from Isabella A. Murray, teacher, for condonation of a break in her service.

from P. J. van Rhijn, teacher, for condonation of a break in his service.

Treasury Memorandum in regard to commutation of pension to Mr. George Stoddart, formerly postal assistant (Cape).

This was referred to the Select Committee on Pensions, Grants, and Gratuities.

laid on he Table the report of the Agricultural Land Bank for 1913.

will you refer that to the Public Accounts Committee?

I will do that. I will move, as an unopposed motion, that this report be referred to the Public Accounts Committee.

The motion was agreed to.

Correspondence relative to appointment and retirement of Mr. Hugh Thompson, late Vice-Principal, School of Agriculture, Potchefstroom.

said that in the Division List there was an error in the Division taken on Friday night, his name being omitted from the list. He voted with the “Noes.” Then the name of Mr. C. Henwood (Victoria County) appeared in both the “Ayes” and the “Noes” list.

I will see the Tellers and have it rectified.

moved that leave of absence for the week be granted to the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. C. T. M. Wilcocks) from service on the Select Committee.

The motion was agreed to.

was cheered on rising to move the third reading of the Indemnity and Undesirables Special Deportation Bill. General Smuts said the debate on this Bill had lasted already so long a time, and the arguments both for and against the action of the Government were already so threadbare, that he hesitated to occupy the time of the House any longer, and yet as this was the last opportunity to address the House on this important subject, he would ask hon. members to bear with him for a few moments while he referred to a few of the points which had been raised in the course of this debate. When a debate lasted a very long time—as this one had done—there was a tendency for the real issues to become obscured. People forgot that the debate had arisen but of a certain grave state of affairs, and concentrated their attention on particular points which were laboured to such an extent that ultimately these special points obscured the general issue. That was what had happened in the present debate. Such an amount of attention had been given to clause 4 of the Bill that this afterwards seemed as if that were the most important point that the House had to deal with. The right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) went so far as to say that it seemed to him that this Bill amounted to nothing more than the hunting of Mr. Poutsma and his companions.

No, I was speaking on the clause.

That left out of sight the real issue that had been raised in this matter. The question is not about Mr. Poutsma and his companions, and I do not believe that any person who has calmly reflected on what has happened could for a moment seriously consider that the Government had all through this business been actuated by a feeling of vendetta towards particular individuals.

Continuing, General Smuts said they were not dealing with individuals, they were dealing with a great crisis that had arisen. To say that the Government had been hunting certain individuals was an entirely wrong construction. The question was whether the country last January was face to face with a revolution, and that was the question Parliament had to consider in that Bill. It was not difficult to answer that question. Hon. members would see that one of the gentle companions of Mr. Poutsma who had been expelled from this country had said only a couple of days ago that this country had been as close to a revolution as it could possibly be. (Cheers.) If that revolution had been successful, what would the result have been? If it had been successful would his hon. friend still have been the Prime Minister? The first charge was that had it not been for the remissness of the Government the affair in January would not have taken place. It was alleged that if the Government had done its duty in July there would have been no trouble in January. That point was beside the mark, even supposing that was so. Supposing the Government was remiss in its actions in July, that did not detract from the point that they were faced in January by a grave crisis which they had to meet and did meet. It was not germane to the issue to quote an earlier instance. Let him say a few words on the charge made. Who could have anticipated last July that such a state of affairs would have come to pass? There was a strike of the smallest dimensions on the Rand. The hon. member for Jeppe, who was entirely conversant with what was taking place, had a conference with his colleagues, and he with all his inner knowledge came to the conclusion that the matter was so insignificant that it did not require his presence there and that he might safely go to another part of South Africa. The matter was very insignificant. There had been a number of clap-trap speeches—the Government looked upon them as clap-trap. Never before had they seen from so small a cause such a vast development taking place in so short a time. He did not see how the Government could have been blamed for not having the foresight of archangels in a matter of this kind. He did not see how anyone could have had the foresight to have expected such consequences to have followed what had happened at the New Kleinfontein.

The Government did not use a sledgehammer or any other vast instrument of war. There was no doubt that in the minds of certain individuals at that stage there was at the back of their heads certain ulterior objects. From the 29th of June to the 4th of July they saw a development that turned upside down the whole of the Witwatersrand from end to end. How any Government could have foreseen or arrested it at any stage he failed to see. Of course they could not have foreseen it. Had they not taken that action, what would have been the cost? He thought the Government could not be legitimately blamed for what occurred in July. The charge from the cross-benches was that the proclamation of Martial Law in January was unprecedented and that it was an attempt to crush Trade Unionism. The Government fully admitted that in the absence of an insurrection or war the declaration of Martial Law was an unusual procedure, but had they not been justified by the facts in the action they took? In this country they had learnt most unfortunately they could not always rely on precedents. They had to make precedents. He asked hon. members in what part of the world they had had such a situation—of a dispute which seemed to be a labour dispute developing into a social revolution? (Hear, hear.) He was told that speeches such as they had heard read in that House were made every Sunday in Hyde Park, but such speeches made in Hyde Park had not the same weight. The speeches made here had created social revolution. If they had sat still here what would have been the consequences? Their action was completely justified by the unprecedented situation that rose; nothing was further from the minds of the Government than to deal a blow at Trade Unionism. If the revolution had succeeded what would have happened to the Trade Unions themselves? (Laughter.) They had been dealing with a greater situation than the rights and wrongs of Trade Unions. A much larger force was in operation. Hon. members were not entitled to say that the Government had tried to crush Trade Unionism. He reminded them of the Bills that had been published last year on industrial questions and which dealt with Trade Unions as well. He did not think that in any country in such a short period so much industrial legislation had been published. The object behind the disturbances had been to stop that legislation, and it had been said that those Bills would never become law.

And they wall be passed this year. (Laughter.)

said it was difficult to say what would be passed and what would not be passed that session. What was the situation Government had had to meet? They had to decide on the spur of the moment on measures of the greatest importance. It had been stated that in some respects they had gone too far, but he did not think the action they took exceeded the requirements of the situation; if it did they had acted bona fide. Now they came to the last part of the action of the Government, and that was the deportations. Was it not right on the part of the Government if they were dealing with that matter to do their best to prevent a recurrence taking place in the future? That was part and parcel of the whole business. As a part and parcel they were deporting certain of the most prominent individuals who were at the back of the revolutionary movement. They could not deal with one incident as though it were isolated from what had taken place. The Government had taken that action as a part of the larger whole. Let them look for a moment at what had been done in clause 4 of the Bill. He did not think hon. members realised what was the effect of that legislation. Clause 4 ratified in the first place the deportation of those nine men, and then proceeded to say, not that they should be banished for ever from the country, but that those nine men should be obliged in future to come under section 21 of the Immigration Act. The position was this: That a person who had been removed by the Government of the Union and returned without lawful authority might be arrested without a warrant, etc. It was quite clear that they were applying to those nine men the procedure of section 21 of the Immigration Act, which did not lay down that they were banished forever, but that they could not come back without lawful authority. That had been the point raised by the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo, who had wanted those men to have an opportunity to apply to the Government to be allowed to come back; if they could show good cause they might come back; but if they could not the Government would keep them out. The Government could allow them in temporarily or conditionally. That position was met by the Immigration Act as it stood, and the position was exactly what the hon. member for Umbilo had wanted. It was open to the nine men to submit a case to the Government in the future. If they could put forward a case they could be let in temporarily or be let in under such conditions as appeared to the Minister to be sound. It was not a case of permanent banishment. All they had said was that the country had no need for those men and they must go out of it, and if they wanted to return they must make out a case to the satisfaction of the Minister.

said he really congratulated the Minister of Defence. Really it was a transformation from Phillip unsober to Phillip the next morning. (Laughter.) He had never heard of a more remarkable change of front. (Labour laughter.) Where was the six hours’ indictment? Gone! Where was the dangerous conspiracy? Gone! They now heard that Mr. Poutsma had committed no crime. The Minister should not have said that, because, to a certain extent, it gave his case away. There was no deportation. (Labour laughter.) There was no banishment. (Labour laughter.) He wondered what was the reason. Was this speech, perchance, addressed to people six thousand miles away? Was it addressed to them? It was not banishment at all, but everything rested with the will of the Minister for the time being They might see Mr. Poutsma back again in his happy position as the agent of a political party. (Laughter.) If he behaved well, he might yet come back and make speeches. (Laughter.) He (Mr. Merriman) had listened with admiration to many speeches made by the Minister of Defence, but he did not think that he had ever listened to one with more admiration for his subtlety than on this occasion. It brought back to him the statement attributed by a satirical poet to a very clever man in the eighteenth century. The lines run:

“Plain words, thank Heaven, are always understood.

I never said I would; my lords, I said I could! ”

The Minister never said he would banish these men; he only said he could. That was a subtle distinction which he did not understand.

The subtle distinction was too much for him, he frankly admitted. In the course of his defence, his hon. friend brought down thunderous cheers by asking whether they had ever known such a huge catastrophe to arise as in July from so small a cause. His hon. friend must have nodded for a moment. He must have forgotten the case of “ship money,” where the sum at issue was twenty shillings, yet it was large enough to shake a King’s crown from his head and his head from his shoulders. These subtleties of his hon. friend were too much for his somewhat coarse intelligence. He could not fathom them, and he could not follow them out to their conclusions, and he was of the same opinion as when this Bill first came before the House. Part of the Bill he was prepared to accept. Part of the Bill he was prepared to vote for But there were two Bills in one, and the banishment part he was not prepared to vote for. What were they to do? If they voted for the third reading, they approved of the whole Bill, because there was no distinction. His hon. friend had done it in such a subtle manner that he had place a them all on the horns of a dilemma. If they voted for the third reading, they voted for the banishment and deportation, and they approved of everything that had been done. If they voted against the Bill, then they refused the Government the indemnity they were prepared to give. What was to be done? He would adopt the dubious course of not voting at all. He hoped that would please the Minister. All the Minister’s subtleties would not drag him into approving of clause 4.

said that if the right hon. gentleman could not follow the subtlety of the Minister, he (Sir Edgar) had failed to follow the subtle distinctions of the right hon. gentleman. His right hon. friend was prepared to endorse the action of the Government, including the deportations, and then he proposed to draw his distinction though they had sent these people 6,000 miles away and the country was to say, “Come back immediately.” Surely he (Mr. Merriman) must see how senseless an action that would be, for this country to deport men and send them 6,000 miles away, because they considered them a danger to the community, and then to throw open their doors to them a few weeks later. He desired, however, more particularly, to call attention to the importance of passing legislation which must follow this Bill. The country had gone through a great crisis. Most of them in that House had supported the Government entirely in what they had done in dealing with that crisis, and they still did so, but he thought that, in addition to what they had done, they must provide these working-men, who had been misled and had brought this country to such a state, with a legitimate channel for the redress of their grievances. Surely something should be done in that direction before Parliament rose? Surely it was their duty to deal with the causes of this disorder and endeavour to provide legal and constitutional means for the removal of the causes, in order that these men should not have a shadow of excuse for resorting to the practices into which, unfortunately, they had recently been led.

said he was afraid that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had not followed the Minister in this matter. There was no doubt that the Minister had intended that these men should be permanently banished, but he had now got up to explain to the House that it was not permanent banishment, and that he might give Mr. Poutsma and Mr. Bain permission to come back here, and he expected to find Mr. Poutsma with his arms round the neck of the Minister. His hon. friend (Sir E. H. Walton) had not followed the Minister in the peregrinations of his mind in this particular matter. What had the Minister said? He had said straight out that Poutsma was not guilty of a crime. What was his excuse? That he stirred up strife. Had not the hon. member for Smithfield stirred up strife on that side? Had not the hon. member for Smithfield stirred up strife amongst the party on the other side, aye, amongst the whole of the people in the back country? Were they going to deport him?

He is not dangerous.

