from inhabitants of Elandsrivier, for remission of Repatriation Debts (six petitions).

from the widow of P. H. A, Botha, late metal machinist in the Railway Department, for relief.

from N. Ntuli, formerly chief political messenger at Nqutu, for increase of pension.

return of Special Warrants issued by the Governor-General from 1st to 30th June, 1914.

Government Notice No. 1026 of 1914 having reference to the amendment of the Kopjes Township Regulations.

moved for leave to introduce a Bill to empower the Governor-General to borrow moneys to defray expenditure on certain public works and services, and to amend the General Loans Act, 1911.

said that he thought it was only fair that the Government should give some information as to what measures they intended to put through that session.

was understood to say that it was rather early to ask such a question. The hon. member, however, was in order.

said that he had no power to make the Minister give an answer. If that matter was through, the hon. Minister might not find it convenient to give an answer that day. It was only fair to hon. members who had to make their arrangements, many of whom lived long distances from the Legislative Capital —(hear, hear)—that the Government should give some information as to what measures were to be put through, and the time when they considered Parliament would be prorogued.

said that he thought that the point raised by the hon. member was perfectly fair. He would convey what his hon. friend had said to the Prime Minister—(a laugh)—who would make a statement to-morrow. He thought it was quite fair for the House to know what business would be likely to be prosecuted to its conclusion and when the House would adjourn.

Leave was granted, and the Minister brought up the Bill, which was read a first time, the second reading being set down for to-morrow.

moved for leave to introduce a Bill to provide for certain pensions, grants, gratuities, and other pensionable benefits.

Leave was granted, and the Minister brought up the Bill, which was read a first time, the second reading being set down for to-morrow.

moved, as an amendment, that the schedule be omitted. He said that that law might fittingly be called “a law to legislate contrary to any number of other laws belonging to the Union. ” It seemed to him that that law was designed to bring in legislation which was contrary to previous legislation. He thought that clause 13 and the second schedule should be struck out for the following reasons. The Natives Land Act of last year had declared certain areas to be scheduled native areas, and had laid down that they should not be alienated, leased, or bought directly or indirectly by anyone but a native, except with the consent of the Governor-General. The natives throughout the country looked upon these provisions as guaranteeing absolute possession of these areas, at any rate till the Parliament had dealt with the report of the Commission appointed under the Natives Land Act of last season, and they would receive a great shock throughout the Union when they found that within a year of the passing of the Act, and before the Commission reported, the Government were interfering with scheduled areas, even though the natives consented. It was a most unwise step, and would produce evil results. Continuing, he said he would not venture to oppose if it was merely for the purpose of hanging up the scheme, but it was perfectly evident from the discussions that had taken place that the Government had had quite another scheme under consideration. He did understand that it was only during the last few days that the Government had been in the position to say that it could get hold of this particular land. The first scheme had not been laid before the House because the Government, on account of the concessions which it had obtained from the natives, had taken up the second and better scheme. There was a scheme for building a dam before this land was obtained from the natives, but if the Minister said that that was not the case he (Mr. Schreiner) would accept his word. He was not attempting to kill the scheme or the construction of the dam, but he said they should allow the schedule and clause 13 to stand over until they got the report of the Commission. The Minister said the other day that he (Mr. Schreiner) had been put up to delay the passage of the Bill, and that his obstruction was merely a matter of form. It was nothing of the kind. He had great difficulty in getting at the ins and outs of the scheme, and when he did so, he felt bound, on behalf of the natives throughout the Union to oppose the second reading and subsequent stages of the Bill.

The Bill as amended was adopted. THIRD READING.

moved the third reading.

said he had hoped that the Minister would have said something on the third reading, owing to the discussion that had taken place and the demand from all sides of the House for more information. He (Sir Thomas) could hardly be accused of hostility to the irrigation development of this country, and he and those with him had always acted solely and entirely in the general interests of the country in matters of that kind. When the Irrigation Bill was before the House, he and his friends adopted the attitude they did, not because they were actuated by political or party considerations, but because they thought they were acting in the best interests of the country. The only criticism that should be directed against measures of that kind should be genuinely directed in the interests and well-being of the whole country. He sincerely hoped that this measure would be a complete success. He hoped that it would prove an object-lesson to the prospects of irrigation development in this country. If it did not prove a success, then he said that, by adopting a measure of this kind without the fullest information, they were striking a blow at the irrigation development of this country. He agreed with the Director of Irrigation on the point that smaller schemes over the country proved greater object-lessons than one big scheme in a certain place. Hon. members would recognise that this was the largest irrigation project that had ever been submitted to any Parliament in South Africa. No Prime Minister and no member of any Government had a right to come down to that House and dragoon members to vote for a scheme of this sort without placing before them the fullest information. He did not condemn the scheme, because it might turn out a success; but the scheme should have been able to run the gauntlet of a searching investigation by a Select Committee before the House was asked to spend this large sum of money. There was not only a lack of documentary evidence, but they had the conflicting information given by Ministers themselves.

This measure could not in any way be said to have received adequate consideration. The consideration which the measure bad got was consideration of a political character. Hon. members opposite would thoroughly understand what he meant. (“‘No.”) The hon. member did not want him to tell him what those considerations were.

Out with it ; let us know.

said that naturally, in a scheme of this character, local people were to be expected to be greatly interested. The expenditure of £750,000 in any district in this country must be a matter of very considerable importance to that district.

Hear, hear.

It must be a matter of considerable importance, not only to the people who are genuinely interested in irrigation, but to other sections of the population. Under these circumstances, I think one must always recognise the local support and the local idea of information of the fullest character not always being necessary. I say unhesitatingly if political support for any party depends upon members voting away blindly the money of the taxpayers of the country, I am not prepared, whatever the consequences may be, to subscribe in this House to such a doctrine. (Cheers.) The result of a policy of that kind is eventually to lead this country into financial embarrassment. Proceeding, Sir Thomas Smartt urged that the Bill ought to have been brought forward timeously, and, after passing second reading, referred to Select Committee, before whom adequate information should have been placed to enable them to report to the House on the merits of the scheme. From several points of view this was of the utmost importance. The greatest blow they could strike against the cause of closer settlement would be to put people upon a place which had been adopted without the fullest information, and which could not be made a success. He would be failing in his duty if he did not express his entire disapproval of the manner in which an important measure of this character had been introduced into the House, with the slender information the Government had given them on the subject. (Opposition cheers.)

said he had not for a long time heard a more deplorable speech than that of the Leader of the Opposition which the House had just listened to. The hon. member had made a lot of insinuations, but he (the Prime Minister) advised him that if he wished to state anything he should have come openly and straightforwardly before the House and say what he had to say. (Hear, hear.) For the rest, he wished to congratulate the hon. member on the change in his views, because there could be no doubt that the hon. member had been converted. Had that conversion taken place perhaps with a view to elections of the future? Proceeding, the Prime Minister said he knew that the scheme was a big one, but he was prepared to accept the responsibility. The Government had only obtained the options on the land very recently, and that was the reason why it had been impossible to send the Bill to a Select Committee. Every possible piece of information had been given to the hon. member, but he would never listen. No one ever clamoured more for settlement than the Leader of the Opposition and now that they offered an irrigation settlement all kinds of objections were raised. Large amounts of money had been lost on settlements. This was a new enterprise. This was to be a reproductive scheme, and he could not see why it should be objected to. The hon. member apparently was annoyed at not having started the scheme himself.

You have no right to say that.

said that the hon. member had started a large scheme himself and apparently wished the Government to wait and see whether that scheme would be a success. The allegation that the Government had introduced a scheme in order to buy the right to remain in office for another twelve months was an unworthy one, especially coming from the Leader of the Opposition. (Hear, hear.) If that were his view, why then did he not propose a vote of no confidence in the Government? He (the Prime Minister) said the Government was here with the will of the people, and he would know how to act if such a vote were introduced. He was prepared to allow the public to decide. The hon. member had spoken about threats, but was himself the person who had used them. Allegations such as those made by the Leader of the Opposition were unworthy. In conclusion, the Prime Minister repeated that the scheme was a good one and should prove reproductive with due care.

said that the whole ground of the Opposition’s complaint was the Government’s refusal to give sufficient information. The insinuation of the Prime Minister that the hon. member for Fort Beaufort was against the scheme because he had not initiated it was an unworthy one. (Cheers.) There was no man who had done more for irrigation in South Africa than the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, and he had shown by his conduct for years past that he was in favour of irrigation. The Prime Minister had said that the Opposition ought to introduce a vote of no confidence. Would the Prime Minister deny that if every man in the House voted according to his conscience the Bill would not be carried? It was no use burking the matter, for hon. members were not children. They knew perfectly well that a good many men who sat on the Government side of the House were very much opposed to the Bill and that in the bottom of their hearts they condemned it. But pressure was brought to bear on them by members of the Ministry to support the scheme— (cheers)—and to stand by the Prime Minister, There was no denying that at all. The Prime Minister need not talk about votes of confidence, for he had already had one adverse vote this session. Government had not shown to this day what was the quality of the soil which was to be irrigated on which it was prepared to spend £40 a morgen What was wanted was for the Director of Irrigation to appear before a Select Committee where he could be cross-examined as to the merits of the scheme. The Minister of Railways told members that they could ask the Director of Irrigation for information. But was the House coming to such a fine state of affairs that members had to buttonhole the Director to obtain information? He supposed the time would come when they would have head officials buttonholing members in the lobby and trying to influence them in favour of Bills. That would be the result of the policy advocated by the Minister of Railways, who he (Mr. Jagger) always thought was a strong constitutionalist. It was a matter of profound sorrow to see the Minister abandoning his constitutional principles. If ever the attitude of the Opposition in regard to this Bill was justified it was justified in committee, where the rights of the riparian owners had been seriously interfered with, although the hon. member for Pretoria District, North, did not seem to know it. Evidently the interests of hon. members’ constituencies were quite secondary so long as the Government was kept in office. Were the meetings of lower proprietors going to bind those proprietors to take water from the dam? Not likely. The point which had been raised by the Minister of Lands and the Prime Minister that the scheme would provide for the settlement of poor whites had been dropped. He could understand that they did not like poor whites being mentioned, for it had been demonstrated that the land would be too good for poor whites. It had also been shown by the hon. member for Victoria West that the Government already had land at Douglas on which it could place poor whites.

Seventeen thousand morgen of it.

having remarked that a settlement on the Orange River had never paid its way, observed that the Director of Irrigation had very improperly been brought into the discussion. That having been done, he (Mr. Jagger) would venture on the assertion that, if the Director were asked in a Select Committee room as to whether the £725,000 could not be spent on irrigation projects to far better advantage than at Hartebeestpoort, he would answer unhesitatingly “Yes.” (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Jagger) made this assertion very largely on the strength of a report of a Select Committee of the Senate which had had Mr. Kanthack under examination. The committee reported that it felt bound to record its conviction that the greatest benefit would be obtained by encouraging smaller irrigation schemes, and recommended Government to arrange its policy with this end in view. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Jagger) took it that was the policy advocated by the Director of Irrigation. Then where was the money to he obtained with which to carry out this scheme? In this morning’s “Cape Times” he found, that the Administrator of the Transvaal had informed the Transvaal Provincial Council that “the Executive Committee had done everything in its power to get the necessary funds for school buildings. No capital expenditure could be found from revenue, and therefore the proposal to tax mineral values was in conflict with the provisions of the Financial Relations Act. They had been trying to get sufficient funds to provide school accommodation, but the Union Government had told them that they could not raise the necessary funds. Hon. members would have seen that the efforts of even the Union Government to raise further funds had not met with that measure of success that was anticipated.” The Administrator was perfectly right, for on May 31 the Minister of Finance was overdrawn on his revenue account.

