from residents of Mossel Bay, for removal of the “colour bar” from the Transvaal Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations.

from inhabitants of Kroonstad, for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Vote.

three similar petitions from inhabitants of Krugersdorp.

from residents of Kimberley, for removal of the “colour bar” from the Transvaal Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations.

a similar petition from residents of Richmond.

from H. H. G. Kreft, teacher, for condonation of a break in his service.

from residents of the Cape Division, for removal of the “colour bar” from the Transvaal Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations.

from inhabitants of the Leliefontein Communal Reserve, to which, contrary“ to their wishes, the provisions of the Mission Stations and Communal Reserves Act, 1909 (Capo), were applied in 1913, praying for relief.

from inhabitants of Plattenberg Bay and Knysna, for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Vote (two petitions).

a similar petition from inhabitants of Fort Beaufort.

a similar petition from inhabitants of East London.

a similar petition from inhabitants of Vryburg.

a similar petition from inhabitants of Engcobo.

from residents of Beaconsfield, for removal of the “colour bar” from the Transvaal Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations.

from inhabitants of Kimberley and Beaconsfield, for legislation providing for the Direct Popular Vote.

presented a numerously-signed petition from the leper patients at Robben Island, and moved that the petition be now read.

The motion was agreed to.

The Clerk read the petition, the text of which was as follows:

That, owing to the great dissatisfaction which prevails among the leper patients in spite of the kind and liberal manner with which the Government supply many of their bodily wants, and to take away all occasion of this dissatisfaction, your petitioners humbly pray that normal life may be allowed to the lepers within the segregated area, that is to say, healthy husbands being allowed to live with sick wives and wives with their sick husbands, and the lepers being allowed to marry among themselves under proper supervision.

Your petitioners are bold to ask this with confidence for the following reasons:

1. 1. Because in the report of your expert bacteriologist it is stated that there exists no medical reason why normal life should not obtain among lepers within the segregated area under suitable supervision.
2. 2. Because the official visitor of the Island, who is also chairman of the Medical Council and who was the representative of the Government at the last International Conference on Leprosy, has stated among other things relative to the matter in hand, in an article in the “South African Medical Record” (May 24, 1915), that “in Norway it was not thought advisable to prevent the marriage of lepers, and this I approve of.”
3. 3. Because in other countries normal life has been found to be entirely successful, and in the present year a small settlement is being started in England in which exactly the same conditions for which your petitioners pray prevail. This settlement is under the medical supervision of two of the most eminent Harley-street physicians, who are also well known authorities in leprology, namely, Sir Malcolmn Morris, K.C.V.O., and Dr. Abraham, M.D., B.Sc.
4. 4. Because public opinion as represented by the English Church Synod has expressed itself in favour of the normal life among lepers. A deputation was appointed which, introduced by His Grace the Archbishop of Cape Town, waited on the late Right Hon. the Minister of the Interior on May 22, 1915, by whom it was most sympathetically received, the Minister, in his reply, saying that it was necessary to move slowly, but he thought that they might introduce the experiment of allowing non-lepers to join their afflicted partners on the Island and to make suitable regulations for them under necessary restrictions. If these results were satisfactory further steps would be considered. The Minister also spoke of the question of training the bigger leper boys. Your petitioners would venture humbly to point out that none of these suggestions have yet been carried out.
5. (5) Because your petitioners do earnestly desire that the scourge of leprosy should be eradicated from the country and for that reason humbly submit that segregation should be made as attractive as possible so that people afflicted with leprosy should be induced to come into the segregated area, instead of at present, as in so many cases, hiding out of sight and continuing to live in an unsanitary state whereby they become a probable danger to the public. Your petitioners would humbly point out that during all the years that segregation has been in force in the country there has been no diminution, but rather a steady increase of leprosy in South Africa, which seems to point to the need for the plan of segregation being on a different footing.

Your petitioners would humbly pray that the Kafir patients might be removed to Emjanyana, where they would be among their own people and in their own country.

Your petitioners are aware that there are some patients on the island who place removal from the island before all other considerations, but your petitioners believe that it does not so much matter where you live, as how you live.

Lastly, your petitioners would humbly suggest that in any change of system the advice given recently in public by Sir Patrick Manson should prevail, viz., that Government should not take general medical advice on such matters, but rather that of scientific experts.

Scientific Bulletin entitled The Anatomy of Acacia Mollissima, Wild, by Paul A. van der Byl, M.A.; and Papers relating to Land Grants, etc., Nos. 53 to 60.

These papers were referred to the Select Committee on Waste Lands.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours what has been the average weight carried on the De Aar-Prieska line for Upington, Kenhardt, Kakamas, and other places beyond Prieska since the line has been opened, and what was the revenue derived during that period?

replied: The bulk of the traffic for places beyond Prieska is consigned to forwarding agents, so that the Administration has no record of its ultimate destination. With the aid of information placed at its disposal by one of the principal forwarding agents, the Administration has, however, been able to arrive at the following approximate figures for the year 1913: Destination of traffic: Upington, tonnage, 1,000; Kenhardt, 750, Kakamas, 475; Keimoes, 200; total 2,425 tons. The revenue credited to the De Aar-Prieska line in respect of this traffic would approximate £3,000.

asked the Minister of Finance: (1) How much money was paid in the form of claim licences to the various Governments in the Transvaal during the following periods, viz.: (a) From 1886 to 31st May, 1901; (b) from 1st June, 1901, to 30th April, 1914; and (2) how much of these moneys has been paid to the owners of farms?

replied: (1) (a) From 1886 to 30th June, 1899, the amount paid to Government was £2,650,485, to owners of farms £1,634,683. (b) From 1st June, 1901, to 30th April, 1914, the amount paid to Government was £2,719,012, to owners of farms £1,985,220. (2) The reply to this question is given above. The figures for the period 1st July, 1899, to 31st May, 1901, are not at the moment available.

asked the Minister of Public Works what is the total amount expended to date: (a) On the construction of the Union Buildings, inclusive of the acquisition of the site; (b) on the furnishing of the same; and (c) on any other items in connection with the said buildings?

replied: The total amount expended to the 30th April, 1914, in connection with Union Buildings is £1,157,930. This amount includes £40,606 paid for the acquisition of the site, and £6,671 for furniture and fittings.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours whether the Government has received the following resolution, viz.: “That this Conference presses upon the Government the urgent necessity, for social and hygienic reasons, of discontinuing the present system obtaining on the South African Railways, under which coloured persons travel in the same carriages as are used by Europeans, and also use the same bedding as is supplied to Europeans; and that the Government, as soon as possible set aside permanently for use exclusively by coloured persons railway compartments and bedding,” which was passed at the annual Conference of the Natal Agricultural Union in 1912 and reaffirmed in 1913, and, if so, what decision has been arrived at in the matter?

The reply to the first part of this question is in the affirmative. In regard to the second part, I made a statement in the House on the 17th March, in reply to a question by the hon. member for Lady brand, on the subject of the segregation of European and coloured passengers when travelling by rail. Since that date ten additional carriages, providing separate accommodation for coloured passengers, have been placed in traffic, and an order has been given for twenty new coaches to be built, and so fitted as to effectually separate European and coloured passengers. Arrangements have also been made for instructions to be issued that vehicles, or portions of vehicles, specially constructed or suitably altered for the accommodation of coloured passengers are to be retained exclusively for their use, and that these coaches are to be placed on services on which the need of such accommodation is most apparent. As regards bedding, it is not issued to coloured passengers, but now that they are being provided with separate first, second, and third class accommodation, consideration will be given to the question as to whether special sets of bedding should not be available for their exclusive use.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs when he expects the second telephone line to be completed from Port Elizabeth to Humansdorp?

replied: Provision has been made in the current year’s Estimates for the purchase of material to construct this line, and it is hoped that it may be possible to proceed with its erection immediately the material arrives from oversea.

asked the Minister of Lands whether he will take the necessary steps to grant immediate assistance to the riparian owners of the Gamtoos River from Hankey tunnel down to the sea, by appointing engineers to proceed with the initial stages of the irrigation scheme, for which the people are all ready and anxiously waiting?

replied: Engineers have already been appointed for the lower Gamtoos River survey, and survey work has been commenced.

asked the Minister of Defence: (1) What are the names of all those from whom the mealies required for commandoes during the recent strike were bought; (2) how many bags were bought; (3) what was the price per bag; and (4) were the co-operative associations given a chance of supplying such mealies, and, if not, why not?

replied: I must invite the attention of the hon. member to the reply given on the 28th ultimo to the hon. member for Standerton on this subject. Some 800 bags—not 600, as previously stated—were purchased, at an average, of 11s. 6d. per bag. Commandants used their own discretion as to the purchase of the necessary supplies.

asked the Minister of the Interior: (1) Whether the attention of the Government has been called to a case recently heard before a magistrate in Natal, in which an Indian, named Muruga Goundam, was sentenced to pay a fine of 20s. or to suffer imprisonment for ten days with hard labour on a charge of trespass, when it was admitted that this Indian had only visited his wife, who was an indentured Indian on a sugar estate; (2) has the Government received any report on this case from the Protector of Indians, and, if so, will such report be laid on the Table of the House; and (3) if no such report has been furnished by the Protector of Indians, will the Government call for one and lay the same on the Table of the House?

replied: No. My attention has not been called to the case in question, as it is not the function of the Protector of Indian Immigrants to call in question the decisions of Judicial Courts; but I will make inquiries and ascertain what the facts are.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours: (1) Whether, in view of the amount of business at Marseilles, on the Bloemfontein-Modderpoort line, and the large number of people farming in the vicinity, he will consider the question of making provision for a better platform and of providing greater facilities for handling produce and cattle at that station; and (2) whether, in view of the large stock sales held at Tweespruit, he will make provision for drinking troughs at this point?

replied: (1) It is considered that the facilities provided at Marseilles station are not disproportionate to the traffic dealt with. From September to February last, the passengers averaged 10 per diem, the goods traffic 9 tons per diem, and the live-stock 7 trucks per month. (2) The reply to this question is in the negative, as this is not a matter for the Railway Administration.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours whether it is a fact that the rate for South African produce is approximately 40 per cent. higher on the Marseilles-Maseru line than on other South African Railway lines, and, if so, whether it will be possible for him to reduce the rate to the level of other branch line rates.

replied: It will be observed from page 338 of the Tariff Book that, except in respect of passenger fares and export traffic, the ordinary tariffs, plus 50 per cent., arc applied on the Maseru branch. This branch was built under agreement with and guaranteed by the Basutoland Government, The agreement has now lapsed, but there was a distinct understanding when the line was built that the Administration would not suffer loss in connection with the working thereof. The line is 16 miles in length, and the loss last year, after paying capital charges, was £2,271. In these circumstances it is not proposed to make any alteration in the tariffs in operation on this branch at the present juncture.

on behalf of Genl. L. A. S. Lemmer (Marico), asked the Minister of Finance: (1) Whether the Board of the Land Bank is not acting contrary to the provisions of section 24 of the Land Bank Act, 1912, by requiring that interest be paid in advance instead of at the end of each half-year; and (2) whether he will instruct the Board to require that interest be paid at the end of each half-year and not in advance?

replied: (1) I am informed by the Central Board of the Land Bank that interest on advances made under Act No. 18 of 1912 is not payable in advance and is not claimed in advance. On the other hand, in the case of certain advances made prior to the passing of the Union Act, interest is required to be paid in advance under the provincial law under which such advances were made. (2) In the circumstances, it would seem that there is no occasion for asking the Board to make a change.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will take the necessary steps to have Zanthium Spinosum eradicated from the bed of the Orange River?

