a bosjes kraal. (Laughter.) He did not say that the hon. member would act in this way, but he seemed to be setting up a bosjes kraal round the Free State to prevent people from coming in. Might he remind the hon. member of a remark of a great literary man in England, who said, in regard to some of his critics, that the very best thing they could do was to dispraise him, and he (Sir W. B. Berry) would tell the hon. member that the very best thing he could do was to dispraise the House of Commons. The Minister had tried to father upon the Opposition the wrecking of the Bill last year, and he was glad that the hon. member for Ladybrand was going to take credit for wrecking the present Bill by an amendment which was even worse than the Bill. Everyone who had approached this subject from a Union and reasonable point of view must realise that considerable restrictions were desirable in keeping undesirable aliens out of the country. He quite agreed that some distinction of a kind was necessary. The right hon. gentleman founded his Bill, he said, upon the Canadian law, because there were some provisions in that law incorporated in the Bill. But what they had to consider was the motive and he would point out that the motive in the present Bill was entirely different from the Canadian law, which sought to encourage and protect immigrants. Continuing, the hon. member said he wished to point out to the right hon. gentleman that Canada did not have to deal with the difficulties in connection with population which they had to encounter in this country. There was no population in Canada which corresponded with the Indian population in the Union, and such being the case, he thought it was all the more necessary that they should scrutinise the motive of the Bill which dealt with more than the mere keeping out of undesirables. He thought the Minister had lost sight of the fact that they had in that Union 150,000 British subjects, whom it was desired by the Bill to restrict in their movements. There was no provision of that kind in the Canadian law. Once a man was admitted into Canada he was allowed to go where he pleased throughout the Dominion. That was not the case in this country. They had one law in the Cape Colony restricting these people to the Cape, and the same state of affairs in Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal. Surely a law that proposed to restrict the movements of British subjects was a law, that deserved the closest scrutiny. It was altogether, different to a law to restrict keeping out undesirables from the Union. A law that was going to restrict the movements of loyal British subjects was one to be deprecated. The Minister did not tell them in so many words how this was to be done, but he took power to deal with that subject. Though he was going to get some officers to carry out the instructions, all the power was reserved to the Minister for the time being.

Proceeding, the hon. member quoted remarks by Sir James Rose-Innes on Immigration legislation, and said that this Bill set up a bureaucracy par excellence. From that point of view he thought that the Bill was one that should be examined very closely. Continuing, he dealt with Canadian laws, and the question of appeal, and said there was a great difference between legislation in Canada and the Bill before the House, and wished to know why the Minister was repealing only one Act, dealing with domicile in the Transvaal and not the other. There was an Appeal Board in Canada, but it was entirely different to the one proposed by the Minister. The Minister had proposed an Appeal Board of three or more persons, but he did not think that such an Appeal Board would recommend itself to immigrants or the fair sense and good sense of the people of the Union. The Canadian Board was constituted in an entirely different way, and its method of working was different. The Board in the Union was going to work under instructions issued by the Minister from time to time, and that was an extraordinary position. The Immigration Board in Canada worked according to regulations issued under proclamation by the Governor-General. He (the speaker) thought that the Secretary of State for the Colonies took it for granted that the regulations which would govern the working of the Immigration Board of the Union would be published in the “Gazette,” but the right hon. gentleman had said that he would only publish that part of the regulations which suited him. If other provisions of the Bill were extreme, he thought that this was the most extreme. The Minister had only to whisper in the ear of the Immigration Officer to keep out such and such a fellow, and the thing was done. He agreed with the hon. member for Boksburg that a medical adviser was necessary on the Board, and he thought the Canadian example of Appeal Boards was one which the right hon. gentleman ought to follow. He was grievously disappointed with what the Minister had said about the restrictions placed on the wives of Indian citizens. He was sorry that the Minister dealt with this very important subject in a rather frivolous and jesting manner, and a manner to be deprecated, and he thought his right hon. friend had not really grasped the importance of the situation. The question of marriage was of the utmost importance to the Indians, who resented the way in which they were touched by this Bill. The Minister did not give them a definition of what he meant by the wife of an Indian immigrant.

Proceeding, Sir W. B. Berry referred to the case of a man who went from this colony and got married in India to his first and only wife, and who, upon his presenting himself and his wife for admission at one of the Union ports, was told by the immigration authorities that the lady could not be allowed to land, as marriages according to Mohammedan law were not recognised in this country or in India. The man appealed to the Supreme Court, and Mr. Justice Searle upheld the immigration officer, because, he said, he should otherwise be recognising within the Province of the Cape of Good Hope the Mohammedan law of marriage, and in that way would be doing what had never been done before, and what they did not intend to do in the future. That was a most undesirable state of things. In Natal the law was quite different, and marriages according to Mohammedan law were recognised as valid. By a more recent law the validity of marriages even to polygamous wives was recognised. He wished to impress upon the House the confusion which was going to arise in the Union on this matter of marriage. He thought it would have been well if the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Fischer), before interfering with this very tender subject of marriage, had set the house in order in that respect. He agreed with those hon. members on that side who said that this Bill was not needed. What they really wanted was the repeal of the Transvaal law of 1907. If that Act were repealed and if the racial bar which that Act set up were removed, he thought that very much of the trouble that had been felt in this country and that had created so much anxiety in the minds of those who were responsible for His Majesty’s Government in London, would be done away with. If they were to do that and set in order the marriage law, as far as the rights of Mahommedans were concerned in this country, he thought a useful piece of work would be accomplished. He also thought that freedom of movement all through the Union should be given to those few Indians of higher status who were to be admitted from time to time. Then there was the question of the removal of that burdensome and iniquitous tax upon the Indians of Natal of £3 per head upon every man, woman, and child. He would like a clear explanation from the right hon. gentleman as to whether he had or had not promised to Mr. Gokhale that that unfair tax would be removed. As he understood, Mr. Gokhale had a promise from the Government of this country that this tax would be removed. He could only join with those who said that a Bill of this kind, so foreign to our ideas of fair-play and right conduct, was one that could only be accepted by this House and the people of the Empire if it were shown that it was going to give satisfaction to those to whom it more particularly related, and going to bring peace to them, and avoid and settle all further agitation in this country. But there was not the slightest indication that it was going to do that. Our Indian fellow-subjects were up in arms about this Bill from one end of the country to the other, and were promising again to give us a taste of passive resistance. He thought the best thing that could happen to this Bill, seeing its many defects, its stringency in some respects, and its utter inadequacy in other respects, would be for the right hon. gentleman to withdraw it, and bring in a Bill next session, dealing with the exigencies of the question. (Hear, hear.)

said there were good points in the Bill, but he hoped the Minister of Native Affairs would see his way to include the Cape Province in it.

said the Natives Land Bill was not at present under discussion. (Laughter.)

said that he looked upon this Bill as an advance upon that of last session, and he would be prepared to give it his support.

said his desire in rising was chiefly to endeavour to remove some misconceptions which appeared to exist in regard to the state of affairs in Natal. There seemed to be a complete misunderstanding as to the position of Indians there. They were divided into two distinct classes: (1) those who had been introduced as indentured labourers, and (2) those who had come in as traders or as free Indians to pursue the avocations to which they had been accustomed in their own country. It was a misconception to suppose that all the Indians in Natal had been brought there for the benefit of the white people merely. When the introduction of these labourers was initiated, it was not exactly a case of selfishness, but rather a case of self preservation, because their own labour supply was inefficient, and unequal to the demands made upon it, through the natives being drawn away to the diamond mines in Kimberley. The Colony of Natal had not been unmindful of its obligations towards its population or towards South Africa, because so long ago as 18 years back it took steps to provide that those Indians who came into Natal as labourers should not remain as colonists by passing an Act compelling them either to reindenture, return to India, or pay an annual licence of £3 per adult, the tax which Sir Bisset Berry had described as “iniquitous.”

