from D. C. Grobler and seven others, praying that the facilities provided by the Co-operative Agricultural Societies Act (Transvaal) may be extended to farmers in the Cape Province.

from registered voters, for the erection of a platform and waiting-room at Krankuil Station and for a permanent postmaster.

from Vivienne B. Staples, Tijgerfontein Public School, for condonation of a break in her service.

from the widow of the late A. W. Wilder, who served in the Cape and Transvaal Police Forces, for relief.

from the Vereeniging Estates, Limited, in opposition to the Rand Water Board Supplementary Water Supply (Private) Bill.

He moved: That the petition be read by the Clerk at the Table.

objected.

from J. Pattison, a teacher, for condonation of a break in his service.

from L. C. W. van den Heuvel, station inspector, for leave to contribute arrears to the pension fund.

I beg to announce that the Governor-General, in the name and on behalf of His Majesty the King, has been pleased to give his assent to the Indemnity and Undesirables Special Deportation Act. (Loud Ministerial cheers.)

Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to make a short statement in regard to the business of this House. It is the intention of the Government to proceed with the two Bills which are now on the Order Paper, namely, “The Railways and Harbours Strike and Service Amendment Bill” and the “Peace Preservation and Criminal Law Amendment Bill.” In reply to the question, which was put to me by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smart) in regard to industrial legislation, I beg to inform the House that the Government proposes to introduce an “Industrial Disputes and Trade Unions Bill” and a “Workman’s Compensation Bill.” It is further the intention of the Government to propose that the House adjourn for the holidays on. Thursday, the 9th April, until Wednesday, the 22nd April. (Cheers.)

The hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. F. H. P. Creswell) asked me last night whether I had sent a telegram, a copy of which was handed to him and read by him at a public meeting and also in the Committee last night. I was not then in a position to answer the question. I have since had a search made, and find that a telegram such, as the hon. member read was sent in my name on the 12th January. I assume full responsibility for the telegram, which was based on verbal instructions given by me in connection with the dynamite out rageson the railways. All official communications in connection with the late disturbances were addressed to me personally, and all instructions from the Defence Department were sent in my name, but as the department remained working continuously night and day I was not, and could not, be cognisant of the exact terms used in the different instructions. The necessity for the telegram referred to was that the General Manager was hourly impressing on the minister of Railways that the Government was in danger of losing control of the railways in Germiston. Dynamite had been used—the Cape mail had been dynamited at George Goch—an organised attempt had been made to rush the oil sheds at Germiston, and loyal employees were being systematically interfered with. Germiston, being the heart of the running system in the Transvaal, it will be understood that had the Government lost control of the situation the consequences would have been grave in the extreme.

said he would like to draw attention, to the report of the Land Bank which showed how that money would be disposed of. Members would see the Estimate to the end of March, 1914. That advance was in addition to an advance already made during the current financial year of £800,000. There was an overdraft at the National Bank of £65,000. There was a special advance of £25,000 and an amount due to the Agricultural Department of £25,000, and then there was due in interest to the Treasury £113,000. The amount altogether was £425,000. In addition to what was required now, the Land Bank estimated their requirements next year at £1,435,000, in addition to the advance already made. That would bring the total advances by the State to the Land Bank to £4,185,000, in addition to the requirements for next year amounting to £1,435,000. That was what they said they would require to carry on their business on the lines they had been following. Supposing that was granted, it meant that the total advances would be £5,620,000. Besides that they got recoveries on certain advances made by the Government in loans amounting to £200,000. When those were repaid they were paid into capital. He reckoned that this would bring the total capital of the Bank to £5,000,000. Out of the total advances of £4,000,000, only £336,000 had gone in the Cape Province. The big bulk of the money was for the Transvaal and the Free State. He was not complaining of that fact, but would only point out that when the Cape Province began to borrow at the same rate, what was going to happen to the Bank? No Government could go on advancing in that way. The Land Bank was not the only institution in South Africa, not the only Government department in the Union, which was making advances to the farmers. There was a Land Department for which they were asked to pass an additional £100,000, and that Department made advances to settlers. That brought the total advances last year—with the Land Bank advances—to £1,994,000. He would point out that the total advances of the Bank amounted to £4,000,000. The New South Wales Bank was established as far back as 1906, yet their total advances were less than £2,000,000, to be exact, £1,948,000. What struck him most was that although that Bank had been in existence longer than theirs, their advances amounted to less than £2,000,000, although theirs amounted already to over £4,000,000. Other States in Australia showed the same thing. In New South Wales advances made for settlement purposes were made by the Land Bank, where as here they were made by the Land Department. It appeared to him that the farmers of this country had a perfect mania for borrowing. The advances made by the State to people connected with the land amounted to £8,810,000, this money having been advanced by the Agricultural Department, the Treasury, repatriation advances, irrigation advances, and so forth. He did not exaggerate when he said that, considering their small white population, he doubted if they would find another country in the world where so much money had been advanced—it represented about £7 per head of every white person in the country, men, women, and children. These advances had contributed in some degree to sending up the price of land in South Africa. The Government had advanced close on a million of money for the purchase of land, and that had had a tendency to send up the price. It was said that no loss had been made by the Bank. That was perfectly true, but the Government was committed to those enormous advances when the price of land was rising in value. That could not go on for all time. There must be a time when, owing to droughts and other causes, there would be some fall in the price of land. Then would come the time when they would be able to judge as to the real stability of the Bank and the soundness of its advances. In the meantime they had been committed to a large amount of money. He would like to draw attention to the large amounts of money advanced to Co-operative Societies—the total on the 31st December was £299,377.