Is he not dangerous? If a man stirs up strife, what kind of strife are you going to deport him for? Proceeding, Mr. Jagger said that he did not believe that the Minister had been animated by personal motives in this matter. He had said that this crisis came close to a revolution. That might have been the case or it might not; personally, he did not think it came so near to a revolution as the Minister would have this House to believe. As a matter of fact the strike was practically over on the 16th January; at any rate they might say that the Government had got complete control of the situation on the 24th. At that time there was not the slightest scintilla of violence in any shape or form.

Why was it necessary, then, to deport these men on the 27th? So long as they had force on their side, as they had on this occasion, and they had the vast bulk of the people at their back, they had nothing at all to fear. His hon. friend had said they were being blamed for the actions in July, Of course they had drawn their own conclusions in regard to that from the report of the Disturbance Commission which, his hon. friend would admit, was about the most damning indictment of the Government ever framed. It was stated in the report that the Industrial Disputes Act was treated as a dead-letter. Why did not his hon. friend prosecute those people who broke the law in July? Mr. Jagger went on to say that he was going to adopt the same position as his right hon. friend the member for Victoria West. He was going to walk out, much as he disliked it. What else could one do? He would support and cordially support the first part of the Bill, but he was opposed to clause 4, and he would like to say that he thought that, as time progressed, the attitude they had taken up in this matter was more and more demonstrated to be the sound one. Six weeks had passed since these men were deported, and what results did they see? When first the matter came before the House they condemned it as a lawless proceeding. The Minister at the time admitted the illegality, but he said that they were justified, as a matter of expediency, for the preservation of peace in this country. Events that took place every day both in this country and over the water demonstrated that this was about the biggest blunder that the Government had ever committed. He believed that if these men had not been deported they would have been discredited by this time, because the movement they were connected with had proved such a disastrous failure. What bad the Government done by deporting these men? They had made them heroes, and to-day they were going about in Great Britain abusing this country for all they were worth and doing as much damage as they could to this country, with threats of boycotting our trade and so forth. (“No.”) Undoubtedly it was also keeping alive unrest in this country. What was the Minister going to do with Mr. Mann when he reached these shores? Was he going to confess that the Government of this country were so afraid of a single unarmed man that they were not going to allow him to land, or, if they allowed him to land, was he going to allow him to go about and excite the workers of this country against the Government? In the present state of feeling, caused by the deportation very largely, that was a very easy thing to do. They had done more by this act of deportation to strengthen the Labour Party in this country than anything that would be done in 12 months’ time. They had only to look at the elections that had taken place and at the information which came down from the industrial centres in the country. The Minister had not scotched the movement, but had strengthened it, and the action of the Government had been an enormous blunder.

said the whole House was glad that the Minister had deigned to give the members some explanation for the reason which prompted his action during January and to bring the Bill before the House, but the Minister had made his case much worse. In his previous indictment he tried to tell the House that a general strike was to be brought about in South Africa, and that the nine men who had been deported were the ringleaders of a conspiracy which was to bring about this general strike. But the bottom had been knocked out of the idea that there was a conspiracy. The Minister had ransacked the Union Offices at Johannesburg, and had searched the private dwellings of the leaders of the men, and he could not even find a concealed gun. Yet he asked the House to believe that there was an armed revolution. (Labour cheers.) He (Mr. Sampson) was not going to do an injustice to anyone by saying that newspapers told the truth. Newspapers sometimes published different versions of the same speech. The Minister had all along been condemning these men on the strength of newspaper reports, and now he asked the House to believe in the existence of a revolutionary plot on the strength of what Mr. Waterston was reported to have said in London. He (Mr. Sampson) appealed to the House to do justice to these men by rejecting the Bill. To indemnify the Government and to put it to no inconvenience was one thing, but to commit an act they knew to be unjustifiable and one which was a blot on the traditions of the two races in this country which was what the Minister asked them to do, was to put the House in a false position. Government tried to justify the declaration of Martial Law by the disturbances which took place in July last. No one regretted the outrages of last July more than did the hon. members on the cross-benches, but those outrages ended in July. The Minister forgot that the restoration of order was as much due to some of these men who had been deported as it was due to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence himself. These men wanted the disturbances quelled, and they played a very big part in helping the Government to quell them.

The action of the Government after the settlement in July was an act of treachery. It was just as if after the peace of Vereenig mg the British Government had turned round and deported the men who signed that agreement. Was there a title of evidence produced to show that the nine deported men were the instigators of violence? Yet the Minister claimed that they should be deported on account of the acts of violence which took place in July. Mr. Poutsma had nothing to do with those acts—in fact, he did not come on the scene until after July. In July, Mr. Poutsma was a mere secretary of an association, and was never consulted in connection with any strike up to that date. Yet he was deported because of the acts of violence on the Eastern Rand. Then there were Morgan and McKerrell, who had nothing to do with the acts of violence in July and who made no speeches; in fact, they were very small fry and quite unheard of at that time. On the Labour side hon. members had produced evidence to show pretty conclusively that it was not speeches that caused all this trouble in July but the action of the Government which, by ignoring grievances, had created unrest. The Government committed the first act of violence by breaking up the men’s meeting. Acts of violence were committed as the result of Government’s actions. The Government talked of a revolution but there was no idea of a revolution and never was. Then Government had tried to connect the events of July and January. There were no acts of violence after July. There was practically industrial peace during that interval. They certainly had people making speeches in between, but that was nothing unusual. One did not like to cast reflections on members of the Ministry or to accuse them of things which might perhaps be untrue, but the evidence all pointed to the fact that the events of January were an organised attack on organised labour. (Hear, hear.) He was tired of reading letters to the House, but among the number he had received was one stating that two Trade Unionists were pulled out of a train at Witbank, searched, and a book taken away from them.

The strike of January was a very small strike compared with some that took place in other parts of the world. There had been very little disorder, which a few hundred policemen could not have managed. He remembered seeing in London a strike of 50,000 dockers with only ten policemen looking on. Those ten policemen could manage those men, and not a single window was broken. Speeches made by hon. members in the past might have caused much more disturbance than the speeches made by the nine men. In deporting those men the Government had classified them as criminals, without a title of evidence of any crime. The Labour members had pleaded for some evidence, but the speech of the Minister that afternoon had not afforded them any. How were Morgan and McKerrell to come back to this country, supposing the Minister took their names out of the schedule? These two men could never come back. Did the Minister not know that the Steamship Company refused to bring back phthisis patients? Those men would never come back. He did not think any Parliament had ever been placed in so degrading a position as that Parliament was to-day. The Minister had led them to believe that any jury in this country would have been so prejudiced that it would not have convicted those men, and yet the Minister said he had the country behind him. If he had had the country behind him, surely it would have been possible to have got a jury which would have convicted in the event of their guilt being proved. It had not been a question of a sequence of events, as the Minister said Martial Law was declared in Natal for the deliberate purpose of making a passage out for those men. The fact was the Government had made up its mind to deport some time before, and to deport certain Trade Union officials. He moved the following amendment: “To omit all the words after ‘that’ for the purpose of inserting the following ‘in the opinion of this House sufficient evidence has not been produced by the Government to justify the deportation of citizens from the Union without trial, and other illegal acts committed under the cloak of Martial Law, and that indemnity should not be granted to Government until the constituencies had been consulted thereon by means of a general election.’” (Labour cheers.) Proceeding, Mr. Sampson said that if the Government had done the right thing they should not be afraid of an election, but should give the people an opportunity of expressing their opinion. He claimed that the Minister had misjudged the whole matter. He would put a charitable construction on it, and say that the Minister had lost his head. If the Minister would admit that he had been deceived then he did not think any member of the House would blame him so much. He was not prepared to go through any stage of that Bill without a fight, and he was sure his colleagues were of the same opinion. Even at that eleventh hour they made an appeal to the House not to pass the Bill.

seconded the amendment.

said that the hon. member for Victoria West and another hon. member had said that they had found themselves in a great difficulty with regard to that Bill—that part of the Bill which dealt with the banishment. One of those hon. members had used very strong language in condemning it, and yet they found themselves in a difficulty in voting against the Bill. They said they were not prepared to vote against giving the indemnity, but it seemed that that difficulty had been created for them entirely by the action of the Government. The Government had brought in deliberately one Bill for two entirely different purposes. They were not responsible for the Government or for the form in which the Bill was introduced. If it introduced the Bill such as that which had excited the strongest animosity, he thought hon. members would be right in saying they would not have the Bill, that they were not going to grant the indemnity while at the same time passing the clause they objected to. He thought the duty rested on his hon. friend and on the member for Victoria West to vote against the Bill.

The Government were justified, having regard to everything that happened, in proclaiming Martial Law, and they were justified in calling out the Defence Force. He did not say they were justified in everything they did, because he said that some of the things were calculated to increase the extent of the danger. But he was not referring to those little matters which happened under Martial Law. He was prepared to indemnify the Government for what it had done under Martial Law, but he was not prepared to go to the extent of condoning a thing that was abhorrent in principle and which was fraught with disaster to this country. The Minister asked whether it was not a fact that the country was faced with a revolution. That was a question the Government had to consider. What evidence had the Government that would satisfy any reasonable man that the country was on the verge of revolution, and what evidence could be brought forward which would enable them to say that these people singled out for banishment were even remotely connected with the revolution? Granting the Government was faced with a revolution, did that go all the way in justification of his Bill? He said it did not. Granting the Government was faced with a revolutionary movement, the response on the part of the Defence Force and others called out to assist the Government showed that if there was such a revolutionary movement in existence, it would not have had a ghost of a chance. As soon as the Defence Force was mobilised the thing was finished. It was useless for the Government to tell them that they could not have dealt with these men by the ordinary laws of the land. That was where they and others differed from the Government. He did not say that the Government was not justified in using all the force at its disposal but that they attempted to meet revolution by revolution. And in fact they led the country into a perilous path fraught with danger in the future.

The Minister had said that they were justified in taking these steps in order to prevent this happening again. Would the banishment of these nine men stop this happening again? Things had happened already which showed them clearly that the Government of a country like this could not throw off like that a movement that was world-wide. This country, so far as the industrial movement was concerned, was only part of the world. They were going to have the same trouble and they were going to meet the same ideas, though they might be dangerous, which had had to be dealt with by other countries in the world. How were they going to rob these things of these dangerous effects? Was it by revolutionary measures on the part of the Government or similar measures? Were these measures going to prevent Syndicalism or anything of the sort having a dangerous effect? He answered in the negative. He said they would obtain protection from these dangerous things only on the methods adopted by other countries—along the way of freedom. They could only do that by freedom and by allowing the industrial population to test these things and to hold fast to what was good and throw out what was bad. That was the only way they could get rid of these bad consequences. There was no permanent way of obtaining protection except by freedom.

Must we do nothing?

said he did not say they must do nothing, but they must make laws giving a man reasonable freedom and protection from every violence from undue oppression on the part of his fellow-workmen or on the part of the Government. As soon as they left the ordinary constitutional way and dealt with matters by withdrawing those guarantees of freedom they were embarking on the wrong methods of dealing with trouble of this kind.

said that for his part he must confess that he found great difficulty in following the point of view of the hon. member who had just sat down. As he understood the hon. member had no difficulty in accepting the evidence as justifying the proclamation of Martial Law, but he closed his eyes altogether to the association of these men with the circumstances which apparently justified the Government in proclaiming Martial Law. He asked the hon. gentleman had he any doubt in his own mind as to who were the leaders of that movement? He (Mr.

Robinson) did not speak with regard to the degree of guilt of these men, but had any hon. gentleman on the general notoriety and utterances of these men any reasonable doubt that from Poutsma right down to the bottom of the list they advocated a general strike in South Africa, and in many of their speeches approved that violence should be part of the movement for the general strike. He had tried to raise his voice against the association and the actions of the leaders, as distinguished from the movement which they were advocating. To no man in that House would he give place in the desire to see that men had a right to combine, and that grievances should find a means of redress, but he said that a man who deliberately urged a general strike in the conditions of Johannesburg in January of this year was guilty not only of a crime to the white men of this country, but even more to the coloured races of this country. (Ministerial cheers.)