(on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture) replied: If the hon. member will supply me with specific information as to the exact locality where the Zanthium Spinosum referred to is growing, I will investigate the matter.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours: (1) How many South African Railway ambulance corps are there in each Province, and what are the total number of men engaged in this work; (2) what are the individual and annual grants given by the Railway Administration to (a) each corps, and (b) each Province; (3) upon what basis are the grants given; (4) what expenses are these grants supposed to cover; (5) have any representations been made to the effect that the grants are most inadequate, and that, while rendering a most useful service, the members of the corps are considerably out of pocket owing to the necessary expenses they are put to in carrying on their work and practice; and (6) how many cases of injury were attended to by the corps during 1913 in each of the four Provinces?

replied: (1) (a) One in each Province; (b) 320, but besides those taking ah active interest in this work there is a large number of men in the service qualified to render “first-aid.” (2) and (3) (a) An annual grant of £10 is paid to each corps, except the Transvaal corps, which receives a grant of £20. (b) A capitation grant of 10s. per annum is paid in respect of each efficient member. (c) The Administration contributes towards the fees of lecturers and examiners, 5s. in respect of each employee who attends a course of ambulance instruction and passes the examination. (d) Free passes and special paid leave are granted to enable members to take part in local and inter-Provincial competitions. Free passes are also issued to members to enable them to proceed to stations or depots for the purpose of assisting in the formation of a class or division, or to attend meetings of the corps. (e) Free passes are also issued to Railway Medical Officers for the purpose of examining railway ambulance men on other sections; also to judges officiating at inter-Provincial ambulance competitions where the contests are confined to teams composed of railway employees. (f) The Administration on various other ways renders assistance and endeavours to encourage the movement. (4) The provision of charts, books, etc., and general expenses not covered by the facilities provided by the Administration. (5) The representations made were not to the effect that the grants were most inadequate, and the Administration is not aware that members of the corps are considerably out of pocket. At a meeting of representatives of the Railway Ambulance Corps held in August, 1915, it was stated that the grants were scarcely sufficient to meet expenses but, in view of the further concessions which had been grunted a month or two previously in connection with ambulance work, it was suggested by the Administration that the revised arrangements should be given a fair trial, and that the matter might again be raised in 12 months’ time, if it were found that the facilities offered were still inadequate On the whole, the existing arrangements are regarded as fair and reasonable; but should further representations be made by the corps on the expiry of the 12 months their views will be carefully considered. (6) Cape, 4,375: Transvaal, 3,755, including 150 cases treated during July riots on Witwatersrand; Natal, 843; Orange Free State, 250.

asked the Minister of Agriculture: (1) Is the Government aware that the creamery at Parys has printed on all its receipt forms “Under Government Supervision,” and that there is a general opinion amongst suppliers that this concern is guaranteed by Government; (2) will the Minister of Agriculture say whether the creamery at Parys is under the supervision or control of the Government; (3) is this creamery under guarantee from the Government, and, if so, to what extent; (4) is the Government prepared to favourably consider applications for grants to other private dairy concerns or to guarantee them against loss; and (5) will the Minister say what amounts have been contributed by the Government to the support of creameries or butter factories within the Union during the last financial year, and what amounts are provided or contemplated during the present financial year, with the names of the creameries or butter factories receiving such benefits?

(1) The Department of Agriculture has no knowledge of the use by the creamery at Parys of the term “Under Government Supervision.” Inquiries are being made, and should it be found that the irregularity complained of exists, steps will be taken to stop it. (2) The creamery is not under Government supervision or control, except that in common with other creameries it is entitled to advice from the Government dairy experts. An inspection of the creamery in question is also made from time to time in order to safeguard the interests of the Government in respect of the loan made to it. (3) The term “guarantee” in this connection is not understood. The Government does not guarantee this or any other creamery. (4) The Government is not prepared to make grants to private creameries or to guarantee them against loss. (5) During the last financial year a loan of £1,000 was made to the Union Industries, Ltd. No loans are contemplated during the present financial year.

asked the Minister of Justice: Whether it is a fact that the Assistant Magistrate at Pinetown has notified a farmer in that locality that the Natives Land Act, 1913, prohibits a landlord from exercising the right of ejecting native tenants upon notice?

replied: The answer is in the negative.

asked the Minister of Justice: (1) Whether he is aware that the village of Maquassi with a population of 350 Europeans, eight general dealers and a fully licensed hotel, and with a, rural environment of considerable area, is without police protection; and (2) whether, in view of this state of affairs, he will make the necessary provision on the present Estimates?

replied: (1) I think the hon. member has been misinformed as to the facts. The Commissioner of Police informs me that the population figures at the last census disclosed 86 Europeans only, and not 350, and that the number had not increased very much. That there are farms in the district with larger populations and further away from police posts. That Maquassi is on the railway and only 8¾ miles from Wolmaransstad police post, with which it is connected by telephone. It is patrolled by police three or four times a week, and no serious crime has been reported from there during the last three months. (2) Under those circumstances I do not propose making any further provision.

asked the Prime Minister: (1) Whether he is aware (a) that a considerable number of respectable native women resident in Bloemfontein, have suffered imprisonment as passive resisters for refusal to take out passes, and (b) that these women are alleged to have been treated with undue rigour while in prison; (2) whether the Government has received a petition from representative native women detailing these facts, pointing out the evils connected with the system, and asking for relief; and, if so, whether the Minister will lay the same on the Table of the House; and (3) whether the Government intends taking steps to protect respectable native and coloured women, resident in the Orange Free State, who are not vagrants, from being compelled to take out and carry passes.

replied: (1) (a) Yes. (b) Allegations to this effect were made to the Department of Native Affairs in September last. On investigation it was found that the treatment accorded to these women was not different from that accorded to other prisoners. No complaint was made by these women while in gaol. (2) Yes. A copy of the petition will be laid upon the Table. (3) The whole question of the consolidation of the Pass Laws is now being considered by a Select Committee. The Municipal Pass Laws come within the scope of their inquiry.

The petition was laid on the Table.

asked the Prime Minister whether the Government has come to a decision on the question of the appointment of a Chief Magistrate for the Transkeian Territories, in the place of Mr. A. H. Stanford, who has lately retired, and, if so, when the appointment may be expected to take place?

replied: The question of this appointment is under consideration. In the meantime Mr. Brownlee, Assistant Chief Magistrate, is acting as Chief Magistrate.

asked the Minister of the Interior whether the Government has considered the petition of K. D. Naidoo, representing the Islamic Society of Pietermaritzburg, and 23 other Indians, presented to this House on the 24th February, 1913, and referred by the House to the Government for consideration on the 20th May, 1913, and, if so, whether the Government will furnish the result of such consideration to the petitioners?

replied: The grievances of the Indian community have been inquired into by a Government Commission, and the Government proposes to introduce the necessary legislation dealing with their recommendations during the present session.

asked the Minister of Mines and Industries: (1) Have the Government received an invitation to take part in the Imperial Exhibition, in London, in 1915; and (2) do they intend to accept the invitation, and, if undecided, when will they be able to give a definite reply?

replied: (1) The answer is in the affirmative. (2) It will be possible to give a definite reply when more is known of the scope and character of the undertaking and of the response which is being made to it by the other Dominions.

asked the Minister of Justice how many criminal and civil cases respectively were heard during the year 1913 in each of the magisterial districts of Queen’s Town, Beaufort West, Aliwal North, Middelburg (C.P.), Dordrecht, and Worcester?

replied: The figures asked for are as follows. I have added the revenue figures:

asked the Minister of Defence whether he is aware of the urgent and pressing desire of the people to have a flag for the Union, and, if so, will the Government decide, if it has not already done so, to meet that wish, and inform the House of such decision and of the proposed colour of the flag?

replied: This question probably is due to a misunderstanding. It is true that, as was the case with the other large self-governing Dominions, distinctive flags were granted to the Union for use on Government and merchant ships respectively, but the Union Jack continues here as in all other parts of the British Empire to be the national flag ashore.

asked the Minister of Justice: (1) Whether it is a fact (a) that recently a tender was accepted in Cape Town for 440 overcoats for the police; (b) that these overcoats were rejected by the experts; (c) that subsequently, in consequence of a wire from Pretoria, these overcoats were accepted, but only after they had been damaged by being exposed to the weather; and, if so (2) what were the reasons for such actions?

replied: (1) (a) Yes. (b) The Ordnance Officer reported certain difference between the garments supplied and the sample, and was instructed to reject any not according to sample. (c) On the receipt of a further detailed report showing that the material was equal to sample in quality and colour but merely differed as to style of finish, and the garments were longer than sample, the acceptance was authorised, as the contractor had agreed to remedy defects free of charge. The garments had not been damaged in any way. (2) In view of the above no further answer under this head seems called for.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: (1) Whether the ten auto carriers offered for sale by tender, under Notice No. 363 of 1914, in the “Gazette,” have been disposed of, and for what price; (2) what did the ten machines originally cost; and (3) how long were they in use, and what was the cost of repairs during that time?

replied: (1) Yes. £97 10s. There were, however, only nine vehicles, not ten. (2) The nine vehicles cost £980. (3) Two were in use from December, 1911, to January, 1914, and seven from May, 1912, to January, 1914. The cost of repairs, including replacements, was approximately £2,600. Each auto carrier ran over 1,000 miles per month whilst in service.

asked the Minister of Railways and Harbours whether he is aware that the mouth of the river at Port St. John’s has lately become very much silted up and that the steamer Umzimvubu was recently stuck on the sand there for a fortnight, and, if so, whether he will, with a view to preventing further injury to the trade of the port and its hinterland, cause a dredger capable of carrying the spoil out to sea to be sent up to Port St. John’s, and, if so, when?

