as chairman, brought up the third report of the Select Committee on Internal Arrangements as follows—

Unless notice of objection given on or before Monday, 24th March, report to be considered as adopted.

I move—

I want to correct an impression left on the public mind owing to certain remarks made by the Minister regarding the housing position. The Minister of the Interior inferred that the amount of £500,000 was to be provided for sub-economic housing schemes only.

If I may explain, as hon. members know, two years ago we made available an amount of £1,000,000 for four years—

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, does this mean that the debate is finished ?

If the hon. Minister makes an explanation he is out of order, as he has the right of replying once only.

I appreciate that the Minister would have made an explanation if the rules of the House allowed. The Minister, in replying on the debate, pointed out there was money coming in from the repayment of past loans that had been made. The position roughly is that during the last four years there has been available £250,000 for economic housing schemes, under the 1920 Act, and this current year there will be £90,000 of repaid capital on account of previous loans, which is also available; therefore in the current year there will be £250,000 plus £90,000, making a total of £340,000. In the coming year, as far as I understand from the Minister of the Interior, there is going to be available one-third of £500,000, which is equal to £167,000, plus for other housing under the 1920 Act, an amount of repaid capital of between £90,000 and £100,000, making a total of about £267,000, as against £340,000 in the present year; therefore my contention is that the Government are providing less money for housing than in the past. The position is they are providing £70,000 less than in the past year. I think the Government are amply justified in continuing the 1920 scheme. The country has put £3,581,000 of new money into it, and £350,000 has been repaid by borrowers, making a total of about £4,000,000, on which the Government has not lost a single penny; the risk undertaken under the 1920 Act scheme is shown to be negligible. I do suggest that for the housing of the people we might take a greater risk than we take for many other necessities; for instance, take a question like irrigation. In this we have invested £7,000,000 of loan money. In the opinion of those people who best know what the position is with regard to irrigation loans, I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that the country will be very lucky if they get £4,000,000 out of that. What I insist on is that surely the housing of the people is as important as irrigation. All these housing loans are duly being repaid, and there is no difficulty in finding the money, so this country can legitimately continue to give additional loan moneys towards the 1920 housing scheme. Unintentionally the hon. the Minister has confused the minds of the public, and I notice that even a well-informed journal like the “Cape Times” has been confused by the Minister’s statement that almost all the £1,000,000 has been allocated. That statement has naturally led to the supposition that some of it has not been allocated.

I said that ?

No, the hon. the Minister of Finance said that almost all of it has been allocated. The public should know that every penny has been allocated.

There are £20,000 still undrawn.

Money being undrawn is in the nature of things absolutely necessary. We grant money at any time between June and July, and housing schemes cannot be proceeded with until the money is granted. Then building goes on, and naturally there has to be a re-vote unless the expenditure is completed within a certain time, viz., by the following March. I want to make it clear to the general public that every penny of the £1,000,000 has been allocated, and therefore not one single penny can be devoted to any new scheme under the 1920 Act unless the Minister is prepared to place an amount on the loan votes to enable such schemes to continue. I think it is a pity that the report of the Central Housing Board is not printed. It is not accessible to anyone except the members of this House, and therefore the general public have no opportunity of seeing the exact position. I think that is one reason that has led to this confusion. Personally I believe that the uneconomic proposal is not a permanent solution of the question. I do not say that the whole of the amount will be wasted, but it is not a solution of the problem. As I said the other night, it is a small dose of medicine being given to a very sick patient. I should not criticise this if the money were being given in addition to, and not in substitution of, the money which has been available for the last ten years under the 1920 Act. I endorse absolutely everything that has been said about the men and women who have been working hard on the whole of this housing question, especially in Cape Town.

They are quite satisfied.

I quite agree they are satisfied, and I am only sorry that in this regard I cannot see eye to eye with them. I should have no criticism to make if the hon. the Minister of Finance were to say “Yes, we are going on with this sub-economic scheme, but in order to do that we are not retracting from the arrangement with regard to the granting of money which has been going on during the last ten years in order to provide money for economic schemes.

I want to refer to expressions used by the hon. the Prime Minister in alluding to hon. members on this side of the House. He used those expressions which I and many others take exception to in taking part in the second reading debate on this Bill. Much criticism had been levelled at the Government, and many justifiable requests for information had been preferred. Ministers were rattled by the criticism to which they were subjected. What happened? The Prime Minister got up, and when the Prime Minister rises one expects that he will reply to criticism, and afford sound information with regard to questions that have been asked. What did we find? Instead of one iota of information being given by the Prime Minister, he, the first citizen of this country, loosed a flood of invective on these benches such as has been rarely heard within the walls of this or any other Parliament. The language may have been parliamentary, or it may have escaped your ruling, sir, but it is language one does not expect from a Prime Minister. Let me quote a few of the words—interruption]. I am not going to be interrupted. I have 40 minutes in which to get through what I have to say. One of the words the Prime Minister used was “oorloper.” What is a correct interpretation of that word? Is it “traitor,” is it “deserter,” or is it “turncoat”? Another word he used was the word “smous,” and he also used the phrase “irresponsible back-bencher.” I claim the right to give a thumb-nail sketch of the Prime Minister as seen by a back bencher on this side of the House. The Prime Minister also used the expressions “agterryer” and “old Unionists,” and many other terms. I will take the terms one by one. The first which I would like to analyse is “oorloper.” Let me look around the House and see on whose Bead the term “oorloper” fits—on which side of the House I can pick out members who justly deserve that term of reproach. Let me go back to 1912, to the Cabinet first formed by the greatest Dutchman we have had in South Africa, General Botha. I remember that one member of that cabinet split away on the grounds clearly explained by him at that time that British and Dutch were not to work together, that there was to be no one-stream policy. He stated that he stood for a two-stream policy. Those principles have since been swallowed, and the National party have accepted our principles, and they stand to-day as we stand—[interruption]. When the dogs have finished barking I will go on.