The hon. member went on to refer to various societies, and the sum of money which had been advanced to them, which he said were very large sums, and he pointed out that five of these societies were in liquidation. These sums had only been advanced for giving credit, which was a most dangerous state of affairs. One of the causes given for the liquidation was the indiscriminate giving of credit. Anybody who had been in business in that country knew how dangerous it was giving credit extensively. It was a dangerous state of affairs in these societies not to the State but to the members of these unions. Broadly speaking, what did farmers know of business affairs? A farmer knew about his own business, but one could not blame him for not knowing about these affairs. In his opinion, they should limit their advances to those societies to £10,000. In that requisition in the Land Bank for the coming year which was given on page 15 they wanted a further £400,000, a further addition which would make the total something like £700,000. He mentioned that to show the dangerous scale on which these things were being done. The advance to one society alone was £100,000, which was monstrous, and was putting co-operation on an entirely false basis. That assistance from the State was not a sound one. If he had anything to do with the matter he would not go beyond £10,000, which he thought was a liberal amount. Proceeding, the hon. member said that in clause 20, sub-section 2 of the Act of 1912, it was laid down that the rate of interest should be 33/4 per cent., subject to the resolution of the House raising it, should it deem fit, and money was lent out to the farmers at 5 per cent., so that there was a margin of 11/4 per cent, between the rate at which the money was borrowed and the rate at which they lent it out. The result was that the Land Bank made a big profit, and had already built up a reserve fund of £183,000. The annual profits of the New South Wales Land Bank last year had only been £9,500, and he did contend that the rate was excessive. The current rate had been 31/2 per cent, at that particular time, but now they paid practically 41/4 per cent., when they took into consideration the expenses of floating a loan and so forth. Now it was proposed to lend the money at 3f per cent. Where was the justice of that state of affairs when they borrowed money at one rate of interest and lent it out at a lower rate, for the benefit of one class of the country? It was putting the Land Bank on the basis of a charitable institution, and it had to come to the State for assistance. Surely it was only fair and just that the Bank should, at any rate, pay for the money what it cost the State. Certainly the Bank ought to pay its way and the Bank could afford to pay more than it did. If it borrowed at 41/4 per cent, and paid out at 5 per cent, there would still be a sufficient surplus. As regards the management, he thought they could only come to the conclusion, from the evidence which had been given, that it was not at all satisfactory. The Bank was supposed to pay its interest half-yearly, but on the 1st October, £60,000 had been due for interest. An ordinary bank would have to go into liquidation if it could not meet its liabilities. The Land Bank Board would have to understand that when Parliament had advanced a certain amount of money in any given year, that money must suffice. (Hear, hear.) Another point with which he had been very much struck in the correspondence was the want of initiative on the part of the Board. When they had got into difficulty the only thing they appeared to have done was to come to his hon. friend (the Minister of Finance) for more money. They had shown too much dependence on the Treasury and the Minister of Finance. It seemed, in his opinion, that the management needed some strengthening up.

said he hoped they would not have a lengthy discussion on the policy underlying the Land Bank legislation that afternoon. His hon. friend (Mr. Jagger), in his interesting and full argument, seemed to assume that there was something wrong in the policy of the Government in starting an institution of this kind. He (the Minister) thought the great majority of members in that House and the country would differ entirely from his hon. friend in that regard.

