House of Assembly: Vol14 - MONDAY 16 February 1914
introduced by General J. B. M. Hertzog (Smithfield) and Mr. C. A. van Niekerk (Bosh
introduced by Mr. C. G. Fichardt (Ladybrand) and Mr. C. T. M. Wilcocks (Fauresmith), took the oath and his seat for Frankfort.
from Dr. A. M. Wilson, Railway Medical Officer, for leave to contribute arrears to the Pension fund.
from G. E. Read, formerly on the staff of the Chief Accountant, South African Railways and Harbours, retired in 1913, for a pension or gratuity.
from R. W. Tanner, formerly of the Albany Police Force, for an increase of pension.
from P. B. Sinetisu, corporal in the Native Affairs Police, for a pension.”
from A. H. Maci, teacher at Peelton, for condonation of a break in his service.
from C. E. George, formerly watchman in the Kowie Railway Company, Ltd., at Port Alfred, whose services were dispensed with on the said company going into liquidation, praying for consideration and relief.
Report with schedules of land purchased under sections 10 and 11 of the Land Settlement Act, 1912, during 1915; 26 papers relating to grants, sales and leases of land.
The papers were referred to the Select Committee on Waste Lands.
Return of Rentals waived under section 25 of the Mineral Law Amendment Act, 1907.
Report for the Department of Justice for 1912.
Copy of Agreement entered into by His Majesty’s Postmaster-General on behalf of His Majesty and also on behalf of the Governments of the Union and of India with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company.
moved, as an unopposed motion, that he should be excused as a member of the Select Committee on the Rand Water Board Supplementary Water Supply Private Bill. (The hon. member’s remarks were practically inaudible in the Press Gallery.)
said that he thought the hon. member should give some reason. The committee was a very important one.
May I explain? When the Bill was first mentioned I did not think it would be an opposed Bill, but only discovered on Friday that it was an opposed Bill, and I had to be away. It will be impossible for me to attend the committee.
asked the hon. member to repeat his remarks, as they could not hear a word in that corner, (Hear, hear.)
thereupon repeated his remarks in Dutch.
It is not necessarily Dutch we want; but we want you to speak louder.
The motion was agreed to.
said that he had to announce that the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders had appointed Messrs. Maasdorp and Henwood as members of the Select Committee on the Rand Water Board Supplementary Water Supply Private Bill, instead of Messrs. Krige and Robinson, Mr. Maasdorp to be chairman. The committee would appoint another member the following day in the stead of Mr. C. L. Botha.
moved: That the mover be discharged from service on the Select Committee on the working of the Miners’ Phthisis Act, 1912, and that Mr. Andrews be appointed in his stead.
This was agreed to.
The adjourned debate on the motion for the second reading of the Indemnity and Undesirables Special Deportation Bill was resumed by
who, in continuing his speech, said that he was convinced that had hon. members possessed such information as “we ” had, they would not have made such charges, and he hoped his charges were clear enough to throw light on some of the questions which had been very much in the dark. If the trouble had been such a sudden affair it was difficult to understand that insurance business, and it finished for ever the charge of Syndicalism, for if there was anything at all in that policy and those methods, their suddenness, was the principal feature. Sometimes business was done in that way; warrants were prepared by anticipation. Two warrants had been prepared in Cape Town during the trouble, for himself and the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Madeley), but these had not been issued. Perhaps the insurance business was done in the same way. He (Mr. Haggar) was really sorry for the attitude the Prime Minister had taken up on Friday and the remarks he had made, who had quoted an article written by John Dube, who was a man of high character, and he (Mr. Haggar) could not help feeling that by the time the Prime Minister had tried to do as much for the poor whites of this country as John Dube had done for his people, he would have something to be proud of. He was sorry that such an attitude had been taken up against such a man, who was not able to answer for himself. The hon. member went on to refer to another native from whom the Prime Minister had quoted, who, he said, was a very intelligent and a very able man. He knew, these people, who had solemnly pledged themselves that they would not join any contest which involved the shedding of others’ blood, and surely that should have been stated in that House in justice to the man.
Continuing, the hon. member proceeded to refer to the speech of the Prime Minister, and said the latter had said that some of the instigators were in that House, and that they had attempted to place a dagger in the heart of the people of the Union. That was a very serious charge to make, and he had to ask again that when charges of such a character were made the evidence should be produced. They found in Lord Gladstone’s despatch the words, “the counsels of the strike leaders were set aside,” and it was because those counsels were set aside that the riot started on the East Rand. Which was he to believe? The Prime Minister or the despatch of the Governor-General. Personally, he would rather take the despatch of the Governor-General. It was further stated that the Government not only had to deal with strikers but hooligans who joined their ranks. Who were responsible for the conditions which produced these hooligans? They were not produced in a day. Who were keeping up the conditions by which these hooligans were made to-day ? He quoted the evidence of Mr. Andrew Trimble, given before the Disturbances Commission. They were not responsible for setting free those thieves and murderers who had got into the country. This was not the evidence of a man who was favourable to the movement to which they belonged. Then the Prime Minister made another serious statement. He made the statement that when the strike was settled they would have no further trouble for a generation. As long as the present undesirable conditions continued there would be strikes, and not even the Prime Minister would be able to stop them. Let them get at the conditions which made strikes inevitable and then perhaps they would be stopped. Notwithstanding what hon. members had said in that House, they had heard it in the plainest possible language that the aim of this movement was to deliberately crush out labour organisation in this country. Let them try it. He knew for a fact that they were told that if any election came on on the Rand they were to vote Unionist rather than Labour. He did not say that this had come from headquarters, but in his own constituency the message had gone forth to vote Unionist rather than Labour. If there must be a fight against organised labour then the challenge was accepted. Let the fight come as soon as it liked, for victory would be on the side of the intimidated men. They had been told in plain words that they were to hold themselves responsible for the consequences of their own actions. Were they prepared to take that? Now he would like to say a few words to the Minister whose policy was one of iron and blood.
This step had not put their movement back twenty years. It had put their movement forward months and years—he might almost say a century. Hence they found the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, saying almost with tears in his eyes, “See what the Government have done. It has helped the Labour Party.” He felt almost inclined to move a vote of thanks to the Prime Minister for the steps that he had taken. During the Botha-Hertzog fight, or he would rather call it, quarrel, they had this dictum told to them, “Every man must be held responsible for the effect of his own words upon those who hear them.” Now, the hon. member for Jeppe made another. He said that a man must be judged not by what he did but by what he was. That did not go far enough. It should rather be that a man’s work and life must be judged, not by what he did, but what he made possible, and he said that because the Prime Minister and his colleagues had made possible so much in that country he said he should like to pass a vote of thanks to them. Referring to the policy of the Minister of Defence, the speaker said they were told that self-preservation was the first law of nature. That, he thought, must be taken partly as an explanation of the extraordinary disregard for the truth. He had proved that there had been untruth again and again. When the Minister brought forward his case they wanted evidence. They got assumption. They looked for argument, and they got assertions. Instead of truth they got truculence. He made the charge, although he told them he had no evidence. The charge was that these men were political undesirables, and this was a very important point. If they were political undesirables, in any sense they were not Syndicalists. If Syndicalists, they were not political undesirables. If they were not political undesirables nor Syndicalists, then he was wrong in his charge. If they were not Syndicalists, there was no justification for all this hullabaloo and for putting these men out of the country. That was his point. These men were political undesirables, and these men were Syndicalists. He could understand the hon. member for Waterberg. He was, a copyist. He hashed up an ancient article from an American magazine and he could understand him making such a charge. But he could not understand one so astute as a Minister. He alleged that these men were Syndicalists, and also said that these men were political undesirables. He was on the horns of a self-created dilemma. Which horn would he take? He could not take both; he must take one. He knew that one of these men was a candidate for the constituency now represented by the Minister of Defence.
He did not want to refer to any of these men at any length, but he would like to allude to the “sinister figure,” as Mr. Poutsma had been described. What was Poutsma’s sin? His sin was Caesar’s sin. They were told that he had done no evil, that he had done no harm, but he might. He was supposed to be ambitious. Caesar’s sin was Caesar’s success, and that was Poutsma’s sin. Until Poutsma became successful he was quite harmless. When he was thought to be a bit of putty in the hands of the Railway Administration he was thought to be little short of an Angel. When Poutsma was here in Cape Town in connection with the Commission on the Railway he showed an envelope on the top of which were the letters “O.H.M.S.” He (Mr. Haggar) saw that letter. Poutsma was asked to go and see a person, a very important person, in this City with a view of taking an important position in Cape Town with double the salary that he would get as Secretary of the railwaymen. If he was not so bad then that he could be trusted with the characters of the future young people, how was it that he was not to be trusted now? The truth was— they said, “We have got our scheme, you have got to bend to it, and, if you don’t bend, we will break you.” In regard to the other men, he wanted to refer to the intensified condition around these men who were supposed to have done such evil things. Might he recall to this House the fact that a few years ago in London there was a Dock Strike? The next step was Trafalgar-square and riot; the next step was John Burns standing in the dock tried as a criminal, and then a short time after this it was no longer John Burns dock agitator, John Burns rioter, John Burns criminal, but it was the Right. Hon. John Burns, £5,000 a year. The path of duty was the way to glory. Working-men remembered such facts as these. It had been said that these men were seeking to bring about a revolution. There was not a strong nation today in civilisation which did not owe its strength and its position to a revolution in the sense in which these men used the term. Ramsay Macdonald said, “The revolution we are aiming at is the gradual readjustment of social and industrial relationship until the whole is completely changed. ”
Mr. Haggar went on to say that they were aiming not at a new form of Government, but they were aiming at a new kind of Government. They were democratic in feeling; they were democratic in ideas; they were democratic in principle, and they were going to be democratic in methods, in spite of the Prime Minister’s sneer at democracy. It had always been the story that the heretics of one age were the heroes of the next and the gods of the third. The policy of repression, and curtailment of rights and justice would, like a boomerang, return upon the men who threw it and always in increasing momentum, until the man who threw it would fall a victim to his own deed. He now came to the indictment. The. Minister was cunning, he was astute, and he (Mr. Haggar) had no hesitation in saying that it was an appeal to ignorant prejudice—(Labour cheers)—prejudice unworthy of the 14th century. Why? All he need say in support of that statement was that they should look at the astonishment, which was shown at the facts when he mentioned those Blue-books. Statement after statement conveyed, and he thought was deliberately intended to convey, a false impression. The great indictment was based on the charge of that most bastard bogey, the “Cape Times.” Which was true, the authority adopted by the Minister, or the charges he had laid against them? The Minister was astute, the quintessence of astuteness. He said, “We are dealing with methods.” The Minister did not dare to touch principles. Why? Because, first of all, he had political reasons. If he had attacked hon. members on those benches in regard to their principles, he would have attacked his own party, because if Syndicalism meant anything it meant reckless domination of sectional interest. Had they not had it on that side for the last two years?
It had been stated that this was a party question. But what about the Government resigning and the people of the country knowing nothing about it? Was not that, sectional interest? The same principle ran through everything the party had done which sat on the opposite side of the House and which called itself the National Party. How many natives had been flogged to death on the mines and ignored, he, would like to know. He knew a man who was prepared to swear that he had seen men flogged until they could not stand and were then taken to hospital, where they died, and who when buried were unrecognisable. The man who had seen this take place was prepared to come forward and prove it. Continuing, he said the Minister’s main part of the charge was that they were Syndicalists. He (Mr. Haggar) could also quote French authorities on the matter. One well-known authority, Jaures, had said that “Sabotage has very little recognition even in France, and there is no revolt for revolt’s sake.” Sidney Webb, another eminent authority, had said, that “Syndicalism meant the self-governing workshop in which each little group of manual labourers themselves possess the instruments of production, so that each may share the value he creates.” The ownership of the mines by the miners, or the railways by the railway workers, has never been advocated by any official or reputable Syndicalist. Syndicalists had claimed that they should control the conditions of their own labour, and although they believed in the nationalisation of industries they also believed that this was not enough, and that public concerns, run for the maximum profits, regardless of the costs to the actual workers, is no gain. A man asked him on the Railway Station the other day: “What am I going to do?”
Go to work.
Give the men a chance to work, and I will find thousands by the end of the week who will be glad of employment. This man said he was married, and had to support a wife and three children on 3s. per day, and yet they were going to budget for £750,000 surplus this year, and with the £750,000 taken off the railway rate last year, made a total of 1£ millions, and yet the Government were failing to pay a considerable portion of its employees a living wage. The hon. Minister had quoted “The Spectator,” but the writer of the article had also said, “There is nothing criminal in the essential idea. Apart from its methods, Syndicalism means no more than a form of cooperation.” What did the London “Times” say? “The root of Syndicalism —that of trade ownership and control—-is not only unobjectionable, but excellent. It was the parent of co-operation, and will eventually be realised in co-partnership. It is by far the most rational and feasible form of Socialism.” That was the “Times,” and yet it was the bogey with which the Prime Minister had tried to frighten that House and the country. In so far as the producer should have his fair share in the work which he produced, and have a voice in the control of his own work, he (Mr. Haggar) was a Syndicalist. They talked about a dagger being used to the danger of the State, but he (Mr. Haggar) would like to know in whose hands that dagger had been found. Was it not in the hands of the Government, who had thrown away one of the greatest safeguards the country possessed? Had not the Ministers repudiated the Courts of Law? If the Minister was afraid of not being able to get a verdict against the nine men, or was doubtful whether justice would be done, then let England or Australia judge them.