The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it with pleasure. It is simply an allegorical expression. I was tracing the history of this country, and saying that the Nationalists to-day stand as the South African party stand, for a united South Africa, where a man is judged not as a Dutchman or an Englishman, but as a South African. Yet we have before us the fact that the Prime Minister of this country was the very man who broke away from the cabinet against principles which we stand for on this side of the House as we stood then. Is there a better example of an “oorloper” in this country than the Prime Minister himself. He dares to call these men, our Dutch friends, who have stood by the faith from the time of Union until now—to call them “oorlopers.” I leave that word to the judgment of the House and the country. When history comes to be written, across the page where the Prime Minister’s record stands, will be found the word “oorloper” blazing in letters of fire. Let me take another word. The Prime Minister said members of this side had the spirit of the “smous.” I wonder where the “smouses” are. I wonder on which side of the House they sit. The interpretation put on the word “smous” by the Prime Minister was “a man who thinks in terms of pounds, shillings and pence—a man dominated by money.” Well, I look across to the Government benches and I see the scattered fragments of a once united party, whose votes never returned them to this House, a party calling itself “Labour” returned by the votes of Nationalists; and a more long-suffering party I have never seen. We have the spectacle of the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Finance raising the cry “Vote against Labour; break the Pact!” You can kick them but you cannot kick them into activity. I wonder whether the body of that party is dead but that the spirit of the smous lives on. Before the Prime Minister applies this term indiscriminately to this side of the House, he must find the head which the cap would better fit on that side. He used the word “agterryers.” Could you find a better example than the Ministers over there. Look at the Minister of Labour. There was a member who sat for Natal—they called him Tommy Boydell. All the freshly elected members used to meet in the town hall at Durban after the declaration of the polls at general elections, and this little chap used to bounce on to the platform and exclaim “Here is Tommy again”; Tommy from Greyville, but this time a better man was sent. Now he has been converted to an “agterryer.” Take Bob Waterston. Again, he becomes an “agterryer.” I might quote others—Tommy Strachan. So many others that I seem to have a vision of the Minister riding at the head of a regiment of “agterryers”; shall I call them the “red plush breeches brigade.” I see other Ministers to whom the term might apply, and yet the Prime Minister calls us “agterryers.” Again I ask the Prime Minister to turn and look at some of his own friends and find if the cap would better fit. Another term of reproach the Prime Minister used was “old Unionists.” Old Unionists, it would appear are enemies of South Africa; they are not true South Africans. Yet we find old Unionists sitting on his own benches. The hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh)—I am sorry he is not here to-day—was an old Unionist and one of the staunchest. Mr. Park Grey of Natal, who contested Klip River, was the staunchest of old Unionists. Yet he is received with acclamation into the Nationalist fold. One could go on giving instances of old Unionists who have become excellent Nationalists. When the argument is analysed the term really means this—when an old Unionist has become a Nationalist, he is a good Afrikaner; but if he joins the South African party, he is an enemy to South Africa. That is a specimen of the logic we have begun to expect from the Prime Minister in his speeches. But it is not only a question of the epithets used.

Of course it is the policy behind it that you take exception to.

Well, it must be a bad policy which prompts epithets of that nature. Look at the conduct of the business of this House as well. It reminds me of the dear old gag of the circus. A fight is arranged and the combatants are told; “When I say ‘go,’ you start to fight; when I say ‘stop’ you must stop.” Then the word “go” is given and the clown punches his assailant on the nose. Before his adversary can retaliate, there is a shout “stop,” and the fight is all over. It is the same with the Nationalist party. They are allowed to get their blow in first and then the fight must stop before that attack is countered—the closure is moved. What sort of defence is that? It seems to be a revised version of the South African Queensberry rules, edited by the Prime Minister.

But yours is a bitter attack.

When hon. members launch an attack it consists of charges of racialism. Now I want to say a word about irresponsible members. They may annoy the Prime Minister intensely. But there are worse things than irresponsible back-benchers; there are irresponsible Ministers; there is an irresponsible Government. Let me give an illustration of irresponsibility. Take the Minister of Finance. Look at the position in South Africa. We have never had the country in a worse condition than it is to-day; we have never had greater financial stringency. We have never had times when greater care will need to be exercised if grave trouble is to be avoided. And to what is it all due? To the extravagance of the Government during the last five years. One must look at results. I say that half the trouble we are faced with to-day is the fact that the Government is taking £5,000,000 more out of the pockets of the people than when we handed over the reins of office in 1924. That is the net result. That is what the country looks at and feels. Customs duties, taxation in various forms are taking between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000 more from the pockets of the people than they did five years ago. It is money that should be available to pay interest on bonds and to pay off debts. Instead of that money being used in that way, it is being pouched and put into the Government’s coffers. That is an example of an irresponsible Minister. Another example is the hon. the Minister of Railways and Harbours. He goes to Portugal, and, I daresay, he took some agterryers with him, and he enters into a treaty. What is the result of it? Some 50,000 natives are to be drawn off the land in Zululand from the sugar estates where the local natives cannot work, and where the Portuguese East African native is the only satisfactory labour that can be employed. That is the result of an irresponsible action by an irresponsible Minister. I see in the papers yesterday that the Native Affairs Department is even taking steps to comb out the households of Cape Town, to see if there are any East African boys working there. That also is irresponsible action. I say that an irresponsible Minister is a greater danger to the country than an irresponsible back-bencher. However, I do not want to prolong this discussion—[interruption.] It is wonderful how delighted they are to hear that this criticism is going to cease. How they dislike the idea of the sins of omission of their leaders being ventilated.

If that is the best your party can do, go on.

I wonder where that squeal came from.

You’re another.

I do say, in all seriousness, that this is not what we expect from the Prime Minister, that a party of responsible men who have taken their share in the Government of this country should be described in these terms that the hon. the Minister has used. We are told that we are obstructionists. The Prime Minister does not know what obstruction is. For the last five years, we have in this House endeavoured to assist the Government wherever possible. We have done our best to shape what, in some cases, I may call very crude legislation which has been introduced, into something workable and in the interests of the country. We have not attempted to obstruct in any shape or form. We have endeavoured to assist the Government in the legislation they have brought in. If, however, the Prime Minister wants obstruction, he can get it. If he wants irresponsible back-benchers to make his position an impossible one, he will get it, and then he will see what real obstruction is. He will see how irresponsible back-benchers can hold up the business of this House. I do not think that this is necessary. I feel as one who has been attacked in these terms that it is my duty to resent the language used, as I do. I resent the terms applied to us, and I hope that all occupants of the Treasury benches will refrain from anything of that sort in the future.

No, my hon. friend must not be so jumpy. I mean the Immigration Quota Bill. The Government thought that we were dealing with a question which as responsible men we ought to handle not with a view to getting votes, but to consider the interests of the people, and the Government took a step with full responsibility. The member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) and, with a few exceptions, his whole party, welcomed the Bill and voted with us on it. A few days after the Opposition, as a formal Opposition, had voted with us, the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) came back and he had hardly returned, but he blew the party whistle, because he knew that there were votes at stake and therefore bargaining had to be done. What was the result? The Opposition, including the hon. member for Griqualand, turned right about and bargained together with the hon. member for Standerton. I hope the hon. member has now understood what the Prime Minister meant by their commercial actions. Will he still deny that he and his party trafficked with the interests of South Africa? Even the leader of the Opposition will not deny it, because he knows he is guilty. But to furnish another proof I want to point out how the hon. member for Griqualand was also busy bargaining in this debate. He went back to 1912, when the Prime Minister went out of the Botha Cabinet. Is that not a proof that the party of the hon. member for Namaqualand is politically bankrupt if they, when it suits their book, trade with the reputation of the late Gen. Botha? If they only traded in the right way, but the hon. member for Griqualand accuses the Prime Minister of leaving that cabinet because he was in favour of a two-stream policy. It is altogether wrong. The Prime Minister at that time made a speech at de Wildt where he said that if it ever happened that the interests of the British Empire conflicted with those of South Africa then the latter would come first with him. Who commenced to smouse at that time? One of the members of the Cabinet at that time went to Gen. Botha and complained about the speech of the present Prime Minister. Gen. Botha sent for him, and asked if he had said so. The Prime Minister replied: “Yes, I said so, and do you not also say so?” Gen. Botha replied: “Yes, I say so also, but we must not say it.” And then the difference arose between that member and the present Prime Minister, and then the trafficking started. Gen. Botha said: “I also think so,” but in order to catch votes there had to be trafficking, and the Prime Minister had to be put out of the Cabinet. Then the hon. member asks what the Prime Minister meant by flunkeys. I will give him an instance. The Prime Minister and all who sit behind him have always said: “South Africa first.” But what happens now? When the people of South Africa commenced to appreciate the principle of “South Africa first,” and adopted it, the other side commenced to adopt it also. Does not the hon. member for Griqualand also say “South Africa first” today? Yes, and where did he get it from? When the hon. member for Griqualand saw that the people were honouring that principle he saw he could trade with that principle, and so he also adopted it. The Prime Minister and we who sit behind him have rushed and taken one fort after the other of the South African party since 1912. It went so far that in 1924 the people gave us the majority. It is only owing to their attitude that hon. members of the Opposition are sitting there to-day. During two elections we fought the Opposition on this basic principle, and the people gave us a majority. The Opposition has lost each time, but let me say that we welcome speeches like those of the hon. member for Griqualand, because when we said at the last election that only the tail of the South African party was left, and the rest had been swallowed by the Unionists, a speech like that made by the hon. member for Griqualand reveals that our statements were correct. It is in name the South African party, but in fact it is the old Unionist principles, and no one dare deny it. Is it not a fact that the old Unionist party from the very start stood for the principle of British domination? And seeing our Government has to-day obtained the international recognition of South Africa, and has appointed ambassadors to maintain that status, who is kicking against it? The “flunkeys” of whom we have heard here, but unfortunately for the hon. member we do not take the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz) very seriously. He is an entirely demoralized Afrikaner, born a Free Stater, the Free State had no time for him. He had to fly to the Cape Province to one of the best known old Unionist centres, Port Elizabeth. After a few years they also were tired of him and they had to go and bargain for a seat for him in the Transvaal. There are still good South Africans on the opposite side. I do not say how many, but I want to assure them that speeches like that of the hon. member for Griqualand, advertise the Opposition in the right way in the interior, and will make our contest very much easier in future than hitherto. I need not go any further. I only want to say that we, on this side, treat statements like those of the hon. member for Griqualand with the utmost contempt, and we shall treat them as they deserve.

