from H. Innes and 111 others, inhabitants of Port Elizabeth, 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.

moved, as an unopposed motion: That the papers and correspondence relating to the proposed reservation for church and school purposes of sites in native areas in Natal, and the returns showing further information with regard to the farms in the Transvaal Province, which appear in the return presented to this House on the 24th February, 1913, as having been registered in the names of natives, presented to this House yesterday, be referred to the Select Committee on Native Affairs for consideration.

Agreed to.

brought up a report of the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours. The report was as follows:

Your committee, having considered the Railways and Harbours Regulation, Control and Management Bill referred to it, and having taken evidence thereon (which is submitted herewith), begs to report the Bill with certain amendments which it recommends to the consideration of the House.

Your committee desires further to direct the attention of the House to the evidence given as to the conditions obtaining in connection with the supply of coal for bunkering and other purposes in Cape Town, and would suggest that further inquiry into this matter may be desirable in the public interest.

The Bill was set down for Committee stage on Monday next.

Consideration of the Select Committee’s Report was set down for consideration on Wednesday next.

in moving that the Report of the Select Committee on the Treatment of Lunatics be referred to Government for consideration, said that was not in the nature of a formal motion. He would like to point out the various reports which were dealt with by Government were also fully dealt with by that committee, and those matters that were absolutely necessary have been adopted and embodied in these recommendations to the House.

They recommend that the tinkering with this matter should no longer go on, and that there should be drastic measures taken to put the matter of the treatment of lunatics, and everything connected with it, upon a sound basis once and for all, systematically and according to the need, as they have to be dealt with in civilised communities. The committee found that the principal need in this matter was in the Province of the Cape, because in regard to the other Provinces there had been an attempt to deal systematically with this problem, but even their needs had outgrown their accommodation. But in the Cape Province the matter had from the start been dealt with largely upon wrong grounds. It was a makeshift policy from the beginning, and it should be put a stop to. The first matter that would require the most urgent attention of the House was the matter of funds. Adequate funds had not been placed at the disposal of previous Governments, even in the Provinces where most had been done, and in the case of the Cape the provision made in the past had been most inadequate. The funds required to put this matter on a sound basis to provide for the accommodation that was required, and to provide for extension which in the course of time would be necessary, with a view to securing efficiency and economy, and also with a view to dealing fairly and properly with the patients would be more, perhaps, than some members of that House anticipated. The committee were honestly of opinion that it would be more economical at once to face the fact than to let matters go on as they had been allowed to do before Union. They considered, by facing it at once, a large amount of money would eventually be saved. It was proposed to recommend that the scheme indicated in the schedule to the report should be carried out in terms of the report and the schedule. He wished to say, on behalf of the Government, that the Government was prepared to accept responsibility. They recognised that with the report before them they would have to go fully into the matter and to expend any amount, no matter how large that might be, to be quite sure that they would effect their purpose. It was proposed to initiate a scheme, which within the next three years would cost in excess of £300,000. and the greatest needs should be attended to at once. They should proceed as quickly and as economically as the Public Works Department was able to assist them in. An amount of £44,000 would have to be provided for on the Estimates for the present year, which amount would have to be expended during the present financial year, and, as a matter of fact, a small proportion of this amount already figured on the Estimates. That amount, however, was not be an isolated amount to be dealt with as in the past, but was to be part of the whole scheme to be carried out within the next three years, and, therefore, provision would have to be made year by year for the completion of the scheme and to provide for the future anticipated increase in the number of patients. The system which would he followed in spending these funds as regarded those institutions which had already a certain amount of accommodation on the right lines would be to extend the accommodation on the right lines would be to extend the accommodation on the villa system as far as possible.

That was to be added to as funds permitted and necessity required. In regard to the Gape, with the exception of Valkenberg, it meant starting again from the very foundation—(hear, hear)—and it was proposed as far as Valkenberg and certain adjoining grounds were concerned, that these should be utilised for the purpose, and that additional accommodation on the right lines should be provided forthwith. Matters in regard to sanitation and other provisions should at once be attended to. (Hear, hear.) In regard to the patients, to be accommodated here, there would be a large increase, and it was proposed to make separate provision for white and coloured patients; that was to say, they would be kept absolutely separate. Again, it was intended that there should be a certain limited number of large asylums throughout the Union, rather than a large number of small asylums. These large asylums should be able to accommodate from 800 to 1,500 patients, and where any asylum was unsuitable it should be closed. This latter recommendation would affect Robben Island. The asylum at Port Alfred would also have to be closed, and accommodation would be found in other parts of the Union for their inmates. With regard to Fort Beaufort, that also would be closed down and the offer of a site by the Fort Beaufort Municipality would be accepted. The Graham’s Town Asylum would be enlarged and added to, and the extra ground utilised for recreation and other purposes, such as gardening and other general work for the patients. In regard to the removal of the criminal lunatics, it was thought best to have one central institution that would do for the whole of the Union. It was proposed to remove the criminal lunatics to one asylum situated in the Free State. It was proposed, therefore, to have centres at Graham’s Town, Cape Town, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein, to deal with all the lunatics nearest them. They found with regard to Pretoria that there had been a considerable amount of money spent from time to time. In Natal the increase that was wanted was principally in connection with the coloured lunatics, in which respect the asylum was overcrowded, and the asylum at Pietermaritzburg would therefore be enlarged. They would, therefore, have as the outcome of this work that Valkenberg would be enlarged, Graham’s Town would be enlarged, Fort Beaufort transferred from its present unsuitable site to the ground offered by the Municipality, and the asylum at Pietermaritzburg would be enlarged for the coloured population. In connection with this, and as part of the scheme, it had been felt in the past that there has been no systematic attempt, except in one or two instances, to classify patients, and differences have arisen in connection with the classifying of patients and their treatment. The committee had felt that there were cases that required to be observed before being sent to one of these institutions. Provision was therefore made for having observation properly carried out, and provision was also made for those that might require supervision. There was also provision made for the treatment of recoverable cases in other institutions.

That was also part of the scheme before the House—to ensure the observation of all cases with a view to their more speedy recovery. In these asylums, which would be considered large in this country, they would be able to separate those cases likely to recover from the incurable cases. In the larger institutions they would be able to classify the patients, take better care of them, there would be more efficient control, and savings in administration expenses. He went on to refer to the fact that in the larger institutions the medical staff would be kept up to the highest pitch of excellence, while the young medical men would be able to obtain a thorough training. The speaker went on to say that they proposed to do away with the name asylum, which did not find favour with people, and added a few words with regard to the Asylum Boards which would make recommendation in regard to patients without interfereing with administration. He also dealt with the appointment of a Lunacy Commissioner, who would keep in touch with all the institutions, the medical staffs, the patients, the friends of the patients, and the Government. The speaker pointed out that though the committee had found it impossible to do away with the question of detaining dangerous lunatics in charge offices and gaols, it was recommended that arrangements should be made so that these people should be removed from such places in the shortest possible space of time. Having touched on the determination of the Government to carry, out these purposes without delay, he said that the committee had found that complaints that had been made had been fairly represented, but that all the trouble was due to the lack of accommodation. In conclusion, he said he hoped that the House would not only deal with the matter in a sympathetic way but a practical way.

in seconding the motion, said he was glad to hear that the Government was prepared to face the facts that had been brought to light by the committee, but he would have been better pleased if the Minister had gone into the details of the expenditure which the Government proposed to make. It was not as though this were a fanciful programme which had been presented by the committee, because it was not one of that character. Anyone who took the trouble to go through the evidence would find that there were a lot of arrears to work off before it could be said that the Union had any spare accommodation. One of the points most strongly urged on the committee had reference to this provision of money. Officials had stated that, when extra accommodation was being provided, they could not find the money when they wanted it. They generally found that, when building got to a certain stage, they had to come to a full stop. Having regard to the extreme urgency of the situation—he was sure that no member of that House would rest until the situation had been relieved—he thought the House should see that the Public Works Department and the asylum authorities were provided with money, so that building could go on with the least possible delay. The programme that was now before the House would only allow for an increase in the next few years up to 16.6 per 10,000 of the population; at present the number of inmates per 10,000 of the population was 14.5, whereas the registered number of insane in the Union worked out at 23.5 per 10,000. He did not say that the whole of the 23.5 should be in asylums; but what he did say was: that the percentage of those in asylums in this country was much lower than the percentage of other British colonies. The report of the Select Committee revealed a state of affairs that was more in keeping with a half-civilised State in Central America than a Dominion of the British Empire. He ventured to say that the report of the committee bore out to the full the complaints regarding the treatment of lunatics made during the recent debate in that House.

There could be no doubt that the officials of the Department of the Interior had had a very difficult task indeed with reference to a great many of the cases which were agitated in public some months ago. The root of the matter was that there was not sufficient accommodation for lunatics under treatment, and the difficulties of the officials had been due, in the main, he might almost say solely, to this lack of accommodation. One was sorry to admit that the state of affairs was chiefly bad in the Cape Province, although, at the same time the accommodation outside the Cape Province was not adequate to meet the demands made upon it. They had it in evidence that 47 per cent. of the insane within the Union were outside asylums, as compared with 19 per cent. in England, 9 per cent. in Victoria, and nil in New South Wales. It had been revealed that there had been great overcrowding, which was nothing short of a scandal. It was stated that there were 66 more Europeans in the asylums than there ought to be beds for, but this by no means reflected the actual state of things in certain asylums because, while there might be overcrowding in some districts, there might be spare accommodation in others, and there was only limited interchangeability between the various districts. In Pretoria, for instance, the most up-to-date institution in the Union, they had 326 beds for male Europeans, and there were 323 patients in them. In the female section they had 246 beds and 220 patients. The consequence of the overcrowding had been a state of affairs, particularly in the Cape Province, which was nothing short of a scandal. One witness described the state of things as “appalling,” and he (Mr. Baxter) did not think he exaggerated. The situation to-day in the Cape Province was a danger to the community. Lunatics were allowed to be abroad who ought not to be abroad. Lunatics had been accommodated, as a consequence, in chronic sick homes, like the Old Somerset Hospital in Cape Town, where they had 12 lunatics under treatment amongst the aged poor. At Robben Island, where criminal lunatics were accommodated, they had it from one of the reports that insane murderers were in the same ward as ordinary patients. One result of the pressure had been a premature discharge of patients. The only asylum in the Cape Province which was worthy of the name, and which had been built for the purpose, was Valkenberg, and even there they had it in evidence that amendment was urgently needed in regard to both the sanitary system and the laundry system. As for the Graham’s Town Asylum, it was stated in one report that there was no isolation hospital, no nursing conveniences, no sanitation, no means of sterilising linen, no effective laundry, and insufficient ground for recreation. The sanitation was so bad there that fever was regarded as a regular state of things. At Port Alfred, a disused convict station, the place was tumbling down. The state of things was one which must be remedied at all costs, and without delay, so that the stigma resting upon the country in this report might be removed with the least possible delay. Then he came to the question of the prison system, which was perhaps the worst of all. The Director of Prisons, in his evidence, showed that in 1911 there were 781 persons mentally afflicted who were not criminals, and who had been consigned to gaol. The number was reduced in 1912, because of the Prisons Act, to 487, and all sorts of makeshifts had been necessary in order to secure the difference in these figures. Mr. Roos gave them figures which he (Mr. Baxter) thought were terrible. He said that out of these 781 only 57 had been incarcerated less than 7 days, and that 19 had been there for over two months. With the sparseness of population in many parts of the country it was to be expected that recourse would be had to cells for mentally afflicted people, but the disturbing fact of the situation was that a large number of these cases occurred, not in the country districts at all, but in populous centres like Cape Town. The accommodation in even a place like Valkenberg was so insufficient that the police authorities still had to harbour large numbers of cases of mentally afflicted persons.