And then Parliament was ignored. He respected Parliament. He and his colleagues had always endeavoured to make the working-classes see that this was not only the proper but the very best channel through which all social and industrial reform could come. But it came with halting feet. Men died in despair while waiting for the smallest modicum of reform. Direct action was a devil incarnate. Direct action —kidnapping men at midnight, taking away men by force. If that was not direct action, what was it? The Minister said that during the Rand troubles men were kicked to death. But in the record of all the casualties on the Rand, there was no record of that. The men were deported, but would that deportation stop political undesirability—would it stop the Labour movement? Not for one moment. That pulse might have been beating feebly a few weeks ago, but this action of the Government had compelled the movement to take a long breath. The blood had gained greater vitality and the pulses were throbbing to-day as they never throbbed before. What was the plea—the plea for Martial Law? The constitutional plea was meet force by force, but why not have that on both sides? (Hear, hear.) When they met force by force let them have the same kind of force—not physical force against moral force, not physical force against intellectual force. Not a single man in all that terrible Mecca of hooliganism—not a single leader advocated anything else. The Minister said, “Look at Mason.” But why had the Minister not the honesty to quote a few lines of his speech other than the fragment he had read out to the House? If the Minister had wanted to be fair he ought to have stated the whole case, but he had not. (Labour cheers.) Referring to the calling up of the Defence Force, Mr. Haggar remarked what an army it was. He could a tale unfold of that army, but let it pass. He could tell of what protection people had on the suburban lines— special constables getting as drunk as beer barrels and using the most infamous language. What protection we had! He would tell the House that this mobilisation had done three things. It had put the country to enormous expense, and people would howl when they had to pay for it. But it had done a more terrible thing than that. That hateful condition which we knew as racialism was dying. (Hear, hear.) He had no doubt that khaki revived it a bit on the Rand, and he did not wonder at it, for khaki was associated with very bitter memories which would not be forgotten for many a long year. The calling out of these troops had reopened the wound which time was rapidly healing, and the blood of that wound would be poisoned. The hon. member for George Town (Mr. Andrews) had documents which, if he read, he (Mr. Haggar) believed every member would cry shame.
Then there was the shadow of the burgher. Yes, it was a shadow. It would be a case of “the wicked fleeing when no man pursueth. ” But a Briton never forgot a deliberate wrong, particularly when, like the Boer War, it was deliberately entered upon to protect the few financiers who gambled until their victims were ruined and then they went home. Another point—the rapid mobilisation. It flattered the vanity —the insuperable vanity—of the Minister of Defence. It was necessary to follow the Minister’s speech closely. Might he give two or three items to show that the Minister was held in the web of despair? The Minister said the Government had to call out a larger force than the S.A. Republic had to do; the Government had to incur grave responsibility; it had to declare Martial Law, and it had to deport the leaders. The Government was in the grip of despair. The Prime Minister played a very considerable part in these troubles. He went to a typical back veld constituency and delivered a speech full of menace to the country. “I will not be dictated to,” said the Prime Minister. When he (Mr. Haggar) read the speech he had to conclude that either the “Cape Times” had incorrectly reported the Prime Minister or that the Prime Minister had lost his political sanity. Of course, he could not assume the latter. That speech was full of menace, and the working classes on the Rand did not miss its point.
The Indemnity Bill dealt with what were called the causes of the unrest. What were some of these causes? In 1911 the House stung the sufferers on the Reef with its Charity Bill. How many miners refused to accept that charity and said, “We will rather die by starvation than degrade ourselves by accepting it!” The pleas and arguments of the Labour members of the House were scouted, but every Commission and Report since that time had supported every contention they had advanced. Every contention made during the last ten years by those representing the men had been proved up to the hilt. Yet all that could be passed in 1911 was the Charity Bill. Now he must come to the great remedy—that was Martial Law, The Minister of Mines told them that Martial Law was proclaimed to protect free labour. He (Mr. Haggar) hoped the statement he made the other day from Sir Richard Bell had calmed the Minister’s admiration for free labour. He (Mr. Haggar) was reminded of a statement of a well-known character, who said, “Let us get the tortoise to put out his head,” and of what Bismarck had said, “Bring the Socialists out into the street and we will shoot them.” Bismarck was dead, but the Socialists were still alive. Let him (Mr. Haggar) read a few lines from the “Daily News” dealing with the justification for Martial Law. The “Daily News” said, “Both in Dublin and in South Africa—so far as reliance can be placed on the cables —these strikes appear to be collapsing. Singularly unlike in duration, there is otherwise much in common between these two uprisings of labour. Both reveal the existence of a discontent so widespread as to be a menace to the community; both have caused great loss without any apparent advantage to anyone; and the end of both struggles leaves the real issue quite unsettled and the future full of menace.”
The London “Times” stated: “The proclamation of Martial Law, the prohibition of public meetings and public speech, the employment of troops to disperse hostile crowds and to effect arrest, are all of them measures which infringe the normal rights of citizenship in a civilised community. They can only be justified if it is clear that the use of the sword is a reply to the challenge of men who have taken the sword themselves.” Under the British Constitution, said Mr. Haggar, there was no anticipation, hut there had been warrants by anticipation. The “Daily Chronicle,” which was not an enemy of that Government, had said: “To proclaim Martial Law on the occasion of a strike; to prohibit all strike meetings, all picketing, all written inducements to strike; to arrest and imprison strike, leaders without trial or with only a drum-head trial; in short, to put down an industrial movement by direct force—these things do not square at all easily with the British tradition. It is deplorable that they should occur under the British flag. If they can be condoned at all, they can never be condoned lightly.” The hon. member proceeded to quote from “The Nation” as follows: “We do not know whether the boast attributed to General Botha in an interview is authentic. He is said to have promised that the men would be taught such a lesson that there will be no more strikes in South Africa for a generation. The Boer Government had already shown itself unsympathetic to Labour. It is now undermining the most elementary of civil rights. By its attitude, first to the Indians and then to the white workers. General Botha’s Government had shattered the hopes of a general appeasement which its prudence in other questions and its moderation in racial issues had done much to authorise.” The hon. member read another quotation to the effect that the prerogative of issuing Martial Law did not extend beyond the case of persons found in open resistance and with whom by the suspension of the ordinary tribunals it was impossible to deal in the ordinary course of justice. Where, continued the hon. member, had been the open resistance? Where had there been one instance of it? The courts had been open, but could not be trusted. He was told that Sir John Scott was the most eminent authority with regard to Martial Law, and he had said that Martial Law was only justified on a certain assumption—that the ordinary law was incompetent to cope with the circumstances. What had there been in the Transvaal and in Natal which the ordinary law could not have dealt with? The acts under Martial Law must be acts of necessity for the defence of the nation when there was war, insurrection or riot, but there was nothing about prevention. Martial Law was based on the right of force to repel force; it must not be in anticipation. Reuter’s Agency had cabled to England that the attitude of the strikers was remarkably orderly, that Mr. Poutsma had pleaded with the men to abstain from violence, that the leaders had asked the men to abstain from violence, and that 400 of the men had been got together as a special force to prevent violence.
What had caused the fight in Natal in 1909? The real cause of that strike—and’ the hon. member for Durban, Greyville (Mr. Boydell) would bear him out—was this: It got abroad that the Government intended to introduce piecework into the workshops. The manager had told the men point blank that piecework was to be introduced, and when they had asked him for a polite reply to their letter, he had; ignored them, and the men met on Friday to consider the letter, but there had been no letter. Then someone said, “I move that we put down our tools,” and some? body had seconded this, and they had gone out on strike.
On the policy of provocation, some of the men’s reasons for all that had been the callous and insulting indifference of those in power. (Hear, hear.) The mine managers not, long ago had consulted Professor Karl Pearson. He had his reply there, and it had not been quoted; Nearly all the trouble had resulted because the mine managers had not understood the first conditions of industrial efficiency. They had been promised certain industrial measures. As far as some of these measures went, they were perhaps as good as under the circumstances they could expect, but the promise had been that these measures should deal with causes. Either the Minister did not know what the causes were or he had broken his promise. It was one of the two. Continuing, the hon. member said they (the Labour members) had devoted their lives to the study of these matters, and they were prepared to help them to the utmost. Why were they not prepared to accept the help which they were prepared to give which would produce measures which were second to none
You were consulted.
said that the consultation was when the Bills were drawn up and sent round to various parties who had neither the time nor the opportunity to give information as required, or who had not the education or the ability. Proceeding, he said that in name they had a Government; in effect, they had servants of the mining industry and landowners. These two pulled the strings, and members of the Government danced to the tune, and until the Government would so far change that they recognised that they were a Government of the whole country and were responsible to the whole country, unrest would occur. The Minister of Defence in the end had said, “We have no evidence.” He (Mr. Haggar) had shown by taking the Minister at his own, that his charge was baseless. If they (Labour hon. members) were political, they wore not Syndicalists —and if they were Syndicalists, they had no reason for aiming at political power. He had shown that the Minister’s charges had no justification and that the Minister of Mines had been hunting a mare’s nest, and had not even found the mare’s egg. (Laughter.) No longer did justice stand with eyes blind, but she winked with one eye, and the other was half open. (Laughter.) The provocative policy of the railways he would leave for the proper occasion. He would then be able to prove that the whole thing was the outcome of a deliberately and carefully studied scheme. He hoped that this would be the last debate they would have in this House on such a question. He hoped that the Government would go to the very root of the causes of this social and industrial unrest, and, if Government did that, it would have the whole-hearted support and co-operation of members on all sides of the House. If they did that they would have no more blood and iron; they would have a prosperity borne upon peace.
said that the hon. member for Troyeville had begun his speech the other day by expressing the hope that this question would not be discussed on party lines. He was sure that the hope found an echo in the heart of every member of that House, and it was delightful to see what had followed. They had seldom in that House been treated to so interesting a duel as that which had taken place between the hon. member for East London, who, as the representative of the pathetic remnant of the old guard of the Unionists, and the hon. member for Fordsburg, who was the rising hope of Unionism, which, in view of recent events, should perhaps more accurately be called Barlowism. (Laughter.) The Bill which was before the House asked them to indemnify the Government for declaring Martial Law. It asked the House to indemnify the Government for making Martial Law retrospective. It asked the House to indemnify the servants of the Government for acts that were done in good faith and necessity under that law. Then it not only asked the House to indemnify the Government for deporting nine citizens of the Union, but, what was more, asked the House to provide certain pains and penalties. The Minister of Finance, in his opening speech, said that if they were to understand the necessity for this measure they must go back to July of last year. Really he thought that it would be more correct to say that they ought to go back, not to July but to May of last year, when the avalanche was started on its career by the action of the Kleinfontein management— the precipitate, if not illegal, action of that management. He thought they were fortunate in having before them that extraordinarily able and careful report of Justices Wessels and Ward. He was extremely sorry to hear what the hon. member for Jeppe had said about these gentlemen, because if there was one thing South Africa had reason to be proud of, it was the ability and sterling integrity of the occupants of the Judicial Bench. (Hear, hear.)
The hon. member for Jeppe had said that this was a whitewashing report. Had it whitewashed the Department of Mines? Really that report was a heavy condemnation of the actions of that department, and he had hoped that, when the Minister of Mines rose the other day, he would be able to show that there was evidence that had not been published which would indicate that the judgment which had been passed on the Department of Mines had been unnecessarily harsh. But the Minister rather dismissed that aspect of the question in the course of a speech, which he (the speaker) thought was the most remarkable speech ever made from the Ministerial benches in that House. (Hear, hear.) The Minister of Defence, in the course of his speech, explained that there had been a great conspiracy against the industries of this country. But what did the Minister of Mines say? He dismissed that in a sentence, and said that it was better to speak of it as a Syndicalist movement than a conspiracy. That statement, it seemed to him, had given away a great deal of the case of the Minister of Defence. Then the Minister of Defence had said that never in the whole of his career as a Minister of the Crown had he given more consideration to any question as this question of the deportation of the nine leaders. But one could take it from the speech of the Minister of Mines that the question was decided on the spur of the moment. (“Hear, hear,” and laughter.) After reminding * the Minister of the story of the member of the Cabinet who said, “It doesn’t matter a blank what we say, but we must say the same thing,” the speaker said that, though the trouble might not have been averted, a golden opportunity had been lost of averting a great calamity—an opportunity which many men would have given years of their lives for.