I do not think anybody who heard the Prime Minister’s speech to which the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr.Gilson) has referred, could have failed to feel the greatest possible regret that expressions should have fallen from the Prime Minister of this country of the nature to which the hon. member has referred. We recognize that the Prime Minister was speaking in anger, but it was difficult to understand what caused so much anger; when the Prime Minister becomes angry he uses expressions to which we, on this side of the House, are gradually becoming accustomed.

What angered him ?

I do not know, but I am confident the Prime Minister regrets using the words like “smous” and “flunkeys.” However regrettable it must have been that he should have spoken in such a way, I am sure he must feel no gratitude to the last speaker.

Don’t I? You will get some more.

One might excuse a speech made in anger, but not when an hon. member attempts to justify the use of these objectionable words. I cannot think the Prime Minister intended to follow that line. The Prime Minister gave me the impression that he had allowed his feelings to run away with him, but I want to come to the speech of the Minister of Finance, made deliberately from notes, and apparently after the most careful consideration. The Minister made a speech of which any hon. gentleman may have been proud, until he came to the question of bilingualism, and that is where I object. I feel very keenly on the matter, and crave the indulgence of hon. members to express my feelings. I understood him in the first place to attack the people of Natal because he said they had never realized and accepted the position that this was to be a bilingual country, but on the contrary we had not made a real effort to learn Dutch. The second matter which alarmed me, and also the people of Natal, was the deliberate statement made by the Minister that in future not only will the Nationalist Government, if it remains in power, carry on the same policy as in the past, but intends to introduce an element of compulsion. I want to deal with the truth or otherwise of the statement that we in Natal have been lacking in our duty in regard to this. Ever since 1910 we have made an effort to learn Dutch, and even before we came into Union, Natal had earned a reputation for itself by making a legitimate attempt to supply the Dutch residents there with teachers, and certainly have done so since Union. I defy contradiction when I say that so far as the provincial council of Natal is concerned they have done everything in their power to teach and to foster the teaching of Dutch in that province.

made an interjection.

I hope the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) will not interrupt me, because I may say something for which I may be sorry. He has a practice of interrupting speeches. I want to discuss this subject as calmly as I can, and I will be obliged if he leaves me alone. Let me take the case of the technical college. We have in collaboration with the railway authorities made every effort to teach Dutch, but we have not been very successful. We wrote a letter to the Minister of the Interior and told him of our difficulties. We said we had done all we could, and all that was humanly possible to teach our children Dutch. He sent down one of his officials to see if he could help us. Within two days we had a gentleman sent down—most remarkable alacrity on the part of the department. I have nothing but praise for the gentleman, who studied the problem from every possible aspect, and I ask the Minister of the Interior if I am not stating the facts accurately when I say that he was compelled to admit that the difficulties in practice were insuperable. He made a number of proposals to better the position, which we are scrupulously carrying out. I ask the Minister if I am not Stating the truth when I say that that official had to admit it was practically impossible to teach Dutch efficiently to the children of the people of Durban?

What about the Free State ?

In Durban you never hear a word of Dutch from one year’s end to another; in the Free State you do hear English.

Because we learn English.

The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) is tempting me most seriously. Let me take the case of my own children. My eldest son took Dutch, and what Dutch did he take? High Dutch. How long has Afrikaans, however, been the official language of this country?

Since 1910 Dutch has been an official language.

The Prime Minister is not quite accurate. In the colleges in Natal they took Netherlands, which is an entirely different language. My boy cannot speak a single word of Afrikaans. He may be lacking in apprehension or comprehension. My youngest son is taking Afrikaans, and is getting excellent marks, but when he came recently on holiday to Cape. Town he could not speak a word of Dutch. I wondered whether the marks were justified. My point is: give us a little time and opportunity.

And good will.

But do not talk about compulsion. We are not over our difficulties when we are bilingual—we have to become Nationalists. What is the Prime Minister and what are all his satellites doing to make us Nationalists? What has he done within the last 20 years? You have the hon. member over there, the member for Winburg, the great republican, describing the province from which I come as the “banana province,” the "coolie province.”

No.

You never hear a person in Natal animadverting against the Free State. Does the Prime Minister think when he tried to pull down the Union Jack, because he did try to pull it down. [Interruption.] He had to compromise. You went a little bit too far with the people of Natal, until you saw you could not force that measure down their throats and it was dangerous to go further. I will tell you when you could have made Nationalists of all of us. If the Prime Minister had continued on the same line that he adopted when he first came back from the last imperial conference, and if the Government had also adopted that line, you would have made us all Nationalists. I appeal to my colleagues from Natal as to the feeling in that province at that time. Talk about there being more joy about one repentant sinner, if the Prime Minister had been a hundred repentant sinners, he could not have evoked more joy. But the Prime Minister did not continue on the line he adopted on his return from London, and now he makes the unfortunate speech we heard the other night. I say it with every possible confidence that the Government has done a great deal that has been calculated to exacerbate the feelings of the people of Natal. We have never done anything to hurt the feelings of the Dutch. How do you explain that Mr. Pringle could not get in for Natal Coast? He not only put up there, but he adopted our programme, and yet he had to forfeit his deposit. Does it not strike the Prime Minister that there must be something radically wrong with his methods? One would think that the Prime Minister would like to rope that province in a bit. But no; Natal has been subjected to constant irritation, constant sneers, and its people are called “smousers,” “flunkeys” and “old Unionists.” Now what is wrong with the old Unionists? What is the idea which obsesses the Prime Minister with regard to the old Unionists?

They are very good chaps, but their politics are wrong.

Could any party have done more than we did? We gave up our identity.

Was not that a bit of “smousing” ?