The Indians came to Natal with their eyes open, and the tax was not iniquitous in the sense that it was placed on them without their knowledge, or without the approval of their Government. The effect of legislation had been that Indians could not become colonists, and the few who had remained were only those who earned large wages in hotels or domestic service. The Government and the people of Natal were not unmindful of the undesirability of keeping these people. (Hear, hear.) With regard to the other class of Indians, those who came on their own accord as commercial men and artisans —they were never brought to Natal to form a part of the permanent population. In 1896, plague broke out in the Bombay Presidency, and within six months some 1,964 free Indians arrived in Natal. Mr. Escombe saw the danger of this influx, and he cabled to Sir John Robinson, who was then in England, stating that the influx must be stopped, and asking him to explain to Mr. Chamberlain that Natal must follow New South Wales. Towards the end of the year two more ships arrived at Durban with five or six hundred free Indians on board. Great excitement prevailed in Durban, large meetings were held, and resolutions were passed demanding the stoppage of these Indians, and arrangements were made forcibly to prevent their landing if necessary. However, through the instrumentality of Mr. Escombe violent measures were not resorted to. In 1897 the present Act was passed, providing for the restriction of immigration. It must not be supposed that a constant accession of Indians as a permanent portion of the population of Natal had been made with the desire of the people of that Province. There was 38,000 indentured Indians engaged in agricultural work in Natal, and when their terms of engagement had expired they would either have to be reindentured, return to India, or pay a special tax. The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) had appealed to the Union Government to stop the importation of coolie labour into Natal, but in 1911 that importation was stopped by the Indian Government, and now no more Indians could come over, either to work as labourers or to form any part of the population of Natal, so that there need be no fear of an increase in the Indian population so far as Natal was concerned. Since July, 1911, when recruiting in India ceased, no more Indians had arrived in Natal, but 3,250 had left Natal for India, they having completed their indentures. Things in Natal were not nearly so bad as people might think from all that had been said in the course of the debate. He stood there quite unrepentant as an employer of Indian labour, and he still held that that labour had been, and would be, a great benefit to Natal. He did not share the feeling of the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Meyler), who proclaimed himself as glad that the importation of native labourers would cease. In 1908 there were 25,000 indentured Indians employed in Natal, they being distributed as follows: On the sugar estates, 7,006; tea estates, 1,722; general farming, 6,149; the coal mines, 3,239; Natal Government Railways, 2,371; domestic servants, 1,949; corporations, 1,062; brickyards, 740; wattle plantations, 606; lading and shipping work, 422; and miscellaneous, 313. Those of them, proceeded Mr. Clayton, who employed Indians because they could not get natives had felt that a blow had been struck by the stoppage of the importation of Indians. Natal had no desire whatever to see its traders crushed out of existence by the presence of Indians whose standard of life was so very much lower than its own. In 1897 the Dealers’ Licences Act was amended, and restrictions were put in compelling these men to carry on their business on similar lines to English traders and to keep their books in the English language. That Act had the effect of considerably restricting the trade of that class of the community which had done so much damage to Natal. When the Bill was being discussed it was pointed out that these Indians had driven small storekeepers not only from the rural districts but from the towns as well; therefore they were quite in line with those who desired to restrict this class of immigrant. Dealing with the Bill itself, the hon. member stated that it was impossible to have a law of this kind without having extraordinary powers within the four corners of the measure. When Mr. Escombe brought in his Bill, he was advised to make a direct Act dealing with Indians. Mr. Escombe pointed out that a Bill was like a ship. You could not sail it in the teeth of a head wind, and only by tacking could they reach their goal. What was the case in Canada? Although their Bill contained clauses that could shut out a very large number of intending immigrants, immigrants had been coming in freely. The provisions of the Bill would not stop desirable immigrants from landing and settling in the country.

It was not only Indians that they should shut out, but people such as those who were engaged in illicit liquor selling in the Transvaal. The whole success of this Act depended upon the administration of it, and the Minister should see that he had men who were able to hold the balance of justice, and not to allow prejudice to creep in to prevent men from entering the country who really were desirable. When the time came when the country developed by railway extension and markets were more accessible to possible settlers, then he had no doubt that large numbers of people would come from oversea to swell the population of South Africa, but it would be unwise to put settlers without capital in remote parts of South Africa far away from markets.

Who desired that?

pointed out that the whole responsibility for the great difficulty with which South Africa was faced lay at the door of the Natal sugar planters, and any measure that they might have to pass in order to set the stream rolling the other way, he submitted that the cost should be borne by the same shoulders. (Hear, hear.) One could not help wondering what sort of a picture people could conjure up of their proceedings in that Parliament on reading the cables over the water. What would they say to a Parliament that, after its third session was engaged in discussing an Immigration Bill. He wondered what picture they would conjure up. He wondered what their feelings would be when they saw that quarter by quarter there was an increase in the number of people leaving the country over those entering it. The whole difficulty in constructing such a Bill arose out of the problem presented by the Indian population. Every man would agree that South Africa had made up its mind that it was not going to be any longer a dumping ground for Asiatic labourers, and if they were free agents it would be perfectly simple to arrange a Bill shutting out Asiatics unless specially admitted, but they were not free agents at all. But he wanted to point out to the Government and the House that it was very possible that by being too diplomatic they might do more harm than they would do by being fairly blunt in their statement. He wanted to know if any statement had been made to the Government of India that in the peculiar position in which South Africa was placed that it would be unwise to complicate further the complex problem that they already had to face. He wondered how embarrassed the Government of India would be if they desired to send them a million Kafirs.

He wanted convincing that the matter had been put more frankly and fully to the Indian Government than appeared from the correspondence. It had been implied that the provisions of this Bill would put an end to the troubles in the Transvaal, but he must express doubt that that or any other Act would do so. He thought that Mr. Gandhi would be satisfied with nothing less than absolute equality in this country on a par with Europeans. He was afraid that if he were in that position he would not cease agitation until he had obtained for his compatriots the fullest liberties of any citizen in this country. He did not think that the Government would do away with trouble by legislation of this kind. If there was anything to show that this formula would be acceptable then it might be worth while facing the great difficulties which the formula involved. Even if they stopped immigration they had to face the grave and great problem of the natural increase in the Indian population within their borders. They had been told that the Indian population in South Africa consisted of indentured Indians and their descendants, free Indians, Hindoos, and the traders. A solution might be found in the encouragement of Indian emigration from South Africa. He did not suggest that they should be coerced to leave, but, having been attracted here, attractions should be offered them to go out of the country. With regard to the indentured coolie and the South African coolie, the position was, he believed, different, owing to the fact that under the conditions they had been prejudiced in the eyes of their own people. He suggested that, by means of negotiations with the Indian Government, and by offers of land, the stream of immigration should be set in the other direction. He did not think it was too late to tackle the matter if it were tackled properly. Unless the Minister sent the Bill to a Select Committee, he was convinced the Bill would not go through. Unless hon. members were satisfied that this formula was absolutely necessary, he could see clauses of the measure being questioned at every stage, so that the Minister would have no gospel chance of getting the Bill through the House. Assuming this formula—this subterfuge—was absolutely necessary, he wanted to show how immensely it complicated the matter. If they had a clause that did not describe the people they wanted to keep out, then they would have to face difficulties. Rather than the "economic clause,” he would have preferred the impossible provision of the previous year, which required that an immigrant, if necessary, should pass a dictation test in Sanskrit. He suggested that if the Bill went to a Select Committee, that committee would have to rigorously water down some of the clauses that the Government knew it would be impossible to get through a Committee of the whole House. In one way the Bill was an improvement on that of last year, and that was in regard to Appeal Boards. In the previous Bill the Immigration Officer was judge and jury, but what had the Minister done on this occasion. He had suggested the setting up of Appeal Boards, not only at the ports of entry, but throughout the country, so that, if a prohibited immigrant was not caught at the port of entry, he could be caught at some other place and at some other time. That clause had been regarded with the gravest apprehension, and they on those benches looked at the clause with the gravest alarm. (Laughter.)

Such arbitrary powers it would be in the highest degree unsafe to leave in the hands of any Government. He did not wish to go into the details of the Bill, but there were some directions in which it was extraordinarily vague. He would only mention the entire refusal to insert any clause in this Bill which would prevent immigrants being brought here under contract to undercut and undersell the present inhabitants of this country or their labour. They would certainly try and see clause 5 amended. In one of the sub-sections an exception was made from the prohibited immigrants in a roundabout way, in order to enable the importation of natives of South Africa from outside the Union. In Committee, they would propose an amendment which would clearly define that point. In conclusion, he would say that this Bill, dependent as it was upon a complication arising from what he might call external forces, and the whole Bill being complicated by the necessity of trying to avoid, in the first clause, saying what they meant,, it was absolutely necessary, before it went to a Committee of the whole House, that it should go to a Select Committee. It appeared to him that a Bill regulating immigration, and not restricting it, was required; and that it was better to deal frankly and fairly with the subject of. Asiatic immigration in one Bill, and with the subject of immigration generally in another. They might pass as many Bills as they liked as regarded Asiatic immigration, and invent as many formulae as they liked, but they would not keep out other races from this country, unless they adopted the only possible way, and that was to fill the waste spaces of this country with a white population. In these days it would be found impossible to keep a great country like this empty, when the world was looking about for empty spaces. (Hear, hear.)