Did the hon. member for Jeppe mean to say that this report whitewashed the hon. member for Springs? The hon. member for Springs had taken the oath of allegiance in that House, and surely his first duty as a member of that House was to uphold law and order, and in times of crisis, apart from party considerations, to do all he could to maintain law and order. There had been no evidence, as far as he had been able to read, to show that the hon. member was a member of the Strike Committee, but he sat cheek by jowl with them, and was with that Strike Committee on the 4th of July. He was with them when they wrote that horrible letter to Mrs. Scott to the effect that if they did not vacate the premises their lives would be taken. It came from that office, when the hon. member for Springs sat cheek by jowl with the people who wrote that letter, and every person who was concerned in that matter deserved the most severe punishment. (Hear, hear.) The story of Mrs. Scott was one of the most disgraceful stories that had ever been brought before that House, and he did not think they would find a more disgraceful story in the Blue-books of that or any other country in the world. (Hear, hear.) The husband of Mrs. Scott was afflicted with blindness. She was the sole support of her husband and six children, and her sole crime was that her eldest daughter was engaged to a man who wanted to earn his living. So the whole family was threatened with violence. Was the child of four or the girl of eighteen a “scab ” for Whom, as Mr. Mason had eloquently stated, “no rope was long enough to hang them and no pond deep enough to drown them.” If there was any action that called for severe punishment it was the action of the Strike Committee towards Mrs. Scott. (Hear, hear.) The next appearance of the hon. member for Springs was in the office of the Minister of Defence at Pretoria. He then appeared, not in his capacity as a member of Parliament, but on behalf of the Strike Committee, and he gave the Minister the assurance that the meeting at Benoni would pass off peacefully, and that there would be no violence. The guarantee was accepted by the Minister. Now the first duty of the hon. member for Springs was to have informed these people that he had given this guarantee. But they might search that evidence and they would fail to find one single word that the hon. member for. Springs did anything of the kind. (Hear, hear.) And the judges found that the meeting was called with the deliberate preconceived intention of rushing the mines. After this meeting they perpetrated many acts of cruelty and barbarism. The hon. member could not get away, as a member of that junto, from the responsibility for the barbarous and cruel treatment to which men were exposed during those days. The truce was signed on the night of the 5th of July. They had not done with the hon. member then. He was not even content with the signing of the truce, but they found him on the 6th looking on, and, he supposed, applauding the burning of Mr. Taylor’s and Mr. Gow’s property, and, not content with that, he came down to Cape Town a fortnight afterwards and boasted of this act of barbarism. The Strike Committee had tasted the sweets of victory, and they retired, apparently, in order to make a bigger jump.
As a motto for their operations they selected Lord Milner’s aphorism, “Damn the consequences.” Fortunately, the Minister of Defence had also been studying Lord Milner’s aphorisms, and he had selected a motto for the next few months. His motto was “Never again,” and he made his preparations accordingly. He did not think that this country and the people of this country, in fact he might almost go the length of saying the people of the civilised world, could ever be sufficiently grateful to the Minister of Defence for the Care and exactness and completeness of the preparations he made to deal with the hon. gentlemen when they next made their appearance on the public scene. (Hear, hear.) When the hon. gentlemen and their friends, declared industrial war, when one gentleman—he believed it was Mr. Mason or Mr. Morgan—put his head out of the window and declared “war to the knife,” the Minister of Defence took the only step that it was possible to take under the circumstances, and declared Martial Law. Those of them who lived in this country ten, eleven or twelve years ago could never like Martial Law. Everybody knew, who lived here at that time, how drastic Martial Law was in those days, and nobody who loved this country could possibly wish to see Martial Law in force for a day longer than necessary. But there was no other course open to the Government, and, as far as his humble vote was concerned, he should certainly vote for the indemnity of the Government in regard to the proclamation of Martial Law. He hoped, however, that before Parliament rose they would lay down, definitely once and for all what powers the. Government should have under Martial Law. (Hear, hear.) He did not think that anybody, even those responsible for the proclamation of Martial Law, could be quite satisfied that one individual should have such undisputed power over the liberty of every individual in the land.
To his mind, what made Martial Law twelve years ago so distasteful to the people of this country was what he would call espionage. Under Martial Law, as it had been administered this time, there had been nothing of that sort, as far as he had been able to ascertain. The Germiston incident was due very largely, as he understood, to a military order being misread or is understood. They had it from the hon. member for George Town that there was the unfortunate case of the gentleman who was arrested when tying up his chrysanthemums. After all, the question was not what was he doing when arrested, but what was he doing before he was arrested ? Then there was the still harder case of the hon. member himself. That was a bad case. The hon. member for George Town was actually kept waiting in a police office for some little time, for about half an hour. He now came down to Parliament and made that a grievance under Martial Law. He hoped that the Minister of Justice would keep an eye on that policeman who detained the hon. member for half an hour. He kept his head. He might have detained the hon. member for George Town, not for half an hour, but until Martial Law was deproclaimed. The Government up to this point, he thought, had gained the thanks and admiration of the civilised world, and he sincerely wished they had stopped there. They were powerful and they had crushed the enemy. He wished the Minister had taken even another night “to consider this matter, because he thought If he had done so they would have avoided what, after all, was a very ugly piece of business.
If the nine men had done wrong—and he Relieved they had done wrong—they should have been tried, and, if found guilty, they should have paid the penalty of all men who had done wrong. He thought, at any rate, “when the fires had burned down ” it would come to be regarded not so much as a display of strength, but as a confession of weakness. He felt that England, at any rate, did not deserve this from South Africa, and he was afraid that these “silken bonds of Empire ” of which they heard so much were likely to be taxed to their utmost if we’ deported to the Mother Country and the other Dominions deported to us their undesirables. But the deportation had taken place, and the question they had to ask themselves was, what did the best interests of this country require now that the Government had taken the step they had done? What would the position be if this House refused to grant indemnity? He understood that the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, was going to “Vote against this portion of the Bill. What would happen, he asked the hon. member, if he secured a majority for that adverse vote? As far as he could see, this would happen, that every one of those nine men would have an action for damages against Ministers, individually and collectively. (Labour cheers.) That, he understood, was the position.
Oh. no.
said that these men would have an action for damages, and, he thought, what lawyers called (substantial damages, if this. House did not indemnify Ministers, and he put it to the House and the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, who was a practical man, was it not unthinkable that these nine men should make money out of this business? What would happen was what happened in Governor Eyre’s case, the State would eventually be called upon to bear the burden.
Continuing, he said it was repellent to every sense of justice to punish men without a trial. Of course, they had either to grant indemnity to the Government or refuse it. The only thing he thought they could do under the circumstances was to grant that indemnity. The Prime Minister was somewhat angry with the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) for discussing what the effect on the minds of some people would be by deporting these men without a trial, and was angry with him for repeating that a lady had expressed the opinion the deportation might he extended to the hon. member for Smith-field (General Hertzog). It was, of course, ridiculous to think that this Government or any other Government would deport the member for Smithfield, but was the Prime Minister, and more especially the Minister of Railways, satisfied to accept the assurance on the subject of deportation from hon. members opposite? The Minister of Railways had had a distinguished career in this country, but he begged to remind him of the time when he was, from the point of view of the party opposite, an undesirable. At that time the Jameson Government were in office, and the then Prime Minister had for his colleagues the member for Port Elizabeth (Sir E. H. Walton), the member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thos. Smartt), and the member for East London (Col. Crewe). Whatever mistakes that Government made they never made the mistake of speaking with two voices. When a Minister spoke, he spoke on behalf of the whole Cabinet. They had very decided views on the subject of the deportation of undesirables. The member for East London (Col. Crewe) said, at that time “men like Merriman and Burton, who are not members of the Dutch party, are making a certain amount of mischief. If we could only get rid of the political agitator, of the Merriman brand we should find the Dutchmen excellent fellows. It is the astute political agitator who is at the bottom of the trouble, and it is a pity that we cannot ship the whole lot to South America or some other country for good.” (Loud laughter.) He (Mr. Currey) did not think the member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) was now feeling quite so happy as he did. (Further laughter.) Who knew but what the member for Victoria West, the Minister of Railways, and the members on the cross-benches might be the undesirables of to-morrow? These persons who in the days of the Jameson Government were considered undesirables had, however, since that time rendered valuable services to the country. His hon. friend (Mr. Merriman) had been made a Privy Councillor, while the Minister of Railways had also filled the offices of Attorney-General in the Cape Colony and Minister of Native Affairs in the Union. Granted that the late movement was a conspiracy to usurp the Government, was that the first instance of an attempt which had been made to subvert the powers of the Government in this country? About eighteen years ago something uncommonly like a conspiracy took place.
But Dr. Jameson was deported.
Yes. But the raiders were tried either in England or in this country. These men who tried to subvert the Government of the day, or at least some of them, had since rendered signal services to South Africa, they had even occupied the position of Cabinet Ministers, some of them having sat on the convention to which they owed the South Africa Act. Men may do wrong to-day, but after they have paid the penalty of their wrongdoing they may afterwards do much good, and for that reason he regretted the Government had taken the action which it had done. He hoped the Government in a crisis like this would not show any vindictiveness, because the permanent exile of these nine men would continue to be made the sport and play, of political parties Of this they had an example in the Liesbeek constituency, and wherever there was a Labour vote the illegality of those deportations would be made one of the principal planks of the Labour platform. He would appeal again to the Government not to be vindictive, seeing that it had asserted its authority. Let them indemnify the Government for having deported these men, but say that should they come back to South Africa they should have a trial. He did not care by what tribunal. An hon. member had sneered at a jury, but they could have other than a Johannesburg jury. They should not be vindictive, and say to these men that they should never be allowed to return to these shores. He hoped that when the Bill was considered in committee the Government would see their way to setting up a tribunal. There was no power to bring these men back, but they could say to them, “If you come back you shall be tried,” and it was in that hope that he would vote for the second reading of the Bill.
complimented the hon. member who had just sat down on his speech, but argued that there was just one point in which he had come to a most illogical conclusion. (Hear, hear.) It was when he said that there was only one question before the House—whether they were to give the Government indemnity or not, because if they did not give them that indemnity these men would come back and take action against the Government. But the Government was asking in that Bill for indemnity for all acts done under Martial Law and for certain acts done immediately prior to the proclamation of Martial Law. He did not think there was a single member of that House, with perhaps the exception of the hon. members on the cross-benches, who was not prepared to vote for the indemnifying of the Government for all acts done in, that period.
All acts ?
Yes, all acts. Proceeding, he said that amongst those acts were to be included the act of deportation. If they passed that law as the Bill provided for it, if they passed that Bill, the Government would be indemnified for the deportations. ‘If they did not add an arrangement clause the Government would be able to meet any possible action that the nine men wanted to institute against them. Therefore for the purpose of giving the Government indemnity all they had to do was to grant indemnity and the matter was finished. But, unfortunately, the Government had gone further and had asked for something in addition to indemnity. They knew the Government could not do it. They could deport, but the deportation was only temporary, and if these men could have got by any means to the shores of Cape Town the Government could not have stopped them. The Government now ‘said to the House, “We want you to take a step yourselves; we want you to make an Act whereby these men will be banished for life.”
With regard to indemnity for Martial Law, he did not know whether the proclamation of Martial Law was essential in all the districts in which it was proclaimed. He felt convinced, from reading the report before them, from hearing the statements of the hon. Minister, and from his own knowledge, that it was essential that Martial Law should have been proclaimed on the Witwatersrand area, but Martial Law had also been proclaimed in quiet areas. He had lived under Martial Law during the war, and he objected very strongly to be put under Martial Law again unless there was need for it. He was not going to cavil at that, but when the Government did proclaim Martial Law, they appointed gentlemen to the positions of control officers with absolutely unlimited power; they should surely have intimated to those particular officers the extent to which they could exercise their authority. He was not exaggerating when he said that in the little place where he came from they also had a strike, but the police were quite frank there with the strikers. One of them described the strikers as sheep. They were as-quiet as sheep, and the same police officer described their leaders as goats. Well, then, they had to deal with sheep and goats—people who honestly did not know why they struck, and who had no other intention than that of abiding by the law. They never did a single thing which brought them within the pale of Martial Law. When they had circumstances like those, there was no necessity for the Proclamation under Martial Law of such conditions as “any striker leaving his premises without permission will be liable to summary arrest.” “They might have mistaken me for a striker,” argued the hon. member, adding that business was at a standstill, and many people had nothing to do. Therefore it was not at all unlikely that an innocent citizen might have been arrested as a striker. Then, “no red flags must be flown ”; but look how those hon.; members on the cross-benches flaunted their red ties in the House. The particular control officer to whom he had referred ” would have declared at Bloemfontein that they were flying red flags. Again, “no person shall render assistance to a striker, directly or indirectly, with goods or funds, or in any other way.” Surely (proceeded the hon. member) the Minister of Defence could not justify such regulations as that—regulations which prohibited people from giving other people food. The Minister of Mines shrugged his shoulders, but, nevertheless, that was intended.