(on behalf of the Minister of Railways and Harbours) replied: My attention has been drawn to the fact that the steamer Umzimvubu stranded at Port St. John’s on the 5th and was refloated on the 13th ultimo. The bar is shallow and difficult to navigate, but not more so than is usually the case in a dry season. In the opinion of the Administration’s nautical and engineering advisers a dredger cannot successfully maintain a constant and sufficient depth of water on the bar unless assisted by protective works, and this is confirmed by the lack of success which attended previous efforts to improve the entrance by dredging. Prior to Union the Cape Parliament voted a considerable sum of money for dredging work at Port St. John’s, and after over £12,000 had been spent the work had to be abandoned as no headway was being made. Apart from the initial outlay which would be involved, the annual expenditure on dredging and in respect of interest charges on the protective works and dredger would approximate £9,000; and the trade of the port does not warrant this large expenditure. During 1913, only 7,291 tons of cargo were handled at Port St. John’s, a decrease of 2,279 tons compared with the previous 12 months. The revenue of the port during last financial year was £618, and the expenditure, excluding interest, £906. The line now under construction from Idutywa to Umtata should, when completed, afford an alternative route to and serve a large area of the St. John’s district.

asked the Minister of Justice: (1) How many subordinate officers in the Prisons Department of Natal were, prior to Union, in receipt of a language allowance; (2) what was the amount of this allowance; (3) has this allowance been cancelled; and, if so, (4) what compensation do such officers receive for the cancellation of the allowance, seeing that other subordinate officers, of the same rank, who were not previously in receipt of this language allowance, rise to the same maximum as those officers who were entitled to this extra allowance?

replied: (1) Thirty-one. (2) It varied from 6d. to 2s. a day, and for each language according to the class of certificate hold. Some officers drew allowances for more than one language, receiving half rates for the second and subsequent languages. (3) Yes, on reorganisation in harmony with the re-organisation of the Police Force. (4) The equivalent of the allowance has been preserved to the officers as past service allowance in 23 out of the 31 cases. In the other cases the officers have been placed on new scales at a salary in excess of their previous salary, plus the language allowance. The procedure followed was based on Prison Regulation 163 (3).

asked the Minister of Defence: (1) Whether an Imperial Conference is to be held this year to consider the question of defence; and, if so (2), what arrangements does the Government intend to make for the representation of the Union at the Conference; (3) whether the Government intends making a statement of the attitude which it proposes to adopt at the Conference; and (4) whether the Government will give the House an opportunity of considering the question?

replied: The Union Government has not been invited to take part in any such Conference, and I have therefore no communication to make to the House on the subject.

asked the Minister of Justice whether he is prepared to lay upon the Table of the House a return showing (a) how many male Europeans were during the year 1913 trapped and convicted at Johannesburg and Pretoria for illicit liquor selling, and (b) how many European females (distinguishing between married and unmarried) were convicted during the same period for the same offence?

replied: I am having the return asked for by the honourable member prepared.

asked the Minister of Finance whether he has received a communication from the Town Clerk of Johannesburg, suggesting that section 143 of clause 5 of the Customs Tariff should be so amended as to provide that organs imported by, or for presentation to, any local authority, shall enter the Union free of duty; and whether he proposes to act upon that suggestion?

replied: The reply to the first part of the hon. member’s question is in the affirmative. I regret, however, that the exigencies of the situation render it impracticable to act on the suggestion alluded to.

asked the Minister of Mines and Industries: (1) Whether, in view of the fact that the Government interest in the Premier Diamond Mine is six-tenths of the profit, it will take steps to be represented in proportion to its interest in the diamond industry at the Conference about to be held in London to control the South African diamond production; (2) whether the alluvial diggers, who produce diamonds to the value of a million pounds per annum and support a population of 30,000 souls, ate also to have representation; (3) if not, will the Government take such steps as are necessary to have their rights and those of the general public safeguarded; and (4) in view of the great importance of the diamond industry to South Africa, will the Government take stops to secure the immediate publication of any decisions arrived at by the Conference?

replied: I may inform the hon. member that the Government will take care that its interests are fully safeguarded, and will watch the interests of the alluvial diamond diggers. The publication of the decisions which may be arrived at by the Conference must depend on their character and on circumstances.

The Minister has not answered my question.

I beg your pardon.

The Minister did not answer the first part of my question.

Oh, yes, I—

My question was whether the Government is going to be represented?

I said that the Government will take care that its interests are fully safeguarded.

Will the Government be represented?

The Minister made no reply,

asked the Minister of Mines and Industries whether his attention has been drawn to the enormous amount of brandy, said to be inferior to dop, which is finding its way into the Transvaal, and much of which, it is alleged, is being illicitly disposed of, greatly to the demoralisation of whites and natives alike, and is the Government taking any steps in the matter; if so, what steps?

replied: Only such statements as have appeared in the Press. I have no knowledge of the illicit disposal alleged, but the matter has been referred to the Commissioner of Police for inquiry.

asked the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs what was the amount paid by the Government to Reuter’s Telegraphic Agency, Ltd., during 1913?

£500.

asked the Minister of Justice whether the Government will favourably consider the advisability of appointing Sheriffs of Courts (higher and lower) as salaried officials, instead of permitting the continuance of the present system?

replied: The Sheriffs of the Superior Courts are already salaried officers, but appoint their own deputies in outlying districts. I have at present no intention of altering this system, except with regard to the service of criminal process, which is at present Under consideration. With regard to messengers of inferior courts, I do not propose altering the existing system.

asked the Minister of Native Affairs whether it is correct that in Pretoria the native pass fee is only 1s. per month, whereas at Johannesburg and other industrial areas it is 2s. per month; and, if so, why is this difference made in favour of the capital?

replied: Pretoria was proclaimed an urban area under the provisions of the Urban Areas Native Pass Act, 1909, which provides for the issue of passes to natives in such areas at a charge not exceeding 1s. per month. In labour districts, defined and proclaimed as such under the Native Labour Regulation Act, 1911, the old pass regulations, which provides for the issue of passes at a rate of 2s. per month, are retained. The position in this respect is exactly the same as it was at the date of Union.

asked the Minister of Native Affairs whether it is a fact that a number of native labourers recruited north of latitude 22 deg. S. have recently been engaged for work on the Hlobane or other Natal collieries, and, if so, what is the number of such natives and when were they imported into the Union?

replied: Inquiries are being made into this matter. Owing to the short notice given of this question, I am not in a position to reply now.

asked the Minister of Defence whether it is a fact that after the recent strike 65,000 rifle cartridges were sold by the Department of Defence to one dealer in firearms and ammunition in Pretoria at 7s. 6d. per 100, whereas the cost price to the Government is alleged to have been 12s. 6d. per 100; and, if so, what are the reasons?

replied: That number of rounds of ammunition was sold to a dealer. The cartridges were not .303 but Martini-Henri .475, of which there are considerable surplus stocks. The cost price of Martini-Henri ammunition is, of course, very much lower than 12s. 6d. per 100, the price at which the department issues .303 ammunition on repayment to members of the Union Defence Forces for rifle practice if they require ammunition in addition to the free issue and to the 200 rounds a head which are issued to members under cost price, viz., 10s. per 100.

asked the Minister of Justice: (1) What are the reasons for his issuing a circular directing magistrates not to allow Government offices to be used for public meetings in future, (2) whether he is aware that the public in villages which have no suitable buildings for such meetings are thereby greatly inconvenienced; and (3) whether he will reconsider the matter and so modify the terms of the circular as to leave the question to the discretion of the magistrate or other responsible officer?

replied: The Public Works Department, which is the department responsible for the safekeeping and maintenance of all Government buildings, has from time to time represented to the Department of Justice that grave risks are run by the use of court houses being indiscriminately given to the public. I am not aware of any definite circular of instructions having been issued on the subject, but instructions have been given from time to time discouraging the granting of the use of Government buildings to the public. In view of strong representations as to the inconvenience to the public it has now, however, been decided by the Minister of Public Works to issue the following instructions in respect of the use of magistrates’ and other inferior court houses for other than official purposes: (1) Where it has not been customary for the court house to be used for other than judicial or Government purposes, no change is to be made, and no such practice should be commenced in the case of a new district or area. (2) Where it has been customary for the court house to be used for other purposes, and another hall or room not connected with premises licensed for the sale of liquor is available, the judicial officer in charge ought to restrict the occasions on which the court house is so used, so that gradually it may be used for judicial and other Government purposes only; or otherwise he may, in his discretion, give reasonable notice to those concerned that after a certain date the court house will not be available for such other purpose. (3) Where it has been customary for the court house to be used for other purposes and another hall or room not connected with premises licensed for the sale of liquor is not available, the judicial officer in charge may, in his discretion, grant the use of the court house when not required for official purposes for religious services, Sunday-schools, temperance societies, political meetings, lectures and meetings of District Councils, Village Boards, and the like, subject to the conditions below; but under no circumstances may the court house be used for concerts, bazaars, dances, bioscopes, or other entertainments, whether a charge is made for admission or not. This discretion is given to the judicial officer in charge, in the hope that permission even for the purposes conceded, will be given as seldom as possible. (4) Before the use for extraneous purposes in terms of the foregoing clause is conceded a sufficient undertaking in writing shall be obtained by the judicial officer in charge that care will be exercised an the use, that where lights are installed and used, an amount assessed by the judicial officer is paid in advance, that all damage will be immediately rectified or replaced, and the premises properly cleaned and restored to order immediately after use. If the judicial officer’s office and other rooms where records and documents are kept can be shut off from the court house by locked doors, the judicial officer in charge shall see that this is done, when any meeting is held after office hours. Where this cannot be done, or where the records are stored in the court house, the judicial officer shall require the person giving the undertaking above, to provide—and if necessary pay—some trustworthy person, to be nominated by the judicial officer, to be present at the meeting to prevent any person from entering any portion of the building except the court house or from meddling with any effect in the premises, and especially to see that all lights are properly extinguished at the conclusion and the premises duly locked and the keys accounted for. (5) Where the court house is not owned by the Government, but is hired, it must not be used for other than judicial or Government purposes without the judicial officer in charge having previously obtained the consent in writing of the owner in each case. The conditions governing the grant of the use shall be as above. (6) It must be distinctly understood that the judicial officer in charge is personally responsible for the safety of his court building and of the records and other documents therein, and that in granting the use as above he must bear in mind the interests of other departments housed in the same building. If the evening use of the court house is conceded as above, he must satisfy himself that any means of lighting temporarily employed is such as will minimise any danger from fire.

asked the Minister of Defence: (1) Whether he is aware that the section of the Citizen Defence Force who were drilled at Queen’s Town through the medium of Dutch received their rifles and uniforms long after the others; and, if so, (2) what is the reason for such differential treatment?

I am at a loss to understand the purport of this question. I am only aware of the fact that it was decided at a late date to form a dismounted rifle unit, called the Border Rifles, from the rural population of Albany, Alexandria, Bedford to Sterkstroom districts, instead of posting these citizens to the 1st Eastern Rifles, as was originally intended. In consequence there was some delay and difficulty in organising and equipping this unit, as compared with other units which had been in existence for several years as volunteer corps. The suggestion of differential treatment on the grounds of race or language is entirely baseless.

moved: That the petition from A. Jacobs and 1,625 others, residents of the Transvaal, praying for the removal of the “colour bar ” from the Transvaal Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations, presented to this House on the 7th April, 1914, be referred to the Government for consideration, with the view as far as possible to granting the prayer of the petitioners. The mover said it was with a certain amount of reluctance that he rose to move the resolution, not because the claim was not justified; but because he felt that it was a matter of the very greatest importance, and one that went directly to the root and foundation of the greatest question that South Africa had to deal with. It was one of those things which, if they did not deal with it at once might lead to enormous questions in the future. There were 4½ millions of coloured people in this country, and they (the whites) had given the assurance that they would look after the interests of those people when they passed the Act of Union. When they took that Act of Union to England for sanction there was a great deal of agitation as to whether the Act of Union should be allowed, containing the provisions it did on colour. In advocating the Act of Union they, on behalf of the people of South Africa, had given assurances as to protecting the interests of the coloured people. A stranger if he happened to stray into the Assembly that afternoon —an Assembly which was composed of the descendants of two peoples who had claimed to be the champions of freedom, and who said they represented the two freest nations of the earth—would be astonished at the discussion on that question, which involved the most elementary rights. It might have been thought that an argument on a matter of that description would not have been necessary in an Assembly which was composed of descendants of those two peoples, who had always advocated the rights of freedom. It was now proposed that they should deny rights because of the mere accident of colour, for which no race in South Africa was responsible— an accident which was simply the result of Providence. Still they refused those rights to the coloured people because of a prejudice—they also refused it through fear, fear that those people would compete with the white people and take their employment, and they also refused it from a desire to have the monopoly of certain classes of work. He did not think that any of those grounds gave them the right to refuse the claim those people made to have avenues of employment open to them. Such a thing would be against their traditions, against their morality, and he also thought it would be against the best interests of this country. In their hearts every member of that Assembly must know that to exclude the coloured labourer from employment on the mines would be a serious wrong to an inferior race. How was it possible to them, who professed Christianity, to go against the first principle of Christianity—“to do unto others as you would be done by.” They might indeed contrast the practise with the practise of the Mohammedan religion. Every man who was a Mohammedan was the brother of the man who held the same faith. Christians might profess that but did they practise it—did they? It was an indication of how they were prepared to tear up their own religion for the benefit oi themselves. They in South Africa were in the position of guardians, and they must never use their power to keep down and trample on any spark of ambition which might come from the inferior races. It was necessary to point out the nature of the disability they were placing on these people. It was strange indeed that that disability did not come from the old Republican times; it was a disability which came from the time that the English people were the masters of the Transvaal. He had read in the paper the ether day of the desire of certain Labour exponents to go back to the old days of Paul Kruger.

