The adjourned debate on the motion for the second reading of the Indemnity and Undesirables Special Deportation Bill was resumed.

Surely one would imagine that the Administration, having power to nominate one member of that Commission by law, would have been satisfied to allow the men a free hand in electing their representative. But, no, that did not suit the autocrat of the Railway Administration, and while the election was in progress the following telegram was sent by the Divisional Superintendent to all stationmasters and heads of departments in Natal: “August 9. Very urgent. Ascertain names in salaried and wages staff of all those men who will support Mr. Patrick Duncan. Wire not later than Monday noon.” Did any hon. member of that House suppose that that telegram did not indicate that the Administration, Mr. Hoy, and his satellites, the whole influence of the Administration was to be brought to bear in favour of one candidate as against the candidate of the Railway Society? Probably similar telegrams were sent in other Provinces, but they did not happen to get hold of them. In spite of the little manœuvres that followed, Mr. Poutsma was elected as the men’s representative, as the House knew, by a huge majority, something like 15,000 to 4,000. Did the Government learn nothing from that vote? All apparently that they learnt was that here was an organisation, which the men looked upon as an organisation valuable to them and, therefore, that organisation must, if possible, be quashed. Mr. Hoy apparently was aghast at this challenge to his despotism and the autocracy of the Minister, who just now was doing in his seat what he was often doing in his official capacity in all these matters — he was slumbering. He came now to the beginning of these retrenchments, the immediate cause of the January strike. After this election, which., was looked upon throughout the railway service as a real slap in the face for the Administration, it was made known that there were to be heavy retrenchments. It was first stated in the “Star” that there were about a thousand men to be retrenched. Next morning in the “Daily Mail” they had an interview with Mr. Hoy, who said that the number to be retrenched was less than a thousand. He went, on to state that during the last three years the revenue had been practically, stationary, while the expenditure had risen from six and a half to eight millions during that period, and that was the factor that determined retrenchment. Mr. Hoy said this was due to increments, and admitted that the matter of railway rates had made a difference. When asked whether it was on account of the strike, he said: “Yes, this is largely on account of the strike.” The Minister the next day scouted the idea that there was any vindictiveness on his side. Possibly on the Minister’s part there was not. Nothing would convince him (Mr. Creswell) that whether it was vindictive or not the opportunity was welcomed by the Administration for giving a slap in the face to the men. Then feeling began to run high. Even the committee of the Chamber of Commerce chipped in with a long statement, showing that there was no real need., for retrenchment. Eventually the Minister of Railways issued a reassuring statement, which really amounted to this, that the question of retrenchment was going to be put on the shelf. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but the railwaymen clearly gave the world to know that as soon as any considerable number of retrenchments were served out they would have to make their protest in the only effectual way in which they could.

The Minister of Defence in his speech kept on saying that it was methods, not policy, that they must consider. They had to consider the policy of the Government that had brought about these things (urged Mr. Creswell) as well as the methods. The policy was as much responsible for, and as evil as, the actions which they had taken, and he wanted to put this to the House on this policy of retrenchment. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth rightly pointed out that the Government in retrenching their servants and in administering their service should hesitate often and long before they retrenched men, and that the position of affairs on the mines should be taken into consideration. At that time when the Government proposed this huge measure of retrenchment, the mines were retrenching. The railway proceeded to get something of their own back for the men having dared to elect their own representative. Let them look at the position. It was not alleged that there were trains running empty or that there was not work enough in the railway shops. They knew from the Minister’s own statement that so necessary was it to get new rolling stock, etc., that a number of contracts had to be sent oversea. The trains were running full, the shops were full of work, full even to overtime, and this was the moment when the Minister alleged that they had got to retrench men.

The reason given was that there was a shortfall in their Budget. The railways had been making big presents to the users of the railway, so that their revenue had fallen to a degree greater than admitted of the fair treatment of railway servants. They knew from speeches made by Colonel Greene, in order, he supposed, to placate the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, and not come into conflict with the Union-Castle Company, that they were carrying coal at a heavy loss from upcountry to Cape Town, and when they found themselves with a deficit they said, “All right, we have got to take it out of the men.” If they were £62,000 short why shouldn’t they say, “We will raise the rates from Witbank to the mines?” Why shouldn’t they put back a portion at all events of the rates they had remitted on agricultural produce? No, the men had got to work harder, work longer, and, if possible, for less money. Behind it all Ministers could say what they would, nothing would convince the country that there was not a feeling on their part that they must again establish their autocracy. They were maddened in October at the idea that the railway servants should have something to say in determining this.

He wanted to go back to the position in November and to point out that from July to November a censorship of the Press existed, as it always existed here, in order to give the country those ideas of the situation which the Government intended it should have. The Government, in order to whitewash themselves, ordered a Commission of Inquiry. But how did they appoint that Commission? People would say why-did not the men give evidence before that Commission ? He would tell them why. Because the Government in appointing the members of that Commission blundered. It was the personnel of that Commission which stood in the way of the men giving evidence. The Government wanted a Commission that would serve its purpose. Out of the whole bench of Judges whom did the Government appoint? He would tell them. Two of those members were Judges who in a previous case which they had tried—the Whitaker case—had shown the clearest bias. Because Whitaker was one of the strikers he was adjudged to have also been a dynamiter. On page 117 of the Law Reports for 1912, the Chief Justice, when reviewing the case, said:

“ I do not understand from the reasons of Mr. Justice Wessels that he believed the evidence of Sherman, and disbelieved that of the plaintiff. He says that even if we accept as truth every word that the plaintiff has told us, then they are not persons with whom we ought to sympathise.’

“Whittaker certainly showed sympathy with those who used dynamite, for when Sherman told him where the dynamite was, he was, according to his own story, most anxious to remove it from the neighbourhood of the committee-room of the strike.

“ The reason, however, for his anxiety to remove the dynamite was because its being found by the police in the neighbourhood of the committee-room would bring all the strikers into trouble, whether they were dynamiters or not.

“His sympathy was with the strikers, of whom he was one, and not with the dynamiters, of whom he strenuously denied himself being one.

“He said in his evidence: Never heard of dynamite being suggested at any meeting I was at. Never heard an article called “Rifles V. Right ” discussed. Never heard that a little nitro-glycerine would frighten away blacklegs… He (Sherman) asked me if I had heard about dynamite being placed on the rails. I told him I had He said it was unlucky it had been found before it went off.’ I told him I thought it was a dangerous thing to place there at all…. On Wednesday night I had strikers’ interests at heart; should not like to see any of them arrested—I objected to the use of dynamite.

“If therefore every word spoken by the plaintiff is true, I fail to understand how it could be held that he showed sympathy with dynamiters as such, and yet this is one of the grounds on which the Court below held the tender to be sufficient.

“ In my opinion, abuse of authority, such as has been brought home to the defendants, ought not to be treated as a venial act, to be condoned by the payment of a few pounds. By all means let the authorities use all their efforts to put criminals and suspected criminals under lock and key; but when once they have done this, let them remember the punishment should only begin when the guilt of the prisoners has been established by judgment of a Court of Law. ”

He would ask if those two judges, whose judgments the Court of Appeal had upset, were proper persons for sitting on that Commission, seeing that they could not distinguish between dynamiters and strikers?

