from E. H. Norton, railway employee, for leave to contribute arrears to Pension Funds.

Amendment of Regulations for the S.A. Coast Defence Corps and the S.A. Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

moved: “This House declares, in terms of section 36 of the Natal Constitution Act, 1893. that, through the death of Sir David Hunter, K.C.M.G., at Edinburgh on the 20th June, 1914, a vacancy has occurred in the representation of the electoral division of Durban, Central. ”

Might I ask the Minister of the Interior when the writ will be issued for this election ?

I can’t hear.

My hon. friend asked when the writ will be issued to fill this vacancy in Durban.

No, I don’t issue the writs. I cannot tell. (Laughter.)

The motion was agreed to.

said that before the motion for the adoption of the Bill was put he wished to point out that in order to facilitate business they had taken that Bill to-day. He wanted to add a new clause to the effect that bioscope films dealing with South African subjects should come under clause 4, rebates. He said films of this description would be of use to this country in showing what could be done both from a business and agricultural point of view. Those films would be exhibited in South Africa and in other parts of the world. Such films dealing with the possibilities of South Africa from a tourist and agricultural point of view would, he thought, be of great benefit to the country.

Any objection?

Yes, I object.

(Fort Beaufort):. Then in that case I will not move it.

The Committee’s amendments were agreed to.

moved that the third reading of the Bill be taken immediately.

Any objection?

Yes, we do object now.

then moved that the third reading be taken on Monday.

said that while they accepted Monday, they would not be prepared to facilitate bush ness if by doing so they did not get the right of any hon. member to put down amendments, and any delay in the business of the House would be due to the ungracious attitude of the Minister of Finance.

The third reading was set down for Monday.

said he thought the session had now gone too far to allow of them having a proper and adequate discussion of that matter. Before dealing with it, he would like to make a few remarks with regard to what had been said as to the effect of the scheme on the poor white problem. What was the origin of the poor white question in South Africa? His right hon. friend (the Prime Minister) knew perfectly well that the origin of the poor white question was the fact that the economic basis of South Africa rested on coloured labour. The consequence was that the poor white man had to compete with the coloured man in the labour market, and he got knocked out in the great majority of cases. The difficulty rose in some degree through the fact that the white man was not able to do the unskilled labour, but it rose in a larger degree from the unwillingness of the employer to employ white men when he could get coloured labour. It was well known that employers would not employ a poor white when they could get a coloured man to do the samework. (Hear, hear.) They had to-day this anomaly in South Africa, that here they had the farmer owners of the country calling out for more labour, and at the sametime they had the poor whites drifting from the land into the towns. To his mind the only solution of the poor white problem in this country was the employment of poor whites on the land.

The Railway Department had probably done more towards the employment of poor white labour than any other Government department, but so far as the farming community in general were concerned, poor white labour was not employed by them. He thought everything should be done to induce the poor white to work as labourer. It might have been thought that the Prime Minister would have taken care to see that at the various colleges and agricultural schools this class of labour was utilised instead of the employment of coloured labour. From returns published, he (Mr. Jagger) found that coloured labourto the value of £17,000 had been employed at the various agricultural institutions of the country, and there was no reason why the Prime Minister should not have used this white labour. He wanted to show that the State itself did not make use of their opportunities of solving the white labour question by using it when the opportunity presented. The only true solution, he thought, was to induce the poor white to take to manual labour. Here they were asked to spend £725,000 to start irrigation works, the chief reason for which was in order to find employment for this class of people. But had any other such schemes succeeded in the country? He thought not Mr. Jagger then went on to refer to a number of works which had been instituted for the purpose of solving the problem of the poor white, and where they had in each case failed, although they had been conducted under the best possible conditions. There was therefore no reason to think that this scheme was going to be a success. One point he wished to make was that the Government proposed to pay £48 7s. permorgen on which to settle these poor whites. But to justify such an expensive scheme as this it would require some greater justification than a doubtful at-tempt at solving the poor white problem. He ventured to say that if they could do away with all the poor whites in the country, the position would recur again tomorrow, owing to coloured labour being the economic basis of the country. Then again this scheme could only absorb a small number of white families which would practically make no difference to the country, and would certainly not solve the problem. He was not going into the technical merits of the scheme, because he did not profess to be able to do so, but he wanted to point out that this Bill was being introduced at the tail end of the session when there was no time to adequately discuss it. They were asked to sanction an expenditure of three-quarters of a million of money solely on the word of an official. Now he would be the last man to question the ability of the official who was responsible for the scheme, but he did think it was the duty of that House to take his report and examine it very carefully.

He does not advocate the scheme.

said in that case it made the matter worse. He thought a Bill like that before them should have been brought in at an early part of the session, so that a committee might have reported upon the merits of the scheme. He did hope the Minister would withdraw the Bill and after the recess refer the scheme to such hon. members of the House as had experience in these matters. If such a body of men reported favourably upon the scheme then he was sure the House would vote the money with both hands.

said he regretted that instead of dealing with the scheme on its merits, hon. members were discussing it from the point of view of the poor whites. He thought the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, had gone somewhat far in his remarks in respect to poor whites. His (the speaker’s) experience was that the poor whites, when they were given a chance on the land, did well. Proceeding, Mr. Kuhn said he was sure the Minister meant to do what he thought was the best for the country. The Minister in his speech had reminded him of a person who had something in his hand and was yet trying to ‘find that thing. (Laughter.) He (the speaker) agreed that the House did not have sufficient information at its disposal. To vote the money now and later find that the scheme was a failure could only have disastrous results, and would mean a deathblow to irrigation schemes in the future. He did not like the idea of having the whole matter entirely left in the hands of the Government, Irrigation works undertaken by the Government were always a failure. There was the old Rooiberg scheme, which had been left in the hands of the Government, and had proved an absolute failure. But when irrigation works were undertaken by private persons with Government assistance they were always successful. The Robertson scheme was on a different footing. It was undertaken by the people concerned themselves, and was a success. If the proposed scheme was carried out in the way laid down in the Bill at such an enormous expense, it must be a failure; in fact, it could be nothing else. When he said the Minister had something in his hands he was looking for, he meant to refer to the Groot River. (Cries of “Oh!” and “Provincialism.”) There they had plenty of water and there the “round belonged to the Government. But they only wanted to be brought to the markets. There were! “thousands of people who should be settled on the land, and so long as they were brought into touch with the markets that scheme must succeed, but not otherwise. Therefore a railway should be built to that part of the country. At Kakamas there were 3,000 people working hard, but the markets were inaccessible. If they were to give the people at Upington, Keimoes and Kakamas a railway, they would soon see how those districts would be developed. He again appealed to the Minister to have the scheme properly looked into. A delay of six months would not damn the scheme. He would support the Bill, but the responsibility lay with the Government.

said the scheme would to a certain extent fall in his constituency. It appeared to him that some hon. members were not aware at all what the scheme meant. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Kuhn) seemed to want all the money spent in his constituency, or at least in the Cape. They had Union now, and he (the speaker) stood here, not as a Transvaaler, but as a South African. (Hear, hear.) In regard to the argument that the scheme should be referred to a Select Committee, he held that that was only an attempt to kill the scheme. The Government with the advice of the Director of Irrigation was thoroughly conversant with all the conditions. He held that every session of Parliament a similar amount should be expended for the welfare and benefit of the country, Replying to the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Jagger), the hon. member denied that all the settlement schemes in the Transvaal had been failures. The hon. member (Mr. Jagger) always criticised schemes of this kind, but he forgot that far larger amounts were annually lost in the harbour—of which he (Mr. Jagger) was the king—(laughter)—than on schemes like that. The poor whites were sinking deeper and deeper, and surely it was the duty of the Government to do something to put a stop to it. It was to promote undertakings of this kind that he had voted for the imposition of fresh taxation. The markets were in the close vicinity of Hartebeestpoort, and people settled there could not fail. He therefore hoped the scheme would pass without further delay. After the way in which the farmers had been impoverished by the war, it was out of the question to expect them to take up undertakings such as that before the House

said he wished to express his surprise at the speeches made by members opposite, especially seeing the criticisms levelled at the Government every year for not creating fresh sources of production for the time when the gold mines had become exhausted. Nine out of ten people would say that the proposed site was the best possible for an undertaking of this kind; even Sir Percy Fitzpatrick had said so last year. The Provincial Council passed a resolution last year advising Parliament to approve the scheme. The hon. member for Cape Town, Central’s remarks had not surprised him, because after all the Cape Peninsula was his world and he saw no further. But the remarks of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had surprised him, seeing that that hon. gentleman was the president of the Irrigation Congress. To send the measure to a Select Committee at that stage of the session simply meant killing it. The scheme would result in far more than 15,000 morgen coming under the plough. The two canals would be able to irrigate 70,000 morgen of ground. With regard to rainfall, the ten years which had been taken were years of drought, except the year 1909. There was sufficient rain to fill the dam if the wall were made 260 feet high. The only objection he could see to the scheme was that the walls of the dam were not sufficiently high. These walls should be 260 feet, and in years of normal rainfall a dam with walls of that height would easily fill. He feared that if the walls were constructed at the height proposed in the Bill they would find that the dam would not hold sufficient water. The hon. member proceeded to say that six payable articles of produce could be grown and were being grown on the land below the dam, namely, corn, hay, maize, tobacco, lucerne, and cotton. The price of the ground would undoubtedly go up to £75 per morgen when it came under irrigation. Even now no one would be able to buy land below the dam at less than £100 per morgen.

In regard to the argument that the people should have been made to build the dam themselves, Mr. Grobler urged the necessity of the Government setting the example so that the people should follow that example after having seen what could be done. So far the Transvaal had not had a large scheme, and he could not see why the proposed one should be objected to. During the few years since Union they had spent in the Cape on irrigation works no less than £721,525, as compared with £88,000 in the Transvaal. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort had said that the water which would come from the dam would be insufficient. But the hon. member forgot that in summer the water would not be required. In conclusion, Mr. Grobler said that if the Bill was referred to a Select Committee it would mean killing the Bill. The options would lapse and other troubles would arise.

said he was pleased that the Government had introduced this measure, although he regretted that this had been done at such a late stage of the session. If the hon. member for Prieska had seen the proposed site he would have applauded the Government’s suggestions. He felt somewhat disappointed at the attitude of the leader of the Opposition, whom he had regarded as a man who had a heart for irrigation. At irrigation Congresses (he first principle urged was always that rainwater should be conserved. And now that the Government came for ward with a great workable scheme, one heard objections galore. The motion to refer the measure to a Select Committee, the hon. member regarded as an attempt to kill the Bill. There were some hon. members who never had enough information, who in fact did not trust the information placed before them, They seemed to suffer from a sort of information fever. He was sure the Labour members would support the Government in this. There were thousands of men employed in the country, and there was no better opportunity to give people work than a scheme like this. It would be on work of this kind where one would be able to see who was prepared to work. He denied the allegation that farmers were not prepared to employ white men. The position was however, that the farms were getting smaller and smaller, and therefore farmers could not always employ white men. A scheme like this would do much to settle the poor white question. He urged, however, that these men who did not want to work should be sent to a labour colony. This scheme would be a step in the right direction to enable people to get independent once more. He would be willing to support irrigation proposals for the Cape Province

said he could only give his support to the Bill with the greatest trepidation. If people on settlements of this kind wished to be successful they would practically have to become slaves. He thought the Government was doing its utmost to do something good, but he could not say that he liked a tremendously expensive scheme like this. £1 spent by private persons would be likely to do more good than £1,000 spent by the Government. Irrigation works in the Free State were tried for settlement purposes for poor whites, but they proved to be white elephants.