They were harsh.

Harsh they may have been, because they came from a different school of thought to that from which we carne, but it was left to us to establish this colour bar. It is since Union that this has been accentuated, and it was only last year, after the so-called victory of the Labour Party, that it has become worse.

In the old days there had been no disabilities of colour. Ostensibly with a view of the Chinese, he thought, that pretext was given that a certificate should not be granted to any coloured man in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and a certificate granted to a coloured man in any other Province would not be available outside such Province. But in the Cape and in the Natal Provinces things remained as they had been in the Transvaal before the advent of the Union Jack there, and under the Union Jack these disabilities had been placed upon these people. He could hardly believe it; and before that there had been none of these disabilities, and it had been possible for a native to earn his living as a contractor, but they had put a stop to that. They had forced these men back to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and they said to them when they were able to rise by their own ability, industry, and grit that they should not rise, and that for all time they should be nothing but hewers of wood and drawers of water. They should labour, it was true, but every advantage should be to that privileged class who alone had the right to come and conduct their labour. Had it worked well? Could anyone say that that rule had worked well, and that there were no labour troubles, and that it had quietened matters? It had not quietened matters; and by shutting the door on the ambition and the hopes of advancement on these people they drove them down; and if they treated men as brute animals, as brute animals they would behave. There was no truer thing than that. (Hear, hear.) What they ought to do was to elevate these people, always keeping themselves above. Having begun at the mines that thing had spread. Owing to Trade Union methods coloured carpenters were forbidden to become skilled men, and he had instanced the case of Durban, where they had white men working at 12s. a day painting the bottoms of posts, and native men doing more skilled work at the top and risking their necks at 1s. 6d. per day. It had spread to the bakers. It was impossible, it had been discovered, for a highly trained and organised aristocrat up above there to eat any bread which had been made by a coloured person. It spread to the bricklayers, and that highly skilled art—(laughter)—could not be carried on by coloured men. What a commentary this was on their present methods that at the present moment one of their aristocrats down here —a man probably richer than most people in these parts—was having a house put up on his farm by a coloured contractor, and he did not see that there had been any commotion of nature or that he had asked that contractor to dine with him. But the most curious thing of all that was that with all these rules and with everything else, these men did the work. They went down the mines and did that semi-skilled work which these men were capable of doing, aye, and when the inspectors wore not looking, doing the blasting operations, and probably with perfect safety. They did all that, but were not allowed to take the pay. The pay was taken by the privileged class which supervised them. Was that fair, and was that the way to elevate the native races and keep that country in peace in the future? They had men drawing £100 and £150 per month, and the whole work was done by skilled men of colour who did the work under them at 3s. per day, while these other men got these enormous cheques.

The whole system was so faulty and was so wrong that he did not wonder that they did not see it was at the root of most of their industrial troubles, because what was the real evil of the whole of that thing?.

The evil of it was that, when they got a system like that they gradually demoralised white labour. To what was due the large number of poor whites in that country, or what they called the poor whites? The absence of a labouring class amongst these poor white people; the doctrine that nothing like manual labour was to be done by the white man, and that it was native work. That was one of the greatest faults of their country. They had all seen a collection of white men squatting in contented indigence close to where there were farmers calling out for labour, to do the shearing and things of that sort. He had asked one of his friends, a wealthy farmer, “Why don’t you get your poor white friends up who are just below?” He said, “I would not allow one of them to come on my farm. I am afraid of them.” That depth their race had sunk to in that country, because they refused to do manual work. The only way of preventing that poor white business was by means of work, and the only way to prevent that was to show the poor whites, that they had no competition to fear from those below them. The Transvaal Indigency Commission had brought that out very carefully indeed. They had to go to the mines to show them the absurdity of that rule, for these coloured men did work in the mines, and did do skilled or semi-skilled work, but the only thing was that they did not do it in their own names. Other people battened on their work, and that was not fair. He would do wrong if in that connection he did not bring out one bright side. In times of difficulty, mutual aid was rendered by both races to one another. The other day they had had the example of Wagenaar, whose name should be held in honour—a man who had gone down a mine at the risk of his own life to save natives out of that pit. They had seen in the De Beers Mines, when they had a mud rush, natives and white men working together in most absolute danger of their lives, and in danger of a most horrible death, to save the natives and white men who had been imprisoned as the result of the mud rush. The right hon. member also gave an instance of a prosperous man in Queen’s Town who gave his life in trying to save the life of a native. These were touches, he added, which made the whole world kin, and there was that common humanity which they could not repress by all the rules in the world. (Hear, hear.) Referring to the colour bar, he said that it was wrong to do this—thoroughly wrong—and contrary to every principle which they professed. They did it knowing it to be wrong, and the sooner they redressed it the better. He would turn from that to the economic effect on that country. He had already instanced what effect it had on their own population. He had quoted once before—he had got the thing there, and he would quote it once again, to show the sort of business that thing brought in its train. A young fellow, seventeen years of age, applying for a certain situation on a mine, said: He was seventeen years of age, and his last situation had been with certain people, and he had left because he had been asked to push a handcart! Yes, that was Kafir’s work, and that young gentleman who applied for this situation on the mine, and said that he was hard-working, had been so demoralised by what was going on that he had left his former employment because he had been asked to push a handcart! Well, really, that was the sort of way they were training their youths up to. Every country, as far as he had been able to follow history, perished when a race tried to impose itself upon another race and live by the work of any other people, and he would commend that to the Minister of Finance, who, he knew, was deeply interested in their population—that that was really the root of the whole business, and he would find that to be the case in studying history. It was because he felt that so strongly that he urged it so strongly upon the House. The only test by which they should test a man was by his ability. What was behind that matter? Had any of his friends read the remarkable evidence of a gentleman whose name had been heard in that House before—Mr. Tom Mathew's? He said “that, of course, that was to drive the natives out.” Mr. Mathews said that if they did not maintain the colour bar the capitalist would have a monopoly. Mr. Mathews wanted to maintain a monopoly for another class. He (Mr. Merriman) believed we were indebted to America for Mr. Tom Mathews’ presence here. Mr. Mathews claimed that the white man had a right to oust the black man, as the white man had ousted the Chinaman in Australia. But South Africa was originally a black man’s country, whereas the Chinaman was. an exotic in Australia, and they had not managed to oust the Chinaman from Australia yet, for some of the richest men in the Commonwealth were Chinese. Mr. Mathews expressed the opinion that the black man should gradually be eliminated from the mines. But who were they going to put in his place? The heroes represented by Mr. Tom Mathews? Sir John Langeman pointed out that the coloured man was one of our best assets, the coloured population having shown a real natural desire for work which was unequalled by most people. Mr. Mathews’ reply was: “Let the Kafir go to Natal and elsewhere.” (Laughter.) “Make the Dutchman who holds the land break his land open.” What Mr. Mathews meant, he (Mr. Merriman) did not know, but there would be a good many heads broken if the attempt were made. (Laughter.) So far for Mr. Mathews.

He wanted to point to a very significant meeting held in connection with this matter. He spoke of it with some degree of reverence. It was held on classic ground. Near by was the spot where an industrious man named Macbeth was almost kicked to death by his fellow-workers. Near by also was the place where a nurse named Scott had to seek refuge from infuriated workers in the police station; and in full view were the ruins of the buildings of Gow and Taylor, two industrious men who had been ruined in the Labour riots of July. The speakers at the meeting were headed by the Mayor—a civic officer of some esteem; he (Mr. Merriman) hoped he was a J.P. They had a holy man with them, and that reminded him that in old times that no pirate put to sea but he had a chaplain on board. (Laughter.) Let them see what this holy man said, for it summed up the policy of these people. They were asked to dance to the tune of the Benoni meeting, and to capitulate to Benoni. The Rev. Mr. Evans said “he had now been sixteen years in South Africa. During the first few years of his stay here he had enjoyed a thoroughly optimistic view of the country’s future.” That must have been in the days of good old President Kruger, Mr. Merriman commented. “This,” continued Mr. Evans, “was the biggest problem the white people had yet to tackle”—that was, observed Mr. Merriman, keeping the mines as a monopoly for the reverend gentleman’s friends. “Were they,” asked Mr. Evans, “going to initiate a policy which would help them to build up a great country?” He (Mr. Merriman) considered they were at once going to stop a chance of this ever becoming a great, country if they continued a policy of this kind, a policy demoralising to both blacks and whites. Mr. Evans went on to ask, “were they going to allow the two races to intermingle?” and added that “the position of the white toiler was one of danger and weakness.” He (Mr. Merriman) thought it was. It had been proved at Benoni that it was one of danger. Then their Mayor of Benoni, speaking at the same meeting, stated that “the Lord had made the native the white man’s inferior, and the whites should do their best to keep him so.” Then there was Mr. A. W. Payne, who had a great deal to say about the terrible effects of cheap labour. It was not the native labour they minded, Mr. Merriman remarked, but the cheap native labour. The natives were prepared to do for an economic wage what their friends would not do. He was sorry to say that the great Unionist Party in the Transvaal had succumbed to the doctrines of Benoni. They had capitulated. Hon. members, no doubt, saw the message which he had no doubt his hon. friend (Sir T. W. Smartt) had in his pocket—(laughter)—but he hoped not in his heart, that the meeting of the Transvaal Unionist Party thoroughly endorsed the resolution of the Benoni people. Just let them think of that—the great Unionist Party of the Transvaal capitulated to Benoni, that classic spot. He wanted to know whether motions of that kind were likely to do any good in the arduous task of keeping and maintaining as far as possible our position in this country, trying to deal fairly with these people to act up to the solemn engagement we made with Great Britain—whether motions of this sort and talk of driving natives out and keeping them out would do any good. That it would do harm to whites he was certain.

In conclusion, Mr. Merriman said: I appeal to this House on grounds of fair play to give every man a chance, irrespective of colour and irrespective of race. I appeal to it on the ground of our duty to interiors, that while we keep ourselves in advance we should try and uplift, as far as possible, those whom Providence has entrusted to our care. The race that trios to keep itself up by artificial props is doomed, and it is because I want to see this a great country, a prosperous country, the home of a strong white race, it is for these reasons that I wish to see these artificial props kicked away and to give people a chance whose only fault is that they happen to be of a different colour from ourselves. I hope my poor words may have some effect of this kind. I fear not, but at any rate I have done my duty. By adopting the course we have followed in the past we have done incalculable harm to this country, and to attempt to pursue this fatal course is sure—sooner or later— to end in disaster. I have no desire myself to capitulate to Benoni. I am not so fond of the doctrines preached in that place. They have already brought ruin on one part of the country, and they may yet well bring ruin and disaster on the whole country if they are not checked. Mr. Merriman then moved his resolution, and added: In accepting my proposal we shall only be putting this country back in the position in which it was some time ago.