He asked what were the Government to do under these conditions? The hon. member for Fordsburg had said that on the day when they deported these men they had called out 60,000 men, the strike was at an end, no act of violence had taken place, and why deport them? Were the Government to come here and ask them to annul Martial Law and allow these men to commence their operations all over again, or were they to keep Martial Law in vogue and wait and see what Mr. Poutsma and these other men might do? It seemed to him that what they had to consider was whether they acted strictly within the necessities of the moment, and whether their conduct was extreme. He was surprised that the Minister of Defence should treat this as a new condition of affairs. Other countries had had to deal with the general strike. How did Spain treat Ferrer? He was given a trial, although some people thought it was not really a trial. Immediately afterwards they shot him. What had the Government done in this case? They had deported nine men from the sphere of their mal-influence. They took these nine men away from the country at a time of crisis. He said that the urging of a general strike in the condition of this country justified the Minister of Defence in saying that these men were advocating something for which the ordinary law of the land found no remedy. He had felt, and still felt, that the circumstances under which these men combined to urge the general strike were wrong in the interests of the ordinary population of the country, bad in the interests of the workmen, and dangerous in the interests of the native races of this country. (Hear, hear.)

said that the speech they had just listened to ought, he thought, to be carefully preserved in the memories of hon. members. The House was advised to banish the nine men because of Ferrer, but the hon. and learned member did not even know whether Ferrer was an Italian or a Spaniard. The hon. member had referred to the case of Ferrer. The great offence of this gentleman was that he was a political revolutionary much more than an economic revolutionary. If the hon. member had thought a little more of the facts of the particular case he brought forward, he would not, he (Mr. Fremantle) thought, have given the House the benefit of this illustration.

Two alternatives had been placed before the House. One was the alternative of the Minister, that they should agree to indemnity and also agree to deportation or banishment, or to something not quite banishment, whatever it was that his hon. friend explained. The other alternative had been put forward by the hon. member for Commissioner-street, that they should condemn deportation and also condemn indemnity, at any rate until an election had taken place. It seemed to him that that was not a strong position to take up, and that it was not a defensible position to take up. He did not think they should say that there should be an indemnity, but that it should not be until after the general election. The Ministry had been refusing and had deliberately refused, to give the House a chance of expressing its real opinion on this matter of deportation. They had had to deal with a very difficult question, and the Government had deliberately made it more difficult. It had put two questions into one Bill, and had put two questions into one clause. What this House was asked to judge about in regard to this matter of indemnity was whether there was to be an endless vista of litigation in the country as a result of Martial Law, which, on the whole, a great majority of the House approved. He for one was not prepared to bring about a result of that kind, and therefore he was not prepared to vote against the third reading of the Bill. On the other hand he could not vote for banishment of untried men, so he should not vote for the third reading. He was not ashamed to say that when the division hell rang he should run in company with the right hon. the member for Victoria West. The Minister of Defence was leading the run. The Minister weighed his words, but he had given the impression that he was on the run, for after his tremendous denunciation of these men he now said they were not guilty of a crime. A vague store of a revolution had been put by—do let them know a little more about it; had his hon. friend discovered a draft revolutionary constitution among the dossier? No. There was no thought of any such thing. When his hon. and learned friend opposite (Mr. Robinson) made an entirely new charge against the men, there were loud cheers from the Treasury benches. Apparently they were giving up the idea of a revolution and the running start of the Ministry was being carried a little further—there was no crime and no revolution, but there was a general strike. Was that sufficient reason for deporting men? A general strike had not even yet been declared illegal. A Dutch paper bad been put into his hands which stated that Mr. Poutsma was known in Holland as being one who was entirely opposed to Syndicalist views. There was as much in that statement as in the very vague statement of the Minister.

There was a general impression among the working-classes both in South Africa and outside it that a most foolish and unjust act was being committed in passing this Bill. (Hear, hear.) He would suggest to those whose feelings were outraged that, after all, though Parliament was taking this action, it was not beyond reason that Parliament might put matters right in the near future. Many hon. members were determined to vote with the Government simply because they were anxious to support it. But although they were perfectly prepared to vote for the Government that black was black, they would be prepared to vote with equal readiness that white was white. When they had speeches such as those made by the right hon. gentleman the member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) and the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog), they would see that string influences were at work in the country to undo the harm that was being created at the present time.

It was perfectly evident that the Prime Minister dared not go to the country on this issue alone. We had an election at our gates; there were about five candidates, and not one of them dared say he was in favour of the deportations. Then, despite the most active intervention of the Ministry, it had failed to carry the day at two other elections. The Prime Minister knew perfectly well if he went to the country on the subject of the deportations he would come back, perhaps, but he would sit on the Speaker’s left instead of on his right. He was working in his (Mr. Fremantle’s) constituency with representatives of the gentlemen who sat on the opposite side of the House; he was working with the Unionists against members of his party. He might be strong enough with them to carry the day, but the vast majority of those who supported the Prime Minister at the last election were against his present policy. If the third reading of that Bill were carried a new era would be introduced, and the country would have to answer the question whether it was to have an industrial amnesty or industrial warfare. He (Mr. Fremantle) believed the temper of the country was more inclined to amnesty than, on such frivolous grounds which had induced the Minister to do so, to declare war on almost half the white population. Whereas the Ministry uttered one war-cry, “Enmity against the industrial population,” it would be met by an answering war-cry of “amnesty,” which had led to triumphs in the past, and which he was assured in the early future would lead to triumph at the present time. (Labour cheers.)

said he would like to say, in reply to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Robinson) that it was perfectly logical to say that although the circumstances at Johannesburg were sufficient to justify the declaration of Martial Law, yet when those circumstances had disappeared there was no necessity to commit the illegal act of deportation. If there had been no deportation clause he (Mr. Alexander) would have voted for the Bill, but when Government incorporated such a vicious and dangerous principle that men who did not happen to be born in this country could be spirited away without committing any crime and without being brought to trial and be sentenced to perpetual banishment, that vicious principle destroyed the whole Bill, and seeing that he (Mr. Alexander) could not get rid of it without voting against the whole Bill he would vote against the third reading, as he did against the second reading. The Minister of Defence had committed a political somersault since moving the second reading of the Bill. On the second reading he said there was a great criminal conspiracy—(hear, hear)—and also the crime of high treason.

Go on.

He went on to refer to Matthews and then to quote the case of Mrs. Fitzgerald and Crawford to show how impossible it would be to get a verdict against them at Johannesburg. Continuing, Mr. Alexander said that he (Mr. Alexander) had pointed out that the Roman Dutch Law of treason was ample to deal with the case if the Minister’s evidence were correct. Had the Minister not told them that these nine men endangered the safety of the State? If he could prove that, then they had committed the crime of high treason as defined in the Roman Dutch lawbooks. The principle reason he (Mr. Alexander) rose was to point out how misleading the Minister’s speech was with regard to perpetual banishment. The Minister had forgotten the preamble of the Bill, the last sentence of which said: “And whereas it is further expedient that all of the said persons should be deemed permanently to be undesirable inhabitants of the Union.”

The Minister and the Government told them that those men could come back and yet they were declared permanently undesirable inhabitants of the Union. The Minister had said that a temporary permit might be granted by a Minister. That was not so, as was laid down under clause 4 of the Bill, which stated that notwithstanding though a man might have acquired a domicile in the Union, or that he might otherwise be exempted, he could be treated as a prohibited immigrant. There was a distinct clause put in the Act for that purpose and for the purpose of preventing any Minister applying the provisions of the Immigrants Regulation Act. The Bill stated that all the privileges attaching to a (prohibited immigrant had nothing to do with those nine men. If those nine men came back to the Union they would be considered to be prohibited immigrants, but all the things a prohibited immigrant might get by concession were not open to them. The words, “lawful authority,” referred to by the Minister, applied to the prohibited immigrant, but the Minister had provided in clause 4 that no lawful authority could allow those men to come back. As the law now stood there was no possibility of any of those men coming back. He hoped the Bill would not be read a third time. In time to come it would be looked upon as the worst thing the Union Parliament had ever done. He would look upon it as a blot upon the Statute-book. It was not a liberty document, it was a slavery document.

said the hon. member for Umbilo had quoted the case of Ferrer, and he would remind him that after the death of Ferrer the strongest Ministry of modern Spain fell. Bismarck expelled 900 Socialists: in 1912 the Socialists polled 4,000,000 votes and sent 110 members to the German Parliament. He hoped the motion of the hon. member for Commissioner-street would be carried and that the Minister who had run away from his own Bill in such a disgraceful fashion would face a general election. If the Minister admitted the principle of a strike, he did not see how he could object to the practice. The people in the older Labour movement had never advocated a general strike. The whole tenour of the speeches of the nine men was not in favour of a general strike. How could there be a general strike when the Federation of Trades was told to stand to one side?

As to the word “revolution,” he was losing his esteem for the Minister of Defence. The word had not been used by those men in reference to measures of violence. There was not a word in the speeches of the nine men which could refer to violence in any shape or form, and in this connection he quoted Dr. Clifford, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others who had used the word in the same sense as it had been used by those men. Violence had never been advocated except by 25 per cent. of the Syndicalists in France. The hon. member for Fordsburg had said that if they were straight-out men they would have nothing to do with the Bill. The Labour members knew what the country was doing, and were not afraid of the feeling of the country. He was just wondering why the Minister climbed down the greasy pole so rapidly. He wondered whether somebody had been tapping the wires again and knew what was going on, and knew of the messages that had been received even that morning. He for one would like to know what the Minister’s reasons were. The Minister had referred to arm-chair jurists.” It ill became the Minister who came into the House, read magazine articles, to taunt them with “arm-chair jurists.” Clode, Dicey and Sir John Scott were the authorities Labour men quoted. The Government was the representative of tyranny and oppression, and the movement the Government opposed was the outcome of disappointment, unbearable hardship and disillusion. The leader of the Opposition had said that he would want a detailed statement in every case of the nine men, but had not pressed that demand. If that member was satisfied, he (Mr. Haggar) was not. He had heard no evidence, and they were told that there was none.

The deported men had been deported for committing no crime. An hon. member had stated there was a law in this country for dealing with the matter, but if so the Minister did not know, or did not want to apply it, was afraid to apply it, or he had no case. His principle was to banish men first and create the crime afterwards. He honed the information they had received was not going to be carried out. He did not want to gloat over the matter, but the hint at a boycott was policy of force against force, and if those fellows in England were going to take off their coats and roll up their sleeves, they in South Africa were going to do the same. He did not admit that these men had made an attack on the nation. Their real crime, if they had committed a crime, was to make a unique demand, a demand which the Government did not understand, It was not a demand for larger pay or for shorter time, it was demand for status. They suggested that the railway men themselves should have some voice in the administration, a very unreasonable one from one standpoint. But were not the railways national property, and did not 35,000 people form some part of the nation, and in so far as their interests were menaced should they not have their say. They had been done out of their say, they demanded their status, and, had been magnified into a crime. It was going to be intensified, they were going to insist on it, they were going to enforce it, and they would have their say in the administration of the railways of the country. With regard to the causes the Hon. Minister repudiated his own commission, the judges said there was no trouble until the Kleinfontein management brought in strike breakers. They were told in that report that there was absolutely no trouble at all until the strike breakers were introduced. It was a matter of principle. The question was whether they were going to introduce men into this country to take the opportunity from other men of earning their daily bread, under fair conditions. To bring in strike breakers was an action calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. Another cause was the breaking up of the meeting on the Market Square. It may not have been quite legal, but legality was nothing, at least that was what they had been told in that House. It was not sense to try and break up a meeting like that. Then there was the shooting down, the judges said there was careless shooting. It was a policy of provocation throughout. Then the country felt that the Government had broken their word, they made the solemn promise that they would pass legislation dealing with the causes. Proceeding, Mr. Haggar said that now, after the revolution, as it had been called, the Government could do what they would to stop it but they could not do so. King Canute, in his chair sitting by the sea side, said “Go back you naughty sea! How dare you wash my toes,” but the sea rolled on, there was no chance of stopping that, nor was there any chance of stopping this so-called revolution. It was said that Messrs. Poutsma and Co. were simply minor incidents, straws in the stream which were being swept along, but they had to be removed to prevent a recurrence of these troublous events. It was not the little cloud, but the pressure behind the cloud that would soon bring the storm, and the storm would burst. The trouble, if it was a trouble, would grow, and he would use what energy he could to help to make it grow. Proceeding. Mr. Haggar said that almost every man who had been elected from the railway service was a Trade Unionist. Regulations had been issued on the Reef that no Trade Unionist was to be engaged. It was alleged that there was no enmity against the Trade Unionism, but in every case where a prominent man was being outed he was a Trade Unionist.