The Minister of Finance only had £1,880,000 on the 31st of May, and had not provided for the expenditure which they were asked to sanction that session, and there were other public works yet. The total came to £15,530,000, exclusive of that £725,000. He asked hon. members on the other side of the House how was the Treasury going to provide for the scheme? They had not got the money. He noticed that the total advances that year to the Provincial Administrations of the four Provinces for school buildings came to £800,000. Here was the Minister of Education, who professed to take a great interest in education—and he thought quite sincerely—had he made no protest against that, spending that £725,000 and starving the schools? Here they were asked to sanction a work which, whether it would pay or not, was a very doubtful thing. He did not profess to understand anything about irrigation, and he was dealing with it from the financial side, but hon. members who did understand about irrigation had said that it would not pay from the irrigation point of view.

said he did not believe that the Leader of the Opposition had been prompted in his remarks by annoyance that he was not able to introduce the scheme himself. He thought the hon. member was keenly interested in irrigation, and his remarks, he thought, had been prompted by his anxiety in irrigation. The hon. member was anxious because he had insufficient information. He (the speaker), however, was convinced that the scheme was a good one, and he thought every Transvaaler, knowing the place, felt that the place was a good one. He regretted that the scheme had not been introduced earlier, as that would have enabled a Select Committee to convince everyone that the Bill was sound. The Transvaal Provincial Council declared itself in favour of the work, and they represented the whole of the Province.

said that he thought it was rather a pity that they had lost their tempers and brought a lot of extraneous matters into that question. He would not do that, but would explain what his position was with regard to the matter. He thought that the hon. member for Fort Beaufort had showed an immense deal of courage and public spirit in his action—(Opposition cheers)—when he thought of the outrageous pressure that had been put upon that gentleman. The Prime Minister had said why not bring something before the House. If they were going to legislate under threats of that kind, he thought serious notice should be taken of it. The right hon. member proceeded to read a telegram from the Unionist Party at Pretoria to Sir T. W. Smartt, that the executives viewed with alarm the position taken up by him and that it would wreck the party. Let him consult the Transvaal members. He (Mr. Merriman) would like to see the hon. members consulting the Transvaal members. (Laughter.) Then came the gem of the whole thing. A pistol was held to their heads. “The municipality favours the scheme”; of course it did, it would be monstrous if it did not The right hon. member proceeded to refer to some scheme to spend two millions on an island opposite Port Elizabeth when he had been Commissioned of Public Works in the Cape, which scheme he had opposed. They had not but a statue up to him, although he thought they should have done so. He related an anecdote of the president of the local Victuallers’ Association regretting the loss of the scheme, as the bulk of the money would have gone into their pockets. (Laughter.) Of course, the local storekeepers favoured the spending of money on public works. “The municipality favours the scheme.” The hon. member for Fort Beaufort trembled in his shoes. (Laughter.) There was a local cement factory there, and he would not be surprised if they also favoured the scheme. (Laughter.) He (Mr. Merriman) could lay his hand upon his heart and say that the Prime Minister had never attempted to convert him—neither he nor any of his colleagues, except in the House, where their efforts had been in vain. He spoke from knowledge. His reason for entering that protest was the same reason that Mr. Kanthack had laid down in his Blue-book, that he was against the Government spending money on large schemes. What were they going to do with the water when they had got it was the great thing—not how to dam up the water. He heard an hon. member say, “Look at Egypt.” Well, he was going to look at Egypt, and he asked hon. members to do so too. In Egypt they had millions of the most industrious people of the world, whose ancestors for ages had been doing the same things as they had and had been toiling year in and year out to conserve water and till the soil. Did they have these people here? No, and it would take generations to train them up. For that reason, mainly, he was opposed to these big irrigation schemes, except where private people were behind them. Continuing, the right hon. member said that they did not know of the value of the ground except what he had been told outside and that was that without manuring the ground, after one or two wettings, it was of no value. He did not know that, but it was a thing they had got to look into.

Continuing, the hon. member said that the poor white had been used as a stalking horse, picked up when wanted, and cast aside when done with. How could they expect to put poor whites on land valued at £30 per morgen and make it pay? A poor white could go to hundreds of farmers and get good land far cheaper. From information he had received there were about 150 Jews at Bethal who were making their fortunes by growing potatoes. But he did not suppose for one moment that the Government had given those people this land. It was more likely that they had saved their money and purchased it. The House had not been asked to provide nearly three-quarters of a million of money for them. It had been said that some of the opposition to this scheme had arisen from those who favoured the Worcester Canal, but that, of course, was nonsense., because these people in the Worcester district were ready to pledge their land as a surety for the success of the scheme, but here there were no such considerations. He would defy any man in that House to make out what the proposals of the Government were. Of course it was clearly stated that the poort was to be blocked up, but work like that could be done by any engineer of ability. It was the financial aspect of this scheme about which so much uncertainty existed. Could anyone say how much land was to be irrigated? The figures had reached at one time to 70,000 morgen, but if the figures were closely gone into it would be found that there was not sufficient water for more than 27,000 morgen, and from what he could learn they had not even 17,000 morgen, as really according to the Bill the extent was only 7,000, and that they had not got—(laughter)—except by agreement to take half of the irrigated ground. Of course the Government would get the best half—(laughter)—and in regard to the remaining part they would have the task of getting these people to take water from them. He could imagine the simple folk sitting there, naving sold the Government half their land, the best half, and considering whether they should take the water or not If it was a bad year they very likely would, but if the season was a good one it would be a very doubtful matter. He was convinced that nobody in that House, if asked, would put a £5 note into the scheme, and yet they were prepared to sink £700,000 of the taxpayers’ money. In conclusion, he wished to say that if there was anything that was going to wreck the Union it was these grandiose schemes such as the Pretoria Buildings and others that might be mentioned. He was going to vote against the Bill.

said the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. Merriman) had shown that the owners of the land would not be compelled to take water from the dam, but he failed to point out that the Government could expropriate their land in that event. The hon. member had also said that land at £30 per morgen was too good to place the poor white upon.

I did not say it was too good. I said it was too much for him to pay.

said the point was that they were going to take the difference between £2 and £30, the value which the land was supposed to be and they were going to make a present of that difference to the lower owners. That the hon. member (Mr. Merriman) did not so much complain about, but he did complain that they should do the same thing in the case of the poor white. He (Mr. Creswell) was prepared to give the benefit of this difference to the poor white rather than make a present of it to the owners of the land. Members on the Opposition benches might complain of the party on the cross-benches voting with the Government for such a scheme. But nothing was said about those occasions when the Opposition had not assisted the cross-benches in trying to compel the Government not to land the House in such a position as that in which they found the public business of the country to-day. It was rather curious to know that during the session there had been two of these big water schemes. The first scheme went to a committee, and owners’ rights had been taken very great care of, but it was far different in the case of the rights of the public. They on the cross-benches had suggested that that Bill (the Rand Water Bill) should be referred to the Transvaal Provincial Council, but this suggestion was declined. The result had been that the Government had placed a burden of 1½ millions sterling on the taxpayers, in order to provide cheap water for the mines. He was prepared to admit that the proposals presented by the Government of this scheme were not complete, but that of course was nothing new. (Laughter.)

Why are you going to vote for it then?

said that the impression the right hon. the member for Victoria West seemed to convey was that the Government was going to build this huge dam, and that it was quite possible that when they came to use the water they would find that the soil would not produce anything. He (Mr. Creswell) did not believe that. He did not believe the Director of Irrigation would support a scheme of that sort. He was not cracking up the scheme. There was no compulsory rate; and there was no expropriation. They had seventy thousand morgen of land under the furrow, and they had a certain amount of water available for irrigating a certain amount of land, and he thought it placed in the Minister’s hands a most invidious power of discrimination as to whose lands were to be irrigated. Then, undoubtedly, by the expenditure of this large sum of money a large number of persons were going to be greatly enriched by the immensely increased value of their holdings. He might be asked why, if this Bill was bad, was he not prepared to oppose it? He would tell the House why.

Pressure being put on you. (Laughter.)

No, we did not receive any telegrams. (Laughter.)

Continuing, he said that they did know the distress prevailing in Pretoria, on the Witwatersrand and throughout the country was such that if any measure was proposed by the Government and was going to shed a ray of light they would support it. The Government and the members on the other side had caused that distress. It was stated in Pretoria and the districts there were 700 or 800 men and their families starving, while in Johannesburg and on the Rand there was a greater amount of distress. By this scheme, which was not going to be an absolute failure or a gigantic success, they were going to hold out hopes to these men of a large amount of employment.

Whites?

The Minister has undertaken that the labour will be white. All the natives are wanted for the mines. Continuing, he said he acknowledged that this was a had Bill, and he acknowledged they were not going to oppose it for the reason that so much distress prevailed in the Transvaal. A large amount of land would be irrigated, and the land would be put to better use than it had been in the past. As to the method in which it was being done he entirely agreed with a great deal that had been said on the Unionist side of the House. He was quite prepared to have it stated to the country that they, on the cross-benches, were prepared to support a Bill with all this evil in it, but he was prepared to defend their position on the same ground as he had stated to the House. If they wanted to avoid such a position let them give up passing Indemnity Bills and Industrial Bills and things of that sort, and tackle the problems that required tackling and fight the Government on every measure they brought forward—

Except this one. (Laughter.)

Except this one. Continuing, he said they should make the Government put their noses down to the real problems—to tax the land, to put a stop to the indentured native labour system, to reverse the Government’s policy which the Unionists had been supporting, and to take steps to alleviate the distress they had brought about. A large number of the landowners would be enriched as the result of this scheme, and when the time came for the Labour Party in the Transvaal and South Africa to take back some of these riches for the State don’t let them talk about confiscation.

said they had had more frankness from the leader of the Labour Party than they had had from the Government, and he congratulated the leader of the Labour Party. Members on the cross-benches, like other members, might have heard a statement outside that if the Bill did not go through they would have a more severe crisis than they had on the last occasion. The discussion on that measure had shown that this statement was well grounded. The reason the Labour Party was going to support the measure was because it meant the expenditure of a large sum of money on behalf of people now out of employment. The hon. member for Jeppe had stated that this distress was due to the Government and the Unionists. Never a word did the hon. member for Jeppe say about Mr. Tom Matthews or the nine deportees or the Strike Committee at Benoni.

Read the judge’s report.

I have read it. What has it got to do with the party here? Who are hitched up to the Government to-day? Continuing, he said that members of the Labour Party had told them that they had received no telegrams and that their supporters expected them to vote for the expenditure of money without inquiry. The right hon. the member for Victoria West and the Leader of the Opposition had commented scathingly on the American methods of those up North. What about the telegram sent to the Prime Minister by the Mayor of Pretoria? Did the Prime Minister have the courage to say anything about that?

If hon. members wished to know why he opposed this Bill, let them just remember that there had not been a single word said about the soil analysis of the land to be irrigated. Were there no records of it? If so, where were they? Even the hon. member for Victoria West, who was called the “father of irrigation ” in this Province, had gone clean astray on the question whether the Government had got. 7,000 morgen or not The Government knew that if they tried to settle the poor white problem to any extent by putting poor whites on this scheme their whole argument as to the financial stability of the scheme went sky-high, like the first scheme that was produced. They knew that if they put poor whites on this land they could not extract the rates from them that would make the scheme a success. They could not make the country believe two things, that this scheme was going to be a financial success and that at the same time it wa3 going to settle the poor white question. If it were a financial scheme, his objection held good that the riparian owners were receiving immense benefits for which they were not going to pay. What surprised him most of all was that the Prime Minister should accuse the hon. member for Fort Beaufort of having changed his mind. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort had been entirely and absolutely consistent from the first time the Bill was brought before the House. The Prime Minister had changed his mind three or four times, with no explanation except it was found that he himself was so short of information that he had had to change his standpoint from day to day as the matter went on and they extracted more information. The Prime Minister had said that the people who were responsible for this scheme would shoulder the responsibility. Who was responsible for this? The Government was responsible for the scheme and the general taxpayer would have to find the money. It was clear to him that the persons who were putting this scheme through were not going to bear their fair share of the responsibility, if it proved a financial failure. He would commend to the careful study of hon. members a book by Jack London entitled “The Valley of the Moon.”