Why could not the Government have appointed judges from the (Appellate Courts? Of course, the men said they were not going to assist the Government in this whitewashing business. Still, the Commission served its purpose. The report was produced, and all that. South Africa knew about the proceedings was an accounts of rioting and strike. Law and order was the Government’s trump card. All they heard about was of those wicked strikers. The position in November was that the mine-owners and the Minister of Railways, together with Mr. Hoy, were angered that the men should have challenged them. Then, again, the Government was losing prestige in every quarter. Their party was driven asunder, and had made themselves the laughingstock of the country. Then came the two great gatherings in Cape Town, and the little rift which they hoped might have been bridged became a chasm, and their position was more unsafe than ever. He (Mr. Creswell) was going to state the theory of the prosecution. He was going to suggest to that House the opinion that the real secret of the whole matter was to be found in the Government’s insecure position in January, and that they wished to establish themselves again in the eyes of the country. The Prime Minister laughed, but he (Mr. Creswell) did not think the Prime Minister would laugh when he had gone to the country on the matter. The test of the theory was that it should cover all the facts, and that was true with regard to the theory which he, Mr. Creswell, had advanced. The Government was determined to raise a crisis. They said, “let us take the first opportunity of crushing Labour and in doing so use the whole forces of the country, not to keep law and order, but to crush Trade Unionism.” He, Mr. Creswell, could see the Minister of Defence posing before the world as the saviour of South Africa, and it would not have been a bad plan if only the Minister had had the ability to carry it through. The Government would have been pleased to have drawn the hon. member for Smithfield into the trap so that he might have been pointed at, together with his colleagues, as being tarred with the Socialism of the cross-benches. That, was the idea of the Government, and a very plausible plan it was, such as would commend itself to the fertile mind of the Minister of Finance. If only the Labour people had fallen into the trap the Minister would have scored, but they did not fall into the trap. How careful the Minister was to bring to the attention of the House the action of the hon. member for Smith-field in such a way as to besmirch his character. Then again, if the Government could only enlist the sympathy of the member for Fort Beaufort and his friends they would make their position secure. It was a dirty trick and a plan that was schemed to betray the people of the country. The Government had been quite prepared to ruin the country in order to save their own political necks, and not to crush any Syndicalism, but to crush Trade Unionism and the right to refrain from work. It was a piece of treachery—

“That movement,” said the speaker, “expresses itself politically, and we are the representatives here of this movement politically. It also expresses, itself industrially.” They were told, by the Prime Minister that he had no objection to a strike. They always heard that there was no objection to labour organisations and that Trade Unions were excellent things— until the Tirade Unions took action which was effective. He himself had very much doubt as to the value of a general strike, not from the same point of view that the Minister adopted, but from the inconvenience to the general public, because the general public included the strikers themselves. After all, the past few weeks have done much to convert him to the value of a general strike if that was the way the Government was going to act. He could have wished that every wage earner of the country protested against that brutal action of the Government. They were at the mercy of the Government, and they could take all sorts of illegal measures and use all sorts of illegal methods to prevent the organisation of the workers. He would ask the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Merriman) kindly to reflect how those ideas had come to be accepted. He appealed to the right hon. gentleman, because although he hated their ideas and hated them (Labour people), and although they loathed his notions, still they looked upon him with some respect and affection as a representative of the English race in that country. The right hon. gentleman posed as a Liberal to-day; was he going to turn against the movement because disorder had accompanied some of these workers?

The Government could try to crush the Labour movement, but the Labour movement meant life, and like life was uncrushable. The Prime Minister and the hon. member for East London (Col. Crewe) were not going to tolerate Socialism. Really the Prime Minister surpassed himself when he said that he was not going to tolerate in South Africa a school of thought which was making progress all over the world. He wanted to point out, to the House that the only way to secure peace and prosperity was to encourage the idea in the country that every mode of thought should have free expression, and that they had to rely ultimately upon conscience, and not be made as there to-day, by the theory of hon. members on both sides of the House, that the man who could take the power or had it could keep it. If they did not want “to work they would hound them back to work, whatever they might want. Now, let them take the immediate beginning of “that last event, the “treasonable conspiracy ” which the Minister had spoken of as existing. Of course there were men in the Labour movement who advocated a general strike, but was it not legitimate for a man to advocate what he believed. He could only tell the House that before Christmas there was no one in the Labour movement who anticipated any immediate trouble in January—so far as he knew—and he knew a good many of them. He told a gentleman just before Christmas that things were simmering down, and that there was little likelihood of a strike unless the Government or the employers stuck pins into the men. As far as he could see, there had been no more prospect in the next three months of any change in the situation than had existed in the last three months. Then he remembered about January 3, even after those first beginnings of the trouble, those retrenchments had been announced, having an interview with Mr. Bain, who had suggested to him that when that debate about the proceedings of July took place a certain number of persons should be sent there to tell the facts. He remembered Mr. Bain showing him correspondence he was carrying on with the Minister of Justice relating to a request from the Federation that the men who had been in gaol about the July struggle should be looked upon leniently, and the reply from the Minister of Justice showing that the Government was prepared to consider that.

The Natal coal strike bad no more to do with the railway strike than the Minister had to do with the Empire. The Natal coal strike was purely a local strike. While the whole of the railway trouble was simmering Mr. Tourney and Mr. Tom Matthews were sent to Natal to see what could be done to bring the coal miners’ strike there to a conclusion. Mr. Tourney and Mr. Matthews arrived at the conclusion that the points of difference still outstanding were hardly worth fighting about. But the men concerned took a different view, and by a ballot of 94 votes to 14 decided to stand out for 18s. a day instead of the 17s. that they had been offered. But this was part of the Minister’s case of the existence of a conspiracy. If the Natal coal miners had decided to go back on the 17s. a day basis that strike would have been finished about January 4 or 5. Everything on the Labour side pointed to a continuance of peaceable times until just before Christmas. Then the Minister of Railways and his friends conceived the idea of sending the men nice little Christmas boxes on Christmas Eve, in the shape of retrenchment notes. The way in which it was done showed how little consideration the Government had for the men. The retrenchment of a man while he was on leave was one instance. This man had in his pocket free tickets to the coast and was to leave the next afternoon. At four o’clock that afternoon he was asked to come to the office, and was served with a notice retrenching him at 4.45 the following afternoon. A fine generous employer— a noble way in which to deal with our med.

At that time letters poured into Mr. Poutsma’s office telling him of these facts. The society had already said that when it could put its hand on 25 retrenchment notes it was going to take action. The railwaymen were kept excited. Did the Minister give them the soft answer which turneth away wrath? The Prime Minister told the men to wait until the Minister of Railways came back on Monday morning, and in the meantime he went off to open a little railway at Paulpietersberg, and the Minister of Railways went off to Mafeking. The men had to understand that the dignity of the Minister of Railways must be maintained at all costs. To hold out the hand to them and to be frank with them might be destroying the Minister’s dignity.