No.

Well, that is my opinion.

You are wrong.

We shall be doing, I feel, nothing more than our bounden duty, and we shall be doing the best day’s work we ever did with a view to removing from the white race the stigma of living entirely on the labour of those they wish to keep in the subservient position of hewers of wood and drawers of water. (Cheers.)

seconded the motion.

said they had listened on the cross-benches with a most intense interest to the very eloquent speech of the right hon. gentleman. With many of the sentiments he had expressed they could not but be in entire accord. Many of the phrases the right hon. member had used they had used again and again when they pointed out what was the inevitable destiny of this country so long as it built its system on what was the old slave system. But when the hon. member talked about natives as assets of the country they disagreed. A man was no asset. That was the spirit of slavery regarding human beings as assets of other human beings. When the right hon. gentleman talked of natives being prepared to do for an economic wage, that which their friends were not prepared to do, he departed from the realms of common-sense, and he (Mr. Creswell) would like the right hon. gentleman to tell them what was meant by an economic wage. It simply meant the wage which would leave to the employer the desirable part of the spoil, and would leave to the worker as little as possible. When the right hon. gentleman pleaded on the ground of morality, he (Mr. Creswell) would be the last to differ from him. He wished to enter a caveat, however, when the hon. member told them that the followers of another faith made their practice accord with their principles. If the right hon. gentleman had lived in Turkey he would have known that human nature there was not very different to what it was here. He would have found that a good many of the Turks believed just as little in the professions of brotherhood as many of our poor brethren did here. They started the same premise as he started from, the major premise that a system based on slavery could only lead the white race in the future to nothing but degredation and decay. From that premise they came to an entirely opposite conclusion from the right hon. gentleman on the question before the House. They went a little deeper than he did. He had frequently pressed and point? ed out in this House the fact that we must reverse the whole policy. The right hon. gentleman dealt with only a little phase of it.

He had alluded to the year 1904, when certain of the regulations containing this Word “white” first appeared. Why did it first appear in 1904? Didn’t the right hon. gentleman remember that 1904 was the year when that iniquitous importation of Chinese took place? Did he not remember that it was alleged that the working-men of the Rand were bought over to that by the promise that the Chinese should be confined solely to unskilled work, and that the greatest pains should be taken to safeguard against their encroaching on the white man’s sphere of labour? How futile it was! He dared say some hon. members would remember the classic story of how the Chinese evaded that in one case. It was, he believed, a matter of doing contractor’s work, and the crafty Chinaman found that he could not take the work, and a number of them hired a white man to take the contract while they did the work and collared the money. The right hon. gentleman seemed to members on the cross-benches so inconsistent in many ways. They hesitated to be carried away by his eloquence, because they could not but see the hopeless inconsistency of his attitude. Here to-day he was protesting, and protesting in the most beautiful language, against one small thing in the whole system. He was protesting against something which was in the nature of a safeguard—an abortive safeguard, he (Mr. Creswell) agreed—but he supported the colour bar. He remembered, when the Miners’ Phthisis Bill was before the House, and he (Mr. Creswell) moved to delete the word “European” in the definition of “miner,” the right hon. gentleman was persuading the House not to accept his amendment. In the course of his remarks on that occasion, he (Mr. Merriman) said he hoped the committee would not accept the amendment, and that the Bill was based upon the distinction between the European and the native. (Labour cheers.) Then he would remember the protest they made when the Native Labour Regulation Bill was introduced. That Bill was nothing but an elaborated colour bar. (Hear, hear.) It prescribed a series of penalties to the native, as a native, on account of his race an colour, penalties in case he should not be inclined to carry out the contract of labour he had entered into, and when by criminal penalty they enforced the explicit performance of a labour contract they transgressed the line which divided a system based on freedom from a system based on slavery. There was no more eloquent supporter of that in this House than the right hon. gentleman. Would he like to be put in that position?

If I was a Kafir.

If he arrived at the mines and found the conditions irksome and found a position such as would induce him to go away if he could, would the right hon. gentleman under those circumstances still like to find that, having entered into this contract, if he packed up his traps and walked home, he could be arrested and put in prison? Proceeding, he said that the right hon. gentleman used to be a vigorous opponent when it did not concern the Province with which he was connected of the importation of Chinese labour. So he was now.

Would the right hon. gentleman tell them what on earth was the difference in principle between importing the indentured yellow man from one part of the world and the indentured black man from another part of the world? (Labour cheers and interruptions.) Hon. members interjected. They alleged that this man happened to be in this part, which was Africa on the map, and the other man happened to live a few miles over the sea, in places called China and so on, and that he was no part of the Union. Then the right hon. gentleman would have no objection to importing more by the shipload. There was some real consistency, however, in the right hon. gentleman. He had tried, in view of his past utterances, to find the thread of consistency which connected the right hon. gentleman’s utterances. He was against a colour bar, but he was for the colour bar in all these other matters, Miners’ phthisis compensation, etc. He secured the white miner compensation on one basis in proportion to his wages and secured to the native miner compensation on a very much lower basis. He supported the indentured system and the pass law. All these colour bars he supported, but this one he did not. He thought he had found the connecting thread in some of his (Mr. Merriman’s) recent utterances, where he had told them that this country was to be compared to the Southern States of America during the existence of slavery. He had pointed to the poor white and to the ideal of a white aristocracy. We, he had said, were the aristocracy of this country, and the natives were the workers. He had asked them to regard that as the unalterable basis of South African society. He thought the right hon. gentleman regarded that as satisfactory, but now he had painted in glowing words the impossibility of pursuing that idea with any satisfaction. He thought they had found the key to the continual sneers, sneers repeated this afternoon, at the white man, the white wage-earner, who was trying to insist upon civilised conditions, or wages upon which he could maintain a civilised standard of life.

Continuing, Mr. Creswell said the reason why they welcomed the speech of the right hon. the member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) was that he expressed himself in plain words, which some members were not in the habit of doing quite so frankly. The hon. member for Victoria West took up the view that they must adopt the uncivilised man as their basis, and that the white man must conform to those conditions or get out of the country. They on the cross-benches did not believe that doctrine. They maintained that the mainstay of the country was the white races, and they knew that if those white races decayed well, there would be a very poor look-out for the black and coloured races of South Africa. He (Mr. Creswell) believed up to the hilt with the hon. member for Victoria West that the white races of the Union had a duty to perform, and that they were the guardians of the native and the coloured man. But they on the cross-benches were equally determined to maintain a white standard of civilisation, which was just as much in the interest of the coloured and native races as it was for the country generally. The maintenance of a civilised standard in South Africa without the white worker would, he ventured to assert, prove a bad time for the coloured worker. They had only to recall what the circumstances were when the black workers were left to themselves. They all would remember the appalling mortality that took place amongst these men. Did the demand for calling attention to this come from hon. members on the Government side of the House? No, it came from the cross-benches, and they persisted in that agitation until that mortality was stopped. Then with regard to the miners’ phthisis compensation. Would there have been any compensation at the present time if the Labour members had not demanded it? With regard to natives and the Compensation Act, he believed investigations would show that there were thousands of natives on the mines who had a right to receive this compensation, but it was certainly due to the efforts of the Labour Party that those who did receive this compensation got it through the agitation which came from the cross-benches, and from the white labourers who insisted upon it. The Workmen’s Compensation Act was also another example of what the white worker had done for the coloured workman. Then with regard to indentured labour, members on the cross-benches, as everybody knew, were entirely opposed to this. The native territories were mainly looked upon by this country in the light of breeding grounds for labour. (Cries of objection.) He (Mr. Creswell) and those with him maintained that the abiding interest of the coloured worker was being safeguarded by the white workers. The native and coloured workmen might acquire the resisting powers themselves, because if any class of people were industrialised, they would soon acquire the habit of resisting the exploiting power of the employer. It would, no doubt, take the native and the coloured man a long time to acquire this power, but they (the Labour Party) were not going to consent to this. They were fixedly determined to maintain the conditions under which white workers worked in this country. During the past six years the percentage of native workers had increased 50 per cent., while the percentage of white workers had remained stationary.

He found that in the same six years while the number of men employed in occupations that yielded them 15s. and over a day had remained stationary, the number of men in occupations that yielded less than 15s. a day had increased by nearly 3,000 in the Transvaal. In other words, the stress was getting so acute that men were driven to working for wages on which they could not maintain themselves decently. Let them come to the meaning of the resolution. The right hon. gentleman had given his reasons. He was moving this from very different motives that had inspired the gradual working up of that field-day there. It began some little time ago. The fact of the matter was that since July then august masters on the Rand became alarmed at the fact that Trade Unionism had grown very considerably. For the first time it struck them how shameful a thing it was that coloured men were not able to get the same wages as the white men. They had Mr. Martin at the Chamber of Commerce at Kimberley, and then they had the hon. member for Yeoville, who they were very pleased to see resume his seat in the House the other day. He pointed to the injustice of natives able to do the work being prohibited from doing this work. That was an injustice which the hon. member for Germiston and his friends thought the country should not continue for a day longer. It also might reduce working costs and increase dividends. That they thought would be the effect. Here was another curious fact. When they on those benches said “Yes, equal pay for equal work,” and when they suggested a standard minimum wage, it was a different proposition. The right, hon. gentleman objected to it then, and on June 4th, 1912, in that House he said he thought that natives who could do miners’ work could get miners’ pay. With regard to the indentured native the right hon. gentleman’s opinion then was that he should be left to the tender mercies of the hon. member for Germiston and his friends. He merely wanted to remove the colour bar so as to give his friends the opportunity of showing Christian generosity and doing something which mere commercial motives would not make them do.

They were alarmed at the growth of Trade Unionism and the stem in the tide of their exploiting activities, and further wanted to diminish the Trade Unionable portion of their employees, and that had to do with the exercising of votes. It was the same old thing. It was what inspired them to bring in the Chinese. This was not a demand on the part of the indentured native. This motion was of a double-barrelled character—partly industrial and partly political. It was thought that the Cape coloured man who was unfortunately beginning to see through these past asseverations of brotherly love—

By the Labour Party.

Oh, no. I will come to that later on. Continuing, he said that the Cape coloured man was getting a little bit tired of being fooled and being used as a little political faggot mainly for members from the Cape on the Opposition side of the House. The coloured man was beginning to think himself fooled, and that was why the matter had met with such cordial appreciation by the Opposition Press. The coloured man was not going to get very much good out of this motion. On the Rand the engine-drivers had been the white-haired boys of the mining industry because they held the neck of the bottle. Theirs was the only Trade Union recognised by the Chamber of Mines because their Union included a very large proportion of the engine-drivers on the Rand, and it was known that if they went on strike nobody would be able to go down the mines. Putting men on work at a lower rate of pay was an inducement to strike. Supposing that they undercut his source of income.

You are.