I think I know better than the Prime Minister what the meaning of the word “smousing” is. The Prime Minister cannot even pronounce the word correctly. A “smouser” is a man who does something disreputable for a reward. If it was disreputable for the Unionists to throw in their lot with the South African party, we did it without reward and without condition. We joined up with the South African party without any condition, and, goodness knows, without reward. As I believe, too, we did it without losing our self-respect. We followed Gen. Botha, and I believe that in the course of time history will decide between Gen. Botha and Gen. Hertzog and other generals, and I believe that history will accord the pride of place to Gen. Botha. I want to warn the Minister of Finance that he should stick to his position as a Minister of Finance. He makes an admirable Minister of Finance, though he may not be an admirable financier, but the moment he touches high politics, he always makes a mess of it. He is always more bitter than anyone else, and to threaten the people of Natal with compulsory bilingualism—

That is not true. I never said so.

I am only too happy to accept the statement of the Minister, but if words have any meaning, well, that is the construction I put upon them.

You are misrepresenting my whole attitude and my whole argument.

It is the impression borne in upon me which I have given. We are doing our best in Natal to acquire this language, and you cannot, by any means you may adopt, compel the people of that province to do more.

I think that anyone listening to the debate this afternoon must have asked himself why the name of the late Gen. Botha and the flag question was dragged into this debate. We are engaged on the third reading of a financial Bill, and the Opposition sat here until 2 a.m. to air their grievances. Now at the third reading they start another attack and drag in the name of that great Afrikaner. I want to appeal to hon. members opposite to leave the name of Gen. Botha out of their party politics. I take off my hat to Gen. Botha, and I admire him so far as the period from 1899 to 1912 is concerned. We differ from him since 1912, but I do not drag his name into party politics, but mention the leader of the Opposition, who is still alive. The Opposition must not traffic every time with the name of the late Gen. Botha. When the Opposition, and particularly the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson), adopt such means and such arguments, it shows that he knows very little of the history of South Africa. He has only shown his ignorance in that respect, because otherwise he would not come here and say, e.g., that the Prime Minister was the man who had broken away. From what? From the South African party. Yes, and we are proud of it, and the people of South Africa are proud that he did not run away to the Unionists. The Prime Minister stood by the policy that he advocates to-day. He would not go over to the Unionists and their policy to get assistance. The Prime Minister put the interests of South Africa first and said that if there were a conflict between imperial concerns and those of South Africa, that those of South Africa came first. Was he not right? Would he have acted rightly if he had compelled us to remain quiet? I do not want to go into history, but I think the whole nation sees today that the Prime Minister at that time was right in connection with the education ordinance, when he demanded bilingualism for the people of South Africa. I do not know whether the hon. member for Griqualand took part in politics at that time, but, if so, then I can quite well imagine how he struggled against it. Now an hon. member on the front benches comes and protests against bilingualism.

No.

If the members had taken up an honest attitude at the time, as the Prime Minister did, then there would have been bilingualism to-day throughout the whole country, and it would not be necessary for us to talk all day about bilingualism. The Prime Minister did his duty towards the children of South Africa, and anyone who opposed him at that time should be ashamed about the attack on the Prime Minister. The hon. member for Griqualand talks of financial difficulties. I admit that we are in difficulties, and as a farming representative, I see that the farmers in particular feel it. What, however, would have been the position if the South African party were still in office? What would the position be to-day with such an unsympathetic Government? Is it not a thing to be thankful for that there is a Nationalist Government in office to-day? Just take one thing—the Namaqualand diamonds. If my hon. friends opposite had been in power De Beers and other capitalists would have swallowed them up, but to-day the yield goes into the treasury, and the Government is going to build dams and give other assistance to the farmers. If we were to go to the country today the farming population would again, as one man, vote for this Government. The hon. member spoke about extravagance. Where? He has shown nothing, but has made irresponsible remarks about wasting money. It surprises me that he did not repeat the story which has been spread about the countryside, amongst others by the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Hofmeyr), that the German treaty was the cause of the price of wool being so low. They dare not state that here, because they know it is not so. It is the greatest nonsense, and I will prove it. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) is not man enough to make such a statement in this House.

Has the German treaty improved the price ?

Certainly, the Minister of Agriculture got, the other day, a telegram from Durban from one of the largest brokers, saying that the market was better, inasmuch as the German buyers were active.

They buy short wool.

Does not the hon. member wish it to be so? If necessary we would shear twice a year if there was a market for short wool. I have here an official price list of the wool sales which were held at Perth in Australia on the 14th January, 1930. It is an official list of the company, Dalgety & Co., Ltd. They say since their sale on the 3rd December the prices had dropped very much, and the highest price that was obtained for fleece wool was 15½d. in a sale of about 23,000 bales. If, however, we refer to the papers, we find 22d., 25d. and 30d. Here, however, we have an official return, and the highest price was 15½d.

What did we get?

We got the same at that time. We see also that piece wool was sold at 5d. and 4½d., while I sold recently at 6½d. I therefore did still better than Australia. Then it is said that Australia gets better prices than we do. That is the greatest nonsense, and this kind of talking will not assist the Opposition. We are very anxious to get on with the work so as to return to our farming operations, but these speeches, now wasting the time of the House, cannot be left unanswered.

I am reluctant to intervene in this debate, but the time has come to bring home to this House some of the Government’s methods of dealing with criticism. In the last few days we have had the spectacle of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Mines and Industries, and especially the Minister of Agriculture, when they were cornered in debate, they all raised the old familiar term of racialism. That is sufficient for all their followers, because it saves them the trouble of thinking. It reminds me of a method sometimes used in the veld when a farmer desires to move his cattle from one place to another. He takes an empty petrol tin, and cries “Sout, sout, sout, sout,” banging on the tin while all the animals follow, bellowing, with their horns down, their tails up, and their heels elevated. I am glad that hon. members realize the process so clearly. There is, of course, no salt in the petrol tin, just as there is no racialism on our side for Ministers to call attention to.

Notwithstanding that, you followed your leader.

Is our leader a racialist? Now there is an example; it proves they have ceased to think, when we have interruptions like that. We hear a lot, from time to time, about the old Unionists. We hear no specific charge against them sitting as individualists, or about their policy. I see exactly why the old Unionists are condemned. They helped to destroy the only Nationalist political asset—racialism. In season and out of season they were the one party which had deliberately in their programme, and even in their name, urged the principle of bringing the two races together. That does not suit hon. members opposite. The principle of bringing the two races together does not suit the present Ministry when they are cornered by trenchant criticism and by awkward questions, and perhaps hon. members on that side may soon begin to think. Surely it is very degrading for them to be moved to vote time after time by this cry of racialism. There is not a particle of proof advanced of its existence on our side. Here we sit on this side, the absolute negation of racialism in our membership, our policy, our doings and our speeches. I will not say anything about the laugh of certain members, except to say it is like the crackling of thorns under the pot. We are the absolute negation of racialism here, and it is not conducive to the progress of this country to have this old cry raised time after time on the slightest provocation. I will be the first to admit the fault if it can be proved against myself, or against any of my political associates, that we have in thought, speech or act shown that we are a racial party or that we do otherwise than honestly desire to bring the two races together. We have had the hon. member for Durban (Stamford Hill) (Mr. Robinson) showing what great efforts they have made in Durban, an essentially English-speaking centre, to learn the other official language, and to get rid of racialism. That spirit actuates the whole of our party, and it is our one desire, and it was our desire when we were Unionists, to bring the races together. It is equally our desire as members of the South African party to bring them together for the good of South Africa, and not for any particular class or race.

