from A. J. Strauss, for remission of outstanding Repatriation Debt.

from W. C. Maytham, sheep inspector, shortly to be retired owing to his having reached the age limit, for a pension.

said the Minister, when supporting the amendment proposed to his own land tax proposals, had told them that the definition of beneficially occupied land had been taken from the Natal law. The Natal law had worked very well, and the tax had not been removed because it was a failure, but because Natal did not want to go into Union with that large burden. The Minister, in saying that the Natal system had been adopted, had told them only a part of the truth, because there was an important alteration. The Natal law provided that beneficial occupation of land must be accompanied by civilised methods. Natal had insisted that Europeans should utilise their lands according to civilised methods. That was a very serious alteration. The Natal law had a provision by which all land over the value of £2,000 should be taxed. That was a small tax. There was another provision that land not beneficially occupied should be taxed three times the amount of the ordinary tax, and land owned by absent owners had to pay four times as much. They had also a provision in Natal that if a man leased his land to natives, and drew the money from them, that land should not be considered as being beneficially occupied. Was the Minister going to say that such land was beneficially occupied? He hoped the Minister would remember that under the legislation passed last year, if natives found their rents were being put up they had no chance of escaping from their masters, because they had no other land to which they could go. He feared that the new provisions were going to prove an additional burden on those people. He disapproved of the Minister’s suggestion that Boards should be appointed to determine whether land was beneficially occupied or not. The Minister would have no proper control over the Boards, and they would prove extremely expensive. If they had a system of local boards, there was bound to be a lot of jealousy. There were districts in South Africa where they did not like a progressive man coming amongst them.

said the country was here face to face with a serious evil. Capitalists from other countries bought land here, which, for speculative purposes, they left uncultivated. This country was subject to all the plagues of Egypt, and for that reason a state of affairs like that could not be tolerated; therefore he agreed with the proposed taxation on land not beneficially occupied. At the same time he feared that a great principle was being given up. It was still fresh in his mind how a certain section had said, “down with the Government, the Government has forsaken principles.” Certain members of Parliament, against all rules of etiquette, had invaded the constituencies of others to paint the Government black. He (the speaker) had warned the public that they were being misled, and that no principles were being forsaken. The hollowness of the allegation of members like the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Van Niekerk) had been only too apparent. But now he came to the point. From the beginning of the session they, on his side of the House, had fought the Labour members; who were admitted Socialists and who had always argued against private ownership of land. There again they came to the plagues of Egypt, because he thought that the Viceroy of Egypt had been the first Socialist. Was not this principle of land taxation opposed to the principles of the party? Until he had been satisfied on this point, he would not be able to vote for this tax. He was a good party man, but the Minister, by taking up the attitude he had done, had taken this question away from the sphere of party politics, and therefore he was pleased to be able to vote as he thought fit. The hon. member proceeded to say that he could not understand the attitude of the right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) and the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smartt), who by the steps they had taken before Union had rendered it impossible for the Government to reduce the salaries of Civil Servants. Yet these hon. members were the first to accuse the Government of extravagance. Then, had these hon. members not been the first to applaud the Defence Force proposals and had they not been prepared to go even further and give a larger contribution to the Imperial Navy? Turning again to the taxation proposals, the hon. member reiterated that if he could be satisfied that the Government was not departing from the principles of the party, he would welcome the proposals as an excellent step in the right direction. He trusted that nothing would be done to estrange him from his own party. To the Unionist Party he could not go. To the Labour Party, with its recruits from his side, he could not go either. So he trusted the Government would be extremely careful.

With regard to income tax, he expressed the belief that it would cost more to collect than it was worth. As to the land tax, he could agree with it provided there was no question of the sacrifice of principles. He was afraid of the thin edge of the wedge, which might afterwards be driven in further. The position left him a little perplexed as to the proper direction to take.

expressed himself against the principle of the new proposals, and was glad that the last speaker had finally come to the Conclusion that it was dangerous. If a farmer had a hundred morgen and cultivated twenty-five morgen, would he then be taxed on the seventy-five uncultivated morgen? He could not understand why the Minister had let the words “unimproved value” in his new proposals. He would vote against any land tax, except one which dealt with absentee landowners. He could not agree with the provision that an individual would be given the right to determine whether land was occupied in a manner which to such a person appeared to be beneficial. As the proposals stood, he feared they would lead to altogether wrong practices. He felt bound, therefore, to vote against both proposal and amendment.

said he must begin by apologising to the Minister of Finance that he was not able to be present on the previous night to vote against the income tax proposals, but he had intended to oppose the putting on of such taxation. What was before them was most interesting, because the Minister had done what he very seldom did, and that was to change his mind completely. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) The proposal they were now discussing was quite unlike the proposal with which the Minister opened his taxation proposals when they went into Committee. In fact so unlike that, if he was not mistaken, he poured scorn on the hon. member for Potchefstroom who ventured to suggest the words “now beneficially occupied ” instead of “unimproved,” and said that such a proposal was not practicable. Perhaps the Chairman would remember it. (Laughter.) When the hon. member for Potchefstroom timidly put forward the idea the Minister rose in his might, hurled scorn on the head of that humble individual—(laughter) —and said that it was an impracticable idea, (Laughter.)

Now all of a sudden they found one of his most trusted colleagues, the Minister of Railways, bringing in an amendment in the form of the suggestion of the hon. member for Potchefstroom. and the Minister of Finance jettisoned his own proposal. He (Mr. Merriman) regarded this land tax not as a fiscal measure at all. In the first place, he looked upon it as a tub thrown over to the Labour whale. If he might venture to go back a few years, he would say that he had had a little experience of this “beneficially occupied,” because in an Act which was introduced in the old Cape House and read a second time in 1899, one of the clauses said that “in the event of any land liable to taxation under this Act not being beneficially occupied, then and in that case the tax to be levied and recoverable on such land shall be 1d.,” in place of ½d. That was received with transports of applause from all parts of the House, but when they came to define what “beneficially occupied ” was then the difficulty arose. So he ventured to say that in regard to this proposal in its present form the Minister would find considerable difficulty in putting it on. It went much further than “beneficially occupied.” It was easy enough to say “land beneficially occupied.” When they came to define it so that they could go into court, they said that the Commissioner should “consider whether the occupation has been such as, having regard to the extent, nature, and situation of the land and any natural circumstances affecting its use, constitutes an active and reasonably sufficient utilisation for agricultural, pastoral or industrial purposes. ” He did not know how they used land for “industrial purposes.”

Mines.

Well why not put in mining? Let us be clear on that subject. Proceeding, he said that the whole thing was extremely involved. Then the Minister “may,” not “must,” in such a case appoint Boards “which shall under general instructions ”—one would like to see the “general instructions ”—“ issued by the Minister, advise the Commissioner as to whether any land situated therein has or has not been beneficially occupied.” “Now,” exclaimed the right hon. gentleman, “what a vista that opens up before us!” We have been so singularly fortunate with Boards in this country that I would like to see these Land Boards getting to work. You will have a-large number of them all over the country. Each Land Board will run under the “general instructions ” upon lines of its own. They may come and say, very rightly, “Your land is not sufficiently developed or beneficially occupied; you will be taxed.” The Land Board in the adjoining districts may take a broader and more wholesome view of the obligation. They may say in regard to somebody who has got a large tract of land, who has got a house, a bywoner and a few cattle there, that it was beneficially occupied. Unless you define it properly, you are going to be dragged into the courts repeatedly, and you are going to have a great deal of friction set up in this country. I admit there is a great deal of land that can be developed in this country, and ought to be developed—(hear, hear)— but if you are going to force it by a tax of this kind, you are going to get into a sea of difficulties. How are you going to deal with land that is mortgaged here? How are you going to deal with land under joint ownership? If the Minister is at all of the same mind as I was, he will see that these difficulties are so insuperable that it is better really to give up this proposal of “beneficially occupied.” It is almost as bad as “unimproved.”

It is worse.

No, I think I prefer “beneficially occupied.”, I must say that I do think it is not a practicable proposal. It is a political tax; it is not in any way a fiscal tax. The Minister does not pretend that he is going to get anything out of it. He is going to spend a great deal of money upon it, and he is going to get nothing but friction, disappointment, and irritation throughout the country. If these Boards do their duty all through the country, a great many gentlemen who were now occupying a large tract of land very comfortably in a corner of it are going to be put to a great deal of inconvenience and annoyance. Will they do that? One Board may, but many of them will go and read over the parable of the unjust steward. Proceeding, he said that another question that struck him was: if they were going to tax 10,000 morgen of land outside a municipality, what sacred tiling was there that should protect land inside a municipality? Why only attack the farmer? Could it be that the Minister had consulted the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger). He (Mr. Merriman) feared it. (Laughter.) The Minister had left out the municipalities.

They are taxed already.

So are the farmers. (Hear, hear.) I say if you are going to tax land at all, you ought not to protect land in a municipality. I suppose this is not the time to move my amendment, because we must wait and see the fate of my hon. friend’s proposal. I want to omit all the words after “which ” to the end of the definition, which amounts to saying that all land which is not “beneficially occupied ” should be taxed. That brings in the municipality. I do hope my hon. friend will postpone this measure until he has had time to think over thoroughly the whole principles of it, and has read the experience of other countries. Proceeding, Mr. Merriman said that their 1908 income tax was based on land. He told how, when he later on went to England with his hon. friend about the South Africa Act, he was waited upon by a deputation of “impecunious capitalists,” who said that they had put money into land for which they got no income, and that they would have to pay income tax. He (Mr. Merriman) told them they were just the men he wanted to catch-the absentee landlords. His hon. friend (Mr. E. N. Grobler), who had been so eloquent among other things had spoken about the foreign capitalist holding land. Well, they all wanted to get as much capital into this country as they could, but let him remind the Committee that there were a good many people holding land in this country which they had not developed who were not foreign capitalists. There had been a good deal of land bought in the Oudtshoorn district by the colonial capitalist. It was not the foreign capitalist only, but it was also the colonial capitalist. However, he did not want to be too hard on those men just now. (Laughter.) He hoped the Minister would drop the thing. It would bring in no revenue. What was the good of putting a vindictive tax on the country for a political purpose without thinking it out very carefully?

said that the Natal Parliament referred the working of the land tax to a Select Committee, the chairman of which stated that the only clause on which the Committee had no recommendation to make was the one with regard to beneficial occupation. The Tight hon. gentleman (Mr. Merriman) had tried to drag a red herring across the trail. He wanted the country to believe that any proposal from the Treasury benches was impracticable, and that the only way to salvation lay in the retrenchment of the present Treasurer and his replacement by a right hon. member on the Government side of the House. He (Mr. Orr) did not think farmers need fear but that common sense methods would be adopted in the working of the tax.

said it was delightful to see the town and the country landowners at loggerheads. There was an old adage which said that when a certain section of the community fell out another class of the community came by their own. The Labour Party wished that the right hon. member would come on their platform and expose the system which allowed these evils. He (Mr. Creswell) did not think any Socialist orator could paint the picture in more glowing terms than had the hon. member for Victoria West of a town lot and nothing done with it. Perhaps the reason the Minister brought forward his proposal for the taxation of land not-beneficially occupied was because he knew that it was an impossible proposition. He (Mr. Creswell) would like some information as to how the proposal was going to work. It was quite clear that there was a searching of hearts right through the ranks of the Ministerial members, and they knew perfectly well that the existing state of affairs was not right and could not continue. The site value of land was easily ascertainable. A tax on this value had some foundation in equity and justice, and was based on the principle that the land belonged to the whole of the people, and if any individual were preserved in the exclusive possession of any part of the land he should pay to the general community in proportion to the security afforded him. (Ministerial laughter.) It was a principle which was recognised in many countries, and would be recognised in South Africa before we were many years older. The Minister had failed to give any definition of beneficial occupation which could assure the House that the proposal was a genuine one. But if it were a genuine proposal, and if by non-beneficial occupation the Minister meant land not being used to its fullest beneficial extent the resulting tax would cover a very much larger area than the one that would have been derived under the Minister’s original proposal. The definition gave the impression that land to be non-beneficially occupied must be land somewhere in the middle of the Kalihari where no man had ever been. There were many conundrums in connection with the tax which required an answer. The present proposal might be an improvement on the original one, but it rather looked as if it were not, and it looked as if it were an attempt to foist off something so hazy and indefinite that the tax would touch no one at all, and that it was an attempt to square some of the supporters of the Government who were not showing that unswerving loyalty for which hitherto they had been so conspicuous. Were the Boards to consist of the same kind of representatives who safeguarded the interests of the State in the matter of the diamond industry? Would there be a Board for the Transvaal including the Chairman of the Transvaal Consolidated Lands and other experts of that sort? In conclusion, Mr. Creswell hoped the Minister would explain what were the reasons that had induced him to change his proposals, and what was to be the relative value of the income from the two proposals.