The Committee came to the conclusion that any plan adopted should be in the nature of a final settlement, and that several small places should be shut up, and certain centres should be selected wherein large asylums should be located. These centres should not be selected upon any Provincial consideration, but places like Maritzburg and Bloemfontein should be regarded as asylum centres for the whole of their surrounding districts without regard to Provincial boundaries, for that would be the most economical and efficient system. Lastly, the Commission thought the time had come when Parliament should consider the treatment of cases in their early stages, and make arrangements for their treatment from a medical point of view rather from the point of view of the asylum authorities. (Hear, hear.) Some scheme should be devised in conjunction with general hospitals, particularly in the larger centres, whereby wards could be set aside to which people could be sent when they “got a little bit wrong in the head,” and not as insane people, but as people requiring medical treatment. He felt that all that he and others had said on this subject had been proved up to the hilt in the evidence given before the Select Committee. (Cheers.) The unfortunate and sad facts related to the committee had been so overwhelming that differences of opinion were out of the question. This was a matter in which the country must spend money if the stigma of neglecting its own people was not to rest upon it, and he appealed to the House to support the Government in the adoption of remedial measures. (Cheers.)

said that, beautiful as the whole scheme was, one felt that it existed only on paper. Unfortunately there were many things which existed on paper only. The Prisons and Reformatories Act, passed in the first session of the Union Parliament, contained a clause prohibiting the sending of lunatics to gaol. When this clause was under discussion the blouse was told that its effect would be to make hospitals provide for the accommodation of lunatics. He would like to know how many hospitals had been forced to provide that accommodation. So far, however, from it being any easier to get a lunatic into a general hospital, it was more difficult to do so now than it was two years ago. The reason was that the hospital authorities were horribly frightened of taking lunatics in, because once they did so they could not get them out again. The information given to the Select Commission was in the hands of the Government two years ago, and it was then that the Government should have dealt with the matter. Instead of that, Government neglected it until the matter was brought up by private members like himself. It was only because the matter had been brought up in the House that the Government had been stirred to action.

Where were you two years ago in the Cape Parliament?

I was not in the Cape Parliament, and I think the Cape was to blame but there is this excuse for the Cape Parliament, that there is a greater tendency for lunatics to come to the older Colonies from the newer ones, while the Cape has been very poor. Proceeding, the hon. member said that he hoped that the Government would see to it that provision was made for getting patients dealt with quickly. If a man was insane the hospitals would not take him. The doctor might promise that he should be sent away to an asylum at once, but the magistrate would state that certain formalities would have to be gone through. These formalities should be done away with. Directly a man was certified to be insane by two doctors, he ought to be sent away to an asylum at once without any communication with the asylum at all, except the sending of a telegram stating that the man was coming. Just as they did not stop to inquire whether there was accommodation in gaols, so they ought not to have to wait until there was accommodation in an asylum. He knew that the House was going to pass this unanimously. Another matter that he might refer to was the suggestion of housing of criminal lunatics in one central asylum in Bloemfontein. If there was one thing that the Free State objected to it was the introduction of Asiatics, but among these criminal lunatics there might be some Asiatics, and would the Free State law prevent them from coming in. He did not, know of course, whether the Free State would object to criminal Asiatic lunatics, although they did not want sane and able-bodied Asiatics.

said it was only the attitude of the members of that House who had taken up this matter with energy, that had made the Minister realise what he should do. When he contrasted the attitude of the Minister to-day with the attitude he adopted when the hon. member for Barkly first brought up the matter, then he admitted that the contrast was most unfavourable; not so much to the Minister himself, but to those who had advised him upon his conduct. The only way that the Government could be made to realise their conduct was that hon. members should make themselves as unpleasant as possible in order to force Ministers to do their work. When one found a Minister indulging in long letters to the Press in order to make the public believe that an hon. member was not strictly true in his statements, then they thought that the time taken up in these long journalistic incursions would have been much better devoted to the business of his department. (Hear hear.) Proceeding, the hon. member said that he would like to say a word or two with regard to the treatment of the staffs of these asylums. He believed in the other three Provinces there was a pension scheme for these asylum staffs, but in the Cape Province the system prevailing was such that it did not encourage competent men to go into the service. His belief was that they ought to have competent men to look after these poor people, and these asylum staffs should not be filled by men who took the position as a last resort, and to get out of them as soon as they could. He knew that, the Minister was going to tell him that this matter should never have been raised, and that the staffs in Cape Colony were treated as well as in the other Provinces, and that there was no reason for complaint. He had brought this matter up in the House upon the Estimates, and he wanted to point out to the hon. members that the duties of the attendants of these asylums were extremely irksome and arduous duties, which required men of exceptional strength of character to fit them for the position. These duties required that they should be extremely well remunerated. He tried to persuade the House to give these attendants five years’ remission of service in order that they should obtain their pension a little earlier. When a man had been in this employment 30 years, then it was time that he retired upon an adequate pension. He noticed the committee had not taken any evidence in regard to this matter. He would like to ask the Minister to go into this point in connection with the expenditure for asylum accommodation, and to try and give the asylum staffs a much more liberal allowance in money and leave.

said the House would now prefer to discuss the recommendations of the Select Committee rather than the reasons which caused it to be appointed. It was an undoubted fact that the conditions were as stated in the report. The committee recommended that the shameful treatment to which insane persons were at present submitted should be ended, and a better course of treatment introduced. The new system would cost a lot of money. When the necessary sum of money was placed on the Supplementary Estimates the Minister would no doubt explain exactly how the money was to be spent. In the meantime the Minister would make provision for the most pressing cases. The system recommended by the committee was the pavilion system, a system whereby it was possible to attach to each institution a number of villas, whenever and wherever the need arose for more or better places. During the current year £48,000 would be bestowed for this purpose, the following year £170,000, and the year after £130,000. When the system was completely carried out they could enlarge the institutions in accordance with requirements. The laws relating to the insane would have to be codified, and in the new law any phraseology calculated to give offence should be omitted. They should speak rather of “hospitals” than of “asylums.” By the disuse of terms likely to give offence they would the more easily persuade the mentally sick to submit themselves to treatment. The number of those who would recover from the sickness would then increase, simply because they would be placed under proper treatment at an earlier stage of the disease. In every institution there should be means for classifying the patients, so that each patient could be placed in that section which offered the best chances for recovery in his particular case. The criminally insane would not be admitted to the ordinary institutions, and special attention would be devoted to young persons who became insane, who would require separate treatment. The committee had recommended that the number of institutions should be small but of large dimensions. Classification would be an easier matter in that case, and it would be possible to have a better trained and educated staff. Furthermore, the system would be cheaper. In large institutions the patients did come not so much in contact with the doctors, but that could be remedied by having an observation section. Small institutions were very dear, and the treatment was necessarily less effective. The committee accordingly recommended the adoption of the plan of having large asylums, which would serve large areas of the Union without regard to the Provincial borders. The committee had found that there was not much fault to find with the existing lunatic asylums, and one of the witnesses had even stated that the Cape law was the best in the world. The great fault, however, was lack of space, as a result of which insane persons had to be placed in prisons, whilst others had to be sent home before they had completely recovered, in order to make room for others who were awaiting treatment. The hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens, had not sufficiently appreciated the action of the Government, which had given every possible information, and had announced its readiness to carry out the recommendations and provide the money required. The speaker had asked one of the witness what could be done in the direction of preventing insanity, but the answer was evasive. One of the causes of madness was marriage between cousins, which occurred only too often in this country. An end would have to be made to the propagation of insanity and certain types of madness would have to be rendered impotent in that respect. Insanity helped largely to fill their prisons. The question was a serious one, and would have to be carefully considered. He supported the motion. The Government must make a beginning as speedily as possible to carry out the system which had been recommended by the Select Committee.

said he was sure the members of the House had listened with very great pleasure to the statement by the Minister of the Interior, if for no other reason than that there was a return to sanity, which was not apparent from the conduct of past Governments in regard to this matter. He gave the Minister credit for a bona-fide intention to carry out what he had said. They should try to find out what had been the causes which had led to the disgraceful condition that prevailed, especially in the Cape Province. He would like hon. members on the other side of the House to take a little more interest in this matter, and he would particularly direct their attention to Appendix A, which described the history of Cape asylums. He thought that, not only in the Province of the Cape of Good Hope, but in the Transvaal Republic before the war, the treatment of those suffering from mental diseases was nothing short of disgraceful. The place called an asylum in Pretoria before the war, and shortly after the war, was a disgrace to any civilised community. It seemed to him that the idea that those of unsound mind were afflicted with devils still prevailed amongst certain people. (A Voice: Oh, no.) Reading Appendix A, he submitted that it was clear that too much reliance could not be placed upon Ministerial utterances in regard to these questions, and he thought it was the duty of this House to see that there should be no drawing back from the minimum programme which had been laid down. He had been driven to the conclusion that they would get no proper administration with regard to this matter until they had a proper Department of Public Health. (Hear, hear.) He hoped the good beginning that his right hon. friend had made was but an earnest of the good things that were to come, and that his great influence and authority would be exercised towards putting the Public Health Department of the State upon a proper footing. In regard to the education of public opinion with reference to the treatment of lunatics, he thought the absolute necessity of founding at every asylum a proper mental hospital could not he too strongly emphasised. He referred to the large percentage of cures which had been obtained as a result of the methods adopted at the Pretoria Asylum, and remarked that he hoped hon. members would impress this matter of mental hospitals upon their mind, and educate the public, so that they would see this part of the report carried out at no distant date. He trusted that next year a uniform lunacy law would be introduced into the Union. He agreed with the hon. member for Liesbeek that the work of the nurses at these institutions was of a very trying and arduous character, requiring special training—a training which, if this scheme were carried out, they would be able to give them.