I did not say that.

said that his experience, limited, of course, in matters of agriculture, largely to the Transvaal, was that if they were to ask to-day what particular matters had done more than any others for the agricultural improvement and regeneration of the Transvaal, there would be no hesitation in replying the Land Bank and the cooperative societies. (Hear, hear.) They had heard of their great assets being of a wasting character. It was the duty of any Government and of any legislature in this country to forward agricultural developments as much as possible, and he did not think that more effective steps in that direction could have been taken than when they started this Land Bank in the various colonies.

said he would like to explain, if the Minister would allow him, that he considered that the policy of the Bank should be changed in this way, that the advances should be very much reduced. He had no wish to do away with the Bank. They had! allowed a maximum amount of advances up to £2,000. That seemed to him to be too high. He knew that it was done by Parliament. He thought that the time had come when the maximum amount of advance should be reduced to £1,000, and that definite instructions should be issued to give preference to the small borrower.

said he agreed with his hon. friend in that regard, and, as he (Mr. Jagger) knew, that had already been done. They, of course, gave large sums in the way of advances, but the whole object of the Government was not to help the rich man. They wanted to favour the small agriculturist, and the policy of the Land Bank should be to favour very largely indeed the applicants for smaller loans. The Land Bank had instructions to that effect. It was, however, very difficult to draw a hard and fast line in regard to the advances. Hon. members would see from the report of the Board that in the Transvaal and Natal smaller loans had been more largely in vogue, while the tendency in the Cape Province was for applications for larger loans. The Minister went on to refer to the good work which had been done by the Board among the co-operative societies in the Transvaal, and pointed out that in some cases it was necessary to grant very substantial advances against the produce brought in by the farmers. If the larger advances were limited, say, to £10,000 the effect would be the break up of the larger societies. He recognised that by a number of farmers coming together in this way they ran a big business, in which there was a certain amount of risk but it was wonderful the amount of experience that these children of the veld, if he might call them so, picked up in a very short time. The educational value of these co-operative societies, from a business point of view, among the farming population had indeed been marvellous As to the rate of interest, he agreed with his hon. friend (Mr. Jagger). The money market had changed, of course, since the rate of interest was fixed by the hon. member for Barberton, then Minister of Finance, and the result was that, unless they were to make a present to the farming population of the difference, they ought to raise the amount. He hoped they would be able to raise the rate of interest to some extent. The same remarks, of course, applied to the irrigation loans.

He entirely agreed with the report of the Public Accounts Committee, but he had no doubt that the difficulties which occurred were not likely to be repeated. He did not anticipate there was likely to be any transgression of the limits by the Land Bank again. (Hear, hear.) According to law the Land Bank could not exceed those limits, and it must work between them. His position here was rather to defend the Land Bank, and he was sure that what was done had been done bona fide, but the bank had had a lesson, as we all had sometimes in our lives. The Land Bank was not in the position of an ordinary bank which could borrow on its assets, and unless the Government had shouldered its responsibilities it would not have got a penny, because no bank would have advanced it money in face of the Act of Parliament. The National Bank, however, came to its assistance on the Government undertaking to see the matter through by getting an indemnity.

The National Bank was on velvet.

We saw them through; we had no choice. In the midst of the crisis and all these troubles we had to see the matter through. If the Bank had come to a stop in the early stages of its career it would have been a calamity. (Cheers.) All the consolation we have is that a good lesson has been learned.

said from the report it was obvious that those in charge of the Land Bank showed a sense of irresponsibility in dealing with very large sums. (Hear, hear.) The management of the Bank had made loans to the extent of £400,000 over the £800,000 authorised by Parliament. The men in charge of the Bank had not a full sense of their responsibility, and if an ordinary bank had been conducted in the same way it would have become insolvent. The Land Bank took advantage of its position in being able to draw on the Government, and almost held itself to be superior even to Parliament. The management of the Bank required Overhauling. He did not feel at all comfortable that people who conducted this institution in the way in which it had been conducted were still in charge of its affairs. Although he was in entire sympathy with the Land Bank, he wanted it run on a proper basis. He fancied if hon. members were dealing with their own money and the institution had been managed in the way in which the Land Bank had been managed, hon. members would have taken steps at once to alter it. (Hear, hear.) The general manager Of the Bank was an old public official of very high standing; he (Sir Edgar) had the greatest respect for him, but he had had no banking training. We wanted at the head of a bank a trained banker with South African experience. Referring to the way in which the funds of the Bank had been disposed of, Sir Edgar said he would have preferred to have seen larger sums advanced for improvement, development, fencing, and so on, and not so much for the actual purchase of land. Altogether too large a proportion had been spent on land purchase, which could be carried out by the ordinary bank. The country did not benefit by land changing ownership, but by better use Being made of the land through means being given to develop it. He did not want to take a provincial view of matters, but the advances made in the Cape were small as compared with the advances made in the other Provinces.