Yes, and follow it up with “The Iron Heel.”

said that the right hon. gentleman in his remarks mentioned Egypt, and told them there were millions of people there, capable, willing, and industrious workers. They on the cross-benches did not deny that, but the inference evidently was that there were not people able and willing in this country to work land, if made available. In the Annual Report of the Department of Lands he found the following interesting little paragraph, at page 8: “Many inquiries are being received by the department regarding Government farms on the high veld of the Transvaal, where there is an undoubted demand for land. ... It is very noticeable that the demand is not for large farms on the high veld. The demand is for good agricultural holdings of from 200 to 450 morgen. The town applicant is keen on the high veld, as are also many applicants from the Cape Province. But the land must be good, it must be near the railway line, and it must have water. Sheep farming is seldom mentioned; the price of land is such that the inquirers seem keen on getting their return principally from agriculture and dairying.” Again, at page 12 of the Report, they found the following: “In addition to the demand from men who have been brought up on farms and who are desirous of obtaining ground, there is also a considerable demand from men living in towns who wish to settle on the land. These people—many of whom are of the artisan class—ask for small holdings, from about 50 to 100 morgen in extent, which, however, must be first-class land, situate on or near the railway. Their desire is to establish dairies and to undertake market gardening and poultry rearing, with a view to supplying the large towns. Quite a number of such inquiries have recently been received from persons on the Witwatersrand, but, owing to no suitable land being at the disposal of the department, it is not possible to meet such requirements.” It was clear, the hon. member went on to say, that there was a demand for small pieces of land in the vicinity of railways and towns. The hon. member for Jeppe had stated that he had the support of members on the cross-benches. That was correct. They were with his hon. friend in this matter. They reckoned that a great deal of the opposition to this Bill was of a very artificial character—(hear, hear)—and not due to the fact that the Bill was not in the interests of the public purse, but because the scheme happened to be in the wrong part of the country. Hon. members who opposed this Bill were not solicitous for the public purse; they had not got their share of the “boodle.”

The hon. member for Newlands had said that the hon. members on the cross-benches were responsible for the unemployed in the Transvaal. That showed the hon. member’s profound ignorance, and if it were not ignorance it was wilfully untrue. Who sacked the men from the mines?

Who brought the men out of the mines? (Cheers.)

They pulled themselves out.

I wish I was as powerful as the hon. gentleman gives me credit for being. I would have all the men out to-morrow, and would keep them out until the damnable conditions under which they worked were altered. We are constantly getting reports as to what goes on in these mines. The hon. member for Newlands accuses us in a most hypocritical way of being enemies of the men on the Rand, but he knows better. He cannot be so profoundly ignorant as he pretends to be. (Laughter.)

Continuing, Mr. Andrews said the unemployed problem was the direct result of the conditions of society, and he did not suppose that a dozen such dams would put the matter right, but it would have a tendency in that direction. The report of the Select Committee of the Senate on soil erosion showed the necessity of preserving water at all costs, or sooner or later we should not have a country here at all, but a collection of dongas. The scheme was full of faults, but let them have the dam and the land cultivated. The price would go up and then Government should see that a reasonable proportion of the enhanced value of the land should come back to the public Treasury. Was the country getting what it ought to receive through the carrying out of the scheme for the construction of the Robertson Canal? The result of irrigation and ostrich farming at Oudtshoorn and elsewhere had been to throw men out of employment.

Nonsense.

in conclusion, said the Hartebeestpoort scheme would give more employment than all the Cape irrigation schemes.

said the House had just had to listen to one of the usually poisonous statements of the hon. member for George Town. He (Mr. Nathan) said that deliberately. The sooner the hon. member changed his tactics the better. The hon. member had stated that the opposition to the Bill was of an artificial character, and that the Opposition opposed the railway schemes of last session because the lines were to be laid down in the wrong part of the country. The hon. member knew that these statements were false, and were made with the object of misleading the country—not the House, because the House knew the statements were false. The Minister of Lands had stated that while Mr. Kanthack did not support the Hartebeestpoort scheme he did not condemn it.

There is not a word of condemnation in the report.

Take it whichever way you like, there is no support of the scheme in the report. To ask the country to spend £725,000 on an immature scheme is a crying shame.

Vote.

Look at the time.

I grieve at the disloyalty of the hon. member for Jeppe to the Prime Minister, who has put him in his position. The Prime Minister will know who his friends are in future. (Laughter.)

said the hon. member for George Town would be well advised to support schemes that would probably be a success. He (Mr. Fawcus) thought this scheme was going to be a failure. The land would cost £40 a morgen and £2 a year for water. Only the most valuable land could be made to pay under such circumstances.

Business was suspended at 12.45 p.m.

continuing, said that although from a Socialist point of view it might be a good thing to spend £750,000 of the country’s money on a State enterprise, it was possible to exhaust the credit of the country, and every £750,000 they spent brought them nearer to the point at which the credit of the country became attenuated. Based on the experience of the past, he knew how little, was to be expected of those purely Governmental enterprises. He believed that apart from the possibilities of the scheme, the mere fact of it being a Governmental enterprise would go a long way to upset it. He would like to criticise to a small extent the statement made by the Leader of the Opposition, who had said that should the scheme be a failure it would put back the hands of the clock very greatly in South Africa, so far as irrigation was concerned. He was not prepared to accept that point of view entirely, because he believed that the only irrigation matters that would be affected by such a failure would be State controlled enterprises of that sort. If they had large numbers of successful private irrigation schemes carried on in South Africa, they would stand on their own feet, and would not be affected by the failure of a Governmental scheme. A scheme which was carried on on the lines of the responsibility of the individuals who put up the money was a vastly different thing to State enterprises.

said he did not want the third reading of that Bill to pass by merely recording a silent vote. He understood that the word had gone forth that the Government regarded that measure as a vital matter, and therefore some hon. members on that side of the House who would have recorded their vote otherwise were, in view of that fiat from the Government, prepared to sacrifice their independent judgment. He for one was not prepared to sacrifice his independent judgment or opinions on any mandate from anybody or any party. If that Bill became law it would be a standing monument to the utter want of business methods applied by the Government in that matter. It would not only be a standing monument to their utter want of business methods, but it would also place on record how easy it was for a tired House to vote hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money without due and proper consideration. He thought that Bill was a bad Bill, and it would for all times stand on the Statute Book as a monument to the business incapacity of the Government to show how easy it was for hon. members to be prepared at the end of the session, without proper inquiry, to vote away hundreds of thousands of pounds. He was surprised at the attitude which had been taken up by members on the cross-benches. On many occasions he had agreed with some of the principles they had enunciated, but now they were prepared to sweep all their sound doctrines on one side and vote for that Bill. He thought it must be a hard thing for the hon. member for Jeppe (Mr. Creswell) to have to swallow that Bill. The reason for the hon. members on the cross-benches supporting the Bill was that they regarded it as a measure of relief. There was a good deal to be said for starting relief works, but his point of view was this, if they wanted to have a relief Bill let them see that the whole of the money, £750,000, was spent upon relief and upon relief only. Did the Labour members not see that under that scheme, although there would be temporary relief, the effect was going to be that certain private owners of land in the neighbourhood of the proposed dam would benefit, so far as he could see from the figures placed before the House, to the extent of £200,000 to £250,000. Hon. members would have to tell their constituents that there had been a deficit in the Budget of almost £1,000,000, that this was a year of very great financial stringency, and they would have to explain to their constituents that the Government, during the last week of the session, brought forward that irrigation scheme involving £750,000 of public money, and brought forward that scheme with the most meagre information possible. Never before in the history of South Africa had there been such a costly and gigantic scheme of that kind laid before the House without adequate information. The sooner the House and the country made up their mind to insist on business methods, that no money should be expended without proper inquiry, then the sooner would their finances and credit rest on a sounder foundation. The policy of the Government with regard to irrigation schemes could be found in the evidence of the Chief Director of Irrigation given before the Select Committee. The technical adviser of the Government had stated it as his deliberate opinion that the only irrigation schemes that ought to be taken in hand in South Africa were schemes of a small nature and spread all over the country. That struck him as ordinary commonsense. But now they found an entirely new experiment was to be made, a pure experiment, with no information of any reliability before the House. He would not repeat private conversations with the Director of Irrigation, but he ventured to say that it this question was put to him by the Government: “Would you, a Director of Irrigation, recommend that a sum of nearly £700,000 should be devoted to this irrigation work?” he ventured to say that the Director would be the last man to say that money should be spent on this scheme. He would like hon. members on that side to explain to their constituents if they had voted for this Bill on its merits.

Certainly.

They have. I will accept what they say. I have reason to believe that undue political pressure has been brought to bear on some members. (Cries of “No, no.”)

It cannot be denied, and I leave it to the Prime Minister or some other Minister to say whether they have not indicated to some of their followers that the Government regards this as a vital matter, and that they expect party discipline to prevail. That may be all very well, but when it involves such a vast sum, and when I believe it will lead to the enrichment of a number of private land-owners, I am not prepared to take the responsibility of voting public money in this manner.

said he desired to reply to a few points, and he would commence with the hon. member for Barberton. He had not for a minute expected support from that hon. member, because he knew that the member for Barberton (Mr. Hull) washed to place every obstacle in the road of the Government wherever possible. When the hon. member was in the Government, schemes had been passed with a good deal less information. This scheme was going to be a successful one, and the prophecy of the hon. member for Barberton that it was going to be a failure would not come true. He (the speaker) gave certain hon. members credit for knowing something about irrigation, but he claimed that he (the speaker) knew more. There had been an old scheme in the Free State, with less information, which had been carried out, because they had had practical information, and the work had been an entire success. They had heard of scarecrows, but the right hon. member for Victoria West as regarded this scheme was the best scarecrow he had ever heard of. He (the speaker) held that they had quite enough information to carry out the scheme. The right hon. member for Victoria West had distorted the remarks of Ministers. The work at The bus had failed because it had not been completed, and he believed that when it was finished that scheme also would be a success. Sufficient technical information had been put before the House. He took the word of the Director of Irrigation that they would not run short of water. It had been said that the furrows would serve seventy thousand morgen. Not all that ground could be cultivated or was irrigable, but at least 15,000 morgen was excellent. Mr. Merriman refused to accept the statements put before him by members here in the House, who knew the ground; he refused to accept the testimony of farmers themselves who lived on the ground, but he wished to get the testimony of people here in Cape Town. He could tell the House that the ground for the scheme was the same “red chocolate” found on the Springbok Flats.

As to the remarks of the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, he thought the hon. member meant well, but his point of view, was so limited, he could not see further than the smoke of the Cape. (Hear, hear.) Most of the members who had opposed this scheme belonged to the Cape, and could see no further. Members from Johannesburg had also opposed the scheme, and he wished to tell the hon. member for Von Brandis (Mr. Nathan) that he was doing the Director of Irrigation an injustice. There was not a word of condemnation in the report of the Director, and as investigations proceeded the view had gradually expanded that the scheme was a justifiable one, and he (the speaker) had every respect for the opinions of the Director, who was a man who had done much for South Africa. With regard to other remarks which had been made, he contended that it was quite impossible to construct any irrigation scheme without interfering with the vested rights of anyone at all. But the time had come for the Government to take steps to do what was in the interests of South Africa. He did not wish to say anything about the remarks of the leader of the Opposition, whose speech had been well answered by the hon. member for George Town. In conclusion, the Minister said he was pleased that the leader of the Opposition had, notwithstanding his objections, given the scheme his blessing.

put the question that the Bill be now read a third time.

said that when progress was reported last night vote No. 32, Agricultural Department, £471,785, was under consideration.

withdrew the item “Angora and mohair expert, £409,” and moved to reduce the item of field-cornets’ salaries from £11,409 to £5,176, and, under the heading of “field cornets, transport and travelling,” to reduce the item of £760 to £370, £280 to £100, and £500 to £160.

moved that the sub-heads be taken seriatim.