said he would like to see the amendment struck out altogether. He did not like such a phrase as “unimproved values.” He knew that the phrase was in the New Zealand Act, and that the people of New Zealand had objected to it as a definition which needs defining. Unimproved land had no value. All value was due to some improvement. If that was so, to speak of the unimproved value was absolute nonsense. In the second place, land values came from the expenditure of public revenue. A great many years ago the Legislative Council of Natal appointed a Committee to go into that question, and decided that the land should contribute to the public revenue in consequence of the expenditure on it Values were created by communal activities or the expenditure of public money. There were members of that House who held large areas of land, and the Government also held large areas of land, which could be had for the asking. If those lands could be worked with a profit they would be taken up to-morrow. The whole point was that the value of those lands would be created by the expenditure of public revenue or by public action. With regard to the method of arriving at the value of land, he said that what a man was willing to sell for was one thing, and what that land would realise if offered for sale was another. Why there should be all that bother about “beneficial occupation” he could not understand. It was a discredit to them if they came to that House and discussed those matters without having studied them. Other countries had discussed them and had decided them satisfactorily. It was in consequence of public expenditure that lands became occupyable. But when land was occupied they found that Government had to spend a lot of money to protect it. When hon. members had said that they were not prepared to pay an interest in the shape of a tax it was either due to short sightedness or deliberate dishonesty. It was a deliberate injustice to the whole country to exempt land because it was “beneficially occupied.” He did not see why municipal land should escape taxation. There was land in Cape Town Municipality which was needed, yet that land was locked up and deliberately withheld He (Mr. Haggar) was glad that the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) was learning—if he went on a bit further he would be on the Labour benches. With regard to the difficulty of valuing the land, under the Natal Act there had been no difficulty at all. In that Act it was provided that the landowner himself should effect the valuation, and the Government should provide to resume that land at the owner’s valuation. The amendment of the Minister, he thought, made the whole thing abortive. There was very little undeveloped land in this country which would not be excluded under the exemptions.

In conclusion, the hon. member said that by unearned increment he meant that they asked hon. members to pay, as a tax, a small interest on the efforts and on the expenditure of public revenue. Hon. members asked for a railway to be built through their district. Well, they would build it, if they paid interest on the public expenditure on that railway. What would be the effect of that proposal of his on the farmers? it was asked. Sir Charles Dilke had told them what the effect had been on the farmers of New Zealand: that it had been good. The Illinois Bureau had stated that the consequence of that system, if applied to the U.S.A., would be that farmers’ taxation would be reduced from 30 to 25 per cent. They would never get ahead so long as they spent their time in fooling, instead of using their brains on statesmanship. He did not want to see that amendment put forward: it was only a bit of political juggling. The sooner they set to work the better.

said he was going to oppose the land tax from beginning to end. In the first place a tax of that kind was not necessary. Members had pointed out to the Government where they could get revenue without resorting to a land tax. In the second place the principle involved was a wrong one. It was being said that the tax would only apply to large landowners. It was clear to him that it would not take long before this tax, which it was now proposed to apply to large landowners, would apply to the small landowners as well. The hon. member for Edenburg (Mr. E. N. Grobler) had said that he (the speaker) and those who agreed with him were recruits of the cross-benches. It rather struck him that the Minister of Finance was the general of the Labour Party recruits, seeing that he had introduced proposals which were so entirely in accord with the views of the Labour members. He intended to offer the most unqualified opposition to the proposed land tax.

said it appeared to him that it was impossible for the Government to introduce any taxation proposals which would meet with the views of the hon. member for Kroonstad and his friends in the Hertzog faction. Of course, the remarks of the previous speaker were not meant for that House, but for the rural districts. However, he did not think the hon. member’s constituents would allow themselves to be misled by the nonsense he had spoken. (Hear, hear.) Apparently the hon. member had not listened to the members on the cross-benches, otherwise he would not have said that the proposals of the Government were in accord with the views of the cross-benches. Neither had the hon. member read the amendment, as he apparently did not know that there was no question of small and large landowners, but that the question was one of beneficial occupation. If the hon. member was honest he would support the Minister’s proposals. (Hear, hear.) Turning to the right hon. the member for Victoria West, Mr. Wessels said that the right hon. member had drawn a red herring, across the trail. What was the position at present? There were people who owned large areas of ground but refused to cultivate them. Yet, owing to the improvements on neighbouring land the value of their land increased. He (the speaker) held that the principle of the Minister’s proposal was sound, as the owners of these large areas, namely, the big land companies would either be encouraged to sell their land or otherwise to cultivate their land. Even if little revenue was derived from the taxation, the idea was sound. He had made these few remarks in order to dispel a wrong impression which might be created. According to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg, North, the principle had worked well in Natal.

said he rather resented what the last, speaker had said with regard to the hon. member for Kroonstad. The hon. member had said that the remarks of the hon. member for Kroonstad were intended for the public outside. The hon. member for Kroonstad had very good reason for saying what he did, that the tax was merely to be used in the first instance for the purpose of introducing the principle and that afterwards it would be screwed down. The Minister himself suggested when he brought in the income tax that he had fixed it at a high rate so as to have as little trouble as possible. It had been pumped into members on his side of the House that this tax would not affect anybody at all—that was themselves. If they did not speak to the public, who were they to speak to, because very few listened in that House? He was surprised that the right hon. the member for Victoria West did not discover what the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg told him. He was surprised that the right hon. gentleman did not know that Natal discovered this definition of beneficial occupation, and laid it down. What the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg meant to say was that Natal having given a definition there was no use anybody else saying anything at all. He (Mr. Fichardt), however, did not see how the Natal suggestion overcame the difficulty. How was the Minister going to settle this question? Was he going to leave it to the Commissioner? Was the Commissioner and the Board to decide? He thought it was bound to lead to an unequal imposition. This was another of those happy blank cheques that they were so fond of giving the Minister of Finance. In order for the Commissioner and the Board to decide properly they would have to visit every farm in South Africa. He put to the Minister the case of two farms on a river. One was owned by a wealthy company, and the other by a private farmer. The wealthy company diverted the water of the stream and used their land to the fullest extent. On the other hand, the private farmer had not the money to do all that the company had done, and yet his farm was in beneficial occupation as much as the other one. The beneficial occupation of the one would set the standard for the other. The result would be that the man who was not able to spend was going to be taxed more. He would like the hon. member for Winburg to tell them when a farm was beneficially occupied. There was the case of a man who let the land out to Kafirs, and did practically nothing. Was there beneficial occupation in his case? Then there was the case of a man who put a poor white on the farm together with a few scabby sheep. Was that beneficial occupation? If the answer was in the negative, then he knew of a large number of farms that were not beneficially occupied. Then there were the farms in the Free State that were held as preserved veld in times of stress. When a season was favourable, these farms were not occupied at all. Were those farms to be called “non-beneficially occupied”?

No.

If it comes to that, then this tax is a farce. It was very necessary (he continued) that they should define “beneficial occupation,” and that he agreed they could not do.

Let them think for a moment what the effect of this weapon was going to be in the hands of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, the hon. member for Victoria West, or the hon. member for Jeppe. He wondered what those hon. gentlemen would consider that “beneficially occupied ” meant. This official who was to be appointed was under the influence of the Minister of Finance. He would, more or less, tip the Commissioner as to what was the right sort of line to lay down as to what was beneficial occupation. If the hon. member for Jeppe had to lay down the definition he supposed he would want about ten windmills to the morgen. (Laughter.) It was a very dangerous weapon to be placed carte blanche in the hands of an official to say what was or what was not beneficial occupation of property in this country. In this way it would be very easy to tax the land. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort, if he should be in power, was, he believed, keen on expropriation. What was to prevent this Commissioner being given such instructions as would practically compel the man who was not occupying land sufficiently beneficially to be so taxed as to tax him off the land? It appeared to him that the Minister of Finance had, first of all, surrendered to the Labour Party in putting on this tax at all, and now he had gone over to the Opposition in this scheme, which might lead to the expropriation of land in this country. If they passed this measure, they would get a very small income from it. It was going to be an extremely difficult, complicated, and expensive measure to administer, and he would add his voice to the appeal made by the right hon. the member for Victoria West to the Minister of Finance that this proposal had better be withdrawn.

said he was surprised at the attitude taken up by the right hon. member for Victoria West. That right hon. member had styled himself a humble musket bearer in the ranks of the Government, but it seemed to him (the speaker) that the right hon. member’s musket was always turned against the party in whose ranks he professed to be. (Ministerial cheers.) The hon. member for Kroonstad was another member who assumed a similar attitude. He always spoke of “our Government,” but the shots fired by the hon. member were always directed against “our Government.” He was another of these musket bearers always trying to assist the enemies of his party. (Ministerial cheers.) As to the hon. member for Lady brand, here he sat in the midst of the party and heard everything that went on.

Where shall I sit then?

If your skin was not so thick you would have listened? to the appeal of the whip not to sit in the midst of the people you are so continually opposing. (Ministerial cheers.) Of course, we cannot prevent any hon. member from sitting here or there, but the hon. member should do the right and the honourable thing and sit somewhere else, and try and make matters as easy as possible in the circumstances. At any rate, I thought we had to deal with members who were aware of the rules of Parliamentary etiquette. (Ministerial cheers.) Proceeding, the Prime Minister said that the hon. member sat there and listened to things he ought not to hear. So far as the tax now before the House was concerned, he gave it his hearty support from the point of view of policy. It was right not to allow in this country a state of affairs under which people not living in this country could buy up large areas of land and leave them uncultivated and idle. The people simply waited for the price of the land to go up, simply waited for the time when the taxpayers would spend their money in building railway lines to these parts where they had their land. That was indeed a state of affairs which prevailed to a large extent in this country. There were companies that possessed a million and even a million and a half acres of the very best land, and anybody could try to buy a small area from them, but they would find themselves unable to do so. Of course these companies had their terms, but these terms were of such a nature that it was impossible for anyone to buy from them. Must such a state of affairs continue? He thought not. Therefore, the policy of the Government, and the policy of the party which he stood for, must be to do something to change that state of affairs.

The object of the proposal was not to obtain large amounts in revenue. The object was to prevent this country eventually, to a very large extent, becoming the property of large monopolies. (Ministerial cheers.) What did they see at present? As soon as railways were built they saw the capital for large irrigation works found in other countries. The land to which those railways had to run was purchased by the exercise of options by capitalists from elsewhere, and instead of the railways being built for the benefit of the people in this country, they found that when eventually the railway was completed the land all round was in the hands of a kind of monopoly which had no other object than to make money out of that land. In the Transvaal, and in other parts of the country as well, they saw that people were starting large cattle ranches, not on the lines generally adopted in this country, but on the lines followed in America. One found tremendous numbers of heads of cattle on such ranches, but, he asked, how many white men did they find employed on such ranches? Was a position like that in the interests of South Africa? If that state of affairs were allowed to continue, and if they allowed the comparatively cheap land to be bought up in large areas by these companies, then, although to-day the position was bad enough, he predicted that in ten years’ time they would be 100 per cent worse off than they were to-day. (Ministerial cheers.) It might be argued that the system proposed by the Government to deal with this matter was not the best. If not, why did not hon. members, especially members on this side of the House, assist the Government and put forward proposals which they thought more workable? The fact of the matter was, however, that the question had to be dealt with.

It was ridiculous for members to argue that in these proposals the principle of land taxation as advocated by hon. members on the cross-benches was followed. Nothing was further from the truth. The principle which the Minister in his proposals had laid down was one which had existed for many years. In the Transvaal they had always bad a larger tax on land belonging to absentee owners than to owners in the country and occupying their land. The policy of the Government to-day was to deal with these grounds which were not beneficially occupied and to deal with these grounds which people did not want to cultivate, but which were simply being kept for the day when there would be a rise in prices as the result of railways having been built or as the result of the taxpayers having spent money in the neighbourhood of these lands. (Cheers.) He repeated that that was the difference between the first proposal and the amended proposal. It seemed to him that in this amended proposal a better end was achieved. (Ministerial cheers.) The intention of the Government was to assist people in remaining on the land and to enable the land to be opened up properly. To-day the people living in the vicinity of unoccupied land did not enjoy the same privileges and benefits which people in populous areas enjoyed. It was very easy to talk of occupation. The difficulty was to find the land to occupy.