said he had a complaint from a co-operative society, to the effect that there was no funds in the Land Bank to advance. This placed the society in a somewhat awkward position. He wished to know whether it was intended to use part of the £420,000 for advances to co-operative societies?

replied that money was very scarce. Co-operative societies and private persons wished to borrow money, but it was often very difficult to comply with the demands. The Bank was already half a million short.

said he had feared originally that the amount set down for the Land Bank would be too small, owing to demands which would be made for the building of dipping tanks, etc., and had said so at the time. The hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had made a remark about the large amount lent out by the bank, but he forgot that something like £3,000,000 of this belonged to the original Transvaal Land Bank. The bank began with the capital which previously belonged to the banks in he Free State and Transvaal. But that money had been expended. The advances were large in number, but that was owing to the war, which left everything in a state of destruction. Then money was borrowed in order to begin again, and the bonds were afterwards taken over by the Land Bank. The cooperative societies were in great danger, they were being watched by the inspector. In regard to the question of advances, in the Cape, amounting to only £300,000, Mr. Grobler pointed out that there were many other institutions in the Cape which lent money to farmers, who were, therefore, not exclusively dependent on the bank. He agreed with the attitude taken up by the Minister, as it would have been a most serious thing if the bank had been closed so soon after it had been started. They ought not to limit the area of the bank’s operations too much, but on the other hand the rate of interest charged would have to be altered.

referred to the attitude the Government had adopted with regard to the Land Bank. The Minister told them that he thought somebody had learned a lesson, and that it would not be likely to happen again. If he could be sure of that, he would not have any hesitation in sitting down at once, but what security had they for that? The Bill was an Indemnity Bill to indemnify the Minister for doing a wholly Unconstitutional thing. They found from the report of the bank, and from the report of the Select Committee, that from the very beginning the bank committed itself to advances which were beyond the money put at their disposal by Parliament. The bank defended itself by saying that, had they known how much money they would require, Parliament would have given them a free hand. But the Minister repudiated that. What had happened? The Land Bank, having taken up that position, the Minister allowed himself to be forced to acquiesce in it. In consideration of the fact that the Land Bank had committed the country to certain liabilities, the Minister went behind the deliberate intention of Parliament to limit the amount for the Land Bank. If it had been a matter in which some vital interests were at stake, he would be prepared to give the Government the indemnity. But had the bank been compelled by the Minister at the outset to diminish their loans, there would have been no serious result to anybody. Had the bank told those men, “Yes, you want £500 or £1,000,” you will be able to get it later on, at present our funds do not permit it. Nobody would convince him that the matter was of such urgency that the money had to be advanced at once. With regard to the improvements on land, no serious consequences would have resulted had that development been delayed for a few months, until the Minister came to Parliament. But the Minister flouted Parliament. He knew when he came to Parliament he had his majority, and that it did not matter. The Minister in June knew the exact state of affairs of the Land Bank, and he should then have put his foot firmly down. But he allowed the bank to borrow money in an illegal way.

Continuing, the hon. member said that it had already been pointed out that not 25 per cent, had gone into the development of the country. The Minister ought to have seen that the purposes of the Bill had been carried out, but he had left it to an irresponsible board, and they now came to Parliament to ask them to condone their action. In every way there had been specific illegalities. Included in the £425,000 was £25,000 for new buildings, and if the Land Bank did not know where to get money, surely the question of new buildings could be allowed to hang up a little while. The hon. member pointed out that though the purchase of the ground for £6,000 was subject to the approval of Parliament the tender of £19,000 for buildings had already been accepted. The Minister took practically half-a-million out of the control of Parliament and asked them to put that through as the time of Parliament was passing. It was a wholly wrong and unparliamentary method of doing things, and one of the things they had been drifting into. During the short time he had been in the House he had seen how more and more they were getting away from Parliamentary control, and more under autocratic control. When the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger) had said that there had been a profit of £30,000, the Minister of Education had said that it was good business. The Minister of Education might be a high authority on education and on mines, but he (Dr. Watkins) could not admit that he was such an authority on business—perhaps the her. Minister had meant good business from the farmers’ point of view. He (the hon. member) failed to see that 1 per cent, in a bank like that could be considered good business. Even if it were real profit which it was not—it was not good business to the State in that it came back to the State. All these profits went into the reserve fund, and when that reached half-a-million of money it did not go into the State, but to the clients of the bank. It was a case of “Heads I win, tails you lose.”