said irrigation was one of the means to bring about prosperity in this, country. He did not agree with Mr. Jagger about the settlement of poor whites, and thought an irrigation scheme like this was the proper place for the concentration of a settlement of whites. He agreed, however, that more information should be placed before the House. They had not been told anything about the nature of the ground. They had a survey department which should have been used to lay information before the House. Was the ground poor or was it rich? Then he would like practical farmers to have given their opinion of the scheme. He further wanted to know exactly how much and which of the land below the dam was owned by the Government. When they bad to deal with a large amount of £600,000 or £700,000 they should be given more information. It was not right to place a Bill like this before the House at this late stage of the session. It was, however, too late to speak of a Select Committee, and therefore he hoped the Minister would withdraw the measure and re-introduce it early next session. During the recess the Minister might get practical experts to give their opinion, and that opinion might then be submitted to the House. Next year the proposal could be referred to a Select Committee.

said he was not rising to make a lengthy speech, but merely to remove certain misconceptions which had arisen in the course of the debate. This was not a scheme in which the farmers were asking for water for their land, and for the Government to authorise a loan on their behalf. Hon. members would see that this was an entirely different matter from that where farmers came together and formed a River Board. In the present case the Government hoped to be the largest owners of the land brought under cultivation. That extent would be about 25,000 morgen.

Where is that in the report?

said, that was a matter he wished to explain. When the report was originally made the idea was that the Government should expropriate the land necessary to be placed under irrigation, but in order to precipitate the scheme the Government thought that they should go ahead at once?

Have you acquired the land?

replied: that they had an option on it, but if they waited much longer that option would expire, and they would have to pay £8 or £10 per morgen. He might say that unless these options were taken up this session they would expire, and in that case the land Would be too expensive to afterwards acquire, In the scheme under notice the Government would be far and away the largest landowner, and be in a position to go on with the work.

The scheme was better than the ordinary scheme under which they bad to advance money to help private landowners. Here they would use the money of the country for land settlement purposes. That was the main reason why an Irrigation Board, was not to be formed. In the Transvaal, where irrigation was backward, people did not understand complications of this nature. But the scheme could be justified entirely on its merits as an irrigation scheme. The Government would own an enormous extent of land upon which large numbers of people could be settled. The owners below the dam all welcomed this scheme, and opening was given them to come in within six months after the dam was completed. He was sure more farmers would apply for water than it was possible to supply. The Government ground secured the success of the whole scheme. The scheme was based on the idea that the dam filled, say, once in three years. It was of enormous capacity, and if the dam filled every year the capacity would be such that instead of irrigating 15,000 morgen per annum they would be able to irrigate 30,000 They must look at the irrigation scheme and the dam quite apart from the value of the land underneath it Taking the irrigation scheme simply as such it would cost in the neighbourhood of £600,000 The £120,000 they asked for in addition to the cost of the dam was for land settlement purposes, and had to be viewed quite separately The irrigation scheme would work out at £40 per morgen of the ground underneath the dam From an ordinary commercial point of view the scheme was entirely justified Even with the precarious nature of the rainfall now land, in that neighbourhood was worth more than £40 per morgen. While not being an irrigation expert himself, he doubted if there could be one scheme in this country which offered so many advantages as this one Sending the Bill to a, Select Committee would mean that the scheme would be far more difficult for the Government, and the land settlement proposed would then be impossible Government had a chance of getting ground at its prairie value It was quite unnecessary to continue talking about land settlement and settling the poor on the land if they were not prepared to make a beginning.

Many past experiments in land settlement in South Africa had been failures, and they were being, driven to the conclusion that if they were going to settle white people on the land—that was closer settlement— it would have to be under conditions where they could give people small plots and guard them against the seasonable variations of this country If they wanted to settle white people on the land it must be in connection with a scheme such as this, where they could guarantee water supply and good soil, railway communication, and nearness to markets There was growing up a social cancer in this country. Many poor whites were degenerating. It was perfectly useless to talk about white immigration into this country so long as a large portion of our white population was going to the wall (Ministerial cheers.) They must face the problem as they had it today A large proportion of the white population was degenerating, and unless they could devise measures to cope with that problem as it existed, it was useless to think about bringing still more people into the country to flock into the towns and become a burden on the country Let them make a start and push this scheme on And he was sure in the end they would not only have a perfectly sound irrigation scheme, but a land settlement scheme which would help them to solve some of the great social problems with which the country was confronted The time had come for them to deal with the question If they did not the results to this country would be terrible. The matter was urgent. He was sorry the Bill came before the House at a late stage in the session.

Why did not you bring it in earlier?

You know we have been overburdened with work The first question we had to deal with was the financial question, and now we must devote all attention to the social question, and if we don’t the circumstances of the country are going to be terrible We have been drifting for a long number of years (Ministerial cheers.)

said that the Government’s principle was “take it as it stands” They had not the information before them which they should have As to what the Minister of Finance had said about the danger of drifting in regard to social questions in that country he agreed But it was not cured by drifting into expensive schemes of irrigation like that The Minister had said that if the Bill were referred to a Select Committee it would not pass that year, but whose fault was that? (Hear, hear) He regretted very much the attitude adopted by some hon. members in that House, that anyone who was guilty of criticising that Bill was guilty of Provincialism He regretted very much the attitude taken up by the hon. member for Vrededorp (Mr. Geldenhuys), and others He himself would like very much a scheme of that kind to go through, but on that account he was not going to say that that was a good place, and go-ahead He thought that a scheme of that kind required more information than they had in that report, even from the engineering point of view They knew now that that report was not the basis of the scheme. The scheme did not pay according to the report, even on the most favourable assumption Even apart from that they had not a word in that report as to the quality of the land, For all they knew, it might not be worth irrigating. He thought that House was entitled to have official information put before it as to what the value of the land was, and the return that might be expected on the money that was to be spent on it. The only reference to that land was on page 9 of the report, where it said that the whole of the land proposed to be irrigated was at present of little value No matter what their sympathies might be with the poor whites, and how strongly they might feel that that was the curse of the country, that should not cause them to pay out the taxpayers’ money in that way, unless they were satisfied that it was a good scheme If that scheme was a failure instead of solving the poor white problem, they would be impoverishing the taxpayers of the country He said that the House was not justified in going in for a scheme like that on the information which they had before it.

said that when he listened to the Minister of Finance expounding that scheme in a most admirable and lucid speech, he had some confidence, because he thought that here was the Minister who was responsible for the financial condition of the country so pleased with it and so satisfied with the financial outlook, so pleased with the loan recently raised in London, and with the rate, that he was prepared to advocate what he (Mr. Merriman) might call dashing into a scheme of that kind—ill-considered, without any information, or any clear idea of what was going to be done with the thing when they had got it—and was so enthusiastic in the latter part of his speech that it warmed one to hear what was going to be done with the poor whites and so forth. At one part of the speech the Minister had said he was at one time dubious about the finances, but he said it would be all right. How was it going to be done? Not by economy but by additional taxation. As to the settlement of poor whites it was a question in which he (Mr. Merriman) had always taken the deepest interest, and would always continue to take, while he was in the House. They were going to do them the greatest possible harm by telling a man who was drifting into poverty that if they put him on the ground and gave him a plot of ground and some water that they were going to redeem him. They were going to do nothing of the sort. A man—he would not say wiser than his hon. friend the Minister but a man more experienced than his hon. friend—had had the same idea—the late President Kruger— who had been most anxious to do everything he could for the poorer section of his own people. He had given them small farms, but had they set to improve themselves on the land ? They had shot the game and got the fever—(a laugh)—and later had to be settled near Pretoria, Heidelberg, and the Witwatersrand, where, he fancied, they formed part of the constituents of the hon. member for Vrededorp, if he was not mistaken.

That is wrong.

Yes, it was a mistake, and you are going to repeat the mistake. Continuing, he said that the sound doctrine was to give these people work. They were to be redeemed by sound work and nothing else. They were not to be redeemed by doles. His hon. friend must know that of all things in the world, to work irrigated land properly required the most arduous toil and the most confirmed experience. His hon. friend on the left (Mr. Oosthuisen) knew that. He (Mr. Merriman) had seen it himself, and two years ago he had seen some of the finest bits of irrigated land in the world in Valencia, in Spain. Those people there worked in the hardest possible way and spent an enormous quantity of money upon artificial manure; but they were not going to take the poor whites of Johannesburg and turn them into peasants like those of Valencia, or farmers of Utah, who worked 30 acres of ground, but they were going to drag these people down still further if they proposed to do what was proposed to be done. It was no good saying these people were unfortunate, because they had brought themselves down in many instances by indolence. As to the scheme itself, as a commercial proposition, which every irrigation scheme ought to be, it ought to be based on a sound commercial basis, and that was really the value of the system they were adopting in that country for advancing money at cheap rates and giving information to farmers.

The hon. member for Prieska had given them some wise words of advice on that matter. It required courage to give those words of advice, because in a time of enthusiasm, when they were told that some wild-cat scheme would save their brethren, it required courage to stand up and say that it had been tried before and had been a failure before. The hon. member had instanced some schemes which had been tried in this country. He (Mr. Merriman) had been responsible for some of them. They had failed not so much from the inherent fact of the schemes themselves but because the people could not be got to go to the settlements. At Van Wijk Vlei, thirty-five thousand million gallons of water were available and so far was a sucess. Then they had the Rooiberg Dam, which was also born in enthusiasm, and with the best possible intentions, which had resulted in a dead loss to the country of £70,000. They had had other schemes that were a success. The Douglas scheme, from the point of view of getting the water, was a success. Why should they not go on developing that? It was at the Vaal River and the soil was good. The thing was a success, but it was undeveloped because they could not get the people to go on to the land. The Kakamas scheme was also a success because they had some governing body which would keep the people on the ground. It was a practical theocracy. Socialistic schemes on the basis of a free community without some authority always failed and they were always going to lead to ruin. He held in his hand the last records of a dismal experience, and it might be interesting to the Minister of Finance if he directed his attention to it. It was in 1896 that they began the Thebus scheme. He could, if time permitted, trace the history of that doleful experiment. A good many of them had doubted that scheme, and a Commission was sent and reported on it. Nothing was then done. In 1902 they passed a Dill to construct the Thebus reservoir and acquired the grounds. Many of them pleaded for delay and advocated small schemes that the farmers could look after themselves. But they were swept off their legs by a wave of enthusiasm and were told how it was going to be an admirable success, how they were going to settle thousands of people there, etc. The Commissioner of Public Works plunged in and purchased £30,000 worth of irrigation machinery, which was deposited on the ground. Then doubt began to creep in, after they had started the enterprise, borrowed the money, and purchased the machinery.