He was not referring now to rich and prosperous parts of the country such as the Western Province and Oudtshoorn, but to the sparsely-populated districts where people were far away from civilisation, where farmers experienced the greatest difficulty in protecting their wives and families from all sorts of dangers and hardships. (Ministerial cheers.) What prospects did these people have? he asked. Railways could not be built to those parts because there were not sufficient people to warrant the expenditure. But then the people living there wanted to see their children properly educated and wanted to send their children to school. As they had no alternative, they left their farms and sold their land, and the companies thus gradually became possessed of more acres. If they as a responsible Government and a responsible party did not tackle this matter, he feared the prospects of the party would be very poor. Could they in the circumstances maintain an attitude of indifference and silence? Did hon. members know what had happened in Johannesburg with another party? At one time a certain party had practically received carte blanche from the population of the Witwatersrand. That party at one time occupied a position which had appeared well nigh impregnable. But time had changed that. Owing to that party not paying sufficient attention to the demands and the requirements of the people an altogether different situation had been created on the Rand. (Labour cheers.)

He wished to make it clear that there was no question in these proposals of taxing lands which were beneficially occupied. Hon. members who had stated that in this proposal was embodied the principles of hon. members on the cross-benches, made an absolutely incorrect and untrue statement—(Ministerial cheers)—because the difference between the proposals of hon. members on the cross-benches, the difference between the principles for which hon. members on the cross-benches stood and the principles contained in the proposal was as great as the difference between east and west. (Ministerial cheers.) There was really no comparison at all. The principle for which hon. members on the cross-benches stood was that no one could have any landed property, and that everything must be State property, but could be given in loan to the private individual. Surely no one could say that there was anything of the kind contained in the proposals now before the House. (Ministerial cheers.) The suggestion that the Government was acting in concord in this matter with the Labour Party was, to say the least of it, ridiculous, and it seemed to him that there was a far greater and stronger relationship between the hon. members who had made this allegation and the Labour Party than there could ever be on this matter between the Government and the Labour Party. (Ministerial cheers.) Then it had been said that there was a danger, if a man had a hundred morgen and he lived on ten morgen, while his cattle grazed on the whole of his property, that the ninety morgen which he did not actually occupy might be taxed and might be considered as not beneficially occupied. That was ridiculous, and it was made quite clear in the provisions that a man who grazed his cattle was beneficially occupying his land.

Hon. members would surely realise that there was such a thing as reasonable interpretation. The Minister had made it quite clear that there was no intention of taxing anything but the land which was not beneficially occupied. If this matter was not dealt with now, he (General Botha) held that the dangers and difficulties which now faced the people would be accentuated tenfold as time went on. If, however, the definitions of the proposals were not quite clear, why then did not these hon. members who were blessed with so much more wisdom than they who were to-day in the Government give them the benefit of their great wisdom? (Hear, hear.) Hon. members should not indulge in what was only a destructive policy, but should come forward to assist the Government and bring forward something practical—they should suggest something constructive and thereby show that the interest of the country was their first consideration. (Ministerial cheers.) They on the Government side of the House occupied a position like the watchers on the walls of Zion. They should try and see what should be done and warn the people when matters went in a wrong direction. General Botha went on to express his regret in regard to a position which he said had arisen in the where a railway line in a northern direction had recently been built. What did they find there, however? Most of the ground which should be cultivated had been bought up by one syndicate, and the taxpayer might for many years to come have to run the railway line at a heavy loss, while the taxpayer had to sit still unable to do anything towards the cultivation and development of the land. That sort of thing was not in the interests of the country. It should be made possible for the sons of the country to follow their fathers on the land, and that was the object aimed at by the amended taxation proposal. (Ministerial cheers.)

said the discussion had gone on for a considerable time and yet no member of the Government had stated the reasons which had actuated it in departing from the original proposals on the paper. (Hear, hear.) He thought when the Minister explained the proposals to the House that it was his duty to give the reasons for the change of policy and for introducing an entirely different principle for the taxation of land. (Hear, hear.) With a great deal of what the Prime Minister said he (Sir Thomas) entirely agreed. In fact the Prime Minister had been advocating views which the Opposition had been trying to advocate for a considerable time, both in Parliament and the country. (Opposition cheers.) His difference with the Prime Minister was that while the latter held admirable views, the Government’s proposals would not have the slightest effect in carrying those views out. The Prime Minister had referred to the building of the railway in the North-western districts, but did he remember that when the scheme for the construction of that railway came before the House the Opposition urged that before building railways it was the duty of the Government, if it honestly believed in its Land Settlement Bill, to make provision for the acquisition of a portion of the land before building the railway? (Opposition cheers.) Did the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance think that the Committee or the country were going to believe that the nebulous proposals on the paper would make any alteration in connection with the large holdings on the Zak River? Knowing the character of the regulations that would be issued in connection with these proposals he (Sir Thomas) felt perfectly certain that nothing very drastic would be done. Really if they were going to have that land settlement, and if, as the Prime Minister said, the children of the farmers would have an opportunity later of carrying on their operations, he agreed with him, but it was the duty of the Government to go further than they had done in that resolution to carry that out. The Government should face the position and acquire suitable land for settlement in connection with the sons of the soil and for the people overseas, but they were not going to do that with a resolution of that sort. It was in the interests of the future of this country that the land should be developed, the curse of this country was that people were holding large quantities of land which was not being developed, and the farming population would do better to develop their holdings than acquire further possessions. The unfortunate result was that when they passed through a period of drought there was no provision made for tiding people over such periods. Farmers were advancing in their operations on the old basis, and then came drought, and everything they had acquired was blotted out. The only way to avoid that was to place more people on the land to conserve the water and develop the resources of the country. It was necessary to introduce a system to make men farm their and properly, or let people have it who could and would develop it. Proceeding, the speaker said he was placed in an invidious position.

It is a moeilike positie.

It is more, it is a pynlike positie. After all, there was nothing worse than having admirable sentiments and not carrying them out.

said that was the case with the Unionist Party.

answered that the Unionist Party had never departed from the programme laid down, although great efforts had been made to try and mislead the people with regard to their policy; but the Party had always been consistent. The Jess the hon. member for Jeppe interposed, the better it would be for the history of his party, whose misdeeds were gradually being found out by the people of this country. (Laughter and “Hear, hear.”)

Proceeding, he said he was placed in a very difficult position, because he was firmly convinced that a principle of judicious taxation upon land was in the general interests of the people of this country, and holding those views, it was impossible for him not to vote for the amendment which had been brought before the Committee by the Minister of Finance.

Hard lines!

The hon. member said “Hard lines”: well, he (the speaker) was not exactly in the same position as his hon. friend. He (the speaker) was voting for it because he recognised, and was in favour of, the principle; but it was hard lines for the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg when he was dragged at the Wheels of the Government to vote for principles which he did not consider in the interests of the country. He (Sir T. Smartt) believed in the principle of adopting taxation of land, not for the purpose of doing the farmer any harm, but for the purpose of assisting in developing the country. They had not been told by the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister the reason for altering their original proposition, which was a milk-and-water one, into the present proposition. The Government ought to tell the House the reason. They might gather something from the remark which fell unguardedly from the Minister of Finance the previous night, when he said it was perfectly in order to move the amendment, as the revenue derived from the new tax would be less than from the original tax. So long as a man had a sheep or a goat upon his land, it would be considered that it was beneficially occupied under the regulations. Before they came to a vote on that question, the Minister of Finance should give the House some idea of the character of those regulations. The Government had, no doubt, gone carefully into them, and if his hon. friend could do that, he (the speaker) might be prepared to change his views on the question.

And vote against it. (Laughter.)

No, no. Proceeding, he said he would give his hon. friend an opportunity of proving that. Would he put to the test that side of the House with regulations of a proper character? Would the hon. Minister accept the challenge? If he would not, he had better withdraw the insinuation which he had made. He made an insinuation that, if the regulations were as he (the speaker) suggested, he would make that an opportunity to vote against the tax. He challenged the hon. Minister to place on the Table regulations of a practical character.

Continuing, he said that that was not a genuine proposition which was before the House. The Minister introduced one resolution which was not of much use, and finding there was a great deal of opposition, he had to withdraw it and introduce another regulation, for the purpose of appeasing the fears of his friends regarding his original resolution. Continuing, Sir T. Smartt asked if the regulations were going to be gazetted. They should be on the Table of the House, so that they would have an opportunity of seeing whether the tax really meant anything or not. They were not dealing with taxation of an ordinary character. It was for the purpose of raising revenue. A proposal of that sort was the introduction of a principle, and, as they knew, the original proposal was only to get £50,000, and as it was impossible to get £50,000 by that tax it was clear that it was simply the introduction of a principle. He was going to vote for it in that direction, but he did not believe that that proposal of the Government was going to have the slightest effect in carrying out that policy the hon. gentleman had placed before the House in the general interests of the development of the country. Unfortunately he (the speaker) was not able to move a practical proposal.

It depends what the proposal is.

If I want to move on the original proposal certain amendments reducing the amount of 10,000 morgen and reducing the £10,000 in value, shall I be in order?

said the hon. member must put it in a concrete form.

The original proposal is before the House, and I move the deletion of the 10,000 morgen and the £10,000 in value. Do you rule that out of order?

Yes; there would be an enormous increase of taxation.

Exactly. That is the whole of my argument. Unfortunately, then, he proceeded, he was prevented from moving anything of a practical character owing to the nebulous character of the amendment laid on the Table. It really did not mean anything, and he dared say his hon. friend had taken every precaution to persuade his wavering followers that he did not mean anything.

said that in listening to the hon. member he was in doubt whether he was really serious or not, and he was still in doubt.

Are you serious?

said that his hon. friend said that the proposal was a farce, but still he was prepared to vote for it, He (the Minister) could not follow that position. If he honestly believed it was a sham he would do his duty and vote against it. The hon. member (Sir T. W. Smartt) and his friends were going to vote for it because they knew that the proposals would make a great improvement in the state of affairs of this country. If they waited for the eventuation of the expropriation of land they would have to wait for the Greek Kalends. If his hon. friend were Prime Minister of the country to-morrow he would not move that, and he thought they would have to wait for the Greek Kalends until the hon. member was in that position. (Laughter.) He contemplated the arrival of that time with perfect equanimity. There was no reason to go in for such a drastic policy. They were taking a sufficient step for that day and that time. If they carried out those proposals honestly and genuinely then they were going to effect a great improvement in the condition of this country. His right hon. friend had admitted that it was difficult to distinguish between “beneficial occupation ” and land that was not beneficially occupied—the right hon. gentleman had not been able to do it. Yet it had been done by a much smaller Legislature in Natal. A definition had been put on the Statute-book, and under that the law had worked successfully for two years. His hon. friend the member for Pietermaritzburg (Mr. Orr) had said that a Select Committee had met to inquire into the operation of that law, and it was found that the definition was working quite successfully.

Are you going to put it into these proposals?

It is this definition. (Cries of “No, no.”) Proceeding, the Minister said that there had been a reference in the Natal definition to civilised methods. The system of farming carried out in this country was civilised. (Interruption.) The words were repeated in the Natal law—that the utilisation of the land should be by civilised methods. He did not know what that meant. Farming, in this country might not be carried out on such a high plane as it was in other countries, but it was certainly carried out in civilised methods. He would leave the definition of “beneficial occupation” to the Boards. He thought it was quite unnecessary to insult the people of the country by inserting the words “civilised methods. ”

Read on.

said there was a reference in the Natal law to the effect that land should not be considered as beneficially occupied unless it were occupied by Europeans. He (the Minister) had made no reference to the coloured question in those proposals. Last year they had passed the Natives Land Act, in which that question was dealt with and it was unnecessary to again drag it in. That was why that part of the Natal definition had been deleted. It was said that these proposals were vague end unworkable. His answer was that they had already been in operation in South“ Africa and had worked quite well, and there was no reason why the same system should not work beneficially. It was admitted that the system of land taxation should have been on a different system, and it had been urged that farmers should pay on the value of their holdings. He could not conceive anything more unjust than a proposal of that description, and he would give a special instance. Let them take the western part of the Free State. What was the income of the farmers there?