Vote British.

Come, come. If that phrase were ever uttered, and I have seen it denied that it was uttered, it was uttered 20 years ago. It was alleged to have been uttered during electioneering times 20 years ago. I am not in a position to prove if ever it was or not. I know this, that no responsible person for the last 20 years has used such a phrase. Those are not our views. The Prime Minister should be fair. That brings me to another point. Again we have the statement of the Prime Minister, made for consumption on the other side of the House, about the independence of South Africa being achieved by his efforts. I wish to protest against that statement, for it is untrue. In the solemn memory of 20,000 South African casualties, I deny it. The Prime Minister should be the last to utter that phrase. May I remind him of what Mr. Lloyd George, then the Prime Minister of England, said to him in 1919? The present Prime Minister of South Africa—he was not the Prime Minister then—led a certain delegation over to the other side, and he was received by the British Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, in 1919. I wish to emphasize that date, 1919. Mr. Lloyd George told him as follows—

Only you denied it until 1926.

No, sir, it was not denied. On the contrary, it was affirmed in the year 1919 by South Africa’s signature to the treaty of Versailles. We had reached our highest status then

Not the highest.

I want this recorded in Hansard. It was the reply of the British Prime Minister to Gen. Hertzog in 1919—

A little later, in 1922, Mr. Lloyd George stated that as a result of their actions in the great war the dominions had acquired full national status. That was four years before 1926. Will the Prime Minister still try to convey to his deluded followers that he won this independence for South Africa and for the whole of the nations of the British commonwealth?

He started it.

I have not heard of the other dominion nations feeling so deeply indebted to the Prime Minister as to give him recognition suitable to his great services. If it is true that he won it for South Africa, then he won it also for Newfoundland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Surely the whole thing is preposterous. A great statesman whose death we lament to-day, the Earl of Balfour, who perhaps crystallized in writing the position of the component states of the British commonwealth, did not claim that he had done anything new. But by that declaration, which was assented to by the Imperial Conference in 1926, the position which had already been in existence since 1919 was formally recorded. So I beg of the Prime Minister not to go on making these statements.

Can you give me a single instance where I made that statement?

I know of several, although I cannot at this moment give the reference. I was going on to explain that his colleague sitting on his left, the Minister of Finance, not two days ago made that statement.

No, I did not.

Of course, we accept that. We, on this side of the House, understood from his words that the claim was definitely made. However, the Minister denies it. We had it reiterated by the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. Conroy)—

You said that the Prime Minister said it.

Does the Prime Minister deny ever having said it.

Absolutely.

The Prime Minister makes no claim, then.

I only said it as against you and your leader. I have always maintained that we were independent, but you denied it.

We accept the Prime Minister’s word that on no occasion has he claimed that through his efforts, assisted by others, no doubt, he obtained in 1926 the independence of South Africa.

We got it with our constitution in 1910.

What the Prime Minister did in 1926, then, was already an accomplished fact? The Prime Minister, assisted by the Minister of Finance, has managed to convey to his followers that he had gained that independence. There is scarcely a Nationalist platform in the country upon which that statement has not been repeated. The Prime Minister cannot be exonerated from all blame in the matter, but we accept his explanation, and we hope it will go out to the world that nothing was changed in 1926. Let us hear no more of these claims of the Nationalist party. I resent any such claims, not only by the Prime Minister, but by any of his followers.

The Imperial Conference says you have all been wrong since 1910.

The Imperial Conference had no power to give or take, but it found it was necessary to have a clearer definition of what the position of the dominions and Great Britain is, and that is all that happened. Let me give the Government some cogent reasons for our self-governing independence. That independence was won by the death of 6,600 South Africans on active service.

Was that in 1910?

No, between 1914 and 1918.

I thought the Imperial Conference said we had independence in 1910.

When I mentioned the death on active service of 6,600 South Africans, I do not think it was a matter for either cheering or jeering.

You must not smouse with the memory of these people.

You did not have the pluck to smouse.

Six thousand six hundred South Africans laid down their lives on active service, and in doing so achieved a higher status and greater independence for South Africa. In addition, there were 12,000 other casualties, and when we consider the native casualties and the magnificent results that followed from the united efforts of these people, I hope any allusion to their memory will be received with the respect it demands.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) referred in this debate to the persons who lost their lives in the recent war. I do not think that is the way to do homage to them. The way to do it was indicated by the Prime Minister when he unveiled the memorial to them, although we are very sorry that use was made during the election of the speech which he made on that occasion. Let me tell the hon. member that we have the greatest contempt for people who on this occasion, and during the election, trade and have traded with the memory of those men. If they want to traffic with the Union Jack or the German treaty I do not blame them in the least, but when they start in that way, then it is not only despicable, but also rather repulsive. I must say that we are very glad to hear that an attack was made here this afternoon. If that is an attack, as the hon. member who has just sat down said, then it is a pretty hopeless affair, but the point the hon. member raised was in connection with our status. What I should like to know is how long they have acknowledged our independent status. When Gen. Botha and the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) tried to get our independent status they had to abandon it at once because the old Unionists and the South African party would not hear of a higher status. All the time the other side would not listen to anything about the higher status, but now we hear something different. Since 1910 that was always the great difference between the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Standerton, and they would never admit that the Prime Minister always stuck to his point. The report of the Imperial Conference of 1926 also acknowledged that the attitude the Prime Minister had taken up all those years since 1910 was right. Now this is no longer denied or objected to by hon. members opposite, except when it is applied in practice. Then I only want to refer to the great swear word “old Unionist.” Why is it a disgrace to-day to be an old Unionist?

It is not a disgrace.

So, it is not a disgrace. But why then is it one of their greatest grievances that the Prime Minister said that there were old Unionists amongst them, because that was the reason for the attack this afternoon ?

On the contrary. We are proud of being old Unionists.

Why then do you object? It is grievance number tour on the list of the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson), but I understand that it is very bitter to have to be ashamed of your past. To-day it is a term of abuse to be called an old Unionist, but if the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) says he is proud of it, well I accept it. But then he certainly does not agree with the other members of his party, and is contradicting their statements.

No.

He does not then. It is given as a reason for the attack this afternoon that the Prime Minister called them old Unionists, and on the other hand the hon. member for Yeoville says that he is proud of the name.

We are not ashamed of the past.

Well, I can understand it. And I also hope that I may never have to feel ashamed of being a Nationalist. But if they are not ashamed why then have they objected so strongly to being called old Unionists? Let me first dispose of this point. If I had time I would say what they are to-day. Let us first understand this point clearly, because it may remove much misunderstanding in future. When did my hon. friends opposite become ashamed of the appellation “old Unionists” ?

No, we are not ashamed.

Very well, but why is complaint number four that the Prime Minister called them old Unionists? It looks now as if charge number four completely falls away. Do I understand that it is scrapped, and that they are now proud of the appellation? When I look at hon. members opposite I think they are all old Unionists, and observe I do not want to abuse them because I now assume that they are proud of being so. If then we examine the position of the old Unionists, then we shall possibly find out what the position of the South African party is. What is the difference between the old Unionists who existed and the South African party that exists today? Can any of the members tell me? Is there any distinction ?

We go with the times.