Then they determined to take professional advice. Proceeding, Mr. Merriman read the last paragraph of the report by Mr. W. B. Gordon, irrigation engineer, which was written in 1905. Mr. Gordon said it was a serious step to recommend the abandonment of a scheme, but it was a much more serious step, and one detrimental to the best interests of irrigation to proceed with a scheme and incur thereon a large additional expenditure for which no justification could be found on irrigation, financial, or any other ground. Mr. Gordon recommended that the scheme be abandoned, and abandoned it was He (Mr. Merriman) had never listened to a closer parallel than that which existed between that scheme and the one which was proposed to-day. But they need not come down to the northern parts of the Cape Colony for examples. There was the Wit River scheme in the Transvaal, where the land was now being sold. They should be careful that they did not repeat that on a ten times larger scale. The Minister said that he had settled the finances of the country on a satisfactory basis, but he (Mr. Merriman) was doubtful about it. What information was given them in that Blue-book with regard to the capacity of the ground ? What were they going to grow on it? Mealies? Was it fit for anything else? No practical man had given them any information—they had not the opinion of expert farmers on the matter. They wanted the opinion of some practical men who were accustomed to that sort of thing. He confessed that he would like to see some proof of one of those very large schemes being a financial success or a success in any way. His hon. friend (Sir T. W. Smartt) had been of invaluable service to the country in connection with irrigation, and he was doing it with the practical enthusiasm of a man who put his own money into it. They should have that experience before they started on one of those gigantic schemes. He asked the Minister to delay the matter for a few months and get the advice of practical men. He would like to hear the opinion of a man who had done more for irrigation than any other man in the country. His hon. friend Mr. Oosthuisen had not only worked his farm with white labour and done a great deal for irrigation, but he had been all over the world to see what irrigation was being done in different countries. He had visited Australia, India, and Japan, and knew irrigation from A to Z. The information that could be supplied by a man like that would be most valuable in that case. Mr. Rabie, of Worcester, had also carried out some highly successful schemes.

Business was suspended at 12.45.

resuming his speech, said that when business was suspended he was just coming to a conclusion. This was a subject that he had taken such a deep interest in for years that he was anxious to see that any scheme which was started should be started on a sound foundation with ample information. He could not but feel that the information contained in this report, which was all they had got, was imperfect. His remarks, he hoped, would be taken rather in the way of caution, more in the way of going slowly. He would urge his hon. friends who were interested in this to have the position inquired into by practical men on the spot, so that they could bring up a report to the House, and Parliament could deal with it. He did not think a few months’ delay would be a material disadvantage to this scheme. The Minister of Finance had said that they must buy the land now or they would lose the chance. How many times had they heard that in South Africa? How many times in their own private affairs had they been told that they must buy now or they would lose a splendid opportunity? How many times had people been led into bad bargains by that? He would urge upon them to take the advice of people who had had a great deal of experience in these matters from a Government point of view and to send a Commission of practical men who had had experience of irrigation and who were able to judge of the value of the ground. He would tell his Transvaal friends that failure would be fatal. The Thebus scheme in the Cape and one or two others put back irrigation for years, and years because they were failures and people were slow to go in The Act of 1877 introduced the principle of Government advances to co-operative societies of farmers, but it was 20 years before they made a beginning with that. Once the thing was a success people generally took it up. If they wanted to settle people on the ground, they had got, the ground now under water waiting for settlers whom they could put upon that ground. He did hope that the Minister would take the advice of a friend in this matter, a friend of irrigation and a friend of the advancement of the country. At the present moment they had got vast sums of money being spent on opening up the country; there were many places in this country which were developed in irrigation matters, but they did not put those places to use, because they had not got the communications. The great thing at the present moment was to see that those places that were opened up were able to get their goods to market, because without that they never would have intensive cultivation. The hon. member referred in this connection to the Sundays River Valley and the Doom River irrigation schemes, pointing out how these schemes were handicapped by reason of the cost of transport to the nearest railway station. He also stated that there were great possibilities in the way of intensive cultivation along the banks of the Vaal River, if the matter were taken properly in hand, and in conclusion he said he would advocate delaying this matter on the highest grounds.

said that whenever any project was brought forward there were always those who said go slowly, and especially when that project came from the North. His right hon. friend always brought up the Cape schemes which had been failures, and so also did the Leader of the Opposition. They had taken advantage of all that. He took it that the head of the Irrigation Department had got all that before him. He had given them here a scheme—

Does he recommend it?

He recommends the scheme.

Where?

Any way, he should not lay it before the House if he does not recommend it. We have here the recommendation of a scheme in the Transvaal which is as good as any scheme which we have in the Transvaal. Proceeding, he said his right hon. friend had stated that the Kakamas scheme and other schemes in the Cape Province were successes. He (Sir T. M. Cullinan) had still to learn that these schemes were successes When he saw some of the schemes in the Oudtshoorn district he was told that they had no assurance as regarded water on the land for three months in the year. The scheme they were now considering was an insurance project, an insurance that the land would be fully developed by means of water supplied when they wanted it. He was at Kakamas last year. He found that they had had a drought, and that they had no water. The hon. member went on to say that the water which would be conserved under this scheme would be sufficient for the development of 30,000 acres. The land was the very best in the Transvaal, and had been growing crops for 70 years. On the Vaal River they could have weirs across the stream and irrigate the banks the whole way. The same with the Orange River. He had thought that his hon. friend would bring forward a comprehensive scheme which would be suitable for the whole of South Africa. The present scheme was not going to overlap the big ideal. He was satisfied that this was one of the schemes that they ought to tackle, and that the House and the country would not regret at any time having adopted this scheme. The hon. member for Fauresmith had said that they must take this £600,000 and divide it up and give each man £1,000. He (Sir Thomas) said it was hopeless, if they were going to try and develop this country on the bigger lines, to give each man a bit of money to develop his own farm. If any private individual wanted to develop his farm he had the Land Bank and the machinery, and the Irrigation Department which he could avail himself of to-day. In regard to the poor white question, they were continually talking about putting these people on the land, and the cry always was in the House: “Are you sincere?” Here they were continually wanting to put the poor people on the land and crying out that they wanted to develop the country, and yet when a project of this sort came into the House which gave a chance of developing he land on these lines, the cry in the House seemed to be against it. The scheme had been talked about in the Transvaal for the last 10 or 12 years, and in Lord Milner’s time it was considered a good scheme. There was no reason to send the Bill before a Select Committee.

said the hon. member for Victoria West had told the House something about a settlement reheme under the regime of President Kruger. If all the information given by the right hon. gentleman was as correct as that, then the House would not benefit very largely. In the days of the scheme referred to there was no such person in the Transvaal as the poor white. The people who were sent to the uninhabited parts of Zoutpansberg were sent there to protect the borders. They did not go there merely carrying a spade. Most of the people thus settled had grown into prosperous farmers. The poor whites of to-day were the bywoners of the pre-war days, the people who had been ruined by the war. The Republican Government had never made any attempt to settle poor whites on the land; as a matter of fact, there were no such people in the pre-war days. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Duncan) had taken the hon. member for Vrededorp to task for having said that the hon. member for Prieska was provincial. Well, surely the hon. member was provincial when he said that the Grootfontein scheme should be undertaken before the Hartebeestpoort scheme. As to the suggestion of the right hon. gentleman that the Government should wait and see how Sir Thomas Smartt’s private scheme fared before undertaking this enterprise, the right hon. gentleman wished them to go on longer with the policy of drift. It was ludicrous, Mr. Nicholson exclaimed. He held that the Director of Irrigation had recommended this scheme. Why, then, did the leader of the Opposition set his face against the Bill? He could not understand the hon. member, seeing that they knew the confidence which the leader of the Opposition had in the Director of Irrigation. Dealing with the nature of the ground at Hartebeestpoort, Mr. Nicholson said the ground was as good as any they could find anywhere. He objected to the Bill going to a Select Committee, and said farmers who-had great experience of irrigation were prepared to come under the scheme and were prepared to be taxed for it. As to the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, his horizon was bounded by Table Mountain and the Blaauwberg beach, and when there was any question of irrigation or of doing anything to develop farming, the hon. gentleman was threatened with a fit.

said the Minister of Lands and the Prime Minister, (and, he thought, the Minister of Finance, all concurred that one of the great recommendations of this scheme was that it provided a, means of settling a large number of poor whites on the land. But on looking through the Bill he saw nothing at all in it that in any way established the position of the poor whites. There was nothing in the Bill which provided that poor whites or poor Kafirs should construct the works. He was given to understand that one of the conditions in connection with the grant for the Kakamas settlement was that poor whites should take a share in the construction of the works and that only those who did so were entitled to obtain land. Would the Minister consent to a clause being introduced into the Bill providing that no poor white should be eligible as a settler, unless he consented to work on the construction of the dam from start to finish? He (Sir Bisset) was given to understand that the great trouble was that the poor whites could not be inured to work. If we could settle them at work for two and a half years, which was the term he understood the construction would take, we should thereby give them an apprenticeship in good, honest hard work. They all had a deep interest in the settlement of the poor white question, but they had doubts as to whether it was the right way just to supply men with a small farm and tell them: “You go on there and make the best of your chance.” So many of those men had drifted away from good, honest work that it was difficult to get them back to good, honest work. He would like to know whether the Minister would agree to the insertion of a clause providing that no poor white should be eligible for land under that scheme unless he had worked On the construction of the dam from its start to the finish.

said the hon. members who had complained of the incompleteness of the report on the scheme had not told the House in what respects that report was incomplete. He personally knew that the ground proposed for the scheme was extremely fertile. He could not understand the attitude of the hon. member for Prieska, who really allowed his conscientious scruples to go too far. Unless they spent some money and made a start they would never get any further. He wished to remind the House that, Egypt had spent ten millions on irrigation. Personally he had lived a long time in the Transvaal and was deeply interested in agriculture, especially in irrigation, With regard to the alleged insufficiency of the reports, the hon. member for Prieska had not told them what was lacking. The hon. member for Bechuanaland complained that, not a word had been said as to the value of the land, and especially that there had not been a chemical analysis of the soil. Such an analysis would not, however, help them very much, as they had to take into account the climate and other natural conditions in conjunction with such analysis, before they would be able to deliver a sound judgment. The speaker had for a long time lived in Lydenburg, and he found that the land there was good, in fact almost as good as that at Beaufort West, whilst in the Magaliesberg the fruitfulness of the soil was well known. The hon. member for Prieska was like a man who had lost his first wife and was in fear and trembling that he might also lose his second. That was why he was always raising these objections and threatening to leave his party. The Thebus scheme had proved to be a failure, and the hon. member was alarmed for fear the present scheme would miscarry. His position was that of a man whose conscience bulked larger than his brains. He (the speaker) gave the Bill his hearty support.