said he was rather disappointed at the reception which the House had given to the committee’s report. It was rather unfortunate that it had been left almost entirely to members of the committee to press the matter upon the attention of the Government. If the subject had been miners’ phthisis or tuberculosis there would probably have been a full, interesting, and animated debate, as would have been only right, but people suffering mentally required more consideration and sympathy than those suffering from bodily disease. If hon. members had read the evidence they would have urged the matter upon the attention of the Government. The subject had been before the Department of the Interior for years, and that department had received reports which, however, had not been published because it was said that the cost of printing would be too heavy. Seeing the amount of money that had been wasted on the printing of worthless documents by Government, that was an unsatisfactory explanation. There was an enormous danger to the community as a whole through there being so many imbeciles living outside asylums without proper treatment. (Hear, hear.) No less than 50 per cent. of the insane in the Cape Province were outside the asylums, as against 11 per cent. in England, and that 11 per cent. was under supervision of some kind. It would cost the Union £305,000 to deal adequately with the situation, and the largest portion of that would have to be spent in the Cape Province. This was but another illustration of the enormous burden the Union had to take over in connection with the Cape. For years the Cape had allowed the treatment of the insane to be neglected. More than that, it had made money out of it, as was shown in the following quotation from a report by Doctors Dodds and Dunstan and Mr. Eagle: “During the years 1905 to 1909 inclusive, the Cape asylums were treated in a very parsimonious, not to say niggardly manner by the State. During these same years 1905 to 1909, when £12,751 was spent on four of the asylums by the P.W.D., receipts from paying patients’ fees from the same asylums amounted to £64,291. It was urged by the asylum authorities that, bad as the times were, the necessities of the asylums should not be overlooked, and that these receipts from paying patients (£54,291) justified the claims to liberal treatment.” Continuing, Mr. Henderson said he hoped the Government would take the matter up seriously, and that the Press would keep the subject before the public when Parliament was no longer in session. They were going to spend a very large sum in connection with political railways, and if there was to be any difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds for more accommodation for the insane, he thought Natal might be willing to give up one or two of her political railways, if other Provinces would do so to an equal degree—(hear, hear)—because he would rather see some of the money spent on proper asylums and the prevention of people being herded together as animals. He strongly appealed to Government to take the matter seriously in hand. (Cheers.)

said that when he found Government so sympathetic he thought it was unnecessary to say much, but as a member of the medical profession he would be lacking in his duty if he failed to record his sincere thanks to the Select Committee for the admirable work it had done. (Cheers.) The committee had given a most excellent report, and the House and the country were under a deep debt of gratitude. (Cheers.) More especially were thanks due to the hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens (Mr. Baxter), for taking the first step in this matter. (Hear, hear.) The report showed that the treatment of lunatics was most deplorable, but that was only on a par with all health matters throughout the Union. There was not a single member of the House who, having read the reports, could fail to agree to everything being done for these poor people which common humanity demanded. He hoped the Ministry would lose no time in carrying into effect the recommendations of the Select Committee. (Cheers.)

said he did not see one point dealt with in the report, and that was a very serious anomaly which he had previously pointed out. Under section 159 of the Act of Union the Crown Prosecutor of Griqualand West and the Solicitor-General of the Eastern Districts Court remained curators ad litem to lunatics, but the Attorney-General of the Cape had those functions taken away from him, with the result that the lunatics in the remaining portion of the! Cape Province had to have everything done for them from Pretoria. Recently the office of Crown Prosecutor was abolished, and now the Attorney-General was curator ad litem for Griqualand West The anomaly could be rectified by a very simple reference to the Governor-General-in-Council.

said that he was very glad to see with what sympathy the report had been received by the members in the House, although he thought it came with a very bad grace from members who had been members of the old Cape Parliament—especially when they saw the reports of all these facts with regard to the growth of this evil—that they should attack the Government. He did not wish to belittle the work of the committee, but he wished the House to know that the recommendation in the report had really emanated from the Department, that these had been arrived at after a long and thorough investigation, and would have been given effect to by the Government whether there had been a Select Committee or not. It might interest the House to know that the Government had spent £144,000 on asylums for lunatics, and no less than £70,000 of that had been spent on new buildings erected while the experts were busy getting the evidence. One little matter that he would like to refer to also was the comparison of the percentages between this and some other places in the Union. The more crowded communities put their mentally afflicted people much more quickly into asylums, whereas in countries that were sparsely populated, the question of sentiment entered much more largely into the matter. People in sparsely populated areas retained their mentally afflicted as long as possible with them, because they ran less chance of doing harm than in densely populated centres.

The motion was agreed to.

in moving the adoption of the report of the Select Committee on Garnisheeing Wages, said that this was a question which affected industrial centres. Before 1907 the practice of garnisheeing wages gave rise to a great deal of trouble and hardship and there was no limit to garnisheeing, so that a man might find himself at the end of the month without any wages at all. The Transvaal took away the power of garnisheeing wages, but the result had not been such as they anticipated, because applications to the Supreme Court meant much greater costs. The question had arisen whether this garnisheeing should be abolished. The Committee, however, recommended that the amount garnisheed should be limited to the balance remaining after providing for a man’s maintenance and the maintenance of his family. In the last paragraph, which might give rise to some contention, the Committee recommended that orders should be restricted to salary and wages actually due, and not to other earnings. Any intention to extend these orders to wages to be earned in the future he did not think the House would have much sympathy with. Possessions that did not exist should not be liable in that way. The conclusions of the Committee were contained in a few brief paragraphs.

seconded the motion.

said he was quite in agreement with the report of the Committee. There was some trouble, however, arising out of paragraph 5, where it was stated that orders should be restricted to wages actually due. When they came to the industrial centres they found that a man might come to a place without anything at all. He got employment on the mines, for instance, and he needed, perhaps, provision for himself and his family. These were supplied on credit against his wages. These wages were paid monthly or fortnightly. Therefore, a man might run for a fortnight or a month, and he was being given goods against wages not yet earned. As a rule, these men paid their accounts regularly for two or three months, and if they fell behind, it was not generally because of dishonesty, but because they had to meet perhaps large doctors’ bills or rent. If any trouble should arise with regard to the payment of the amount owing for necessaries supplied in good faith that they would be paid for, but were not paid for, the only remedy was to apply for a garnished order, but according to the recommendation of the Committee they could not garnishee any money they had not yet earned. Therefore, he thought it only fair that the last paragraph of the report should be deleted.

MEYLER (Weenen) supported the motion, and said the committee had tried to introduce a uniform system for the whole Union. In the Free State they had hitherto followed a different practice, but the committee considered it would be better for the Free State to follow the same system as the other Provinces.

said he was one of those who had the honour to serve on the committee, and it was their endeavour to see justice done to both creditors and debtors. With regard to clause 5, that it should be restricted to wages or salary due, personally, he thought it would be in the interests of the workers to have that modified, but when a Consolidated Bill was introduced, as he supposed it would be next year, there would be time to move amendments.

said he was sorry the committee had not found its way to a solution of that question by a sort of payment by instalments. The object, as was stated by the hon. member for Von Brandis, was to protect both creditor and debtor and make it all as cheap as possible. But the garnishee order would be of no value to the creditor, because he would be obliged to take out any number of garnishee orders, and it would also be a very bad thing for the debtor. The ordinary course adopted in the Courts might have been adopted in those circumstances. To allow the garnishee order to remain, as long as the debt remained unpaid, would be a bad arrangement. Payment by instalments would seem to act most fairly. He did not see any use whatever in a garnishee order which only touched wages due, because that would be detrimental to both parties.

said that when they were in committee he heard that point raised. He wanted to introduce the instalment system, and the only good effect he could see from the clause 5 would be that it would restrict credit giving, and he stated in committee that he thought that clause nullified the whole Act. He realised that garnishee orders, taken out week by week, or month by month, would be the ruination of the men, and the only thing he could get from a committee was the condition at the end of the clause: “This to be done by consent.” If they were to make it an effective law, he felt confident that the only way they could do it was to make the payments continuous as long as the man remained in the same employment and received the same rate of wages. He would retain his right to move something to that effect, when the Bill came before the House.

said it was quite impossible to make an order in the nature of a garnishee upon a debt which did not exist. The principle of garnisheeing, to his mind, should not apply to the earnings, either weekly or monthly, of artisans. The objections to these orders in England, where they would not allow the wages of a man to be garnisheed, were on the ground of public policy. It was deemed advisable that persons earning small salaries should be protected, even against their own extravagance and imprudence, from anything in the nature of garnishee proceedings. It would be a good thing to establish the same principle in South Africa. That was a matter for consideration when legislation was presented to the House.

expressed himself as a hater of the garnishee business. Experience had shown him that there were numerous cases which retailers had to deal with where credit was given to people who neglected their liabilities and made no serious attempt to pay. He considered that under the new system a poor man would be in a worse position than he was at the present time. He thought it would militate against the man’s chances of staying in employment if these orders were placed on his salary week by week. If an employer was paying an employee a living wage he would see that there was something wrong somewhere, and the man would probably have to go. If they could attain the impossible, and do something to make the credit system impossible in South Africa, they would be rendering a great service to South Africa. He was told that it was no use a retailer starting down here unless he was prepared to give long credit, and he was also told that civil servants were the worst offenders. He hoped that more consideration would be given clause 5. Their aim was to try and improve the position, but he thought they would only be making the position of both creditor and debtor worse.

said the House should not be asked to accept the report, but that it should be referred to the Government for consideration. There was no doubt that garnishee orders would hit the employee, because there were very few employers who would keep such men for long. He considered the evidence insufficient, and pointed out that no trades people had been heard. He referred to the fact that large centres such as Cape Town, East London, King William’s Town, and Port Elizabeth were opposed to the system, but it would only be fair to point out that the small traders in Cape Town favoured it. In the Cape they had got on very well without this system, and he argued that the garnishee system was going to encourage credit. One of the clauses of the prevalence of so much credit was the system of monthly payment of wages, which inevitably led to credit If the Government and large employers of labour would only take a step in the right direction and pay weekly wages, the credit system would be largely reduced in the large centres. It was always pleaded by the Railway Department that it was so much trouble, but in the large factories at Home it was merely a matter of system. He moved the report be referred to the Government for consideration.