It was not carried out.
Of course not, because people refused to allow it to be carried out. It was such an absurd regulation. When the Ministry appointed officers to be control officers, they should appoint those with discretion.
Hear, hear.
said that, while one sympathised with the Government, who tried to preserve order, it was necessary to look at the effect of it. He was always afraid of expressing his sympathy, because he, was so afraid of a misunderstanding; he was always afraid he might be confused in his genuine sympathy of having sympathy with the outrageous-language and conduct and with the hon. members on the cross: benches, who posed all over South Africa as the true friends of the working-man, but who were, in his; opinion, the ones who deluded those unfortunate workers, and led to the unfortunate happenings. (Cheers.) He was sure the railwaymen would never have struck work, and would never have wanted to strike, if it: had not been for the malicious way in which those gentlemen made speeches in; and out of Parliament. But they were clever enough to keep themselves within the limits of the law, and the workers carried out in practice what these gentlemen did in theory. The difficulty was that he could not afford to risk being confused with gentlemen of that character.
Hear, hear.
said the hon. member who had just spoken was one of those absolutely shameless people who had been
rose on a point of order, and asked the Speaker if an hon. member could accuse another hon. member of being a shameless person?
What did the hon. member do?
He described an hon. member as a shameless person.
Surely the hon. member did not say “shameless.”
Yes.
I thought he used the word “shameful. ”
No “shameless.” (Labour cries of “Withdraw.”)
The hon. member must resume his seat and give time.
said it was very difficult in Parliamentary language to describe the conduct of the hon. member for Springs. Proceeding, he said that his words were that the hon. member was one of those shameless people (Labour cries of “Withdraw ”). He would withdraw, but it was difficult in Parliamentary language to describe the hon. member’s conduct. Even in that House the hon. member did not show the slightest feeling; he had a bold, brazen way of sitting in the House, and he jeered at other members who tried to bring home to him the enormity of his behaviour. He sat and laughed as he was doing then. How could they possibly hope to have any effect on people like that; it was impossible. The only pity was that there were people in the country foolish enough to place such as the hon. member in the position of being their representative.
That is the whole trouble.
If it were possible it would be of immense value if the hon. Minister would add the hon. member for Springs to his list. If others went on in the way in which the hon. member went on in this House, and if they were to have more members of Parliament of that kind, then all he (Mr. Botha) could say was, “God help South Africa.” (Ministerial cheers.) We were not accustomed to that in South Africa. We were accustomed to war and troubles of all sorts, but we had never had men of the stamp of the hon. member for Springs taking up such a commanding position in the deliberations of the Legislature.
Reference had been made to the Jameson Raid. That was an unlawful act, but it was not undertaken for sordid motives, and to compare the two things together was very unfair to the Jameson Raid. As for the railwaymen they did not want to strike, and not 10 per cent, of the men at Bloemfontein desired to leave work. (Cheers.) He had talked to dozens of them, and not one of them was able to tell him exactly why he had struck. They were all honest, hard-working, decent men, who only desired to be left alone to earn what was, in most cases, excellent pay. But the agitators drummed into the ears of the men that they had grievances until the men believed it. He wanted to see what could be done to remedy all the legitimate grievances, and he Wanted the Minister of Railways to have a fair inquiry into these grievances.
You said there were no grievances.
I must call the attention of hon. members on the cross-benches to rule 60: “No member shall interrupt another member when he is speaking.” (Hear, hear.)
The braying of asses never does interfere with me. (Laughter.)
Continuing, Mr. Botha said let men be returned to Parliament who would do their duty in a decent respectable wav. More than half our troubles had arisen from the fact that the Government and the police had not taken sufficiently energetic steps to protect the men who were willing to work. He could not speak of Johannesburg, but at Bloemfontein for a whole day, only six or eight men went on strike, and it was only when they were allowed to interfere with those who desired to remain at work that the strike became at all serious. The trouble was that there was no machinery to prevent agitators compelling the men to leave work. But if we had had a law to that effect, and absolutely to prohibit the tools and associates of hon. members on the cross-benches from interfering with the men, there would never have been 20 per cent, of Bloemfontein men on strike, and he was perfectly certain that not one of the running staff would have left work. One of the railwaymen had told him that he struck because he received no protection while he remained at work.
Referring to the deportation, Mr. Botha said he was absolutely willing to give the Government indemnity on this point, because when one read the speeches made by the men who were deported one was not sorry that they were out of the country, but to say that they were going to banish them for ever they must have some more tangible evidence than the House had before it. The Minister of Defence had stated that the Government had to banish the men because the criminal law was too antiquated to allow the deportees to be dealt with. But our present laws would meet the case of any man who committed an act of violence or who used language calculated to subvert public order and authority. Surely there was enough evidence on pages 17, 18 and 19 of the Report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Rand Riots to show perfectly clearly that these men were guilty of breaches of the existing law. The Judges found that not only were the natives incited to strike, but were told that if they remained at work they would be blown up by dynamite. Was not that seditious language? Then the strike pickets were armed with pick handles, and they actively interfered with men they called scabs, and assaults became common. Yet the Minister of Defence stated that our law was too antiquated to deal with such offences. In that report there was the solemn, deliberate finding of a Commission of Judges, expressing astonishment that Government did not take steps to prosecute for incitement to sedition and violence, and the commission of acts for which the House was now asked to banish the deportees. He was perfectly certain that if hon. members opposite were put on a jury to try the case in the ordinary way and were asked to say whether these men were guilty and were deserving of perpetual banishment hon. members would reply, “We have not enough evidence.”
The Minister of Finance’s next defence was that if they had prosecuted, they would not have got a conviction. The answer given by the hon. member for George (Mr. Currey) was correct—that if they could not get a conviction by the ordinary tribunal there was nothing easier than for them to create a special tribunal. Justices Wessels and Ward had said that the ordinary law was sufficient to deal with these cases. The punishment of banishment was one which had been abandoned for years, and even in Russia a man was not permanently banished, but sent from one part of the country to another. (A laugh.) Surely the hon. Minister (Mr. Malan) did not want them to go back to that state of civilisation! The best excuse which had been offered by the Government was the “magnificent success” of the Minister of Finance, who had been really brilliant when he had come to that part of his speech. A strong man like him was “going to be strong,” and to banish these men. They must, however, wait a little bit before they cried “success”; the Government could not act in that high-handed manner without serious consequences following from it.
Hear, hear.
proceeded to say that, although he supported the Government in the steps it had taken to preserve law and order and suppress the wicked, lawlessness which had taken place on the Rand, he said that the Government had no right to come to them and ask them to banish these men for life. He thought that the Government was much too hasty in asking them to support it. The time might come—he hoped it never would come in South Africa —when members of the cross-benches occupied the Ministerial benches—(Labour cheers)—but when that time did come they would be the first to point to the action of the present Ministry (which would have formed a precedent) for any lawless act which they might do. In conclusion, the hon. member said that he hoped the Government would withdraw the second portion of that Bill. (Ministerial dissent.)
said that he would not have intervened in the debate were it not for the fact that he conceived it the duty of every hon. member in that House, and especially every member who represented an industrial constituency, not to give a silent vote, but to make clear the reasons for the attitude which they adopted. If they wanted to understand the industrial crisis they must go back to a further period than May. They must go back to last session, when hon. members who wore the red tie had made speeches in that House and outside the House had preached the doctrine of class hatred and that desire of Syndicalism —the general strike.
The hon. member referred to the report of the Judicial Commission, the report, he said, which the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) felt compelled to speak disparagingly of. In his (Dr. MacNeillie’s) opinion, the report indicted the Government for incompetency in dealing with that crisis. There might be something to be said in mitigation for the incompetency of the Government. No one who had been on the Rand during the period of that industrial unrest would have any doubt as to what was the doctrine of the leaders of the working people. They had preached the doctrine of the irritation strike, the strike by which the workers were to go slowly and damage machinery. The doctrine of sabotage had been preached. They had preached the doctrine which had been repudiated at the Trade Union Congress in England by an overwhelming majority. He thought that the Government was amply justified in proclaiming Martial Law, but when he had first heard of the deportations he was shocked. (Hear, hear.) He presumed that the names of these men appeared in their order of merit on that “honours list,” as the Minister of Defence had called it. (Laughter.)
Continuing, he said that it was asking too much to agree to the perpetual banishment of these men as they were asked by the Government to do. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, said that they did not want them back, but he thought that if these men came back they should be entitled to a trial. He agreed with the hon. member for Roodepoort that this movement had not been a true growth of Syndicalism; he considered that it had been some monstrous production of hon. members of the cross-benches consisting of the most pernicious principles of Syndicalism and the Socialist Labour Party as it was found in the country at the present time.
You are suffering from a nightmare.
said that he thought that the hon. member for George Town was still suffering from a nightmare. He did not think that the hon. member had been roused from his nightmare. He also thought that many of the hon. member’s followers were still suffering from that nightmare. They had preached the gospel of the irritation strike, sabotage, and the general strike. But they did not go so far as the Syndicalists with regard to Parliamentary representation, because, of course, there was a salary of £400 attached to the position of a member. In his opinion hon. members on the cross-benches stood for the enslavement of the workers. They considered that the workers should be mere machines for the purpose of recording votes so that they might be returned to Parliament. He was prepared to support the second reading of the Bill, but while they had industrial peace in the country he would like to point out to the Government that they should take every opportunity of remedying grievances which he knew did exist. They could never hope to maintain that industrial peace unless these grievances were righted.
said he had been told that if he supported the Government or did not support the Government he would lose 75 per cent, of his support at the next election. As he would lose either way he would be prepared to take his own line and stand the consequences. He would stand by the Government in respect to the proclamation of Martial Law, and the acts which had been performed ‘by its servants. But he could not absolve the Government for making it necessary to proclaim Martial Law. He had come to the conclusion that the Government had had sufficient warning that if things went on as they did the proclamation of Martial Law would be necessary. He referred to what had happened at the time of the Kleinfontein difficulty and said it was clear that at that point the Government did not know its own law. He pointed out that it was the duty of the Minister once the House rose to have gone to the spot and personally investigated the matter. But the Minister did not do that, and lamely said that he had other affairs to attend to. They paid their Minister to do the business of the country, and he thought that the Minister of Mines should be blamed to a great extent for the trouble that had occurred in the country.
The Minister left the matter to men in junior positions, who had to refer every point to the Minister here in Parliament. He (Mr. Struben) also blamed the Government for the fact that, as far back as the tramway strike, they did not give proper protection to the men who wished to go on working and who refused to be pulled out. The House would remember that, after the tramway strike, they had the case of Whittaker and Morant, two men who had been arrested and put into isolation cells under instructions, quite illegally, and the attitude taken up by the then Minister of Justice in this House was such that, to say the least of it, it gave everybody in this country a shock and a feeling of insecurity and instability that he was not meting out justice fairly to the inhabitants of this country. His criticism of the Government was that they allowed these things to go on unchallenged. When the Government made up their mind that they could not bring to book the management of the Kleinfontein Mine, for instance, when, after that the men were clearly guilty of illegality under the Industrial Disputes Act, the Government took no steps at all, and it was that sort of thing that hon. members on the cross-benches traded upon time after time. As an instance of how the Government, as he thought, grossly neglected their duty, he would mention what happened at Benoni at the beginning of the trouble in July. A policeman in plain clothes was proceeding from the Free State to give evidence in a case in Johannesburg. On his way to headquarters he was arrested by the Strike Committee, which, as the hon. member for Springs had said, ran Benoni. They took him to the Strike Committee room and made him explain who he was and where he was going He protested violently against the illegal arrest. Yet the Government did absolutely nothing, and they left this man suffering under a sense of indignity and disgrace.
Then they had the kind of statement like the hon. member for Springs made at Salt River just after the July business. He tried to rouse the men at Salt River from what he called their apathy, and made a most slanderous statement against Sir George Farrar. He stated that he had made that statement on good authority. When the case came into the Supreme Court they found that that authority was about as good as many things quoted by the hon. member and his colleagues. The result was that the Court gave judgment against him for £400 damages and costs. Of course, the hon. member did not pay; he had got loyal supporters, who, whatever mistakes he made, and however he duped the working-men, were fools enough to come forward and put his little affairs right. They paid the costs and they paid the £400. During that case he heard the hon. member for Springs admit that, besides drawing £400 from this House, he did nothing.