said he thought that most members of that House would feel that the Government was face to face with an exceedingly difficult problem. He did not propose to go into the clauses of this Bill, but he thought that every member must have been shocked at the thought that a liberty-loving people, a people who had given up so much for liberty, should be capable of producing such a Bill as this, and asking them to pass it through the House. He Wanted to deal with one point only. The hon. member for Zululand, after a plea for the revival of the importation of Indian labour into Natal, came back to the one criticism which was valuable when he said it was a question of administration. So it was. (Hear, hear.) Objectionable as many of these clauses were, and violating some fundamental principles which were dear to them, he thought they would be able even to accept these clauses if they had the confidence, gained from experience, in the administration by the Government of this department. What did the past teach them about the way in which immigration had been treated in this country, when left to the tender mercies of some official or some Minister? They knew how fond one Minister was of some sort of “Oriental despotism.” He submitted that there was a great deal of “Oriental despotism” in this Bill. (Hear, hear.) How had the Government administered this very matter in the past? The hon. member for Cape Town, Castle, had over and over again in the first session of Parliament, made this House ring with denunciations, and very properly so, of the way in which numbers of the people, who had arrived in this country had been treated, the Russian method of dealing with people. The whole history of the administration of this business was such that he, for one, would never give his voice to support the continuation of it as it existed. Now they were asked to do something even more. There were some good Ministers, and Ministers whom he would trust, but if one man had combined in him all their virtues he (Mr. Quinn) would not trust him with powers such as it was proposed to give him under the clauses of this Bill. (Hear, hear.) Why had the right of recourse to the courts of law been taken away? Why was it proposed to take this right from the people of this country, or people who may come into this country, and substitute a Board, and a Board chosen by the Minister? Was it because they had confidence no longer in the Courts? It was an insult to the courts of law. He promised that for his part, if this Bill passed the second reading, he would resist strenuously the passing of the clauses of this Bill in their present form. He did not know whether it was possible for the Minister or the Government to devise some other method of dealing with this difficulty, and if they would come forward with something like a reasonable suggestion to solve the difficulty then, even though it should mean that he had to give up some things which were very dear to him, he would support them in it. The Bill really took away the last vestige of freedom, and placed a power in the hands of the Government which no government outside Russia possessed. It was because he had not confidence in the Government in their administration of this matter, and because he did not believe it would be reasonable to place such powers in the hands of one man, or any body of men, except the High Court, that he opposed the second reading of this Bill, a Bill which he considered was an insult to their sense of justice and fair play. He would adopt every method to oppose the clauses to which he had referred, because they were an infringement of the rights of the people, and stood for tyranny, despotism, and cruel injustice. The country ought to be free and open to every man and woman, but above all, they should have the right of appeal to the courts of law. The Bill would be a blot on the Statute-book, and a disgrace to the Union. (Opposition and Labour cheers.)

said the House must deplore the fact that in introducing the Bill, Government had not consolidated the immigration law, but instead had further accentuated differences in the laws of the various Provinces. The laws throughout the Union should be unified as far as possible. Now that we were in Union, let us have the advantages as well as the disadvantages. At the same time he could understand the Free State opposing the Bill unless it was exempt from its operation. As to Natal, that Province had municipal laws, he understood, which would prevent any Indian from obtaining a trader’s licence.

You’re wrong.

Are the Indians in Natal trading without licences?

The existing licences will be continued, but no fresh ones will be issued. I understand that some of these traders in Natal who have sons are unable to leave their businesses to them. Continuing, Mr. Runciman said the people in the Western Province feared that the Indians would come here, where no such prohibitions existed. As to the restrictions on immigration, the Government would be very much better employed if it would look after the immigrants who were here already and if Government would take more care of them. The disclosures made a couple of days ago by the Minister of Native Affairs concerning the enormous death rate on the Rand of natives from the East Coast were enough to turn any emigrant from coming here.

The fourth motion next Tuesday deals with that.

We are dealing now with restrictions on immigrants.

The hon. member cannot anticipate a debate.

said that the clauses of the Bill regarding shipping were exceedingly severe, and it seemed to him that Government intended to put the whole burden on the shipping companies and the shipmasters. That was very unfair, and those clauses should be amended in committee. The Bill affected the question of labour supply, but he must reserve his remarks in that connection for some other time. There was a strong opinion that the Bill was aimed not only at the Indians, but also at the Jews. People felt that these were the people whom the Government wanted to get at. That might be necessary in order to throw dust in the eyes of the Government supporters, but he trusted that in committee it would be possible to throw it out entirely. As to the proposal to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, Government introduced legislation of such a slipshod character that it was only when it came from a Select Committee that it was fit to go on the Statute book. Mr. Runciman concluded by expressing the hope that the Bill would emerge from the committee stage a very different measure from what it was to-day.

said that in the main the different laws with regard to immigration were working very satisfactorily in the four Provinces. Some hardships that might have arisen had been thrashed out in the courts, but seeing that these laws were working satisfactorily and that the main trouble was caused some years ago by the Bills introduced by the Minister of Finance, the policy of the Government should be to have raised as few difficulties as possible, and they should have left well alone. If hon. Ministers would read the correspondence in 1911, a statement was made there that the primary object was to put an end to the unfortunate struggle that agitated the country, more particularly the Transvaal Province. They had not been told what were the constitutional questions that made it impossible for them to take the only feasible way out of the difficulty. Why should they not bring in a Bill to deal with the trouble in the Transvaal, and let sleeping dogs lie If this Bill was passed they would have this passive resistance from the Indian community. He did not say they were right. He said of the Indian community that they had not played squarely with the Union Government, because they were continually springing fresh terms. What the Government should do was to bring in a Bill dealing with the Transvaal only. He would like to remind the hon. member for Ladybrand that if this three years clause became law then Mr. Ralph Tatham could have been excluded from South Africa. What a horrible state of affairs that would be if Mr. Ralph Tatham was prevented from entering the country. (Laughter.) This Bill would apparently please no one, and the wisest course the Government could do was to withdraw it. He wanted to deal for a moment with the standpoint taken up by Natal. Natal asked the other three Provinces that the Indians should be distributed all over the country. It was quite clear that the Natal community years ago were warned of what would happen in a few years’ time, and the position to-day was one of real trouble. The position to-day was that there were more Indians in Natal than white people. The hon. member knew perfectly well what was happening between the United States and Japan with regard to white and yellow races. This was a bigger question even than an Imperial one. He would urge very earnestly upon the Government to deal with this matter as simply as possible—withdraw the present Bill and bring in another Bill dealing with the Transvaal only.

said he would like to assure the hon. member for Newlands that the people of Natal did not wish to unload any part of their burden upon the shoulders of the other Provinces in the Union. But these people were unfortunately brought to Natal, and had rights as British subjects, and the hon. member for Zululand quoted certain figures which were very interesting. Originally the whole matter arose from the point of view of necessity. At the time when these Indians were imported the sugar planters in Natal found they could not depend on native labour, and that they could not carry on their undertaking without the help of this Indian labour. The Zulu was not much of a worker, he was a fighting man, and he only condescended to work for the white settler as long as it suited his own convenience. Thirty years ago the irrigation works had not been developed in India to such an extent as they were now, and thousands of Indians had to face famine and hardship; therefore, their labour was easily and cheaply obtained. In Natal they had regulations, and the Indian Government wished it to be so, that the indentures should end in India, but unfortunately, owing to lack of good administration, many were allowed to remain in this country, and then that tax which had been called iniquitous was put on in order to induce the men to return to India. But what was the position to-day? They found that the railways and the mines employed thousands of those men. Nearly all those men were working on the railway and in industrial concerns, and they were keeping out white men. In the main they were not doing Kafir’s work. He was speaking of Natal, and not of the Transvaal, and in Natal to a very large extent the Indians employed were keeping out white men. He proceeded to illustrate this point by a case which happened in his constituency some years ago, when a firm got a number of people from England to work in their factory. Those people were brought out under many misrepresentations, and when they got out here they found they could not live on the wages they had arranged to work for. The men tried to go to law for relief, but the law was unable to afford them that relief. He found a new shed had been built in connection with the factory, and on his inquiring as to what purpose it had been built, he was told in order that the young Indians might learn to work the machines. That really meant that they were displacing the white men. Proceeding, he said that the traders of Natal were crying out about Indians having licences. Of course, their interests should be regarded justly, but there was another matter.