He (Mr. Creswell) wanted to call the attention of the House to a most extraordinary circumstance. On December 30 the London “Times ” published the fact that the Rand Riots insurance rates had been rising for a few days. In Labour circles they knew nothing of approaching trouble, but the conspirators over there apparently knew all about it, and they were covering themselves in the only way that mattered —namely to their property. They knew that there was going to be trouble a day or two after Christmas, and were protecting themselves, but the Labour people knew nothing about, it. (Hoar, hear.) To cut his story as short as he could, the railway strike ensued, but unfortunately for the Minister of Defence and his ambition to pose as the military saviour of South Africa, there was no violence. From the very start Mr. Poutsma and other railway leaders earnestly counselled the men to re-member that they were on strike, and to abstain from violence. But, this was not enough. He had a letter written by a friend, giving some account of the internal features of that time. The letter stated that on Friday morning, the day after the strike, the writer called on the Mayor of Pretoria with the Rev. Mr. Bryn, and asked the Mayor to call a citizens’ meeting in order to pass a resolution requesting the Government to meet the men. Of course, the Mayor refused. The Rev. Mr. Bryn said that the Archbishop was going to see him on the subject, and he left saying that he would see the Governor-General on the matter. The next day he rang up, and stated that the Archbishop had spent an hour and a half with Mr. Burton, urging him to meet the men, but Mr. Burton said he was not prepared to do that as he as out to smash Syndicalism or Trades Unionism.

But tapping the telephone system was a dangerous thing, and he had been told that one of their friends unfortunately overheard a conversation between the Minister and Mr. Hoy, in which the Minister asked how it was that Mr. Hoy had all this information, and Mr. Hoy replied, “From men I have inside their committees.” He (Mr. Creswell) wished to know who these men were, and what action they took, and whether they were the men who urged extreme action? He thought the purpose of these measures was to irritate the men, to arrest their leaders, and to leave the men leaderless—to arrest the men who were telling the strikers on no occasion to lose their tempers. Hon. members might remember those frightful Armenian atrocities which took place about twenty years ago, when the Government was stirring up the Armenians in order to give it an excuse for brutal conduct. There were many points of similarity between the two cases. There was the same open massing of the forces, putting up notices that rioting was going to take place; but the riots did not come off. There was no disturbance, and there was no chance for the Minister to figure as the Iron Cromwell of South Africa.

He came now to the declaration of Martial Law on the night of the general strike. The measures they had taken apparently were not enough. He wished to make it perfectly clear that he did not for a moment deny that it was the right or the bounden duty of a Government to maintain order within its territory, but he said that the whole intention of this Martial Law, the whole intention of these regulations published under it, was not to maintain order, but to crush Trade Unionism and crush, as far as possible, every Labour organisation. (Labour cheers.) It was stated in this proclamation that “The Magisterial districts set forth in the schedule hereto are placed under Martial Law as Martial Law is understood and administered in His Majesty’s dominions.” He asked that House and any member of that House to tell them of any place in His Majesty’s dominions where Martial Law had been administered and where Martial Law had been understood in the light of the acts which had been committed under these regulations. Where had Martial Law been proclaimed in order to enable the Government to say that any person who attempted to compel any other person from working or continuing or returning to work, whether by threat of personal injury to himself or any of his relatives or any person dependent upon him or otherwise and by any words or conduct, should be guilty of on offence and liable to imprisonment for a month? To say to men who were on strike that their best chance of succeeding was to be loyal to one another and refuse the blandishments of the Minister to play the traitor to one another was an offence, what had that got to do with the real object of legitimate Martial Law? They had only got to examine how these things were carried out. The object was to coerce law abiding citizens, Labour men, and to take away from them the right which the Prime Minister in his speech on July 11 had said they then had He wanted to ask wherein this great crisis were any words of protest from the Opposition? Where was any word of protest from the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, that great champion of law and order ? Law and order had to be observed; yes, by the poor and humble, but when his (Sir T. W. Smartt’s) friends were going to play ducks and drakes with the ordinary traditions of law and order, then he said: “I must support the Government at all costs. ” He enlisted as a special constable; he did not blame his hon. friend for that, neither did he blame the Federation of Trades for saying that any man who enlisted as a special constable should be branded as a “scab.”

Well, then, he came now to the Trader Hall siege. He congratulated its gallant commanders. (Labour laughter.) He congratulated General De la Rey and those, associated with him in that memorable action, the first time in the history of the Minister’s Defence Force that armed forces had been brought into action, so to speak, with the definite intention of carrying out military operations. (Labour laughter.) It was a poor beginning. (Hear, hear.) Let them hope that the future traditions of the Defence Force would be something more glorious than that. (Labour cheers.) He was not going to deny that the detectives, were after Mr. Bain and Mr. Mason, but there were other people after Mr. Bain and Mr. Mason besides the detectives. Mr. Bain had shown him (Mr. Creswell) an anonymous letter he had received, telling, him that if there was a general strike be would be shot. (A laugh.) What business had any person to demand admittance except in uniform or in the execution of the law to a Trade Union office any more than the Rand Club? He would leave the gallant action; be was coming now to some instances in practice of Martial Law. The Government had set up a censorship of the Press, a censorship which was used as far as possible to let any false information of the state of things go out to the world, and prevent any real apprehension of the facts of the situation being known outside. The Minister said it was simply for the purpose of preventing the growth of the unrest and disturbances. He ventured to say that it would be found when the truth was known that Ministers used that censorship really to prevent the truth being known, so that influence would not be brought to bear to arrest them in their mad career. They broke up peaceful meetings, they arrested the Council of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in their offices on the ground that there were more than six men together, but let them go after an afternoon’s detention. He would like to ask the Minister if his myrmidon, Col. Truter, was so anxious to observe the letter of his regulations, how many times did he raid the Rand Club, when there were more than six together? On the Friday morning he (Mr. Creswell) went to the Railway Committee rooms at Braamfontein. The men were as good-tempered and orderly and peaceful as men could be. They were on perfectly good terms with the police. He went again in the afternoon, and he found armed police with their rifles—gallant fellows—sitting on the doorsteps of the committee room, the committee room having been raided earlier in the afternoon and all found in the office taken to the Fort. They arrested all the persons in the Old Arcade, where the Labour Party’s offices were situated, and where the Typographical Union’s offices were situated, simply taking them wholesale. They closed first one end of the Old Arcade and then the other, because there were more than six in this portion of the public street, and took them all wholesale off to the cells or the charge office. They were liberated that afternoon. They committed the outrage, certainly not a pin worse than any other outrage of raiding the Labour Party’s offices, taking away their correspondence with their branch secretaries. (Hear, hear.) They did not raid the Unionist Party’s offices or their own party’s offices.