What do you do?
said that the statement, of course, was an incorrect one. The hon. member charged about this country in a red tie and perhaps with a red flag, and created all the discontent and disturbance he possibly could. Then they had found the hon. member for Smithfield sneering at the Government for thinking that there was a tremendous conspiracy. He would remind the House of what happened two years ago when the Whittaker case was discussed. The hon. member for Smithfield, theft Minister of Justice, said, in reply to the hon. member for Jeppe, that they were faced with a grave position of affairs when the tramway strike was on. Now the wheel had turned round a bit and at present they did not know where they were. The hon. member for Smithfield had said, “Why were there not more police there?” Surely that came very badly from the hon. member for Smithfield, because if any man did anything to destroy the morale and prestige of the police in this country it was the hon. member for Smithfield. He (Mr. Struben) did not blame the Government for not having more police there; they had not got them. In the Cape the citizens were quite peaceable, generally speaking, though there were certain attempts at Bellville, Mowbray, etc. Those who enrolled as special constables were not taking sides against the men in this matter. They simply said, “We are going to come out, if called upon, as special constables, etc., to protect the free labourer.” He wished to quote one instance in that connection. While coming in from Wynberg he had a talk with a member of the Defence Force who had been called out. He knew this man was going to guard a certain portion of the docks. He told him (Mr. Struben) that in his particular department of work there were some 30 odd men, and that not three of these thought of striking, “but,” he added, “if the Labour leaders win on this occasion I shall have to leave the country.”
Continuing, he said members on the cross-benches knew very well that if the movement had won the men who had been called scabs and blacklegs would have had to leave the country. It was in order to protect just such men as these that citizens had enrolled, themselves as special constables. These men wanted the free right to work, and that the Labour Party did not want to give them. The Government had commended the Cape men for their loyalty during the crisis, and he thought some emolument should be given them in the way of adding to their service as a reward, providing such a course did not throw any immediate additional burden on the country. There was no doubt that the stability of the men had weighed very much during the trying time through which the Government had passed, and it showed the advantage of having a reliable staff of men. It was unfortunate that the Minister of Railways did not stick to his statements with regard to the number of men to be retrenched, as this gave the labour leaders subject-matter for their speeches. He was also surprised that when they saw Mr. Poutsma using his position as a Commissioner to make inflammatory speeches, they did not at once retire him from his position on that Inquiry. Personally, if he (Mr. Struben) had been a member of that Commission he would have resigned on the spot, but apparently the Prime Minister had made use of him on some previous occasion and did not like to break with him.
denied this.
said that anyhow, Mr. Poutsma had an official letter which was said to offer him a good position, and he (Mr. Struben) thought that letter should the laid on the table. He quite agreed that the Government in the position they were fixed had done right in proclaiming Martial Law. On that side of the House they had members who had been parties to a most diabolical attempt—
Is the hon. member entitled to say that members on the cross benches were engaged in diabolical acts.
The hon. member mentioned no particular person.
said members on the cross benches were party practically to everything that took place. The member for Commissioner-street (Mr. Sampson) was connected with the burning down of the “Star ” office, in which 40 men and women were at work, He (Mr. Struben) believed it was not a Union Shop, and for that reason the Labour people were prepared to burn it down.
Do you say that I did it?
said the member for Springs (Mr. Madeley) said that the Strike Committee ran Benoni, and that the services of the place were in their hands, and everybody knew what took place at Benoni. The hon. member for Commissioner-street (Mr. Sampson) had said that there was nothing in the happenings of the past which they had to regret. In that case he had no regrets for the store that was burned down and for other lawless acts which had been committed. The member for Roodepoort (Mr. Haggar) and the member for Springs (Mr. Madeley) on their visit to Cape Town, endeavoured to bring about a Federation of Trades at the Cape, in order to secure a general strike in union with the Rand.
The House suspended business at 6 p.m.
Business was resumed at 8 p.m.
on resuming, referred to a remark made by the hon. member for Roodepoort, and said that when the chairman of the Rand Strike Committee came down to Cape Town and spoke at Salt River, he stated that he had come down with a specific object of linking up the Cape and the Transvaal. He said that the federation of the Cape was an accomplished fact, and in a week’s time would be linked up with the Transvaal. He said that every worker would realise the value of a trade union in the first place, and of a federation in the second place, and spoke of the advantage of waiting a convenient time to declare a general strike, or in other words, to hang up the country. With regard to the contention that the hon. member for Springs had done more than anybody else to prevent a strike, he would draw attention to the words in which he condemned Mr. Arnold Smith, who had said they could not possibly strike. It was clear that the hon. member was doing his best to get the men to come out. The hon. member went down to the Docks, or he tried to go down with the hon. member for Roodepoort, who was stopped and taken to the Police Station—(A Labour Member: No)—and he explained that he was going to see a sick friend. It was a most curious time to do that. They had been warned to be careful, and there was a feeling amongst the Kafir labourers in the Docks that it would be quite a good thing to come out on strike too.
said he wished to contradict that statement in the House
said he did not know which statement the hon. member meant. Proceeding, the hon. member referred to the position arising out of the deportations, He did not know, he said, what would have been the action of the hon. member for Jeppe if he had succeeded in his little buccaneering trip, and had got some of, those nine men possibly to jump overboard and take refuge in the Magnet. Assuming that the hon. member had succeeded in his trip it would appear that the people of Cape Town would have had the distinction, which they were not looking for, of having Martial Law declared, so as to prevent them landing. Personally, he was glad they failed, and he would go further than that, and say he thought those nine men were well out of South Africa. (Hear, hear.) He said that, although as a lawyer he would have to deal with the subject as a legal question. But the fact remained that they had been deported. The Government admitted that they had committed an illegal act. Those men had been deported; there was no getting over that. Some hon. members thought that the Government ought to be indemnified on the point of Martial Law, and that they should be indemnified against any action which these men might bring, but that Parliament should allow them to come back, and let them stand their trial if they did come back, but that would be ex post facto legislation. That should be borne in mind. But the Government was punishing those men, and they were asking the House to confirm that punishment. In his opinion, it was the best punishment that could have been devised for the good of South Africa. He said that quite deliberately, although, as a lawyer, he deprecated the Government having taken the power of punishing people untried. That was the thing that stuck, so far as they who were lawyers were concerned. It was that point which had made him hesitate more than anything else as to what attitude he should adopt in that matter. He would say this, there was the admission of the counsel at the Bar of the House and the admission of the hon. member for Jeppe, that those men were in favour of and had declared a general strike. The hon. member for Troyeville had said he was in a difficulty after hearing the speech of counsel at the Bar. Personally, he thought counsel at the Bar had made a good case of making bricks without straw. From his (the speaker’s) point of view, the task was made more easy after counsel and been heard at the Bar, because counsel, like the hon. member, had to admit that Poutsma and the rest of them, for they were all in the same boat, were in favour of the general strike. A general strike was a charming weapon to be used against the community. It is quite clear that the purpose of a general strike was, in the words of the hon. member for Springs, to enable them to run the country; it was to assume all the functions of the Government and place them into the hands of a committee of camaraderie. The hon. member proceeded to quote from “Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth,” which, he said, was an authoritative work on Syndicalism., The hon. Minister of Defence knew that. The-whole thing was dealt with there.
In this book it was recommended that the sanitary services were to be cut off, the bakers were to bake only for a certain, few, light and power were to be cut off. All this was also to have been done on the Rand. This was what the hon. member and his colleagues were trying to do in order to give every scoundrel a chance to wreak his vengeance on, the community which, probably, at one time had put him in gaol. In the book to which he had referred it was laid down that the Army must be undermined, and finally that Parliament should be overthrown. Again, the use of explosives was recommended as part of the Syndicalist creed. Would the hon. members on the cross-benches tell the House what the ultimate object was if they had achieved a general strike ? He was told the statement was made at Johannesburg that the Prime Minister and another Cabinet Minister were told after the settlement had been arrived at in July that it was better that they should not go to Pretoria. Pressed for a reason, the representatives of Syndicalism replied, “We have men stationed on the road with instructions to shoot you, but unfortunately we have not been able to tell all the men along the road that the shooting is off.” For years Unionists had been urging the Government to take up factory legislation, and when at last Government tardily-recognised that something must be done-in this direction, McKerrell and others made up their minds to prevent these Bills coming before the House, and they had succeeded; but if they thought they had done a service to the working-man, they must have curious ideas, for the Bills were an honest attempt to deal with the situation.
Seeing that the deported men were in a conspiracy, they were well out of the country, and banishment was a fitting punishment for such crimes as theirs. But one could not help feeling that although, it might have been necessary to take such a step, Government might well have waited for Parliament to meet or to have had the men tried by the usual Courts. It ill became the Minister of Defence to cast aspersions on the Bench, because, after all, the Judges had to apply the law as they found it and according to the evidence-brought before them. If the men had been tried for high treason, which he thought was the crime they were guilty of, and the case had been made out, as it had been made out in that House by the Minister of Defence he felt pretty sure the men would have received pretty severe punishment. The crime of high treason was not set out in the preamble of the Bill which was the indictment, so to speak, and he was of opinion that the Minister had made out a stronger case than he had put in the Bill. Much as he (Mr. Struben) was against the deportation of men without trial, he did not see how they were going to benefit the country by bringing these men back either to-morrow or in two or three years time.
What had happened in 1848? The Cape Colonists said that they did not want to have undesirables in the country, and the result was that the Imperial Government had to give way. The Prime Minister knew very well that the Imperial Government had given them self-government, and that it would be very loth indeed to interfere with our internal affairs, and therefore the chance of trouble resulting from these people who had been deported was very small indeed. If those men had been sent to Germany or France, representations would have been made to the Foreign Office and Great Britain would have had to bear the brunt. He hoped that would be the first and the last time the Government would do that sort of thing
Why?
Because you should make your laws strong enough to deal with such a case. Your laws, to make the Rule of Law effective, should be strong enough to deal with all the inhabitants of the country, and make your punishment fit the crime.
on the cross-benches: Make the crime fit the punishment!
No, I am not doing that. Proceeding, he said he desired to move an amendment to put on record what he thought was a very general view in that matter, and not by way of a direct negative, which would be in conflict with the rules of the House. The amendment was that, after the word “that,” insert the following words: “This House, while strongly deprecating the punishment of citizens by banishment, without any form of trial,” … consents to the second reading of the Bill.
said that the amendment was quite out of order. (Laughter.)
If it is out of order, I submit, but I want to put on record what is a very general feeling in this country and such an amendment would not, I think, under certain circumstances, be out of order. The hon. member cited May’s “Parliamentary Practice.” Concluding, he said that Ministers must remember that they bad put members on that (the Opposition) side of the House in a very difficult position—(laughter from the cross-benches)— and when it came to the highest interest of the State they were not influenced by gibes and sneers from anybody.
reiterated that the amendment was out of order.
said his reason for taking part in the debate was because he represented many constituents who lived in a district where the disturbances had occurred. He had been an eye-witness of those occurrences, and he could not paint them black enough. He had seen how people had been persuaded to burn down Government property, and had sat in a train the driver of which had been pulled off. The hon. member for Waterberg had said that the time had come when once and for all a stop should be put to the troubles which South Africa had of late experienced, and that 90 per cent, of the population was quite in accord with the attitude taken up by the Government, and with the steps taken by the Government to cope with the difficulties. Personally, he would say that the 90 per cent, could be increased to 95 per cent. He had himself seen what had been going on in Johannesburg, and he could faithfully say that never before had Johannesburg gone through darker days. He held that the Government and Parliament had given way too much to the members of the cross-benches, and that was the real cause of the trouble. The Government had even helped to secure the return of Labour members to Parliament, but they never thought that in doing so they were playing with fire. He quite agreed that deportation was essential, but he only regretted that the Government had not laden the Umgeni a bit heavier with some more of these people. (Hear, hear.) Johannesburg, at any rate, would have been all the more pleased. The attitude taken up by the hon. member for Victoria West on that point had astonished him. It was a pleasure to listen to the first portion of his speech, but it was impossible to go with the hon. member in his attack on the Government on the subject of the deportations. It was easy for the right hon. gentleman to talk. He had not been exposed to the risk of having his house blown up with dynamite. If he had he would have spoken very differently. He severely deprecated the attitude taken up by the Labour members inside and outside that House. It was all very well, he said, to speak about the liberty of the subject, but what about the liberty of the people on the Rand? These people for some time had been threatened with all sorts of evils, and had been in continual fear of their houses being blown up. Of that the members on the cross-benches said nothing. When asked what he thought of the Government’s action some time ago, he had remarked that the only fault he had to find with the Government was that the shooting had not started at Benoni, but at that time he did not know that the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Madeley) had given an undertaking that no untoward incidents would take place— and of course the Government had to take notice of an undertaking of that, kind by a member of Parliament. An extraordinary part of the trouble had been that it was not the people with the small wages who had started the trouble, but the people with the large wages—but one could never satisfy these men, the hon. member added. The hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) had stated that ‘the hooligans of Vrededorp, mostly Dutch-speaking, had been responsible for the destruction of property and violence.” That was an unjust charge, and he saw nothing in it but an attempt to saddle the people of Vrededorp with the blame. Undoubtedly some of the young men of Vrededorp had taken a part in the troubles, but young men from other parts had done the same, and it was unjust to say Vrededorp was responsible. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Creswell had further said that the country could well do without him for ten years. Probably that was so, but there were very many people who would foe only too grateful if the hon. member for Jeppe returned to his fatherland for good. (Hear, hear.) It would do this country no harm. The Government had done exactly as the country desired, and he referred to resolutions passed at Stellenbosch and Paarl, 900 miles away from Johannesburg before the deportation had taken place asking the Government to send these men back to their fatherlands. (Hear, hear.) General Hertzog had made fun or the Trades Hall siege, the hon. member proceeded, but apparently that hon. gentleman did not know that the Trades Hall had been the source of all evil. (Cheers.) He (General Hertzog) had also referred to a rumour which had been prevalent on the 4th of July that he (General Hertzog) with a commando of some thousands of men was marching on Johannesburg to assist the strikers and establish a republic. The hon. member himself was responsible for such rumours, because he was playing with fire. People noticed how he had voted with the Labour members on their vote of no confidence in the Government, and not being too well informed, they believed any rumours. Proceeding, Mr. Geldenhuys deprecated members on the cross-benches being able to take up the time of the House for hours, and urged that something should be done to curtail the debates so that some other legislation might be passed. He hoped an end would be made to strikes, and he intended to vote for the Bill with both hands, despite the severity of its proposals. Throughout the whole of the disturbances he had admired the patience and the judgment which had been displayed by the police. The State might well be proud of possessing such an officer as Col. Truter, and something ought to be done for those servants of the State who had remained faithful to their duties. He was especially grateful to the Defence Forces which had been called into existence, and trusted that the Minister of Justice would take care that they had an efficient and an increased police force for Johannesburg. His constituents had assured him that they endorsed the actions taken by the Government. The public merely wanted to live in peace in the country and not to be constantly stirred up by the people of the Trades Federation. Because such men had paid 5s. towards the funds of the Federation they thought they owed implicit obedience to its behests.