said the Labour members had difficulty in coming to any conclusion on that matter. They were left, as they were often left at the end of the session, in the position that the House was asked to vote large sums of money without any adequate information before it. He quite agreed with what had been said by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smartt) that the Government, having had that scheme, ought to have submitted it at a very much earlier date so that a Select Committee could have sat on the matter and have placed much more information before them than was contained in the report. The technical part of that report was not characterised by any great enthusiasm. The Minister of Finance had claimed favourable consideration of the Government’s proposal because it was aimed at providing for the relief of the great distress which existed in the country. In the Bill itself there were points which one could not fail to criticise adversely. They borrowed money at a certain rate of interest, and the people who used the money paid a lower rate of interest. The Labour members felt that if the Bill was designed for the purpose which had been stated by the Minister they should take risks in supporting it. Never was the case stronger for the Government relieving the bitter distress into which its own policy had landed large numbers of citizens of this country. He had received that morning a further letter from Pretoria on the subject of the large number of unemployed there. On a previous occasion the Minister of Public Works had said that in spite of the prevailing distress a number of men employed at Meintjes Kop had been dismissed and replaced by native convicts. He had now received a letter pointing out that the distress in Pretoria had been greatly accentuated by the discharge of those 80 men and pointing out the bitter destitution in which those men were living. It was no exaggeration to say that some of those men were in a state of starvation. As a result of a rush to the diamond diggings at Taungs, a large number of the men who had taken part in the rush had been fined and some sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment and sent to Kimberley to do time. That rush had been nothing but an expression of the state of desperate destitution in which those men had been living. The right hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) had referred to the poor whites. He (Mr. Creswell) preferred to call them the unemployed workers of this country. If the right hon. member would develop a little more human sympathy he would not attribute all the misfortunes of those men to their own fault. He (Mr. Creswell) was not going to deny that a man after continued unemployment had much of his moral fibre destroyed. But whose fault was it? If there were unemployable men in this country or any other country it was the fault of all of them who were more fortunate. Admirable as the intention of the Hon. member for Queen’s Town (Sir W. B. Berry) was, did the hon. member know how many men were going to be employed on that work and how many were to be provided with settlement plots. He agreed, however, that preference should be given to those men who worked on the dam from start to finish They (the Labour members) had no confidence in the Government nor in their capacity and desire to tackle those matters at the root. They wanted much more than they had got in that Bill. There was nothing in the Bill which stamped it as a social measure or bound it to the relief of pressing distress and unemployment. When they looked at the Government’s record it made it extremely difficult for them to take a pig in a poke. He asked the Minister to look into the conduct of the White Labour Bureau at Pretoria. He thought the gentleman in charge of that department was a bit of a martinet and he thought the Minister should inquire whether the department was being administered with sympathy and with a desire to adjust itself to the circumstances of the people who applied.

He spoke frankly as one in grave doubt as to what one’s duty was in regard to this matter. They wanted more information before this debate closed. The position was such that any measure, even if it were extravagant, which was going to relieve distress they would be inclined to support, so long as they were assured that it was going to relieve distress. If hon. members said that that was an immoral position and that they should exercise a more stringent guardianship over the public purse than that, he would only say that those hon. members who took that view, if they would exercise as strict and stringent a guardianship over the welfare of their fellow-citizens as they did over the public purse, such risks as this would be unnecessary. But they were not by any means going to take risks. They were not going to take blindly a statement that this was going to relieve distress. They wanted to know, among other things, how soon this work was going to commence, how many men were going to be employed, there and at what wages they were going to be employed. Were they going to be told next year that it was found to be very much cheaper to do this work by cheap Kafir labour than with white unskilled labour?. The native of this country, with his territorial reserves, was infinitely better off than the white citizen of this country, who was disinherited. In this matter they wanted a guarantee that they were going to employ white persons at a rate of wages on which they could exist, and they wanted the Minister to name the figure. Another question on which they wanted the Minister to be good enough to give them some information was how many small settlers it was proposed to settle under this Bill ? He would ask the Minister what plans he proposed to prevent this land, which was sold off into small lots, from eventually aggregating into big holdings again. They wanted to know what plan he had to prevent this land in the course of time again falling into the hands of the land speculator and the speculative land-owner? He did not think that the day was still with them when they should depend entirely upon the initiative of private owners in regard to these irrigation schemes. He went on to say that they did not look upon this in the least bit from a provincial standpoint. It mattered not one jot or title to them whether they instituted a scheme of this sort in the Transvaal, Orange Free State, Natal, or the Cape Province. Perhaps the Minister would inform them when he replied to what extent had the Government options over all this land which was to be brought into the area of this irrigation scheme. The fact that the potential increase in the value of land was going to remain with the private owner was again a very strong argument for an equitable system of land value taxation. These schemes were practical proof of the necessity of distributing taxation over land values. Were it not for the pressure of poverty, the bringing in of this Bill at the end of the session without proper investigation and without sufficient information, would make hon. members on the cross-benches decide to vote against it, as a protest against the Government treating the House with such scant courtesy. They would be in some doubt until the debate closed in what way they could best serve the people of the country. The hon. members on the cross-benches wanted, in order to enable them to form their opinion, the Minister to give them some information on the points he (Mr. Creswell) had specified. They would then judge whether they were inclined to support the second reading. Should the Bill get to the committee stage, they would be very searching in their desire for the insertion of clauses which would make the assurances part of the Bill, and not merely Ministerial assurances.

said he was surprised at the reception accorded this Bill. They all knew that the poor whites were clamouring for a little plot of land. All members in this House had held that something should be done. But now that the Government came for ward with a scheme under which from 1,500 to 2,000 poor whites could be helped, with a plot of ten morgen each, there was an outcry against the proposals. It was a well-known fact that the Magaliesberg was an excellent cattle breeding country. It was an excellent land for the production of corn, tobacco, oranges, naartjes, cotton, lucerne, and potatoes. The site proposed might be called the heart of the Transvaal. The ground was good for cotton, and, in fact, for practically everything. Hon. members opposite had asked why the Bill was introduced so late in the session? But that was due to hon. members opposite themselves. Hon. members of this House living in the immediate vicinity of Cape Town had taken up practically one-third of the time of this House. The Labour members had also taken up one-third. Anyone voting against this Bill had no heart for the poor whites.

said nearly every hon. member had during the Budget debate urged that some large irrigation and land settlement scheme should be started. And now that the Government carried out these suggestions, objections came from everywhere. He thought they had quite enough information before the House. Anyone voting against the Bill was not a friend of South Africa. There was a chance for members on the Labour benches to show their interest in the poor people. The Leader of the Opposition had a happy knack of having Bills killed or shelved. If this Bill were sent to a Select Committee it might never be seen again. This scheme provided for something good for the country. It was essential that the Bill should appear in the Statute Book, and he hoped the Government would press it through. Hundreds of poor people were waiting for work and waiting for the carrying out of this scheme.

said he wished to show why he did not think the House would be well advised to take the second reading at this stage. He would like to know what suddenly made the Government come to the conclusion that this ought to be a poor white scheme, for the original idea was to benefit the riparian owners, and that at the cost of the general taxpayer. The Prime Minister had rather unkindly and unwisely sheltered himself behind the fact that the Director of Irrigation had recommended the scheme. But the Government was responsible for the schemes that were brought before the House. There was not a single word of out and out recommendation of the scheme in Mr. Kanthack’s report. All the report stated was that the scheme had been considered from time to time.

The scheme would cost nearly one million pounds. The Prime Minister had been not only unkind but impolitic to quote the Director of Irrigation as the final word to decide that matter, and not their own investigations. They had had a most confused statement on that matter. They understood now that the Government had options, nothing on which they could base a calculation, and that 23,000 or 25,000 morgen were available. If the riparian owners took that water there would be no water left for the land the Government had under option. The Government, at great cost to the State, was asking them to acquire 23,000 or 25,000 morgen of land, and they had no guarantee that there would be water for it. If the owners took the water, what rates were they going to pay? Half rates or no rates? Who was going to pay for the difference? The general taxpayers, of course. He supposed that was why the Government had brought in an income tax and had increased the Customs duties. The most astonishing thing the Minister had said was that in the Transvaal the people did not know much about irrigation, but in the same breath be wanted to plunge the Transvaal into the greatest irrigation scheme the country had ever seen. Why had there been that sudden change in the policy of the Government? For that amount of money they might have. 15, 20, or 30 schemes all over the country. The Minister had said that it would help to solve the poor white problem. It did not seem to be a method which would solve that problem. They were not told how many allotments were to be provided, who was going to pay the rates on them, or anything else. Why did not the people band together as they did in the Free State and ask the Government for a loan under the Irrigation Act? On the financial side of the thing it seemed to him the Government was asking the general taxpayer to provide that money for the benefit of the riparian owners along the river, and for an experimental scheme in connection with the poor white problem. Although under the scheme the general taxpayer was asked to provide £900,000—he thought it would be nearer £900,000 than £700,000—the Government if it let out water for tertiary purposes, anything they got—where did it go to? To the general exchequer for the relief of the taxpayer? No, it went to the reduction of water rates, another advantage for the people who benefited by the scheme. They had no information as to how much of that land could be put under citrus fruit, to bacco, lucerne, etc. Why should the State pay all the costs incurred in settling the water rates? In that Bill there was no mention of the total amount that would have to be voted by Parliament. Great surveys had still to be made in regard to-the construction of the canal, and nothing was said as to what that would cost; nothing was said as to the levelling of the ground, and he could go through the whole thing and show that it was the most nebulous thing Parliament had ever been asked to vote upon He was very much in favour of pushing on irrigation works where they could. He felt that the words of a report which had just come from another place ought to be borne in mind in connection with this question. Dealing with the conservation of water, one of their recommendations for the stopping of erosion was the construction of dams and irrigation works by encouraging them in every reasonable manner. Was this a “reasonable manner?” He did not think it was Was it mere “window dressing” on the part oi the Cabinet? It certainly was rather curious that this thing was never mentioned until towards the end of the session, and that in the Governor-General’s speech not a word was said about it. As far as he could make out, in most other countries where a scheme of this magnitude was proposed the Government did not think it was fair to their officials to put the whole of the responsibility on one man, and they referred a matter like this to a Commission of experts and practical people, so that the man who was responsible could find whether his report was confirmed by outside independent minds. He contended that that was only fair and just to a man in such a responsible position as the head of the Irrigation Department occupied. One hasty action and one bad failure would put back the cause of irrigation in this country for many years. For that reason, he moved that the debate be now adjourned.

put the question that the debate be now adjourned.