There is my hon. friend" again. I respect him because he is honest. They say they go with the times. In our private business we also want to go with the times, so that we can make a profit. It appears to me that they want to go with the times in politics and therefore they do not mind trading a bit to go with the times and to get a little more than they did. As for political trading, we have never yet had a party that has done so well at it as the old Unionists. I take off my hat to them.

What about the Labour party ?

If the Labour party traded then they did well, but certainly not so well as the old Unionists, because they were entirely dead. They struck a bargain, but hon. members now say that they retain their identity. It is something of which they can really be proud, and therefore I could not understand why hon. members thought that it was not the right thing to call them old Unionists. It is something of which they can be proud that they have retained their identity. But they can be still more proud if they retain their prinicples as hon. members opposite allege. Suppose now that they were high principled, let us then look at the position. The old section of the South African party only counts five or ten members, but I will be liberal and say that there are still twenty old Saps in the party opposite, all the rest are Unionists. Those Unionists once had fixed principles, and one fine day, without consulting their constituents they said, “We are still Unionists, we retain our identity and principles, but we are now all becoming good Saps.”

Did they not go to the country ?

Yes, after they had united. In one day they united with the South African party without surrendering their principles. If it is so then their principles are dominant in the whole party opposite. If they sacrifice their principles then we must remember that there are still fifteen old Saps left, and then the majority, who were old Unionists, are without principle. The majority of the party are old Unionists, and they have sacrificed their principles and will hon. members blame me for calling them a party without principle? Now we come to another point. We have heard that the price of maize is low, and all such things because the Union Jack has been tampered with. It is tampering with the Union Jack which has caused all the trouble in the country. Did my hon. friend, Mr. Robinson, honestly mean that the Prime Minister wanted to pull down the Union Jack ?

We were all engaged in doing it.

Has the hon. member said that in Natal yet? I respect his honesty, but did they not say in Natal that it was only the Nationalist party that wanted to do so?

He understood incorrectly.

The other point is that the Unionists were the only party which had as one of its principles co-operation between the two races. If that is so then I must say that they made a hopeless failure of it during the last twenty years in spite of all their talk of conciliation. To what extent have they introduced co-operation in practice? There are two provinces, one of which is exclusively Nationalist and the other is, call it what you like, but certainly not Nationalist. They are high principled Saps. What is the position there? They had a great opportunity last year of showing that they wanted co-operation between the two races, and to show that they were in earnest and not merely talking. Senators were to be elected, and Natal had the opportunity of electing Dutch-speaking members to the Senate. Were there any Dutch-speaking people amongst the eight? All of the eight were English-speaking, and yet they say that they are the only party that aim at co-operation between the two cases.

What about the Free State ?

I will come to the Free State in a moment.

We have Senator Wessels, and we would have given others a place also if they had asked for it.

What about Messrs. Nel, Botha and Uys? They asked for seats, and even begged for them. I even think that one of them threatened to resign from the party. But was it necessary for them to ask for a seat seeing that the party aims at co-operation? I think that it was their duty to approach those people who have rendered them great services, and had seen them through.

How many Englishspeaking senators has the Free State elected ?

Not one. Because we have no English-speaking people in the Free State who have played a prominent part in the Nationalist party. They have always believed in the cock and bull stories that hon. members spread here. But if there were one and he had lost his seat we should have provided for him, and it would not have been necessary for him, like my compatriots in Natal, to go and beg for a seat in the Senate. I now return to my hon. friend opposite who argued that the children in Natal had no opportunity to learn Afrikaans. What about the child in the Free State? What is the difference? My children on the farm do not hear English, and when I, after four or five months at the Cape, return I find it very hard to speak English. Our parents, however, realize that it would be of great value and benefit for the children to learn both languages. When then we see that hon. members opposite say that it should be seen to that Afrikaans was not pressed down the throats of the children—

What can we do more than you ?

You must adopt the attitude that the second language must be taught to the children, but in public speeches it is said that they will not allow Afrikaans to be forced down their throats. As long as that attitude prevails there will be trouble. The hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) only the other day said very emphatically here that Natal could not swallow it, that Natal would not allow bi-lingualism to he introduced into the agricultural school at Cedara, and it was said that if the Minister of Agriculture introduced it there that the Cedara agricultural school would be emptied. We say that the attitude of the parents in Natal was unwise and wrong, and not in the interests of the children and of the country. The parents do not do that in the Free State. Even in the old republican days the children learnt English, notwithstanding all the favours and protection we got from the English. We realized that it was for the children’s benefit. The hon. members who complain so much have themselves to blame, and the time will yet come when hon. members from Natal will deplore this attitude. The fourth was the Prime Minister spoke of the “old Unionists.” I do not believe that the Prime Minister said that the English-speaking people could never become South Africans. I say, however, some of them will never do so. There are some of them who still always look to another country as “Home,” who will never become good Afrikaners. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however, the greatest section of the inhaibtants of our country, and of my compatriots only know one “Home,” and that is South Africa.

What about the young Unionists?

I certainly believe that a large number of young English-speaking people are to-day absolutely proud of being nothing else but South Africans. I believe that, and it gives one great hope for the future of South Africa. The hon. member also must not think that the English-speaking people are all Saps. There are many more people of their race on our side than the hon. member thinks, and who are ashamed of the attitude which some of the real old Unionists adopt.