Agreed to.

On sub-head (a), Administration and general, £45,395,

said it would be most valuable to farmers if the Agricultural Department could compile a manual of stock and insect posts and their remedies, which the farmers would gladly buy. Most of the information had appeared from time to time in “The Agricultural Journal.”

said that in his district 90 horses had died last year of horse sickness. People did not know what the cure was, and he hoped the Minister would inform the House as to what should be done and how the cure could be placed within the reach, of the people. The public had heard of Dr. Theiler’s discovery, but could get no real information about it.

asked what did the Minister mean by appointing a wattle grader? There were already in the Agricultural Department six officials with an average salary of £1,230 and 88 officials with an average salary of £537 each. It was impossible to grade wattle bark. Why did the Agricultural Department like to put its finger in every pie it could? He was glad that the Minister of Agriculture had knocked on the head the proposal that there should be an Angora goat expert. The Natal people had successfully managed the export of wattle for years past without Government help. Why did the department interfere with people who managed their own business a jolly sight better than the Government could do it for them?

moved the deletion of the items “Wattle Bark Grader, £400,” and “Grading of Wattle Bark, £100.” He said that the Natal wattle growers were as prosperous, independent and hardworking a lot of people as could be found in South Africa and they did not wish for any Government assistance. The matter had been very well put by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, who was a walking encyclopædia on all subjects. If they wished their bark to be graded they could perfectly well afford to pay for it themselves, and did not wish to be pauperised, This was only part of a continuous attempt by the Government to get everything into its own hands. He did not think it was a question of trying to find a billet for anyone. It was an absolute impossibility to grade the bark, and if they did grade it the buyers at Hamburg would take no notice of the grading. Natal had been exporting wattle bark for 28 or 30 years.

asked if the wattle growers were to be taxed to pay for the grading. He hoped those people would be taxed like the unfortunate fruit growers, into whose business the Government poked its nose a few years ago.

said it was felt that the Agricultural Department should offer advice to farmers and for those services the department should be paid. A charge was made, to fruit growers in that respect, and he supposed the right hon. member did not object to that. With regard to wattle, the wattle grader had been appointed at the request of a number of shippers in Natal, he would not say the majority, but a good many of them. They were going to pay for the grader’s services, and it was estimated that 28,000 tons of wattle would be graded during the season. For that they expected to be paid. If the wattle growers did not come forward to patronise the wattle grader, he would abolish that post. The officer had been appointed on April 1st and a good deal of preliminary work had had to be done. He quite agreed that it was in the interests of the country for each Province to take over the grants-in-aid to the agricultural societies. Replying to Mr. Kuhn in Dutch, the Minister was understood to say that experiments in regard to treatment of horse sickness were still proceeding.

said it seemed to him that everybody from Natal was against the appointment of a wattle grader, and he did not see why the Minister should force it on them.

said he was not forcing the grader on the shippers at all. If they did not use the services of the officer he would withdraw him.

said the position in regard to the wattle industry was that a great industry was developing. The trouble was, however, that the wattle bark was placed on the market in such a manner as to harm the industry. That was the reason why a grader had been appointed. If, however, the growers did not avail themselves of the services of this official, he would be withdrawn. The planter required information.

drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that fertiliser manufacturers in other parts of the Union could not send their fertilisers into the Cape Province unless they appointed an agent here who was responsible to the Government for any penalties that might be imposed under Proclamation 138. Now that they were under Union, and Free Trade was one of their objects, he thought it was time such a restriction should be removed.

said wattle growers were starting, all over Natal. But the wattle grader was stationed in Durban, so that only the large buyer was getting the benefit of his services. Therefore the man who should be taught what kind of wattle bark he should grow had no benefit at all. He urged that the grader should travel about and instruct people, otherwise, how would the grower ever get to know what was the best sort to cultivate?

referring to the item “Investigation of Bars in Ostrich Feathers,” said that investigation had been going on for four years, and the matter ought to have been solved by that time. He thought the time had arrived when the matter should have been solved, or they should have been told it was impossible of solution. He found no provision for Barbary ostriches. He had been informed that six of those ostriches had escaped from the Agricultural School at Grootfontein. (Laughter.)

said the hon. member must raise the matter on the vote for Grootfontein.

said an amount had been put down for the administration of the Wines, Spirits, and Vinegar Act. There had been complaints that that Act was not properly administered. He had complained to the Minister of Finance, and nobody seemed to know where the administration of the Act lay. It was really an Excise matter, and the proper investigations were not being made. A certain amount of friction was being set up, and he thought the Minister should apply himself to that business. They did not want any fresh legislation; they simply wanted the legislation in force carried out by the Government.

said he thought £240 was too little to put on the Estimates for the investigation of bars in ostrich feathers. It was the duty of the Government to try, as far as possible, to rid the country of any disease. He did hope in the future that they would see an adequate sum down on the Estimates in place of this £240.

said he thought the Adulteration Act was administered far too well, because it had had the effect of killing the trade in Natal rum. They were supposed to put a certain amount of ether in the rum, and it had been found impossible to fulfill this condition. He thought the House should not vote money for the administration of an Act that had dealt such a blow to a Natal industry.

said that he wished to deal with the administration of this Act, but from a different point of view. It was difficult to know where an appeal should be lodged in order that matters might be rectified. Dealing with wine brandy, he said that the wine had been bought up to be turned into brandy in order to take advantage of the lower duty on wine brandy, and he thought there was very little wine of last year’s vintage left in the country. He believed that all the dop brandy that was in stock last year had been mixed with this immature wine brandy and sold as brandy cognac type. The returns showed that during the last half of 1913 the amount of brandy sent to the Transvaal was 15 per cent. more than the amount sent during the first half. He would like information on the point, because he was interested in the matter, although front a different point of view to that of the hon. member for Umlazi. He referred to the amount set down for three Provincial inquiry offices, and said he thought that the Cape Province was large enough to have four herself, one on the west, one in the midlands, one in the east, and one in the Transkeian Territories. He went on to say that he did not think they would have success from an agricultural point of view until they had decentralisation. Continuing, he thought that more might be done for agriculture in the Territories. They wanted something permanent, because the population was big and the possibilities were big.

said it had been found necessary to have offices in the different Provinces to keep in touch with the farmers. Unfortunately Natal was without one at present, but he hoped to make good the deficiency very-soon. The hon. member for Tembuland had suggested that there should be two or three in the Cape Province alone, and he would see what could be done in the future. With regard to what had been said by the hon. member for Umlazi, he said he was doing his utmost to tighten up the Act, and pointed out that if rum was not up to the standard it could be sold as spirit, if it were labelled as such. With regard to what had been said by the right hon. the member for Victoria West, touching cane sugar in wine, the Minister said he was doing his best to find out whether the case was as it was stated to be. He was understood to say that he thought the only way they could check it would be to have a restriction on cane sugar. Replying to the hon. member for Durban, Berea, he said that a Bill had been drafted for the whole Union dealing with fertilisers, and this he hoped to introduce next session. Replying to the hon. member for Von Brandis he referred the hon. member to the very interesting and instructive report which had been prepared by Professor Duerden, who had done a great deal for the industry. He hoped the hon. member would read the report. If he required any further information, say, with regard to Barbary ostriches, he would be pleased to-supply the committee with the information desired if they came to Grootfontein.

referred to the difficulty farmers had in getting into touch with the Agricultural Department.

said he was sure that magistrates and other officials would be only too willing to supply farmers with information which Would enable them to get into touch with the department.

suggested to the Minister that he should consider whether arrangements could not be made for specimens sent to the Agricultural Department for investigation to be carried post free.

said he desired to raise a point of considerable importance to the wine and brandy farmers of this country, especially those who were desirous of making a first-class article, in regard to the manner in which the whole intention of the Adulteration Act was being frustrated, but he thought, on the whole, perhaps it would be more convenient to raise this question on the excise vote.

The amendments of the hon. member for Umlazi were negatived.

The sub-head was agreed to.

pointed out that the Select Committee on Public Accounts last year recommended that a small fee should be charged for each visit by a veterinary surgeon. When this matter was brought before the Minister of Agriculture he stated that, as a matter of policy, he was opposed to a fee being charged. The Select Committee had gone into the question again this year and had endorsed their previous recommendation. Mr. Jagger went on to say that he had no objection to the services of veterinary surgeons being rendered gratuitously in case of a scourge or something of that kind, but when a farmer availed himself of the services of a veterinary surgeon, where a horse had become lame, for instance, a fee should be charged.

asked whether it was not possible for the Minister to send a veterinary surgeon to Gordonia, where at present great inconvenience was suffered by people owing to the line being kept closed. Cattle were caught and kept in quarantine owing to an alleged disease. All animals had to be tested, but he held that there was no disease at all. If a veterinary surgeon were sent, he could consult with people in German territory as to what the disease was.

wished to know what the position was in regard to East Coast fever.

asked under what item veterinary surgeons could be discussed.

said he desired to draw attention to the action of the department with regard to the district of Cala, in the Transkeian Territories, and for that purpose he would, if necessary, move that the salary of the Principal Veterinary Surgeon be reduced by £100. East Coast fever began in the Transkeian Territories a hundred miles from Cala some three or four years ago. At first the department thought of keeping it back by means of fences in the different native districts. That was found ineffective, and was done away with. All the districts in the Native Territories were left without fencing, but, in order to protect the more European districts from the native districts of the Transkei, it was determined to put up a fence between the districts of Eliot and Maclear on the one side and the more native districts on the other. As a matter of fact the disease remained very near the coast. In Cala, a native district which was adjacent to the district of Eliot, there have only been two cases, and for the first 18 months or more there had been no case whatever. There had been cases of East Coast fever in the Eliot district, quite as many as, if not more than, in the Cala district, notwithstanding the fence between the two districts. The quarrel of his constituents with the department, an old quarrel, was that they were placed under disadvantages compared with the European districts. Although there was less East Coast fever in the Cala district than in the adjoining district of Eliot, permission was given to the people of Eliot to remove their cattle to a quarantine station over the mountain in the Barkly East district and, after the cattle had thus been quarantined for some days, they could be disposed of. There was also a similar quarantine station in the Wodehouse district. What he objected to on behalf of his constituents at Cala was that they were not given the same advantages. Although the fence was put up to protect the Eliot district from the possibility of East Coast fever, the natives in the locations that happened to be alongside the fence were mulct 18s. 9d. a head to pay the cost, although they received no advantage whatever. It was an absolute injustice to make a few natives pay 18s. 9d. each for a fence erected to divide the whole of the Transkei from the European districts, and to protect the white people on the other side. The natives, however, would not have minded this if the Government had allowed them to send their cattle from the Cala district as was done in Eliot. If the Minister had done justice to these people he (Mr. Schreiner) would not be occupying the attention of the House, but when one did not get justice one was bound to bring the matter before Parliament, and his duty to his constituents was above every other consideration. He did not see the least reason why facilities granted to the Eliot district should not be granted to the Cala district. As a proof that the department did not apprehend any likelihood of East Coast fever breaking out in Cala district he might state that the stock inspector in Cala was going to be removed to Cofimvaba district. He was told that the result of what had been done had been to destroy the prosperity of the district altogether. Owing to the unnecessary restrictions cattle in Cala district were worth very much less than in the adjoining Eliot district, and business was in as bad a state as possible. If all the people affected were Europeans the thing would not be continued for another week.

said he saw there was only £6,000 on the Estimates for the destruction of cattle, in place of £7,500 last year. The question of the destruction of tubercular cattle on the Rand was a very serious one. In his constituency there were a large number of dairymen, who, day after day, were fearing that veterinary surgeons might order the destruction of the cattle. They were anxious to have the disease eradicated, but objected to cattle on the Rand being treated differently from cattle elsewhere.