They would pay nothing.

said that if the proposal he had referred to were adopted the farmer would have to pay 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. on the value of his land and he would have to pay whether he had an income or not. That, was the proposal of the hon. gentleman yesterday, and he did not think it would be fair. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) had advocated a more drastic idea, and that was that the landowner should be taxed as such, at the same time paying his share of the general taxation—simply because he was a landowner a man should! pay an additional tax! Surely that would not hold water for a moment. The principle adopted in the present proposals was different, and he was sure it was the proper one. If a man did not use his land, then let him be taxed. It was a perfectly correct principle that a man who would not develop his own land and kept others from doing so should contribute a tax whether he had an income or not. He had admitted the previous night, and he admitted again, that in the working of the proposals they would encounter considerable difficulties. The question would have to be considered on its merits in different parts of South Africa, and that was the reason why the idea of Boards was introduced into the proposal. They had a large country and they had found it necessary in other respects to make different administrative conditions in various areas. The same, principle had been adopted in connection with land settlement, and so far as he was aware those Boards had worked perfectly well. If they did not have those local Boards to assist the Central Board the position might be much more difficult than it was to-day. That was why the Government had adopted that idea of Local Boards for particular areas. He admitted that it was a difficult question, and he was not sanguine that it would work smoothly from the start. But let the system get into operation and he was sure that in the long run the proposals would have a result far more important than the mere question of getting revenue for the State. He thought they should do then duty, and he asked hon. members on that side of the House to realise their obligations. Students of those problems knew that they were developing into a state of affairs which was most dangerous to the future of this country—they were setting up a large landed class. In other parts of the world there had been a similar state of affairs, and therefore he said that in their own interest from their own point of view, merely guided by principles of self-interest, let them do their duty in their day and generation and let them see that where land was lying vacant it should be brought into occupation; and if they did that, they would be doing a very good thing for that country. The practical difficulties were great, he knew, and for some years, at any rate until the system had become accepted, it would continue to create a difficulty, but let them make a start. If his hon. friend opposite was going to wait for that ideal which he had been preaching he would have to wait very long. He (the Minister) thought that they were dealing with the difficulties on fair and reasonable lines, and if at some future time it was found that it did not work properly, and an alteration and readjustment was required, it was always competent for that House to go into the matter and make any readjustment.

hoped that the House would bear with him, for he wanted to make a personal statement, and he relied upon the sportsmanlike feeling of the House to give him a hearing. He treated the words of the Prime Minister with the contempt they deserved. The Prime Minister had said that he (Mr. Fichardt) sat there and heard things which he should not hear, and used them against him (the Prime Minister). The Prime Minister had charged him with eavesdropping and had made a mean and false accusation against him. He (Mr. Fichardt) had never heard anything where he sat that any ordinary man of that House might not hear, and he declared emphatically that he had never said anything or used any material that he had not honestly come by, and he challenged the Prime Minister to substantiate a single instance where he had not done so. Proceeding, Mr. Fichardt said that he had told the Party Whip that he was quite prepared to go elsewhere in the House, and had suggested some time ago that they should be allowed to sit together, but as they were then considered the ragtag and bob-tail of the party they were not allowed to sit together. He did not want the Prime Minister or his commando of “jabroers” to tell him what to do. It was not cricket for the Prime Minister to use his high position and give way to mean and false accusations— (Cries of “Order.”)

said that he rose to a point of order. He asked if the hon. member accused any other hon. member of that House of false and mean accusations.

said that the hon. member must withdraw.

said on the Chairman’s ruling he would withdraw; but he thought it none the less.

said that he wanted to know what the words were which the Chairman said that the hon. member must withdraw.

replied that he had asked the hon. member to withdraw the words “mean and false.”

said that he withdrew the words because the Chairman said so. If the Prime Minister accused him of using information in the way he had accused him, was not that a mean and false accusation?

You are repeating the words.

rose to a point of order.

The hon. member must sit down. The hon. member for Ladybrand can resume.

said it was like the Prime Minister to do what he had done. They knew how he had treated old friends, and it was no surprise to him. He treated the Prime Minister’s words with the utmost contempt, and denied his charge entirely.

asked how the proposal before the Committee affected the natives. How about native areas occupied by natives in the Cape Province? There were natives who owned property, but there were parts where they were not actually owners but occupiers. He wanted to know whether the scheduled areas, native reserves and locations would be exempted from the operation of the tax, as they should be. He asked what was the position in the Transvaal? A disability had been created by the Natives Land Act of the previous year, which had not existed before, and notice could be given to natives occupying lands belonging to white men, or they could be rack rented, while the law prevented their becoming paying tenants on any other farm. Referring to what the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Meyler) had drawn attention to at an earlier part of the afternoon, he said that they did not know whether the provision in the Natal law, that the occupation by natives of land owned by a European was not beneficial occupation, was to be adopted or not. It would make a very great difference whether that provision were adopted or not. He hoped that the Minister would let them know what position the Government took up upon that question.

said that he thought his hon. friend was under some misconception. In Natal the difficulty had been created by the Legislature itself, if he might say so. As soon as they laid down “civilised methods ” as was done in the principal definition, the question arose at once, what about the barbarous or the semi-civilised natives, and must that standard be applied to them, too? The answer had been “no.”

Of the Natal people?

Yes, the Natal people. Continuing, he said they laid down a provision for the natives to the effect that allowance should be made for any deficiency naturally to be expected in the use of the land. He (the Minister) did not refer to civilised methods at all, and he did not draw any distinction at all. It would be a great mistake. He laid down a general rule and the Boards would watch its application. No sensible body would exact from a semi-barbarous native the same standard as the white man.

said that the Minister had answered something he did not put forward, omitted to reply to the points on which he asked for information.

said that he entirely agreed with the criticism of the Minister of Finance against the observations made by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort said he did not believe that these taxation proposals were genuine, and that they were not designed to bring in revenue, but in spite of that he was prepared to vote for them. Surely that was a wrong position to take up. If the proposals were not genuine he should either move to amend them or vote against them. He (Mr. Hull) would vote against the original proposal and against the amended proposal, not because he objected to the principle of the land tax, because he thought it was necessary, but he said that when a land tax was brought forward it should be carefully thought out and be one that would stand examination. Neither of these proposals had been carefully thought out. It was interesting to hear from the Prime Minister that the Government had taken up a new position—he did not understand whether in South Africa generally or only in regard to the land tax. The Prime Minister said that the Government were in the position of the watchers on the walls of Zion. He hoped that, although they occupied that exalted position, they would allow him to make one or two observations, and not fall foul of him, as the Prime Minister did the right hon. the member for Victoria West. He (Mr. Hull) did not think they should take the Prime Minister seriously at all times, especially when he ventured out of his depth and discussed taxation, with which he was admittedly not familiar.

He fell foul of the right hon. the member for Victoria West, and yet in the course of his observations he (Mr. Hull) understood the Prime Minister to agree with the right hon. gentleman. The Prime Minister admitted that these proposals were brought forward as a matter of policy, and would yield very little revenue. Another extraordinary statement was made by the Prime Minister, which the latter could not defend, because it was contrary to the principles enunciated by the Government. He understood the Prime Minister to say that they objected to large ranching areas in South Africa. He always understood that the Prime Minister and the members of the Government were in favour of more capital coming here. This was inconsistent with the views of the Government expressed over and over again. Under the alternative proposals land was considered beneficially occupied if used for pastoral purposes. Surely ranching was a pastoral purpose. Many parts of South Africa were suitable for ranching, and it was wrong for any member of the Government to say that these areas should not be used for the purpose. For many years many farmers had earned their living by ranching. Did the Prime Minister object because capital for the purpose came from oversea, and because the proprietor owned a little more than somebody else? Surely the principle was the same. He understood the Minister of Finance to say that the original proposals were put forward after most mature consideration. What had happened between then and now to induce the Government to change what the Minister of Finance had stated was a very sound principle? Surely they were entitled to know the reasons that induced the Government to make this drastic change in their policy. If land was to be taxed he would rather have the taxation on unimproved values. Before he could accept the new proposal he would like to know the reason for the alteration. Under the original proposal the sum of £50,000 would have been obtained. It was admitted by the Minister that a smaller sum would be obtained under the alternative scheme. He thought it would be admitted that the collection under the first scheme would be much simpler and less costly than under the second scheme. He was not defending the first scheme on principle, but, if they must have one of these two schemes, he preferred the first to the second. He objected to the whole scheme, because he thought before a scheme of land taxation was brought forward it should be carefully thought out. The first scheme would be less costly to collect because it contemplated taxing land on unimproved values of over 10,000 morgen in extent and of the value of over £10,000. The machinery required for the collection of the taxation under that scheme was comparatively simple.

Under the other scheme the Commissioner would have to go and examine every piece of land outside the municipalities to find whether that land was beneficially occupied or not. He would like the Minister to give them an estimate of the staff he would have to employ to do this work, how long it would take this staff to prepare their rolls, their descriptions of the properties liable to this tax and their valuations, and what it would cost to prepare this list. The Minister of Finance must know that, instead of getting revenue from this alternative scheme it would cost the country money. (Hear, hear.) He thought it was clear that the Government could only have thought about these taxation proposals long after Parliament met. He did not want to issue a challenge, because they had had too many challenges already this afternoon—(laughter)—but he did not think the Minister of Finance was in a position at the present moment to tell the Committee within £5,000, £20,000, or £30,000 what it was going to cost him to set up this elaborate machinery. What was more, he did not believe that either the Minister or anybody in the Government service could tell them within a period of three or four months how long it would take to set this machinery up, prepare their valuation and assessment rolls, and get their equipment complete for the collection of this tax. In view of the fact that this alternative scheme was going to be costly and that it would yield very little revenue, and in view of the fact that neither scheme had been thought out with the thoroughness that was so necessary, he hoped his hon. friend (General Smuts) would take the advice which he tendered to him in all sincerity to withdraw this part of his taxation proposals, and next year, or later on, let him come forward with a comprehensive measure for, first of all, obtaining a complete valuation for all immovable property throughout the Union, distinguishing between unimproved value and improved value.

said it must be as obvious as anything could be that the amendment proposed by the Minister of Railways was adopted in a very great hurry under extreme pressure, and without any thought— (hear, hear)—because who ever in his senses would ask Parliament to levy a tax upon the unimproved value of land which was not beneficially occupied?

Hear, hear.

said he could not conceive where this idea came from. They were going to tax the unimproved value of land which had not been beneficially occupied. What was the use of talking about improvements on land when in the same breath they talked about land that had not been beneficially occupied during the past 12 months? The hon. member for Barberton wanted to know the reason why these proposals had been brought forward. There were reasons, some of them very solid reasons, certainly very tangible reasons, and some of them very heavy reasons. (Laughter.) He did not know why they should take up the time of the House when they could see the reasons for themselves. With these heavy reasons pressing on the Minister, he brought forward this extraordinary amendment of a tax on the unimproved value of land which had not been beneficially occupied. Pictures had been drawn of what this was going to mean. Everybody, as far as he could see, took it all upon the basis that this Commission would have to deal with every piece of land and investigate it, and see whether it was under occupation. That was not what they had got to do. They had got to ascertain whether for twelve months the land had been beneficially occupied. They were going to have this Commission collecting evidence all over the country. It would mean a very protracted inquiry, and they must either have centres where people would have to go and give evidence, or they would have these Boards going from farm to farm throughout the Union, collecting evidence as to whether land had or had not been beneficially occupied during the past twelve months. Then they had to ascertain what this tax was going to bring in. He had been making a calculation, on the basis of a value of 10s. per morgen and a tax of a penny, as to how many morgen would have to be not beneficially occupied before they brought in, say, £40,000. Some basis might have been supplied to the Committee, but he was perfectly sure that the Minister had no basis, that he had no figures, and that it was a mere guess to say that this tax was going to bring in a certain amount of money. No one had tried to make out what it would be Notwithstanding that, he was also going to vote for the tax, and despite the statement of the hon. member for Barberton. Why was he? On the Government side of the House were the representatives of the land in South Africa, and if that side of the House would endorse the principle that land was going to be taxed, they would have it on record for always. The landed aristocracy, as they were, according to the right hon. member for Victoria West, sitting on that side of the House, would endorse the principle that there should be a tax on land, and therefore he was going to vote for it.

said he hoped the Prime Minister had listened to the remarks with which the hon. member for Harbours finished his speech. The Prime Minister had said there was no principle involved in this taxation. He said they were not admitting a principle, yet the hon. member for Harbours was going to vote for that proposal, because they were admitting a principle. The only point on which he (Mr. Fremantle) differed from the hon. member for Harbours was that they were not admitting a principle of the taxation of land, but a different principle—the principle of an expropriation tax on land. (Hear, hear.) The Prime Minister himself said that the object of that tax was not to get money, but was to bring in a change in regard to ownership of land. That was the principle they were laying down then. It was all very well for the Minister of Education to say nonsense. The Prime Minister said the object was not to get money. It was to alter the ownership of land, to bring people on to the land. In laying down the new principle, they were turning their backs upon the mandate of all those who had sent them to that House. They had never been sent to interfere and tax people out of their holdings in South Africa. He would like to know where it was going to stop. He was against the proposal, because he did not believe that direct taxation was needed at the present time, because better alternatives had been put before the House, and because he looked with dread upon the imposition of taxation which had not been thought out. If the object of that so-called taxation was social rather than financial, why was it not mentioned in the Governor’s speech? That it was not, showed clearly that it was not contemplated. And it did not help the Budget in any way. It was social legislation as the Prime Minister said, and it was an afterthought. Heaven alone knew what was the origin of those proposals. It was a surrender to the principles of the hon. members on the cross-benches, or to the members on the benches opposite, for in the last Unionist Congress a motion was passed, the essential part of which was that it was necessary that they should have legislation and taxation so as to induce the farmer to sell his land. That was the principle clearly put forward that afternoon by the leader of the Opposition. It was a proposal which was accepted, he supposed, with the object of dishing the Opposition. He looked forward to the future when the secrets of all hearts would be revealed to find out what the object really was. The Minister of Finance had agreed that the income tax should be submitted every year. And why should not the same principle apply in regard to the land tax? But the Minister wanted that to be a permanent tax.