, in seconding the amendment, objected to accepting the principle of the report, because he found in many cases it might press heavily on the poor.

said that the Legislature should discourage garnisheeing as much as possible. The credit system was the curse of South Africa, and he did not know of any other country where it was so prevalent. He feared that the new system would only pile the costs on the debtor, and as a consolidated Bill was being brought in next year, the matter could then be fully discussed after it had been considered by the Government.

said the Government was prepared to accept the amendment moved by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central. It was evident from the discussion that there was a considerable difference of opinion with regard to the instalment of the garnishee system. There was no power vested in magistrates in the Transvaal to grant an order for garnisheeing wages. That could only be done by the Supreme Court. There were several reasons why this report should be referred to the Government for consideration. The last paragraph (5) raised a very debatable point, as to whether the instalment system was not preferable to the garnisheeing system. He thought if garnisheeing wages was to be regarded as a method of recovering small debts it should be made a real and effective method. The whole question was one that he thought should be left to the Government in view of the fact that a Bill was now under consideration for the purpose of amending and consolidating the law in regard to Magistrates’ Courts. (Hear, hear.) That being the case, he would support the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central.

said it was suggested in the committee that they should add some clauses to their report, suggesting that procedure should be adopted throughout South Africa for collecting debts by instalments, but it was ruled out of order by the Chairman. He would suggest to the hon. member for Jeppe that he should accept the amendment.

said he did not see that it would make much difference whether this amendment was accepted or not, because in any case a Bill would have to be brought in. He said he thought there was a good deal to be said for the Bill as it stood. It steered rather a middle course between the dangers of both sides. He did not quite agree with some of the objections which had been raised to section 5 of the Report. He hoped that when the Government were considering the question they would also bear in mind the point raised by his hon. friend behind him that nothing should be done to encourage a tendency to override the law as it stood now in the Native Labour Regulation Act in regard to the assignment of wages.

said he trusted the Government, if it did consider this matter, would pay great attention to the points raised by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central. It had been found that men paid weekly did the bulk of their purchases for cash. They did not want credit, and they did not like credit. Under the monthly system a man could not pay cash. It was left to him or his wife to wander into a store and buy things which were entered up. That was a direct incentive to extravagance. Persons were encouraged to buy something which was a little better than they could afford. It seemed to him that in dealing with this question they were striking at the wrong end of it, when they encouraged shopkeepers to give credit to working men. If shopkeepers did give credit, they should do so at their own risk. Then it should be made compulsory for all salaries and wages up to a certain limit to be paid weekly. He was utterley opposed to the principle of garnisheeing wages of men who received small wages or salaries.

said that the idea put forward was to curtail the credit system as far as possible. There was no doubt that the high cost of living in the Transvaal was absolutely owing to the extension of the credit system. He should not oppose the amendment.

said that if he thought the Government were in a position to do something in this matter this session he should be pleased to support the amendment, for the reason that the matter was one of urgency. Should the Government take up this question he hoped they would bear in mind what had been passed in New Zealand, and had worked very well for many years. The people who gave credit protected themselves by always charging a higher price for their goods, and thereby practically assuring themselves against loss. He hoped the Government would do something to protect those who had again and again been thrown deeper into the mire while protecting those to whom the debt was owing.

said ho objected very strongly to the garnisheeing of wages in any form whatever. He did not see anything in the committee’s reference with regard to the payment of weekly wages. He hoped the report would be adopted, because it was a step in the right direction.

said he rose to speak in the interests, not alone of the working men, but also of the small trader. The facts elicited during the debate showed that it would be a great advantage to workmen if their wages were paid weekly.

That is not the question before the House. (Hear, hear.)

said that in consequence of the monthly payment of wages the small trader had to give credit; he thus lost money, and as a result raised the price of his goods. He (Mr. Wiltshire) would support the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central.

said they on the cross-benches were often accused of wasting time, but that afternoon they had evidence that their efforts were not altogether wasted. Two years ago, when they introduced a motion regarding the payment of wages weekly, a division was taken, and the hon. members for Cape Town, Central, and Port Elizabeth, Central, voted against the motion.

What was your proposal?

To make regulations for the weekly payment of wages. I congratulate the hon. member on his conversion. (Laughter.) Continuing, Mr. Creswell said he understood that an Order of the Court for payment by instalments was quite different from a garnishee order, the latter being of the same character as an interdict on property. His desire was to see these garnishee orders done away with altogether, but if it were decided that the wages of artisans should not be liable to attachment, on what principle were they going to say that the wages of an artisan earning £25 a month should not be liable to attachment and those of a clerk earning £20 a month should be liable to attachment. They were opposed to class legislation, and they objected very strongly to legislation of that character which contained no principle. (Laughter.)

Is that a sign of conversion?

We stand for principle. Continuing, Mr. Creswell said that the hon. member for Troyeville seemed to be of opinion that under the proposed arrangement a garnishee order would have to be applied for week by week, but they proposed that the Magistrate should not give an order for the attachment of the whole of a man’s wages, but only for the balance after the Magistrate was satisfied that sufficient was left to the debtor to enable him to maintain himself. Whether the motion or the amendment was accepted as far as he understood the position the results would be identical, because if the report were adopted it would remain for Government to introduce a Bill to give effect to it. He certainly urged that the Government should introduce a Bill at the earliest possible date to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee or to deal with the question of garnisheeing, and to put a stop to the abuse of the mounting up of costs.

The amendment was carried.

The motion as amended was agreed to.

moved: That the Committee of the Whole House on the Bill have leave (1) to consider amendments relating to publication of banns in the case of marriages solemnised in any Province of the Union and to provide that default in complying with the law as to publication of banns, owing to errors committed in good faith in interpreting such law or owing to mistake, shall not invalidate marriages solemnised before or after the commencement of this Act; and (2) to amend the title of the Bill accordingly.

said he must congratulate the hon. Minister upon his change of front. He seemed to have quite forgotten that they had often to pass legislation to legalise marriages, and perhaps he would like to know that his Orange Free State, in the year 1859, had to pass similar legislation. (Laughter.)

withdrew the following amendment, of which he had given notice, in favour of that of the Minister of the Interior: That the committee of the whole House on the Bill have leave: (1) To consider an amendment for validating marriages already contracted in the Province of Natal in regard to which the provisions of Natal Ordinance No. 17 of 1846, which govern the publication of banns, have not been strictly complied with; and (2) to amend the title of the Bill accordingly.

The motion of the (Minister of the Interior was agreed to.

moved that the House go into Committee.

Agreed to.

moved that the following be a new clause one, viz.: 1. Anything to the contrary notwithstanding in any law in force in any Province relating to publication of banns of marriage, a minister of religion or marriage officer authorised under any such law to solemnise a marriage may do so in those cases in which the banns have been published in different places, whether one or both such places be in another Province or in a country, colony, or territory outside the Union: Provided that the said minister or marriage officer shall require proof in writing that the banns have been duly published according to the law of such other Province or of such country, colony, or territory (as the case may be): Provided further that at the date of the solemnisation of such marriage not more than three calendar months shall have elapsed since the last publication of such banns in such other Province or in such country, colony, or territory (as the case may be).

The motion was agreed to and the new clause adopted.

New clause 2,

moved the following new clause 2 (to follow new clause 1): Whenever, in the case of any marriage solemnised before or after the commencement of this Act in any Province under a law mentioned in section 1, the provisions of such law as to publications of banns have not been strictly complied with owing to (a) an error committed in good faith by either of the parties to the intended marriage in interpreting those provisions; or (b) any mistake, omission, or oversight on the part of any minister of religion or marriage officer authorised by law to solemnise marriages; but the marriage has in every other respect been solemnised in accordance with the law in force in the said Province, that marriage shall, provided there was no lawful impediment thereto, be as valid and binding between the said parties as if the law in force in the said Province relating to publication of banns had been strictly complied with. The Minister, in moving this clause, said that he wanted to make the provisions of the Bill applicable to the whole of the Union, as well as to Natal.

said that he must congratulate the Minister on accepting the idea of his amendment for the whole Union. The Minister had evidently found grace since the second reading. Then he strained at the Natal gnat; to-day he was prepared to swallow the Union camel.

pointed out that the new clause would not merely apply to marriages contracted before, but also to marriages contracted after the passing of the Act.

said they were very much indebted to his right hon. friend, who certainly seemed to be eager to meet them as far as possible. (Laughter.) Under the circumstances, the Government, having come to reason and his right hon. friends being so obliging, he thought they should offer no further criticism.

The clause was adopted.

On clause 2,

moved in line 16, to omit “Natal.”

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, was agreed to.

moved to amend the title by omitting the words “the Province of Natal” and substituting “the several Provinces of the Union”; and to add after the word “banns” the words “and to provide that erroneous interpretation of, or accidental default in complying with, the law relating to publication of banns shall not invalidate marriages otherwise validly solemnised before or after the commencement of this Act.”

The amendments were adopted.

The Bill was reported with amendments.

moved as an unopposed motion that the amendments be now considered.

The motion was agreed to.

The amendments were considered and agreed to, and the third reading set down for Friday.

moved that the sub-heads be taken seriatim.

Agreed to.

On sub-heads A to D, Administration, £44,972,

rose to draw attention to a small but to his mind very important question, the matter of suspended sentences. He did not think the Minister could do anything in that matter, but he raised the question to draw attention to what was really a scandal, at any rate in the Transvaal. It was a very serious matter from the point of view of commercial integrity. To emphasise his point the hon. member gave a particular instance, and said that a little while ago members of a certain firm were prosecuted for culpable insolvency and a host of other things. The result of the trial was that one of the partners—the other had committed suicide —was sentenced to 27 months’ imprisonment, but the sentence was suspended for four years. On that occasion a most awful fraud was committed, and yet, because there was an eloquent counsel there—who probably got a big fee, and if he did, he deserved it—the sentence was suspended, which meant that that man, who had robbed his creditors and committed a most serious fraud, was allowed to go free. In order that the matter might be fully appreciated, he would read the opinion of an English newspaper, the “Mercantile Guardian.” The hon. member proceeded to do so, and drew attention to the summing up, which asked the question: “What can be the opinion of any honest man of the law of South Africa which makes such a miscarriage of justice possible?” The trouble was the way in which suspended sentences were being abused; if he had the time he could shock the House by instances where people had been robbed in the most barefaced manner and where they found judgments giving suspended sentences, which meant that the offenders could simply get off scot free. The result of that was that the commercial community were getting alarmed, and if certain people knew that it was possible for them to defraud their creditors of many thousands of pounds and that there was a chance of getting a suspended sentence, it was equivalent to inviting such people from all parts of the world