said he felt that he would not be doing his duty if he did not express himself on this occasion, seeing that he took a view which was not altogether popular and which to some extent was antagonistic to what was proposed by the Government. He did not suppose that he could add anything very new to the debate; still he thought that those of them who viewed with some alarm some of the elements of the situation which they were considering now had a duty to perform, and that was to express their feeling in regard to some of the Government’s proposals. He was going to vote for the second reading of the Bill, because it seemed to him that to do anything else would be inconsistent and contradictory. The main purpose of the Bill was to indemnify the Government for the acts done under Martial Law and make it possible for Martial Law to foe removed. There was another provision, viz., the sitting in judgment upon these nine men and the proposed sentence of banishment which he took strong exception to. But he thought that particular aspect of the Bill could be best tackled in committee. In regard to the happenings in Johannesburg since last June, he had not the slightest sympathy with the revolutionary movement which had been at the back of all this. He thought that the Government did the only thing that was possible in January when it took strong measures to repress what it had every reason to believe would be a repetition of the terrible events in July. He thought it was their duty, as law-abiding citizens of this country, to back up any Government which took strong measures to vindicate law and order, and to see that these attempts at disorder and rebellion were put down with the utmost rigour of the law. He did not think there was much dispute as to that. The only dissent they had heard in regard to this matter had come from the cross-benches. Of course, these gentlemen made no secret as to what their aims were. They did not want a peaceful settlement, an amicable arrangement between the various sections in this country; they wanted one section to rule and they wanted the whole country upset in order that they might further their peculiar ideas.
How many sections rule now?
I say that this country is ruled by a combination of various sections, working in amity.
Proceeding, he said that after all the recent events in Johannesburg had been merely one more example of the way in which every community was going to defeat the general strike. It was not deportation that did that sort of thing; it was the clear indication which any community gave when it was attacked in its vitals that it was going to defend itself. During the last, few years since Syndicalism raised its head there had been many examples of attempts at general strikes, although in more limited areas. What killed those attempts? The community itself. The community clearly showed that it was not going to allow one section of the community to rule, and that it was going to take measures to protect itself when those services which were vital to its existence were being attacked. It was much to be regretted when they followed closely all that had been going on in South Africa not merely in June and July last, but for several years previously, this deliberate attempt on the part of those who called themselves leaders of the workers, and particularly those in Johannesburg to set class against class. It was a class war. (Labour cheers.) Hon. gentlemen on the cross-benches said “Hear, hear.” That corroborated everything he had said. It was the thing that revealed the real object of those gentlemen and those with whom they were associated outside this House. They did not want, co-operation between the various sections of the people.
There were other proposals by the Government which he must say filled him with great alarm. He spoke, of course, of the deportations and the proposed banishment without trial of several of the leaders in this movement. He did not, of course, sympathise with the declared utterances of these men, but it was a dangerous thing lightly to agree to meet a special case in a special way, and to set aside the principles which they had valued for centuries, as a people, simply in order, as they thought, to settle this one case adequately. As one of the members for a constituency, one of the chief prides of which, as the hon. member for Newlands pointed out was the incident, of 1848, he said he was rather surprised at the amount of support which was given to the arbitrary action of the Government in this part of the world. There was nothing that the people of the Western Province of Cape Colony were more proud of than the fact that when Great Britain some 60 or 70 years ago proposed to dump undesirables upon our shores the people here resented it and prevented it—(hear, hear)—and he said it was a most extraordinary thing that when a proposal was made to do exactly the same thing now it should find support from many people in these parts. They should be consistent in the matter, and instead of lightly regarding the proposal to dump their undesirables on the shores of Great Britain, they should remember the attitude taken up by their forefathers. He was aware that the attitude taken up by himself and several members in that House was not a popular one, hut he would point out that the public was not itself at the present time. It was in rather a dangerous state. There could be no room for doubt that public opinion was heated in that matter. Ever since June things had been worked up to a high degree of heat, and they had only to get into contact with the speeches of the hon. members from the North to realise how excited they were when they were considering proposals in reference to that matter. He had heard it said by hon. members from the North that they had come into first-hand contact with the happenings of July and January. He would put it to them that it was not the people who were in the thick of a thing who saw all the subtleties and principles that were involved. They were apt to lose their perspective. They were apt to foster a wrong idea, simply through sticking too closely to the thing. Was it not, perhaps, those who had been looking on from a greater distance, not feeling the heat, but looking on calmly and dispassionately—were they not perhaps, better qualified to view those things properly than those who had come into first-hand contact with the occurrences? Proceeding, the hon. member said he did not want to traverse the ground that had already been traversed by so many speakers, but he would like to indicate wherein he was in agreement with those who had already spoken.
In his opinion the banishment of those men without a trial was a blundering policy. The Syndicalist revolutionary movement was defeated before the deportation took place. It was not the deportations that had defeated Syndicalism. It was defeated first of all because the public made quite clear the drastic steps they were taking to protect themselves. It was also defeated by the strong arm of the Government through Martial Law. But the Government were upsetting the very object they had in hand. They were giving these people a rallying cry and basis on which to raise afresh their agitation in future. He did not think they had heard the last of this question when the House had passed the clauses in that Bill. It was going to be a rankling sore in South Africa for many years to come. Undoubtedly it was a blunder in policy. He did not think they could say that Syndicalism was killed by the deportation and banishment of those nine men. If Syndicalism was as strong as it was made out to be, there were plenty of its leaders left It they were going to clear out all Syndicalists in the country they would not have to stop at nine. They would have to do something more drastic than that. There was a large number flourishing in South. Africa.
If the laws in-South Africa were not sufficiently strong to prevent a recurrence of the events of July and January last, it was the easiest thing in the world to strengthen them. Deportations certainly would not. There should be a strong policy in the direction of strengthening the laws to prevent a recurrence of these troubles in the future. If the laws were not strong enough to punish men adequately for sedition and incitement to violence, they had only to go down to the House, and the House would give them more drastic powers.
But what was the use of strong laws in the hands of a Ministry that did not use them ? Anything more condemnatory than the findings of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Rand disturbances he had never read. (Hear, hear.) The Minister of Defence must have had a very bad quarter of an hour when he read what the Judges thought were the causes of the disturbances. What was the use of talking of strengthening up the laws? The Government did not use existing laws in June and July, for evidently they had sufficient laws for the purpose if they had put them into operation. But instead of doing that, ‘Government sat quietly still and allowed matters to drift, and then had to sign the disgraceful Bain-Botha treaty. But when a recurrence of the trouble came six months later Government went beyond the law. Government condemned the strikers for having broken the law, yet it was the first to go beyond the law.
He would bring another instance before the House. The Minister of Defence, in the opening speech, gave his reason for not prosecuting the men for delivering seditious speeches at the beginning of July. But as late as July 20—a fortnight after the Bain-Botha treaty had been signed—Mr. Waterston delivered an inflammatory speech at Bloemfontein, when the law could have been vindicated by a strong Government. In this speech, Mr. Waterston said, among other things, “Every member of the Defence Force called upon in times of industrial disputes should tell the Government to go to the devil. Soldiers did not join the colours to shoot down defenceless citizens, (Labour cheers.) If I am assaulted by the police I shall shoot back again. In the next strike be men when the call comes. In the next struggle we shall all have rifles and bandoliers and a few hundred rounds of ammunition—not for aggression but for defence.” If that were not sedition he (Mr. Baxter) would like to know what was. What did the Government do? It allowed the men to roam the country making seditious speeches.
What had disappointed him was the attitude the Government now took up in reference to industrial legislation. He understood from the Governor-General’s speech ’that the Government had decided to stop the consideration of Industrial Bills published in the “Gazette” a few months ago. He thought that was a mistake. (Mr. JAGGER: Hear, hear.) The Government said the country and the House were too excited to consider the matter. But these Bills were not the result of panic but the carefully considered products of the Minister of Mines and his officials, who went into the matter during the quiet months of September, October, November and December. It was a bad thing for the country that the Government should allow it to be said that whereas two months ago it realised the necessity of devising machinery to bring the workers and employers into touch to settle disputes, and of removing certain grievances of the working classes, now it was not going on with its industrial legislation. It would be a disastrous thing to allow the session to close without considering these measures. (Mr. JAGGER: Hear, hear.)
The speech of the Minister of Defence in moving the second reading of the Indemnity Bill had filled him (Mr. Baxter) with grave misgivings. The Minister uttered certain dogmas in cold blood which astonished him. To come down here and deliberately lay it down as the right thing that this House should not wait until the excitement had died down, but should agree to this measure, and that Government found it necessary to do this while the fires were still burning bright, was a poisonous doctrine, and the House should repudiate it. The distrust of Judges and of Parliament to do the right thing was also a poisonous doctrine. (Opposition cheers.) The cloven hoof of the Minister of Defence appeared in a third instance. Oriental despotism was a very true description of the tendencies of the Minister of Defence, who maintained that the Government should have power to deport what he called “political undesirables from a criminal point of view.” It was with this one tendency of the Government in that country that one felt the greatest distrust, because there could be no doubt that the whole tendency of the Government was to concentrate the power in the hands of a few officials and a few Ministers; and all the Bills they had passed had that tendency, and not only by giving specific power to these gentlemen, but giving them clauses in blank to fill in as they pleased, and they did fill them in as they pleased. He said it was a most dangerous thing lightly to endorse a precedent which would help on those tendencies and might have the most dire effects. Let them not forget that, South Africa was a country where they had periods of great excitement, with feelings running high, and when people were apt to take extreme views. If they set that precedent, it might be trouble set up against them later. (Hear, hear.) The Courts were the only safeguard imposed by the constitution between the people and the Government, and if they could not appeal to the Courts and the Courts could be flouted, it meant autocratic, and it meant absolute Government. (Hear, hear.)
said he was sorry that he did not understand the speech of the hon. member for Vrededorp (Mr. Geldenhuys), but he had gathered from words like “Springs,” “George Town,” “Jeppe Town,” and “Arbeiders” that the hon. member had been engaged in the congenial and fashionable occupation of mudslinging, and although he had not understood what was doubtless a very valuable contribution of the hon. gentleman, he had followed the oration of the Parliamentary young Bourke who represented the constituency of Newlands. One particular point in that hon. member’s speech he did want to make reference to, and that right away, because it indicated, as nothing else had indicated, the line upon which every member in that House had been going in their crusade of misrepresentation and building up of fabricated charges against members of the cross-benches. He referred to the statement made by the hon. member, in which he said that his hon. friend behind him (Mr. Haggar), the hon. member for Roodepoort, and himself (Mr. Madeley) had been tampering with the Kafir labourers in the Docks. Now that statement was on a par with nearly every other statement made in that House, when it had been directed against members of the cross-benches and against himself—particularly himself. The hon. member referred to a report in the “Cape Argus” on Thursday. January 15, headed: “More Trouble at the Docks—Coloured Labourers Come Out—Higher Wages Demanded,” and “Men Send a Deputation to the ‘Argue.’” One would naturally expect that en route they had interviewed the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Struben). Proceeding, the hon. member read from the report in the “Argus” the conversation between the editor and these labourers from the Docks. He asked, “When were your wages reduced?” to which they had replied, “Oh, a while ago No one carne to us: we simply agreed among ourselves to go on strike.”
Why?