Continuing, he said that all that had happened was as if the Prime Minister had said that Socialism could not be allowed in this country, but that he did not aim at the Socialists. What was the explanation of the attitude of these men and the attitude of the hon. members on the cross-benches? It was the outcome of disappointment and hardship. He would not go into the question of banishment except to say that now it was not banishment but only the men had been turned out of the country for ever. The hon. member for Commissioner-street had shown the Minister’s only way out of it. Let the Minister pluck up his manhood, his courage, and his patriotism, and say he had made a mistake. The Minister had said that these men could come back, and if he would tell the House plainly what he meant, they might forgive him. Let him admit that he had made a mistake, or let him, like the famous goat, go into the wilderness and never return.

said that this Bill was of great importance, because they were deliberately asked to set aside certain legal formalities and indemnify the Government for the breach of others. They were asked to indemnify not only for things that had been done under the proclamation of Martial Law, but give the Government carte blanche for everything from the 8th to the 30th January and indemnify the Government against all acts. There had been an amendment from the cross-benches that certain acts should not be indemnified, and he (Mr. Meyler) had moved an additional amendment dealing with the shooting of certain natives and assaults on certain citizens, but this had been ruled out by Mr. Speaker. There was information to show that during January natives were shot in South Africa, and if they were to believe the hon. member for Commissioner-street, a number of people were assaulted. The Minister had a duty to perform in submitting the reports of inquiries into these matters, but the only report they had of the Jagersfontein inquiry was that which appeared in the “Cape Times.” The hon. member quoted the evidence, and pointed out that there was a divergence of opinion as to the necessity for shooting. They were asked to give a full indemnity for the shooting of these natives. The Government asked not only for an indemnity for acts that took place under Martial Law, but others that did not. This was only one instance where no explanation had been furnished, and once that Bill was passed no particulars of the other cases would be forthcoming. The man who kicked another man to death during this period and was charged with murder could escape if he proved that he did so on the authority of certain persons mentioned in the Bill, because the whole onus of proof would lie on the man who was dead. Referring to the banishment, the hon. member said that the Minister had told them that he put these men with the best of intentions under the Immigration Act, but section 21 unfortunately only referred to people born overseas. The Minister told them that these men could come back. Would the Minister tell them which of these men were not as guilty as the rest? Would he allow Mr. Poutsma to come back in time to work up his election campaign? It was common knowledge that Mr. Poutsma was going to contest the Minister’s own constituency. Was the Minister going to bring him back in time to fight that campaign?

said that, as one of the Free Staters who still had some small sense of gratitude, he was glad to hear from the Minister of Defence that the man on behalf of whom he had strongly pleaded, Poutsma, had not committed any crime of any sort. It was of considerable service to those who stood by the man to now learn officially from the Minister that he had not been guilty of any crime whatever. Some of those whom he might perhaps be still allowed to call his hon. friends had said that, although Poutsma had not broken the law, he had committed a crime. He would like to know when an action was a crime and when it was not against the law. When they had argued and maintained from those benches that there had been no crime committed by Poutsma, and that there had been nothing they knew of sufficient to deport the man, they had been jeered at and laughed at by hon. members on that side. Now the Minister had come to the same conclusion that they had come to at an early stage of the debate and that was that Poutsma had not committed a crime. The Minister flattered himself that he bad the country behind him. (Hear, hear.) He did not believe that the Minister thought it for a moment. He had reckoned, and reckoned very rightly, on a very docile House. He had not reckoned on the country to support him. He had reckoned upon keeping on in that House as long as he could keep that docile majority there. This new declaration of his had rather left his loyal supporters suspended in the air. He had heard that they were going happily back to persuade their constituents that this strong Government had got rid of a dangerous set of criminals, and now they were saying to them that they were no criminals at all. They were going to explain that they had successfully banished these men. Now what did the Minister say? He said that they were not banished at all. It seemed to him that the Minister had knocked away the only support that some of these rather unfortunate members had had to comfort them when they came to their constituents. He did not believe for a moment that the Minister would allow these men to come back, if he could; he certainly could not allow them to come back, on his statement that day, under the Act, and he was thinking that the Minister began to realise that he had gone too far even for the obedient Parliament that he sat at the head of at the present time. Mr. Fichardt went on to refer to a remark which had been made that Poutsma was a disciple of a celebrated Anarchist, and to quote from what he described as an aristocratic Dutch newspaper to show that that statement had no foundation. The Minister had gone on to say, in a long indictment, that they had official information from the Dutch authorities as to Mr. Poutsma’s record there, saying he was an undesirable. He would like to ask the Minister to produce that evidence, as he had said that he had it officially. Coming, as Mr. Poutsma did, from the Free State, where he had spent a long time, he (the speaker) demanded from the Minister that he would furnish that information he had received with regard to Mr. Poutsma and with regard to his previous record. The Minister must have that information or he had said something which was not true, and he thought the House had the right to have that information laid before them. He had been prepared to vote for a certain amount of indemnity for the Government, but when they had wrapped up with it that other matter he would vote against the Bill.

said they had heard a good deal about that aristocratic Dutch newspaper. They had heard of it earlier in the day from another member, and now it had evidently got into the hands of the hon. member for Ladybrand, but to that aristocratic publication he preferred Mr. Poutsma’s own words. He would once more read his own words published as responsible editor of the “Railway and Harbour Gazette,” and they would see whether Mr. Poutsma was so innocent of Syndicalism. On the 14th July, Mr. Poutsma issued an article which stated that during the whole of Monday the control of the railways was transferred from the Minister and General Manager to the Railwaymen’s Executive, by whom it was decided what trains should run. The article said that they had heard on Saturday evening that the Government had made a surrender and that it was the railwaymens’ action which had been the deciding factor. Their own Executive, the article went on, and that of the Federated Societies had agreed to merge causes and forces, thus making Labour in South Africa a solid body for the purpose of industrial war. Continuing, Mr. Burton said it would be said that industrial war did not necessarily mean violence. Let them proceed to see to what Mr. Poutsma was referring. The article said that the Government was staggering, and that it would now have to meet one united army, that what they were afraid of was universal simultaneous paralysis of action. That was Mr. Poutsma who was referred to in the aristocratic Dutch paper. The article also referred to the stoppage of all services, and said the Government was up against Syndicalism, not as a theory but as a working proposition and an industrial force. Those were Mr. Poutsma’s words. He went on to say that if the Government were wise and conscientious they would concede to the terms in a fair and reasonable spirit. Those were not the words of gentlemen who desired simply to advance industrial causes by what was known as ordinary industrial fighting. They had also heard a good deal of Mr. Bain. They had heard a great deal about the entirely innocent and noble objects of Mr. Bain. What a shocking thing it was that the Government should have actually taken upon itself the enormous responsibility of deporting a gentleman like Mr. Bain! Mr. Bain had been making a speech in England that day and he would read it to the House. Speaking at Manchester during the week-end Mr. Bain declared that steps were being taken to exhort everyone in the Colonies to make common cause and form a deputation to wait upon the South African Government to show the power of organized labour. If reason did not prevail, Mr. Bain continued, there was another way which could be forced upon workers—that was violence and bloodshed. It would not be the fault of the workers, but it would be infinitely better than tame submission. He (Mr. Burton) commended that to his hon. friend who sat opposite him, who would continue saying the Government had produced no evidence.

What is it worth? Pure clap-trap.

said all he could say was that the attitude of his hon. friend and other members only showed how perfectly true was the remark of the hon. member for Tembuland the other day, that if they only had time they would come to the conclusion that nothing at all had happened— (laughter)—that nothing whatever had taken place, that there was no danger and no necessity for Martial Law. The same claptrap was being uttered before Martial Law. When they deported those gentlemen it was then they said that there was no danger, and that it was only clap-trap. They might call it clap-trap, and the further they receded from that state of affairs, they approached the thing in a new frame of mind. Clap-trap, the hon. member had said.

Quite right. (Hear, hear.)

That was more clap-trap,and those people were the responsible members of the Labour Party, and their words were supposed to influence the minds of well-informed people—to their ruin. They had got people who were listening to that nonsense, and who unfortunately were only too ready to accept it. Mr. Bain had gone on to say it would not be the fault of the workers, but it would be infinitely better than tame submission. He (Mr. Bain) was glad that official Trade Unionism, Socialists, and the Labour Party had agreed to work together and see justice done. If the deportations continued to be unchallenged, it would be one of the most serious blows ever struck at the prestige of the Unionist Party in South Africa who, by supporting General Botha, were sharpening the sword by which they themselves might be beheaded. Continuing, Mr. Burton said his hon. friend the member for Victoria West, had said that the Minister of Finance had completely changed his position. He could not conceive how that might be fairly urged. Whether they were right or wrong, the contention of the Government had been that they could not adequately deal under the existing system of law with the cases of those nine men. They were all agreed as to what those men did. The hon. member for Cape Town particularly had condemned them in rounder terms than the Government had done, but to-day he said it was clap-trap. Whether they were right or wrong, the Government had adopted the attitude from the beginning that they could not adequately apply the laws of this country to those men, and their justification had been based merely upon that fact. It was not a question of a particular crime against the law.

deprecated the course of referring to speeches made subsequent to the deportations. After those deported men had been illegally banished their speeches made under unfortunate conditions were quoted against them. The hon. the Minister had referred to an article written by Mr. Poutsma in the Railway Magazine. The House was perfectly ready to admit that articles written and speeches made by those people were exceedingly dangerous; and in view of those articles and speeches they considered the Government was perfectly justified in proclaiming Martial Law to deal with the situation, but the Government had never been able to draw a distinction which existed between a perfectly legitimate action in declaring Martial Law and that absolutely illegal and unlawful action in deporting these nine men. The Minister of Railways said that if they once agreed to a proclamation of Martial Law they agreed to deportation; it was only a matter of degree. Martial Law dealt with people on a definite basis, but the Government had picked out people to be dealt with in a certain way. They had picked out these people for special punishments, and in that way had acted in a grossly illegal and unlawful way. The Minister of Railways had brought forward a remarkable argument. He said that these people had committed no crime. That was admitted by the Minister of Defence that afternoon, but these men could be excluded on the ground that they were a danger to the State. In the Immigration Law it was definitely laid down on what grounds people could be excluded. What the Ministry had done was to add to those grounds wherever it suited their convenience. He (Mr. Wyndham) thought that that was most unfortunate. He had opposed the Bill from the beginning, and he was going to vote against the third reading today. He could not follow the extraordinary argument that these men were not banished for life. He wished that they were in this country making their speeches, so that they could be laughed at, as they were being laughed at in England. Referring to the rumour that there was to be a sympathetic strike in England, and that South African goods were to be boycotted, he said he thought it was remarkable that any of the members could bring forward an argument like that. If there was one thing which was dead it was the sympathetic strike. He referred to the strike of railwaymen in England in support of the Dublin strikers, which had an unfortunate ending from the men’s point of view, and each one had to pay a fine. The talk about sympathetic strikes would not frighten them in that House, for such things were out of date. In conclusion, he said that the arguments brought forward by the Government did not alter his intention any way to vote against the third reading.