The hon. member went on to call attention to a case which occurred recently in the Cape Province of a man who tied a coloured boy to a horse, with the result that the boy was killed. He (Mr. Quinn) was amazed to find that only a £30 fine had been imposed, and he was horrified to see that human life was held so cheap. He could only hope that there was something in the case which did not appear in the newspapers. The hon. member was making further remarks in connection with this case, when the Chairman said he must not make any reflections. Mr. Quinn said he would bow to the ruling of the Chairman, and would allow the House to make its own reflections; but he hoped that some notice would be taken of what he had said with regard to these frauds, although he did not know who could suggest a remedy. He could not blame anybody but the judges, and he must not reflect upon them. He thought he had served his purpose by merely stating the facts.

asked if the hon. Minister could give them any information with regard to the Children’s Protection Bill? The Bill had been passed in another place, and had been sent to that House. It had been on the paper for some considerable time and it was set down before the House on Wednesday night. He was very glad to, see that, but it went through a process of that kind not so long ago. On the 25th of April the Minister read the Order for the second reading to be discharged and set down for the following Monday. He understood that that would be gone on with, but he found later on that it was in exactly the same place on the Order paper. He hoped that the hon. Minister would not allow the Bill to be squeezed out.

in connection with the suspension of sentences, said the remedy was to abolish the law under which sentences were suspended. The principle was somewhat new; it came originally from America, but the idea was a very simple one—to give the man another chance. Whether they should limit the power of the judges to particular classes of offences was another matter. There was a very great danger in trying to criticise the sentences or judgments from news paper reports, for unless the whole proceedings were followed from beginning to end, it was impossible to form a fair judgment as to the whys and wherefores of the case. With regard to the case of the coloured boy who was killed, he could say that the judge who tried the case was a man of great experience, humane, and well accustomed to balance evidence. He was a man of a very judicial mind, and was not to be carried away and was as careful of human life, whether of the white or black, as anybody he knew in South Africa. Before they could get at the bottom of the reason for the sentence, they must really be able to say they had followed the whole case, and everything connected with it, from beginning to end.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

said that he would like some information with regard to an item of £972 for a new official, an under-secretary, and an item of £6,000, cost of civil proceedings, etc. (including costs and damages against the Government or against an officer of the Government personally for an act or omission for which the Government accepts responsibility).

said he would like to ask the Minister whether he could secure a better administration of the Shop Hours Act in the Transvaal. A large number of Reef traders at present ignored the Half-holiday Act. They also found the Act ignored in a large number of cases in Natal. Mr. Sampson also asked if something could not be done to remedy the present disgraceful state of the grounds of the Magistrate’s Court in Johannesburg.

alluding to the question of suspended sentences, said he thought the principle was a very good one, and had worked very well in some cases. There was the case referred to by the hon. member for Troyeville. A large number of indictments were brought against the accused in that case, and it, was generally admitted that, under the insolvency law, it was a difficult thing to obtain a conviction for fraudulent insolvency. He thought in the circumstances of this case the suspended sentence should not have been put in force. Reverting to the case of a man named Marais, Mr. Nathan regretted the attitude assumed by the Minister when his attention was previously called to the case. All he asked was that the papers should be laid on the Table. He still thought that a great injustice had been done to Marais. It was not too late yet for the Minister to make reparation and to put him (Mr. Nathan) into a position to read the papers.

said he would like to take up the thread of what he was saying when the House rose at 6 o’clock. He was very much opposed to the introduction of any legislation with a view of giving power to any Court to increase sentences. He had also to complain of the great delay in successful litigants against the Government recovering their costs. It was notorious that successful litigants were not paid their costs in the reasonable time within which they would obtain their costs if they had been successful against somebody else. There was something worse. He had no reason whatever to doubt the information which he had received to the effect that where a litigant was successful against the Government he was retarded and delayed and put off in the payment of his costs.

When this litigant became more and more troublesome in asking for his costs, he was informed that it was put before him as an alternative: “either you take less, and we pay at once, or you must wait.” He could not vouch for the case himself, but he had no reason to doubt the information, because he could not believe that it could have been done with the full knowledge of the Minister in charge. It was a fact that there had been great dissatisfaction with regard to the delay in the payment of costs by the Government, and that was a hardship that should not be entailed on any member of the general public. If there was any truth in the other statement, then it was one that required investigation. Continuing, he drew attention to the great economy exercised in the Estimates with regard to circuit travelling. The Estimates for the preceding year was £9,500; it was £8,500 this year. In order to effect this economy, what had the Government dope? It had brought the name of the judges into almost a by-word—in this respect, that the ordinary man told one that anything was good enough for a judge. In former years a judge was allowed some little mode of travelling befitting the dignity of a judge. In his experience, he knew of hotels that would not take the Bar in. (Laughter.)

called the hon. member to order, pointing out that this matter should be brought forward under another sub-head.

I don’t see anything particularly humorous about it, anyhow. I am sorry to see that these matters are not considered of great importance by a great many members of this House.

said he could corroborate what the previous speaker had said with regard to the delay in the payment of costs by the Government. He knew of a case where a Divisional Council was successful against the Government, and when it asked for costs, the alternative mentioned by the hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour, was put before it. The attorneys for the Government did not cloak their words at all; as a matter of fact, the alternative was mentioned in correspondence. He also referred to another case, where a working-man got compensation and costs against the Government in the Magistrate’s Court, and delay of several months occurred before he got his money.

dealing with the Children’s Protection Bill, said that if the hon. member who brought the matter forward would look at the Votes and Proceedings, he would find that it had been set down on a day which no other work required to be done. He was very anxious that the Bill should become law, and unless he was prevented by obstruction, the measure would go on the Statute-book during the present session. Replying to the hon. member for Troyeville, the Minister said he agreed with what had been said by the hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour. He was the last one who would take heed of popular clamour, and he would not attempt to interfere, even if he could, with the judgments of the Court. He thought the principle of suspended sentences was a good one, and he thought it was a good thing that judges should have the discretionary power to give a man another chance. Because a mistake had been made in one case, he thought it would be a pity to depart from the principle. In reply to the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, he said that the Under-Secretary was recommended by the Reorganisation Commission, and was appointed after Mr. Lonsdale retired. With reference to the amount of £6,000, he said that the litigation of all the departments came to the department of Justice, and the Cape was simply following the precedent of the British House of Commons in respect to the way in which the amount was set down in the Estimates. Replying to the hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour, he said that this was the first time that he had heard of litigants having to wait so long for their costs from the Government, and if the hon. member would give him the details of the case, he would take care that such a thing would not occur again. He thought, however, that the hon. member must have been misinformed.

No.

Give me the name.

The Minister has only to look at the correspondence.

I will look at it if you will give me the name. Continuing, he said that if the hon. member would give him particulars, he would look into the matter, and, as far as possible, he would see that nothing of the sort occurred again. If he got to know the person who was concerned with anything of the sort, that person would regret having done what he did. It would be a most improper proceeding, and he could only believe that the hon. member had been incorrectly informed. With regard to the Shop Hours Act, at the present moment the Attorney-General and the police were consulting with a view to seeing what was best to be done.

wished to know what the commercial community could do except to bring the matter before the House. The man in question had not committed the crime in the heat of the moment, but it was a slowly planned piece of fraud. Another man who stole £240 also received a suspended sentence.

said he was not at all satisfied with the answer of the Minister. It was notorious in the legal profession that plaintiffs could not get their costs out of the Government. The Minister was responsible personally, and he ought to know these things. The Minister had not satisfied him in the case of the unfortunate man who was awarded damages under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, the payment of which was delayed.

moved the reduction by £100 of the salary of the Minister of Justice, not—he said—in the hon. gentleman’s capacity as Minister of Justice, but as Minister of Native Affairs. He would have deferred moving the reduction until the Native Affairs vote came up for discussion, but the Minister received no salary under the latter vote. It was a most serious matter when promises were given to that House by a Minister, and they were flagrantly disregarded. He was glad to see the Minister’s predecessor in office present, because he was jointly responsible. He (Mr. Creswell) was alluding to the question of tropical natives. What they were anxious to do was to assure themselves that there was some more reality in these promises than in the promises given by the Minister’s predecessor, which had been so flagrantly violated. Unless attention was called to the matter, a Minister might make an entirely satisfactory statement, but when the House was prorogued he might go on as if no statement had ever been made. The late Minister of Native Affairs, speaking on March 6 last year, quoted certain figures with regard to these tropical natives, and he said, “that the Government had come to the conclusion that in view of the state of affairs, and no improvement having been made, that it would communicate with the British Government with a view to stopping the importation of these natives for work on the mines.” He gave the House to understand that unless a very striking improvement took place in the death-rate of the natives on certain mines, he would stop their importation. On May 15 last year, he said “he had given instructions that arrangements were to be made that these tropical natives were no longer to be employed on the mines where a high death-rate occurred.” That was a distinct, clear pledge. The Minister gave that House to understand that at the opening of the recruiting season he would forbid the recruiting for any mines which had not brought their death-rate down to a reasonable level. On June 15 last the Minister said that “when the matter was before the House a month previously, he had stated that he proposed then to intimate to the mines that they would have to take steps to prevent the employment of these people in the mines where there was an unsatisfactory death-rate; otherwise the Government would have to stop the importation of these tropical natives. He had carried that out. The Government itself could not, of course, arrange the distribution, but the W.N.L.A. had agreed to the terms that he put to them, i.e., they had accepted the principle that in every one of the mines where they had got an unsatisfactory death-rate there should be no more tropical natives employed.” A more categorical assurance could not be given. (Hear, hear.) At an early date this session he (Mr. Creswell) asked the present Minister of Native Affairs a question, and he would read out the information supplied in answer to it, which would show how entirely lacking in reliability the promises of the late Minister of Native Affairs were. He (Mr. Creswell) had asked for information regarding the mines for which tropical natives had been imported since July 1, 1912, and also the death-rate on the mines for the six months preceding July 1 last.