said the climatic condition at Cala differed very widely from that prevailing elsewhere. He further wished to point out that the farmers had put up the fences themselves while nothing had been done by the natives. Cala was in the bushveld, whilst Eliot was in the mountains.

said he understood that East Coast fever had broken out in the Barberton district and that in consequence all inter-district communication had been stopped. Representations had been made to him from a portion of the district where no fever had existed for a very long time, the people of which felt they would be absolutely ruined unless some relaxation of the restrictions were made. They were principally transport riders, and they would be willing to have their cattle dipped and to subscribe towards the cost of the erection of a dip.

asked for information regarding the position of the East Coast fever in East London, King William’s Town, and Komgha districts, and whether there was any possibility in the near future of some of the restrictions being relaxed. Some of these restrictions were exceedingly foolish and useless, and simply caused annoyance to the farmers. The Government issued a large number of restrictions, but there appeared to be no provision for enforcing them. The result was that the man who wished to regard them was handicapped, while the man who disregarded them went free. At Komgha the people had the utmost difficulty in getting rid of their surplus stock, which was of high-class, while in Cape Town people had to eat cold storage meat or some wretched tough beef. (Laughter.)

said he would like to know what the amount of£38,225 for stock inspectors was intended for. He complained that Utrecht might be quite clean of East Coast fever, while the surrounding districts might be full of the disease. The infected cattle from the Piet Retief district could freely enter the Utrecht district, and unless the Minister took drastic steps there was a danger of the position again becoming serious. He asked the Minister to see to it that good and sufficient stock inspectors were appointed. What was the good of doing everything to eradicate East Coast fever in one district whilst an adjoining district was infested and allowed to remain infested?

said that, with reference to gal lamziekte, as the years went by, they got no further in dealing with that disease. Suggestions had been made last year about employing new scientific experts, but they were still in the same position. They could not help but feel that the time had come when some radical step should be taken to deal with the disease. They should not go on on indefinite lines. In Sir A. Theiler they had one of the best experts in the world, but the time had come for them to consider whether they should not put that investigation in other hands. He recognised fully the value of Dr. Theiler’s work, but every man had his limitations, and it occurred sometimes that the greatest experts failed. Sometimes a man got lost in the mass of his own material. The Prime Minister would tell them perhaps that they had got fresh advice, but they must go further than that. They should get a man, he thought, who would be placed quite outside Dr. Theiler. Anyone coming to such a position should have the advantage of everything that was being done and had been done by Dr. Theiler and everybody else. He was sure Sir A. Theiler was a big enough man not to wish to keep back a single thing, and that he would submit all his work to the new expert. When their best man failed, it was a good thing to say they would try a second-best man.

said the natives who happened to live on one side of the fence which separated the whole of the Transkei from the districts of Eliot and Maclear were being charged 18s. 9d. per head, in order to pay for a fence for which the men on the other side paid nothing. He would like the House to remember that it was in the Transkeian Territories that East Coast fever had existed for the last 3 or 4 years, and that the people in those Territories had given an example to the rest of South Africa in erecting tanks and dipping their cattle.

said that the present position with regard to veterinary surgeons was very ridiculous. He saw that there were 49 district veterinary surgeons, and the distribution of them was neither right nor fair. Those men were given areas so large that they could do nothing, and were of no assistance to the farmers at all. All they could do was to visit the smaller towns situated in that area. With regard to gallamziekte, he did not wish to go as far as the hon. member for Barkly (Dr. Watkins) did, but the matter was so important that he thought the Government should get out two experts, who could start in their own way to investigate the disease. The Government had no idea of the thousands of cattle which were dying every month from the disease. He did not think they were giving that matter the attention they ought to. There should be more scientific investigations. He would even go as far as to say that if the Minister finds that he could not take the money out of the Treasury they should put a tax on the cattle of the country, but let the farmers have the best scientific advice possible. He referred to the theory of Dr. Matthias, which was in conflict with that of Sir Arnold Theiler. Under the former system, cattle had been inoculated with good results, and it gave immunity for five months. Although contrary to the practice of Sir A. Theiler, they must look at facts, and he hoped that the Minister would give the point his attention.

said notwithstanding all that was said about the superfluity of veterinary surgeons, there could sometimes be insufficient veterinary surgeons. It was extraordinary to him that an expert, Mr. Goemans, who had been sent here by the High Commissioner, should have been discharged. Had it not been so late in the session he would have moved for the appointment of a Select Committee. It appeared to him that there had from the beginning been a feeling of suspicion against Mr. Goemans on the part of the heads of departments. Mr. Goemans was sent to Vryburg to study gallamziekte, and to his (the speaker’s) mind, had come nearer a solution than anyone else. Mr. Goemans had not been discharged, but his position had been made untenable. By his departure the country had suffered a severe loss. It seemed to him that the authorities did not realise the seriousness of this gal-lamziekte, as otherwise they would not have allowed such a valuable official to go.

endorsed what had been said by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, with regard to district veterinary surgeons. His (the speaker’s) idea was that they should be subsidised and allowed to make charges. This just brought out the point he had so often made—the differentiation when dealing with human beings and cattle. He thought that the vote should be about half the sum that was set down.

said gal-lamziekte was one of the most serious diseases farmers had ever been faced with. Thousands of head of cattle had already died, so that many farmers had been practically ruined. Dr. Theiler had first of all come to the conclusion that the disease came through the skin, and afterwards he changed his opinion and said it came through the mouth. Some farmers had started dipping, while others began with inoculation. He pointed out that Dr. Matthias had favoured inoculation, and quoted from a report on this system to the effect that immunity would only be from four to six months as the result of inoculation. Why not go on with this system, he asked, so that they might perfect the system? Mr. De Waal proceeded to point to Sir Arnold Theiler’s experiments in regard to horse-sickness. He knew of Dr. Theiler’s ability, but he feared that there was a good deal of professional jealousy about, and meanwhile whilst the experiments were going on, all the cattle were dying.

replying said he felt the seriousness of the position in regard to gal-lamziekte, and he could assure the House that he would do his utmost to deal with the disease. If necessary they would retain Professor Hedmyer for a longer period. In regard to the matter raised by the hon. member for Boshof, he wished to advise the member that if he wished to come to his office he would show him the correspondence which had taken place on his case, but he did not think it advisable to deal with the matter in the House.

speaking in English, went on to say, regarding the remarks of the hon. member for Barkly, that he thought this country ought to be grateful to Sir A. Theiler for the valuable services he had rendered in South Africa. He (the Minister) quite agreed that more veterinary surgeons were required, and the time was passing away when there was a strong feeling against veterinary surgeons. Previously people had no faith in them, but at the present moment they were coming round to the feeling that they should have scientific men to assist them and to give them advice. The time was fast approaching when they might reasonably increase the veterinary staff, but if they did that the farmers to whom they rendered services should be called upon to pay for those services. At the present time the veterinary surgeons were doing what he might call police work, in regard to East Coast fever and tuberculosis. If they were to make a charge they could not meet the demands, because they had not the staff to do it. They only allowed the veterinary surgeons when they had time to assist farmers who came forward asking for assistance. He was going into the matter very carefully during the recess. There were two policies, the one was to subsidise veterinary surgeons, but personally he felt more inclined to have veterinary surgeons directly under the control of the department. But then they had the risk of doing away with private practitioners altogether. He hoped that if he came forward with increased expenditure next year, the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, would help the matter through. Turning to the hon. member for Vryheid, he said that he was glad that compulsory dipping was coming forward. It was an excellent thing, and he was glad people were asking for it.

resuming in the Dutch language, said, in regard to the matter raised by Mr. Geldenhuys, the question had had his attention ever since he had been in the Cabinet. The position in regard to tuberculosis was a serious one, and he could quite see the hardship if animals were destroyed and only a low compensation paid. He had considered the advisability of providing for larger compensation. At present they did not know what really the position was in regard to tuberculosis in cattle; investigations were being made. Answering Mr. Kuhn, the Minister pointed to the dangers which might result if the line was thrown open and the cattle could go all over. Answering Mr. Grobler, the Minister said that of the stock inspectors there were 29 in the Transvaal. Replying to Mr. Yenter, the Minister said 260,000 head of cattle had been inoculated in the Transkei, and 40 per cent. of these had been saved. In regard to the matter raised by the hon. member for Tembuland, he had discussed the question with the hon. member very fully, but at the present moment it was impossible for him to relax the regulations as to the removal of stock in those parts. As to the point raised by the hon. member with reference to certain locations, that was a matter he would go into very fully. The hon. member for Border wanted him to break the law. He knew it was a most difficult thing with these restrictions and that they were troublesome and cumbersome, but under the circumstances they could not deal with the question in any way except in the way it had been dealt with by the department. The position at the present moment was that they had saved the rest of the Cape Province. He felt confident that the way in which they were working at the present moment was the right way to prevent the disease from spreading into the Province.

said he must protest against the Minister saying that he (Mr. Blaine) had talked about breaking the law. He did not think there was any more law-abiding man in the House. There was no member, he was certain, in this House who represented a more law-abiding community than he did. All he had done was to ask for information as to whether they were going to relax some of the foolish restrictions which had been imposed, of which they had had an instance recently in King William’s Town upon a report being made that an animal had died from East Coast fever.

said he desired to draw the Minister’s attention to the position in the northern part of his constituency. He pointed out that there was great difficulty owing to the fact that cattle could not be taken from one part to another, and if an agreement could be arrived at under which the cattle could be taken over other territory, he thought a great deal of good would be done. He understood a place of entry from German South-West Africa was to be allocated.

replied that he could make no promise, but would look into the matter.

said that the Minister’s reply would be very unsatisfactory to the people in Cala. Did the Minister really mean that as long as there was a case of East Coast fever in the whole of the Transkeian Territories these people in Cala, although there was no East Coast fever there, were to be debarred from the facilities which the adjoining districts had, simply because they happened to be rather more native than European?

said that his hon. friend must not cast any reflection, because one district was more European and the other native. In Cala they had a mixed population of Europeans and natives. It was quite impossible for him to allow this for the sake of the rest of the Province.

said that the House was indebted to the hon. gentleman for the full manner in which he had gone into the questions which had been raised, especially in reference to gal-lamziekte, He wanted to endorse everything which had been said as to the extreme seriousness of this disease. Sir Thomas paid a high tribute to the services rendered by Sir A. Theiler and those associated with him in this matter. He went on to urge the Minister to go thoroughly into the whole question during the recess and endeavour to secure the services of the best man possible to devote himself exclusively in the districts where the disease was prevalent to investigations with a view of finding a remedy for the existing state of things.

said that his predecessor (General Botha) had taken a very great interest in this matter, and he (Mr. Van Heerden) was also giving his very close attention to it. Money would be no object in endeavouring to secure a remedy for the state of affairs. What the department could do and what he personally could do would be done.

said that what he wanted to emphasise was that whoever was got out, acting under the head of the research department, he should be got out solely and entirely for this investigation, and should have nothing to do with anything else.