That was a statement from these Dock labourers themselves.
Why?
Why? What does the hon. member mean? Surely, in the close amalgamation of the two parties, you accept the party organs, and here we have one of the party organisations, at all events. “No one came near us,” said these Dock labourers. “We simply declared among ourselves to go on strike.” That was the statement made by these Kafirs to the editor of the “Argus.” Now let them take the parallel column, the adjacent one to which the hon. member had referred. The hon. member had not had the common honesty to refer to the other column. “Mischief Making ” was the heading.
Then it went on: “ These two are working might and main to prevent an ending to the unrest.” He would commend this to the hon. member for George, and he would tell the hon. member for George that when he (the speaker) had finished with him, when he had stated facts, that the hon. member for George would be ashamed of his exposition that afternoon. These men said that nobody came to them and yet it was staled that he had addressed a meeting of coloured labourers on the previous day. If that House was prejudiced against those who sat on the cross-benches, he would appeal to the intelligence of hon. members. He wanted to say that the statements arid the Charges made against them in that House were a tissue of falsehoods. He had only referred to this—one of many incidents—while he had thought of it. All through this debate they had had to sit there on the cross-benches and endure the most deliberate and studied insults. All these were absolutely without foundation, absolutely without a word of truth. But the hon. Minister and his friends went too far. It was a question of an overdose of poison. The Minister tried to make the House believe—and the population of the country—that they on those benches had practically broken every law there was in the country, and he had spread it on so thick that the stomachs of the population had revolted against it. (Labour cheers.) If hon. members were not inclined to believe him, then he asked them to visit Liesbeek, for which the Prime Minister was afraid to issue a writ. In view of the insults that had been heaped against him personally he thought that he should have been given the fairest field possible in order to reply to his critics. But he accepted the situation of the late hour, and he would do his best to put before that attenuated House the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (An interjection.) It was well that the Prime Minister did not say “Hear, hear,” because truth and this House had been strangers to each other for the last week or ten days.
rose to a point of order. Was the hon. member right in saying that truth and this House had been strangers during the last few days?
Quite right.
Is the hon. member in order in making such a statement?
said that the hon. member for Springs was quite out of order in easting reflections on that House. The hon. member would have to withdraw.
If I am ruled out of—
Is it not permissible for an hon. member to express his opinion.
The hon. member must resume his seat.
I am rising to a point of order.
What is it?
Is it not permissible for an hon. member to express his opinion with regard to matters before this House?
I do wish that hon. members on the cross-benches Would study the rules more carefully. I point the hon. member to rule 69, which says that no member shall use offensive or unbecoming words against either House of Parliament or any member thereof.
I withdraw that statement. I have erred in very excellent company right through.
The hon. member must withdraw the statement without any qualification.
I withdraw the expression. Continuing, he said that the Minister had made what the “Cape Times ” had called a brilliant speech. That speech was fully anticipated by many of his friends. In that House during the last few days many members had related conversations they had heard in trams and trains with regard to the Indemnity Bill. He heard a conversation on a Sea Point car. There were two predikants, two young fellow's, and one said to the other “Smuts will prove to the House ”
The hon. member must refer to an hon. member of the House as the hon. member for so and so.,
I am quoting, sir.
I must point out to the hon. member that he is pursuing rather a dangerous course to-night. He is deliberately breaking the rules of the House, and if he persists I will have to take a certain course—
Very well, sir, I won’t be quite correct in my quotation then. Proceeding, the hon. member said that one of the men stated that the Minister of Finance would say that they were contemplating a revolution, and they would pass the Indemnity Bill, right or wrong. “Yes,” said the other, “he is very clever; he can make them believe anything.” As a result of their experience during this debate they were obliged to come to the same conclusion.
Several members of the House had stated at different periods which represented all the trouble. He maintained that the beginning of the whole trouble, the cause of all the labour unrest in this country, was, as the right hon. member for Victoria West had rightly said, the “agitators.” The “agitators” were those who sat on the Ministerial benches and were adequately represented on the benches opposite— (hear, hear)—and the particular overt act which started the unrest in this country began so far back as 1907 in the Transvaal, when at one of the mines on the Witwatersrand the owners increased the number of machines worked below by one per man. A Commission was appointed to enquire into miners’ phthisis as a consequence of the partial awakening that the Labour members had caused, and it was discovered that the individuals who were the most prone to catch miners’ phthisis were the machine men. Knowing that fact quite well, the mine-owners sought to increase the number of machines by one per man, with the result that the men “rebelled,” as the Minister of Finance would call it. The men on the Knights Deep started a revolution. In those days the Miners’ Association was only about three hundred strong and its funds were nil, but when those men put their case before the Executive of the Association it was decided, as a matter of principle, to take their case up.
The men on the Knights Deep struck, and then the Miners’ Association called a general strike of miners. The Government of that day, the same Government that occupied those benches now, showed their impartiality and called out the Imperial troops for a start. They said, when questioned, that their action was intended not to break the strike, but that they feared a general rising among the Chinese—(hear, hear)—and because they feared a general rising among the Chinese they posted notices on every headgear, printed in English, saying that not more than six men might meet within 500 yards of this head-gear. No more hypocritical statement was made until the hypocritical statement made during the last strike. In what other way did they show their neutrality, armed neutrality? They poured hundreds of the by-woner Dutch class into the mines, knowing full well what terrible deaths they were condemning these men to and the result of that, the direct effect, was reflected in the large number of Dutch names of applicants to the Miners’ Phthisis Board. But, though they did their own countrymen a great disservice, they did the Labour Party the greatest service at the time, because they brought men into touch with labour politics and with labour conditions who had never come into contact with them before, and the real truth was now beginning to permeate the whole of the Dutch population. How else, asked Mr. Madeley, did the Government of the day in 1907 maintain strict neutrality and impartiality? Did they see that the regulations were carried out down below? No. Every working place in the mines had to be examined, before the coolies, as they were called, could go into their working places, by the white man in charge. Those working places were never examined during this strike. Certificated white men only could charge up and blast, but Chinese did it all. Did they ever hear or read of one single prosecution of a mine manager or captain, or, better still, a mine owner? No. They winked the other eye. That was how they showed their impartiality. From that day the workers began to see that they could hope for nothing from such a Government. They began to see that there was a direct coalition, possibly an absorption between the two parties. They began to see a faint glimmer, and this developed later on. They saw it at that time and that was why he said that the whole of the troubles began in 1907. What was the next step? He wanted to take the matter as far as he could in chronological order. The next step which had any great effect was the introduction by the same Government in the Transvaal House of an Industrial Disputes Prevention Act, which came into effect in January, 1910, the same year as Union. This became operative from and on the 1st January. 1910. Proceeding, the hon. member said he know something about this Act. His signature was upon the first application which was made for a Board under that Act. What happened? Certain men objected to certain conditions being altered in the Geduld Mine. He was working there; 10 men were sacked and 150 men were affected. An application was made for a Board. A charge was made against the manager, and he totally denied the charge. There were two diametrically opposed statements. How did the Government act? The Minister's reply to those who had made the charge was that he did not think it was a case in which a Board should be appointed to investigate. He (Mr. Madeley) appealed not to the feelings or the prejudices of the House but to the intelligence and asked the two sets of people who were diametrically opposed in their statements —Was that not a case for investigation? The Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the late Mr. Sauer deliberately pledged themselves on the platform of the miners of the Witwatersrand in the 1910 Union election that they would bring miners’ phthisis under the Workmen's Compensation Act. What did they do? Every member of that House knew what transpired. The Minister brought in an Act for a Bill framed on those lines, but the other partner to the bargain, the hon. member for Yeoville indicated that it was not acceptable to the mining houses. What did the hon. Minister do? He said it was a matter upon which they had not sufficient information. They had sufficient information on the platform when they were trying to enlist the voters of the Witwatersrand to vote, but in that cool and calm chamber opinions altered. They had not got sufficient information, and they went to the hon. member for Yeoville, or they got together somehow, and they got the necessary information, because when the next Bill was brought in it was precisely on the lines indicated by the hon. member for Yeoville. Did hon. members of that House wonder, therefore, that the workers of the Witwatersrand had broken loose? The wonder to intelligent thinking men was that they should have restrained themselves so long. (Labour cheers.) He would mention the demand which was put forward very strenuously from members on the cross-benches for the introduction in the Mines Regulation Bill of a clause bringing about compulsory closing of the mines on Sunday.
Order.
It does not matter; it is only a Labour member that is speaking. Proceeding, he said he could recall how the Minister of Finance, who was them Minister of Mines, realised that the conscience of that side of the House was sore, and they did not intend that the amendment moved by the labour members should be lost. For three months it was hanging about because the hon. Minister dare not bring it to the vote, and finally to satisfy their consciences he had a Sunday Observance Commission to inquire into the whole incidents of Sunday labour; that was swallowed, and it cost them £9,000, and it accomplished nothing except an interim report, and it is going to be dissolved at the end of next month. The hon. Minister got out of the dilemma that it cost them £9,000. Oh, it was £3,000. It cost this country £3,000 to salve the conscience of the Ministerial side of the House.
Will the hon. member now come to the matter before the House— the second reading of the Indemnity Bill?
I am endeavouring to deal with the cause of the unrest, and I hope I shall be permitted to lead my argument along my own lines. (Labour cheers.) Continuing, Mr. Madeley said the men on the Rand were very keen on the institution of one day’s rest in seven. The only effort the mining houses had made to ascertain the feelings of the men on that, point was the single vote they took at the New Modderfontein, when the surface men were allowed to vote but not the underground contractors, and the men who were affected most, by reason of the fact that these contractors very frequently came out in debt.
How were the public services treated by the Government? Take the Postal officials. He was one of the members of this House who in 1911 attended at the General Post Office to listen to a statement of the case laid by the officials of the Post and Telegraphs Crafts Association, in favour of the recognition of their society by the Government. The hon. member for Namaqualand was Minister of Posts and Telegraphs then. The representatives of the association laid their case before the Minister. He thought they occupied something like two hours, and a more ably put, better and a stronger case he had never heard put. But when they had finished what happened ? The Minister lifted the flap of his desk and he brought out his typewritten reply—typewritten already by the Postmaster-General—he was lovingly called by his employees “Jerry Wilson.”
I think the hon. member ought to observe a certain modicum of decency in referring to the high officials of this country. There is a certain decency in these matters which should always be shown and respected by hon. members in referring to the officials of the public service.
I don’t want to transgress the rules of decorum and good taste, and with all due deference to you, sir, I am not stating my own name for this gentleman. I am referring to the name by which he is known in the service.
I must point out to the hon. member that that makes it worse.
On a point of order, sir. Is it an opprobrious epithet to refer to any high official by the name he is affectionately known to his staff?
I gave my opinion to the hon. member for Springs, and I thought the hon. member for Jeppe heard it. (Ministerial laughter.)
I expected that from the other side; they are ready to cheer and gibe at the least opportunity without any reference to the merits of the case.
If the hon. member continues these irrelevant remarks, which have nothing to do with the question before the House, there are certain rules laid down which I shall be compelled to make use of. (Ministerial cheers.)
said he held in his hand an extract from one of the police books, which stated that a constable was fined £5 or six weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour for marrying without permission.
And this Government dared to stand up and tell the country that they were ruling it in a proper fashion for the people of the State. Who were the people of the State? In the minds of the hon. members of that House, the people of the State were confined to that room. Before touching on the Kleinfontein strike, he wanted to show another instance how that Government had set its face against the workers. He referred to the Cape Town printers’ strike. Whatever might be the merits or the demerits of the case, he wanted to show how the Government had shown its wonderful impartiality. Blacklegs had been imported, and he understood that for that time, at all events, the law had said that no contract made oversea was binding in this country unless it were re-attested or re-signed in South Africa. What had the Government done? They had not allowed the men on strike here to get into touch with these men. The men who had been brought out here had been brought out under false pretences, but representatives of the Master Printers’ Federation in Cape Town had been allowed to go on board the ship to present those contracts again to these men. When the ship had berthed they had found on either side of the gangway foot police, and every man who had come off the ship came in between two detectives, and mounted police had kept the people back. Very shortly after they had landed, several had come, out and broken their contracts, and had signed on as members of the Union. They had seen those things through their own eyes. Now, as to that Kleinfontein strike. He wanted to draw attention to a very significant statement in the very beginning of the report. The hon. member quoted the following from the report: “Your Commissioners regret that neither the Strike Committee nor the Miners’ Association nor the Federation of Trades were represented. Your Commissioners were informed, not only that these bodes ignored your Commission, but that they instructed all their members to refrain from giving evidence before your Commission. In proof of this, your Commissioners …. Your Commissioners have greatly regretted the attitude of the workmen’s Unions in coming to this decision, for their members were naturally in possession of a great many facts of which your Commissioners were ignorant, and their assistance in examination and cross-examination of witnesses would have been of great value: especially do your Commissioners regret the absence of representatives of the working classes, as so many statements have been made in the Press, both here and elsewhere, that might then have been either verified, or once for all dismissed as untrue.” That was a very significant statement, and lie would ask that House in passing judgment on that report) to remember that the Commission itself realised that it was a report which must pecessarily be very incomplete. He did agree with the hon. member for George that the immediate course of the particular trouble had been the action of the New Kleinfontein Company, and the hon. member quoted from the report as follows: “Mr. Bulman was appointed manager of the Kleinfontein Company on the 1st of May. 1913. Upon the change of management the underground manager, who had been in charge left, the company, together with some sixty men, while 15 were dismissed. … About a week after this appointment Mr. Bulman placed the underground mechanics, who had been under the Resident Mechanical Engineer, under the control of the underground manager. The hours of work for the underground mechanics that had always prevailed on the Kleinfontein Mine were from 7.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. on all weekdays except Saturdays, and from 7.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. on Saturdays. Mr. Bulman considered that the hours of work for these mechanics should be the same as that for all miners, and that they should work from 7.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., Saturdays included without extra pay.” Now let them nr tice the nice manner in which Mr. Bulman, the manager of that particular company acted. He had nine men working underground, and ten was the number which had to be affected to cause or to bring about a dispute in terms of the Industrial Disputes Act of the Transvaal. Nine was rather close, and the point might have been stretched, and the hon. Minister of Mines might possibly have brought an action against them.