Then what was the answer to the question brought forward by the right hon. member for Victoria West? Why should that tax fall exclusively on the landowner outside the municipality? Why should it not also fall upon the landowner within the limits of a municipality? And why should not the tax fall upon other forms of property? For instance, there was mining property. Why should they not tax unused mining land? If there were social reasons for taking unused farming land, surely the same reason would apply for taxing unused urban and mining land. Why should they have differentiation? Proceeding, the speaker said that the Prime Minister spoke of the Dutch-speaking people, many of whom they would find on the land with large families struggling to make an existence. A large number of those people had land which was unbeneficially occupied. He could show the Minister many people, English as well as Dutch, who were not able to beneficially occupy a considerable portion of the land. He sympathised very largely with those people, for they tried as hard as they could to develop it and bring it under cultivation, and men with sons hoped to provide them with land on which to farm. This should be considered in imposing taxation, and men with sons should be taxed more lightly on land not beneficially occupied than men without sons.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

said a differentiation should be made according to the nearness of the land to the railways and also in regard to the number of children in a man’s family. The Boards which it was proposed to establish would be very inquisitorial. This inquisition would come much nearer home to the hearts of our country people than did the income tax. The machinery suggested by the hon. member for Victoria West was the right way to deal with the question. As to whether the tax applied to the country people or only the companies, he regretted very much the way in which the Prime Minister had referred to the land companies, the reference being neither fair nor wise. A considerable number of land companies were only too anxious to sell.

At what price?

At a very small price.

No.

So I am informed. I should like to know whether the large companies are buying up irrigable land, as the Prime Minister said. I hold a certain amount of irrigable land myself—(hear, hear)—and I don’t find land companies buying up irrigable land. On the contrary, land companies put land under irrigation and sell it to private individuals as soon as possible. I think the accusation made by the Prime Minister is certainly not borne out so far as the Cape Province is concerned. Then the Prime Minister pointed to The Milling Company, saying, “We built a railway and The Milling Company bought the land.” Quite the opposite. The Milling Company bought the land and then we built the railway. (Hear, hear.)

Wrong again.

Quite right.

The Prime Minister was not speaking as a statesman or a Prime Minister should; he was speaking in the way we hear too much of from hon. members on the cross-benches.

We hear a little of it from you sometimes.

I don’t think it is right to attempt to represent the capitalist as a sort of natural enemy and to try to make out a case against him by straining the facts as much as possible. That is the sort of thing one does not expect from a Prime Minister. I don’t think it is wise to speak of these land companies in that way at the present time, when we need capital and when capital is available but looks shyly at South Africa. Continuing, Mr. Fremantle said we had not the information which was requisite for entering on the policy that had been suggested, and we should have a careful inquiry as to whether land was available for settlement. He understood there was a very large amount available without recourse to expedients of the kind which had been proposed.

If they wanted to differentiate against a company let them at least say so in their Bill and put a special tax on absentees and companies holding land, but let them not pass a formula which applied to all landowners and then by manipulation of administration make it apply to certain cases. Proceeding, the hon. member asked why had the limit been taken out of that proposal? He thought that that Committee ought to consider that they were now, by the amendment of the Minister of Railways and Harbours, applying the tax on land to smaller plots than had at first been contemplated. If they wished to tax merely land bought for speculation and not used he thought that some simple definition might have been possible, but now they had a definition which could be applied to all farms in the country except those which were worked at the fullest rate, and those were few. It gave them cause to think whether they were doing their duty by imposing a tax on landowners who were doing everything they could to develop their land.

At present they had in the Cape quitrent a road rate, an education rate, income tax they were threatened with a provincial land tax, and now they had that land tax, and all these taxes had to be borne by the owners of land. He did not think that was the moment for adding that tax to the four or five previous taxes which already existed. If they honestly read that definition of “beneficial occupation,” it did seem to him that it must be most carefully considered by hon. members. It seemed to him that, according to that definition, the Commissioner was bound to say, if one was developing as fast as one could, and using as much as one was able of one’s land, if there was any land on one’s farm not “beneficially occupied” under that definition, it was bound to come under that tax. The proposal affected in a very intimate way the great mass of their country people. He wanted to put that seriously to the Minister of Finance. He believed that was a revolutionary proposal, and if brought into effect fairly, was going to effect a revolution in the whole of their country life, and he (Mr. Fremantle) did not desire that revolution brought about in this fashion. He hoped that the people of the country would realise what was being done, and that the views of the Ministry on farming were being forced on them without any word or choice on their part at all. He did not think any violent change of that kind was desirable. In the Midlands land was being cut up into far smaller holdings than used to be the case. They had 30, 40, or 50 holdings where, twelve or fifteen years ago, they had only one holding. An enormous change had been going on on the banks of the Fish River and the Sundays River in the way of increasing small holdings, not through the action of the Government, but by the action of these companies and syndicates and individual farmers. The proposal was a dangerous thing, particularly at the present time, because there had been a drop in land values, but how long that was going on he did not know This tax would frighten the land market, which was already in a delicate state.

He believed that in the next six months or a year they were going to stop a good deal of closer settlement by this interference with the course of events. What was the alternative, as suggested by the Minister of Finance? He had set to work, and having framed a definition which applied very widely, was going by administration to confine it to smaller limits. He (Mr. Fremantle) believed that was the intention of the Minister. He would point out to hon. members that they were not protected by the Local Board. Local Boards would not decide. They only gave advice, and it seemed to him that hon. members on his side of the House had been told that they would be protected.

We can look after ourselves.

I am quite confident the hon. member can look after himself, but I am not so confident that he can look after the interests of the rural population of this country. He is looking too much to the interests of the Ministry and his party, and not the interests of his constituents. Continuing, the hon. member said that the whole of the power was in the hands of the Commissioner and the Minister. They were putting into the hands of the Minister or the Commissioner the power to tax the people on practically all the farms of this country. He (Mr. Fremantle) was not prepared to agree to that. Was there any country in the world where they had been able to stop this land tax once it had been started? The Prime Minister had capitulated to the Opposition and hon. members on the cross-benches— he did not know whether it was for election purposes. He had taken the proposal in opposition to the wishes on that side of the House. It would be an act of gross betrayal on his part, with the light he had on this matter, with the information he had of the circumstances of the country and the meaning of the proposal, to vote for this proposal. He could not do it without grossly betraying men whom he respected, and whom he regarded with affection, and who did not deserve to be treated in that way. He was not there as a supporter of the Ministry. He was there to carry out the definite policy put before the electors at the last election. Whether the Ministry carried out that policy or not, was not his affair. It appeared to him that carrying out that policy he was a loyal supporter of the South African Party. (Prolonged laughter and ironical cheers.)

The member who did not stick to the policy of the South African Party, although he supported the Ministry, was not a loyal member of the party. (Laughter, and cries of “Who?”) He did not mean anyone in particular—he meant anyone who did not carry out the policy as laid down. He considered it his duty as a party man to keep to the policy laid down, to resist departures, and whether the Government or nominal leaders—

said the hon. member must confine himself to the proposal before the House. (Cheers.)

in conclusion, said it was impossible for any loyal member of the South African Party who saw the case as he saw it to do anything but vote against the land tax proposals of the Government.

said it had just struck him that the question was so beset with difficulties and the tax was going to yield, as he understood, nothing at all, that it would be better for the Minister to drop the proposals altogether. Members were supporting this proposal from different motives. He was prepared to support a tax on land for one special reason that it proposed to tax the prairie value of land and not the improvements made by the farmer. Some were prepared to support any tax when they thought it was going to get at the landowner. Others supported it as a first instalment of a policy they had in their minds—to force land into the market. He was glad to see that the great idea of the forced expropriation of land, to turn one man off and put on another, seemed to be falling into abeyance. If the idea of this taxation was to turn people off the land and to settle in their place oversea people, he wanted to know when these people had got on the land whether the Government was going to keep on this taxation or remove it? He had always resented the idea that seemed to be in the minds oi some people that we must do a great deal more for the man who came from oversea than we did for our own population. (Hear, hear.) It had always seemed to him an unfair idea to dispossess one private individual for the purpose of putting on the land another private individual. He could understand expropriation for railways, roads, etc., but to dispossess one private individual for the sake of putting on another private individual was a thing that he could not understand at all. (Hear, hear.)

He quite approved of a tax on the prairie value of land. Hon. members did not seem to understand the position of land in the Cape Province. (Hear, hear.) Here they had the School Board taxing them and the Divisional Council taxing them, and those were taxes which he considered immoral taxes, because they were not levied on the prairie value of land, but whenever there was any improvement made on the land up went their taxation. (Hear, hear.) It did seem to him an absurd thing in a country like this, where on the one hand they were trying to encourage progress, they had bodies sitting on them and taxing them for every single improvement they made. Then they had a proposal that the Provincial Council should put a tax on land. As far as he understood the idea of the Administrator, it appeared to be that the farmer would be allowed his improvements free of taxation for seven years. He (Mr. Blaine) could not see that it made any difference whether they taxed him when he had first put up his improvements, or whether they taxed him when he had had the use of them for seven years. It was a tax on improvements and it was a backward and retrogressive step to take in a country like this. Altogether with the Union Parliament taxing land, they were to have in the Cape Province four bodies taxing land. As to the idea of forcing land into the market so that they might settle a white population from overseas on the land, it seemed to him that the people who so strongly advocated that had not studied the question at all.

He had been looking up statistics and he found that in Australia (excluding Tasmania) with an area of 2,948,366 sq. miles, they had a population of 4,375,326, giving 1,405 persons to every sq. mile. In Canada they had an area of 3,603,910 sq. miles, and a population of 7,204,838, or nearly two persons per sq. mile. Now in the four Provinces of the Union of South Africa with an area of 473,100 sq. miles, we had a population of 5,973,394 equal to 12,626 per sq. mile. That was the difference between this country and Australia, and this country and Canada Another thing they heard a great deal about was the immigration of people into this country from England. He happened this very day to meet a farmer who lived in a very fertile portion of the Union, where there was more than the average rainfall of the Union, and he asked him how many crops, good crops, he reckoned to get in five years? The reply was three. He (Mr. Blaine) would say, at the outside, four. One year in five was a bad year. Now he would like to know how the man from oversea, with a very small capital on, say, 200 or 300 acres of land, was going to recover from those bad years when they came? In this country they could only reckon that they were going to place immigrants on irrigated land. In England arable land corresponded to irrigated land out here. Now people in England were leaving the land and going to the towns. In South Africa the price of irrigated land was considerably higher than the price of arable land in England, and, consequently, the idea that they were going to bring people out from England, 6,000 miles from their market, to dearer land, to grow stuff to be sent to the English market, seemed to him to be absurd. (Hear, hear.) He was going to vote for the proposal, simply because it recognised the principle of taxation on the prairie value of land. (Hear, hear.)