It was not Martial Law; it was Louis I. law. They wanted to smash the Union. Men were locked out on the railways all over the country. Men were locked out on the mines—he was told that the whole of the Kleinfontein Mine workers were dismissed, men were locked out from one end of the Reef to the other—blacklisted, political undesirables from a mining point of view, he supposed the hon. member for Germiston would urge. Men were leaving these shores, the best of them by every boat, men who could not leave these shores, born here, condemned to starvation and misery, and the Prime Minister, he supposed, next time he went up-country, would speak in those unctuous tones of his about “Ons Yolk.” He got letters every day from the railwaymen, telling him that it was dangerous even to stand up for their undoubted rights, and that they were simply now in the hands of their petty foremen and petty tyrants. So that a chance should not be lost—the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs will be able to confirm or deny what he was going to say—they were told by men in the Postal and Telegraph Union that their grievances were still very acute and that official correspondence existed—it might be private and confidential—from which it would be inferred that the Minister rather hoped that at this time the Posts and Telegraph Union would declare a strike so that he might imprison the officers of the Union and so cut off all the hopes of the organisation at once.

Continuing, he said they now saw that the dastardly conspiracy had reached the point to which it had been making, closing with the deportation of a few, and for the moment causing inconvenience to the Labour movement. Did they think they were going to crush Trade Unionism? The Government thought by this conspiracy of theirs to crush the Labour movement out, “but, by Heavens,” said Mr. Creswell, “we have only just begun the fight.” The Labour movement would be all the more stronger and virile in this country for what had taken place. The Press had been carefully censured, and the public had heard nothing of the acts which this Bill was asked to condone. He (Mr. Creswell) wanted to speak of something that had been done under this Martial Law. The Minister of Defence had the effrontery to say that not a single man had been forced to work. Of course, it was a physical impossibility to force any man to work directly. The only way to make a man work was to harass and oppress him, and so make him work. The whole purpose of Martial Law was intended for no other purpose, and to serve no other purpose, than to indirectly compel men to work. The Minister of Defence had treated in a jocular way reference to one of the regulations of Martial Law which prevented any assistance being rendered to strikers. Why, he (Mr. Creswell) asked, should a man, if he abstains from work, be prevented obtaining the necessaries of life? There were other things that were done under Martial Law that had not reached the public ear. The Government enlisted mine officials as special constables, and if a man expressed contrary opinions to those favoured by the Government, he was arrested. He (Mr. Creswell) had heard of a case in point, in which a workman who had stigmatised the conduct of a certain official in dismissing a fellow-workman as “tyranny,” when the official in whose presence the word had been uttered, said, “I am a special constable, and I arrest you.”

He (Mr. Creswell) had received a number of letters calling attention to lawless acts that had taken place under Martial Law. One was a case in which an employer of labour was held up by two armed burghers and an armed Kafir, with the threat, “Are you a striker, say, or else I will shoot you?” Was that the way to carry out what they wished to see in this country, namely, the allayment of class and industrial strife? Mr. Creswell then went on to refer to a case in which an apprentice was denied medical treatment, being suspected that he was a striker.

Proceeding, Mr. Creswell read the statements he had referred to, and quoted as follows: “On Thursday, January 15, about 8 a.m., Mr. Sandham, who was a drill sharpener on the Government State Mines, Bnakpan, was visited at his house by the manager (Mr. Graham Bell) and the chief engineer, and asked why he was not at work? He replied that as a union man he was obeying the call of the Federation of Trades, who had declared a general strike. Mr. Bell then told him that if he was not at work within an hour he could take his discharge. Sandham had been two and a half years on the property. Sandham refused, reiterating his reasons, and Mr. Bell left. The following morning he was arrested by detectives, and charged at the Benoni Police Station under clause 12 of the Martial Law Proclamation. He was then taken to Boksburg Gaol, where he was detained for five days, being remanded once during that time, and finally released, because the charge could not be substantiated. Dealing with the round-up under Martial Law at Benoni, Mr. Creswell read the following: On this, a Thursday afternoon (January 15, 1914), about 4 p.m., various people in the township noticed that the mounted burghers guarding the surrounding districts were riding in. A very large number of persons, men, women and children, were out in the streets, walking up and down or standing about talking in small groups. Everything was perfectly quiet and orderly, and there was no kind of attempt at holding a meeting of any sort. It was presently observed that Major Kirkpatrick, commanding the police in the district, was riding about giving quiet orders to the armed and mounted burghgrs in the township, and presently these joining forces with the incoming commandoes, were driving men with threats and violence before them into the square from every point. Immediately afterwards it was discovered that every exit from the Square was closed: and guarded. Any man who attempted to get out was threatened and struck with sjamboks, which were freely used, and men were butted with rifles if they did not move fast enough to please the burghers—Berry, the editor of the “Benoni Advertiser,” had his wrist laid open by a blow from a sjambok—and other men suffered similarly for attempting to pass the mounted men. The women on the spot were then told to go away, and many refused with loud protests, one woman who would not leave her husband being brutally told that she would be provided with another. The men were then horded together and driven to a fenced enclosure on the Square, which was used for cattle on market days, but a smart shower coming on Major Kirkpatrick then had them driven across Market Avenue into a big shed belonging to an auctioneer named Weinberg.

While this was happening the police were busy going from house to house in the township, taking men off their stoeps, out of their back yards, gardens, and houses, and actually from their beds. A man called Purvis was only just out of Boksburg Hospital, but he was hauled out of his bed and taken to the Square, whence he was marched later to Boksburg Gaol. One man was told that he was wanted on the Square for an identification parade and was so trapped. Others in numerous instances were informed by plain clothes men, who turned out to be detectives, that there was a meeting of strikers on the Square, and were accordingly swept into the round-up like the rest. About 6 p.m. orders were given to move on, but Major Kirkpatrick possibly finding that four hundred men or so he had captured somewhat of an embarrassment from their numbers ordered all non-strikers to stand out. About half did so, and were released; the remainder stood firm, exhorted by their leaders, Trade Union and Labour Party officials, and were marched out under strong escort On the march to Boksburg some four miles distant various incidents occurred. At a point along the high road there deviates another approach to Boksburg across a swamp. Major Kirkpatrick tried to make his prisoners take this route in order to avoid rousing Boksburg, North. This the men declined to do as they were on foot while the escort was all amounted, and prepared to sit down and fill their pipes. Major Kirkpatrick there again gave in and they proceeded into Boksburg, North. Here a young man who was standing on a stoep with two women waved to the prisoners and cheered them. He was promptly arrested and carried off. Another, a mere lad, who was standing watching them pass with his father and mother was arrested and carried on because he had pushed aside the head of a burgher’s horse which was threatening to knock his mother down. Arrived at Boksburg gaol, 181 prisoners were herded in the Kafir quarter. In one case 51 of them were confined in a cell, 23 by 16 feet, for thirteen hours In another, sixteen were put in a cell 15 feet by 13 feet for the same length of time, and so on. In each case a couple of open night-soil buckets stood in the centre of the cell; the floors were concrete and only mats to sleep on, and the blankets were full of lice. One and all of the prisoners expressed their horror of the degrading conditions imposed upon them; many of them, sufferers from phthisis, were much affected by the air restrictions, and several were overcome by apprehension as to the possibilities entailed by the use of common utensils in the case of those of their number afflicted with venereal diseases.