said he wanted to take exception to what the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger) and the hon. member for Barkly (Dr. Watkins) had said. They had painted such a gloomy picture that it would go forth that there had been a reckless granting of loans.

A reckless disregard of the law.

went on to say that it was the policy of the Government that they wished to encourage closer settlement, and that Land Bank was giving a fillip to closer settlement and had placed people in a position to buy a small bit of land and to get money at a reasonable rate to go and develop the land. It was not the case of giving a man money for the purpose of buying another man out. From his observations there had been a very great increase in that country of people going upon their own land. The Land Bank had a great deal to do with that, and indirectly the Land Bank was carrying out a very great deal indeed of what was proposed and intended by their Land Settlement Act.

said that he had been surprised to hear the hon. member for Barkly (Dr. Watkins) deliver a furious attack upon the Minister in a manner which reminded him very much of a chapter in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. (Laughter.) If anything stood out from the correspondence, it was that the Minister and the Treasury had adopted a perfectly correct attitude. It was the Land Bank which had arranged for an overdraft, and it was not the Minister who had acted illegally. The Land Bank had admitted that they had incurred that liability, and had stated that they would be rendered liable for an action for damages unless the Treasury came to their assistance.

It was solely on that account that the Treasury reluctantly consented to come to Parliament and tried to get Parliament to validate the overdraft. There was nothing in the correspondence that in any way incriminated the Minister in this matter. The Bank was alone responsible for the action. He believed that, in their zeal, they overlooked the fact that they must keep their commitments within their resources. They had been taught a lesson.

said there was no question about the main policy of the Land Bank. They all voted in favour of the Land Bank, but there were certain things they did not contemplate, and he thought the management they had seen during the past year was one of them. The members of that House, as representing the taxpayers, had got to see, so far as they could, first of all, that the amount of money which was spent, no doubt on wholly desirable objects, was limited to some extent, and they had got to see that they got the best value possible for their money. He did not think anybody could say that these conditions were safeguarded in the management of the Bank, such as it had been during the period covered by the report. There was no doubt that if this had been an ordinary institution, the manager would have been summarily dismissed. It was more like ecclesiastical finance, where some excellent churchwardens entered into a contract for building a large house, and then cast about to get up a bazaar to pay for it. That seemed to him to be the sort of way in which this business had been managed. They had in the correspondence instance after instance of the Board informing the Treasury that they had come to the end of their resources. The Treasury granted them a little money to stave off demands, with the result that the Board entered into more commitments. All the remonstrances which were addressed by the Minister and his officials to the Bank did not seem to have produced the slightest result. When the Minister suggested that they should reduce their commitments by limiting the amount to £500, they took advantage of that to say that the Minister authorised them to go on to any extent almost so long as they did not make loans exceeding £500 each.

The Treasury allowed itself to be bounced by the Manager of this Bank. They found the following statement in the correspondence by the Manager: “The Bank having proved a boon and blessing to those in whose interests it was inaugurated, the demand upon it exceeded all expectations, with the result that, notwithstanding the greatest care, it was soon found that the funds at the disposal of the Bank were insufficient, and the Board is not to blame if the persons intended to be benefited availed themselves of the right to come to the Bank for the assistance they so richly deserved.” It seemed to him (Mr. Chaplin) that the serious part of the business was that the Bank seemed to arrogate to itself the right to spend money in anticipation of the assent of Parliament, purely as a matter of policy. It did not seem to him that there was any justification for the Board’s view that because, in the opinion of the Bank, it was a desirable thing that a farmer should get a loan, they should overspend the money granted to them, and trust to Parliament to condone what they had done. The Treasury undoubtedly were in a position of some difficulty in regard to the question of control over the Bank. The committee stated that they had before them the opinion of the Government Law Adviser, to the effect that the Bank was not a department of the public service, and that the prohibition contained in section 33 of the Exchequer and Audit Act, 1911, against any bank lending money for public purposes, did not apply to loans of the Land Bank. If the Bank (continued Mr. Chaplin) were not a department of the public service, then, of course, it was a matter of divided responsibility. The members of that House were perfectly entitled, that being so, to criticise the management of the Bank, and what they urged upon the Minister was that he should take steps—and he felt that the House would agree that steps should be taken—to see that in future there was control, and, if the law at present did not give the Treasury proper control, the law must be altered during the present session to give the Treasury that control. The Bank should be made, for the purposes of the Exchequer and Audit Act, a department of the public service.