The Government of Natal permitted regulations which enabled anybody to sell purely agricultural produce without a licence, and they found to-day that without a licence Indians were going all over Natal and selling agricultural produce and what was called Colonial produce. What was Colonial produce to-day? It included sugar, tea, candles, matches, tobacco. How did that affect traders who had to pay a licence, those who lived in European fashion quite different from the manner of the Indians? To his mind a restriction was justifiable in those matters. No doubt the Indian was a British subject, and he should be treated justly. It was quite evident that from the point of view of self-interest, just as the sugar and tea planters brought in the Indians in their own interests, and not primarily in the interests of the State; the working men might now fairly say that these Indians ought to be excluded in their interest. The problem was left in the hands of the Government to deal with, and while he believed that they would treat the Indians justly, he hoped they would be reasonable, and introduce restrictions only so far as they were necessary.

said that as one who opposed the Bill last year he was opposed to this Bill on the same grounds. It was too drastic as against the question of European immigration into this country. He referred only to two clauses. First, with regard to clause 15, sub-section 2, which provided for the depositing of a certain sum in respect of each deserter aboard ship. The deserters who had gone to Australia during the gold rush had proved themselves to be enterprising fellows. Not only were they encouraged to go into Australia, but others were strongly induced to go there, too. Such good tradesmen as smugglers, and such true sportsmen as poachers, were introduced, and proved themselves to be the foundation of a very fine population. With regard to clause 4, sub-section (c), which provided that any person who had not sufficient means to provide himself and his family with the necessaries of life, should be prohibited from landing, he would point out that many of the most prominent citizens of South Africa under such a clause as that would never have been in this country to-day. The hon. member for Zululand had referred to the £3 poll tax. That had been referred to as an iniquitous and unholy tax by several speakers in the House. That tax was imposed with the definite purpose of sending Indians back to India, but the wages had gone up in Natal, and the tax was not having the effect on the Indians that it was hoped would be the case. The high wages had enabled them to pay the tax, and so the tax might just as well be taken off. At present it was only a means of transferring money from the pockets of the Indians to the coffers of the Government, and it might as well be repealed. The sympathies of the hon. member for Queen’s Town seemed to be with the high class Indians. In his (Mr. Fawcus’s) opinion, if the high-class Indians were to be allowed to march about from one part of the Union to another, the low-class Indians should have the same privilege. So far as he was able to judge, there seemed to be as much difference between the high-class and low-class Indians as between the high-class and low class Europeans. If the low-class Indians were as bad as some of the high-class Indians he had known they could not be much worse.

If they wanted to keep the Indians down in numbers one would have thought that the natural way would be to keep the Indian out, but there was a clause in the Bill which was going to allow the wives to come in. The hon. member for Jeppe said that the danger was the natural increase of the Indians, and he agreed with that. To his mind no further Indian women should be allowed to come into this country whether as wives or under the heading of what had been called “members of the oldest profession in the world.” Proceeding, the hon. member quoted from census figures, and said that in Natal there were 28,000 married men and 28,500 married women. That was not so bad as the Transvaal, where there were 4,545 married men and 878 married women. In the Cape there were 2,700 married men and 382 married women. But the Free State bore the palm, for there were 34 married men and only 3 married women. The hon. member for Jeppe wished to encourage Indian emmigration from South Africa just as he wished to encourage the emigration of the capitalists and the landowners. In conclusion, he hoped the Minister would allow the Bill to go to a Select Committee.

said he thought that the shipping clauses would prove unworkable, whilst he considered the penalties proposed to be imposed far too severe. He suggested that a medical man might be attached to the High Commissioner’s staff in London in order that immigrants might be passed before they left the other side.

said that the Bill had been criticised from all quarters, and they had heard no word from the Government as to whether any of these defects were going to be remedied. Some of them, therefore, were in a difficult position. They did not wish to vote against the second reading because they knew that something must be done, but they were not going to be dragooned into voting for the Bill because of that. It was his intention to move an amendment on the second reading so as to give the Government an opportunity of informing the House of what they intended to do. If the Minister gave them a satisfactory assurance on the points that had been raised they would have no objection to voting for the second reading. Their principal objection was to the terms of section 4 (a), which gave the Minister the power to keep out people on economic grounds. The Minister had the power, without any restrictions, to keep anybody out to whom he might apply the vague terms of this clause. Would he give an assurance that that clause was not going to be applied to any European immigrant? The best way he could give such an assurance was to put something in the Bill. They wanted to be certain that this drastic machinery would not be applied to Europeans. Was it not possible for the Government to take power to exempt classes of persons and countries from the provisions of this particular clause. Then they took exception to clause 3, which provided that an immigrant could only appeal to the Court on the question of domicile. This went a great deal further than the Canadian precedent, and anything could be done by the Minister or his officers purporting to be done under the Act. In Canada an immigrant could appeal to the Court against any high-handed action on the part of one of the officials. Then they considered that the penalty imposed on shipping companies was far too severe, and they objected to that because they thought that any legislation which practically penalised shipping companies from bringing immigrants to South Africa was bad for the country. There was no security about the matter so far as the shipping companies were concerned.

If the Government really wanted immigrants to come here, they ought to give facilities for men to be tested from the other side, and thus do away with the uncertainty which would arise under the provisions of the present Bill. What were they told was the justification for the very drastic provisions of this Bill? A man actually in the country could be arrested without warrant, on mere suspicion that he was a prohibited immigrant. Was such a thing necessary in order to attain the object they had in view even if they had to attain it by the roundabout method which was proposed? They were told that they had got to do this in order to meet the desires of the Imperial Government and to avoid offending the susceptibilities of Asiatic Powers. He agreed with the hon. member for Jeppe that it was by no means clear that something of this kind would be acceptable. Supposing they were not going to exclude Asiatics by name, he still asked why should they not pass an Immigrants’ Restriction Act which would avoid excluding Asiatics by name, and which would still be free from all the disabilities to which this Bill was subject. He thought that if the Government had studied similar laws of other countries they would have found means effective for this purpose without including these excessively drastic clauses. They had to ask themselves what assurance had they from the Government that they were dealing with the Indian question at all, and that the Indians would be satisfied with this Bill if it were passed. He thought they would find that it was very difficult to satisfy the Indians who were living in this country with any reasonable legislation. He thought that some of them, the extreme members of them, would not be satisfied with anything that this country would give; but, at the same time, there was a great deal that could be done, and ought to be done to remove the disabilities existing upon Indians and others in this country which would go a long way to satisfy the reasonable members of the community, and do a great deal to take the sting out of the agitation that went on in India. They had had no assurance from the Government that they were doing that, and that they intended to do that. Neither they on that side nor anybody in the House, as far as they knew, wanted to see Asiatic immigration to this country. The Imperial Government did not wish to force Asiatic immigration upon this country. They left us, as they always left us, free to manage our own affairs. What they had asked of us was that, in safeguarding our own interests, we should do so in the way that would be the least embarrassing to them. What they on that side did want was that that immigration should be stopped, so far as such things could be done, by a Bill that should not contain the blots which they said this Bill contained. What they wanted to know from the Minister was, first of all, whether he would assure them that he would consent to certain amendments in committee which would, for instance, retain the appeal to the Courts, except to the extent of allowing appeals to the Courts on questions of form. They did not want to see the action of the Minister upset on purely technical grounds. Would he allow the Bill to be amended so that a man who might consider that he had been aggrieved by an Immigration Officer without any statutory authority, might take his case to the Court? Would he make the provisions applicable to the people in the country less drastic than they were now? Would he give them an assurance so as to make it clear that section 4 (a) was not to be applied to Europeans? Would he give them an assurance that people who wanted to come out here would know before they left the other side whether or not they would be accepted on their arrival? Would he give them an assurance that the Government would seriously attempt to deal with the legitimate grievances of the Indians now in the country, and remove them, as far as they could be removed, consistently with the interests of the country?

In order to afford the Minister an opportunity of giving them these assurances he would move that the order for the second reading of this Bill be discharged, and that the Government be instructed to introduce legislation to deal with the conditions which had arisen in the Transvaal under the Asiatic Registration Acts in force there. He considered that a great deal of the trouble that had arisen with Indians in this country had arisen from the application of the Transvaal Registration Act of 1907. That Act was passed by the Responsible Government of the Transvaal very soon after they came into office. He did not want to say that he put the whole responsibility for the passing of that Act upon the Transvaal Government or the Transvaal Parliament, because that Act was practically the same as the Ordinance which had been introduced by the Crown Colony Government, and which was vetoed by the Imperial Government, on the ground that a question of that kind ought to stand over until a Responsible Government came in. Great troubles arose in the working of that Act, and the Government of the Transvaal, as he understood, came to an arrangement with the Indian community, by which they were to repeal that Act, and substitute an Act in 1908 to satisfy the members of the Indian community. He did not know that the Act of 1908, which had been introduced, was very much less drastic than the Act of 1907. As far as the provisions about registration went, they seemed to be very much the same. The fact was that the Act of 1908 was accepted by the Indian community, provided the Government repealed the Act of 1907. The Act of 1907 was never repealed. One of the things which this Bill proposed to do was to repeal that Act of 1907. He suggested to the Government that they should consider whether they could not remove the present difficulties by which they were faced by going back to the original position, and dealing with the Transvaal situation, which had arisen under the Acts of 1907 and 1908. He did not say they should repeal the Act of 1907, but he did say that they should deal with that situation, which was the only pressing one at present, and, while they were so dealing with that situation, they should get some better means of dealing with the whole question than was now placed before the House. If they got a satisfactory assurance from the Government, he would be prepared to withdraw the amendment.

seconded the amendment.