The prisoners were detained in gaol for periods varying from one week to 16 days, and were released in batches without any explanations being given. They were thoroughly searched on being admitted, and it is believed that a solitary penknife here and there was all that could be found. Proceeding, Mr. Creswell said there was another case, that of A. G. Newton. He read the following: He is a winding engine-driver on the Brakpan States Mines and Secretary of No. 9 Branch of the Engine-driver’s Society. Upon the declaration of the general strike there was some discussion among the men as to what they should do. Newton made no secret of his views and his intentions. On the morning of January 15 he informed the Assistant Manager (Mr. Ward) that he wished to give his 24 hours’ notice and take his discharge, that would work it out. Newton and Ward had some words, and Newton said he would not lower any scabs. He continued his work, at which he was now watched, and at 11.30 three armed and mounted burghers arrived at the shed of No. 2 shaft, at which he was alone lowering, and proceeded to ask him if he was a striker. Newton stopped his engine and told them that what he and the rest were trying to do by striking was to improve the conditions of three-quarters of the men on the railways, who were poor Dutch. This surprised the burghers and they drew back and conferred together, and were overheard saying that that was quite a different matter, and they wished they could get home, after which they left. The incident had collected quite a small crowd, and it was decided after some discussion that P. Donaldson, President of the No. 9 Branch of the Engine Drivers, with Newton, should be deputed to go into Johannesburg and get definite instructions from Mr. White-side at the Trades Hall. For this purpose they got leave from the management, and proceeded the next morning, the 16th, into Benoni, for permits. Donaldson obtained his, but Newton was informed that he was wanted. He was arrested and charged under clause 12 of the Martial Law proclamation, detained at Benoni one night, and then taken to Boksburg Gaol, where he was kept till the following Wednesday, and then released, as the charge could not be substantiated. Dealing with the Van Ryn Estate Gold Mining Company, Mr. Creswell read the following: “Burghers under Commandant Van Rensburg surrounded this property, and confined the men to their room from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, the 17th. The burghers were most insulting and threatening in their behaviour, and Van Rensburg confessed that he could, not undertake to keep the burghers under control as they were so truculent.

They were sent to round up some mine Kafirs who were loafing in a near plantation, and did it with such violence and brutality that two of the boys had to be taken to hospital, and one succumbed to his injuries. That, said Mr. Creswell, was the sort of authority the Minister’s regulations placed in the hands of brief authority for enforcing his Ministerial will. Continuing, Mr. Creswell referred to the cases of officials of the Transvaal Miners’ Association who belonged to the Klemfontein Branch. Mr. W. T. Trevorrow (President T.M.A.) was told that both himself and O’Brien (the secretary of the T.M.A.) were likely to be arrested. He kept quiet until Thursday, 15th, when he heard that the members of the T.M.A. were being arrested He then went down to the square and saw the burghers congregating, and found, himself swept in with the crowd into tile kraal. He was driven with the rest into, the shed, and was one of those officials of trade unions represented who exhorted the crowd to stand firm, and not to deny their principles. He corroborated statements that had been made with regard to these matters, especially with regard to the round up and the march to Boksburg, incidents en route, and conditions in the gaol. He was detained until Wednesday, 21st, and released without explanation. He could vouch for three men who were hauled out of their houses by the police. Proceeding, Mr. Creswell said that he could go on reading these cases ad nauseam. He wondered whether “the informal censorship ” would prevent the publication of these documents. He had read these statements, which were merely samples, to show what acts had been committed under Martial Law, which had done nothing to preserve order, but had attempted to crush. Labour organisations for the benefit of the Government’s friends, and Mr. Hoy and the Minister of Railways and Harbours. ’The Minister had produced the defence of the Government in his statement, and it was a defence characteristic of the Minister and characteristic of the Government. In it he had poured contempt upon the Courts of the country and the Parliament of the country. In the view of the Government it was not a matter for Parliament but for the public authority, the Government. Parliament to their minds was inferior to the Government. As a public authority they regarded themselves as superior to Parliament as representing the people of South Africa. Was it therefore surprising that they deemed it a trivial matter to take away the very livelihood of thousands of citizens in this country and treat them as pawns in their paltry party game ? Having abused the offices they held, and having abused the high trust confided to them, and having betrayed their oaths—

They had seen many troubles in South Africa, but he questioned whether they had ever had a more troublous time than since Parliament last rose. People of every race had been shot down. They had had Europeans shot, Basutos shot, Kafirs shot, and Indians shot. It was a very lamentable state of affairs in a country like this, where they looked for peace and good government. Finally they had Martial Law. They had had an experience of Martial Law before. Fourteen years ago the whole session was taken up by the discussion of Martial Law and events connected therewith. Two years after that they had another session, also taken up by discussing Martial Law. Indemnity Acts had to be moved there, not a single one like the present one, but two or three during the session. The Constitution was to be suspended. An attempt was made to suspend the Constitution. He hoped they were not going back to that state of affairs again. At that time the curious thing was that they on that side of the House were strenuous in opposing Martial Law and in denouncing its operations, and standing up for the Constitution and constitutional privileges, and urging the strictest possible inquiry into the acts done under Martial Law. He remembered in 1902 that they had an Indemnity Act and they had the power then of throwing out that Indemnity Act. While personally he was very anxious to see things quiet down, he knew that, although members were irritated by the acts done under Martial Law, it would have done no good to refuse an Indemnity Act. He consequently communicated with the late Sir Gordon Sprigg, and told him it would be hopeless to try and get a Bill through unless he promised a rigid inquiry. Sir Gordon Sprigg promised such an inquiry as soon as the Bill was passed. Upon that they went to the S.A. Party as it was then and urged upon them (Mr. Sauer and himself) that it was no use keeping the country in a turmoil. They got the party to accept, and the Indemnity Bill was passed. Then the promise to institute an inquiry was shamefully broken, and he made up his mind that at any rate in the future whenever an occasion like that occurred he would see that the promise was something more than a verbal promise of a Minister. It did more to continue feelings of unrest than anything else.

Proceeding, he said that he Had listened with intellectual pleasure to the speech of the Minister of Finance, he noticed that it had been republished and he was glad of it, it would be embodied in history with the orations of Cicero against Catiline. He was a distinguished lawyer also, and very much the same in many respects as the Minister. (Laughter.) The Minister of Finance could not get away from his old forensic habits. “He put up,” proceeded the right hon. gentleman, “what I might call a theory for the prosecution.”

He attempted to fit the evidence into the theory for the prosecution; he wanted to establish the fact that there had been a deep laid conspiracy, but he relied on remarkably slender evidence. He kept the House on tenderhooks of anticipation, for to the very end of his speech it was darkly whispered in the lobbies, “Wait, there is something coming. He is going to make your flesh creep like the fat boy in Pickwick.” (Laughter.) But when the end came what had they? There was no evidence of a conspiracy, there was no evidence they would hang a cat on.