rose at this point, but was asked to resume his seat.

pointed out that the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) had seconded an amendment and the seconder of an amendment could not reserve his speech.

suggested that with the permission of the House the hon. member should be allowed to speak. The debate was an important one and the majority of hon. members had made up their minds which way they were going to vote. The ruling of Mr. Speaker might be liable to misconstruction. On those grounds he suggested that the permission of the House be asked to allow the hon. member to speak.

said there had been no alteration to the rules. The rule he was referring to was the one dealing with amendments. The rule was also that which prevailed in the House of Commons; the whole thing was set out on page 322 of “May.” He could not make a rule for one person and another rule for another person. (Ministerial cheers.) If he allowed the hon. member for Jeppe to address the House now he must allow everyone else to do so. (Ministerial cheers.) Unless the rule was altered by the House he must enforce it.

said he thought they would all agree that it was very unfortunate that his hon. friend would not be allowed to make his speech. He felt sure if Mr. Sneaker could possibly have stretched the rules he would have done so, but at the same time he (Mr. Madeley) agreed that if a rule existed that under certain circumstances a member might not address the House it ought to apply to the whole House or not at all. A most astonishing wind-up to a most astonishing series of debates was now in progress before the House—astonishing by reason of the fact that members had been looking to the Treasury benches for some cases to be made out not only for the deportations, but the whole question of the imposition of Martial Law and the unfortunate acts done under it. Collusion between the Government and the large employers of labour, notably the mine controllers, was the direct cause of what had resulted since. The sole object of this was the crushing out of the Trade Unions, because until they had been crushed out the other side could not gain its object—that was the absolute degradation of white labour and the further exploitation of black and coloured labour at a very cheap rate. The Government was to be congratulated on having two such clever lawyers as the Ministers of Finance and Railways on its side. The former had given a magnificent exhibition of mental acrobatics. Both Ministers told the House that the position they occupied today was the same that they took up at the introduction of the Bill—the attitude of strong men. While still endeavouring to get the House to believe that they had banished the deportees permanently they now said there always had been a possibility of these men coming back provided that the Minister who had ejected them allowed them to do so. But so long as the temporary nature of the punishment depended on the goodwill and administrative genius of the gentlemen on the Treasury benches these men had a very poor hope indeed. It might be that the object of the Minister in twisting the position this afternoon was an eye to its effect on some other part of the world. Mr. Tom Mann was coming out to South Africa, and according to the Minister’s own showing he was an undesirable immigrant. Organised labour in England, on the Continent, and in Australia had its eye on South Africa, and the Minister knew it. The proof that South Africa was trembling was found in the fact that hon. members on the Government benches were turning mental somersaults. If Mr. Tom Mann were not allowed to land here a boycott would be placed on South African products, and that was what was the matter with the Minister this afternoon. The Minister of Defence had brought forward this piece of evidence in favour of the deportation and his contention that a revolution had been embarked upon—that Mr. Waterston had made a speech in England in which he said that South Africa was close to a real revolution. It might be true. But whether Mr. Waterston had stated what he knew to be a fact or not, if we were close to a revolution the fault rested with the Government. (Hear, hear.)

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

continuing his speech, said that when the House rose he was congratulating the Minister of Finance on having found a supporter on his side in the person of the Minister of Railways. It was very nearly time that the individual who had been the arch cause of the trouble in January should have something to say on the trouble that arose out of his actions. The House and the country had not sufficiently investigated the action of the Minister of Railways, and he was prepared to state, without fear of contradiction, that the Minister of Railways was the cause of the whole of the trouble in January, and it was due to the fact that he wanted to cover up the financial difficulties of his administration that he considered this gigantic political crime of forcing on this country industrial trouble. It must be confessed that the Minister of Railways and Harbours had made an unholy mess of the finances of the railway administration, and he could not understand how hon. members like the hon. member for Umlazi had not closely investigated the finances of that department. Here they paid a Railway Board £6,000 a year a Railway Minister £2,500, and over and above all that, the real sinister figure behind the scenes, the General Manager, who got £3,000 a year. That was £12,000 a year to have the finances of the railway administration muddled. Instead of setting their brains to work to do justice to the men and to do what was best in the interests of the country they placed their brains at the disposal of others for the pure purpose of covering up their tracks. Now, the House was asked to give indemnity for trouble which was directly due to their own crass ignorance of facts, and then the Minister of Defence had the impudence, he might even say the impertinence, after they had been under the lash for weeks, to get up and say that it was not necessary for him to make out a case against these men. Having done that he quoted weekend speeches of the deportees to show why they should have been deported.

pointed out that the hon. member’s arguments did not apply to the third reading of the Bill at all. (Ministerial cheers.)

Sir—

The hon. member must keep to the rules of the House.

said that the charge against these men was that they were Syndicalists. The Minister of Railways and Harbours got up to prove that Mr. Poutsma was a Syndicalist. He (Mr. Madeley) said there were a good many Syndicalists in that country against whom the Government did not act.

said he must inform the hon. member again that he must keep to the third reading of the Bill.

was understood to make some remark with reference to Syndicalism when

said he must inform the hon. member that he must not continue that argument.

said that the crime with which Mr. Poutsma and others were charged was Syndicalism and nothing else. The point was that they advised a general strike, and hon. members in that House had said that a general strike was a crime. Since when had a general strike become a crime? Hon. members thought that Trade Unionism was advantageous. Was it not within the right of every member of the Trade Unions who resolved to strike at any given time? If the general strike were a crime, if the general strike which the Government feared were the real reason for calling out the Defence Force and calling out the burghers, he asked the Minister of Defence and the Ministry generally why did they not, four years ago, when the Federation of Trades was called into existence, oppose it on the ground of its illegality? Because the Federation of Trades or the representatives of Trade Unions on the Federation had acted absolutely within their constitution in advising or in taking a ballot from the various Unions as to whether they should or should not have a general strike.

Quite correct.

Quite wrong.

It is perfectly correct. These men did not come up with the object of preventing white men from winning a strike. One man asked the manager of a certain mine, “Where are the natives?” The manager said,“What natives?” The man replied, “The natives who have risen.” He was then told that he was out to suppress the white Kafirs. This man went to his commandant and he handed in his bandolier and rifle and said he was not going to fight under those circumstances. He was sent to prison.

Who was the commandant?

The hon. member can ask his hon. leader the Minister of Defence who was the commandant and who was the individual.

I. don’t think you can prove what you say.

I am quite prepared to believe that the hon. member cannot get the information any more than we can. He is prepared to swallow the pill that is thrust down his throat. Proceeding, Mr. Madeley said the Minister of Railways had stated that the men who had been deported and, by inference, hon. members who were sitting on the cross-benches, had led these railway workers and other workers to their ruin. Could they or the people who had been deported sack these men? After all, that was the real test. They were quite unable to sack them, but the Minister of Railways could and did. All over this country between 400 and 500 men on the railway had been discharged. That was a sufficient answer to the hypocritical statement of the Minister that Trade Unions were not being attacked by the powers that be.

said that the hon. member must bear in mind that the next order dealt with the railways.

I beg your pardon. I lost sight of that.

This is not a question of the employment of coloured labour. We are dealing with the third reading of the Indemnity Bill. If the hon. member persists, I shall have to ask him to resume his seat. (Ministerial cheers.)

I am not anxious to flout your ruling, Mr. Speaker, for one minute, but I want to point out the result of the Government’s action in January. He went on to say that they had been charged, and the men who had been deported had been charged, with the dismissal of men. How hollow that charge was could be proved by merely quoting two or three figures well within the knowledge of the House. No fewer than 8,000 men were out of work, to their certain knowledge last year. They applied for situations on the railways. In Cape Town 2,750 were not placed at the end of last year. Dealing with the events of July last, Mr. Madeley declared that the burnings that took place, both in Boksburg and Benoni, were the direct result of the Government’s action on the Market Square on the 4th July. He quoted from the evidence of Major Kirkpatrick, who was in command of the police in the Boksburg and Benoni district, in support of this view. It must, he urged, be obvious to any but those who are anxious not to believe, that the whole cause of the trouble in July and in January was the direct outcome of direct action on the part of the Government. The Government were the Syndicalists; they owned and controlled everything, together with their friends the mine-owners, the financiers of this country, who owned and controlled this country, if he might put it so, body and soul. They were the real Syndicalists, and they were shaping the destinies of this country to their own ends by filling their own pockets to the detriment of everybody else concerned.

seconded the further amendment. He said that Parliament did not represent the feelings of the country, not withstanding what the Minister had said. All through the various stages of the Bill they had been anxiously waiting for some word from the Minister of Finance. They had heard the Minister’s statement that day on the third reading, and his friends must have felt exceedingly sorry for him. If his original indictment was thin and watery, what must be said of his reply to all the criticism that had been levelled against him? The only further evidence was contained in reports of those nine men’s speeches. The other piece of evidence was an extract from Mr. Waterston’s speech in London. The Minister had admitted that Mr. Poutsma was guilty of no crime, yet he went on to say that Mr. Poutsma was able to bring about a social revolution. The Minister gave him credit for more power than he (Mr. Andrews) was prepared to do. He was only sorry Mr. Poutsma was not able to bring about a social revolution. That was what they were fighting for. The Minister of Railways had proceeded to tear to pieces a statement made by the hon. member for Ladybrand, who had quoted from a Holland paper. This paper distinctly said that Mr. Poutsma, throughout his public career in Holland was against Syndicalism. The Minister had read an article from the “'Railway and Harbour Gazette.” He (Mr. Andrews) submitted that that had nothing to do with the question. The Minister of Defence had made a strong point of the fact that Mr. Poutsma was a revolutionary leader in Holland and had been put in gaol. The “Railway and Harbour Gazette” did not enter into that point.

Proceeding, the hon. member said that nobody was disposed to argue that this country had not gone through troublous times, but it was not alone in that. Every State in Europe had gone through more troublous times many times repeated. What was there unprecedented in the situation generally? The railwaymen having an organisation, their Secretary being flouted by the Administration, being full of grievances, and having asked that those grievances be redressed by every conceivable method, could get no satisfaction, and tried a new course. They joined up in large numbers in their industrial organisation, and they decided, rightly or wrongly, to try the method of a strike of railwaymen. The Minister called that an unprecedented situation. In this country they had had a strike of railwaymen before, not embracing all the railwaymen, but they had one or two strikes, and this was only a railway strike on a larger scale. But it sank into insignificance, compared with railway strikes in America and in Great Britain and Australia. It was a common or garden railway strike, and the Minister had dealt with it as an unprecedented situation. It was only that as far as he was concerned; that was why he was frightened. If he had to reply he would say it was complicated by the Federation taking it in hand. The Federation was a Transvaal body, and could only call a sympathetic strike in the Transvaal. The situation was brought about entirely by the Government. It was unprecedented when the police broke up that meeting on the Market-square at Johannesburg and when the people were slaughtered on the 5th July. That was how the unprecedented situation was created; and in January when the general strike was declared they created an unprecedented situation by declaring Martial Law and calling out 70,000 armed men, ostensibly to prevent disorder. But there was no need for that enormous force to put down any possible disorder that might have arisen. The whole of the leaders of the men beforehand had been careful to warn the workers when the strike took place against any violence. It was not the 70,000 troops the Minister had to thank, but the deportees, and many who were not deported, who used their influence before the strike and during the strike to prevent breaches of the law.

The hon. Minister had been very emphatic in pointing out that the Government had no intention of touching Trade Unionism. Did he fear the criticism of the Trade Unions in Europe? They were not as well-informed as the hon. Minister as to what people in Great Britain and Europe were thinking of his conduct, for they had no better information than the local Press.