in moving the second reading of the Miners’ Phthisis Act Amendment Bill, said he took it for granted that members of the House had studied the report of the Select Committee which had sat to inquire into the working of the present Act. As a matter of fact the Bill now before the House was intended to give effect to the recommendations of the Select Committee, insofar as those recommendations required legislative effect. The main recommendations of the committee were in connection with section 21 of the existing Act, which fixed the amount of compensation to be paid to men in the first stage of the disease. Hon. members would know that the present law made provision that men in the first stage should receive £96 in twelve monthly instalments of £8, or a lump sum. The Board found that in 90 per cent, of the cases they had to give a lump sum for the purpose of enabling the men to start some other occupation in life. One difficulty found in connection with the working of this clause was that the men who got £96 in a lump sum or in instalments were under the impression that, according to the wording of the section, after twelve months they could get their certificate back to be allowed to go and work in the mines again, or they must qualify for a further £304, and so get the full amount of £400, because they said they were now permanently incapacitated. They had found that £96 had not been enough to be of benefit to these men. The committee proposed to deal with both these questions. As regarded the re-employment of these men, they said that men who got compensation for miners’ phthisis or received benefits under the Act would in future be prohibited in any circumstances from going underground again. That was made perfectly plain in clause 5. Hon. members would see that the provisions of clause 26 of the Act, which allowed these men to go back to work underground under certain circumstances, were repealed. As to the inadequacy of the amount, the committee recommended that the amount should be increased to a sum not exceeding £200. Instead of giving these, men a fixed amount of £96, the recommendation now was to give them an amount not exceeding £200. The reasons for this recommendation were set out in the report of the Select Committee and the benefits which were expected from this alteration were clearly set forth. This brought up another question, and that was what to do with the men who received £96 before the commencement of this amending Act. As to those who were out of the country, they thought it was no use trying to follow them up and do anything for them. They thought they were not incapacitated from work outside underground mining. As for the men who were in the country and permanently resident in the country, could they make the grant of an amount not exceeding £200 retrospective? The committee felt that they could not do that. It would be opening the door to a number of questions. After going very carefully into the matter it was decided to recommend in clause 5 that the Miners’ Phthisis Board should make investigation into these cases, find out the number of cases, and give them or their dependants who were in a destitute condition and in need of assistance, out of the compensation fund a sum not exceeding £100. They made careful inquiries to find out what was the number that would fall under this recommendation. These men got their £96 and they did not apply to the Board until they thought they were entitled to get £400. The total number of men who had received £86 was just over 1,100. They knew that a certain number of them had qualified for the £400, but a large number had left the country. The committee recommended that widows or dependants of men who had died from miners’ phthisis, before the Act of 1912 came into force, should be given an amount in the discretion of the Board, but the total of these grants was not to exceed £10,000. Clause 7 dealt with the native aspect of the case. Before the beginning of this year the Act of 1912 had not been brought prominently to the notice of natives, but steps had been taken to remedy that, and he thought a larger number of natives would now come forward and claim compensation. There were also provisions in the Bill for the tightening up of the regulations. The report of the Select Committee contained other valuable recommendations, but they were more or less of an administrative character, and Government would give effect to them as far as possible. In conclusion, Mr. Malan said he would best serve the interests of the country and of the people concerned by not going into a long dissertation as to the seriousness of the disease—a fact which they all took for granted. (Cheers.)

said he appreciated that it would be unwise to go into the whole question of miners’ phthisis at this stage, but he wished to make it clearly understood that hon. members on the cross-benches still believed that miners’ phthisis should be placed on a schedule as an industrial or an occupational disease and should be treated accordingly. They would confine themselves to amendments in the direction of trying to improve the Bill from their point of view. He recognised that the measure was a genuine attempt on the part of the Minister to meet some of the glaring anomalies in the working of the Act of 1912. The Minister had not gone far, but he had gone in the right direction. One of the greatest grievances from the point of view of administration had been the delay in settling the cases. They were informed that certain political or other influences were brought to bear to induce more attention being given to certain people by the Board than to others. Although the Select Committee’s recommendations had been carried out and the Bill would be an improvement on existing legislation, there were some points in it which went in the other direction. For instance, section 2 had not been improved by the deletion of the word “underground.” The Board was given greater discretionary powers, but it would be dangerous to give the Board too much discretion, and it should not be allowed to reduce the monthly payments below £8. It might be argued that many of the suffering miners went to England, where they could live more cheaply, but the men should receive the full amount to which they were entitled, no matter where they lived. It had been said that the medical examinations had been a great expense, and therefore it was sought to limit the re-examinations, and a man was restricted to one examination after an award had been made and was not again to be examined at the expense of the Board until the Board was satisfied that there were reasonable grounds for a re-examination. Well, they could not very well grumble at that, although it might result in hardship.

With regard to that £100 which the Minister had mentioned in connection with clause 5, that sum was not to be awarded to any person who was not in need and who was not resident within the Union. Why should there be that differentiation ? To his mind it was an evil principle. The Minister said they could not be expected to follow those people up, but all that was wanted was that those people should have the right whether they lived within the Union or whether they happened to have gone to England or any other country, to claim the additional benefit just the same as if they were resident in the Union. The principle had been debated in the House, and he did not think that hon. members would allow the proviso to remain in the Bill. The provision for widows which appeared in clause 6 was a very material concession which they on the cross-benches as well as many other hon. members fully appreciated. But the amount was confined to £10,000. It seemed to be an unsound principle that they should lay down any fixed sum. The Board would distribute money from time to time and might find itself getting near the end of the £10,000, and still a large number coming under clause 6 still unprovided for. There was one great omission made in that Bill. The re was no provision for those people who contracted miners’ phthisis as the result of working, not in the mine itself, work which could not be described as mining, but on or about the mine. They had evidence before them that men had got miners’ phthisis in that way, both whites and natives, and those people should be provided for in some way. In the original discussion in the Committee the idea was rather in the direction of recommending that those men should be provided for under the Workmen’s Compensation Act which had been before the Act, but hon. members did not consider that desirable. Still some provision should be made for them. In his opinion one of the most important pieces of information they received in course of investigation of the Committee was the state of affairs in regard to the natives. They on the cross-benches had been twitted about not caring for anyone but the white men, but he and many other, hon. members were horrified when they found that the natives had not been given what they were entitled to under the Miners’ Phthisis Act of 1912. The hon. member gave some startling figures from the report of the Select Committee to emphasise his point. On one mine out of 13,000 employed only three cases were reported. It was impossible to conceive that out of all those natives only those few were entitled to compensation for miners’ phthisis during the period mentioned. They were entitled to £10 each in case of death, and varying rates up to £50 in cases of total permanent disablement. Of course, it was not in the interest of the mining company to go out of their way to see if their natives were suffering from miners’ phthisis in order that they might compensate them, but he (Mr. Andrews) understood that they were insured, and he thought the Government was in duty bound to see that there was sufficient inspection to ensure that those natives suffering from miners’ phthisis should be told about it, taken out of the mine, sent to their homes and paid the compensation to which they were entitled. The Bill event a little way in the direction required, for they had to be examined once in every six months. He thought that once in three months would be nearer the mark. Of course he would be told that it would be very expensive, but nothing was more expensive than slaughtering 4,000 or 5,000 even Hack men every year. To obviate that no costs would be too much. They on the cross-benches wanted to see the Bill through, defective as it was, for it removed certain anomalies, and he hoped the House would be able to pass it and accept one or two amendments of a minor nature which they on the cross-benches might move in committee.

said the reasons for the changes that Bill made to the Act of 1912 would be patent to anybody who read the report of the Select Committee. He welcomed the change the Bill was making in prohibiting those who were suffering from the disease committing suicide by continuing to do underground work. He also welcomed the provision the Bill was going to make in giving some assistance to the men who had already been beneficiaries under the Act of 1912, and who found themselves in a very anomalous position—men who were inadequately compensated and who were prevented from continuing their work underground. He hoped the mining houses would bear the additional burden without grumbling. The reason why the Select Committee recommended that the amount of the payments should be left to the discretion of the Board was that the Board was the best judge as to what should be paid out in each individual case. The Bill would undoubtedly throw an additional burden on the mining houses. The mining houses would have to pay for their remissness in the past, but it was not enough for the mining houses to pay compensation—the Government also had a duty to those men. He had been disappointed during the debate which had preceded that one that not a word had been said about giving some assistance to the men in the first stage of miners’ phthisis to make use of the compensation which the mining companies were giving them. Any amount of compensation would be futile until they made some provision for the men to make proper use of it. There was a keen desire on the part of those people to get out of the mines and on to the land. They had that in the report of the Small Holdings Commission and from the Chairman of the Miners’ Phthisis Board. The chairman had said that he spent two hours every morning in his office interviewing those people. Much as he wished to appreciate the work that had been done by the Minister of Mines in forwarding the object of getting increased compensation for those people, he thought the Government had been criminal in its negligence in not getting facilities for those men to get on to the land. He hoped the Minister would initiate some scheme for effecting that purpose. He thought he would be failing in his duty to the House if he did not refer to one aspect of the question, which that Bill gave him an opportunity of doing. He knew of his own knowledge and it had been given in evidence before them that a very great deal was being done at present to put a stop to that curse once and for all. If the mining companies, the Government, and the men went on as they were at present, that disease would be a thing of the past. He had met a skilled miner yesterday, and that man assured him that, from his own personal experience, so long as a man took care of himself phthisis would become a thing of the past. He hoped the Minister would not relax his efforts to see that the mining regulations were properly carried out.

said that he could corroborate the member for Denver as to the improved attention paid by the Minister and mining authorities to the prevention of the causes of phthisis. Some time ago he had forwarded a complaint to the Minister of Mines concerning a certain mine where natives were sent underground two hours too early while the fumes from blasting were still about. Definite action was taken by the Minister; it was found that the complaint was well founded, and the matter was remedied. A great deal of evidence had been given before the Committee on Native Affairs relating to the amount of phthisis amongst the natives, but much of it was conflicting. He believed there was less miners’ phthisis among the natives, because they worked underground for only about nine months at a time and before phthisis showed itself they went home and stopped away for six months. It was the duty of the Government to make some provision to see that there should not he cases of phthisis among the natives of which they knew nothing. The hon. member referred to certain other matters in which he considered that the present Bill was an advance, from the point of view of the natives, upon the existing Act. Dealing, with the scale of compensation he pointed out that in the Workmen’s Compensation Act already passed by the House, compensation for death in the case of a native was fixed at the same amount as was allowed under the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911 in respect of total incapacitation. viz., £30 to £50, whereas the compensation allowed under the Phthisis Act in case of death was the same as that allowed under the Native Labour Regulation Act, viz., £10. He urged that in case of death from miners’ phthisis the scale of compensation should be raised to the same amount as under the Workmen's Compensation Act so far as natives were concerned. He would support the second reading of the Bill, because, on the whole, it seemed to be a great improvement upon the Act of 1912.

said that this Bill was designed to improve the conditions of those who had been stricken with this fell disease of miners’ phthisis. The hon. member for Denver said he be Moved that this disease would soon be a thing of the past. He (Dr. MacNeillie) could only say that in looking through the report of the Select Committee he could find no glimmering of hope that at the present time this disease was diminishing. Mr. Kotze himself said that there were very few signs of a diminution of the disease at the present time. It might be too soon to hope for a great improvement in that respect, because undoubtedly there would be a number of accumulated cases from the past. What he wanted to bring to the notice of the Minister was that they ought to go in much more carefully for statistics than they had done in the past and that those statistics should be carefully tabulated so that they might get some idea of the progression of the disease. Dr. MacNeillie urged that steps should be taken to curtail the intervals which had taken place hitherto between the time of an application and the time of an award being made. He went on to say that there was one matter, which ought to receive the attention of the Minister. In most cases of miners’ phthisis which proved fatal they found that the disease was complicated with tuberculosis. They had had a Commission sitting on this question of tuberculosis which was appointed two years ago and which had run up an expense to the present time of close upon £7,000, but they were still awaiting the report of that Commission. He thought that report ought to have been in the hands of hon. members long ere this.