If the hon. member (continued Mr. Merriman) wants to get his Indemnity Bill through he will have to go on something else than that. I think he was right and within his rights and he did a service to the country by joining the events which took place in July last with the late disturbances. The two things are inseparable. (Cheers.) From the events of July the events of January sprang. We had the report of the Commission—a fair and impartial Commission—borne out by evidence, and I was shocked that a man with the standing, of the hon. member for Jeppe. (Mr. Creswell) should try to traduce the character of the judges, on that Commission. (Loud cheers.) They were both born in this country and they were both hon. judges and they are both. South Africans—one of each race. They are both thoroughly honourable men and their report deserves careful study. The whole justification for Martial Law rests upon this report. No Government in its senses with this report in its hands and with the knowledge of all the direful things that took place in July last would be fit to hold that position if it did not take every precaution in its power. That is the sole justification—not a paltry conspiracy, which. I don’t think you can establish, but this report. The dangers that would arise in the event of these people who call themselves Labour leaders—the blind leading the blind—(cheers)—if they could manage to re-establish a state of affairs which culminated in the bloodshed and disgrace of July 5. I simply wish as far as my humble ability goes to cross the t’s and dot the i’s of the Minister’s statement.

There is not the slightest doubt that these men on the Umgeni were declared enemies, of society—(cheers)—declared by themselves and declared by their acts. They misled a population of honest working men by their inflammatory speeches, and there was the greatest danger that a similar state of affairs would take place if the declaration of war and all the preposterous fustian of the Trades Hall had been anything but mere bluff. Judged out of their own mouths, they carried a load of responsibility for all the misery and dangers my hon. friend has been eloquent about. It is these people who are scurrying away from this country who are responsible for that.

Come back to June 16, when Parliament rose. The Minister said the state of affairs which occurred in July was wholly unexpected. Why ? How can he say that? Parliament rose on the 16th. What were the occurrences going on in Benoni on the 16th? The Minister hurried back to the scene of action, and I think the Prime Minister, too, but did his colleagues go? No. It was a suitable time for the Minister of Mines—the department most intimately concerned—to go electioneering on a pleasant country jaunt around the district of Malmesbury. The Secretary for Mines—the executive branch of the Mines Department—was off yachting, and it was some comfort during the happenings of July and what followed in August to hear that he was at Southampton enjoying his yachting experiences. (Laughter.) The Minister for Railways—a department which was also troubled at that time—did he hurry to the seat of action? No. He also was packing his trunk for a holiday trip to England. (Laughter.) Then the Secretary for the Law Department—the department which is responsible for the maintenance of law and order—what did he do? Work night and day? Not at all. There is a remarkable letter on page 24 of the report of the Judicial Commission which is a gem of official correspondence. I don’t think in all my long experience I have ever read a document like this. Against the advice of the police and the Magistrate the holding of this meeting at Benoni had been sanctioned. What does the Secretary of the Law Department—the chief lieutenant of the Minister—say? “If the Press is correct that the Strike Committee invited people to come to the meeting armed, it seems to me it is up to them, now that the meeting is sanctioned, to withdraw that part of the invitation.” (Laughter.) After that epistolary gem it would scarcely be believed that that official went down to Durban, embarked on a ship, and went off on a, pleasure trip to inspect the prisons of Siberia. (Laughter.)

I say there is a certain amount of responsibility resting on the Government— (hear, hear)—when they say that these occurrences were wholly unexpected, and that the strike came like a bolt from the blue. It is hard to reconcile that with the facts recorded in the Blue-book. As usual the whole business of the Government—as seems generally to be the case—was left on the patient shoulders of the Minister of Finance, and when one criticises his actions one is filled with admiration for the undaunted pluck and courage he has shown since last April. That he makes errors of judgment is, unfortunately, too true.

At Benoni there had been riots. These simple people, in the prosecution of what the hon. member for Jeppe euphemistically calls “securing economic liberty for the worker,” had been kicking some people almost to death, assaulting and threatening others, and generally setting up a reign of terror. It was then proposed to hold a meeting at Benoni: I invite you to look at page 38 of the evidence, on which appears the redoubtable Mr. Bain’s invitation to the Federation of Trades Union. The hon. member for Jeppe will find it hard, I think, to justify his statements as to the peaceful nature of the gentleman who was struggling to secure economic liberty for the workers. Mr. Bain, in his invitation to people to attend the meeting, said: “We want you to help to deal with the problem of the scabs. Come armed.” That is a nice invitation. It means absolute defiance of law and order. (Cheers.) As the judge properly says, the man ought to have been prosecuted for sedition. Why was he not prosecuted for sedition? (Cheers.) I suppose the person who could have suggested this prosecution was on his road to Siberia.

But then, if you please, a gentleman, who runs like a sort of silver thread through the whole country in this business, the hon. member for Springs, goes over to Pretoria to interview the simple Minister of Finance, who, of course, was in charge of everything. (Laughter.) He says: “This is a simple meeting.” He would give a guarantee that there should be no violence. Now see what the value of the guarantee of the hon. member for Springs is worth—what the guarantee of any of these members is worth, because they all endorsed it. Mr. Bain endorsed it when he came back. They were only to go on the Market-square. A more foolish, insensate act than that of allowing that meeting, and supposing you were going to keep 8,000 violent fellows in order, and prevent them from going to a place within sight to deal with the “scabs,” as they called them, I do not suppose was ever heard of in history. (Cheers.) They had given their solemn guarantees. The meeting took place. What did they expect would happen? Mr. Bain, the man who had given his guarantee that there should be no violence, how did he stand? He invited them to go on and have a look at the Kleinfontein mine, absolutely and hopelessly breaking his word, breaking the guarantee, and inciting these men to violence.

The next day, or the day after that, what was called the Red Army sallied forth down the Rand, pulling out these men who wanted to go on with their work. This pulling out business was called “Securing economic liberty for the workers.” (Laughter.) There are different kinds of “economic liberty.” “Economic liberty” on the square at Benoni is; for a great crowd to, surround a poor fellow whose only crime is that he is doing his work, arid then some gallant fellow shouts, “Put in the boot,” and then they kick that man almost to death. That is the Benoni way of securing “Economic liberty.” The other way is for the Red Army to go down the Rand terrorising every mine they come to. The curious part is that, as a correspondent of undoubted weight wrote to me at the time, “I saw this Red Army start, there was a time when a posse of police might have stopped them.” But the police were not there. Nobody has been prosecuted for this violence. You don’t want Martial Law to stop that. Why were the laws not put in force? Then we have this miserable history which we are considering later on, because the laws were not enforced. Surely when my hon. friend (Mr. Creswell) said that the men willingly laid down their tools and came out rejoicing to join this demonstration, he must have forgotten the facts! Surely he must have forgotten about the Van Ryn Mine when the men, in their anxiety to secure the “economic liberty” of the worker, forced these men, who, by a majority, had decided against a strike, to come out. I know one mine whose manager has 700 men at work. These men came to him and said that they had no grievances whatever and that they wanted to go on working. “Give us protection,” they said. On the 4th, the day after the publication in “The Worker,” which I will come to in a moment, a band of these ruffians came to the mine, they threatened these men, who had wives and families, that they would burn their houses down, they went to the natives and threatened to kill them if they went on working, and my friend told me that the men came to him again. He said: “I cannot protect you, no protection is given to us. All I can say is lay down your tools and wait. ” So they did.