I suppose the Minister of Finance is wondering when something is going to be said remotely connected with his vote. I am not going to carry on this discussion. It is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. I appeal to the Prime Minister on his part, and hon. members of the Opposition on their part, to approach this matter with goodwill; to use no threats, and all will come right. The children will fix it up. The fires have not yet died down, but the playgrounds around the schools will prove the graveyard of racialism. I want to deal very briefly with the Government’s housing proposals. It is no use for the Prime Minister, or the leader of the Opposition, to claim that he alone is responsible for bringing about the highest status, while you have the lowest economic state in the whole of the world. All the housing schemes brought forward by the Minister of the Interior are absolutely useless. The hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) is perfectly right in saying that at the best this can only be a temporary expedient, and at the worst it will merely subsidize the employers and cheap labour. This housing scheme is to advance, presumably to local authorities, money to build houses to let at a sub-economic rent. Why is it necessary to let those or any other houses at what you are pleased to call a sub-economic rent? It is because a vast mass of the people of South Africa are getting such miserable wages that they cannot afford to pay adequate rent. You are not only not going to improve the position—I assume that the Minister of Finance is really the deciding factor—but you are going to do a considerable amount of harm. I am not arguing against building houses, But there is no animal in the world more reactive to environment than the human animal. What you are proposing to do is to build houses at the cost of £250 each. I ask the Minister of Agriculture, and the Minister of Lands—they are used to standing on the stoep and looking out over the wide veld, living in the midst of the free and completely open air, that vitalizing atmosphere of the Transvaal—I ask them to imagine themselves translated from surroundings such as that—which give them such an elevated outlook—to this narrow, restricted, restrictive environment of a £250 house surrounded by three-quarters of a square yard of ground. I ask hon. members to imagine what must be the effect on these people of such an environment. The Government is now going out of its way to assist someone or other to erect houses of such a character which will only restrict the development of the people. The hon. member for Newlands was right again when he said that you are only going to set aside £100,000 for that scheme. I also heard the Minister of the Interior say in his sonorous and momentous way—I wonder why he was patting himself on the back about this scheme—he says the Government proposes to tackle this question of house shortage, and slums, and he invented the slogan “The slums must go.” You put £100,000 on the Estimates, and bang go the slums—the thousands of tenements in South Africa—many hundreds in Cape Town alone; bang they all go by erecting 400 houses. It is only in the first year. The hon. Minister has a list of something like three years. Whether it is 5 or 10 years, at 400 houses a year I cannot quite see the slums of South Africa going with a bang as a result of that expenditure of money. And if they do what are you substituting for your slums may I ask? Nothing very much better. If you are going to build a house at £250 for a man to keep himself and family in, I fail to see how very much of an improvement that is upon the slum dwellings at the present time. True, it provides separate houses for separate families, perhaps, but how long will that last with the overcrowding there is to-day? At the best it is a very poor substitute for our slum conditions to-day. I ask if any hon. members have seen any of these houses. I have. For the money they were excellent. I remember the first thing that I pointed out when I inspected one of these houses, was the very small piece of ground which surrounds the house and the limited accommodation in the house itself. I say from my experience of such a house, it is not going to be very far removed, once it is inhabited for any length of time, from the present slum conditions you have to-day. The restrictive influence of a house on a small piece of ground upon the family inhabiting it, inevitably tends in the direction of the restriction of outlook. When you get that on the part of a human being you have deterioration. You must have development somewhere or other. You must have evolution for the human race never stands still. Under the influence of this tying in of their outlook by a small house on a small piece of ground, accompanied by others of a similar kind, always remember that the same restrictive influence is so enormous that slumdom will rather increase than be mitigated. I urge upon the Minister not that he should not go on with something in the way of buildings, but I want to urge that this is not the right way to tackle it. Immediately I mention anything of a forward nature that the state may undertake on behalf of its citizens, the cry is unthinkingly raised of socialism, not because it is socialism. It is sufficient to raise the cry and bang goes any thought about the scheme itself being considered on its merits. I wish to suggest, as I have suggested before, that the whole country must realize the truth of my assertion, and that they will accept it that the state itself with its superior organization, its greater power for raising money chiefly, and its greater power for doing these things more cheaply because of its superior organization, and because it will be doing all these things itself, and will not be dependent upon other people making a profit, will put forward sincerely a comprehensive house building scheme to sell or to let as the case may be. Coincident with that, and not without it, there must be the establishment of a standard minimum rate of pay for all workers in the country, that standard to be a standard upon which they can live in decency and comfort. It should not be a standard to compel them to take a house of the description that the Minister of the Interior outlined before this House the other day as part of the scheme the Government has for relieving house shortage and for carrying out the slogan “The slums must go.” Under that scheme, with the funds you provide, however tentatively you approach it, I do not care so long as you begin on the right lines and not on the wrong lines, as you are to-day, it will involve better organization in that direction because it would mean that the State itself will have to open out its own quarries; it would have its own brick-making fields and machinery, and its own joinery works. The hon. the Minister of Finance laughs without giving it any thought. Perhaps he is incapable of giving it any thought. Certainly there is a prejudice there, and I think he will be the first to admit it. He is prejudiced against this sort of thing right from the outset because he has never given it the consideration it deserves. The point is, are you going to meet the situation in South Africa and actually set yourself seriously to carry out the slogan “The slums must go,” and as a substitute that we should have sufficiently good houses for the public of the country? If you are agreeing to do that, you must do more than meet with a cold sneer and laughing prejudice the suggestion I am making this afternoon. I despair of the Minister. If I cared to join in the controversy this afternoon, I would be able to use some of the words referred to, described and defined by the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson). I do not propose to do that. I want to draw the attention of the Government to what really matters in the highest status, not the lowest economic status. My reason for advocating the necessity for having all this house building activity included in the scheme I am talking about, the Government scheme of house building, is because you can do it much cheaper and infinitely quicker. You would not be losing large sums of money in profit to others in the process. The Minister will turn up his nose at this, but on him rests the responsibility. After all, he has to face the country. I tell him this, whether this side of the House urges voters to vote British, or whether that side of the House urges their voters to vote Dutch, I am urging both of them to vote Labour, and, by heavens, they will be doing it! They will be doing it largely on account of this sort of thing, because you are not turning your attention seriously to the economic condition of the people, English or Dutch, Scotch or Irish, or any other nationality in South Africa. You have established and are maintaining the establishment of your own people, or the mass of them, Dutch and English alike, in a state, whatever that may be only in different degrees, of semistarvation. That is all. On that point I propose to enlarge at the third reading of the Railway Bill. I will not deal with it any more at the moment. There is one other point. I am sorry that the Minister of Mines and Industries is not here. I want to ask him to be good enough to tell me, as the representative of this concern, whether he has received the report of the scheme on the Kleinfontein gold mining question. I should like to ask him whether it is available to the House, and whether we can see it, and whether he proposes, or the Prime Minister proposes, for he will decide in the ultimate, whether they propose to let the House have the opportunity of discussing the report? I suppose the Prime Minister will tell us that this is a matter one might bring up on the budget. This is a matter not only vitally affecting Benoni, Boksburg and the East Rand, but it also adversely affects the whole of the community, and some means have to be devized to prevent the closing down of this mine. The Minister may say “State intervention again.” But if private enterprize breaks down, the Government must step in and devise ways and means of relieving the ill conditions of the people of the country. Therefore I make no apology for pressing the point home. The closing down of the Kleinfontein mine will withdraw from circulation in South Africa the sum of £600,000 per annum, quite apart from the stores that are consumed which, in turn, will have a direct effect on the possibility of the primary producer selling thousands of pounds’ worth of his goods. Hon. members must not think that because the Kleinfontein mine is situated in the Benoni district its closing down might not be a calamity, as it would only reduce my personal influence. Whatever the commission reports, the fact remains that Government must consider whether to advance capital—of which I do not approve—or taking power under the Gold Law, to take over the mine at practically break-up value, and working the mine themselves. There is a good reason for that because gold is the basis of value for the whole credit system. That being so, it is in our interests, apart from keeping wages circulating, that we should produce a metal which fundamentally is the basis of the credit system throughout the world. I hope the Minister of Finance will give me some information on the point as the Minister of Mines and Industries is absent from the House just now, and Government should consider taking steps to keep the Kleinfontein mine alive.

As I am represented as being the cause of the waste of time —another half day has been muddled this afternoon—it will possibly be well for me to say a few words. If hon. members opposite think that as far as I was concerned what has happened here this afternoon was unforeseen, then they are quite wrong. It was quite clear to me from leading articles, first in the “Argus” and then in the “Cape Times,” who were, oh! so indignant, that one could read between the lines that they had tears in their eyes, that I, in my speech on Monday, had been so extraordinarily angry that I did not actually know what I was saying. That made it clear what we could expect. I can only say that if I was so angry I apparently hit the nail very much on the head. But no one acquainted with the tactics of the Opposition, and especially the tactics of their press, could for a moment come under a false impression about what was going on here this afternoon. Among the false representations which had to be made, it was very clear to me that during the debate this afternoon a desperate attempt was being made to neutralize the criticism which I had made on the irresponsible criticism of speakers opposite.