The Minister of Native Affairs promised him that mines with a death rate below 25 per thousand would be allotted natives; but mines with a death rate above that figure would be sternly refused. He would like to point out that on the Lancaster West the death rate per annum, over the six months prior to July, 1912, was 113.9, yet 125 tropical natives were allotted to that mine. The Princess Estate, with a death rate of 28, received 106 tropical natives; the Geduld Proprietary, with a death rate of 27. received 203; the May Consolidated, with a death rate of 81.9, received 125; the West Rand Consolidated, with a death rate of 61.7, received 234; the New Goch, with a death rate of 76.5, received 200; the Cinderella Consolidated, with a death rate of 31, received 633; the Aurora West, with a death rate of 66, received 107; the Crown Mine, with a death rate of 69, received 981; the Geldenhuis Deep, with a death rate of 50.8, received 431; the Rose Deep, with a death rate of 40, received 98; the Knights Deep, with a death rate of 43.1, received 233; the Simmer Deep, with a death rate of 70, received 482; the Simmer and Jack Proprietary, with a death rate of 54, received 160; and the Consolidated Langlaagte, with a death rate of 41.9, received 441. The Bantjes Consolidated, the Modder B., and the Randfontein Central, with death rates of over 50, also received tropical natives. The only possible deduction from these figures was that the Minister gave a promise to the House, and took no trouble to see that it was carried out. The recruiting season, he thought, began in October or November. The present Minister of Native Affairs took over that portfolio in December. He had no option but to move the reduction of his salary, because, though it was only fair to acquit the present occupant of that office of trifling with this matter, yet he thought the present Minister might have seen that this recruiting was put a stop to earlier. Further, he wanted on this occasion also to elicit from the Minister exactly what measures he had taken, and what interpretation they were to-day to put upon the promise he gave last Thursday, that this importation shall be finally stopped. He wanted to warn the Minister that Portuguese Territory was wide and that the native recruited from north of 22 was not a person who could be recognised at a glance, and the natives might be walked a good way down from latitude 22 and be recruited as from south of 22. He wanted to know from the Minister that the promise he gave would be scrupulously adhered to.

thought the Minister should give some reply to the hon. member for Jeppe. He thought the hon. member had proved conclusively that the promise given by the late Minister had not been kept, and he thought that the present Minister should make a statement as to how he proposed to carry out the important declaration he made the other day.

said that during the whole of the period since the Union Parliament first assembled, hon. members on the cross-benches had been pressing the Government, and pressing them, he was bound to say, on what were in themselves on the merits reasonable grounds—although he had no doubt as to the motives at the back of those hon. members’ minds—to stop the importation of the natives from north of latitude 22 south. The Government had announced its intention of doing so; but the hon. members on the cross-benches were not satisfied with that. They had got the promise that no more recruiting would take place. That was what they had been pressing for. He was bound to say that the attitude of the hon. members was a little ungracious; but the fact of the matter was that these things were not so much done in the interests of the unhappy natives as in the interests of the propaganda of the hon. members—(cheers) —and to make a little political capital. The Government had undertaken to make a clear announcement in that respect that there was to be no more recruiting. That was accepted as a reasonable position by the mining people on the Rand, and there would be no more recruiting of this sort. He had thought hon. members on the cross-benches would have been content with that. He just wanted to say one word with regard to the charge the hon. member had made against him, that he gave an undertaking to the House last session when he was Minister of Native Affairs, that there should be no more recruiting for mines which had high death rates after that period. That announcement was made on June 15. The hon. member had quoted the death-rates for the six months from January to June; and that same year, by the end of June, he (the Minister) was out of his office. To-day the hon. gentleman quoted the figures for the previous six months. The whole thing was then still in existence. It was while the recruiting was still going on. The undertaking he gave was an undertaking that this was the course to be adopted after he had made his announcement. Now, what was the position? These things were not done in a day, and no one knew that better than the hon. member for Jeppe. He knew perfectly well what were the conditions of recruitment up there, and he knew perfectly well that the Government had no legal power whatever to enforce any allotment to particular mines of particular natives. When he had given his undertaking to the House last session, what he did was this: he went to Johannesburg himself, and interviewed the mining people there, and he got them to undertake, specifically, against the indication that, unless that were done, the end would be the stoppage of this recruiting: that to the mines that showed a heavy death-rate no further tropical natives would be allotted. That was all he could do. He said that either the mine-owners must arrange among themselves that the allotment of such tropical natives would not go on to mines that showed a high death-rate, otherwise the Government would have to stop the recruiting altogether.

That undertaking was given to him, and he only said that, if subsequent figures showed a less satisfactory state of affairs, such steps would be taken. He did not even wish to blame personally those responsible for the mining arrangements on the Rand, because it was so difficult to put one’s finger on the spot at once. The hon. member had quoted certain figures, but he took no notice of figures prior to the time he gave the undertaking. One never knew exactly how to judge these things—unless one had a fairly large set of figures. In the case of one mine, the figures might show an extraordinarily high death-rate, and when they were examined, they would, perhaps, find that the deaths of two or three natives would give a death-rate of 300 or 400 per annum. He repudiated entirely the charge made by the hon. member. He thought it very ungracious of him to say that the Government had gone back on the undertaking it had given. The Government had followed it up as well as it could under the circumstances, and he considered that it had made good.

said they were getting a little bit tired of that assumption of superiority on the part of the Minister. (Labour cheers.) The Minister had a miserably bad case, and he began his reply by making aspersions on the sincerity of himself and his colleagues. He would like to say that it was not only the people who made the most violent protestations who were the most sincere.

Hear, hear.

said it was very easy to laugh, but hon. members on both sides, when it came to measures for safeguarding the natives, always took great care, when these came in conflict with other interests. They on those benches had none of that hypercritical cant; they always went straight to the point. He did not care who the Minister of Native Affairs was, but he said it was the duty of the Minister of Native Affairs) who had given the pledge, to have told his successor of the pledge, and taken some trouble to see that that pledge was being carried out. The Minister of Railways and Harbours had made a most lawyer-like piece of special pleading.

No, no.

I know. The right hon. gentleman will get up and foam, and lecture us on these benches for presuming to bring forward this matter. Continuing, he said it was a pure piece of special pleading, and the Minister said that the Government had done all it could by coming to an arrangement. He knew the facts. The Minister should have kept a watch over the distribution, and warned the W.N.L.A. of what would happen. It was the same old story. When interests conflicted, the Government did not seem to care very much about scrupulously working up to their own pledges. He appealed to the present Minister of Native Affairs to give the House some more detailed statement as to the measures that would be taken to show that the pledge given last Thursday was not an utterly worthless one as that given by the present Minister of Railways and Harbours. He asked the Minister in all sincerity to re-assure the House and show the House that Native Affairs were in safer hands than they were last year.

said he thought that the Government had brought this trouble entirely on themselves. He thought that before the Government attributed motives to others, it should look inside its own House. He remembered the declaration of the present Minister of Railways and Harbours. He spoke in the strongest language, and assured the House in most categorical terms that if the death-rate were not reduced the mines would get no more tropical natives. The Minister told them that they must be very careful in dealing with these figures, and this should have occurred to him when he talked last-year about legal murder. If things were as bad as that, why didn’t he put down his foot and stop recruiting, without being pushed to do so by the hon. member for Jeppe? For all the House knew, if the hon. member for Jeppe had not brought the matter forward, nothing more would have been heard of it.

Oh, no.

said that the fact was that the Government had seized the opportunity of making political capital out of it. They had a discussion the other day on the system of deferred pay to natives. He must say that the statement made by the Minister in regard to that arrangement was not a true statement of the facts. It was nothing less than a travesty of the arrangement, the full details of which had come into the hands of members. The House agreed to send the matter to a Select Committee on Native Affairs. He understood that it was referred to the committee not for the purpose of shelving discussion, but for the purpose of giving the House an opportunity of having before it the report of the committee before dealing with the Estimates. Were they going to have that report or not? While he did not agree with the proposal for the reduction of the Minister’s salary, he could only say that Ministers had themselves to blame for motions like this. He was glad, however, that the Government had taken the step of stopping recruiting.

said that if the hon. member for Fordsburg had not spoken, he would not have replied. The hon. member for Jeppe had a way of discussing questions in the House, and using language which was not suitable to this House.

He does not know any better. (Laughter.)

He uses language which is not suitable to this House.

said he would like to make a personal explanation.

I don’t always take him seriously. He always reminds me of what was said of a great man.

Another great man. (Laughter.)

No. It was said of him that he was so inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity that he hardly knew what he said. That is exactly the position. Continuing, he said that though the hon. member for Forsdburg had talked to them with the manner of a schoolmaster, he was rather a superior person. (Laughter.) At times he was a little unfair. He was good at detecting motives—but not a good motive He saw no good motives in the Government or anyone else, even in the Labour Party. (Laughter.) It was only that evening that he had tried to build up a coalition again. (Laughter.)

He should have thought, when a decision had been come to in regard to tropical natives, that persons who had no object to serve except that of humanity would have been content with it and would not have dragged a question like that on to the floor of this House for political or party purposes. The assumptions of the hon. member who sat opposite was wholly wrong. He assumed self-righteousness and improper and wrong motives in everybody else. (Hear, hear.) It was not true that the decision come to by the Government on this question was in consequence of or after the question had been put by the hon. member for Jeppe. (Hear, hear.) The decision on this question had been come to by the Government before, had been discussed in full Cabinet, and because they did not rush in and say that they were anxious that the world should know that they were before the hon. member for Jeppe and the hon. member for Fordsburg, their motives were questioned. As soon as reliable information came to him of the death rate, he asked the Cabinet to meet him specially, and said that with these things before them it was impossible to proceed with it. There was not a single member of the Cabinet who did not think that it should be stopped, and stopped immediately. (Hear, hear.) He was sorry that he should have occasion to speak with some heat on a question of this kind.

said he thought the whole committee formed the impression, when the Minister rose to reply, as a result of the castigation he gave, or endeavoured to give, to his hon. friend (Mr. Creswell), that he was going to follow up that castigation with a lesson in manners. He did give them a lesson in manners—bad manners. He deliberately ignored an hon. member of that House. It was a plan of campaign which was evidently being carried out by members on both sides of the House. Members of those benches represented constituencies equally as well as and with other hon. members of the House, and he might say infinitely better represented those constituencies. (Hear, hear,” and laughter.) The Minister had proceeded to refer to the hon. member for Fordsburg as a schoolboy. (Voices: “No,” and “A schoolmaster.”) The Minister had not yet replied to the main points of his hon. friend’s argument. His hon. friend wanted to know, and had a right to know, what steps the Minister was going to take to put into practical effect the statement he had made in that House, the Cabinet resolution. In the Mozambique Treaty there was actually tucked away in the middle an innocent-looking little paragraph by which the right was given to the W.N.L.A. to recruit in Angola.

said that he resented utterly the remarks of the Minister. He called this House to witness that in his opening remarks on this subject he acknowledged the Minister’s position and largely acquitted him of responsibility on the major count, because he alluded to the fact that he only came into office in December. What he had asked the Minister—that arbiter of good manners and exemplar of the politenesses of debate—to do was to tell this House, to reassure this House, to take this House into his confidence as to the measures he proposed to take to stop this recruiting. They had just heard from the Minister of Native Affairs that the Government had no power whatever to deal with the recruiting and distribution of natives. He (Mr. Creswell) wanted to know what legal instruments the Government were going to use to prevent this recruiting. In all the circumstances he should have no alternative but to push this matter to the vote. He would strongly appeal to members on both sides of the House for their support, and ho specially appealed to the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Merriman) to depart from his inveterate habit of going back with his vote on the statements he made in the House.

said his hon. friend was very great on the subject of votes. How was it that when he (Mr. Merriman) moved for the only true remedy for a great many of the ills of Johannesburg, to compound the natives, his hon. friend and his crew vote against him? Where were they then?