Another point he wished to mention was in regard to compensation to men who had contracted silicosis, men who were employed on the surface, crusher stations, men who had never worked below. He noticed that two of the doctors called before the committee had stated that they had not seen cases of this kind. In the course of the practice of his profession, he had seen one or two cases. He did not say there were many. He had seen one or two which, upon clinical examination, he came to the conclusion were cases of silicosis. A month ago he received a letter from a miner whom he knew well and who had been employed in a crusher station for nine years, stating that he had been seen by a doctor in Johannesburg, and, after the X rays had been applied, the case was certified as one of silicosis. He (Dr. MacNeillie) thought there should he some way in which these men who had contracted silicosis should be compensated. He had tried to have these cases included in the schedule of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, but without success. He hoped before this Bill passed through the House cases of this kind would be included within its provisions.

said he wished to express a certain amount of satisfaction at the attitude adopted by the hon. member for Boksburg in calling into, question the statement made by the hon. member for Denver in reference to the very complete way in which he (Dr. Macaulay) considered that miners’ phthisis was being dealt with. The hon. member for Denver had stated that in a very short while the disease would be wiped out altogether. He (Mr. Madeley) thought they must not blind themselves to the true position and they must not think that by merely writing down on this paper that a certain amount of compensation was to be paid they were wiping out miners’ phthisis. From what he knew of the conditions on the Rand, his own opinion was that there had been very little diminution indeed. The report of the Mines Department for April last showed that 333 fresh cases were brought before the Miners’ Phthisis Board. That Board was, on account of the way in which it was constituted and the inadequate clerical staff that it had at its disposal, unable to cope with the situation.

A comparatively large number of people contracted miners’ phthisis without going underground. He knew the case of a fitter, who never went below, who was practically at death’s door with miners’ phthisis, but he could not obtain compensation. He (Mr. Madeley) was pleased that a small step had been taken in the direction of granting increased compensation, but he was sorry the Minister had not tackled the matter at its root. Compensation should be at least £750 for total disablement and £375 for partial disablement, and under no circumstances should a man he compelled to contribute towards his own compensation. Experience showed that when the onus of paying compensation was thrown entirely on the employers it made them particularly anxious that their men should not die or contract disease. This would be the only way to wipe out miners’ phthisis. Eight pounds a month was not sufficient to keep a man in this country, leave alone a wife and family, for the sufferers had to spend a large sum—from ’7s. 6d. to 10s. a week—in buying medicines with which to ease themselves. Owing to the delay in dealing with cases he knew of a man who had to sell his second suit of clothes in order to buy food. When men made application for their cases to be reviewed they had to be re-examined at Johannesburg. Surely that was unnecessary.

It is not an easy thing to examine a miners’ phthisis patient.

You can get an X-Ray examination whenever you like in a big town, and doctors are beginning to know the disease. The words “dependants being in need of assistance ” should be deleted, concluded Mr. Madeley.

The widow may re-marry.

She might re-marry, and then she is not a widow. (Laughter.)

speaking as a member of the Select Committee on the Bill, said there had been a great deal of improvement in the working of the Act. The mines were in a better sanitary condition and everything was being done for the benefit of the poor miners. He hoped the compensation would always be on the contributory basis. The mines had to pay nearly a million and a half in compensation, and surely that was enough. Would the shareholders be able to afford to make additional payments? The Bill, concluded Dr. Neethling, was a great improvement on the existing Act.

said miners’ phthisis was becoming a national matter. He bad been surprised to find from the report that very few of the natives knew anything about the fact that they were entitled to receive compensation. As to the remarks of she hon. member for Denver, no burden was too heavy to allay the evils which existed on the Rand. The men suffering from the disease had sacrificed their lives in building up the gold mining industry, and therefore it was the duty of those who had profited by that industry to stand by the dependants of those men. Notwithstanding the investigation which had taken place, it was striking that there had been no decrease in miners’ phthisis. With regard to the native question, there were 22,000 white miners employed on the Witwatersrand, and since the Act came into operation 1,100 had received £96, but of 177,000 natives, practically eight times as many as whites, who were just as susceptible to minors’ phthisis as the white man, there had only been 287 cases, and less than £5,000 been paid but at the end of July, 1913. It was the duty of the Government to let the natives employed on the mines know of the compensation to which they were entitled.

as one of the representatives of a large native constituency, said he would like to reply to the remarks of the hon. member for Liesbeek regarding what he said as to hon. members representing native constituencies taking no interest on behalf of the natives. He denied that both on his own behalf and on behalf of the hon. member for Tembuland. As a matter of fact, they were always making inquiries. He had gone through his own constituency and Pondoland and inquired from every Magistrate he came to and the doctors in the various districts about the health of the people who came back from the mining territories, and so far as his own information was concerned he found there was very little sickness indeed.

said that hon. members on the cross-benches had hit upon the crux of the whole matter. They had hit upon the reason why the native did not get miners’ phthisis; it was because he sot six months in the mine and six months in sunshine and fresh air which enabled him to shake off the results. The hon. member referred to the report of the Select Committee on the Native Regulation Bill, and quoted Mr. J. W. MacKenzie’s evidence on the point. The witness was asked how he ran his business and what system did he carry on, and in his reply stated that he never worked a native more than six months at a time If he did they got miners’ consumption. If they were indentured to him for 12 months they still went home for six months’ rest. If he worked them more the death-rate soon went up. The same applied to the white men, said Mr. Fawcus. That was the whole answer to the case put forward by the hon. member on the cross-benches. If they wanted to prevent a man from getting miners’ phthisis they must prevent him from going underground, and he would never get it, but if they allowed him to work six months in the mine and allowed him to have six months on the surface he could shake off the effects.

said that whatever they did they should not allow the impression to go forward from that House that they thought the native did not suffer from miners’ phthisis. With regard to what the hon. member for Umlazi said if a man went back to the mines time after time he would gradually get miners’ phthisis. The hon. member referred to the report of the Commission, and pointed out the great discrepancy between the cases reported from the different first-class mines, from which it was clear there were many unreported cases. In one case, 14,800 were employed, and only one case was reported. In another 40 cases were reported where 5,000 were employed, and in still another where 4,000 were employed there were no cases reported at all. It was clear there was a need for examination, and a need that the natives should know what their privileges were under the Act.

said that for some time past the Commission had been going up and down the country inquiring into the question of tuberculosis. That had more to do with miners’ phthisis than many hon. members thought. It was not so much the dust which caused miners’ phthisis as that fell disease of tuberculosis The mines were impregnated by the germs of tuberculosis, and weakened the lungs of the natives, who became more susceptible to the disease. He would like to know when they could expect the report of the Tuberculosis Commission. He thought they must not run away with the idea that there had not been some improvement on the mines. The fact that there had not yet been a diminution of cases was because they had not yet got rid of the men who contracted the disease under the old conditions. They had really not had time.

said the report of the Tuberculosis Commission was in the hands of the printers at the present moment. He did not think they would be able to deal with the report during the present session of Parliament. A great deal had been made about what had been described as unreasonable delay in connection with the granting of awards. He had made inquiries of the Board, and found that there were 745 applications on hand on the 31st May; 394 were still incomplete on account of documents wanting, 30 owing to non-appearance of applicants after summons, and 102 on account of non-receipt of medical certificates from oversea. The exact figures of the various classes were not available, but not more than 250 claims were ready to be dealt with, and of those perhaps not more than 200 were entitled to awards. No avoidable delay took place in the disposal of the cases. There had been 58 fewer applications coming forward than the figure for the previous year. (Cheers.) One should not be in too great a hurry to draw conclusions from the statistics as to the incidence of the disease. A man applied over and over again. As the law stood at present a man could apply at any time. They had provided in the new Bill now that a man should be entitled to one re-examination after six months, and thereafter if he satisfied the Board that his claim was a reasonable one he would be entitled to the additional award. As regarded the question of whether the disease was on the increase or decrease, the growth of the disease was so slow that it was a difficult matter to come to a conclusion until they had a large number of statistics which would show whether the disease was on the increase or not All the probabilities indicated that the disease was on the decrease, and very much so indeed. It was quite true that the Government Mining Engineer had altered his rather definite opinion of 12 months ago, that the disease was a thing of the past, and that there was now a doubt in his mind. With regard to land settlement, in a country with very few industries outside agriculture and mining it was the natural thing to think that if a man dropped out of one he would drop into the other. It was not such an easy thing. All the evidence they had was to this effect, that unless a man had been an agriculturist before he became a miner they could not make a success of him as an agriculturist. In very many cases the lung was diseased and the men were unfitted for agricultural work. Outside the mining industry it was difficult to find employment for those men. It was a very difficult problem. They had a memorandum from the Secretary for Lands, but when asked whether he was prepared to go in for a scheme of that kind, he said he could not recommend it. Under those circumstances it was almost hopeless to expect the Government to go in for a large expenditure when they knew beforehand that it would not be a success, but they would do what they could.

The motion was agreed to.

The Bill was read a second time, and the Committee stage set down for to-morrow.

moved that the sub-heads be taken seriatim.

said he did not want to oppose that, but there was a lot of work before them, and he was afraid if they took each sub-head separately it would mean a lot of delay.

It was agreed to take the items seriatim.

moved to delete the item of £2,500, salary of the Minister of the Interior. He said that the Minister drew his salary as Minister of Finance, and he did not see any need for this item to figure under this vote.

said he did not think his hon. friend could be serious. However, he promised him that he would not draw his salary of £2,500 as Minister of the Interior. (Laughter.)

said he would like to ask the Minister if he had any intention of bringing in a Public Health Bill, because it was a great mistake, passing piece-meal legislation when the country was crying out for comprehensive legislation. The same remark applied To the question of a new Medical Act.

asked the Minister for information with regard to the number of people who had been deported under the Immigrants Regulation Act.

said he desired to draw the Minister’s attention to the item, Keeper of the Archives. He pointed out that here in Cape Town they had Archives which were of the greatest interest, and which certainly demanded more attention from the public than-they had ever had in the past. He mentioned that he was the first person who started looking after the Archives, as far back as 1875. The Archives were now in fairly good order, but they were not properly developed. They had got an excellent young fellow who was looking after them, a devoted public servant, who was indeed an enthusiast. What he wanted to ask the Minister was that he should take into consideration the question of putting the Archives on a more settled basis. He would suggest that there should be a Standing Commission, which would cost nothing. There should be a certain amount on the Estimates in the nature of a grant-in-aid To provide for administration

drew the Minister’s attention to an application made by a gentleman in Johannesburg for naturalisation. The application was at first refused. Upon further inquiry as to whether he could submit a fresh application, the answer was given by the department that he could renew his application when he could read and write in the English or Dutch language. Mr. Nathan pointed out that in the Transvaal Yiddish used to be accepted as sufficient test of education. He hoped the Minister would reconsider the position. There was another case where an applicant who had been convicted ten years ago of illicit gold buying, who had served his sentence, and was now married and had brought up a family, was told that he could apply again in twelve months. At the expiration of 12 months he applied again, but was again refused.

said it seemed that the policy of the Government had undergone a complete change. A number of cases had been brought under his notice of men against whom the police had nothing whatever to say being refused naturalisation because they had not sufficient education in English or Dutch. When the Naturalisation Act was passed nothing was said about educational qualifications. From the report of the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, there seemed to have been a great falling off in the applications for naturalisation, and this was due to the new policy. He believed that a circular had been issued to police officers telling them to conduct the examination in English and Dutch.