said that so far as he was aware the matter before the House dealt with taxation proposals, but any stranger having listened to the debate must have taken this House for a farmers’ society. The advice which had been given to hon. members had been most interesting, especially that of the hon. member for Roodepoort, who had been illuminating in the extreme. (Laughter.) The hon. member had said that the more people came on the land, the more attention they required. That was so, especially where it concerned the part of the country represented by that hon. member, which had cost the country large amounts recently for police protection and such matters. (Laughter.) Then the hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour, told them that they could not use mountains for cattle breeding, which showed that the hon. member did not know much about that industry. When the hon. member for Barberton spoke this afternoon, he had thought of the days when the hon. member was on the Treasury benches, and when he used to say what he thought. Did the hon. member (Mr. Hull) really mean what he said this afternoon, he wondered? Turning to the right hon. member for Victoria West, Mr. Louw regretted to notice the attitude of that right hon. gentleman, who seemed to desire to criticise and destroy, but not to build up. It reminded him of his youth, when once an old Hollander was working in a well, and someone standing above on the side kept on calling out to him, “Why don’t you do this, or that?” Finally the old Hollander turned round and said, “I don’t know who you are, but it is very easy for you to talk, just come down below and do the work yourself.” (Laughter.) The argument that tax collectors would have to go all over the country showed great ignorance. Magistrates and local officials would, of course, be able to give great assistance in this collection. He was pleased to hear that the hon. member for Uitenhage (Mr. Fremantle) had gone in for farming, and he hoped the hon. member would give a little more attention to farming in future. At any rate, he hoped, that at the end of the session the hon. member would reckon out how much money he had cost the country by his tedious, long speeches. (Ministerial cheers.) The hon. member had described himself as a loyal member of the South African Party —a peculiar loyalty that which aimed at blowing up the South African Party. (Ministerial cheers.) Mr. Louw proceeded to deny Mr. Fremantle’s statement that all irrigation schemes on the Sunday’s River, had been undertaken by land companies. A great deal there had been done by private owners, he contended. Touching on the proposals before the House, he pointed out that the farmer placed the whole of his capital in the ground. The farmer had never refused to pay a tax on the proceeds of his capital, but he certainly refused to pay taxes on the capital itself. (Hear, hear.) There was no doubt about it that something was growing in South Africa which was not in the interests of the country—too much land was getting into the hands of land companies or of one person. He had often thought of a plan how one person might be prevented from getting too much land in his possession. Especially when he saw how one man might become possessed of so much land on which twenty families might have made a living, and when such a man did nothing with the land, he felt that something should be done, and therefore he thought the proposal was a step in the right direction. (Ministerial cheers.) There was one instance of a man owning 30,000 morgen placing his land in the market. Had it not been for these taxation proposals one would never have heard of these 30,000 morgen. (Hear, hear.) He (the speaker) was not under the impression that this proposal aimed at the land companies only. The man who owned large areas which he did nothing with would be taxed, (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Louw) was in favour of the municipalities also falling under the tax. The South African can Party’s policy was to assist the poor whites, and he thought a better step for solution of the poor white question had never yet been taken by the Government. In these circumstances, although he represented a rural constituency where most of the people were still landowners—and he hoped would continue to be so—he would support the proposal, which he was sure would meet with the approval of his constituents. (Ministerial cheers.)

said that the exploration of Natal into the unknown country of land taxation had been considerably referred to in the debate, and if they had followed the example of Natal a little more closely they would not have gone so far wrong as they had under the direction of the Minister. In Natal the exemption had been £3,000 for land taxation, which might be said to represent an income of £100 per annum. They were discriminating between the use a man might make of his land, and if he was not making proper use he must be taxed; but how about a man who received an income of £1,000 or slightly under from his land, and made bad use of it? He would like to remind the Minister that if he had taken advantage of referring to Natal’s endeavour in that line, Natal had given a very good example in regard to the income tax, where the exemption had been £240 for married men and £180 for bachelors. He wondered whether it had been considered by the Minister of Finance how ill-considered these proposals were, and to what extent he was going to get the support of his strongest supporters in Natal, who happened to be landowners? Proceeding, the hon. member pointed out that a farm which might be worth £3,000 was already taxed to the extent of £10, and the Government now proposed another tax of 1d. per £, with a progressive increase for the larger amount, which meant another £10, so that the total tax paid was £20, or actually 4s. in the £ per annum, if for some reason or another a man was not able to occupy his land beneficially. He (Mr. Fawcus) was surprised that there were representatives of farming constituencies from Natal who were backing up the Government in that most iniquitous taxation. He thought that there was a great deal in the suggestion which had been made that that tax would cost a great deal to collect, and that the Minister would be disappointed in the amount collected when he took into consideration the cost of collection. Alluding to the natives, the hon. member asked what about the native who was not the owner of the land he occupied, but who leased the land? The rent would be increased—if the owner was a business man. He was very much inclined to agree with the hon. member for Kroonstad (Mr. Serfontein), that this was Socialistic legislation. He thought that the Government were following Socialistic principles. What was the necessity for that special taxation? The necessity consisted entirely in the Socialistic tendencies of the present Government.

Dealing with the argument of the hon. member for Roodepoort, Mr. Fawcus said that that hon. member wanted to make the owner of the land both buyer and seller. That was an absurdity. The hon. member for Roodepoort also talked of the prosperous time the farmers had in New Zealand, but he (Mr. Fawcus) had received a letter from a South African farmer in that country which showed that the farmers there had a very thin time indeed, where the eight hour day was in force. There the employees got the better time. He would ask the Minister was he prepared to say that coloured occupation and Indian occupation was not to be considered beneficial occupation throughout South Africa? If he was not prepared to do that, the appointment of these Boards was merely a subterfuge, and threw the responsibility on to other people. What Board would declare in the Cape Province that coloured occupation was not beneficial occupation? If this was beneficial occupation in the Cape, the same should apply in Natal. He (Mr. Fawcus) was not prepared to accept anything short of that. He did not believe in these Boards, and in his opinion the taxation of land was iniquitous. If they taxed the farmers they were going to increase the cost of living in South Africa. The Government owned millions of acres of land, and if they were prepared to pay the tax, who was going to pay? The Government was hanging on for a rise, and was in exactly the same position as the private owner. Where did the Government get this land? And what right had the State that it did not derive from the individual? He hoped that the Minister would pay some attention to the point he had raised with regard to the tax in Natal.

said it was the duty of every hon. member to consider this question very carefully, as it was a question which concerned nearly every constituency. The hon. member for Cape Town, Harbour, had said that members on his (the speaker’s) side represented landowners exclusively; that being so, they should know best what was good for the country. He, personally, represented one of the largest areas, and he wished at once to say that he opposed a land tax, because a land tax aimed at taxing the farmers’ capital. At the same time, he heartily supported the amended proposal, for which he thought the whole country should be grateful to the Minister. How many hundreds of people were not anxious to obtain land? The land was lying in front of their eyes, but it was closed to them. At Kakamas there were hundreds of people to whom this amended proposal would come as a ray of light. (Hear, hear.) In the circumstances, he held it was his duty to support the Government. It was now argued that the Boards to be appointed would involve great expenses. To him (the speaker) the difficulties raised seemed more apparent than real. The local authorities would be able to give all the necessary information on the question as to whether land was or was not beneficially occupied. He congratulated the Minister of Finance on his excellent idea as to how he should ascertain whether or not land was beneficially occupied. In his constituency there was a farmer who had done his utmost to find water on his land. He had spent £850 in trying to locate water so as to enable him to do something. Surely there was no intention of taxing a man in a position like that. They did not want to bring in people from overseas to occupy the land which might come open—they had quite enough people in the country extremely eager to get on the land. Proceeding, Mr. Kuhn said he agreed that municipalities should be included in the proposals. Why, he asked, should municipalities be allowed to lock up large areas of land? In conclusion, he held that if the country understood the amended proposal it would thoroughly endorse the Government’s views. (Hear, hear.)

said it was very interesting to hear on the one hand hon. members accusing the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance of adopting Socialistic principles and on the other hand the right hon. gentleman himself denying most emphatically that he was tinged in any sense with Socialistic propaganda. He was inclined to agree with the prime Minister. He wished he could think otherwise. They on the cross-benches had been accused of being advocates of the single tax. On that point the hon. member for Umlazi had been very emphatic. Although they believed in a land tax, it did not follow at all that they pinned their faith to one tax, to the exclusion of all other taxes. The party to which he belonged could not be called the party of the single tax. They believed, and had always advocated the abolition of the indirect method of taxation and the establishment of direct taxation as a means of raising revenue. They did not say, as many hon. members seemed to think, and, as he believed, the Prime Minister said in his speech, that they advocated the land tax, a tax on the unimproved value of land, because it would put land into the market—(hear, hear)— that might be an effect, a very desirable effect—but they believed in this system of taxation on the unimproved value of land, because it was a fair and just method, a method of taxation that could not very well be evaded and could not be shifted on to the shoulders of other people. It was, he thought, an extremely inexpensive method of taxation in that it would not give rise to armies of officials. The land tax was a just tax, because it was a tax upon monopoly. Land in any country, unless, of course, it extended its borders, was a fixed quantity. Seeing that a number of individuals and companies owned the land in this country, they had become monopolists and to his mind, they were monopolists of the very worst kind. Why should these people disagree with the principle that they should pay a tax or a rent to the nation whose land they held? That was the position of members on the cross benches. They said—and he thought his colleagues agreed—that they were not content with 1d. in the £. They were not satisfied that any exemption should be made, whether that land happened to be urban land, whether it happened to be agricultural land, or whether it happened to be mineral land. They said that the whole economic rent of that land was the property of the State, and, if any man were not prepared to pay that rent, then the land should be handed over to someone who was willing to pay the rent. It was a well-known thing, in English law, at any rate, that there was no such thing as freehold in land. All land ultimately was the property of the Crown and was held under conditions which might be altered from time to time by the State. So, in this country all land was held from the State on certain conditions, and there was no injustice in the State, as represented by this Parliament, at any time altering those conditions by the majority of the people of the State. There need be no question of spoliation in this business. If the people decided to alter the terms on which men were holding land, they had a perfect right to do so. What they said was, that this was a just tax, based on equity and righteousness, the effect would be beneficial to the community. In regard to the details of the Minister’s proposals, although they agreed that he had caused a very interesting discussion to take place in the House on the question of land taxation, it would have a very beneficial effect amongst a great many people, because they would get considerable enlightenment, he did not say by the speeches made here, but by the discussion which would take place as a result of the proposals.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort had stated that he had never altered his policy with regard to the taxation of land. Well, if be had not done so, his party had very considerably, for in its earlier manifestoes there was no mention whatsoever of a land tax of any description. But when the Unionist Party found that, owing to the propaganda of the Labour Party, the idea was “catching on,” then, of course, the Unionist members thought fit to include it in then programme. When the Labour Party proposed its amendment to the Budget, the Unionist members solidly voted against the proposal, which only a month or two previously they had included in their programme. The Labour Party had always supported the proposal, but it did not follow that they would support the Minister’s present proposal. As to the original suggestion, it would be absolutely absurd to exempt the man who did not own 10,000 morgen. They did not hear anything said about mineral areas, and as to urban districts, they should be taxed the same as the rest of the country. Bad as the original proposal of the Minister’s was, it was at least clear, but in the amendment the Minister had gone further astray. All the members of the House knew in their own minds what was meant by beneficial occupation, but very few of them were agreed upon what the actual meaning was. The suggested Land Boards would find a great difficulty, not only in agreeing, but in resisting the pressure of local opinion— political, financial, and otherwise. But it did not matter to him one iota whether land was beneficially occupied or otherwise from a taxation point of view. He did not think that the question of beneficial occupation should enter into the question. What he wanted was the whole economic rent of that land, no matter what it was, and he would not be satisfied until the whole of the economic rent was the property of the State. Hon. members might say that this was nationalisation or confiscation. They might call it what they liked, but he called it the resumption by the people of their own heritage, which had been filched from them —legally, of course. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Schreiner), in speaking on the native question, had talked about their ancestral lands. He (Mr. Andrews) supposed the whole Union was once the ancestral land of the natives. Then what title had the Europeans to it? The title was force, which was the ultimate title under which all land was held—the right of the strong to despoil the weak. Proceeding, the hon. member said that the Minister of Finance had spoken of the many practical difficulties. He sympathised with him: but the difficulties of a proper and sound land tax were not administrative difficulties, but political difficulties, and the Minister could easily sketch a simple scheme by which he could get the economic rent of the land of their Union. Knowing that his followers were averse to land taxation, the Minister had brought in an academic proposition. Hon. members need not be alarmed. It would not hurt them to pay, and would not cost them anything. The Minister had said that his estimate of £50,000 would not be reached if the amendment were adopted. That was why he (Mr. Andrews) presumed that the Unionist Party would vote for the tax, because it would not mean anything. In conclusion, he said that he did not think he would vote for the amendment or for the original proposition, not because he was against the unimproved value of land being taxed, but because that proposition was not one for taxing the unimproved value of land.

said that the previous night the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smartt) had mentioned the hon. member for Ficksburg, and had made some insinuations. The hon. member had missed his mark completely, because just as he (Mr. Keyter) intended to vote against the original proposition, so he intended to vote against the amendment which had been moved by the Minister of Railways and Harbours. Just as the hon. member had said that he was going to vote for the motion and for the amendment because they contained principles with which he was in agreement, so he (Mr. Keyter) was going to vote against them because they were against his principles. According to the amendment, not only was the principle of the taxation of land laid down, but it contained a principle which would mean the encouragement of farming with Kafirs. According to the amendment, his hon. friend the Minister of Finance would get no taxation at all. What on earth was going to prevent a man who owned a million of morgen of ground to start cattle ranges and putting Kafir families on his land and occupying the land “beneficially ”? The native law would not prevent him, because it was only in force in the Orange Free State, where only it was effective at present, because there all contracts were cancelled at once. Until the Commission had reported and until that House had decided otherwise, they would carry on in the other three Provinces, and the Act they had passed last year was simply that they might not enter into new contracts, but the old contracts might remain.