We will give our reason for it.

Order.

said he was dealing with the right hon. gentleman’s statement, and he wished to get his vote on this amendment.

You won’t get it.

said that they on those benches voted in accordance with the expressions of opinion which they gave.

The amendment was then put and declared to be negatived.

called for a division. As fewer than ten members (viz., Messrs. Alexander, Andrews, Boydell, Creswell, Duncan, Henwood, Madeley, Meyler, and H. W. Sampson) voted in favour of the amendment,

The Chairman declared the amendment negatived.

said he would be glad if the Minister of Justice would tell him the key in which he should pitch his voice in order to catch his attention. (Laughter, and cries of “ Order.”)

The hon. member is trifling.

I am not trifling, but a mere humble member of Parliament.

I want to know how I am going to get an answer out of the Minister, and I don’t care how much I am called to order. (Cries of “Order.”) If the Minister is going to sit there dumb I am entitled to take any measures I like to get an answer. If the Minister is going to take the attitude that he is going ostentatiously to refuse to reply he is in for a very warm time. (Cries of “Order.”) I want to know from the Minister whether under this vote or the vote for the Attorney-General I can make an inquiry with any prospect of receiving a reply as to the proceedings of the authorities in instituting prosecutions in company matters.

said something which was inaudible in the Press gallery.

I am glad to have got some acknowledgment of my existence, even though the Minister remains sitting when he gives it. Proceeding, Mr. Creswell said that a certain company was registered in the Peninsula in connection with a skating rink in one of the suburbs. The author of the company came to grief. He (Mr. Creswell) had had the papers put before him, and the report of the liquidator, from which it appeared that the promoters had very flagrantly violated the Company Act. A gentleman who lost his money in the company had tried to have a prosecution instituted, but with no success. It was exceedingly important that the authorities should see that where the Company Law was flagrantly transgressed a prosecution should be instituted, otherwise what was the use of having such a law? He wished some assurance from the Minister that if he (Mr. Creswell) gave him the names and the circumstances the Minister would look into the matter and would have it thoroughly investigated. He had intended to bring up the matter of the East Rand Proprietary Mines in connection with the hon. member for Yeoville (Sir L. Phillips), but as the hon. member was absent he would defer the subject until another occasion.

said that with regard to the skating rink the hon. member for Jeppe was not the only member who had been approached—(hear, hear)—but the latter had inquired from the proper authority as to whether the Company Law had been flagrantly violated. He (Mr. Long) had approached the Attorney-General, who assured him that he had gone very carefully into the matter and that in his opinion there had been no violation of the law to justify a prosecution.

said the hon. member (Mr. Creswell) seemed to have rather vague ideas as to the proper procedure to be followed in such matters. He (Mr. Sauer) could no more egg on the Attorney-General or restrain him than he could affect the course of the moon. (Hear, hear.) If he were to interfere with that official it would be a most improper proceeding. However, if the hon. member would send him the papers he would see that they were put into proper hands.

asked for information with regard to the item, “Deportation Expenses, Europeans, £1,000.” He wished to know whether we could afford that at the present time when the crying need of South Africa was more whites.

said that the people deported were undesirables.

said he would like a return giving the reasons for their deportation.

The sub-heads were agreed to.

said people still had to register a patent or a trade mark in each of the four Provinces.

said they knew this Commission had not yet reported upon the matter of trade marks and patents, and it was a pity they had not seen their way to report upon them, because both of them were becoming very important matters in this country. It might interest the House to know in regard to patents that there had been a very substantial increase in local patents, and with regard to trade marks, there had been more trade marks of local origin registered than the trade marks from all the rest of the world put together. The Government should urge upon the Commission that the mercantile community was waiting very anxiously for something to remedy the chaotic state of affairs existing owing to the variation between the different Provinces. He was not very sanguine that if the Commission did report upon it they were going to get anything, because the Commission did report upon the laws of copyright and tacit hypothecations. In regard to tacit hypothecations the Commission actually made a present to the Government of a Bill to deal with it, but it was not utilised. They had got all sorts of tacit hypothecations piling up, and they were nearly all of them in favour of the Government. It was very nice from the Government point of view, no doubt, but was very bad from the public point of view; and when the public realised how these hypothecations hampered, he thought they would have something to say on it. He would like to know why the Government did not use that Bill. He would point out that the Patents and Trademarks Law was very essential to the development of this, country. Another thing felt very much was the differences in the Company Laws. They had got differences throughout the Union. The Minister had excellent men, and if they would only set themselves to it they could give the House something so that people could go ahead and feel they were now in one Union. He knew it was said that they expected too much, but he would like to refer them to the Administration of Estates Bill. It had been passed by the other place last year, and again this year, but in this House they had not yet got on to it. Now that the Government felt more secure and had settled its differences, he hoped they would do something to help the community and let them get on with some work.

urged the necessity of the codification of the Patent Laws. It was a matter of great importance. A good many local inventions were made, and they ought to be encouraged. But a discoverer had no protection unless his patent was operative in all the Provinces, and that was very expensive. Practical farmers also sometimes made discoveries, and it, was very necessary that it should be made cheaper to obtain patents.

said he would like to endorse what had been said by the hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour, with regard to trade marks. To show the importance of the matter he would point out that in the last report of the Department of Justice it was stated that there were no less than 682 applications in the Transvaal for the registration of patents, and no less than 311 applications for the registration of trade marks. They were hampered by this want of legislation to make the laws uniform throughout the Union. He also wished to lay stress on the importance of making uniform the Company Laws in the Union.

said he would like to point out that some companies were formed in one Province and registered in another, with what object he could not say. In regard to patents, many people were desirous of registering their patents, but because of the expense of doing so in all the Provinces at present, they were waiting. The matter of trade marks was also very important.

said he would like to point out to the House the high fees charged for the registration of patents in this country as compared with other countries. They were heavier here than in any other big country in the world, because a separate registration was necessary at present in every Province. He considered it was very desirable that the Company Acts of the various Provinces should also be consolidated.

said that if the remarks made that evening were going to bear fruit next year, he would like to bring to the notice of the Minister the question of the Insolvency Laws.

said there was no need to convince him of the necessity for legislation of the description mentioned. He would point out, however, that they could only carry out a certain amount of legislation and no more. The report with regard to Trade Marks had come in, and he believed that a draft Bill had been framed. If it had come earlier, he would have brought the Bill before the House that session. It would be one of the Bills that would be introduced early next year. He thought it would be a very good thing if they could devote one-session almost entirely to laws that would secure uniformity in the Union, and drop some of those matters which appertained to the gallery.

The sub-heads were agreed to.

The vote was agreed to.

moved a reduction of the vote by £6 for the purpose of drawing attention to the inconvenience caused in the Cape Provincial Division of the Supreme Court owing to the lack of an extra shorthand writer. He asked a question on the previous day, and the Minister told him that the matter would have received attention if it had been raised by a responsible person. Well, he did not mind the Minister enjoying himself at his expense, but he thought it ill became an old Parliamentarian like the Minister to teach a young Parliamentarian to meet a reasonable argument in that way. (Hear, hear.) The House had been unwittingly, perhaps, misled by the Minister as if he (the speaker) was the only person who had raised this question. The previous year the Judge-President, on behalf of the judges, made strong representations, the Registrar had frequently, made representations, and in the latter’s report, dated January 13 of this year, he devoted a whole paragraph to the question. He pointed out that the Cape was the only Court that sat in three divisions owing to the amount of work, and that when the Criminal Sessions sat there were sometimes four divisions. He pointed out that there was an official doing clerical work who was skilled enough to perform the required duties. Before Union, the Registrar had the power to temporarily engage a shorthand writer when one was required, but subsequent to Union this power, for some reason or other, had been taken away from him.

said that the hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens, had done a great public service in bringing this matter of the shorthand writers in the Cape Provincial Division before the House. That the Minister was not aware of the position was perhaps not his fault. The changes had been so kaleidoscopic in the Ministry that it was impossible to know under which thimble they would find the pea of responsibility. The very highest persons in authority in the Courts had been complaining for some years about the inadequacy of the staff of shorthand writers. Complaints had come from the Bench, not once but several times, and there was an absolute necessity to do something. There should be an allocation according to the amount of work and, according to that basis, they should have at the Court in Cape Town twice as many shorthand writers as they had now got.

said he wished to call the Minister’s attention to a paragraph in the Public Account Committee’s report, in which it was pointed out that sums of £104, £100 and £50 had been expended on the cost of haulage of private saloons between Pretoria and Cape Town for the Judge-President of the Transvaal Provincial Division when travelling to attend the sitting of the Appellate Division. There was also a further sum for a private saloon between Pretoria and Bloemfontein for the same purpose. He would like to know if this state of affairs was to be continued. It seemed absurd that the Judge-President of the Transvaal when he came to sit at the Court at Cape Town should have a private saloon at the State’s expense.

said he wished to raise the question of Circuit travelling.

said that his hon. friend would perhaps allow him first to deal with the question of the shorthand writers in Cape Town. He was sorry if he had unintentionally hurt the feelings of his young friend there (Mr. Alexander), but the position was that there were appointed two shorthand writers to each Court of three Judges. It had occurred to him that they should more or less allocate the number according to the amount of work done. (Hear, hear.) He had already expressed his view that that principle should be acted upon. That was going to be done. There was a time, Mr. Sauer added, when there were no shorthand writers in the Court and the Judges took down their own notes, but we were living in a progressive age, when no one wanted to do more work than was necessary.

complained that they had a registrar attached to the Circuit Court of the Free State who would not speak Dutch in Dutch-speaking districts to Dutch-speaking jurymen. If he did not know Dutch he ought not to be there. Would such a thing, the speaker asked, be permitted in Durban or Grahamstown, if for example, the registrar there refused to speak English? When any man was appointed to a position of that character he ought to be acquainted with both languages, or else to quit. The present state of things amounted to a scandal, and an insult to the public.

said it was very well known that great changes had taken place with regard to the arrangements for Judges when on Circuit. Instead of Judges going round in the dignified way in which the people had been accustomed they now had to put up at hotels or inns, together with all the criminals on bail—innocent, of course, but potential—and with all the witnesses. That was not dignified, nor did it maintain the administration of justice in the position which it had always occupied. Members of the bar had had sad experiences when on Circuit. Many hotelkeepers said they would not have them, because the barristers would not have more than one person in one bed—(laughter)—or more than two beds in a room 10 feet by 6, the innkeepers remarking that they could put eight or nine people on the floor. Sometimes barristers had been refused accommodation under these circumstances. One could imagine the plight of the unfortunate Judge and his staff. Under the new arrangements a Judge was allowed only three guineas a day, the arrangement being a most undignified one. Although we were in a democratic age it was not a good thing for the man who had to administer justice to mix up in the same hotel with the people he had mentioned. The Judge had to use the public dining-room—for, of course, he could not afford to have a private one at three guineas a day—where everybody was discussing the cases all round him. In the past the visit of Judges to the country districts when on circuit had had most beneficial results, for the various heads of departments and leading men of the district used to meet on a common ground with the Judge. Many good things had resulted from that. The fact of people coming together under the influence of a Judge very often did a great deal more for the benefit of a district than many hon. members were aware of. But now instead of that happening, the Judge remained in his railway carriage, and very wisely so, for after all, Judges were not philanthropists. He (Sir Henry) had heard that in the Transkei a Judge had been unable to find any accommodation at all under the new arrangement. The genius of the people of this country was that those who administered justice should occupy a dignified position. (Hear, hear.) Let us be thankful for it, because it maintained the administration of justice on a level on which we should all be proud. The only saving effected under the new arrangement was that of £1,000 for the whole of the Union.