said that the great objection which seemed to have been raised against this Bill was the great power to be conferred upon the Minister only. He would put it at once, so as to remove any difficulty or doubt, that there were certain objects which they hoped to attain under the Bill, which had the approval of all, and they therefore dropped out of the discussion, and this was a matter that we all admitted, that for the welfare of South Africa it was absolutely necessary to obviate any chance there might be of a great Asiatic immigration. We all admitted the great difficulties connected with a satisfactory treatment of the matter. He had not heard a word said about the adoption of the Canadian principle, except that hon. members opposite were prepared to trust the Canadian Government, but they were not prepared to trust the Union Government. (Hear, hear.) It was a pity that this great question was not in all cases approached more on its national aspects, and that too much party spirit was introduced. Not a decent suggestion was made of an alternative plan. He would repeat that if any other means could be found more efficacious than the one proposed in the Bill, he was prepared to adopt it. So far as the Government was concerned, they welcomed immigration into the Union, and although it might not go that pace in paying for it which members opposite desire, it would give every facility for decent immigrants coming here —(Government cheers)—and to make an honest attempt to populate the country more than it was at present. It was not in the least intended by the law or the regulation to keep out Europeans, who could be of the least use, from the labouring classes upwards. Proceeding, Mr. Fischer remarked that he emphatically said that he considered the danger so great, that rather than leave the matter where it was at present, he would beg of members for once to trust the Minister in the administration of the Bill. He honestly meant it.

He wanted to say a few words in justice to the poor immigration officers. If the House remembered the exceedingly difficult position in which these officials were placed, and saw how very seldom it was that fault had to be found with them in the execution of their task under the most difficult circumstances, it would be admitted that they had done their duty in an admirable manner. (Government cheers.) There would be nothing easier than for these officers to escape attacks by taking the line of least resistance, and in that case it would be the country, and not the officers, who would suffer. (Hear, hear.) Although reference had been made to the very rare occasions on which the immigration officials had been held to be wrong by the Courts, no mention had been made of the great majority of cases in which the Courts had held them to be right.

What Courts?

Will the hon. member keep quiet, and remember that silence is golden? (Laughter.) Continuing, Mr. Fischer said that in no part of the world was an alien entitled to appeal to the Courts of a land to which he did not belong. (Hear, hear.) In that respect we should maintain our rights, and not deal with aliens as though they had the right to citizenship, although we went further than most other countries did in allowing aliens to go to an Appeal Board. That was denied aliens in most countries. It might be considered advisable to give certain immigrants the right to appeal to the Courts; provided they gave security as to costs, for it would be unfair to call upon the taxpayer to pay for the exclusion of a man who had no right to be here. “Give us a better alternative than the Appeal Board ” explained Mr. Fischer, “and I am prepared to accept it. There may be a more expeditious and a cheaper remedy.” Proceeding, the Minister said that this question year by year was getting more difficult for them to solve. He hoped he would not be misunderstood by members opposite when he said that he did not like any responsible Government to have to appeal to the Imperial Government for their opinion, but he was happy to state that he had the assurance of the Imperial Government that if this Bill passed Parliament it would be a settlement of the question as far as they were concerned. It was highly desirable that they should have the imperial Government with them in a matter of this kind. Then there was the other point of why they did not make a uniform law. He would like to point out that they were yet children in the school of Union, rightly or wrongly the different colonies had different policies, and they were too young in Union to make some parts of the country responsible for what had been done in the other parts. The hon. member for Weenen talked about the danger of bottling up Indians in Natal, and he referred disparagingly to the Malays in the Cape Province, but he personally would sooner have the Cape Malays than the Indians any day. Coming to the question of the liabilities of shipping companies, the Minister said that if they were considered too drastic he would have no objection to considering amendments and making them fair. He would only say that this Bill would not go much further than, if as far as, the Canadian law, but if the provisions were unduly severe they could amend them so long as they made them sufficiently strict to effect their purpose. The hon. Minister went on to quote from the Canadian law to disprove various contentions raised during the debate. He pointed out that the onus of proof rested with the immigrant to show why he should not be rejected, as he was the petitioner who asked for admission. He admitted there were several matters other than those he had touched upon which needed discussion, but they could be as equally well dealt with in committee as at that time.

Why not a Select Committee?

said he had never sat on a Select Committee where he had not derived great help, for there talking to constituents was eliminated, but he was afraid such a committee on that Bill would go into details which would have to be dealt with on the floor of the House, and he thought they should make the best of the present opportunity and deal with the matter in the House. With regard to passive resistance, they could not allow those for whom they were legislating to attempt to interfere with legislation by threats, and they must not allow themselves to be defied. He left it with the House to pass the second reading.

said he had hoped that after the speech made by the hon. member for Fordsburg, when he threw out the suggestion with regard to the amendment, that some other Minister would have spoken. He did not entirely consider that the concessions given by his hon. friend really came to anything. Many points had been criticised by, hon. members on that side of the House, and holding the views they did, it would be impossible for them to accept the Bill in the form in which it was laid before the House. He took it that the hon. Minister and the Government would be prepared to consider the reasonable criticisms that had been levelled at the objectionable clauses, and though they (the Opposition) were prepared to vote for the second reading, they were not prepared to take the Bill in its present form. It introduced principles of such an objectionable character that he did not think it was possible for his hon. friend to consider that the House would accept it in that form. They realised the necessity of doing everything they could to meet the Imperial objections that had been so strongly urged with regard to the Indian problem in this country, and in that connection there would be an enormous responsibility in refusing the second reading, but whether it would go to the final vote would depend on the attitude of the Government in meeting the objections brought forward by hon. members on that side of the House. Under the circumstances be hoped that before the Bill went to the committee the hon. Minister would consider the position, and be prepared to discuss in a reasonable spirit, in the general interests of the Indians and the whole population of the country, any amendments that might be brought forward by hon. members on that side of the House.

withdrew his amendment.

The amendment of the hon. member for Ladybrand was put and negatived, and the second reading was agreed to.

The Bill was then read a second time,

moved, before it was decided to send the Bill to the Committee of the whole House, that it be referred to a Select Committee for consideration and report.

seconded the motion.

declared the “ Noes” had it.

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

moved that the sub-heads be taken seriatim.

Agreed to.

On sub-head A, Administration and general, £8,376,

referred to the amount spent in salaries, and said that while he was not opposed to agricultural education, he wanted it carried out as economically as possible. He found that the agricultural colleges cost £79,822 and the receipts amounted to £21,000. There were 220 students, and the cost per student worked out at £265 5s. per year.

How about the experimental department?

I am taking the colleges as they stand.

But you must take in the experimental stations.

I have not reckoned them. Continuing, he said that at Elsenberg there were 23 students, and the cost per student after deducting the receipts was £425.

As usual, the hon. member has jumped his figures. He has taken the whole cost, deducted the receipts, and there he stops. He utterly ignores the fact that this is also an experimental station. Do you or do you not take that into account?

I take the figures before me.

He jumps them as usual, and this is the result. (Laughter.)

Certainly not.

said that he could state without fear of contradiction that the state of agricultural education throughout the Union was absolutely unsatisfactory. He did not want to blame the right hon. gentleman. As far as he knew, the state of agricultural education had always been unsatisfactory. The trouble was that they could not get a Minister of Agriculture who knew when he had got the right man in the right place. The Minister of Agriculture was always at the mercy of the officials under him. He thought it was the duty of every patriot and loyal South African to do all he could to help on the development of agricultural education throughout the country. Like the hon. member for Beaufort West, he doubted whether the money they spent was being spent to the best advantage. Looking up the students at Elsenberg, he found that after deducting the amount received for revenue, each student cost the State about £558.