said he felt quite sure that the amendment of the Minister would find more favour in Natal than the original proposition. The question of opening up the land had been raised at nearly every election meeting in Natal during the last 30 years. When they had the experience they had gained in one of the Provinces of the tax working quite smoothly it seemed to him futile for the hon. member for Barberton to come and say that this was going to mean an enormous amount of expenditure and an army corps of officials. He explained the system that obtained in Natal in connection with the land tax and the checking system which was put in force when it was suspected that an improper return had been made. In conclusion, he said he did not see why this tax should prove expensive in its operation.

said the principle of land taxation was an unknown one in the Union, and more especially in the Free State. It was a principle advocated by members on the cross-benches and by members of the Opposition. No wonder that now these members expressed their gratification at the proposals of the Minister. There were many farmers in the Free State who had winter veld, was there not a danger of that land being taxed because the Commissioner might hold that that land was not beneficially occupied? He was pleased that the Prime Minister had asked for the assistance of hon. members to solve the question, but he wished to point out that many suggestions from his side of the House had been thrown overboard as being childish ridiculous, or absurd. The Prime Minister had spoken of the intention of ranches being started here. Apparently the Minister was opposed to this. The Minister should not forget that in order to start such a ranch one had to have the cattle, consequently the ranches would be beneficially occupied. The Minister would not get much revenue from his proposals, of that he could be sure. What then could be the object? General Botha had further told his (the speaker’s) side not to criticise, but to help. However, it was quite clear to him that any advice he might give would be taken very little notice of. He was afraid of these proposals because the people had not been consulted, and when one dealt with far-reaching matters like this the people should be consulted. The hon. member for Colesberg had said their House was nothing but a farmers’ society, but, although the hon. member had criticised many speakers, he had thrown no further light on the question before the House. The hon. member for Edenburg had complained that during the recess the speaker had delivered an address at Edenburg. The hon. member had made no attempts to contradict what was there stated.

said the hon. member should confine himself to the subject before the Committee, and that it was not proper to refer to an absent member.

in conclusion, said he wished to lodge an emphatic protest against the introduction of this Socialistic principle, which appeared to him to be the thin end of the wedge that would be driven in at the expense of the coming generation.

said the Minister of Finance in his Budget speech last year had clearly indicated to hon. members that they should consult their constituents in regard to fresh taxation. The hon. member for Boshof had had plenty of opportunities therefore to consult his constituents on the question.

said it should be made clear to the constituents of hon. members who had raised a bogey, that there was no intention of imposing a general land tax. It was admitted as a great evil that land companies should have millions of acres of ground which were kept idle and uncultivated. That evil it was now proposed to deal with, and it was intended to place that land open to settlers. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Fremantle, to his (the speaker’s) surprise had—like the hon. member for Barberton—made a lengthy plea for the large companies. Here was a great opportunity to help the poor whites, but now that the Government tried to achieve something he opposed the Government. He (the speaker) heartily supported the proposals.

said he was surprised to hear that it was the Government’s intention to bring land into the market. He (the speaker) had thought that they were dealing with taxation proposals to cover a deficit. The large companies could easily dodge the taxation by placing a few people and a few head of cattle on the land, by which they would beneficially occupy their land. He also contended that the costs of collection of the taxes would be excessively heavy, and he could not agree with the suggestion that the magistrates and local authorities should be entrusted with these duties. Mr. Wilcocks proceeded to say that the proposals now before the House had not been asked for by members on the Government side of the House. They were, however, the proposals which had for years been urged from the cross-benches and by the Opposition. The extent to which the tax would be applied would entirely depend on the Commissioners. Farmers sometimes had to leave their land uncultivated for a year. Would that land be deemed to be not beneficially occupied? Would a stop be put to these ranches to which the Prime Minister had referred, he wondered? He thought that, if sufficient capital had been raised by the ranching company, proposals like these would not stop them. A land tax was, in his opinion, unnecessary. The Government would so manage things that they made money out of it, and those who owned small pieces of ground would have to pay. He was entirely opposed to the motion.

said they had had an interesting discussion on land taxation, in the course of which many members had indulged in gibes at the cross-benches. It was interesting to see how solicitous the hon. member for Uitenhage was in regard to landowners in his own constituency. The hon. member had spoken in very bitter terms against the policy of land taxation. He (Mr. Boydell) could not help thinking all the time that what was really behind those attacks by the hon. member upon this pernicious policy was that he was taking advantage of another opportunity of making a personal attack on the Prime Minister. He did not wish to defend the Prime Minister, but he did think that the hon. member for Uitenhage went out of his way on every possible occasion to defile debate by trying to bring in in some way a direct personal attack on the Prime Minister. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member seemed to be possessed of a kind of yellow jaundice in this matter. He had now attacked hon. members on the cross-benches for supporting principles which he himself advocated only last session. It seemed to him that there was something radically wanting in the hon. member, and one thing wanting was consistency. One thing that had stood out prominently in the whole of the debate had been that each party had been trying to show the country that it wanted to do some good for the country, but at the expense of the other party. The Minister of Finance required £700,000, and he knew very well his followers would object to paying the bulk, or even a little of that sum, so he introduced a proposal to raise £450,000 by means of an income tax which, in the main, would largely affect members who sat on the Opposition side of the House. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort then tried to find an excuse for voting against an income tax in order that the burden might be placed on the farmers. As to the Opposition, that night they came along and said that they were going to vote for the Government getting more money, but the day before they had said that there was no necessity for additional taxation. That showed their consistency.

Where do you come in?

Oh we are coming in quite fast enough. Proceeding, he said that in the 1910 programmes they saw nothing at all about the taxation of land values either from the South African Party or the Unionist Party. The Labour Party had, however, been consistent, and on their programme at the same time they saw laid down a graduated tax on the unimproved values of land. (Cheers.) On the Indemnity Bill the Minister of Finance had said that the hon. member for Smithfield (General Hertzog) and his followers sympathised with the Labour Party. But now they had the hon. member’s followers saying that the Government was following the Labour Party, and taking up Socialistic doctrines. Every reform movement went through three stages. First of all it was treated with contempt, then it was vilified and attacked when it grew, and ultimately, if there was anything in its principles at all, it would survive. He was sorry that the Minister had gone back on his original proposals. Although the proposal was a sound one, it was rendered ineffective by the high exemption. When the beneficial occupation proposal was made, the Minister went to considerable pains to show that that was not the proper way to deal with the question. The amendment would be more ineffective than the motion, and he thought that that was why it was put forward. The Minister had got something so elastic that the country would get very little benefit from it.

said that he went much more with this amendment than he did with the original proposal, because he thought the amendment was going to have a much more far-reaching effect in regard to the taxation of land which was not beneficially occupied than the original proposal. It would have been impossible for him to have voted for the latter, because it would have attacked men who were beneficially using their land, although the area of 10,000 morgen seemed so very big. It would have hit very hard men who were farming in the North-western districts of the Cape Province. He had listened to the arguments which had been brought forward, and he must say that they had made him very nervous. As far as he understood, the hon. member for Fort Beaufort was in favour of carrying out the principle of taxing all land that was not agriculturally developed to its utmost extent. When he heard the idea advocated that they should tax a man out of his land, he must say that he felt very nervous about the future application of any system of this kind. In wrong hands the definition of beneficial occupation might be made too far-reaching altogether. The tax should be an annual one, and he proposed that the word “annually ” in the second line be omitted, and that the words “and on the 30th. day of June in every year thereafter ” also be omitted.

hoped the Minister would accept the motion for the adjournment of the debate.

The debate is practically finished.

One of the Minister’s supporters has just moved an amendment of very great importance.

A great deal of time has been occupied by hon. members opposite making personal attacks on one another.

Will the hon. member confine himself to the motion and the amendment.

Yes, but I must expostulate with hon. members opposite, especially with the Minister. (Ministerial cries of “Order.”) The hon. member for Clanwilliam was not alone in his ignorance of the meaning of land being “beneficially occupied.” They would remove all the difficulties and anomalies which underlay that phrase if they only adopted the policy which the Labour party had laid down, of the taxation of unimproved land values. Educated natives had recognised that. Hon. members had lost sight of a great fundamental principle: that all the land belonged to all the people. In case of invasion, the people were called upon to defend “our” land.

(at 11.28 p.m. said that the hon. member was repeating arguments which had been used in a debate.

When Mr. MADELEY resumed,

moved “that the question be now put.”

in reply to a question by a Labour member, said the closure can be moved at any time.

Does that include the rule which says that one member cannot interrupt another while he is speaking.

I know the rule. The closure can be put at any time. I ask the hon. member to sit down.

I move that Mr. Speaker’s ruling be taken.

The question—

Cannot we have Mr. Speaker’s ruling, sir?

On a point of order, sir—

The question before the Committee is—

I do say, sir, that on an important question of this sort in which a ruling is given for the first time it is only right that a member should have the privilege of Mr. Speaker’s ruling.

I put the question to the Committee. (Labour cries of “Gag, gag.”)

put it that the question be now put, and declared the “Ayes” had it. Members on the cross-benches were leaving the House, when

cailed for a division.

said that the hon. member was not in his place, and therefore could not call.

immediately resumed his seat and called for a division.

The hon. member was not in his place—

I called for a division, sir.

A division was about to be taken, and

stated that the Minister of Finance had moved a resolution, and discussion having ensued—

interposing, said that discussion under Rule 57 and Rule 60 was not concluded. (Cries of “Order.)

The discussion is not concluded.

was proceeding to emphasise this point, when

remarked that if the hon. member did not behave himself he would have to name him.

On a point of order, I claim to have your ruling. According to Rule 57 and Rule 60 the discussion has not been concluded.

I did not say that the discussion had been concluded. I said “discussion having ensued.”

The division was then taken, with the following result:

Ayes—50

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Botha, Louis

Burton, Henry

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Grobler, Pieter Gert Wessel

Heatlie, Charles Beeton

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

Krige, Christman Joel

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Louw, George Albertyn

Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Orr, Thomas

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

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

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

Noes—32.

Alexander, Morris

Andrews, William Henry

Baxter, William Duncan

Boydell, Thomas

Brown, Daniel Maclaren

Creswell, Frederic Hugh Page

Fawcus, Alfred

Fichardt, Charles Gustav

Fremantle, Henry Eardley Stephen

Haggar, Charles Henry

Henderson, James

Henwood, Charlie

Hull, Henry Charles

Jagger, John William

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Macaulay, Donald

MacNeillie, James Campbell

Madeley, Walter Bayley

Meyler, Hugh Mowbray

Oliver, Henry Alfred

Oosthuisen, Ockert Almero

Sampson, Henry William

Serfontein, Hendrik Philippus

Serfontein Nicolaas Wilhelmus

Silburn, Percy Arthur

Smartt, Thomas William

Van Niekerk, Christian Andries

Watkins, Arnold Hirst

Wilcocks, Carl Theodorus Muller

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

Emile Nathan and J. Hewat, tellers.

The closure motion is accordingly adopted.

said he would like to ask the Chairman whether he ruled that the closure motion had been adopted on the amendment moved by the hon. member for Clanwilliam or on the main question before the House? Before he gave his ruling, he begged respectfully to call the Chairman’s attention to Rule 60.

quoted Rule 60.

Rule 74 states that no member shall interrupt another member when he is speaking except to request that his words be taken down, to call attention to the want of a quorum, or to the presence of strangers. There is not a word in Rule 74 to permit the Minister of Finance to interrupt my hon. friend or to allow you, sir, to take the motion. (Loud Ministerial cries of “Order.”)

Does the hon. member insinuate that I acted unfairly?

You have been acting contrary to the Standing Rules and Orders of the House.

The hon. member must withdraw that statement.

No, I will not. I am prepared to take the consequences. It is a statement of fact. I adhere to the statement.

stated that the hon. member for Jeppe had declined his request to make a withdrawal of the charge against the Chair, and that therefore he was bound under the Rules of the House to ask the hon. member to withdraw from the remainder of this day’s proceedings.

Mr. Creswell then left the House, amid loud Opposition and Labour cheers.

On a point of order, sir, I wish to draw your attention to Rule 57, which refers to two members rising to speak at once. You had already called on the hon. member for Springs, but you did not call on the hon. Minister of Finance.

The hon. member will resume his seat.

It is a breach of the rules. (Cheers.) It is a breach of the privileges of this House. (Loud Ministerial cries of “Order.”)

On a point of order, has an hon. member no right to draw your attention to what he considers a breach of the rules?