Now see the connection with this publication in “The Worker.” “The Worker” is good enough to put me on the free list. At first I did not like it, but through all this time it has been a most instructive thing to read. When you come to the 3rd of July and that incitement to crime that was published in “The Worker,” what I say is, I am not surprised at the happenings which took place on the 5th. It was the deliberate outcome of that incitement to crime. In the leading articles I seem somehow or other to trace a fine Roman hand I have seen somewhere else.

Then there came the meeting in Johannesburg and at last the Government woke up. It came near the heart, I suppose. As long as the extremities, Benoni, Randfontein, and all about there only were concerned, the Government appeared to be pretty supine. When it came to Johannesburg they woke up.

What was the next thing? The next thing was that they went on to Park Station where, incidentally, they roasted a native alive. They were not satisfied with that, but went to the “Star” Office, where there were 20 female workers employed. By way of securing their “economic liberty” they set that place on fire and nearly roasted those poor girls too. These are the brave fellows we are asked to look upon as harmless lambs, simply trying to secure the “economic liberty of the workers.” I love that phrase. Then outrage was fairly let loose in Johannesburg—murder, outrages of theft and outrages of every kind until it culminated, fortunately for society, in that scene before the Rand Club, where the military properly drove the people back and fired into the crowd. In the course of my reading I came across an account of this scene which, I think, I may trouble this House with, because it describes it to the life. The writer, after describing the angry mob of pickets and behind them, the general mass of strikers and all the hooligan elements of the City, goes on: “But some people are absent—the strike leaders. An hour or two ago the valiant agitators were pouring red-hot rhetoric on the crowd. They were denouncing and abusing us and prophesying our downfall. Now, when the hour of trial has come, the strike leaders have folded their tents and stolen away into the night. They have left things in the hands of the pickets, the peaceful pickets. Well, they have not gone far. We can find strike leaders if we go into the smoke-room of the nearest hotel, and there with whiskies and sodas and cigars they are chewing the sweets of philosophic Socialism and the barmaid downstairs is remarking to the waiter that they seem such nice gentlemen.” ((Laughter.)

Continuing, Mr. Merriman referred to the story of a crowd looting a jeweller’s premises in Paris, when a respectably dressed onlooker who seemed to be in tears was asked what he was doing there. The gentleman referred to sorrowfully replied. “I am their leader.” (Loud laughter.) And now he came to what he considered had to do with the happenings in January more than anything else. Not a conspiracy exactly, because it was that memorable meeting, at the Carlton Hotel, which had been consented to in an evil moment. If the situation had been left to the police and military the strike would have been over. But in an evil moment the. Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence; were induced to come to a round-table: conference with the Labour leaders. They, had got to study the speech of Poutsma, who had informed the country that the negotiators had come with revolvers in their pockets, and that if the Government had not accepted the Ministers would have been shot. That story had been repeated from time to time with considerable gusto, and no disguise was made of the fact that Ministers had given way because they (had been, told that they would not go out of Johannesburg alive, if the terms had not been accented. Still, he did not believe that two men whose records for bravery were so well known were in the least intimidated by these threats. He wondered that any man could refer to that meeting with anything but feelings of disgrace.

These people were always making speeches, and whether they had anything else to do, he did not know. (Laughter.) They were called “workers,” but what they did work at was making speeches. (Laughter.) He did not think there was any other class which made so many speeches as these people did—(laughter)— and all the speeches went the same way— that they had the Government at their mercy; that the Trades Federation was going to rule the roost—and they bluffed the Government to their fullest extent. His poor friend, Mr. Sauer’s, last words were “Be firm; be just, and don’t be bluffed.” His hon. friends the Government had been bluffed by these people, because when the time had come—and on the weakest possible pretext—they had declared a strike. They had called a general strike, and how many men had answered to it? The united bull dogs, of the Trades Federation—(laughter)— had called a general strike and the Government had been in the most tremendous fright, which he did not wonder at. The Government must have felt slightly ridiculous when they saw how they had been bluffed. When it had come to the time of trial they (the Trades Federationists) found they had nothing behind them. Men did not want to come out, and all that they asked for was protection. The railway, except for the disorganised crowd at the Pretoria workshops, did not want to strike. The whole thing was as deadly a fiasco as he thought had ever taken place. (Hear, hear.) He did not see that any of them blamed the Government for what it had done, seeing what had taken place in July, when Mr. Morgan came out and said that they would declare industrial war upon the Government and all that sort of tomfoolery. (Laughter.) The Government proclaimed Martial Law, and they would have blamed them if they had not done so. As they saw it now, it was very easy to say that this was not necessary, but at the time everybody had been frightened; everybody had been in a panic. Of all the folly and lack of wisdom of the Trades Federation, the talk of having a general strike in a country like that, and of having the mass of the population of the country going on strike, that was the greatest, while the mass of the population of that country was on the farms—with a handy gun—(laughter)—and the mass of the workers were against the Trades Federation. They had heard a precious lot about the workers, but had any man said a word to show that the work in this country was done not by the gentlemen of the Trades Hall—but by the black man? A strike amongst the white workers was just as reasonable as a strike amongst the overseers of the Southern States of America before the Civil War would have been. Here in South Africa the black man did the work. He was not a slave, but would be a slave if the “industrial republic” came in—they knew that well enough. (Laughter and cheers.) The preposterous nonsense of proclaiming a general strike in this country! He thought that the action of the Government had been thoroughly justified by its having frightened the Trades Federation. They had had no more outrages such as they had had at Benoni. He referred to the case of the blind woman with six children, whose only “crime” was that she had a daughter who was going to marry a man who would not come out on strike!

Proceeding, the right hon. gentleman said that those men were working to establish what they called the right of economic liberty. In one instance they went to burn a bake house down for nothing. He wanted to show how scrupulously they kept their engagements. The ink upon the Bain-Botha treaty was hardly dry. It was signed at eight o’clock that night on Saturday; at 2 o’clock on the Sunday they were burning and committing those outrages at Benoni—and who was standing by? The hon. member for Springs. (Shame.) He came down to Cape Town afterwards and boasted of those crimes, made light of them. That was a thing that any right-minded man should be ashamed of, and he was a member of that hon. House; he was pleading for those men at the present moment; it was disgraceful! He did not suppose that at that time any people were so discredited as those Labour leaders. They had shown they were a set of boasting fellows with nothing behind them, they had thrown hundreds or thousands of people out of work, they had created an atmosphere of misery and distress over the whole of the country, they had cost the country—he did not know how many thousands of pounds, but it was a great many. They came forward to show there were no riots, and that they would have taken care there would be no riots. What was the value of their assurance?. It was difficult to speak with coolness of the monstrous assumption of those people.