Supposing we do what you want us to do and impose a tariff on brandy. Continuing, he asked should that tariff be kept up? Would they not have opposition from the Government side of the House if anything of the sort was suggested? The abolition of the colour bar under existing circumstances would enable the indentured system to become a more effective weapon, and it would eventually result in a reduction of wages for white men. Little by little they were running the mines in the Transvaal with a decreasing number of whites. It was a mere handful now. He was talking about what he knew, because when he was first employed in mining work, it was in Venezuela, where they had had West Indian labourers. If they went to the West Beit would they like to see the same condition of affairs in the Transvaal? If the parties were going to appeal to the coloured men in the Cape with regard to the principles of the Labour Party they would be taking a big thing on. The fact of the matter was that the indentured system showed signs of breaking down. The natives on the mines had begun, after July, to talk about “picannini mali,” and that habit of the native labourers had led the mining employers to introduce a resolution of that description. The mining employers had no more use for civilised coloured labour than they had for civilised white employees. The effect would be eventually, if the resolution was carried, that the coloured men would not be able to get a job anywhere. He inferred from what he had heard in the Lobby and what he had seen in the Press, that the motion was going to put the Labour Party in a dilemma— (Labour cheers)—but it concerned voters all over South Africa. It was no difficulty to the Labour Party to disappoint the House with regard to the attitude in connection with the resolution. The. Labour Party did not wish to influence the Cape coloured voter by any sentimental appeal. They relied on the concrete policy which they had already laid down. They expected the coloured voter to go on supporting them, because it was in his own interests. The whole thing was perfectly clear and obvious—the coloured man had security with the Labour Party but not with the others. The Labour Party said that it was their business to arrange conditions so that it would be possible for the coloured men to receive wages which ought to be paid to Civilised human beings. As far as colour bars were concerned, he had no use for them as a permanent policy. The colour bar had been a danger to the white worker, and it was still a danger. He had an amendment to the resolution to that effect, which he would now read: To omit all the words after “That”, and to substitute “in the opinion of this House so long as the policy is persisted in of basing the Mining Industry upon uncivilised servile labour, largely imported, and so long as no legislation is enacted securing to mine workers standard rates of wages upon which civilised conditions of life can be maintained, the only effect of abolishing the ‘colour bar’ in the Transvaal Mining Regulations would be to increase the profits of the mining companies at the expense of the interests of the white, native and coloured populations of the Union. It therefore considers that steps must be taken to reverse the policy mentioned above and to secure civilised standards of pay to mine workers before the petition of A. Jacobs and 1,623 others can be taken into consideration.” (Labour cheers.) “Free men ourselves,” the right hon. member had said, but if a native refused to work he got two months. (Labour cheers.) “Free men ourselves,” said the right hon. member, but the native was denied compensation. (Labour cheers.) They (Labour hon. members) said that the abolition of the colour bar must succeed, and not precede, the abolition of the present policy. They were not inclined to let any of the present safeguards go; and what they desired to see was the present policy reversed. They asked the right hon. gentleman, would he secure a standard rate of wages for the workers? On, no, that was “absurd Socialistic talk,” and they must dismiss that! “An economic wage,” it was stated. It was refreshing to hear that. He hoped the hon. member would tell them what it was. He hoped the House would take their view of the matter. Every time a question like that was brought forward which would enable them to discuss the matter on its real terms, which showed the country how they were trying to feed the country with mere forms like the “colour bar,” when they were treading the path of slavery, they would discuss it, and he hoped the day would not be far distant when the coloured voters of the Cape Province would say that that slave system should be put an end to. It was quite charming to see the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Quinn) and other members, who went with the Chinese one day and took up another view the next, talk of the “glorious prospects of the country” and the like. The hon. member for Troyeville changed his mind often, but what he had not yet been was a Labour leader. The hon. member had never shown sufficient consistency for a couple of months to be a Labour leader. (Labour laughter.) In conclusion, Mr. Creswell said, let them not try to fool the Cape coloured man—(ironical cheers)—by telling him that the abolition of the colour bar was going to do him any good, and let them not fool the Transvaal white worker by telling him that the abolition of the colour bar was going to be any benefit to him. Let them reverse the policy of basing their industries upon a slave system; let them sweep away that importation of labour, and let them lay themselves out to meet the difficulties of the situation, and enact laws which would secure to the workers a civilised standard of wages, and then take away the colour bar; but until they did that, they were not going to sacrifice the interests of the people of South Africa of all kinds to satisfy the stupidity and the greed of the mine-owners of that country. (Labour cheers.)

seconded the amendment.

said he was sorry to see that the mover of the resolution had left the House, but he hoped the right hon. member realised he had done the men in whose interests he had introduced the question a very poor service. If there was a subject more likely than any other to affect men’s prejudices and to drive them into violence, it was the subject underlying this question. It was the duty of every member of this House, more particularly such as the right hon. gentleman, to approach this subject with the seriousness befitting it, to treat it as one of the most serious and critical subjects any man in South Africa had ever had to face. The right hon. gentleman opened the subject in a spirit worthy of it and himself, and then a spirit of mischief came in, and the House had this position put to it, that the introduction of this colour bar in the mining regulations was an act for which the British Government and the Crown Colony Government of the Transvaal was responsible. For he stated that in the happy days of Paul Kruger there was no such bar, and then were the days of liberty and equality. But the late President Kruger had many other claims to fame besides that which the right hon. gentleman would give him, and unfortunately that claim was one to which he had no title. Would the House believe it, that so far from the hon. gentleman’s statement being correct, it was exactly the reverse. (Cheers.) In the Republican mining regulations there was a clear and definite prohibition of any coloured man holding these certificates, but when the British Government came that was removed. He (Mr. Duncan) did not know why such a statement was necessary by the right hon. gentleman, and he left hon. members to form their own ideas. Section 106 of the Transvaal Mining Laws of 1896, dealing with the certificate for engine drivers, stated that no coloured man should be entitled to possess a certificate of competency. That was the rule in force when the British occupation took place. The first time these words appeared in the Transvaal law under Crown Colony Government was when an Ordinance was passed sanctioning the importation of Chinamen, and only then it was done to make it clear that Chinamen were to perform only unskilled work. The statement made by the right hon. gentleman could only have been inspired by a spirit of mischief which entered into him sometimes; it was wholly unfounded in fact, and was made with no good motive, but he (Mr. Duncan) did not want to introduce any more controversial subjects than were actually necessary. He fully sympathised with what the right hon. gentleman had said when he stated that the white race would not flourish and would not exist by living on the labour of an inferior race. (Cheers.) Well, this colour bar was a very small matter in the much bigger question raised by a motion such as this—a very small matter compared to the conditions which existed, which necessarily must exist, when unskilled labour was recruited from uncivilised men brought in from outside the Union in order to keep down the wages at which uncivilised labour was obtainable.

That was what was going to bring the white race down, and to lead to industries being taken from the white race, and not this colour bar, which in itself was a small thing, and was an index of the spirit which governed the whole industrial position of the country. The removal of the colour bar, as had been pointed out by the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) would accentuate these evil results to the white races and would not check them. He (Mr. Duncan) went further, and said it was our duty in the interests of the natives and also the white men to protect them from this very serious competition with uncivilised imported labour. The importation of that uncivilised labour was as much a drawback to the natives and the coloured men as it was to the white men, and would do the coloured men and the natives far more harm than would any exclusion from skilled industries, because it attacked him where he was. It was preventing him from disposing on favourable terms of the commodity he had; it was condemning him to live under uncivilised standards, instead of gradually and slowly raising him upward to civilised standards. That was what was going to sap the position of the white race in this country, that reliance on uncivilised labour, that working under conditions under which no civilised man would ever work, and this colour bar was a trifle compared to that. Hon. members said, or seemed to think, that it was quite a different thing, and that there was no particular harm in this importation of uncivilised labour, because it came from Africa—they said it came across an imaginary line. His (Mr. Duncan’s) answer to that was a simple one. We, as citizens of the Union, had a direct responsibility for the welfare of the native and coloured races who lived in the Union. It was our duty, by everything in our power, to uplift them and educate them, as far as they could be educated, and to give them the fullest scope for their faculties. That was our duty to the natives of the Union, but we had no duty to the natives of Portuguese East Africa, Zanzibar, or Morocco. Why were we called on to civilise and uplift the whole of the uncivilised natives of Africa? Our duty to the natives was to those within our own territory, and not to those outside, and that was why he condemned the importation of uncivilised labour, of labour on which no civilising efforts of ours would have any effects, but whose presence would prevent access to labour markets of inhabitants of this country, whether white or black. It was to that extent that he sympathised with what the hon. member for Jeppe had said. If they were going to deal with the colour bar in the Transvaal, they must deal with it as part of the whole industrial system of the Transvaal. He would go further, and ask the hon. member. to consider whether this was the time—the most dangerous and inconvenient time—at which such a question could be raised? The question before the House related to a subject in which they should try to avoid feelings of hostility and prejudice, which centred round industrial troubles. Men were only too anxious to see in every movement something directed against them. They looked at every move such as that as being directed against them. They might be blamed as being shortsighted, but they should be taken as they were. The attitude they took up was not an unnatural one after all, and those who would see the position of the coloured man and the native made better than it was at the present time should avoid bringing forward such propositions as the right hon. gentleman had brought before the House at the present time.

The country was faced with a question of that kind when Union was brought about, and they dealt with the question in the manner of statesmen, not as politicians. Whatever may have been their individual opinions, they decided in the interests of the country as a whole, and in the interests of peace, that there was only one thing to do, and that was to leave such a state of things without change, so that as time went on the occasion might arise when the question could be tackled as a Union question, and not as a Provincial one. The rights of the coloured man to hold certain occupations was a question on which a large number of the inhabitants of the country had very strong views, views based on prejudice, and not on reason; very often they were based on selfish prejudice. People held those views very strongly; they must be given time to see that they were wrong, where they were wrong, and this matter should not be forced upon them. Questions connected with the discrimination of colour and race were those on which it was necessary to go slowly and carefully, The Convention when they came to this question decided that it was not one that could be dealt with piecemeal. That House ought to come to the same decision. The colour bar which existed in the Transvaal had always existed in the mining district, it was part of the system on which the mining industry was built up. Let them not tinken with the thing in bits. They should wait to see how things worked and they should certainly not deal with the matter when feelings were high and when men were not in a position to give a cool and statesmanlike consideration to the matter. He fully agreed with much the right hon. gentleman had said, but it filled one almost with despair sometimes when one saw the position of individuals who were debarred from privileges which they were fully fitted to enjoy and were debarred from the full exercise of faculties which they possessed. That bar was very much wider than the colour bar in the mining regulations. The real disability which the coloured man suffered was a social disability, and the removal of that colour bar would be but a trifling matter compared with that great prejudice. Nothing which they could do or say in that House would make the position of those people any better; he trusted that the right hon. gentleman would withdraw his resolution, and if he did not do so he (Mr. Duncan) could not see his way to support it. It would affect but a limited number of people, but the exclusion of the coloured men to which he had referred, the unjust exclusion of coloured men, which pressed so hardly on individuals, went very much wider than that. It existed in parts of the country where the mining industry did not exist, and the removal of that particular bar would not, except in a few cases, mitigate those hardships caused by the prejudice of the whites. It would make peace on the Witwatersrand far more difficult than it was at the present time. It was an attempt to nut away the whole foundation of the white man on the mines and would make the position far more insoluble even than now. The House was not ready for an action of that kind, not was it fit not was this the time for dealing with the question. While he (Mr. Duncan) had much consideration for the coloured man, he thought it would be doing the coloured man a disservice to press that matter through.