We gave instructions.
said that they had discharged two and had taken two to the surface, so that there remained five underground, and then altered the hours of the five. The five men had no objection to serve under the underground manager, but had strong objections to working on Saturdays: from 7.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. A number of members, in fact all hon. members of the House, except themselves (the Labour members) had the impression that it had been a purely domestic matter from the start, and that it had been sought to impose it (the altered hours) on the Kleinfontein Mine only. It was nothing of the sort, and the Minister could bear him out. The hon. member went on to refer to trouble which had previously arisen at Benoni during the managership of Mr. Holford, and paid a tribute to the tactful way in which Mr. Holford dealt with the situation. He next traced the course of events which led up to the strike at Kleinfontein Mine during the managership of Mr. Bulman. He urged that the men themselves were not the originators of the trouble, and that what they wanted was peace. He quoted from certain telegrams which passed between the Minister of Mines while in Cape Town attending to his Parliamentary duties and his department in Pretoria, and said that the action or non-action of the Government in not prosecuting the Kleinfontein Company; which the Government itself at that time held had acted illegally, was calculated by the Judicial Commission and actually did incense the men, and it was this incensing of the men by the Government and the mine-owners that was the real beginning and the real cause of all the unseemly actions which the men did in their heated condition. The whole attitude of the company all the way through showed that so far from the men being the persons who wanted unrest and who did not want peace, it was this company, and the whole industry behind it, that were responsible. The hon. member quoted further from the report, to show that there was no dispute under the Act, that the Act did not touch the situation. The hon. Minister did his utmost in making representations to the employers to bring about a settlement of the dispute. The fault was with the company, as it had been all along. By adopting its attitude towards the report, the Kleinfontein Company made what was a trivial dispute assume a formidable aspect. They at length declined to deal with anybody but their employees, and as the Kleinfontein management raised that issue the men took it up and insisted that the recognition should be carried on by representatives of the Trade Unions. The hon. member proceeded to quote from the report at great length, apologising for so doing by saying that he believed that very few hon. members had taken the trouble to peruse it. In the report of the Commission they could see the horns and observe the cloven hoof, and there were indications of the bifurcated tail. The mining companies of the Rand were combined in a federation, and they might bring all their combined forces to bear on any one single question, even if it were only the hours of work underground of five men. But the men who were employed by these people might not attend a Union meeting nor federate because the great “I am’s ”—the “masters ” as they loved to call themselves—would not allow it. How could hon. members talk as they had been doing throughout that debate with the Commission’s report in their hands? It could only be explained by assuming that they had not read the report. Referring to the New Kleinfontein Mine, Mr. Madeley said it resembled a fortress, and was garrisoned by armed police and the Imperial troops. Yet this was what Government called, being impartial and helping neither side. This was done to bring in what had euphoniously been called “free labour,” but what other people called servile labour, men who would not be employed under any other circumstances.
Proceeding, the hon. member said that these “blacklegs” had been paid double the standard rate, but the mine was not being run—the stamps were stamping on practically nothing, just to make a noise and to break the men outside. The Minister of Finance had spoken so choicely of the honour involved in the protection of free labour. All the vagabonds in the country who could possibly be collected had been collected and no fewer than four of these men of honour were wanted for illicit liquor selling; several were known thieves, and some had been taken actually from the gaol gates. These vagabonds had been brought in coal trucks at the dead of night, under tarpaulins, and 25 of these labourers had been brought in under the uniform of the police! The police strongly suspected that the murderer of Sergeant Holmes was amongst that honoured army of free labour. There were warrants out against some of these labourers, but the police had been told not to execute the warrants until the trouble was over. That showed the impartial attitude of the Government! Complaints had been made of mattresses being overturned, but that had only been done to see whether any of these “free labourers” were underneath, ns it was believed that that was another of the ways of the Government to import these labourers. It was the same with the alleged damage to the bakers’ carts, which had not been damaged at all, but the doors had been opened to see whether any of these men were inside. They only wanted to interview these men and place their statement before them. Then, he had been accused of being closely connected with certain acts of violence. The clever Minister of Finance had accused him of breaking his pledge and his guarantee, and the Minister had gone so far as to say that he (Mr. Madeley) should have been in the dock. He had had no experience of the dock, but the hon. member behind him had; but he was informed that Tokai was an excellent preparatory school for statesmen, although there were others who pinned their faith to breathing the ozone of Scarborough beach. If it (the dock) was the place and training ground of statesmen his hon. friend (Mr. Creswell) had hopes for the future!
Continuing, he said that the Minister of Finance had led the House to believe that he had gone to his office to talk about this meeting at Benoni. Nothing was further from what actually happened. He went to Pretoria to see the Minister of Justice about strikers being knocked about in the cells after they were arrested. The Minister was away ill, so Mr. Roos suggested he should see the Minister of Finance, Defence, and acting Minister of Justice, General Smuts. He discussed the matter he came about and then the General asked about the Benoni meeting. He (Mr. Madeley) told him frankly that he knew the men were determined to hold the meeting. The General said: “I think we might allow that meeting,” and he (Mr. Madeley) replied: “I think you might.” The Minister then asked that he should give a guarantee that there would be no violence. He (the speaker) said he would not do that, but he would give a guarantee that he would do his utmost to prevent violence. If he had given the other guarantee would the Minister have accepted it? No, certainly not. The only time he had ever given a guarantee of this kind was when they wanted to hold a procession in connection with the printers’ strike, and the local police refused, and he wired the then Minister. But then they were not dealing with hooligans as well as strikers. How did he break a pledge when he gave no guarantee? It had been said that he had given a pledge and that he had not taken action. The pledge he gave he announced to the people. He asked the people not to do any violence. According to the evidence of Mr. Betts, Mr. Bain told the men to make the rush for the Kleinfontein fence. Only three or four hundred went, out of the ten or twelve thousand there. This statement concerning Bain was made on the statement of Capt. Kirkpatrick. Nobody else heard or knew of it, not even the hon. member for George Town, who was on Bain’s platform. Well, Captain Kirkpatrick drew up his police across the road. The men said it was a public road and they simply went through. There was no violence. They wanted to see the defences about which so much had been said, and the strike leaders brought them back. They were not there half an hour. And that was the true history of the pledge he was alleged to have given and the meeting at Benoni. Could hon. members point out any violence, any accidents, or anything else that had taken place? Mr. Madeley then proceeded to the statement made by Mr. Taylor, of the firm of Gow and Taylor. The fact was that tradesmen had got the jumps; there were a number of hooligans going about.
The Prime Minister, in particular, made painful reference to the possibility of an outbreak of the natives, and said that these miners would be to blame for it, and that their wives and children would be the first to suffer. He personally went down to Mr. Betts at the Police Station, and said, “If there is any possibility of trouble at all, we have at the present moment 750 men ready to go out armed with sticks; they are at your disposal.” Nothing transpired. No trouble took place, in the first place. In the second place, this offer was not accepted. When that offer was not accepted by the regular police in case of trouble, which was to include burnings and hooliganism, the Strike Committee took charge of Benoni. That was why the Strike Committee started to run Benoni…
Before he came to Gow and Taylor, be wanted to refer to Mrs. Scott’s case. This lady had a blind husband, whose affliction was caused by blasting while he was working at the New Kleinfontein. When that man was on the point of death, as it was thought, an official of the company went to Mrs. Scott, and in her distracted condition persuaded her to sign a statement, accepting half her compensation money. (Hear, hear.) Happily, Mr. Scott recovered, and he went to the New Kleinfontein and asked for the remainder of his compensation. This was refused, and an action had to be brought to recover the remainder. Now, he did not condone the burning of Mrs. Scott’s property at all. The hon. member for George had made great play of the fact that he (Mr. Madeley) sat cheek by jowl with the Strike Committee who wrote a horrible letter. Mrs. Scott, in her evidence, stated that the letter had been destroyed. The letter had been seen by a Pressman from the “Rand Daily Mail,” and it was printed on the 26th June. Mrs. Scott said she received a letter, signed “One of the Strikers.” This letter might have been written by the hon. member for George, for aught he knew. It certainly was not the Strike Committee. He never knew of such a letter being sent, nor did any member of the Strike Committee. This was the sort of instance that hon. members had been trying to blacken the characters of hon. members on those benches with. Mrs. Scott laboured under a sense of injustice; some of her furniture was burnt— and he did not for one moment condone those acts—but her final words in the evidence were: “I do not really blame those strikers so much, because some of the strikers had come and told me, I must admit, that they had nothing to do with it at all.” This was the sort of stuff that hon. members had brought as charges against members on those benches. The expression “shameless ” was used in regard to himself. He said it was shameful that these things should be said in that House without reproof from those men on the benches opposite who knew the facts. With regard to the case of Messrs. Gow and Taylor, Mr. Madeley said that at that time he was not a member of the Strike Committee. He had not been to more than two meetings up to the time of the Benoni Sunday meeting. Most of his time had been taken up in trying to stop violence. He was hauled out of bed at two o’clock in the morning by a man who had heard that his place was to be burnt, and to satisfy the man he went, although he had warned him that he could not stop the hooligans; but to ease his mind he went and wrote out a notice asking that his house should be respected, and signed the notice. Then he went down to the Strike Committee rooms and was prevailed upon with some reluctance to accompany two gentlemen in a cab to act as an intermediary, and while on the way to their place of business passed the premises of Gow and Taylor, which were burning. That was the first he knew of that fire. He left the cab at that point, and when he tried to prevail upon the hooligans to go, he was told to mind his own business. Proceeding, the hon. member said he thought he had dealt with the personal attacks made upon him. He did not hear one quarter of the fuss made in that House about the stabbing of Alan Muir as had been made in connection with the burning down of premises.
There was a crowd of about 50 people and a young lieutenant of police; lost his head and called on the military, who came out with fixed bayonets. Muir had his back turned telling people to go away, when he was jabbed in the ribs. The gem of the whole situation at Benoni was that the magistrate personally congratulated the Strike Committee on the splendid way in which it had controlled the policing of Benoni. The Minister of Defence had congratulated himself because the forces turned out so rapidly, but it was strange that although the strike was declared at the East Rand on the Thursday the Ermelo Commando left Ermelo on the previous Sunday. Then the burghers ran amok at Benoni—sjambokking, thrashing, and using the butt-ends of their rifles without the slightest provocation. A woman who protested against her husband being taken away was told that she could have a substitute. (A LABOUR MEMBER: ‘“Shame.”) The people of Benoni were called out by the local police officer, who said he had some good news for them, to come inside a fence. They were kept there in a hailstorm, and then marched six miles to Boksburg, some of them without their coats, and when they fell back they were butted with the butt-end of rifles. (Labour cries of: “Shame.”) The hon. member described the attack on the Trades Hall, to find 27 men in that hall, with one pistol, one rifle, and three pick-handles among them—(laughter)—who surrendered when summoned to do so. That huge army of 60,000 men had gathered, what for? To defend the country against what? Nine fellows who had a pistol between them! When the people of the world became acquainted with the true situation, those hon. members who filled the Ministry at present would be ridiculed out of office. The hon. member spoke in favour of the workers being allowed to strike all together if they desired, and thought that the editor of the “Volkstem” should be deported, if Mason were deported, for expressing similar sentiments, if in different language.
asked whether the Ministry had not learned the lesson of history. If the oppressed won through their cause always got a fillip. It brought out all that was best in them. If the Prime Minister had only the pluck to issue the writ he would get his answer from Liesbeek.
The M INISTER OF RAILWAYS AND HABOURS moved the adjournment of the debate.
The motion was agreed to, and the debate adjourned until Wednesday.
The House adjourned at