The sub-head was agreed to. ,

moved to reduce the item of Chief of Division, £793, by £25. He said that at the Congress of delegates from the different Farmers’ Associations in the Cape Province held in Cape Town the other day, the delegate from the district in which he (Mr. Blaine) resided, in talking about matters of scab, remarked that the country was “rotten.” He was immediately taken to task by the Chief Inspector of Sheep and told that it was not so. He (Mr. Blaine) had been considering the matter. Taking into consideration the infinitely greater knowledge that we had of the disease of scab at the present day, the infinitely greater knowledge that we had of the remedies to be employed for its eradication, the very inadequate restrictions upon the removal of scabby sheep, and the enormous difference which had been made by the construction of thousands of miles of wire fencing since the Scab Act came into force in the Cape Province—allowing for these things, he considered that the country was very little better at the present time than it was when this Scab Act first came into force in the Cape Province. We had had the Scab Act in force for 25 years. It had cost the country an enormous sum. During the last few years in the Cape Province it had cost something like £80,000 a year. The farmer had been saved nothing, but the country had been taxed £150,000 a year for the administration of the Scab Act. It was true that there had been a great increase in the price of South African wool, but only a very small percentage of that increase was due to the improvement of the wool itself. Great credit was certainly due to a few progressive farmers in the Union, but the advance in the price of Cape wool was caused largely by the rise in the general market price, a rise which had not been confined to South African wool. If we could only save this £150,000 a year we should have no necessity for an income tax, on which the Government had very seriously considered its position. He did not wonder at hon. members representing urban constituencies grumbling and jeering at what they called the lazy, helpless farmer. If the Government was really in earnest in its attempt to eradicate scab it was time to see whether the fault was due to the Act or its administration. Australia cleared itself of scab in half the time that South Africa had been attempting to do it, but the people there were whole-hearted and adopted heroic and very drastic steps. Had there during the past 25 years been a Minister of Agriculture in South Africa who had been in earnest over this matter? The political position had always interfered. At all events so far as the clean districts were concerned, the Minister should look upon it as a sacred duty—almost a religion—to see that they were not affected from outside districts. But instead of that we had talk of sympathetic administration—talk of which he was sick. It always seemed to him that the sympathies of the Minister were with the man who broke the law and not with the man who tried to obey it. (Cheers.) The other day he received a telegram from some of his constituents with reference to a flock of about 2,000 sheep from the Wodehouse district, which was on its way to the Komgha district. When the flock arrived in the Cathcart district scab was discovered amongst some of the sheep—not by a Government official but by a farmer. The general utility man—the Cape policeman— was called in and dipped the infected stock, after which the flock was allowed to proceed. He did not know whether any punishment had been inflicted on the owner, but the sympathy of the department was again with the offender. The little inconvenience he would have been put to by having his sheep quarantined was allowed to override the interest of the country. (Hear, hear.) That showed sympathy with the wrongdoer. (Hear, hear.) There should be progressive punishments for inveterate offenders, but instead of that men were fined a sovereign or two for repeated offences. When a man had decided to move his sheep such small fines were no deterrent at all. (Hear, hear.) There had been all kinds of excuses for the failure of the Government to eradicate scab, such as the presence of drought, but surely within the 25 years the Scab Act had been in existence in the Cape there had been some seasons in which it would have been possible to dip the sheep. (Hear, hear.) Unfortunately the sympathies of Governments were always with the lazy, unprogressive farmer, and with the speculator, who went about spreading scab and who did not care a rap so long as he made his profit was there any hope under the existing circumstances, where politics so largely influenced a man’s ideas on progressive farming, of ever eradicating scab? It was time we began to ask ourselves whether this enormous expenditure was justified. No man who failed to put his whole heart and soul into the eradication of scab was worthy to hold the Portfolio of Minister of Agriculture. (Hear, hear.)

said the Minister had said that thirty-eight districts were clean of scab. Some of these, however, had been infected again. Among the infected districts were said to be Cathcart and Komgha. Now Komgha had always been held up as a clean district, whereas Van Rhyn’s Dorp and Sutherland, which had been regarded as infected districts, were now said to be clean. What was the good, he asked, of sheep inspectors if this position prevailed, if farmers themselves found out that their sheep had scab? He noticed the Minister had £15,000 more than last year on the Estimates for scab. Was the Minister, in the conditions of the country, justified in keeping on inspectors who did not do their duty? He held that a man who did not do his duty should not be kept on. According to the Minister, there were 58 districts which were free from scab, and yet the costs of that section of the department were increasing. In regard to Mr. Blaine’s reference to lazy sheep farmers, Mr. Kuhn said his constituency was just as clean, if not cleaner, than that of the hon. member for Border. As to the hon. member’s plea that people should be forced under the law, he held that that would have no effect at all. People could not be dragooned. The whole position was due to the kind of inspectors who were appointed. They would see that some of the people applying for appointment as scab inspectors were the kind of gentlemen who were too lazy to work. If the proper class of inspector had been appointed, scab would have been eradicated a long time ago. After 25 years of fighting scab, it seemed hardly fair that the costs of the department should be increased by £15,000.

said he had looked up the Stock Diseases Act of 1910. When he was interviewed, during a visit he took to England, in connection with that Act, he gave the Prime Minister every credit for having passed it, but he guarded himself from being too enthusiastic, because he had said that everything depended on the firmness with which the Act was administered. Notwithstanding certain weaknesses in the Act, if it had been administered firmly and solely in the interests of the sheep farmers, the lamentable condition of affairs which existed today would not have existed within the Union. They should take certain districts within the Union, with less than 2 per cent, of registered scab, and then declare that sheep from other parts should not trek through those districts. He had some knowledge of Komgha, Cathcart, and those districts. In 1893, when the Scab Commission visited Komgha, some of the members of that Commission who had held strong views realised what a first-class inspector could do if he had the support of the farmers and of the department. The reason those districts had (been infected since was because scabby sheep had been allowed to trek through them. So long as those things took place it would be impossible to rid this country of the disease. It was a disgrace to the country that the House did not spend thousands of pounds in the provision of inspectors. The Act should be administered without fear or favour and in the most stringent manner possible. If the penalties were not severe enough, then let the hon. member (Mr. Kuhn) come to the House with a Bill to make them as severe as possible. They had educated the farmers to such a pitch that the majority of sheep farmers were strongly in favour of seeing the Act rigorously enforced and the disease, eradicated from their midst. In 1910 the Prime Minister had come down with a Bill which was afterwards referred to a Select Committee, and that Bill had some very admirable clauses. He believed the penalties after conviction were a fine of £50 or three months or six months, for a second offence £100 fine, and for a third offence £250 fine. When the Bill was originally introduced those penalties had also applied to the disease of scab. Then the penalty for scab was placed on a special basis. Time after time farmers had made representations such as had been made to the Minister of Agriculture. They had good inspectors, and if they were to give those people free authority it would not be long before the districts were clean. There were bad inspectors, of course, and with regard to those the Minister ought to give them the order of the boot, but the good men should be given encouragement even to the extent of a bonus if they cleared their district. They should have full power, and within a short period they would be able to rid the flocks of this country of scab as had been done in other countries. He hoped the Minister would make representations to the Railway Department. In connection with the disinfection of trucks, the disinfection of trucks and kraals was in many cases a make-believe, and so long as they had travelling sheep going into trucks and kraals—unless they were efficiently disinfected every time —by carrying this stock they were liable to spread the infection throughout the country. He hoped the hon. Minister would make the strongest representations so that every department of State would assist him in trying to eradicate that disease. If the Minister would take up a determined attitude he would have the support of the vast majority of the farmers of the country, irrespective of their political views.

said he did not know of the sheep which the hon. member for Border had spoken of. The representative to the congress of the districts of the hon. member, however, had said that his districts were “rotten with scab.” That certainly could not be said of Wodehouse, where the Act was vigorously enforced. In his district farmers did their utmost to eradicate scab, and the inspectors in that district were of the ablest.

regarding the question of transit, urged the importance of sheep inspectors being notified when, sheep are to be removed from one area to another, so that that official could notify the inspector in the other area in advance. So much power had been taken away from the inspectors now that they were very much handicapped. Under the old law, before a man could shift his sheep into another area, he had to get a permit. As to the amount of disease in the country there was not the slightest doubt that between fencing and dipping and one thing and another the country was in an infinitely better condition than it was twenty years ago. To say that it was not, at any rate in his part of the country, was nonsense, but since the new Diseases Act had come into force the disease had certainly been on the increase, and he believed it was increasing every day. He hoped the hon. Minister would devise some means by which a man shifting his sheep would have to notify the inspector.

said he objected to the policy of making certain districts of the Union pay for their dipping material while the other districts got the material free. Therefore he moved the deletion of the £1,000 on the Estimates for the purchase of dipping material.

asked whom the Minister would consult as to the most suitable person to be appointed as stock inspector, if a field cornet was appointed Justice of the Peace under the new Act.

took exception to the remarks of the hon. member for Prieska that unsuitable persons were appointed as scab inspectors. He claimed that the country owed a great debt to the scab inspectors. (Hear, hear.) In Heidelberg at any rate they were most capable men.

said he had no time for a farmer trekking with scabby sheep, but to stop a man who was many miles from his farm and to send him back to his farm was a great mistake. To make a success of the Scab Act they required the co-operation of the farmers. He hoped the Minister would during the recess go through the bushveld and see the position there. One found many natives there, and the circumstances were far different there from those in the Cape Province, so he trusted that the Minister would see how he could best alter the position. The field-cornets in the Transvaal had been dismissed, although they had done much good work, and now new men were feeing appointed. The districts of sheep inspectors in the Transvaal were in many cases too large.

in reply to the hon. member for Kroonstad, said that the money expended in dipping materials was paid back to the Government. It was simply a matter of supplying material to the people in the outlying districts. Answering Mr. Grobler, the Minister said that 39 of the old field cornets of the Transvaal had been reappointed as scab inspectors.

continuing in English, said that, with regard to the suggestion brought forward by the hon. member for Griqualand as to natives trekking sheep from one area to another, it was the instruction that notice must be given at once by the owner. As to the general question, it had been urged that scab had not diminished during the time they had had the administration of the Act. On the whole, he thought they had had value for the money which had been spent in the past. At the present time farmers all over the Union were very eager and anxious that the regulations should be tightened up a bit. On those lines he was going to alter the regulations, and tighten them up considerably. The hon. gentleman referred to the results of investigations which had been made with reference to the cycle of life of the insect, and said he was hopeful that, on those lines, they would be able to obtain far better results than had been obtained in the past. Turning to the scab returns of the several Provinces, he said that in the Cape the percentage in 1911 was 3.3; in 1912, 3.6; and in 1913, 1.8. That was taking one month, December. In the Transvaal the percentage in 1911 was 3.5; in 1912, 2.0; and in 1913, .76. In the Orange Free State the figures were, respectively, 3.8, 3.4, and 1.4. In Natal, in 1912, the figure was 1.5, and in 1913, 1.9. Taking the whole Union, the percentage in 1912 was 3.2. and in 1913, 1.5. He hoped they would be able to put the new regulations into force about August 1. They intended to tighten up the administration of the scab laws, and to insist upon the inspectors carrying out the laws. They intended to get men who would carry out the regulations and eradicate scab. The new regulations provided that as soon as a district was clean, an application could be made to have that district proclaimed.

said that an effective way of dealing with the whole question was to raise this money that was required for scab purposes by a tax of l¼d. on each sheep.

The amendment, moved by Mr. H. P. Serfontein, was withdrawn.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m.

said that, owing to the small size of the flocks in the Transkei, extra work was thrown On the sheep inspectors, many of whom were disheartened, and this sometimes led to friction with the department. At other times it induced carelessness, and this in one instance had led to a dismissal. It was a hardship that the dismissed inspector should not have his contribution to the pension fund repaid.

said that the Transkeian General Council would take over the dipping work. The repayment of the pension contribution was beyond his power, and the man should, petition the House. He (Mr. Van Heerden) had tried his utmost to get the money back for the man, but he had not succeeded.

The sub-head was agreed to.

On sub-head F. Botany, £7,750,

said the Director of the Natal Herbarium should come under the Natal Provincial Council.

said that in several cases the spraying of fruit had been attended with rather serious consequences.

said he would look into the point raised by the hon. member for Cape Town, Central.

The sub-head was agreed to.