A great deal more.

I can only go on the Estimates.

asked for information regarding the item, “ Two Judges of Appeal, £6,000.” He was sorry the Prime Minister was not present because the matter affected him. It had been alleged recently by an hon. member who used to sit in the Cabinet that since the present Ministry had been in power an offer was made to him that if he would remove himself from the political arena a seat would be found for him on the Court of Appeal. It was a very serious matter, added Mr. Meyler, when a Court of Appeal could he used as a sewer for carrying off Ministerial refuse. (Laughter.)

said he wished to add his protest against the change regarding circuit arrangements, especially in the Eastern Districts, where Judges had to visit towns in which hotel accommodation was difficult to obtain. Formerly he was allowed a set of compartments, in which meals were cooked. Now even the old coaches were taken away from them, and the Judges were expected to travel in one compartment. That meant that on long journeys they were disturbed at night and had to put up with a great deal of inconvenience. In fact, they had to travel about as ordinary travellers. The dignity of the Judge having his own coach and having his own house had a great effect on the native mind. The vote still stood at £8,500. He had not got the recent accounts, but if reference was made to the Controller and Auditor-General’s report for 1911, they would find that the vote for the housing and boarding of Judges on Circuit was £9.500, but that the actual expenditure was £8.490. so that it was within the limits of the present vote. It seemed to him, therefore, that nothing was to be gained by these regulations, and everything was lost. In the Transkei they had small towns in which were one or two hotels. When the Judge arrived on Circuit they were generally filled by the jury and doctors from all over the district, and a general jollification was going on. He could assure the House that the hotelkeeper would not admit a Judge into that select and convivial gathering. His admission might have a good effect on the jury, but it would have a bad effect on the custom of the house, and an hotelkeeper in the Transkei would, therefore, see a Judge very much further than allow him to enter his hotel at such a time. In the Eastern Province, Judges complained very bitterly of the difficulty they experienced in getting accommodation in the towns. In Graaff-Reinet a Judge had to put up at a second-rate boarding house because he could not get anything else. The hotels would not admit him. He (the hon. member) realised that the Minister did not intend these regulations to press hardly on the Judges, but they did press hardly on them nevertheless. In regard to incidental expenses on law books and reports for the libraries, he wanted to know why, year after year, this money was voted, and, year after year, they were not allowed to spend it. He would ask the Minister to see if possible that in future those amounts were given to the libraries which so badly required books.

said he did not know whether the Minister of Justice was responsible for the new circuit regulations, or whether they emanated from the brain of his predecessor; but things worked very well under the old regulations, and no reason had been assigned why these new regulations were put in force. He knew that the Judges invariably tried to save the country expense when on Circuit. With regard to these, the Judges were in the position of schoolboys. (Laughter.) The hon. member for Cape Town, Central, might laugh, but he had no idea of the difficulties which beset Judges, whose minds were engrossed from morning to night. (Laughter.)

said he agreed with what had been said as to the necessity of upholding the dignity of the judges, and he would not have spoken had it not been for the way in which the hon. member for Albany had stigmatised the Transkei in regard to hotels. He thought the description was applicable to any part of the Union. The Transkei had first-rate hotels in the chief places, and as for convivial fellows, well they could find them anywhere. (Laughter.)

said that he was just as anxious to keep up the dignity of justice as anybody else, but what some people called dignity others did not. He thought the judge with the greatest dignity was the judge who carried out his business in the way it should be done. He did not know whether frills or embroidery added to the dignity of anybody. The position in Natal prior to Union was a system of per diem subsistence allowance, free of transport by rail and road of 30s. per diem. In the Cape, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal the out-of-pocket expenses, if he might call them so, of a judge on circuit were paid. In the Transvaal, for some reason or another, after a while they stopped the judges’ wine and tobacco. At the time of Union the average expenditure of a judge at the Cape for other than travelling expenses was £9 8s. 7d. per diem. That was what the judge spent on living and entertaining. In the Free State the amount was £8 11s. 9d., and in the Transvaal £4 17s. 4d. That was the only instance he had come across recently in his career as a Minister where the expenses in the Transvaal were less than in the Free State and the Cape. In Natal the amount was 30s. per diem. He would be the last person who would like to do anything that would take away from the position that was usually assigned to judges. Some people had an idea that the judge was almost superhuman—(hear, hear)—and that he was not liable to public opinion as ordinary mortals were. They might go too far in that direction. He did not want to be misunderstood. He wanted to see the judges perfectly free from influences of any kind that would militate against the discharge of their high duties in a satisfactory manner, but with this rather considerable difference between what a judge spent on one circuit and another spent on another, one was not surprised that the Auditor-General had called attention in previous years to the question of the expenditure of the judges. That was the view taken when the regulations were framed. The new regulations provided for £3 3s. a day for personal expenses, but if at the end of the circuit it was found that that was insufficient an extra guinea a day was allowed. A further regulation stated that if there were not suitable accommodation at hotels private accommodation would be supplied. Representations were made to him by the judges. He did not think the judges in all the Provinces were unanimous in all their representations, but a considerable number of them thought the change was not satisfactory. He wrote to some of the judges, and asked them whether they would not give the new rules a trial. The Judge-President in Cape Town thought that was quite a fair proposal. He (Mr. Sauer) was waiting to hear if further representations were made, and if they were he would consider them. He was just as anxious as the hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour, was to do nothing to take away from the judges the dignity of the position they occupied. He agreed with the hon. member that South Africa had been very fortunate in the class of men it had had as judges. (Hear, hear.) He had no doubt they would come to a settlement which would be satisfactory to judges and the taxpayers.

The sub-heads were agreed to.

said that an important decision had been taken with regard to the allowances for witnesses, which would necessitate an amendment of an Act of Parliament. An interpretation of the Act of 1912 had taken place that was going to reduce the whole matter to a state of chaos. A Magistrate in the Cape Province had given a decision that the new tariff only applied to subpoenaed witnesses, but that the old tariff applied to witnesses not subpoenaed. So they had this extraordinary position, that witnesses subpoenaed received less in expenses than witnesses not subpoenaed.

asked the Minister to go carefully into the matter of medical witnesses. Under the new tariff, they received one guinea a day. That seemed exceedingly liberal, but he had had many letters from medical men in the country complaining of it. Some District Surgeons had to travel 50 to 100 miles to attend court, and received nothing for travelling. Supposing a medical man was subpoenaed from Durban to give evidence in Cape Town. He had to travel to Cape Town and supply a locum tenens to carry on his practice, and all he got was one guinea for the day he spent in court. Was that fair?

agreed with what had been said by the hon. member for Woodstock, and referred to the case of District Surgeons in the Transkei. The old tariff gave them £2 10s. a day and 1s. 3d. a mile; now they got £1 1s., and 4d. a mile for travelling. He argued that further expenses should be given to jurors who had to travel long distances where there was no railway. Dealing with the question of witnesses’ expenses, the hon. member said that a European was to be paid 8s. a day, while a coloured person or a native chief was to be paid 2s. 6d. a day. The aboriginal, if he lived within three miles of the court, was to receive only 9d. a day. He did not see why a distinction in payment of witnesses’ expenses was drawn between civil and criminal proceedings.

said he found in the report of the Auditor-General for 1911-12 that the sum of £39,293 was expended in connection with jurors, witnesses, etc., while the amount for 1912-13 was somewhat higher. He wanted to ask the hon. gentleman who now represented the administration of justice, what his opinion was upon the question of the abolition of trial by jury, and whether he saw eye to eye with him (Mr. Nathan) that the time had arrived for such abolition.

said he supported the contention of those members who argued that witnesses, particularly medical witnesses, were not paid so much as they should be. But he had no doubt that other witnesses, such as artisans, were also suffering in the same way. A tariff should not be laid down, but properly authenticated bills should be submitted and paid.

The sub-heads were agreed to.

appealed to the Minister for a reply to his question. On sub-heads L to P, Circuit Courts, £28,400,

moved the reduction of the vote by £5,000 to ensure a reply being given by the Minister.

asked for some reasons for the increase of the vote from £19,500 to £28,400.

said that apparently in one instance the Attorney-General who drew up the indictment against a person had, when on circuit, to turn round and defend a man because there was no other barrister available. That was extraordinary.

urged that jurymen in the Transvaal should be paid more than 10s. 6d. per day.

said that the Traders Congress had asked the Minister to have those cases at Circuit Courts in which district surgeons were concerned called on first. He asked that arrangements should be made in the desired direction, so that these surgeons could get back to their business as soon as possible.

said that the hon. member for Newlands was merely protesting against these chaps blacklegging on the striking barristers. (Laughter.)

said that with regard to the point raised by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, with regard to the expenditure on allowances, the explanation was that last year they thought the lesser amount would do. With regard to witnesses’ expenses, this matter had been brought to his attention from many quarters and he had looked into it. Of course, there was a considerable difference between the expenses for witnesses and jurors under these regulations and what was in force formerly, but these regulations were of comparatively recent date, and when he saw how they worked he would take the matter into consideration.

said he would like a reply to the question he had raised as to the Attorney-General in the Transvaal having gone round and acted in the pro-deo cases.

said he was not aware that the Attorney-General of the Transvaal had gone round to defend prisoners.

said he hoped that the Minister would look further into the matter.

said he would also like to get some information about the matter mentioned by the hon.

member for Newlands, and also in regard to the recent alterations which had been made in the fees for pro-deo defences.

said that this was an important matter, and, as he would like to make a full statement, and hon. members were wishful to leave, he would move to report progress.

The motion was agreed to.

Progress was reported, and leave obtained to sit again tomorrow.