Hear, hear.

I suppose the hon. member will say that no one should be allowed in this country unless he knows English or Dutch.

Hear, hear. (Laughter,)

said that people could be admitted to the country on the strength of a knowledge of any European language. The people he represented need not be told the necessity of learning English or Dutch for they were aware of that already. What he wished to know was why a test not contemplated by Parliament was imposed. Then a test which might satisfy one police officer might met satisfy another. The restriction was Largely made against Russian Jews. During 1912-13 the issue of letters of naturalisation showed a decrease of 160, but the decrease in the case of Russian applicants alone amounted to 200. The figures for Russians being: 1912, 688; 1913, 486. There was a feeling growing up among these people that it was no use their applying any more.

said the operations of the Department so far as the issue of letters of naturalisation was concerned was altogether inexplicable. He knew the case of a respectable man who had been in the country a long time who made Two applications for naturalisation. Six or eight months after making the first application he was informed that no such request had been received. He sent in a second application, and after waiting another eight months he again inquired, and for the second time he was told that no application had reached the Department.

said he was surprised: at some of the hon. members opposite jeering over this matter. Did they know that ninetenths of the capital invested in the mines was practically foreign capital. We should not take the capital of these people and at the same time refuse to naturalise them. The Minister should not trust too much to the police reports which were sometimes based on most flimsy evidence. For in stance, one applicant was refused because his brother had been accused of stock theft nine years, previously. An independent officer should make a separate investigation into the matter.

asked what was the reason of the appointment to the Department of, the Interior of an additional assistant medical officer of health at a salary of £550 a year.

said he had said “hear, hear” when the hon. member for Cape Town, Castle, had urged that people in the police service should be qualified in two languages, because he felt that that should be so. He was in favour of having the right people naturalised. He wanted to see the right class of immigrant, but not the one who simply learned to sign his name on board and then travelled through the country signing cheques which were not honoured. They knew the disastrous results of that. He wanted the decent immigrant, not the one who was useless to this country.

said the hon. member had evidently not been listening to what he had said. The applicants for naturalisation were not persons applying for Government billets, but to become citizens of the country. The remarks which the hon. member attributed to him with regard to the police he did not say. He did not say that the police ought to know two languages.

said that the hon. member for Boksburg had asked a question about a Medical Bill. He wanted to know when it would be forthcoming. That was quite a legitimate question. Shortly after the Union the hon. member would remember a conference was called to go into the question, and the Bill was drafted and re-drafted, and it had been waiting all the time for the right opportunity, but had been pressed out of the Order Paper every session, and they had not yet come to it. With regard to the question raised by the right hon. the member for Victoria West, in reference to the Archives of the Cape, be was largely in agreement with the right hon. gentleman, and he would promise the matter should have proper consideration.

The hon. member for Von Brandis had raised the question of naturalisation, and his hon. friend the member for Cape Town, Castle, had become vehement on the matter. He seemed to think that a dead set had been made against a certain lass of applicants, especially Jewish applicants, but he could assure the hon. member that no such set had been made. There had been no change whatever in the policy in these last years in that connection. The police had their instructions from the Department of the Interior, and the Department was guided very much by what the police said. Citizenship of the country should be considered of some value, because when a man was granted that he had to exercise important functions, and it was necessary he should not be illiterate. No doubt the police asked some questions which did not meet with approval, but certainly no dead set had been made. That appeared to be so from the large number of people who were passed. In that connection he mentioned that 700 were granted naturalisation as against 95” refusals. Naturally no reasons could be given for refusal, for in their very nature those were matters more for police inquiry than for anything else. It was very difficult to deal with that question apart from the police reports. The hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens had asked regarding an additional Officer of Health. This Province was a very large one, and their information was that the existing officer could not deal with all the work. With reference to the suggestion that the Department of the Interior was overstaffed, the Public Accounts Committee much to their regret made a recommendation and it was found there was little to support the recommendation. In view of the very large number of functions discharged by the Department of the Interior, he doubted very much whether the department was overstaffed, but he would promise to go into the matter, for he-thought that a very dose watch should be kept upon that, both with regard to that department and other departments.

said he hoped the hon. member for Cape Town, Castle, would be satisfied with the answer of the Minister of Finance on the question of the value of citizenship. A naturalised citizen could be deported without intervention of a foreign power. That was one of the privileges which they had to be so careful about. Proceeding, he said he wanted to ask the Minister whether the rumour was correct that he was going to deal in the present Parliament with the representations that’ had been-made on behalf of the Civil Servants of the Capo? He would like to know if the Minister was going to take any steps to put the matter right? Further, he wanted to bring up the question of compensation which was promised to those who suffered injury and to the dependants of those persons who were killed during the July riots. He thought it would be impossible to get any reversal of the previous decision, but trey on the cross-benches thought a protest should be made. The Government appointed Mr. Jordan to conduct an inquiry, but it was very unfortunate that the inquiry should have been hedged round with stringent terms. He still hoped the Government might reconsider their decision. He instanced the case of Syd. Hy. Cook, who went into town to fetch his wife and walked into a bullet.

In the first place he wanted to point out that on an occasion like that the Government should err on the side of generosity and give the people the benefit of any doubt there was He read from the report of Mr. Jordan that the medical evidence did not show whether the wound which resulted in death was caused by a rifle or a pistol bullet. Mr. Jordan said it was impossible to say whether the man was shot by the military or somebody in the crowd, and he could not therefore make any recommendation. There was a case where all the presumptive evidence was that the man was shot by the military. The evidence showed that that man had merely gone into the town to fetch his wife. It was not right that they should refuse compensation on a mere quibble. There was nothing to show that there was any shooting on the part of the crowd, but it was shown that the soldiers had been shooting in that direction. He submitted that the Government would do well to reconsider that case. There was the case of Phillip Coleman, who, when he was shot, Was not engaged in an unlawful act. It was a matter of regret to him (Mr. Creswell) that the public had not brought a test case before the Supreme Court to decide what was an unlawful act. He did not know that any man in the crowd was not justified in resenting the action of the military on that occasion provided he did not resort to public violence. The man who had stood up in front of the soldiers and shouted “Snoot me ” was Coleman, and not Labuschagne, as was originally stated. That man had defied the military. He was away from the crowd at the time and said “Shoot me,” and they shot him. One of the King’s regulations was to the effect that the military must not shoot any man detached from a crowd, and it was still to be proved that they could not have gone up to the man and arrested him. His widow had claimed compensation. Those cases he had mentioned were cases where the men were not able to speak for themselves; they were no longer in this world. There was the case of Samuel George Scott Rogers, who was shot through the right lung. Mr. Jordan in his report said that this man was well away from the scene of the rioting. He got a bullet through his lung, was away from work for a long time, and the Government refused to pay him compensation. They had the case of Kerrihan, a miner who was shot on the afternoon of the 5th July through the lower part of the thigh by a service rifle, and his leg had to be amputated. The magistrate had made no recommendation in that case. If there was a doubt then the Government ought to have paid compensation. He would have thought that it was a matter of public policy to have left as few occasions as possible for those matters to be brought up. He had quoted two or three cases, but there were a number of others that were continually being brought to their notice. He particularly called attention to two of the cases he had mentioned, those of Cook and Coleman, who were killed. To get out of paying compensation on the ground that the doctor was unable to say whether it was a service rifle or an automatic pistol bullet that killed the man, although the presumptive evidence showed that it was a service bullet—why on a quibble like that did they avoid giving compensation? The most distressing instance of the whole lot was that of Coleman—an unarmed man who came out of the crowd alone, said “Shoot me,” and was fired at.

asked the Minister of Finance why the Draft Medical Bill had not been published. He said he had been a member of the Medical Council for three years and did not yet know the provisions of that Bill. The medical profession should know what the suggestions were that were to be put forward.

referring to the case of Coleman, mentioned by Mr. Creswell, said that the report of the Disturbances Commission put a different complexion on the matter. He quoted from the report.

asked whether the hon. member had seen the bioscope picture of the incident.

said he had gone by the report of the Commission, He would withdraw his amendment.

said that the hon. member for Jeppe had asked him whether the Government proposed to deal with these grievances which had been brought forward by a certain section of the Civil Service. The intention was to do so. A Committee had been inquiring into some of these grievances, and there were some others that the Government was aware of and a Bill had been drafted into which all these matters would be embodied. The Minister of Posts and Telegraphs would move the Bill in the House. It was hoped that it would be entirely non-contentious, because there should be no difference upon the matters dealt with in that Bill.

said that the case of Mrs. Cook was typical of a number of other cases in which Mr. Jordan made no recommendations simply on the ground that it was not proved up to the hilt that it was by a service bullet. He maintained that in these cases the Minister should have given the benefit of the doubt. In the case of Mr. Cook and a number of others the Ministry would do well to reconsider the matter. He was sure that they had not heard the last of this by any means.

said that in reply to the hon. member for Barkly, he did not want to trouble the medical profession unnecessarily with the circulation of Bills, but, as soon as there appeared to be the slightest chance of dealing with the matter he had mentioned in the House, he would circulate the Bill in good time in advance.

The sub-heads were agreed to.

said he would like to ask the Minister what was being done about the collection of statistics. He did not think there was any colony that was worse off in that respect, in which, indeed; we had retrograded. He knew the Minister was going to say that he had got a Bill. It was not Bills they wanted; they wanted administration. There was no attempt at anything like a Year Book in this country. That was not at all creditable to us. What were the 90 clerks doing? If they would only write fewer letters to each other and try to get some of the statistics of the country collated, which they could do, without legislation, it would be of enormous benefit.

said he understood that the Director of Census was to be appointed Commissioner of Income Tax. He presumed that that gentleman would not be able to combine both offices. Sir Edgar added that we wanted in South Africa a larger edition of what they used to have in the Cape, a Statistical Register.

said that Mr. Moffatt a few years ago carried out certain investigations abroad with regard to statistics. He would like to know whether Mr. Moffatt had given a report.

said he quite agreed with the right hon. gentleman about the importance of the subject. A great deal could be done without legislation. That was being done now. A Year Book for 1913 was in the press, giving what statistics it was possible for them to give without legislation. That would be printed. There were statistics of production, which they could not get without legislation. The Director of Census had informed him repeatedly that he could not get certain statistics which were very necessary, and hence he (the Minister) had brought forward this little Bill, which he hoped would be in this House next week. With regard to Mr. Moffatt, he agreed that it was not possible to combine the two functions, but the work of statistics could very well be carried on by other officers of the Census Department, in the absence of Mr. Moffatt. The hon. member for Durban, Berea, had asked about Mr. Moffatt’s report. Mr. Moffatt’s work, after his investigations abroad, was included in draft regulations, embodying the system of returns which should be made, and these regulations had been circulated all over the country.

said the Immigrants Regulation Act passed last year gave Government the power to deport people for crimes committed before or after the commencement of the Act. Hon. members did not pay much attention at that time to the words “before or,” but it was never thought that Government would rake up cases of conviction within the last ten years. He had been told that a man convicted eight or nine years ago for some offence had a notice served on him—

What name ?