On sub-head G, Tobacco and Cotton, £13,966.

asked whether a better market could be found for our tobacco.

said he viewed the situation rather seriously. He was thinking whether it would not be advisable to send Mr. Stella, the Tobacco Expert, to Turkey, with a view to seeing what could be done to improve our tobacco. There seemed to be a screw loose, bud he (the Minister) did not know where.

said the great difficulty was to know what might be wrong in the curing of the tobacco. If Mr. Stella were sent to Turkey he should inquire into fig culture and currant curing. Mr. Stella had done an enormous amount of good, and did everything possible to assist the tobacco growers.

asked what provision would be made in regard to experimental stations for tobacco growing in the Free State.

replied that the policy in regard to this question had been somewhat changed. It had been considered that it was more useful to have experts getting small plots of ground here and there and planting tobacco on those, at the same time demonstrating to farmers what could be done. Thus a start had already been made at Parys, where a Mr. Van Wijk had offered a plot of ground which was now being worked by one of the experts who had studied in America.

asked whether it was not possible for the Government to deal with the manufacture of cigarettes with imported tobacco. People were induced to buy cigarettes by a lottery system, and they saw prizes of hundreds of pounds advertised all over the country. It seemed to him that those people were defeating the Lottery Act. The result was that large numbers of people were induced to buy cigarettes made from imported tobacco much to the detriment of the growers of tobacco in this country. There was something in the nature of monopoly in connection with that business, and it was strangling a legitimate industry in this country. He hoped the Minister would go into the whole question in order to legitimately protect the interests of the growers of this country.

said he had expected to see on the Estimates some provision with regard to cotton growing in Tembuland, which would be justified by the success of the cotton growing experiments conducted by private energy in several districts.

said that with regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir T. W. Smartt) in connection with the manufacture of cigarettes with imported tobacco, that was a matter that had his deepest sympathy, and he had not the slightest doubt that it would be dealt with next session. Replying to the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Schreiner), he said the question of cotton growing in Tembuland had not been forgotten by him. He was adopting the policy of getting the farmers to give plots of land to the officers of the Agricultural Department on which to carry out experiments. The official went round periodically and saw how those plots were getting on. He proposed to carry out the same principle with the natives referred to by the hon. member.

said he hoped the Minister would do more in the way of getting the farmers to give plots of land for experimental purposes. The result would be that they would have centres of observation scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country and the Department would save thousands of pounds.

said that a representative of one of the largest tobacco companies had told him that if steps were taken to put down lotteries in connection with cigarettes the tobacco companies would be the first to welcome it.

The sub-head was agreed to.

On sub-head (j), Viticulture, £4,217,

asked whether it was a fact that Mr. Watermeyer had sent in his resignation and was retiring from the viticulture work at Groot Constantia.

said he had not yet received Mr. Water-meyer’s resignation, but he had heard a rumour to the effect that Mr. Watermeyer was going to resign.

asked what steps the Minister proposed to take in the event of Mr. Watermeyer’s resignation being received.

said he intended to ask Mr. Watermeyer to stay on for some time and then to get the best possible man to replace him. The remainder of the Minister’s reply was inaudible.

lodged a complaint on behalf of the nurserymen of the Peninsula, and instanced the case of a nurseryman who had had his fruit trees examined. He found it necessary to make an application for a re-inspection, Which took place, and for which he had to pay. The nursery should not have been in such a state in so short a time after the previous inspection; the inspection was either not properly done owing to a hurry, or the inspector did not know his work. The Minister ought to return the man his fee which he had to pay in order to have the re-inspection. The nurserymen had also complained with regard to the severe handling which their stock received in fumigation. Proceeding, he said he had evidence that some people had been allowed to introduce plants into this country without any examination at all, but it was unfair that nurserymen should be under restrictions while other people were allowed to sell their stuff without any examination, and allowed to go off without a certificate. The Minister would confer a great favour on the nurserymen of the Peninsula if he would allow them to have half an hour’s interview with him.

promised to make investigation into the case referred to by the hon. member.

The sub-head was agreed to.

called attention to the intention of the Prime Minister, when Minister of Agriculture, to have one central chemical department to deal with the whole business of the Union, but anybody who looked at the estimates dealing with the Department of the Interior would find that that change had not been made. Another chemical department had been established. The vote last year was £1,291, and now they were asked to vote £2,100; instead of one assistant chemist there were now three They should adopt the policy of the United States, and have one solitary chemical department under the Minister of Agriculture. He would like to know what the policy here was going to be. Were they going to have a large department under the Minister of the Interior, or were they going to have different departments dealing with the matter in a slipshod manner? Would not the hon. Minister go into the whole question and see whether it would not be possible, save in connection with public health and mining, that they, all of the chemical departments, should be under his own department, and under one head? Great dissatisfaction had been expressed by practical farmers at agricultural meetings everywhere. So far as soil investigation co-ordination of that matter the work done in the past had been made futile. It was a matter of great importance to the producers of this country that they should have thorough systematic soil investigation. If chemical investigation in connection with soil was to be of any advantage whatsoever to this country, it must be carried on under one head. The officials at the college had to instruct the students, and had not time to carry out those investigations; if they had investigations carried out in different departments of the Union without co-ordination they were spending a large amount of money and doing no good. That was a principle which had been found to be unsuccessful in every part of the world where it had been tried. He believed that the hon. Minister would agree with his (the speaker’s) views, and now that he had become the responsible Minister of Agriculture he hoped that he would go into the whole question and do what he considered best in the matter.

who was barely audible in the Press Gallery, was understood to say that he could, not make a statement on behalf of the Government, but he agreed it was a very important matter, and it was one which he had been thinking about a great deal. He felt strongly that there should be no overlapping or duplication of work, and his idea was to get the chemists of the four Provinces together once a year in conference to discuss the work of the following year. He thought also there should be a systematic soil survey.

said if soil investigation was to be of any use in this country it must be carried out in a systematic manner. If they were going to have practically independent chemical departments in different parts of the country they were going to have investigation, carried out on different bases at the various places. The results could never be coordinated, and instead of being able to give beneficial information to the country, they would be misleading the country, no doubt with the best intentions, by the statements made. They would be dissipating the energies of people and doing no good. They were spending a large amount of money and were not getting the benefit for it.

said that there was no doubt that ever since the school at Cedara had been established the chemist there had been looked upon as being of very great use to the farmer. If they were going to have a system of centralisation he feared that there was going to be delay. He did hope, whatever the hon. member (Sir T. W. Smartt) might say, that there would not be overcentralisation.

said that he did not want centralisation, but they wanted co-ordination of the resulte.

said that it certainly did seem an expensive way of getting about things, appointing a chemist at Elsenburg when they had an establishment and a full equipment at Cape Town. It did seem expensive to have two establishments like that within 30 miles of each other. If they wanted a man for Elsenburg, why not put an assistant there?

Sub-head L was agreed to.

On sub-head N, Co-operation, £3,942,

said that the object of co-operation was to get rid of the middleman, but there should be a limit to that. They found co-operative societies stocking goods, and he thought it was going too far. It was time the Government called a halt. He found that not only were agricultural implements stocked, but they were going in for groceries—tea, sugar, and things of that kind.

said he wanted to ask the Minister what steps he was taking for the proper supervision of these co-operative societies.

said that he felt that a great responsibility rested upon him in regard to that matter. It was his intention, when he got back to Pretoria, to tighten up the administration, and they were going to toe very strict in regard to not allowing members of cooperative societies to go in for speculation at all, and further they were going to see that, with regard to the credit system, cooperative societies should fall in line and not go in for credit too largely. They wanted to get members to co-operate and get the very best prices for their products. (Hear, hear.) It was his intention to see that everything was done properly.

said that the Minister had not answered the question put by the hon. member behind him (Mr. Henderson).

said he understood that the Minister would see that co-operative societies would keep to the original intentions for which they had been formed.

The sub-head was agreed to.

On sub-head 0, Dry Land Farming, £6,445,

said that he thought they ought to have some investigation into cultivation by dry land farming in certain parts of the Cape Province, such as Malmesbury, Piquetberg, Clanwilliam, Van Rhyn’s Dorp, and the like. He thought that the people were ignorant of the system of dry land farming, and he thought that an object-lesson would do a great deal of good. He hoped that the Government would seriously consider the matter of a dry land station to be put in those parts.

was understood to say that they were not justified in spending the money at Groenkloof that they were spending at other stations. He was in favour of going on the £ for £ system, and he thought more could be done that way than if Government stations were established. On these lines, he thought they could make a success of it.

The sub-head was agreed to.

said it was a perfect scandal that with increased taxation £30, 000 of the taxpayers’ money should go to the benefit of one class of the people, which it did through guano being sold at such a low price. The present system of distribution was unfair to the small farmers. Then storekeepers ordered guano in the name of a farmer, and subsequently retailed it at an increased price of 3s. or 4s. a bag. The small farmer was not benefited to the extent he should be.

said there was a great number of whaling stations round the coast, and one of their by-products was fish manure, but as this could not be sold at a price to compete with the Government guano, the bulk of the fish manure had to be exported, which seemed to be a pity.

said this subject was a hardy annual. There was a feeling in the Treasury that the price of guano should be nut up, but he objected. The country ought to be glad that the farmers desired to work their ground to the best advantage by using guano. The result was that the farmers were getting better crops than they did before. Applications for ten bags or less of guano were granted in full, and applications up to 150 bags received one-third. He would go into the whole matter again after the next allotment, and would see what could be done to prevent speculation.

Consider the Treasury at the same time.

The sub-head was agreed to.

On sub-head Q, Grain Inspection, £2,971,

moved the deletion of the whole vote, which he characterised as a waste of public money, and asserted that the country was not justified in maintaining a staff of graders, considering that only 140,000 bags of maize, valued at £65,000, were exported from the Union last year. The total expenses of running the department were about 4£ per cent, of the value of the exports. It would be far better to get local brokers to grade the maize. There were two official graders in Cape Town, but they had not nearly enough to do. They were also called upon to carry out fruit inspection, but they could not be experts in both fruit and maize. Money was being paid away for which the State received no result. Either the department should be done away with or one man should be kept to act as superintendent, while local brokers should do the grading.

said he had a return of what it had cost the country up to now, and that return showed that the cost of grading was very small indeed. In any case those services were paid for.

said a certain amount did represent receipts, but all those services were not paid for.

said he could not see his way to do away with the item.

The sub-head was agreed to.

The Minister’s amendments were agreed to, together with the vote as a whole.

said he wished to bring to the notice of the Minister the case of Mr. Thompson, who was dismissed from the Potchefstroom Agricultural College. He had gone through all the papers and had come to the conclusion that a grave injustice had been done. The matter reflected the greatest discredit on the department, although he did not blame the Minister. What were the facts? That man was engaged in 1910 in England on a three years’ engagement. He was selected by a very experienced man, Mr. A. D. Hall, who had a European reputation. He read Mr. Hall’s letter recommending Mr. Thompson as a man who had been very successful in that class of work. Mr. Thompson was engaged and left England in 1910, and he got on very smoothly here for some considerable time. The only difference he had had with the department was this —he was engaged by the High Commissioner in England under the Transvaal regulations, which were more liberal as regarded leave than the Union regulations. The department wanted to bring Mr. Thompson under the Union regulations and he protested, because he had been engaged under the Transvaal regulations. The matter was referred to the High Commissioner, who pointed out that Mr. Thompson was appointed under the Transvaal regulations. Matters went on fairly smoothly and no difficulty was raised with regard to the increments of salary. When Mr. Thompson’s period of engagement was coming to an end he made an application to be put on the permanent staff. Mr. McMillan, the principal of the College, recommended the application. That was up to the 20th October, 1913. No information up to that date had been conveyed to Mr. Thompson that his services were not satisfactory; in fact, on the 15th September, 1913, a letter was written from the Secretary of Agriculture to the Secretary of Finance stating that there was no immediate prospect of the termination of Mr. Thompson’s services under the Government. Up to the 15th September there had been no intention on the part of the department to get rid of Mr. Thompson, who, as his time was expiring, made application on the 22nd October to be put on the permanent staff. Mr. Thompson was kept waiting some time. On the 10th of November there was an inquiry from the Department as to the position of the officer and so forth. Mr. McMillan, the Principal, then replied that in his opinion Mr. Thompson was not qualified as a lecturer on agriculture, and that he had not received that support from him as Vice-Principal that he would desire. That letter was written by the Principal of the School, the same gentleman who had written less than a month before recommending that Mr. Thompson should be put on the permanent staff. There was another letter from Mr. Holm, who had been asked for his confidential opinion. Mr. Holm fully endorsed the views of the Principal. Mr. Holm was an officer who had given certificates on two occasions seating that Mr. Thompson was entitled to the annual increments of salary. Mr. Thompson was an official who had held a position in England for ten years and had given satisfaction, and who had come to South Africa after strong persuasion from Mr. Hall. He was not dismissed from his English position in any shape or form. He (Mr. Jagger) had also got a petition from the students themselves, which expressed surprise and sorrow as to the Minister’s action in terminating Mr. Thompson’s contract. The petition, which was signed unanimously by the students, was read by the speaker.