Up to that time the conduct of the Government had deserved the greatest of praise. Their actions to some extent gilded over their deplorable weakness in July. They had acted in a way to bring commendation from every part of the country and then by some fatal mischance or by some evil council they committed a grave mistake. That mistake was in the deportation of these Labour leaders. (No, no.) Well, proceeded Mr. Merriman, his hon. friends who were so fond of deportations of course spoke from experience—(laughter)— they liked it, and he was not going to question their superior knowledge arising out of their experience. He would tell them briefly why he considered it a mistake. They had elevated those men to the dignity of heroes. They had made heroes of the sorriest lot of fellows who were ever discredited. The Government had given them thousands of adherents in this country, and although hon. members might sit there and smile and laugh, they would not be so pleased when after the next elections they saw fifteen people coming back in place of the small number there. (Labour cheers.) Some people, went on Mr. Merriman, had such an extraordinary absence of shame. The people who had been mixed up in those things, the people who had led the workers to disaster and defeat, could yet come there and cry out and interrupt.

He did not say they were wrong in arresting those whom they had deported, but there was a right and a wrong way of dealing with them. They could have been brought before the House, and if it had been considered desirable the House could have dignified them by bringing in a Bill of Pains and Penalties, or there could have been a special tribunal. Nobody would have been more pleased than if those people had had to suffer heavy punishment. It was not from sympathy with them that he was saying these things. So far as punishment was concerned he thought they had got off remarkably lightly, but they had not been treated according to law. The Minister of Finance had sneered at the Magna Charta, but still there was a principle laid down in English life that no man should be punished until he had been tried. Even under Martial Law, which they all hated and detested, there was trial by court martial. The courts may have been bad, and long sentences might have been inflicted, but still every man had a trial. In this case there was the ordinary courts. If they were not liked there was the alternative of a special tribunal, or there was a Bill of Pains and Penalties, but the Government did not try these at all. Even, in lynch law, the most violent of all, a man was given a chance to say what he had to say. It was necessary to get some sort of evidence. But here was a Ministry composed largely of lawyers, and it showed what, lawyers were when they took the wrong course. (Laughter.) They were sworn to uphold the law, but instead they tore up the laws. That was not the way a great country was made. They said it was done under an administrative act; what grounds did not Martial Law authorise them to have? It was Mexican law, they were starting South Africa on the lines of the Mexican Republic. There was only one justification for that, and that was necessity. Legality, they must put on one side, because of course, Martial Law was the suspension of legality for the time being. Rut was there any necessity to deport those men before Parliament met? After the revelations of the Trades Hall and the miserable spectacle that those people had made as leaders, there was no need to set them up as martyrs. Was there any necessity to get these men out of the country two days before Parliament met? The Minister of Finance said “Yes.”

It astounded me (continued Mr. Merriman) coming from him, who if anything, is a philosopher. You can’t depend on lawyers Or philosophers in times of trial. (Laughter.) He says you must have the, thing settled when you are in a hot frame of mind, and before you can get cold. What a doctrine to lay down! Would he like to have had that doctrine laid down fourteen years ago? Did not you and I, and others, protest against that doctrine? But now you are top dog you want to lay that same doctrine down again that you protested against fourteen years ago. I am sorry for my hon. friend as a philosopher and a lawyer. That is a Latin Republican doctrine, and not the doctrine of a free country, where Englishmen and Dutchmen live.

You place this House in a most undesirable position. You ask us to justify actions, for which certainly no justification has been shown to the House. Then you may say that you are justified perhaps on expediency. Is it expedient because all over the country, and particularly in suburban trains, you hear people when they are talking about the deportation, say: “It is a good thing, too,” or “I wish a good many more of them were deported ” ? I have seen quite enough deportations in my time, and some day or other you may be deported yourselves. Again, is it expedient to make martyrs of men? Does my hon. friend not know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church? Does he not see visions of future trouble come from these deportations? You have, by your acts of violence, condoned their acts of, violence. In future, all this is going to recoil on this unfortunate country in some way or other. The Minister says the eyes of the world are on us. My hon. friend has managed, curiously enough, to strike the Empire two of its deadliest blows. He has got us into a most extraordinary mess with the Government of India, which is one of the most vulnerable points of the British Empire. Now he has sent home to England, at a critical time when England may be plunged into the brink of civil war, he has sent Home nine missionaries who will go round inflaming a large section of the voters against the British Government, which has had as little to do with the business as Table Mountain has. Does he not see what a dangerous and unpatriotic thing it is to do? (Hear, hear.)

Now the Bill of Indemnity aims at two things. It condones Martial Law. I agree with that. Martial Law may have proved afterwards not to have been needed, but I will say this, that the hon. member’s (Mr. Creswell’s) anecdotes about atrocities committed under Martial Law, painful as they are, left me cold. When I consider that a great many of these people had been engaged in burning Scott’s property, I do not feel. I am doing anything wrong in justifying Martial Law. I do not suppose my hon. friend opposite has taken the trouble to read the preamble of this Bill. It condones only acts done in good faith and of necessity. If you can prove that a thing was not done in good faith I take it the Courts can take cognisance of it still.

I will even go so far as to condone the arrest of these people and even their deportation, but when you ask us to go further—having led us into a morass you ask us to plunge still further into it and to approve of the permanent life-long punishment of these people, then I have grave difficulty in doing that, and I do hope that the Government will find some means of meeting those who go with them to the fullest extent in their detestation of this unrest and trouble, and at the same time have a Very grave difficulty in tearing up all the denunciations they made 14 years ’ago, and in voting for the punishment of men for life without bringing any real evidence before us—to do that is a grave step to take.

Don’t let people say it is convenient. It is never convenient to do a wrong thing, because it always comes back. We who protested very loudly in years past at all the acts of the military and all the dreadful things that took place under Martial Law, that we should do what we are asked to do now seems very strange indeed. Not many months will pass before people, when they get cool, will say. “We have done a wrong thing.” By making the men martyrs you strengthen the Labour Party and throw hundreds of people into their ranks who would never have dreamed of joining them before.

Then, when the Labour Party comes back to this House with 15 votes what is going to take place? Every party will be tumbling head over heels to repeal this Act. How did the Labour Party get here? Who supported them? (Cheers.) Others would do this, but I am afraid we have burned our boats. Parties are parties and politics are politics. You are not taking the right course, which is to bring the men back and put them on their trial. Make any tribunals you like, but give the men a chance or bring them before this House under a Bill of Pains and Penalties, which is an obsolete thing. Still you would have done a comparatively right thing to bring these men back. You would justify yourselves in the eyes of the world. Why wipe away all the credit by this one false step?

Mr. Merriman had not concluded when he moved that the debate be adjourned until to-morrow.

This was agreed to.