said that there were certain privileges which could not be called actual rights, but he thought that if there were one thing which could be called an inherent right it was that in the country in which they lived men should have the rigid to offer their labour on such terms as might be acceptable to and accepted by them. That seemed to be the very essence of freedom. The right to work, the right to labour, the right to sell that labour for whatever money they were ready to receive in exchange for it was a right that no law or custom had any business to interfere with. He did not propose to raise the question of the colour bar in the franchise laws Those who were opposed to that colour bar in the Convention yielded and waited for what time might bring about. He did not believe that in the Convention this question of a colour bar in regard to labour was brought up. From what he knew of the Cape Province members of the Convention he should say that, if it had been brought up and it had been said that they must insist upon a colour bar in the Transvaal and Orange Free State against skilled coloured labour as a sine qua non, he believed that we should never have had an Act of Union. This matter did not spring out of the conditions which were laid down as to franchise. There was another point. This wa3 a definite request from the people who were shut out from the sphere of coloured labour in the Transvaal and Orange Free State for the removal of that colour bar. That colour bar, as far as they in the Union Parliament were concerned, was imposed by means of regulations in connection with the Mining Act of 1911. That Act was passed by the Union Parliament. It was passed by himself and the other members here, and the question of colour was never raised in that Bill when it was brought in, and there was not the remotest idea in the minds of the majority in this Parliament that any such thing as a colour line would be drawn. They did object to the Government taking power to make regulations not only in that Bill but in other Bills, but they never supposed that such a great misuse would be made of the powers given to it as was indicated in the present case. Power was taken to make these regulations, as the power had been taken just lately in regard to the Workmen’s Compensation Bill passed by this House, when one member after another complimented the Government upon there being no colour bar in that Bill, and no colour mentioned. But it was just the same then as before. Power was given to the Government to make regulations, and not only so, but to make differing regulations for the different Provinces in the Union, the very same statement that was made in the Mining Act. They would see when the regulations under the Workmen’s Compensation Act came in whether there was a colour bar drawn. The hon. member for Fordsburg had said that this was not the time to bring forward a motion of this kind. Surely, when this had been in operation for a considerable time, the men who were debarred from these rights would not deserve to claim them if they did not bring before the Parliament of this country in a proper way by petition the disabilities which were put upon them. That was just what the coloured men had done in the Transvaal and throughout the country. What else could they do?

The hon. member for Fordsburg had found fault with the right hon. the member for Victoria West for bringing this matter forward. What else could he do but bring it before this Parliament? It was acknowledged to be an injustice even by the hon. member for Fordsburg. He (Mr. Schreiner) did not see the connection between the position that was laid down in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Jeppe, which, he was sorry to say, had been to a large extent endorsed by the hon. member for Fordsburg. It was not the first time, of course, that the hon. member for Fordsburg had endorsed the position taken up on the cross-benches on this question. He was, however, glad to notice that the hon. member for Fordsburg had for the first time drawn a distinction between native labour in the Union proper and native labour that came from beyond the Union. The idea of the gentlemen on the cross-benches, as far as he could gather from all the discussions that had taken place, was, first of all, to get rid of the tropical natives on the ground of their great mortality, and with that he was quite in accord, but they went On and wanted to get rid next of the labourers from Portuguese East Africa. They did not, however, stop there. There had been statements made from the cross-benches more than once which indicated that the end and aim was to get rid of every native working on the mines and replace him with white labour.

Indentured natives.

said he hardly thought that the amendment was in order. It brought up a very great question and a most important question, but, as an amendment to the motion of the right hon. gentleman, it did not seem to him to be in the proper place. The argument had been brought forward that they must do away with what was called indentured labour, which had been misnamed slavery. It was nothing of the kind. The system that obtained in one word in regard to natives was that they were assisted by the Government of this country to get to their scenes of labour—the mines—and they were protected there, and that was about all there was of slavery about it. Continuing, Mr. Schreiner said he could not understand how anybody with a spark of humanity in them could object to the protection of the natives by the recruiting system adopted by the Government, excepting members on the cross-benches, who were always against the natives. Mr. Tom Matthews had recently said that the natives should be relegated to their homes, and that white men should take their places. He (Mr. Schreiner) would say, that considering the circumstances of the last twelve months and what South Africa had suffered by the doctrines preached from the cross-benches, the members of which knew that these doctrines would not be carried out with moderation, that it would only be human nature on the part of the people of this country to say that they had had enough of it The country did not want any more importations such as these, and nobody would like to see 80,000 natives replaced by the stamp of man they had seen in their true colours in the late strikes. Members on the cross-benches had used a great deal of mystification in trying to show that they were the friends of the coloured man. The native and the coloured man, however, knew quite well that the intention of the Rand European Trade Unions was to oust them out of their work, and any consideration shown for the coloured man by members on the cross benches was purely selfish. He did not want to take up the time of the House, as he would like to see this question go to the vote. He strongly supported the motion proposed by the member for Victoria West.

Slavery.

said he believed a majority of the House was of opinion that the continuation of a colour bar was an injustice which ought to be done away with, and that to do away with it would be a benefit to the country in every possible way. Instead of injuring the mining industry, he firmly believed it would benefit the mines. He knew the Labour Party would not agree with that opinion, because they had always tried to keep the coloured man out. They had to conform to the laws of supply and demand, and if natives and coloured workmen were willing to work for a certain amount of wages agreeable to them, why should Trade Unions attempt to interfere with them? The miners on the Rand had nothing to complain of in the matter of wages, as the rate paid was known to be the highest in any part of the world, but were they in the country districts to be compelled to pay the same standard wages as paid on the Rand?

said the motion as introduced by the right hon. member for Victoria West, in a speech which but for a few exceptions to which the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) had drawn attention was from a very high point of view, and few people in this or any country would differ from the view that a man should be entitled to work at any trade which offered. The hon. member for Jeppe had approached the subject from a different point of view, and in his speech had talked a great deal about civilisation and the white man’s standard of living. He (the Minister) thought it was rather the conditions under which the white man worked in this country that they had to consider, because there were several standards of civilisation. He (Mr. Creswell) said in the abstract he agreed with the right hon. gentleman, that if they removed the servile conditions of black labour they would have no objection to the removal of the colour bar, but he pleaded generally for the maintenance in South Africa under present conditions of the colour bar to secure the white man’s standard of living. Would he be prepared to advocate the extension of the colour bar to the Cape Province? It was all very fine to lay down general principles, but that was the practical question which he (the Minister) would like the hon. member to answer. Were they prepared to extend the principle to the whole of the Union? If they were not, there was not much in the general proposition he had advocated. The Government did not take the point of view of the right hon. gentleman nor that of the member for Jeppe, but rather the historical practical view. He thought that the right hon. member for Victoria West and the hon. member for Fordsburg were not quite correct in stating the history of this question. The right hon. the member for Victoria West said that the Republican Government knew no colour bar in connection with mines, and that it was left for the Crown Colony Government to introduce it. The hon. member for Fordsburg flatly contradicted that. The truth was between the two They must draw the distinction so far as the mining regulations were concerned between machinery men and miners.

As far as machinery men were concerned there was a colour bar in the time of the Transvaal Republic. Section 104 of the law of 1898 laid it down that every person having charge of a winding engine used for lowering or raising purposes, or drawing along an engine plate, should be the holder of an engine driver’s competency certificate, which he should exhibit in his engine-room while on duty. But the section went on to state that no coloured person could hold an engine driver’s certificate of competency. So far as winding engine drivers were concerned, there was a colour bar before the war. As a matter of fact the Crown Colony Government, in 1903, in revising the regulations maintained that, and that was still in the regulations of the present day, and it had been extended to locomotive drivers. But so far as miners were concerned, no colour bar was drawn under Republican Law. With regard to skilled miners (banksmen, onsetters, gangers and blasters) he pointed out that “person” was mentioned, and he quoted one regulation to show that it did not lay down a colour bar. Why not? At that time the industry was comparatively in its infancy, and they had no native or coloured man competing with the white man. It was an accepted fact that the coloured man was there under exceptional circumstances, and was not competing with the white man, and that was the real thing. As a matter of fact, the question was never raised. It was not a practical question at all. It became a practical question in 1903 when the Chinese were introduced, and when the 1898 regulations were revised the colour bar was introduced, and it was introduced as a protection to the white man not when he had to face the unskilled Kafir coming from South Africa, but when he had to face the higher class of unskilled labourers who it was thought would become skilled labourers quicker than the barbarians of the country. In 1907 the Transvaal Government appointed a Commission over which Dr. Krause presided, which went into a very elaborate investigation of all the mine regulations, and it was 1910 before that Commission finally reported. He had gone through every report for the purpose of finding out what they thought of this coloured question, and he found that in every recommendation they recommended that the colour bar should be extended to the skilled miners the same as was done in 1904, but they also accepted it as a fact, and he failed to find any argument in favour or against allowing the coloured man to come in as a competitor or the indentured native who was fully qualified to do this very class of work. When the Union Act was introduced in 1911 the Government gave this matter very careful consideration.

Continuing, the Minister of Mines and Industries said that at that time the Ministry came deliberately to the conclusion that it would be unwise to alter the system, and that if they did alter it in that respect it would have to be done after careful investigation. From a practical point of view he did not think that they were in a position to-day to deal with the question piecemeal. He thought, therefore, that the House, under those circumstances, should adopt the practical attitude and not deal with the matter from an altruistic nor from a class point of view. (Cheers.)

said that the important point to consider was that certain respectable coloured people would be affected by the amendment. Continuing, the hon. member, who was inaudible through the greater portion of his speech, was understood to say that the matter should particularly interest the members for the Cape Province. He was astonished that his right hon. friend (the member for Victoria West) should have delivered such a jibe at hon. members on the Opposition benches, and he did not think his right hon. friend had been justified in that respect. The first time that the question of whether white or coloured people might be employed was during 1911, and he thought the Act which was passed during that year was contravened by the Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations—in fact he thought those regulations were “ultra vires.” Section 4, sub-section 2 of those regulations provided that there Should be differentiation in each of the Provinces. There was not one word with regard to differentiation in the whole of the Act he had referred to. How could there be any justice in differentiating between the same class of people in different Provinces?

Continuing, Mr. Jagger said that the tendency was increasing, and the amended regulations went farther than the old distinctions and introduced other distinctions. They had drawn the colour bar tighter. It was a lamentable thing that since Union these colour bars had been made more drastic than they had been before Union. They had looked upon Union as a blessing, but he said advisedly that the coloured people were going to have no cause to bless Union. The restrictions which had been introduced before Union had been introduced for restricting the Chinese, but now they restricted, not only the natives and the barbarians, but also the respectable coloured man. He might be a highly educated man, as highly-educated as any hon. member in that House, but he could not get what a white man got. Certainly, to his (Mr. Jagger’s) mind, the question involved in that matter was one of the most important which concerned South Africa, and simply meant, as far as he could understand it, would they follow a policy of repressing and keeping down the coloured and native men, or follow a policy of allowing every man in South Africa, whatever the colour of his skin might be, every opportunity according to his ability?