held that this was the proper time to discuss the policy of the Land Bank and of the Government. The report of the Public Accounts Committee showed a very alarming position, as it seemed that, after having overdrawn its funds, the Bank had appealed to the Government to get it out of the mud. He had no objection to large funds being placed at the disposal of the Bank, because he was fully aware of the fact that the bank did a considerable amount of good, but there should be a limit to be decided by Parliament within which the Bank should keep, and if the management exceeded this limit, they committed a crime. (Hear, hear.) One could hardly call it business if, after having been warned, the institution persisted in exceeding its limits. At the same time, he held that the funds placed at the disposal of the Bank should be so large as to enable it to do the business it was there for. As it was, they would have to find several thousand pounds extra for the Bank, and it might very well have been a million. Whilst their funds should be ample they should not be unlimited. Proceeding, Mr. Wilcocks said he saw that £288,000 had been lent to co-operative societies. This was a very large proportion. Then he noticed that the amounts lent out in the various Provinces varied very greatly, and the Free State fared worst of all. He trusted that in future each Province would get its fair share. Mr. Wilcocks went on to say that, in 1912, he had proposed an amendment to the effect that advances should be made to people who did not own land, but who could give sufficient security. He had withdrawn this amendment on a promise of the Prime Minister that the matter could be gone into later, because it would not be wise at the time to insert that provision, seeing that they had not had sufficient experience of the working of the Act. They should encourage the trustworthy men, and enable the man who was down to get up. As to the argument that the interest of 31/4 per cent, paid on Land Bank loans was insufficient seeing that the Government paid 41/4 per cent., he held that this interest could be increased. After all, the Government indulged in other charitable work, such as by reducing the railway tariff, but he agreed that it would be bad business to lend money at a loss. Many of the small loans effected in the Free State had been repaid. Why not help the small unpropertied man who could give security for £50 to £100? A fixed proportion of the money should be set aside for that purpose, and at the same time they should not look for a profit.

said he understood the last speaker to say that the Free State had not been treated fairly in comparison to other Provinces. If the hon. member had evidence of that, it was due to the management of the bank that he should bring it forward, but it was not fair to cast this charge of favouritism broadcast without some proof. A statement which rather amazed him (Mr. Nathan) was made by the Minister, who said his position was to defend the Land Bank. He (Mr. Nathan) challenged that statement, the Minister’s duty being to give the Committee a full and frank statement. He contended that the Bank had not done its duty, and its breaches of the law were becoming too frequent. One saw that the Government’s supporters were becoming thinner and thinner, and these little breaches of the law could not always be condoned by a majority, especially when it was a dwindling majority. He did not blame the manager of the bank, because he was under the Board, but he (Mr. Nathan) asked the Government to remove a Board which distinctly violated rules laid down by the House. According to the report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, the Board of the bank appeared to have failed to limit their operations in accordance with the Minister’s warning to the basis of the funds available, as on August 11, 1913, the General Manager addressed a letter to the Secretary for Finance, in which he stated that the commitments far exceeded the resources of the Bank then available, even taking into consideration the probable recoveries during the remainder of the year. Why (asked Mr. Nathan) did the Board exceed its powers? It was a pity that the individual amounts which the bank was permitted to make had not been limited to the sum of £10,000, as was originally proposed in that House. The policy the Bank had adopted was beyond defence. They had had serious breaches of the law, one very serious breach recently.

said a good deal of criticism had been rightly directed to the Land Bank Board. He referred to the serious effect likely to be produced on members of the Board by the discussion that day and another effect would be a sort of reaction on the part of the Board lest they should lend too freely. In his own constituency a number of cases had been brought to his notice where applicants had been unable to obtain loans for carrying on their operations and those were men for whom special provision was intended to be made when the Act was passed.

The vote was agreed to.