I can’t give you the name. After the notice had been served on the man he threatened to go to the Supreme Court, and the notice was with-drawn. Mr. Nathan added that it was contrary to the wishes of the people that cases which had occurred years previously should be raked up in this fashion. The Act provided that Government should annually table a list of people who had been deported, together with the reason. But the information contained in the, return was very meagre. The reasons for deportation should he given.

They are given.

I admit the Minister has complied fully with the law, but I want more than that. Hon. members were under the impression that fuller details should be given.

said he was not under a misapprehension, but the Minister stated that if a man had been convicted years ago and had since led a good life the law would not be put in force against him. It was very hard that men should be deported for old crimes which had been expiated. The Minister might give some explanation why the Government at first appointed the Principal Immigration Officer to sit on appeals from decisions arrived at by the assistant Immigration Officers. It was strange that during the last five months of 1915 28 appeals were heard by the Immigration Board in Cape Town, only two of which were granted, whereas in Durban out of 26 appeals 24 were decided in favour of the appellant. The explanation was probably that the principal Immigration Officer then sat on the Board of Appeal in Cape Town. Since these Appeal Boards had been established the treatment of immigrants was much better than it was before, but the Boards were not given the slightest power to have their decisions carried out. Even if people had to be sent out of the country, there was no reason why the person who was having his case investigated should be confined in the detention depot on all occasions. If the Boards were to rule, their decisions should be carried out without having to be at the whim of the Immigration Officer. He hoped the Minister would see that the Boards got some real power in that matter. Even under the present system great injustices might be done, and he went on to point out a case of an Oudtshoorn man of good standing who had tried to get out his brother-in-law and sisters from America. The man could write a good hand, but before the Board he was in such a nervous condition that he could not satisfy them. The Oudtshoorn people knew the man in Oudtshoorn well, and the leading residents presented a petition to the Minister, but the immigrant was given no further opportunity and was sent back, though the petition was considered by the Board. That was a case where a decision had been given and no power on earth could alter the decision. Even with the Board as at present constituted, cases of injustice did arise. Proceeding, he said he would like to draw attention to the various recommendations in the Indian Grievances Commission report. The Minister had said from time to time that he intended to carry those out, and he (Mr. Alexander) would like some indication as to how long it would take, as to when in the ordinary course of things some of those administrative difficulties would be removed. He pointed out also that since the appointment by the Jewish Board of Deputies of an officer in Cape Town to look after people coming here things had very largely improved. That officer was paid by voluntary subscriptions, and in that way the Jewish community had taken from the shoulders of the Government a vast amount of work.

admitted that a great deal of assistance had been given by the officer referred to, and he was glad that appointment was mads by the Jewish Board. A great many difficulties had arisen out of ignorance of the habits of the immigrants, and many of those difficulties had been done away with owing to the assistance of the officer. With regard to the Indian Grievances Commission the Minister said that everything was drafted and ready to be put into force as soon as the Bill was through. It was now nearing its last stage in another place. With regard to the other cases mentioned by the hon. member, he had no personal knowledge of them, and he hoped the hon. member would not press him with regard to them.

The sub-heads were agreed to.

brought forward a grievance which he said he had brought forward every year since he had been in the Union Parliament. He had a copy of a petition sent to the House by the Chairman of the governing body of the Bloemfontein Museum. It was a very pathetic document. They started a museum in the Free State in 1847, and had to content themselves with a little building all those years until quite recently the Union Government decided to build them a new museum at a cost of £15,000. It had been built, but the grant they got from the Government towards the museum was so small that at the present moment and for two years the museum had been standing empty because they had not the funds to remove the exhibits from the old building. If the Minister would read that petition he would find that those gentlemen had been to see the Administrator and had asked him to take over the Museum, and he had refused to take it over until the Union Government gave an adequate grant. In all the other Provinces there was a grant in aid of from £5,000 to £5,000 per annum. In the cause of education alone, he asked the Minister to increase the grant to the Bloemfontein Museum by £600 a year. The complaint made by those people was well founded. It was useless to have a beautiful building when they could not get their specimens put into it.

said he could not help himself in the matter. Parliament had given instructions to him to hand over those museums to the Provinces. The two larger Provinces had taken them over but the two smaller Provinces had obstinately refused to do so. The time would come when the grants to the museums would have to be reduced. If people did not take sufficient interest in those institutions he could not help it.

asked whether the Minister meant to say that if the Administrator refused to carry out the law the Ministry was powerless? If that were so the matter ought to be rectified as soon as possible.

said he believed the law provided that the Provinces had the option of taking over the museums.

quoted the Financial Relations Act, and said it was not only the museum at Bloemfontein that had not been taken over by the Provinces, there was also the Durban Library, Bloemfontein Library, and the Harrismith Library. It seemed strange that the smaller Provinces which were the keenest on local rights and most against centralisation in Pretoria and so forth should refuse to take over those institutions.

said the last speaker’s remarks were all very well, but Cape Town Museum got £5,000 a year and Bloemfontein only got £400. The Government would not give them anything, and the Provincial Council would not take the museum over. Where were they? The Government had got a fine building and it was standing empty.

said he wished to support the remarks of the hon. member for Bloemfontein. The Minister had said that he would have to reduce the various grants, but he (the speaker) thought these grants should be placed on a uniform basis. Something would have to be done for Bloemfontein. The amount was too small.

The sub-heads Museums and Libraries were agreed to.

On the item, Assisted immigration, £9,500.

asked the Minister whether he had gone into that matter and the falling off in respect of assisted immigration. Sometimes it was difficult to know the reasons for the refusal of applications. He mentioned the case of one man in Johannesburg who wished to bring out his family. His application was being considered when the July riots broke out and that man was one of the innocent victims of the rioting. He recovered and pursued his application and was then told it could not be entertained. One would have thought that that was one oi the cases where the Government might have gone out of its way to grant the application.

said he had his attention drawn to the matter. He would inquire into it and ascertain the cause of the falling off.

The vote was agreed to

said he desired to call the Minister’s attention to the Analytical Department. The Government inspectors had been going round to different storekeepers in the country and getting samples of various kinds and submitting them to the Government Analyst. In some cases prosecutions had followed. Two firms at De Aar were prosecuted for selling what was alleged to be adulterated pepper. The Government Analyst found that this pepper contained 11 per cent, of ground rice. These firms were of good standing, and the pepper had been purchased from reputable firms in England. This pepper had subsequently been submitted to three distinguished analysts in England, who had all found that it was free from adulteration. The matter was a very serious one for these firms in its effect on their credit. What these people wanted and he thought what they ought to receive was some intimation on the part of the Government that they regretted that they should have been put to this inconvenience, and that the people in England who were also concerned should have had their credit questioned by an officer who had evidently made a very great blunder. He would hand the papers to the Minister so that he might make further inquiries.

said he had had a great deal of correspondence lately from District Surgeons throughout the Cape Province complaining bitterly of the way in which they had been treated by the Government in regard to their fees. The complaints generally seemed to be that the Government were constantly calling upon District Surgeons to do more and more work, and at the same time giving them no remuneration for it. He hoped the Minister would introduce the proposed regulations with regard to District Surgeons as soon as possible.

said he thought it was manifestly unfair that chemists who were registered in Natal were not allowed to practise in the Cape or the Transvaal.

asked for the reasons for the increases in the staff of chemical and laboratory assistants, and for the disparity in the remuneration given to district surgeons, those in Natal being the highest paid.

replied that in Zululand there was practically no white population, and it was necessary for Government purposes to have district surgeons there, who practically became Government officers. Government was trying to break the system down, but it could not interfere with vested rights. He would look into the matter mentioned by the hon. member for Woodstock.

The vote was agreed to.

said he had received representations from attendants at the Valkenberg Asylum with regard to their hours. The day attendants had to work 70 hours a week and the night attendants 65 hours a week. Then since Union the married attendants had had their wages reduced by £6 a year. The question of housing accommodation for the married men was also a grievance. They had a house allowance already, but if accommodation was provided for them inside the asylum estate there would be a great saving to the department and better satisfaction to the men themselves. Under the old Cape Act they were allowed 7d. per diem marriage allowance after they had been married five years, and many who thought they were entitled to the same allowance felt it was a grievance that they were not in receipt of it.

thought it was unnecessary expenditure in connection with the nursing at the various asylums, and referred to increases at Valkenberg, Graham’s Town, Fort Beaufort, and Pretoria, in the last-named case the amount being almost double what it was last year. He thought there should be solfie explanation of such a rapid increase of expenditure in that connection.

said he was going to raise the point mentioned by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, but from a different point of view. He thought they had not been spending sufficient money on their asylums. A Select Committee sat last year, and went into the matter, and they found the condition of affairs revealed was perfectly scandalous. The accommodation was most inadequate.

referred to the importance of the leprosy question, which should not be lightly passed. He hoped the hon. Minister would agree to the adjournment of the debate at that point, as many hon. members who were not present were very much interested in the matter, and would wish to give their views on the subject.

intimated that he could not agree to the adjournment of the debate. He moved: To insert the following item, “Bochem Leper Asylum—salaries, allowances and general expenses, £2,400.”

said he could not allow the state of affairs at Robben Island to pass without discussion. He believed that it was partially agreed at any rate that Robben Island was to remain a leprosy station, but public opinion would be, so strong against that eventually that the £50,000 which it was proposed to spend, would be absolutely wasted. The Government would be called upon to move the majority of the lepers to some place on the mainland. There was no getting away from the fact that Robben Island was not a suitable place for a leprosy station, but if the Minister had made up his mind, that amount was not sufficient to make it what it should be. Only a portion of the lepers were there; there were fully 1,000 lepers going about free in the Colony. They should do something for those unfortunate people if they were to remain at Robben Island. Promises bad been made, but the case of those people was bandied about from year to year. If that was to be a leper station, there was only one thing to do, and that was to take away the convicts and lunatics and give the lepers self-government. Instead of a lot of galvanised buildings they should put up respectable stone and brick houses and give the lepers all the happiness it was possible to give them. He had received a number of letters showing that opportunities for visiting relatives on the island were being curtailed. At present only parents were allowed to visit the island free, others having to pay their own expenses. There was a tremendous lot of dissatisfaction and unrest going on in connection with Robben Island. He hoped something would be done to further the interests of those poor unfortunate people.

said last year they bad a lot of discussion on the matter of asylums and had found that a number of people who ought to be in asylums were in gaol because there was not sufficient accommodation. He hoped next year the vote would be a bigger one.

said the general tendency was to level up salaries and not to level down for asylum attendants. Ever since Union they bad been trying to get the asylum attendants on a proper basis. He admitted that the condition of some asylums were shocking, but they were improving year by year and they were levelling up all over. There had been one or two isolated cases where the salaries had been too high. Pretoria had been a case where they had had to level down. The hon. member for Wood-stock (Dr. Hewat) put in a powerful plea for the lepers. He did not think there wan any reason to complain that more had not been done. They had been going very fast in increasing expenditure, and he thought they were coming to the point where they would have to call a halt.

The amendment was agreed to.

The vote, as amended, was agreed to.

Progress was reported, and leave obtained to sit again to-morrow.