He thought it was the duty of the right hon. gentleman to ascertain what was wrong at Elsenberg, that there were so few students. His impression when he was at the college some years ago was that they attempted to do too much. He thought a better object might have been attained if the college had confined its attention to farming suitable to the country, i.e., viticulture, agriculture, dairying, and horticulture. At that time Elsenberg was the only agricultural college in this Province. Now they had another college in a different part of the Province adapted to pastoral and cattle farming etc., and he more than ever thought that the education at Elsenberg might be in the direction he had indicated. He thought it was of primary importance to teach the farmers of this country economical farming, and that the value of thrift could not be too strongly emphasised. Then there was the growing number of departments. He did not know whether it was necessary that we should have all these departments in the present stage of agricultural education in this country. What he wished to bring under the right hon. gentleman’s notice was the tendency of each head of a department to magnify the importance of his own department, doing that, not by the amount of work performed, but by the number of people employed. As to the question of the teaching staff, if he were satisfied that they had an efficient teaching staff in the agricultural colleges he would not grumble at the expense, but he did not think they were getting value for money. Speaking as one who was South African-born, he said that, unless they could get men within the Union either better than or as good as men from abroad it was their duty to get these men from wherever they could, because they must have efficient teachers in order to make this work a success.

said he thought it would have been as well if the Prime Minister had made a short statement to the House as to the new department which he had created. The Committee of Public Accounts last year recommended, in regard to agricultural education, that attention should be given to supervision of the expenditure, and to securing better co-ordination in the work of agricultural education throughout the Union. The answer given by the Treasury was that Mr. Holm was appointed, and his function would be under the Secretary of Agriculture to take charge of the educational side of the Department of Agriculture. What was understood by the members of the Committee was that some officer of Mr. Holm’s standing would do this work without necessarily creating a new department. What happened was that the officer got a principal clerk, three clerical assistants, a messenger and all the rest of it. That seemed to him (Sir E. H. Walton) to be unnecessary. Surely the services of the clerical staff of the department were at his disposal. There was no more efficiency secured by putting a man into a separate office, and giving him a whole lot of clerks and all the rest, but there was more expenditure. Sir Edgar also drew the Minister’s attention to the recommendation made by the Public Accounts Committee in reference to agricultural scholarships and bursaries, and remarked that Parliament had been given a list of the scholarships and bursaries, but not the full details as to the conditions, etc., which were promised by the Treasurer.

expressed his surprise at the criticism they had listened to. The hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had made a wrong calculation. The real cost per student came to £64 2s. 8d. per year, after due provision had been made for experimental work. He thought that this compared well with the general expenditure on higher education, especially in view of the fact that the agricultural colleges were a new undertaking. Still, they must not forget that there had been a saving on the agricultural vote of £200,000. In regard to the remarks by the hon. member for Border, it seemed to him that the hon. member was such a good farmer that he criticised everyone else. The Department were doing their best, but in regard to new undertakings they could not expect everything to be perfect at once. Therefore, he pleaded for a chance to be given to these new institutions. They could not make an expert of every student, but they were with the aid of bursaries doing their utmost, and by obtaining the best teachers, they were sending students to other countries. They wanted to make the students good practical farmers, and not experts. In regard to the remarks by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central (Sir Edgar Walton), they thought that two Under Secretaries was not too much for a country such as this. All the appointments which had been made had been made on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission. In regard to the question of bursaries, he pointed out that the information in this respect had been published in the “Gazette,” but he was quite prepared to lay the information on the Table.

said, in submitting a list, there were regulations published in the “Gazette” for five bursaries, and it was stated that preference would be given students of one of the agricultural schools in the Union. The bursaries were given entirely to men who had not passed through these schools. If this young De Wet took all he could get in the way of prizes and certificates, why was he unable to show sufficient knowledge for obtaining this bursary. It seemed to him that these agricultural schools were not doing the work for which they were intended. Either the students should be able to obtain sufficient agricultural education to fit them for pursuing their studies abroad, or what was the use of these agricultural schools at all?

said it seemed to him that there was a desire to make a scape-goat of the head of this Department. He did not think that any man could efficiently control such a department as this. The hon. member for Border hoped the day would come about when they would have a man who would control such a department, but, in his opinion, that man would never be born. The reason that the Agricultural Department was criticised to such an extent was that every hon. member thought he knew something about farming. So many of them were authorities upon farming that they had always something to say about the Agricultural Department. If they criticised as efficiently every other Department, then they would find that the Agricultural Department was not one whit worse than the others.

said he would like the Minister to give him some information about this Bill. He was no agricultural expert; he was only in the position of a humble taxpayer. What he wanted to know was what fees did those students of agricultural colleges pay? Would the Minister of Agriculture also give some information as to the class of youth who went to these agricultural colleges? Were they sons of landowners, or were they landowners themselves, and were they paying this money so that they could farm their own land? What direct public purpose did these agricultural colleges fill?

said that his right hon. friend had stated that the actual cost per student at Elsenberg was £64 a year. If they took the whole vote at £13,392, which included £5,906 salaries and allowances to teaching staff, and deducted from that vote £3,600, the amount received from reproductive work on the farm, and deduct further the amount of £500 spent on experiments, they would find that each student at Elsenberg cost the State £400 per annum. He did not know how his right hon. friend worked it out at £64 per annum, but he reckoned it at £400.

replying to the hon. member for Albany, said he could not understand why the hon. member had only picked one case. Applications had been invited for five bursaries, and two hundred odd replies had been received. These had been referred to the Public Service Commission, which had picked out five who had graduated, and who would, therefore, not require to study for so long a period as others. Replying to Mr. Creswell, the Minister said that the students paid £50 per year, their object being to become practical scientific farmers.

said he hoped the Prime Minister would not mind his making a suggestion. One of the principal objects in farming, he said, was to show a balance-sheet, and where he thought a great many people were defective was, judging from his income-tax experience, in not keeping proper accounts; it would do a great deal of good if the students at these agricultural colleges were taught more of the commercial side. Almost without exception every one of those institutions had a clerk at £140 year. He did not think his hon. friend the member for Border employed a clerk at that salary. He was satisfied that it would be an uncommonly good thing if they would teach the commercial side of farming, for while the South African farmer was always scientific he could not sell his goods to advantage.

said he did not think the Prime Minister quite saw his point with regard to the bursaries. He urged that if students took the highest diploma they could get they should not be refused bursaries because they had not got University degrees. It certainly was not an inducement for students to attend the school.

said he agreed with the hon. member for Albany. Students who went to those schools of agriculture should have a fair opportunity of getting agricultural bursaries. He asked the hon. Minister how he discriminated between those various bursaries. He gave instances of various scholarships for study abroad tenable for different periods, and asked how the hon. Minister got at the various scales. Was he to understand that the State paid £75 towards the teaching of those scholars who got the bursaries either by getting degrees, or some other form of favouritism, whether they got the £75 for travelling expenses, etc., and he wanted to ask the hon. Minister, seeing that these scholars had to pay £50 a year, what provision was made by the Government to allow those people who were able and willing to learn agriculture, but were absolutely unable to pay the £50. The agriculturists of this country were poor men. Let the Prime Minister go to the settled districts of this country and see the poor people endeavouring to farm lands which had been hired from some fortunate landowner. Such people were quite unable to pay that £50, and he would be glad of some assurance that the Government would make arrangements for the instruction of the sons of those people.

said the majority of those bursaries came over from pre-Union days, and for the future the Union had fixed on a basis of £150 for three years, as would be seen in the circular issued. The last two items were not bursaries for study abroad, but were in connection with the agricultural schools in the country. In reply to the hon. member for Albany, he said that the five students who were sent away this year were on the Estimates of last year, and were not for general agricultural study, but for specific training as experts.

The sub-head was agreed to.

asked a question regarding the number of students at Elsenberg.

replied that there were twenty students at Elsenberg now. There had formerly been fifty. The hon. member was aware of the unfortunate circumstances which had led to this number being so small. It was hoped, however, that this number would soon again increase. The costs per student amounted to £64 2s. 6d. per head.

referred to an item under the heading of labour. Apparently, he said, in those colleges they had a supply of native labourers who did everything for the students. He agreed with the hon. member for Border, that students sent to the agricultural colleges were sent there for practical work, and there should not be somebody else to plough for them. The expenses of labour were put down at £860. That, he thought, was a large amount for what he supposed was coloured labourers on the farms, who were doing the work which they should be teaching the students to do.

said it was evident that the case was, as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had pointed out. He proceeded to quote from the end of the report a statement expressing pleasure that all the work in connection with the vines and the tobacco plantations was done by the students, who had taken great interst in the work.

How old is the report?

It is two years old. You cannot expect under this Parliament one in less than two years. It seemed when those students did the work it was considered necessary to make a special reference to the work. There was another side to the question. Where they had such an item as labour, and various other things all dumped together, they did not know what that labour was, they did not know what colour it was. He wished to know whether lecturers and instructors included mechanics, or whether the latter came under the wide term “labour.” He thought that labour should be itemised. He moved that the vote be reduced by £60—allowance to visiting chaplain. Why was it necessary to vote a sum of money to a visiting chaplain?

said he had been informed that the lodging accommodation was insufficient. The school could do good work, but the accommodation of the students would have to be improved. Was it not possible, he asked, to adopt in all the agricultural schools the system which was followed in Potchefstroom, namely, to hold classes for the older farmers? There should be no farm labourers employed at agricultural schools.

asked whether it was necessary to have two principals at Elsenberg, seeing that there were only 20 pupils there? It seemed to be very wasteful.

said he had been surprised to notice in a well-known wine district that farmers did not know what vines to cultivate in order to obtain raisins. He thought matters of this kind should be taught at Elsenberg. There should also be a staff there to advise farmers, and more attention should be paid to the chemistry of soil. At a place like Elsenberg they must fairly expect that thorough inquiry would be made as to what kinds of vines were suitable for particular kinds of soil, and to determine similar questions of the same sort.