I have given my ruling, and if the hon. member questions my ruling he must put a notice on the Order Paper. I have given my ruling, and the closure motion has been carried and cannot be debated.

I am not discussing the closure motion. I am asking your ruling on a definite point. Has an hon. member no right to call attention to what he considers to be a breach of the rules on the part of the Chairman?

The hon. member ought to know the rules of the House pretty well by this time.

No, sir—

If the hon. member will not submit to the ruling I will have to take another course. (Ministerial cries of “Order.”) The hon. member will resume his seat.

May I not rise to a point of order?

What is the point of order?

I want to know whether any member of this House—

“ Bring in the rifles ”—

Has not the right to call attention to what he considers to be a breach of the rules.

I have already stated that if any hon. member calls my ruling in question he can bring the matter to the notice of the House.

On a point of order, your ruling has not been given on the question raised by the hon. member for Springs or on the point raised by the hon. member for Weenen. With all due respect to your previous ruling, I maintain that the hon. member is entitled to get your ruling on a straightforward question.

I acted perfectly in accordance with the rules of the House.

Well, on a point of order—

Order. (Ministerial cries of “Sit down.”)

quoted May, page 280, eleventh edition.

I am not asking your ruling on that question at all, Mr. Chairman, but whether a member of this House, who has the impression that the Chairman has broken a rule of the House, has any right to refer to it?

The hon. member is putting a hypothetical question.

No, Mr. Chairman, I am putting a concrete case.

The hon. member must resume his seat.

May I not ask a question? I represent a constituency, and have as much right as any other member of this House. I have stated a concrete case—that of the hon. member for Jeppe—because he persisted in drawing your attention to the fact that you have broken a rule of this House, you ordered him to leave this Chamber.

Will the hon. member resume his seat? I ruled on the conduct of the hon. member for Jeppe and he has withdrawn from the House according to the rules of the House, and I must ask the hon. member for Springs to resume his seat on account of the gross and disorderly manner he is going on.

I am not dealing with the fact, Mr. Chairman, that you have ordered the hon. member for Jeppe to withdraw. Has an hon. member no right to draw the attention of the Chairman to the Chairman having committed a breach of the rules of the House?

Mr. Speaker or the Chairman can order an hon. member to withdraw because of gross or disorderly conduct during a sitting.

May an hon. member not ask a question? May I not ask your reason?

Will the hon. member resume his seat?

Mr. Madeley remained standing, and

Will the hon. member leave the House?

Mr. Madeley thereupon left the House.

Is every hon. member not entitled to ask, Mr. Chairman, whether you have not broken the rules of the House?

The hon. member is repeating the same question put by the hon. member for Springs.

You have not replied to it.

Will the hon. member resume his seat or leave the House?

J want your reply, Mr. Chairman. On a point of order, I want your ruling as to the question put by the hon. member for Jeppe—

Will the hon. member obey the Chair?

said that he would ask for Mr. Speaker to come in.

asked whether it was not a pity to abuse themselves like that. He was sure that members of the Committee desired to act in accordance with the printed rules of the House. Might he be allowed to call the Chairman’s attention and the attention of the Committee to Rule 86? The hon. member referred the Chairman to Rule 86 of the House, and said that the rule stated that immediately after the commission of the offence of disregarding the authority of the Chair, and persistently and wilfully obstructing, Mr. Speaker should be informed, and should put the question of the suspension of the hon. member from the service of the House. If in Committee of the House the suspension must be reported to Mr. Speaker. Was not the meaning of the rule that under certain circumstances, such as they had unfortunately witnessed, before the hon. member for Jeppe was asked to withdraw, Mr. Speaker should have been called in and the question put to the House? They need not lose their heads. He was sure that hon. members on the cross-benches were a little excited, and that in their calmer moments they would recognise that it was their duty to maintain the dignity of the House. (Labour hear, hears.)

said that under Rule 85 it was competent for him to ask any member to submit to the ruling of the Chair, and the Chair was entitled to ask that hon. member to leave the precincts of the House for the remainder of the sitting. When he asked the hon. member to leave he did so. If he had refused he would have applied Rule 86. This he was going to do in the case of the hon. member for Greyville. He had to name the hon. member for disregarding the authority of the Chair, and the sitting of the Committee would be suspended pending the arrival of Mr. Speaker.

Where is the Umgeni?

Mr. Speaker was called in.

I regret to have to report that the hon. member for Durban, Greyville, has disputed the order of the Chair. While the hon. member for Springs was speaking the hon. the Minister of Finance moved the closure—that the question be now put. I put the question, and hon. members disputed my right to accept the motion while the hon. member for Springs was speaking. Thereupon tumult ensued, and the hon. member for Jeppe refused to accept my ruling. He disputed my ruling in violent language, and I was compelled to ask him to leave the House. The hon. member obeyed. The hon. member for Springs continued in a similar manner. I asked the hon. member to leave the precincts of the House, and he also obeyed. The hon. member for Greyville stood up and repeated what had been said by the hon. member for Springs. I said that if any hon. member did not accept my ruling he could put a motion on the paper for a future date, and have my ruling called into question.

The hon. member for Greyville refused to sit down. I thereupon named the hon. member for Greyville and I have suspended the proceedings of the Committee to report the matter to the House.

I beg to move, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Greyville (Mr. Boydell) be suspended from the service of the House.

seconded.

Mr. Speaker, may I address the House?

I cannot admit any debate on such a motion.

rose, to address the House, but

proceeded to put the question, and declared that the “Ayes” had it.

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

Ayes—54.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim.

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Botha, Louis

Burton, Henry

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Crewe, Charles Preston

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Heatlie, Charles Beeton.

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

Krige, Christman Joel

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Louw, George Albertyn

Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry

Macaulay, Donald

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Neser, Johannes Adriaan

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Orr, Thomas

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

Walton, Edgar Harris

Watermeyer, Egidius Benedictus

Watt, Thomas

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

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

Noes—21

Alexander, Morris

Andrews, William Henry

Baxter, William Duncan

Boydell, Thomas

Brown, Daniel Maclaren

Fawcus, Alfred

Fichardt, Charles Gustav

Haggar, Charles Henry

Henderson, James

Henwood, Charlie

Hull, Henry Charles

Jagger, John William

Meyler Hugh Mowbray

Oosthuisen. Ockert Almero

Sampson. Henry William

Silburn, Percy Arthur

Van Niekerk, Christian Andries

Watkins, Arnold Hirst

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

J. C. MacNeillie and H. E. S. Fremantle, tellers.

The motion was, therefore, carried.

Immediately after Mr. Speaker had announced the result of the division, Mr. Sampson rose.

The hon. member for Greyville will withdraw from the precincts of the House.

With your permission, sir, may I speak?

Have I not the right to speak?

No, the hon. member has not the right.

Mr. Boydell then withdrew.

Before you leave the chair, may I submit further to you in connection with this matter?

While Mr. Sampson was speaking, Mr. Speaker left the chair.

The House resumed in Committee.

put the first part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Watermeyer.

Agreed to.

put the question: That all the words after “1914” in the first paragraph proposed to be omitted by Mr. Watermeyer, stand part of the paragraph, and declared that the “Noes” had it.

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

Ayes—17.

Andrews, William Henry

Baxter, William Duncan

Brown, Daniel Maclaren

Crewe, Charles Preston

Haggar, Charles Henry

Hewat, John

Jagger, John William

Macaulay, Donald

Nathan, Emile

Oliver, Henry Alfred

Sampson, Henry William

Smartt, Thomas William

Walton, Edgar Harris

Watkins, Arnold Hirst

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

J. C. MacNeillie and Morris Alexander, tellers.

Noes—58.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Botha, Louis

Burton, Henry

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Fawcus, Alfred

Fichardt, Charles Gustav

Fremantle, Henry Eardley Stephen

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Grobler Pieter Gert Wessel

Heatlie, Charles Beeton

Hull, Henry Charles

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

Krige, Christman Joel

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Louw, George Albertyn

Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Orr, Thomas

Rademeyer, Jacobus Michael

Schoeman. Johannes Hendrik

Serfontein, Hendrik Philippus

Serfontein, Nicolaas Wilhelmus

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

Van Niekerk, Christian Andries

Vermaas, Hendrik Cornelius Wilhelm us

Vintcent, Alwyn Ignatius

Vosloo, Johannes Arnoldus

Watermeyer, Egidius Benedictus

Watt, Thomas

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

Wilcocks, Carl Theodorus Muller

H. Mentz and H C. Becker, tellers.

The question was accordingly negatived, and the words were omitted.

then put the amendment of the Minister of Railways and Harbours.

On the question that the words “exceeds 10,000 morgen in extent ” proposed to be omitted stand part of the motion, the “Noes ” were declared to have it.

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

Ayes—24

Alexander, Morris

Baxter, William Duncan

Brown, Daniel Maclaren

Crewe, Charles Preston

Fichardt, Charles Gustav

Fremantle, Henry Eardley Stephen

Grobler, Pieter Gert Wessel

Hull, Henry Charles

Jagger, John William

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

Macaulay, Donald

Nathan, Emile

Oliver, Henry Alfred

Oosthuisen, Ockert Almero

Serfontein, Hendrik Philippus

Serfontein, Nicolaas Wilhelmus

Smartt, Thomas William

Van Niekerk, Christian Andries

Walton, Edgar Harris

Watkins, Arnold Hirst

Wilcocks, Carl Theodorus Muller

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

J. C. MacNiellie and J. Hewat, tellers.

Noes—50.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Botha, Louis

Burton, Henry

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Fawcus, Alfred

Geldenhuys, Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Heatlie, Charles Beeton

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Krige, Christman Joel

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Louw, George Albertyn

Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Orr, Thomas

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

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

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

The question was accordingly negatived, and the words were omitted.

The amendment of the Minister of Railways and Harbours to insert the words “was not beneficially occupied for the twelve months ended on the 30th of June, 1914,” was put and declared carried.

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

Ayes—50.

Alberts, Johannes Joachim

Bezuidenhout, Willem Wouter Jacobus J.

Botha, Louis

Burton, Henry

Clayton, Walter Frederick

Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt

De Beer, Michiel Johannes

De Jager, Andries Lourens

De Waal, Hendrik

De Wet, Nicolaas Jacobus

Geldenhuys. Lourens

Griffin, William Henry

Grobler, Evert Nicolaas

Heatlie, Charles Beeton

Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus

Krige, Christman Joel

Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert

Lemmer Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert

Louw, George Albertyn

Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry

Malan, Francois Stephanus

Marais, Johannes Henoch

Marais, Pieter Gerhardus

Meyer, Izaak Johannes

Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus

Neethling, Andrew Murray

Nicholson, Richard Granville

Oosthuisen, Ockert Almero

Orr, Thomas

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

Wessels, Daniel Hendrik Willem

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

Noes—21.

Alexander, Morris

Andrews, William Henry

Brown, Daniel Maclaren

Fawcus, Alfred

Fichardt, Charles Gustav

Fremantle, Henry Eardley Stephen

Grobler, Pieter Gert Wessel

Haggar, Charles Henry

Hull, Henry Charles

Keyter, Jan Gerhard

Meyler, Hugh Mowbray

Nathan, Emile

Sampson, Henry William

Serfontein, Hendrik Philippus-

Serfontein, Nicolaas Wilhelmus

Smartt, Thomas William

Van Niekerk, Christian Andries

Wilcocks, Carl Theodorus Muller

Woolls-Sampson, Aubrey

J. C. MacNeillie and J. Hewat, tellers.

The new paragraph was accordingly agreed to.

The amendment of the Minister of Railways and Harbours, in the fourth paragraph of resolution 2. “Land Tax.” to omit “taxable” wherever it occurs before “value” and to substitute “unimproved,” was agreed to.

put the resolution as amended, and declared that the “Ayes” had it.

moved to report progress to report the resolutions, relating to taxation proposals on income and land tax and further to report progress on taxation proposals on Excise duty and Customs duty, and ask leave to sit again.

I want to register my protest against the farce of reporting to the House such resolutions as we have adopted.

The hon. member can put it on the Paper.

I bow to your ruling, sir. (Laughter.)

The motion was agreed to.

Progress was reported.

Before that is put, Mr. Speaker, I want to know what the position is in this House. There have been submitted to the Committee four distinct resolutions. As a matter of privilege I have a right to demand—I wish to put it as quietly and carefully as I can, and I think, sir, it is a matter of importance that I should be allowed to put it quietly.

The hon. member is quite in order.

said the proper course was to go through all the resolutions. If these two resolutions were reported, would it be competent to go into Committee of Ways and Means again to deal with the others?

said that the procedure was quite in order.

Leave was given to the Committee to sit again at the next sitting of the House.