On the right decision of that question depended the future of that country. In the Cape Province they had followed the latter policy, and had done so for two generations, and had followed the policy of allowing absolute freedom of opportunity to any man, whatever the colour of his skin might be, and he thought he could fairly say that, judging by results, that policy was an eminently successful one. They had a happy and a contented people, and also considerable progress among the coloured people, and as regards the white man, he had, so far as he knew, always been able to hold his own. Take the case of the Kimberley Mines, which had been in existence for something over 40 years and had not had any such regulations discriminating against the coloured man as they had on the Rand. Yet the white man had always held his own at Kimberley. He knew of no trade himself, certainly in this part of the country, where the white man had been driven out. When he contrasted the position in Cape Town at present with the position when he had first arrived, some thirty years ago, there were more white men doing unskilled work at present than when he had first come there. More work was being done by white men than by coloured men than had been the case. The policy they had adopted at the Cape was the only possible policy, because they had got to remember that they had got to deal with human beings—men who had feelings, aspirations and ambitions of their own, just like the white men had, although he did not say to the same extent—still they had them. In contact with civilisation they imbibed these aspirations. Over 100,000 coloured children were being educated in the Cape Province at the present moment, and yet they took fright at the position. They gave them that opportunity and that education, but said “you shall go no further. You may rise to a certain extent, but shall rise no further.” They refused them the right to rise further, simply and solely on account of the colour of their skin, and not on account of any inability on their part. If that policy was continued of keeping these men down, and they were going to sit upon them, what would be the result? There would be only one result of sitting on the safety valve, and that would be an explosion. (Hear, hear.) Suppose they kept these men down. Certain men would always come to the top. They drew a line against them. What became of these men? They became centres of disaffection and sedition amongst the coloured and native people, and they were looked up to as the leaders amongst these people. Naturally, they must become, and would become, centres of disaffection and sedition amongst these people in South Africa, as he had said. The policy of repressing them was an unjust one, and if followed there must be disaster. (Hear, hear.) If any nation or part of a nation did grave injury to some other part, it ultimately suffered, as surely as night followed day. (Hear, hear.)

If they were so unjust as to refuse the natives and coloured people any opportunity to rise—and that was the policy embodied in the regulations—just as surely we should have an explosion and disaster in this country. The only sound policy we could follow was to give every man, whatever the colour of his skin, an opportunity to rise. He had been told of a case of a respectable, educated coloured man, who was refused a certificate, although he was properly qualified. There were two drawbacks the white man had to contend with in South Africa. The first was the high cost of living, and another was the agitator. There was a certain amount of prejudice against employing white men, and there were employers of labour who would prefer to engage coloured men, not only because they were cheaper, but simply because they were more amenable. (Ironical Labour cheers and cries of “Docile.”) His hon. friends on the cross-benches always conducted their operations as if South Africa was purely a white man’s country. They ignored the fact that four-fifths of the population were coloured. There were employers all over South Africa who would engage a coloured in preference to a white man. The result of recent events in South Africa was that the preference for the coloured man had enormously increased. One of the great drawbacks that white labour had to face was the white agitator—(cheers)—the man who was always creating unrest. Naturally the employers said: “Give me a coloured man, for then I shall have less trouble, although he may not be so efficient. ” But these factors could be removed, and if they were removed, he saw no reason why the white man should not hold his own in this, as in other countries. But it was only on the lines of efficiency that the white man could hold his own. The system of repression embodied in the Transvaal Mining Regulations could do no good, and would be disastrous to the white man, as it would take away that sense of competition which would keep him up to the mark. (Hear, hear.)

said at the time of Union he, with a large number of other Transvaal men, felt that their position with regard to the coloured races had not been sufficiently safeguarded. They always felt that, owing to their large native population and the added number of blacks who flocked to the Transvaal, it was absolutely essential that the dominance of the white man should be maintained. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman had stated that they were actuated by a deep-rooted prejudice. After a long residence in the Transvaal, he (Sir Aubrey) had come to the conclusion that people looked upon it as a dire necessity, and that was the keynote underlying their policy. He would have thought that, in dealing with a matter which had such far-reaching consequences, the introducer of the motion would have assured himself that he was acting on behalf of his own race. It was a matter of common knowledge that on the Rand a positive amount of enmity had grown up between the mine management and the employees on almost every mine. Owing to the amount of unrest and dissatisfaction within the last year, many managers could not command their own mines. If they gave latitude in that direction, they would discover that there would be very few managers who would not willingly discharge fifty or sixty white men. They would do it willingly and without a moment’s hesitation, more particularly when they realised the fact that white men on the Rand were not workers but overseers, and the natives had become so skilled that in the large number of instances it was the easiest thing in the world to dispense with a large number of white overseers and still maintain the monthly output. For that reason, he thought if the House accepted a motion of that kind, it was going to inflict a vast amount of injustice on people of our own race and colour in the Transvaal. Was the House prepared to create a situation which would find added employment, perhaps for several hundred coloured men, who to-day were earning an ordinary livelihood, and thereby turn out hundreds of whites who would have no further opportunity of obtaining employment in this country? He was a South African by birth; it was his desire not to do an injustice to any single inhabitant of this country, whatever his race or colour, but when it became a question of being unjust towards his own people or to the coloured people, he would far rather be unjust to them than to men of his own race and colour. That was the position in which he found himself in regard to that matter. He would ask the Minister of Mines to make inquiry, and he was perfectly convinced that the Minister would discover that if the mine managers of the Witwatersrand had power to do so they would dispense with a large number of unnecessary overseers to-morrow. He said unnecessary, because a certain number of white men were agreed upon many years ago. In several instances that percentage had been somewhat relaxed, but in the main the proportion of white men to-day was practically the same as it had been on the Witwatersrand for many years past. If the colour bar to-day was removed and managers were given sufficient power to carry out their desires in that direction hundreds of white men, married as well as single, would find there was no employment for them, and they would be turned on the streets without the opportunity of finding employment in other directions. For that reason alone he would strongly oppose any resolution of that kind. A point which he wished to emphasise was that the mines were becoming very much poorer every day. What did they do in Rhodesia? They worked properties there entirely by natives; they worked mines with a ten stamp mill with only two or three white men on the mine they could not afford to employ more, and they were extracting gold from ore which was impossible to be looked at in the Transvaal; but it would come some day, and when that time did come the black men would have to take the place of the white. There was going to come a time when the country would not allow millions of wealth to lie fallow underground for the simple reason that they would not allow it to be extracted by natives when it was impossible to extract it by whites; but to carry through the proposal before the House at the present time would create no end of suffering. The recent strike was still fresh in the minds of the people, and to put anything of that kind into operation would be considered as an endeavour to undermine those people and to drive them out of the country. Wherever they had a large, ever-increasing population of natives, it was absolutely necessary to maintain the dominance of the white man. Proceeding, he said that when Union was brought about there was no feeling of doubt that whether British or Dutch came into power, that either would govern in the interests of the whole country. Did they believe that if we had had the natives controlling this country we should have the same trust and equality as we had to-day? He did not believe so. For that reason it was necessary to maintain the dominance of the white race at all costs. If the Government thought fit to accept a motion of this character, it would bring distress and it would bring strife and poverty in its course, and it would do more to accentuate the downward course which was in evidence on the Rand than anything that had happened during the last ten years. (Hear, hear.)

said he was in sympathy with a great deal that the hon. member who had just sat down had said. We must certainly maintain the superiority of the white race, but he certainly was not in agreement with him as to the methods which should be adopted to maintain that superiority. We could not maintain the superiority of the white race by continually pressing down the coloured and black man. It had been said by a good many that this was a political move. As far as he was acquainted with it, it was not a political move. His reason for seconding the motion was because he felt that this was a spontaneous movement which originated with the coloured people not within this Province, but with the coloured people in the North. They had felt that, when the door was closed on one hand to their advancement, they were not being treated fairly or equitably. The amendment of the hon. member for Jeppe said that they must first lay down a standard rate of wages and then they would be prepared to accept this motion. Who were they that they should dictate at what rate people should sell their labour or in what market they should sell it? He had been told a few days ago about a native farmer in the North who was running a pumping plant he was informed, a little while ago, that he would have to employ the services of a skilled white worker to run his plant. That certainly was not a dignified position for a white worker to be placed in, but if coloured men were denied the entry to work of this character such anomalous conditions would arise. In removing the colour bar they would be saving the white workmen from themselves. He hoped the House would be given an opportunity of voting on the subject, and he had little hesitation in saying what the result would be.

said the member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) had not discussed the question on the merits of the case before them, but had merely criticised what the right hon. member for Victoria West had said and done in the past. He (Mr. Creswell) had accused members on the Government side of the House of establishing the colour bar in the Miners’ Phthisis Act, which stipulated that white men should get so much and coloured men so much less. Well, was the member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) going to be consistent and vote for the motion, or was he going to obey the instructions which had come down from a Trade Union meeting on the Rand, that the Labour members were to oppose the motion for the removal of the colour bar.

Mr. Speaker—

The hon. member must not interrupt.

Mr. Speaker—

The hon. member will be seated.

resuming, said he was quoting from a Labour paper.

again essayed to address the House, but Mr. Speaker sternly directed him to resume his seat.

Come to a vote!

We are afraid.

said it was curious that on other occasions members on the cross-benches did not want to come to a vote. (Cries of “Order.”)

Come to a vote!

Only one fool at a time, please. (Laughter.) Continuing, he said that the hon. member for Jeppe had argued on a side-wind. He (Mr. Myburgh) looked upon black labour as one of the greatest assets they had in South Africa if they knew how to handle them. The black man had built up the industry from which the friends of hon. members on the cross-benches were drawing 30s. a day. Only a few days ago the hon. member for Greyville said that the principle of the Labour Party was equal pay for equal work for every man irrespective of colour. (Labour cries of “Quite light.”) Why did they now move this amendment and try to get out by a side-wind? Let them vote for it one way or the other. What were their instructions? They were to oppose the petition.

Vote, we are quite ready.

appealed to the members on the cross-benches to be consistent. They should act on the merits of the case and vote for or against.

Let us vote, then.

said he did not think that the leader of the cross-benches should have taken up the time of the House with such a rigmarole as he had done. (Labour cries of “Come to a vote.”) He hoped that the coloured voters of the Peninsula would take note of the action of members on the cross-benches. (Labour cheers.)

moved the adjournment of the debate.

seconded.

speaking to the motion, said that in spite of what had been said they were particularly anxious to come to a vote because they wanted to place on record their attitude on this question and wanted the attitude of the remainder of the members of the House recorded. If the House was sincere it would support them.

put the question, that the debate be adjourned, and declared the “Ayes” had it.

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

Ayes—52.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Bosman, Hendrik Johannes

Botha, Louis

Burton, Henry

Chaplin, Francis Drummond Percy

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Cullinan, Thomas Major

Currey, Henry Latham

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicholaas Jacobus

Duncan, Patrick

Du Toit, Gert Johan Wilhelm

Fawcus, Alfred

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicholaas

Henderson, James

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

King, John Gavin

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Leuchars, George

Louw, George Albertyn

Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Neser, Johannes Adriaan

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Oosthuisen, Ockert Almero

Rademeyer, Jacobus Michael

Schoeman, Johannes Hendrik

Smuts, Jan Christiaan

Smuts, Tobias

Steyl, Johannes Petrus Gerhardus

Steytler, George Louis

Theron, Hendrik Schalk

Theron, Petrus Jacobus George

Van der Merwe, Johannes Adolph P.

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

Watermeyer, Egidius Benedictus

Watt, Thomas

Wyndham, Hugh Archibald

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

Noes—24.

Andrew, William Henry

Baxter, William Duncan

Brown, Daniel Maclaren

Creswell, Frederic Hugh Page

Haggar, Charles Henry

Heatlie, Charles Beeton

Henwood, Charlie

Jagger, John William

MacNeillie, James Campbell

Maginess, Thomas

Merriman, John Xavier

Meyler, Hugh Mowbray

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Nathan, Emile

Runciman, William

Sampson, Henry William

Schreiner, Theophilus Lyndall

Searle, James

Struben, Charles Frederick William

Van der Riet, Frederick John Werndly

Walton, Edgar Harris

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

Walter B. Madeley and Thomas Boydell, tellers.

The motion for the adjournment was, therefore, carried.

The debate was adjourned until Wednesday, May 20.