Proceeding, Mr. Andrews said that Martial Law was brought into service to smash the Federation and destroy Trade Unionism, at any rate for a time. There was no doubt that for a time the hon. Minister had dealt Trade Unionism a blow. They could not deport men and victimise officials without dealing it a blow. But it was being invigorated, and it would come up again in due course smiling like a boxer, ready to have another round with the Minister when he was ready. To use another simile, the hon. Minister might flatter himself he had thrown a dam across a stream The stream was diverted to another course, but that tremendous energy and that vast enthusiasm that had frightened the Minister during the past six months was not dead. He had dammed the stream in one direction, but it was finding new channels. It was finding a political channel, and perhaps that channel would make itself more disagreeable to the Minister because it could not be dealt with by 70,000 armed troops, as they had dealt with the industrial movement. During the afternoon the hon. Minister had said something about letting society perish but do not let Trade Unions. Every individual member using the term “society” used it in a different way. Some looked upon it as that class of people who dressed for dinner, others believed that the State or society or the public were the well-to-do, the land-owning, mining, commercial, and professional classes. That constituted another idea of the country and the State, Could hon. members deny that was at the back of their heads when they spoke of public opinion? It was not the opinion of 26,000 railwaymen they thought of, or 20 to 30 thousand miners, or 100 thousand or so clerks and warehousemen, and so on; that was not society; that was not the State. There was no use for them by the hon. members of that House except when the Defence Force was required, and then they were most loyal and valuable men. But society would never perish from the growing strength of Trade Unionism—the greater the strength of Trade Unionism the better for the State and more secure the foundation the State would be when the workers became educated and organised and strong enough to fight their battles on an equality with those who had for so many years exploited them. That might be bad for some people in South Africa, but not for the State.

said that the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Madeley) had said that Pietermaritzburg had given its answer to the Government, but he challenged that, and would state as briefly as possible what the true position was. The Chairman of the Provincial Council had issued an appeal in the Press calling upon loyal citizens to unite with him and form a force for the protection of the town. The Mayor had taken exception to this because he thought that the action of the chairman of the Provincial Council had been ill-advised, and was liable to produce irritation rather than to alleviate it. The discussion had become somewhat heated between the two gentlemen, and in the end the Mayor had issued a challenge to the chairman of the Provincial Council and said that he would leave it to the public of Maritzburg to decide between them. In no way had the action of the Government been challenged. The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Madeley) had deliberately tried to deceive the House in thinking that that election result was a great victory for Labour in Pietermaritzburg. As to the hon. member for Weenen, the hon. member’s own constituents had given their answer.

What about yours?

said that the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman), in his speech the other day, had referred to the Minister of Defence hunting Mr. Poutsma and his friends. They, on that side of the House, believed that the Minister of Defence had gone hunting the enemies of society. (Cheers.) What sort of a faction had the right hon. gentleman been leading? They were hunting places for power while the Minister was hunting the enemies of the country. (Ministerial cheers.) He would like to join in the appeal of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth. An attempt was being made by hon. members on the cross-benches to show that that was an attempt by the Government and its followers on that side and the other side of the House to crush Trade Unionism. That was indeed a red herring drawn across the trail, and hon. members on the cross-benches would find that the Government was in no way opposed to Trade Unionism or the organization of Labour, but that it was opposed to Syndicalism and revolution. (Hear, hear.) (The hon. member was practically inaudible at times.)

said it had not been his intention to speak, but he had felt compelled to do so owing to the provocative attitude which had been taken up by the hon. member for Ladybrand, who had tried to make himself appear as the champion of the people of the Free State. It seemed as if the hon. member could not forget him (the Minister), and the probable reason for that was that the hon. member was disappointed. It had been stated that election speeches were now being made in the House, and if so, no one had been more guilty of doing that than the hon. member for Ladybrand. Nor was it any wonder. The hon. member was in a position to live on his means, and during the recess he had nothing else to occupy him than to address meetings. At one of those meetings the hon. member had stated that he (the speaker) had given him wrong information, but although the hon. member controlled a newspaper in Bloemfontein, not a single word of the fact appeared to have been mentioned in it. But, then, no one took the hon. member seriously—not even his leader, the hon. member for Smithfield, who had described him as superficial. The Government had been many times told what its duty was, but it was the speaker’s opinion that the hon. member for Ladybrand had very little understanding of his own duty as a representative of his people. The hon. member had fixed his eye on nothing else but the need for keeping his seat. The speaker had a higher idea of the duties of a representative of the public than that. In a matter such as that where the safety of the community was at stake they were not entitled to jest, and they ought to examine what the results of what was being done there were likely to be. They ought to inquire whether the Government had acted rightly. The hon. member for Ladybrand would have rejoiced if the Government had failed in its attempts to suppress the disturbances. He was seeking merely for a stick with which to beat the Government, let the results be what they might. Whatever opinion an hon. member might hold of the Government, if that Government produced something good it was entitled to support. The public at large would give their decision on that point, and it was to be hoped that the people of the Free State would examine what was said and done there. The public would then come to know that the hon. member for Ladybrand had made out the farmer-members of the Free State as sheep-heads (schaapskoppen). The speaker had known the hon. member for Ladybrand for a long time, and had, in fact, sat on the same school benches with him. Even in those days the hon. member had no sort of respect for his comrades who came from the country districts. He was very clever in throwing mud. He had pleaded well for his friend Poutsma. The speaker regretted that the right hon. member for Victoria West, who was called the Father of the House, and for whom he personally felt the greatest respect, had not taken a course which would have won for him a still higher measure of esteem in the House. It was very easy to say now that Poutsma had not committed a criminal act, but that was not the question. The question was whether Poutsma and the other men who had been deported were dangerous to South Africa. Everybody would be bound to acknowledge that much of what had taken place in July was the result of the actions of the leaders who had been sent away. The leaders kept themselves well in the background then, but that was solely in order to prevent the Government getting a hold on them. They allowed their followers to do the dirty work. It was a very easy thing to say that it was the object of the Government to destroy the Trade Unions, but they were not told what the object of those Trade Unions was, nor was it said what means were to be employed in order to attain their objects. No, the Government were blamed for all that had taken place in July. Fortunately the Government had learnt a lesson in January last. The Government were attacked for that, but would they have been applauded if they had given a free rein to Syndicalism? Those who were now attacking the Government would have been the first in such a case to throw stones. The right hon. member for Victoria West had made repeated quotations from the Book of Books, but when Cain killed Abel there was no punishment for murder on the statute books, and it was not till the time of Moses that that was provided. But still Cain was deported. (Laughter.)

The speaker went on to say that he felt sorry for the members of the Labour Party, and said they deserved praise for the manner in which they had defended their cause. They had compelled the admiration of the whole House. He felt compassion, however, for hon. members who sat on the Government side of the House and had yet attacked the Government. The hon. member for Ladybrand had abandoned the Government, and he (the speaker) would think it a manly action of the hon. member if he crossed over and sat on the other side of the House. The action of the hon. member in trying to create strife in the ranks of his party was pusillanimous and bad. If he were a man he would cross over to the Labour Party, and it was much to be hoped that the country would take note of what had been taking place. As a representative of the public it was not his (the speaker’s) business to win votes or strive for popularity, but to do his duty to the people and the country. (Ministerial cheers.)

said that members having to decide such an important question should keep out all personal matters and personal quarrels, and he hoped they would not allow any personal quarrel to interfere with their judgment in a matter of that kind. He did not intend to speak until the hon. member for George Town made his appeal, and he only rose after that appeal in order to say a few words. On the second reading debate he (Mr. Oliver) had said that he would vote in favour of the Government on the first three clauses of the Bill. He gave his reasons why he supported the Government—his own experiences at Johannesburg on the 4th and 5th July—and said that he thought the Government was perfectly justified in calling out the Defence Force, proclaiming Martial Law, and taking steps they did under Martial Law. He said it was his opinion that after the acts of violence committed during July that it was the intention of those people to carry out these things on a larger scale in January if the Government had not been prepared and prevented them carrying out their plans. Up to that point he was convinced that the Government had the support of the greater portion of the people of this country, and a large portion of the working class—that was if they had left off at that point. He believed that a great number of workers who were not only threatened but were brought out of their work against their will, would have supported the Government in giving them protection and preventing them from being brought out of their work and compelled to lay down their tools when they had no grievance whatever.

He believed the Government had made a mistake. The Leader of the Opposition had stated that in his opinion, when the Government carried out the deportation of these nine men they committed a great blunder. That statement had been repeated by a number of hon. members. He agreed with them. Up to that time these so-called leaders of the strike were discredited in the eyes of their own people. They had led them into a strike without any just grievances, without any just complaint. Many of these men had lost their employment. If the Government had wanted to assist the Labour movement, if they had intended to strengthen the position of these nine men and the other leaders of the Labour Party, in his opinion they could not have acted better than they did in deporting these men. He might be asked if he were in favour of these men coming back. He said he was not anxious for these men to come back, but after hearing the evidence on both sides, after placing himself in the position of a juryman and listening attentively to the debate on the fourth clause, after hearing the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Railways, and others who had supported them, after listening to the hon. member for Harbour, the hon. member for Fordsburg, and other legal lights in that House, he had come to the conclusion that the Government had made a great mistake, that they blundered, and that they assisted the very people whom they wanted to crush. They were told that these men had a conspiracy against the Government. They had had certain speeches read out, inflammatory speeches, very objectionable speeches, he admitted, but the Minister of Defence had not been able to lay his finger upon one act of violence that these men had committed, in fact, he had come forward that day and told them that these men had committed no crime. The Minister of Railways, he believed, made the same statement, at any rate, that some of them had committed no crime.

His (Mr. Oliver’s) contention on the second reading was that if these men had broken the law they should be judged by the law, that if they had committed any crime they should be punished for that crime. He had been told that certain laws were in force in the Transvaal that would have enabled these men to be dealt with. He maintained that if they had broken the Peace Preservation Act and had been convicted before any tribunal, even under Martial Law, they should have been sentenced for any crime they had committed. He said that if they had not committed a crime, and if they had not broken the laws of the country, the Government were not justified in breaking the law and convicting these men, untried and unheard, many of them on the reports of newspapers, without giving the men a chance of making their defence or seeing their legal advisers, or stating their case before anyone prior to their deportation. He said they had not half done their business if their desire were to crush this movement in that way, because, instead of deporting nine men, they should have deported 90 men or more. What had they done? He contended that, instead of crushing the movement, they had given these men, who, when they went to the Ministry in January last, represented themselves to be delegates of the railwaymen, without knowing the views of the great bulk of the railwaymen, they had by this deportation, made them agents throughout the world and missionaries of this cause. They had given the working-class of this country a just grievance, a complaint, something that would be a battle-cry to them that they might go forth, not only in this country, but all over the world, a battle-cry of injustice to British subjects.

If they had been brought back to this country he did not think they would have done any harm at all, but by their speeches in England they were influencing thousands and millions of the working-classes in all parts of Europe, and he said that, as a matter of tactics, it would have been better to have left these nine men in this country than to deport them and give them a battle-cry. The Minister of Defence had stated that he was compelled to deport these men, because he had no law in this country to deal with Syndicalism or the general strike. A new disease was brought out, and they had no means of meeting it. What was the duty of this Parliament, if that were the case? The Minister of Defence stated that he deported these men a few days before Parliament met, “before the fires had burned down.” He took it that that meant while passions were running high. It had already been stated that that was not a time to judge a thing. They were sitting in that House six weeks after the event, in calm deliberation as a legislative body, to hear the evidence for the prosecution, and he had almost said the defence, but they were not asked to hear the defence, they were not to hear the defence, and then they as jurymen were to give a verdict on the evidence laid before them. The fires had now burned down, and they, as responsible men representing the people of this country, were asked in a solemn and deliberative assembly, while the great bulk of them acknowledged that it was a blunder and that a mistake had been made, not only to Confirm it, but to perpetuate it. The Government had already to a certain extent climbed down. Now, in the preamble they had used certain words stating that this punishment for a so-called crime should only apply to one section of the community, that was to those who were born oversea, and that it should not apply to anyone, though he had committed the same crime, who was born in this country. That afternoon he heard and he had been informed that they had not been banished for ever, that they could come back at the pleasure of the Government. He had since then looked through the Immigration Act. What did he find? Any names they added to that or any new disability that they added would only affect men born oversea; it was not going to affect men born in this country. If one of these men out of the nine had been South African born they would have had this position, that they could not have deported him, or, if they had sought to place this disability upon him, under the Immigration Act, it would not have applied to him, so that, although they removed these words from the preamble, the effect was exactly the same.