On vote 21, Lands Department, £6,000 for the purchase of land.

said that the facts given by him a few days ago were quite correct, although they were very few. From an economical point of view, the purchase of the farm Elsenburg was a good transaction. That part of Elsenburg was purchased in 1898 and was subsequently leased to the Government at a rental of £440 per annum. That amount represented interest at 5 per cent on the purchase price of £8,811. In 1912 it was proposed that the Government should buy the property as an experimental farm. The farmers round about were asked to give their opinion as to the purchase price. Their advice was that the original purchase price of £8,811 was a fair price. The sum of £440 was annually saved by the Government owing to that transaction. With regard to the vote of £6,000, it must be remembered that there was also an outspan, the amount paid for which was £450. There was a saving of a little over £3,000 on the current vote for the year, and that had brought the vote short by £6,000. That was how the matter stood.

said he congratulated the Minister, and he found that he was quite right. He asked how it was that yesterday they could not have had an explanation, which would have saved time?

The vote was passed.

moved that the estimates be reported without amendments.

This was agreed to.

On the House resuming,

moved the adoption of the report.

This was agreed to.

I appoint the Minister of Finance and the Chairman of Committees to bring up a Bill embodying the report.

brought up the report of the Committee appointed to draft the Additional Appropriation (1913-’14) Bill, submitting a Bill.

moved that the House go into Committee on the Estimates of Additional Expenditure to be defrayed from Railways and Harbours Revenue Funds during the year ending 31st March, 1914. He said the additional amount to be voted was £201,100. The excess in the working expenditure was largely due to the increased quantity of repair work they had to do, principally at Pretoria. The increase of expenditure was partly incurred under the “running” head, owing to the introduction of the new staff regulations last year. Those regulations made provision for increased rates of pay based on a substantive wage, plus a local allowance. The only other feature was the harbour expenditure. The excess was due to the increase in traffic and was amply compensated for by the increased revenue.

The motion was agreed to.

moved: That the House do now resolve itself into Committee, and that Mr. Speaker leave the Chair.

objected.

then moved that the House go into Committee on Monday.

Agreed to.

moved the second reading of the Appropriation (Part) Bill. He said it was not necessary far him to say much on the Bill. The monthly expenditure amounted to something in the neighbourhood of £2,000,000. They ought to have made provision at the end of June. They had only made provision for £5,000,000 instead of £6,000,000. That included a great deal of money which would have to go to the service of the loans. He found that in April, May and June they would have to pay £1,850,000. Members would see that the five millions was more than they had asked for last year. His hon. friend, the member for Port Elizabeth, Central, had referred to the issue of loans. The Government had issued stock during the financial year at various times, £4,000,000 at 4 per cent at the beginning of the financial year; subsequently in August the Treasury raised £6,000,000, and recently they raised another loan by Issue of stock, £4,000,000 at 4 per cent, at 981/2. The cost of this loan came to £2 7s. 6d. per cent. There had been some criticism with regard to that loan, and it had been said that it was not a success. He found that the Canadian Loan, £5,000,000, issued a couple of weeks ago, also at 4 per cent., was at 99, so that the South African loan was 1/2 per cent, better. He found with regard to, recent loans issued by the Dominions they had got better terms. There was no doubt about the success of the South African Loans. They had also issued temporary bills. During the last financial year they had increased the debt of the Union in stock to the extent of £13,190,000, at the same time, there had been those operations for temporary bills. The amount of temporary bills had been very largely reduced by the issue of stock by the Government to replace the £6,000,000 held by the Public Debt Commission; of the £4,000,000 raised in London, one-half went to reduce the debt of the Public Debt Commission They had reduced the temporary bills by £4,650,000 when that was deducted from the increased stock which he had mentioned, that £13,190,000, they arrived at the figure by which their indebtedness had been increased during the financial year. That was £6,540,000. He would move the second reading.

said he had been in London when the Treasury Bill transactions were carried out. From what he had heard, the Government in South Africa had instructed their agents to deal only with their own banks. He did not think that was wise of the Government. He hoped that in case of future transactions of that kind the Government would not limit their agents. All South African banks should be invited to assist.