said he hoped it would not go forth that the students did not work at Elsenberg. He personally knew they did a lot of work. Unfortunately at present there was not the number of students they would like to see. He believed that the students were getting a valuable training there. What he would like to see would be a large agricultural college equipped up to the most modern standard, for the whole of the Union. They could not help the increase in the vote, because the number of subjects of instruction was always being increased. The expenditure, save the cost of food, would be no greater for 60 than for 20. He hoped people would not run away with the idea that Elsenberg was a hopeless institution, because it had done good work and would do good work in the future, and he hoped to see the number of students largely increased. So long as they had these institutions dotted about the country so long would they have this large expenditure. Recent events had nothing to do with the smallness in the number of students; the fact was that men who would otherwise have gone to Elsenburg had gone to Grootfontein.

in reply to the question by Sir E. Walton, said that wages were undoubtedly heavy. At the same time, he wished to point out that as much of the work as possible was done by the students. Dr. Holm was taking care to see that that was done. At every one of these colleges the students, did more work than they did at home. The lodging accommodation for students at Elsenberg was sufficient, and further provision was being made for the lecturing staff. The question of the teaching of the grafting of vines was at present under consideration, there was room for fifty students. Sir E. H. WALTON (Port Elizabeth,

Central) said it would not be fair to expect, under this new appointment, a complete report on the working of these colleges this year, but he hoped they would have it next year. There certainly seemed to be some room for improvement in regard to the expenditure by the State relative to the number of students receiving education.

said he would like to know what particular denomination the visiting chaplain at Elsenburg belonged to, and why he should receive £10 a year more than the medical officer.

replying to a question by Mr. Kuhn (Prieska), said that the principal and assistant principal both belonged to the professional staff of the college. Replying to Mr. Madeley, the Minister said he did not know what denomination the chaplain belonged to, but the Government intended to delete the vote for a chaplain.

withdrew his amendment.

The sub-head was agreed to.

said he would like the Minister to inform the House what was the number of students at Grootfontein. He thought they were encumbering themselves by the enormous amount of money spent in the purchase of stock. The Estimates for 1911-12 for the purchase of stock at Grootfontein were £6,000; for 1912-13, another £6,000; and for this year, £2,900. They were not going to get value for their money in equipping all these stations with the most valuable imported pedigree stock in large numbers. He thought it would be better to send these stud animals round the country than to keep them at the experimental station.

said he would like to appeal to hon. members on Ministerial benches and on the front Opposition bench to raise their voices, so that members in the more remote parts of the House should know what was going on. He would ask the Prime Minister to state the number of pupils at Grootfontein. At Elsenberg there were two students to each lecturer and instructor. It seemed to him that the wages bill at Grootfontein was preposterous —£4,460 for the farm and £600 for the school—altogether, £5,000 for labour.

said that they were to a great extent in the dark as to what these experimental stations were doing, because they had not been furnished with a report. He was afraid there was a good deal of overlapping in the work. It seemed to him that it would be very much better to have one tip-top station to carry out the research work.

pointed out that, although there was a large loss on such institutions as those at Elsenberg, Grootfontein, and Cedara, the returns from the Grootvlei farm were £2,000, as compared with an expenditure of £2,300. He would like the Minister to explain how it was that at Grootvlei— about the worst farm they would find in South Africa—they could almost make ends meet, whereas they could not do it in the other places.

said that there were at present 87 students at Grootfontein. Replying to certain remarks by Sir Thomas Smartt (Fort Beaufort) the right hon. gentleman said that at present there were two sorts of Government farms; the one kind were only stud farms, and the other kind were experimental farms as well as stud farms. The places where the students were placed were practically speaking experimental farms. Nowadays, however, strong objections were being raised against the Government carrying on any farming operations, in competition with farmers, and he must say that there was a good deal to be said for these objections. So long as that sort of farming was experimental farming, the object of which was to show farmers what could be done, it was good, but it was not right that they should carry on actual farming and compete with farmers. On the contrary, it was their duty to encourage the farmers to go ahead, and farmers should be encouraged to import good stock themselves. Therefore he was going to take up the attitude that the Government should gradually give up these stud farms, and only keep on their stud at the agricultural colleges. (Hear, hear.) That meant that the Government were gradually but surely going to stop farming, and stop going in for stud. They should go in another direction. In England, for instance, farmers who bred good stallions received a Government premium, and he thought they should do something similar in this country. Replying to some remarks by the hon. member for Border, General Botha said he would personally go into the question of the labour expenses at the agricultural colleges and see how they could be reduced. In regard to a question put by Mr. Neser, the Minister said that instructions had already been given for the restarting of short courses of a few months at the Potchefstroom College, which could be followed by the sons of farmers living in the vicinity who were not students. At Elsenburg they specialised with vines, horticulture and cattle breeding, at Grootfontein irrigation, cattle breeding and ostriches, and at Potchefstroom general farming.

expressed his appreciation at the remarks of the Minister of Agriculture, as farmers had resented Government entering into competition with them in the matter of stud farms.

The sub-head was agreed to.

said his right hon. friend had stated that he did not think he was quite fair in referring to Elsenberg in the way he did, but now he would take Cedara. In the last two years the expenses had increased by 50 per cent. If they deducted £53,130 for reproductive service, they would find that the cost of these students per annum to the State was £250 a year. This was characteristic of all these estimates, that the cost was continually going up.

said he would like to know if the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had read the report of the Agricultural Department, because he had fallen into the same error again. He took the amount of expenditure and the amount of receipts, and put down the difference as the actual cost of the students. That was one way of juggling with figures. If he read this report he would find that they were carrying on very extensive experiments at Cedara in the growing of grasses, fodder, millet, hemp, buckwheat, etc. All this had to go into expenditure, so that the hon. member’s figures were absolutely ridiculous.

asked how they were ever to arrive at the cost if they did not take the figures as he took them. These experiments were for the benefit of the students. Here was the money actually spent. He had made allowance for livestock reproductive service, including fees, but the difference still worked out at £250 per head.

said he was quite satisfied that very excellent work had been done at Cedara. What he wanted to know was the policy of the Government regarding the farm? He wanted to know if they were going to keep Cedara. He would like to know what they were going to do with the wattle plantation. It was hardly work for the Government officials to look after this now that it had come to a saleable condition.

said he would like to have some statement from the Prime Minister whether the Government intended keeping this Cedara Agricultural College going. It seemed to him, from the Agricultural Report that there was every likelihood of having it removed. The livestock it was stated should be disposed of, and the condition of the sheep was entirely unsatisfactory. Then the two sub-stations were very poorly equipped. The whole record was one of failure, although the farm was well suited for the growth of wattle. He would like to say that he took the same view as the hon. member for Cape Town, Central. He found from the report that there were only 25 students, and after making the necessary deductions between the receipts and expenditure, he worked out the cost per student at £385. Surely that was a most astonishing figure; £385 a year for educating what were really the sons of rich men. It meant that the average small farmer or artisan could not afford to pay £50 for the agricultural training on the various farms. Consequently it became a close preserve for the sons of rich men—men who were capable of paying for their sons’ education. They paid £50, and the State had to find the balance of the £385. The whole cost of running the farms should be debited to the students, who were receiving the benefit of the education, less the returns which he saw in the Estimates from that particular farm. That £385 for the agricultural education of one farmer’s son represented the amount paid to thousands of Government servants in the country for a period of service reckoned at 5s. a day, working out at 4½ years. Moreover, there were so many thousands of children in South Africa who were not receiving any education at all, that he thought there should be some amendment of the agricultural vote. In his opinion, the parents of those who were receiving education should contribute a larger share than they were doing at the present time.

said that the Statements which had been made by hon. members were not quite fair ones, with regard to the Cedara farm. In the first place, it was purely an experimental farm, and there were no students there, no school there, but at one time as many as 4,000 experiments were being carried out; but the school was being borne in mind. He had sympathy with the contentions of the hon. member for Greyville with regard to the fees. It was the intention, in the first place, to charge £24 a year. They frankly acknowledged that it would not cover the cost of teaching, but they thought that the poor farmer should have the chance of getting his sons educated. Later it was raised to £50 a year, and he felt sorry that an attempt was made to make the school a paying institution. Those institutions were for the benefit of the country in the long run, and should be paid for by the State. He hoped that hon. members would not cavil at those figures, but consider that if there was increased expenditure, there was increased efficiency. The college was doing valuable work, and he hoped that no money that they asked for would be grudged.

said there were 31 students at Cedara, and it was the policy of the Government to retain the College.

said he was interested in the statement of the hon. member for Zululand. He would like to know from the Minister of Agriculture how many indentured Indians were there still.

wanted to know if the Minister of Agriculture had done anything to meet the pathetic requests of Mr. A. Lawrence. He quoted from a report by the gentleman referred to a statement regarding the dairy herd, and would be glad if the Prime Minister would give some information as to whether he had met the request, to improve the herd by spending some of the money in the purchase of pedigree milch cattle.

referred the hon. member to the item, “Purchase of Stock, £1,000.”