What about the meeting?

There was a meeting, but it was not unanimous.

A thousand men.

Yes; but two-thirds of my constituents were not present at that meeting.

said he believed the great proportion of people in this country thought a mistake had been made. If a mistake had been made it was their duty to see that it was put right. He had already voted for an amendment that clause 4 be deleted. If he voted for the Bill he would have voted against something he had already voted for. The only way out of it was not to vote at all. He was sorry the Government had not dealt with the acts under Martial Law in a separate Bill.

said that those who had been speaking on the Bill had created a bad precedent by speaking on a third reading. If he had taken a lead from two of his late colleagues he would have opposed the measure. Those two gentlemen appeared to be adopting as a principle that they must oppose everything which was introduced by the Government to which they had belonged. He supported the Government wholeheartedly for the action they had taken during January. There was one point that had been lost sight of, and that was the great inconvenience that the citizen forces of the country had been put to owing to the disturbances.

He thought they had not realised the hardships and inconveniences that were suffered by those men under arms. Thousands of men in Natal had suffered heavily through being called out at that time of year. Hundreds of pounds had been lost by those men who had to turn out owing to the misbehaviour of the people the Labour Party were supposed to represent. As a man having a fatherly interest in the workmen of this country he would say that every time they struck they let in more black men and forced out more white men.

You use coolies.

said that every time there was a strike the white men suffered and they let in the black man.

said he had really felt it was time somebody from that side of the House made some remarks on the Bill. He quite agreed that the fate of the country was in the hands of the House. As a member he accepted the responsibility. It was the duty of every member to look at the matter from the point of view of the serious position he held as a member of the House. Certain members had said that the circumstances of the country were such that the Government had no alternative but to declare Martial Law, that the Government was right in deporting the men, and yet they said they could not go with the Government as far as the banishment were concerned. A great argument had been that no evidence had been produced to show that the men were guilty of any crime. In the minds of every member of that House they were convinced that the men were guilty of abusing their privileges as citizens and that they had become a social danger. He (the speaker) accepted it that there was no crime on the Statute-book that those men could be charged with. South Africa had to make new precedents, and they had fit this action according to circumstances. The whole debate had convinced him of the keen insight the Minister of Finance had into human nature when he said the deportations were necessary before the “fires had cooled down.” The debate on this Bill was being used for making extraordinary speeches. That debate had been used as an electioneering campaign. If those gentlemen had not been deported what a beautiful debate there would have been when the fires had burned down. He was convinced that the only step open to the Government was to deport these men, but he sincerely regretted that the matter had been made an electioneering campaign. The industrial welfare of the country could not be overlooked, but they were right in carrying out that legislation. There had been all kinds of threats, and there were now threats as to what would happen if the agitator who was coming out was not admitted. But this country was not going to be threatened. There were interests in the country that demanded all their attention, and they were not going to have one section domineering over other sections. They must keep every white man in this country they could get, and if they were going to commence to encourage their poor whites to habits of industry with leading them to believe that the employers were their dangerous enemies it was striking a blow to this country that was not compensated for by deporting a few extremists.

said he would not have spoken but for the fact that the Minister of Lands had made an unnecessary attack on the hon. member for Ladybrand and other hon. members who did not happen to hold the same views. He regretted that the Minister of Lands had charged the hon. member with acting like a schoolboy. Why, instead of that, did not the Minister go to his constituents and find out what their opinions were? The hon. member for Vrededorp would do much better to keep silent, and then he would not advertise his ignorance so much. He might do very well as an elder of the church, but not as a politician. It was not for the Minister of Lands to make accusations, as he himself had personal experience of running away. The speaker and others had supported the Government in preserving order and peace in the country, and so far as patriotism was concerned he felt that he did not need to stand an inch behind anybody else. He had personally offered to help the Government. He was able to vote in favour of giving indemnity, but not for such an unjust action as banishment without trial. Those two issues had been raised in one Bill, and it was therefore very difficult for him and some other hon. members to vote for the Bill as a whole. The hon. member for Caledon seemed to be afraid of everything, and to be filled with alarm. It was impossible for him (the speaker) to vote for all these things and to do so in accordance with his convictions. The Minister of Lands had no right to reproach the speaker with cowardice in running away, and his remarks in regard to the hon. member for Ladybrand were entirely out of place and unworthy of a Minister. If he wanted to attack the hon. member in that way he should return to the school benches. The Minister had found it necessary to go back to prehistoric times and to quote the case of Cain as a precedent. The Minister had further thought it necessary to read the speaker a lesson on the subject of patriotism, but he ventured to say that without that he would know his duty under all circumstances, and be able to carry it out, and he hoped he would be able to continue to do so The difference between him and the Minister was that he had to find his own way whilst the Minister blindly followed the Prime Minister. The speaker went on to say that he had recently put a question to the Minister in connection with the calling to arms of the national reserves in Jacobsdal and other districts, but had received no information in reply. He thought that the plea of the hon. member for Umvoti was not of sufficient interest to call for an answer. For acts done in order to secure the maintenance of peace and order the Government could rely on his vote, though he regretted that the Government had failed to take more energetic measures in June and July in order to prevent further disturbances. In those times the Government had been guilty of negligence, though the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence were not primarily responsible. The speaker was opposed to banishment and to condemnation without trial. They had made martyrs of those people, who were now busy going about in England in order to do mischief to South Africa. They ought to have kept the men under lock and key or sent them before a court-martial.

said that one thing which had abundantly become clear during the course of that debate, if the Minister was right in saying the country was behind him, was that he was right in the sense that they would use their utmost efforts to turn him out of office, but in no other sense was the country behind the Government. He wanted to show the House how impossible it was for hon. members to vote for that Bill and defend their attitude if they had to appeal to the electorate. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth had said that there must be channels for the workers by which their grievances could be redressed, and the hon. members for Pietermaritzburg, North, and for Clanwilliam had re-echoed that, but in that Bill they had it stated in the preamble that “notwithstanding that provision existed by law whereby any grievances which wage-earners alleged to exist might be considered and redressed. …” It was on a par with the way in which hon. members tried to defend their action —hon. members who would vote for that Bill.

They on the cross-benches had little to reproach themselves with on the attitude they had taken over the Bill. They did not withdraw one single word they had said that at the beginning of January Government decided to strangle this growing Labour movement. The Minister of Defence, in his wonderful speech this afternoon, said there was no such intention, and the Minister of Railways was reduced to quoting some speeches made in England by the deported men. The Labour members did not rely on such flimsy evidence as that. They became so accustomed to the wholehearted support of the Government by the Opposition that they looked to the Unionist Press for hints which would enable them to see the inwardness of the Government’s movements. The official Press here they knew, and they also had little bits from the “Transvaal Leader” explaining the Government’s policy. The hon. member then quoted from the Johannesburg “Star” of January 6, which referred to the Government’s arrangements for dealing with a general strike, arrangements which it was expected might “result in the restoration of the Government’s prestige.” The Government, however, signally failed, and it took a course the consequences of which we were far from seeing the end. It was not the deportations that were objected to, for they differed in degree, but not one whit in kind, from all the other lawless actions of the Government. Compared with the Minister’s second reading speech, his third reading speech reminded one of the month of March, which came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. Something had occurred, and this afternoon’s discussion was a fitting commentary on the position. The Government had given away its own case, and its defenders had asked it to introduce legislation providing a legitimate way for men getting their grievances redressed.

The Government’s sin was this—it tried to govern by force, and such a policy was merely an admission that it was unfit to govern the country at all. No country could permanently be governed by force, and if the Government persisted in its endeavours it meant that it would introduce still greater evils.

said it was an excellent idea that the Bill should be read a third time this day six months, for then the House would be able to form a reasonable judgment. The Minister of Lands, after flinging his bricks, had run away. After his speech there was nothing to be said, and confidence in South Africa should fully be restored. If the Minister of Finance would take a suggestion from a humble back-bencher, he (Mr. Fichardt) would suggest that confidence having thus been restored by this learned pronouncement, the Minister of Finance might try another loan. The speech made by the Minister of Lands ought not to be lost, and it might either be posted up on placards throughout the Union or be issued in pamphlet form under the title “The Great Conspiracy: Irrefutable Proof by the Minister of Lands”. He (Mr. Fichardt) wanted to refer particularly to the statement the Minister had made when he said that he (Mr. Fichardt) had been challenged at Ladybrand to support a statement he had made somewhere or other. He (Mr. Fichardt) asked the Minister to say where, for he did not remember being asked at Ladybrand any question of policy which he was not able to answer. Then the Minister charged him (Mr. Fichardt) with this crime—that the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) had stated that he was superficial. He (Mr. Fichardt) would throw a challenge out to the Minister who bad charged him with not representing the wishes of people outside. He (Mr. Fichardt) would resign his seat if the Minister of Lands would resign his, and they would both contest the Minister’s constituency, and if he (Mr. Fichardt) were not very much mistaken the Prime Minister would have to do another swopping of portfolios in order to find another portfolie for—anybody on the Government’s side of the House.

The Minister went on to accuse him—

What has all this got to do with the third reading? The hon. member has already made a long speech. I thought he was going to throw some light on this six months’ amendment, but I have not heard a word—

The Minister attacked me, sir.

said that the hon. member must confine himself to the amendment.

Have I not the right to reply to a personal attack?

The hon. member must confine himself to the amendment. He can make a remark in passing, but he can’t devote the whole of his speech to the subject.

The Minister devoted the whole of his speech to me, sir.