called the attention of the House to the case of certain sufferers during the July riots who had lost their health, were crippled, and in some cases, had lost their bread winners through no fault of their own. They understood in July that Government would make some compensation to those who had been done to death or injured, and a certain amount was voted. They were continually coming forward with particulars of cases in regard to which there had been no satisfaction. The hon. member proceeded to read the terms of the instructions, which stated that “persons who gave satisfactory proof that they were not concerned in unlawful acts and had received permanent injury, etc. It was perfectly obvious that it was almost impossible to prove those matters in the case of a man who had been killed. He went on to quote a letter from a Mrs. Cooke, the widow of Sydney Henry Cook, who the report said was in receipt of £8 a month from the Miners’ Phthisis Board, and was killed during the July riot. The report of the Commission said it was impossible to say whether he had been killed by the troops, or by one of the crowd. They on the cross-benches held the Government absolutely responsible for the initial mistake. He received a letter from the widow last night, which stated that she was left destitute with three little children, and that her health was such that she was unable to make a living, for herself or them, and she asked that the matter should be placed before the proper authorities. That sort of letter was always reaching him. He did not think the sense of fairness and justice of that House would allow them to agree that the provisions made in the Estimates they had just considered, a matter of £3,000 was sufficient. It was avoiding the liability in this case, on the ground that it was impossible to prove that the man was shot by the military; but they knew very well that if they were to take those persons, a very few, who received their injuries from others in the crowd, the vast majority, practically all, who received, gun shots during that trouble were shot by the troops. It was rather unworthy that, because there was no complete evidence, they should refuse compensation. It was impossible to have the evidence of the dead man, but while there was nothing to prove one way or the other, the benefit of the doubt, most emphatically, should be given to those who suffered. Had the Government made some provision for the men who had been kidnapped by the myrmidons of the Government? Some of the wives and children of these men had been left quite unprovided for. There were also a large number of cases where it was impossible to say whether an individual had been wounded by the troops or not, but of all those who had been injured on July 4 or 5, it could be proved that the vast majority who were found to be wounded had been wounded by the troops. In case of doubt, he thought that the individual should get the benefit.

said the Minister might tell the House whether those other people who had suffered damage and injury would receive compensation. He referred to the case of Nurse Scott. He hoped that hon. members would not be misled by the last speaker when he had said that the people who were there had no business to be there. Long before the shooting had commenced signs of trouble were evident, and long before the troops had arrived. He hoped that the case of the man who had been killed, which had been referred to by the hon. member, would be taken into consideration.

said that he thought the enormous prices they were paying for money in London deserved the attention of the House and of the country. They had apparently gained nothing by the great improvement that had taken place in the money market. Somehow, now they were paying more than 11/2 per cent., more than they used to pay in the old Cape days. He was not blaming the Government for it, but it was a phenomenon which deserved some explanation. They had gone down, not so much compared with other Dominions, although they had gone down, but they had gone down in comparison with other stocks and with Consols. He would like to know how much of that loan money had been raised in South Africa. He did not know whether the Minister was in a position to make that statement now.

said that he was not.

said then, perhaps, the Minister would make it at a later date.

said it was very difficult to talk against cases, like the case of Mrs. Scott, which had been mentioned. Many of these cases were hard and heartrending. It was impossible for the Government to adopt any other course than to follow the report of the Commissioner. The instructions had narrowed down the cases where compensation would be given to a comparatively small number.

But he makes no recommendation in that case.

said that in all cases where the Commissioner did not recommend for compensation, no compensation was given. In regard to the Scott case he thought there must be some misunderstanding about Mrs. Scott’s position with reference to the Miners’ Phthisis Act. As to the cases referred to by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Quinn), it was impossible to give compensation in all these cases.

asked the Minister on what basis he calculated gratuities which he gave. The gratuity might be £10 or £1,000.

said that it had been done by the Treasury on facts found by Mr. Jordaan. They had had no difficulty in coming to an equitable decision and coming to a decision which had been accepted by the parties.

The motion was agreed to.

The Bill was read a second time.

moved: That the House do now resolve itself into Committee, and that Mr. Speaker leave the Chair.

objected.

then moved, That the House go into Committee on the Bill on Monday.

Agreed to.

in moving the second reading of the Railways and Harbours Appropriation (Part) Bill, said that the amount of £3,800,000 which it was proposed to appropriate was to cover the next two and a-half months. They had arrived at the figure on the basis of 12 months’ working expenses, £14,314,000, which gave an equivalent for two and a-half months of approximately £3,000,000. Then there was the expenditure on works in progress, which was approximately £3,840,000 for 12 months, and gave an equivalent of about £800,000.

The motion was agreed to.

The Bill was read a second time and set down for Committee stage on Monday next.