The sub-head was agreed to.

asked what the Prime Minister proposed to do with regard to the individual he asked him a question about the other day, and which had not been answered. He referred to a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government to depreciate wages throughout the Union, and particularly in the Transvaal. It was under the heading of Labour, but he was not quite sure whether it came under Lecturers and Instructors. He mentioned that because he wished to draw attention to the way the Estimates were drawn up. Labour and other items should be split up. Proceeding, he said that the right hon. gentleman had an advertisement inserted in the Government “Gazette” asking for applications from mechanics who were thoroughly acquainted with gas engines, steam engines, oil engines, and various other branches of mechanics. In his spare time he had to give instructions in those various things to the students at Potchefstroom College. Did the Prime Minister think he was doing the right thing by offering £12 10s. per month for that particular individual. There was a Government deliberately offering a mechanic in the Transvaal, where the ruling rate of pay in any branch was a pound a day, presumably for a qualified man, £12 10s. per month, who had at the same time to give instruction. For a single man quarters were provided, but there was nothing at all about food. Presumably a married man had to find his own quarters. He wanted the Prime Minister to tell them whether he was not going to consider the possibility of instead of depreciating the standard of living in the country, to try and raise it. He would move a reduction on that Labour vote by £8.

replied that the man got £12 10s. and lodging. If they could not get a man at that price, another plan would have to be made. But if a man was satisfied with that wage why should they offer more?

said the Prime Minister was unwittingly misleading the committee.

That’s strong.

The right hon. gentleman knows I am speaking the truth. I am only working on the advertisement. I say it is abominable that the Government should try to bring down the standard of living by paying such a pittance.

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

called for a division.

As fewer than ten members (viz., Messrs. Andrews, Madeley and H. W. Sampson) voted in favour of the amendment,

declared the amendment negatived.

said that persons had been brought from other schools to begin the work at Glen.

The sub-head was agreed to.

asked whether the stock purchased included rams to be sent round the country for use on farms. He wanted to bring home to the Minister a sense of his responsibility to the stock farmers of this country.

What item is the hon. member alluding to now ?

The purchase of stock. I want to know whether any of this stock might not with better results be sent round the country for the convenience of farmers?

If the hon. member asks any practical man in South Africa or in Australia he will tell him that he cannot do that with sheep. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)

In reply to Sir E. H. Walton (Port Elizabeth, Central),

said the farm was used only for sheep, and students there learnt how to pack and sort the wool. Only a few cattle were kept.

The sub-head was agreed to.

said he wanted to strongly oppose this vote, as he did last year. This was work essentially for the Provincial Council. He did not deny that there was a very able lady who was in charge of this work, but what could one lady do in teaching household science for the Union?

said he agreed in part only with what his hon. friend had just stated, viz., that part in which he wanted to see the work done on a very much larger scale. He wished to refer to the projected school in Pretoria, which was to combine a proper class for household science with the National School of Agriculture. While he thought a great deal could be done by the Provinces in regard to household science, it was an undoubted fact that if they were going to wait until that produced its effect, they would be teaching pupils but they would not be training teachers, and they would have no teachers of household science available in South Africa. They wanted some place where they could train their own teachers, so that they would not have to go abroad for their training.

They can be trained here.

Where will you get it?

Here in Cape Town.

You can get pupils trained here. If my hon. friend is satisfied with the present arrangements for training teachers in South Africa he is very easily satisfied. Sir Percy went on to say that he wanted to obtain from the Prime Minister some statement as to what prospect there was for the development of this National School of Agriculture in Pretoria which would provide for the teaching of household science or a proper scale. The right hon. the Prime Minister stated that the moneys that were to be devoted to this object were coming in satisfactorily from the repayment of repatriation debts. It was only fair that the people of Pretoria should be treated straightforwardly in this matter. The money was voted many years ago, and it should have come in by this time.

said he regretted that there should be any uncertainty in the mind of the hon. member on this account. He certainly should know what had been decided about this amount of £100,000, and he could assure the hon. member that this institution would most certainly be built. The hon. member knew that this amount of money had been ear-marked out of repatriation debts. But the hon. member would also recollect that a certain time had been granted to the people in which to pay these repatriation debts. The money was coming in much better than he had expected, but not withstanding that they could not start with the building, as they could not undertake a work like that in little bits. They must build the whole at once and not piecemeal. And therefore they must have the whole of the £100,000 ready. Then there was still some difficulty in regard to the transfer of the ground, which was not yet in order. As soon as that was in order the law which had been passed on the matter would be put into force unless Parliament revoked it. He did not understand the remarks of the hon. member in regard to a guarantee. Pretoria had his (the Prime Minister’s) word, it had the word of the old Transvaal Parliament of the law which said that the money should be spent for a certain purpose.

said he understood from the Prime Minister that the transfer had not been effected. Surely there was no difficulty whatever. Was that not so? He could only say this, that he would report what he had heard, and he would ask on what grounds they were making a contrary statement. He would like to know, therefore, how much money was available now, because they did not need the whole £100,000 to start. What he wanted to know from the Prime Minister was how much money was available? There must be some of these repatriation debts repaid?

said that the payment of these accounts was only just starting. They passed a resolution in the last session of the Transvaal Parliament in 1910. The amount paid hitherto was very small indeed. It will take some years before they could have a fund for this matter. The Town Council gave a grant originally and made several reservations. These reservations were not quite satisfactory, and the whole matter was in a position of uncertainty.

said the definite conclusion that they could come to was this, that this could not be considered until the Minister had got back to Pretoria, and practically there were no funds available. It would take years before they could consider the starting of this National College. This was a dismal prospect, and fell very much short of what they were entitled to.

The sub-head was agreed to.

Vote 7 was agreed to.

asked whether the Government intended to go on with the Forestry Bill which had been passed through the other House? If it was their intention to go on with the Bill soon, he would leave his remarks till it was before the House.

answered the question in the affirmative.

asked whether there was going to be any change in the department? In the Estimates of 1910-11 and 1911-12 the Chief Conservator of Forests got £1,200 a year, and they now saw that the rate was to be £1,000 a year. He would like to know if the alteration was due to the fact that the Government was dissatisfied with the services rendered by that officer, for he was under the impression that the Chief Conservator of Forests had given the Government complete satisfaction.

pointed out that the change in the Estimates had nothing to do with the efficiency of the officer. The Chief Conservator of Forests was a very efficient officer, but the salary laid down was fixed by the Civil Service Commission. The gentleman who occupied the position had reached pensionable age and was retiring at the end of the month.

said that he had not been told why the officer was retiring. As a matter of fact, it was to protect himself. If he continued to serve the Government for two or three years more his pension would be less than it was at present, for his pension was based on his salary for the past three years.

said that after Union the Government continued to give grants to the municipalities in connection with tree planting, but for some reason the Treasury decided to cancel those grants, and notices were issued, but it so happened that the municipal authorities at Mafeking did not see the notice, and afterwards when they sent in their accounts they were told their accounts could not be taken into consideration. They had planted the trees, and they considered they had been badly dealt with. He thought the hon. Minister should see that their accounts were taken into consideration.

also protested at the treatment received by the Chief Conservator of Forests, and asked an explanation of the items, “Free issues of wood to natives, £35,000.”

raised the question of the settled price at which timber was sold at Knysna. He had nothing to say of the price which was obtained at public auction. It was being sold at the same rate as in 1899, although timber had risen in price the world over.

called attention to the amount of £300 for the Table Mountain Plantation, and said he would be exceedingly sorry to see the good work stopped for want of money.

said that at Knysna only yellow wood was cut down for sleepers.

said that with regard to the free issue of wood to natives, this took place in the Transkei. The Forestry Department had taken over certain forests, and there was a servitude attached to it. Replying to the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, he said that the price of wood depended on the locality in which it was sold. Replying to the hon. member for Woodstock, he pointed out immediately below the £300 there was an item of £100 for the Devil’s Peak Plantation.

drew attention to the rate of wages paid to rangers. There were 120 men in the Department, and it was a standing disgrace that white men should have to work for such low wages. Last year the Estimates were bad enough, but this year they were worse. There was a man who got 9d. a day. The highest-paid man among the rangers was getting 4s. 7d. a day. They had foresters and assistant foresters, 44 of whom were getting £9 a month.

said he thought it would be better if the hon. member put a question and got a reply, instead of making a long speech. As a matter of fact, these rangers were not whole-time men at all, but individual farmers or some other responsible person in the neighbourhood of a bit of forest or drift sand, who were paid a small amount just to look after that bit of forest. They were not whole-time officers or civil servants at all.

What about the foresters then?

They are different.

The vote was agreed to.

Progress was reported, and leave obtained to sit again on Wednesday.