The final decision was come to on the 10th December, almost two months after the application was sent in, and a month after his time was up. His time was up on the 12th November, 1913, and the Department could not make up their minds as is usual in that Department until the 10th December, and then they sent him his conge, given him seven days’ notice after having served three years. No reason was given for his discharge, absolutely no information was given in the letter, nor had it been notified in any way to the man that his services were unsatisfactory. On the other hand, he had every reason for thinking the contrary. The hon. member did blame the Minister because he had not taken more pains to acquaint himself more thoroughly with the position. He had simply acted on a memorandum from the head of his department., But on representations being made, or at least on giving the matter further consideration, the Minister gave the officer three months’ salary as a sort of solatium. Even in regard to that, there was a lot of haggling in the Department as to when the three months should start from. He was also entitled to some leave and there was further haggling. The Department came out of that matter very badly. The hon. Minister said he had got all his information from the papers. He had only met the man once and he had come to the conclusion that a very great act of injustice had been done. It appeared to him that certain officials of the Department had got a bias against him and they eventually succeeded in bringing about his dismissal.

regretted very much that the hon. member had brought the matter to the notice of the House, but he would agree that if a man that they had got on contract did not give satisfaction they should not keep him. He (the Minister) had acted upon the information given him by his advisers. He had signed the letter in Cape Town, and later went on to Pretoria, where he was visited by students from Potchefstroom regarding the petition, and these students had made the journey without sanction from their parents. There was no discipline about students leaving the college without permission. The hon. Minister, proceeding, said he went to Potchefstroom on the occasion of the distribution of prizes, and met Mr. Thompson for the first time. He interviewed him, and told him that he could not go back upon his signature made in Cape Town, but that in lieu of notice he would give him three months’ salary if he could find a man to replace him, and from November to the end of June he got six months’ full pay. He went thoroughly into the matter, and he thought it was in the interests of the school that he should take the course that he had done, and that he was not justified in putting him on the permanent staff.

said he did not agree with the hon. Minister that the hon. member for Cape Town, Central, should not have brought that matter before the committee. It was the duty of that House, he thought, that they should go into questions of that sort. That was not the first case. They commenced with Mr. Farmer, then they went on to Mr. Allen, and now they had come to this gentleman. The hon. Minister had laid stress on the lack of discipline. But was not that officer offered a position as principal of the school after Mr. Allen? How then was it possible that the responsible advisers of the hon. Minister’s department could have recommended him as principal of one of the principal colleges in South Africa? Was not he also offered the principalship of the Cedara College in Natal? Those were things which made members of Parliament consider it their duty to bring forward questions of that sort. He himself had never seen the officer, and had no personal interest in him, but his case was one of those that deserved public investigation. The man came out on three years agreement, on the understanding that if his services were satisfactory he would be retained on the permanent staff at the expiration of that time. It suited the Department to utilise his services until his term was finished, and then he was told like a lacquey he was not required any more. If they were going to continue treating their officers in that Department in that way the responsible gentlemen would not come to take positions in the future. If the responsible officers of the Agricultural Department considered that he was fit to be the head of two agricultural colleges in this Union, then they could hardly come forward with the justification that he was dismissed because he was incapable of carrying out his duties. There were other people who interfered in the administration of the colleges, who had no right to interfere. They had the staffs and other people associated with those staffs. He did not want to go into details, but the hon. Minister knew what he was referring to. He felt that these three officers had been treated in a way in which one would not treat an ordinary servant. He knew his hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture, and he knew the feeling of uprightness which had always characterised him, and it was because of that that he appealed to his hon. friend, because what had been done was bringing discredit on their agricultural education.

said he wanted to deal with a question of labour at the agricultural schools. He saw on the vote, casual and native labour, £980, and the same thing ran through all these items, the total being something like £17,000. Why could they not use some of the poor whites, and train them up to do the work? (Hear, hear.) There was a splendid opportunity for them. It might cost a bit more, but he did not think there was any objection to that, and it was a training for them. It was valuable to the people themselves, and it was also valuable, he should imagine, to the students, because, instead of getting accustomed to coloured labourers, which he supposed was easier than getting accustomed to white labourers, they would get accustomed to white labour and know how to handle it.

said that he quite agreed with what the hon. member had said with regard to labourers at these schools being Europeans. He had instructed the principal at Potchefstroom to engage the sons of farmers, indigent boys, to do the work of the farm. (Hear, hear.) He was very much in favour of what the hon. member had said.

said that the buildings for housing young fellows of that class would cost very little indeed. If they would select their young people carefully and use them for labour on the farm, they would not only get their labour, but give these young fellows instruction which would enable them to be drafted from the agricultural schools to the farms. They wanted to be very careful about the people they brought there, and they ought to see that they were of a really respectable class, but there must be many boys in the country who could be brought to these schools. He would like to draw attention to another matter, which was that in every agricultural college they found a vote for foodstuffs. Surely they ought to grow foodstuffs for the animals on the grounds of the institution itself? They could show that a small farm was able to grow sufficient foodstuffs for a large number of animals.

said he was glad that his hon. friend had drawn attention to that matter, because he was of opinion that the agricultural colleges should grow sufficient foodstuffs for the animals there.

referred to the item of household science, and said it was gradually growing. They ought to get rid of that, and put it under the Provincial Administration.

said that they had only one lady, and she was doing excellent work.

said that if they were going to close the Ermelo Stud Sheep Farm they did not want stock there. He moved that the item of £200 referring to that matter be deleted.

said it would be a pity to have to sell all the good stock. He trusted it would be possible to keep the stock and send it to the various other colleges. He trusted, therefore, that the hon. member would not press his amendment.

said that they had run into thousands of pounds for the purchase of stock.

said he had decided that the Ermelo stud sheep farm should be kept on for another year.

said he took so much interest in Barbary ostriches that he made a trip to Grootfontein last December to see them. (Laughter.) Shortly afterwards it was reported that six of the birds had disappeared. (Laughter.)

said they had lost several of the Barbary ostriches, of which there were 67 left, but there had been no chicks yet. None had been sold so far, but the birds appeared to be of a good strain.

said he understood that £10,000 had been wasted on the construction of a furrow, which was practically useless, at the Tzaneen experimental station, Zoutpansberg. The management of the place had not been of the best, and the farmers stated that the place was absolutely useless to them. It would be a good thing to make experiments in potato growing. In Lincolnshire 16 to 17 tons of potatoes had been produced from an acre of ground on an experimental farm.

said that Tzaneen was an inheritance, and that the large establishment had been taken down; the water furrows dug in the days of the Crown Colony Government were still there. The Government in the past had spent £60,000 on the place and was not prepared to throw the money away. The railway was now coming in the direction of Tzaneen, so that the value of the ground would greatly appreciate. The ground was good and there was plenty of water, and the only thing lacking at present was means of transport.

congratulated the Minister on the arrangements which had been made for lecturers from Cedara to deliver lectures in different parts of the country.

The vote was agreed to.

said he wished to raise the question of tree planting on the slopes of Table Mountain. The area of Crown lands on the Mountain was 3,000 acres and private owners had 38,000 acres. The Minister had been approached by certain persons representing influential bodies interested in the natural surroundings of the Cape Peninsula on the matter. They felt that the forests of oaks and other trees which had gradually grown up on the slopes of the Mountain in scattered formation were much more picturesque than the rectangular blocks of trees which were planted by the department. There was no doubt that the planting of gums had reduced the water supply to the fruit and vine farms very considerably. They did not want to restrict the department's operations, but, knowing the flora of the Cape Peninsula to be almost unique, they could not help feeling that if the department’s work had the effect of killing that flora it would be doing more harm than good. He was disappointed that the amount which had been put down for the development of forests showed a decrease on the vote for last year. The matter was of immense importance to the country. They had a report from the Senate on erosion, and it was perfectly clear that the questions of erosion and forests were closely bound together. He asked the Minister for an explanation of notices which were constantly appearing in the “Gazette” notifying the withdrawal of areas as demarcated forests.

did not agree with the hon. member with regard to the work which the Forestry Department had done on Table Mountain. He very much appreciated the work which was being done, and he thought it was to the advantage of the inhabitants of Cape Town. If the hon. member knew the mountain as well as he (Dr. Hewat) did, he would realise that the Forestry Department had not in any way destroyed the flora. They had planted trees where there was previously barren stone and rocks. They were improving not only the mountain itself, but the surroundings of Cape Town.

said his hon. friend had not closely followed the situation which existed to-day. He could not allow the remarks of the hon. member for Woodstock to pass, for he had displayed ignorance of the situation. There was no antagonism between those public bodies which had approached the department in reference to what had been done in the past. In the main, it was agreed that good work had been done, but the existing situation was that there were only two places on Table Mountain which had not yet been planted, on the slopes of Hout Bay and the Saddle, where native flowers were growing in great profusion. But there was no disagreement between the Forestry Department on that point. The only difference was regarding the slopes at Hout Bay, where they were trying to protect the Cape flora. They asked the department to stay its hand, and not to plant upon that particular part, for two reasons: firstly, that those particular slopes were the favourite part for certain kinds of wild flowers; and, secondly, if they were going to plant a thick pine forest there, they were going to disturb a fine piece of scenery, and the new road that was to run through the Peninsula was going through that part. It was not merely a local matter, and there was no need to extend the Tokai forest in that direction.

called the attention of the Minister to a piece of injustice which was done in a certain part of his constituency. Those men had not the right to cut down trees, and could not cultivate their lands, because they were not allowed to remove those trees. They were doing pioneer work, and he thought they should not be treated in that manner. He hoped the Minister would grant them some relief.

raised the question of the £500 expenditure in connection with the wood-cutters at Knysna. Legislation of that kind, he said, would do no good for the woodcutters, and was throwing money away.

said that all the native vegetation was being uprooted between Hout Bay and Oudekraal. The Minister might take note of that, and it was a great pity that the scenery should be spoilt in that way.

said that as regards the woodcutters in Knysna it must be remembered that an Act of Parliament was passed last year. Now there was a loss of £3,500. The object was to assist the poor woodcutters, and they had got wood cheaper than before. The money had gone to them. Whatever was done, it was a great trouble to get real satisfaction in regard to the woodcutters. As to what the hon. member for Newlands, the hon. member for Woodstock, the hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens, and the hon. member for Three Rivers had said, a deputation had waited on him with regard to that matter. He (the Minister) was strongly in favour of afforestation. He had promised to go and see the place, and probably they would arrive at some compromise. With regard to what the hon. member for Zululand had said, he would go into the matter and give it his consideration.

alluded to certain graves in the Fort Peddie district being absolutely unlooked after, and hoped the Minister would give that his attention. He must congratulate the hon. Minister on his good temper, and said that they had passed that vote in record time—and it contained some most contentious matters. (Hear, hear.) He alluded to the feelings of affection they had, on both sides of the House, for the Minister. (Cheers )

said that as to the matter referred to by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, it came under the Provincial Administration.

The vote was agreed to.

On vote 35, Lands Department, £59,741,

moved, that progress be reported and leave asked to sit again.

This was agreed to.

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

said that the amendments were purely formal.

The amendments were agreed to.