The hon. member must have misunderstood the Minister.

in conclusion, said he thought he would be carrying out the wishes of his constituents if he voted for the amendment that the Bill be read that day six months. Such a measure would be a blot on the Statute-book.

said that after the speech from the Minister of Lands he felt bound to say something. The Minister had attacked hon. members who had never done anything to obstruct him, and such a speech was not worthy of a Minister. He had attacked the hon. member for Ladybrand and charged him with the throwing of mud. That was what the Minister of Lands himself did. He threw mud at hon. members who had done him no harm, and described as cowardly the action of those who refused to vote. But the bravery of the Minister was shown by the fact that although he had called a meeting together on three or four occasions he had omitted to attend any of them. Last year the hon. member had thrown mud at the hon. member for Smithfield, although the hon. member had done him no evil, and now he was doing the same thing to other hon. members. As a Minister he ought to adopt a worthier attitude.

said that the hon. member should keep to the subject of the motion.

went on to say that he had supported the Government during the time of the strike, and had hoped that the Government would have been able to remove some of his difficulties for him. It was impossible for him to agree to the banishment of persons without a trial. Such a thing had never before been done, even the meanest criminal being entitled to a hearing. The Minister told them that the deported men were great criminals, and if so, that was all the more reason why they should be tried before they were punished. But the Government had not done that. They had banished the nine men, and now they asked an indemnity for their action. That was not in accordance with the dignity of the House, and he could never vote for it. In the name of justice he could not vote for it, and he should therefore refrain altogether from voting. The force of his arguments would afterwards be seen, and although he and his friends were in the minority, they intended to stand up for justice

said he could not agree with any of the amendments. South Africa had never yet passed through such a dangerous time as that of January last. They had been discussing the different methods of applying Martial Law; it was asserted that the Government had not applied it properly, and comparisons had been made. But in his mind those comparisons amounted to nothing, as it was impossible to compare the Indemnity Act of 1902 with the present Bill. In January they had to deal with an internal revolution, and the men who had been deported were its cause, and Martial Law had been pronounced for the purpose of preventing strife and the shedding of blood. His instructions, therefore, were to give his support to the Government. The roots of Syndicalism would have to be eradicated. Syndicalism would have to be kept outside South Africa, or else it would do as much evil to the country as the “lidjeskaktus” did. The Labour members were opposed to the Government because they were not prepared when the Government took action, and now they were thinking out all sorts of plans in order to blacken the Government. They even wanted to make impossible the trade in England with South African goods. That would not do very much good, not even for the workman himself. The Labour members wrongly imagined that they were representing the workingmen. He did not wish to say much about his love for the country and people, and preferred to leave that to the judgment of the people. He did not propose, therefore, to take much notice of the attack by the hon. member for Boshof. That attack was undeserved. The speaker’s constituents supported the action of the Government.

said there had been much criticism of the Government’s policy in regard to the measure before the House. It had been difficult to follow the arguments of some of the hon. members. The Government was condemned for not taking action in July, and when they took action in January they were again condemned. Some members said they would condone the action of the Government and others said it had been wrong to give effect to what Martial Law had produced. They all knew what they had had to face in that problem of industrial unrest. If they had had only to deal with Europeans the problem would not have been so difficult, and they would have been prepared to condemn the deportation of those men. He was surprised that some of the older race had condemned the Government because those men had not been tried. To his mind it was quite as constitutional as Martial Law to deport them. The Government had been right in declaring Martial Law and quite right in cutting away that cancerous growth. He, for one, entirely condoned their action. He was so sorry their hon. friends on the cross benches were still daily advocating that new doctrine they had brought into the country They-could not reason away that each of those efforts put forward by them was diminishing the employment of white labour. They wanted to make this a white man’s country, but there was the native problem before them, and the hon. members on the cross-benches did not consider that point of view at all. They would do well to spend a little of their time to go into the country amongst the agriculturists. But they did not want to go into the country and see what harm they were doing by agitating the workers. They all had grave responsibilities, but it seemed as if the hon. members on the cross-benches were all right and everybody else was wrong. They could not by their methods obtain a better position for the working-men of this country. He (the speaker) would be very sorry if the Government should come to the House and say they were not prepared to protect men who wanted to work, yet no man should be forced to work if he remained within the limits of the law. He was astonished at the position taken up by the hon. members who said they could vote for the first portion of the Bill, condoning all that the Government had done, and then refuse to go the length of trying to prevent a reaction by the sending of those nine men away. Speeches had been made in that House that would stir up the feeling of the people and do more harm than good. He fully believed that there were serious grievances between the employers and the employees on the Rand, and he would say that the employers were as much to blame as the employees.

Why not deport them?

went on to say that the hon. member for Barberton had said they must get to the root cause they knew what the root cause was, and that was to get the employer to see matters from the same point of view as the employee, and vice versa. It was the way in which the employees and the employers on the Rand had acted towards each other which had caused the trouble, and it had spread to other parts of the country. It was now said by Labour hon. members that it was the Government which was responsible for what happened; but how could that be the case? How were the people of the country responsible for what had occurred on the Witwatersrand? No industry could pay more for wages than a certain amount, and if that was exceeded it must be closed down. What had happened on the railways? Because the Government wanted to economise and had retrenched 70 men, as it stated, although the hon. members on the cross-benches stated that the number was much larger, a strike had been ordered. What position would the country be placed in if that sort of thing was to take place? He was going to support the Government in what it had done. There was no panacea for that sort of social trouble, and he said that it would go on. The fault lay with hon. members on the cross-benches, and unless they could close the breach between the employers and the working-men these troubles would be bound to recur. They could not do without capital.

rising at 11.35 p.m., said he was not going to reply to the slashing and vigorous speech of the hon. member who had just spoken. The hon. member (Mr. Oosthuisen) had asked them to go into the country districts. Sooner or later they would be doing so, but the hon. member and his friends would then wish that they had not. He (Mr. Boydell) wished to refer to the extraordinary speeches made this afternoon by the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Railways and Harbours. Previously these two Ministers spoke for seven hours trying to prove that the only cure for the evils we were enduring was that the deported men should be banished from South Africa for life. It was the intention of the Government that these men should be banished for life. To-day, however, the Ministers came along with some legal jugglery and stated that banishment on January 18 did not mean banishment on March 9. (Hear, hear.) It was possible that there might have been some cablegrams passing in the interval between the Imperial Government and the Union Government. At any rate, something had happened to make the Government turn a double somersault. It would be interesting to know what had caused this change—was it the shadow of the burgher, or the shadow of the dock labourer and the railway worker refusing to handle South African produce in England? It was due to the House that there should be some explanation of the marvellous change in the attitude of the Government. The Minister of Railways laid great stress on a speech made by Mr. Bain, and he (Mr. Boy-dell) would say that he thought the report of Mr. Bain’s speech was a correct one, because there was a great deal of common sense in it. In his speech Mr. Bain suggested that if reason did not prevail, there was another way which could be forced on the workers—that of violence and bloodshed. It seemed to them on the cross-benches that there was an attempt on the part of the Government last January to force violence on the workers by calling out the military and by the outrages and atrocities which took place. (Labour cheers.) Mr. Bain said that it would not be the fault of the workers if there were violence and bloodshed, but it would be infinitely better than tame submission. The history of independent and free-loving men certainly taught them that to die fighting was better than tame submission.

They would never have a great South African nation if they were going to submit to forms of repression such as the Government had imposed on this country during the last two months. He was of opinion that this was neither the beginning nor the end of the trouble; it was only another act in the many dramas and tragedies that had taken place in this country. Judging by the legislation they had had in that House, which showed the spirit of the Government towards the workers, it seemed to him that the future of South Africa, so far as the peace and contentment of the people were concerned, was fraught with the very gravest danger. Hon. members had in the past had their opportunities of doing something towards allaying this feeling, and they could not lay all the responsibility on the Government. They must get to the cause of the disease. They were not going to remedy the social and economic diseases that this country and other countries were subject to by oppressive legislation, by legislation such as was foreshadowed in the Peace Preservation Bill. The Labour movement was stronger to-day than it was two months ago. That was the result of force and oppression on the part of the Government.

The Minister would not always be able to call out the Defence Force. He was only saying what was inevitable. This last time, in a peaceful place like Durban, they had members of the Defence Force who refused to come out for such purposes. Those men were taken to gaol. He had the honour of being in gaol at the same time. He thought that was the first Government that had actually declared open war with an armed force on organised labour. (Hear, hear.) They had that reputation. The workers, not only in South Africa and the British Empire, but throughout the world, were taking up the challenge of the Government, and it would be made to realise that an injury to one worker was an injury to all workers. As far as he could see, if those were the lines they were going on, for many years there would be very little peace or contentment or prosperity for this country. If the Government took a statesmanlike view—if it was possible for soldiers to be statesmen—and honestly tried to get at the causes and seriously deal with the matter in a sympathetic way, it seemed to him that would bring about a state of affairs that would result in the peaceful settlement of the country, for the time being at any rate. He was not one of those who believed the Government had got the country behind them. He supported the amendment of the hon. member for Springs that the Bill be read this day six months.

withdrew his amendment.

The question was then put that the word after “That” proposed to be omitted stand part of the motion.

declared that the “Ayes had it.

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

Ayes—70.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bekker, Stephanus

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Bosman, Hendrik Johannes

Burton, Henry

Chaplin, Francis Drummond Percy

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Crewe, Charles Preston

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Du Toit, Gert Johan Wilhelm

Fawcus, Alfred

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin. William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Henwood, Charlie

Hewat, John

Hunter, David

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

King, John Gavin

Krige. Christman Joel

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Leuchars, George

Macaulay, Donald

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

My burgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Nathan, Emile

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Neser, Johannes Adriaan

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Oosthuisen, Ockert Almero

Orr, Thomas

Rademeyer, Jacobus Michael

Rockey, Willie

Runciman, William

Schoeman, Johannes Hendrik

Schreiner, Theophilus Lyndall

Smartt, Thomas William

Smuts, Jan Christiaan

Smuts, Tobias

Steyl, Johannes Petrus Gerhardus

Struben, Charles Frederick William

Theron, Hendrik Schalk

Theron, Petrus Jacobus George

Van der Merwe, Johannes Adolph P.

Van der Riet, Frederick John Werndly

Van der Walt, Jacobus

Van Eeden, Jacobus Willem

Van Heerden, Hercules Christian

Venter, Jan Abhraham

Vermaas, Hendrik Cornelius Wilhelmus

Vintcent, Alwyn Ignatius

Vosloo, Johannes Arnoldus

Walton, Edgar Harris

Watermeyer, Egidius Benedictus

Watt, Thomas

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

Whitaker, George

Wiltshire, Henry

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

H. Mentz and H. C. Becker, tellers.

Noes—12.

Alexander, Morris

Andrews, William Henry

Boydell, Thomas

Creswell, Frederic Hugh Page

Duncan, Patrick

Haggar, Charles Henry

Hull, Henry Charles

Meyler, Hugh Mowbray

Sampson, Henry William

Wyndham, Hugh Archibald

Charles G. Fichardt and Walter B. Madeley, tellers.

The question was accordingly affirmed, and the amendment proposed by Mr. H. W. Sampson dropped.

then put the question that the Bill be now read a third time, and declared the “Ayes” had it.

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

Ayes—70.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bekker, Stephanus

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Bosman, Hendrik Johannes

Burton, Henry

Chaplin, Francis Drummond Percy

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Crewe, Charles Preston

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Du Toit, Gert Johan Wilhelm

Fawcus, Alfred

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Henwood, Charlie

Hewat, John

Hunter, David

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

King, John Gavin

Krige, Christman Joel

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Leuchars, George

Macaulay, Donald

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Nathan, Emile

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Neser, Johannes Adriaan

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Oosthuisen, Ockert Almero

Orr, Thomas

Rademeyer, Jacobus Michael

Rockey, Willie

Runciman, William

Schoeman, Johannes Hendrik

Schreiner, Theophilus Lyndall

Smartt, Thomas William

Smuts, Jan Christiaan

Smuts, Tobias

Steyl, Johannes Petrus Gerhardus

Struben, Charles Frederick William

Theron, Hendrik Schalk

Theron, Petrus Jacobus George

Van der Merwe, Johannes Adolph P.

Van der Riet, Frederick John Werndly

Van der Walt, Jacobus

Van Eeden, Jacobus Willem

Van Heerden, Hercules Christian

Venter, Jan Abraham

Vermaas, Hendrik Cornelius Wilhelmus

Vintcent, Alwyn Ignatius

Vosloo, Johannes Arnoldus

Walton, Edgar Harris

Watermeyer, Egidius Benedictus

Watt, Thomas

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

Whitaker, George

Wiltshire, Henry

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

H. Mentz and H. C. Becker, tellers.

Noes—12.

Alexander, Morris

Andrews, William Henry

Boydell, Thomas

Creswell, Frederic Hugh Page

Duncan, Patrick

Haggar, Charles Henry

Hull, Henry Charles

Meyler, Hugh Mowbray

Sampson, Henry William

Wyndham, Hugh Archibald

Charles G. Fichardt and Walter B. Madeley, tellers.

The motion for the third reading was, therefore, carried.

The result was received with loud Ministerial cheers.

The CLERK read the Bill a third time.

proposed, as an unopposed motion, that the order for the second reading of the Railways and Harbours Strike and Service Amendment Bill be discharged and set down for Wednesday next as the first order of the day.

The motion was agreed to.