That is precisely what happened, and I heartily congratulate those hon. members on the success of their debate to-day, and I can assure them that the party which gave them such blows in the past is still here, and that it can give such blows again, and if it is necessary they will give two for one. In the past they often got rapped over the knuckles, and were very much distressed by their punishment, and it was the same this afternoon, and I think they have a bad headache after it. I shall not be very long, because after what we have heard today nothing practically remains of their argument. They either ran away from their grievances, or they have been so thrown into confusion, that they will be only too glad if nothing more is said about it. But I hope everybody can see that I am not angry this afternoon, and I hope hon. members can even see that what is said by me is to a certain extent considered a joke; but I want to repeat, for the benefit of hon. members of the Opposition, because I am convinced that even if they feel very hurt at getting such correction, they will subsequently admit that we owe them something for using such tactics. I must say that the conduct of hon. members on Monday was frivolous and irresponsible, and the frivolous spirit was not only caused by that irresponsibility, but also partly by the policy which leads to flunkeyism and, as I then said, it is the old Unionists’ policy. Moreover, it is caused by the mentality of the trader. They have heard so much about trading this afternoon, and what was best of all they were caught in the very act in the House this afternoon, that I do not believe I shall be expected to return to give them another lecture with regard to that spirit which so possesses them. The hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson), the principal speaker of the Opposition—I do not know whether I ought to call him that, because it seems to me that a mutiny is actually going on in the back benches and that it is really mutineers who are speaking; we know that the “Cape Times” is a mutineer, and that the “Argus” has always been one. They are therefore all mutineers, and the front benches must really excuse me if I talk over their heads to the mutineers on the back benches. The hon. members in front of me have learnt in the past, they have so often been rapped over the knuckles that they will no longer commit the blunders that hon. members behind them are now committing. To teach them a lesson for the future, I just want to repeat here, and if it is necessary to explain in detail what the hon. members for Hoopstad (Mr. Conroy) and Frankfort (Mr. Wessels) have already this afternoon explained to the hon. member for Griqualand, who has actually become the principal man, because there is hardly a single department of the State about which he does not pose as an authority. As for my speech and the reprehensibility of it, the hon. member was very indignant about it. Then he asks again why I spoke of “deserters.” Let me first say clearly what I did say. I spoke about the exhibition of the spirit of the deserter, and I say that I think that I was quite right in speaking about the spirit of the deserter. Just think a little. What does it mean to speak about the ambassadors of this country as “flunkeys”; “sending glorified flunkeys to various parts of the world to teach other people what wonderful people we are”? And to further speak of “National snobs” and “national snobbery”? Is there one English-speaking person opposite who would have said such a thing? Is there one ready to say so? Am I not right, then, when it comes from a Dutch-speaking member opposite, in saying that it only is because he is imbued with the spirit of a deserter? Have I not the right to say so? Is it not an indignity as great and coarse as could ever have been uttered to speak in that way about your country’s representatives, your ambassadors in other countries? If it is anything else, I should like to hear what hon. members opposite have to say. I was very careful not to call anyone a deserter, but if it is necessary again to speak in reference to actions in this House about the spirit of the deserter, I will do so. I believe that a man who acts in a certain capacity ought not to be afraid. If one acts in the spirit of the deserter he cannot expect me to treat him as a patriot. I would like my hon. friends opposite to consider this; they must not complain if I refer to the spirit of the deserter as the spirit of the deserter. One of the hon. members said that they want to unite the races, then they must in the first place employ their forces to teach their own followers, their party colleagues, to behave as respectable national members of society. If they do not do so, I owe no duty of courtesy towards them, and I am not prepared to treat them any differently to what I have done in giving them the necessary hiding when they deserve it. Then I was blamed for using the word “smouse.” Was that not right after what was said here this afternoon? Is it not the word to express the policy which is heard only too often from the other side? Here the Opposition table a motion and say it is in the interests of the country, and it has the effect of getting the votes of an official here and there, or a few railwaymen here and there, which may be called really buying them. Can there be worse political smousing? Do hon. members opposite dare to complain if I disapprove of it, and if I disapprove of even the front benchers opposite remaining in the House and listening to it without making any protest? The hon. member for Griqualand probably thinks we are buyers of second-hand clothing, and that we will touch the clothes they have already cast aside. No, and when it came to the division on the motion which was before the House the other day, the leaders ran out and dared not take their proper responsibility, although, as I also said the other day, wo did not see the more humiliating scene of their voting also in favour of the motion. Then we come to flunkeys, to flunkeys and old Unionists. The two match so nicely. I will deal with them together. To-day We are told here that the old Unionists were the party that from the olden times wanted to unite the races, as if we have forgotten all the history of our country that the old Unionists were the party with the cry of “Empire first”; to come and tell us now that it was their intention to get brotherly unanimity in the country will not hold water. Think, e.g., of the Jameson raid—is that the way you help the races? The old Unionists always stood for the Empire in the highest and fullest degree for the unity of the Empire, so that there could have been no free state within that Empire. Well, that looks precisely the opposite of what the Nationalist party says. The Nationalist party say, first the freedom, complete freedom, and sovereign freedom of South Africa, and then co-operation with the Empire, but in those circumstances an Empire State. Therefore, I say the Imperialists, or old Unionists, can be nothing else but flunkeys. Their whole policy is that of the flunkey. With them it is the case that South African interests are subordinated to Imperial interests. The freedom of South Africa is subordinated to Empire freedom. That is what they advocate here, and it is the spirit of the true Unionists of the past and the true Unionists of to-day. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) says that he is still an old Unionist.

No, I used to be.

I am glad to hear it. I was a Sap., but to-day I am a Nationalist. He says he is now a Sap., but how do we know the distinction between a Sap. and a Unionist? I assume that there is a difference, and I also assume that he is no longer a Unionist. I think that if he had sat at my side I would have been better able to co-operate with him than with many Dutch-speaking people. His misfortune is that he was born a Unionist.

No, he was born a Scot.

There are also Scotsmen who are Unionists. The person who is really a Unionist is a flunkey, because they do not stand first for the interests of South Africa, but first for the interests of the empire, some say first for the interests of Great Britain, but I shall say first for the interests of the empire and only then for the interests of South Africa. What is still worse is that the Unionists, in connection with every question for solution in South Africa, try to find a different solution to what I and other Nationalists do in the spirit of South Africa try to do. No, the Unionists first of all look for and almost through their utmost efforts try to find a solution in the spirit of the empire, and according to the requirements of cases, sometimes possibly in the spirit of Scotland, but almost without exception with the eyes turned towards the needs of the empire. I have, therefore, every right to say that the Unionists in that sense are flunkeys, and followers of the empire and of the imperial idea. Why they have so strongly objected to it I cannot say, or, at any rate, the hon. member for Griqualand has not made it clear. I will, however, tell the House why it is. They can say what they like, but the great bulk, the great majority, of the English-speaking people in the country are still so little imbued with the spirit of South Africa and with love for this country that they cannot look to South Africa as the majority of the Dutch-speaking people do as their native land, which they ought to love. They possibly unwittingly follow a policy which shows that their eyes are turned to the empire. I hear the hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close) was so angry with me, but I do not know what about.

That is just the pity of it.

Yes, but I do not believe that the hon. member will ever make me understand it. I do not, however, blame him because he and his friends are still SO closely connected with England that they possibly unwittingly cannot say anything else than “England first.”

You have a wonderful imagination.

That is why I can see what is going on in here. I do not take only your word, but I also consider your actions, and then come to the conviction that the hon. member is a typical Unionist.

Is it a sin ?

But why then get angry? Explain that. But how am I to understand it if you consider it a compliment and at the same time get angry about it?

It is not what you say, but what you mean.

You may differ from me and so you sit on the opposite benches, but my hon. friends cannot say otherwise than that I have touched the spot when I said their policy was that of the flunkey. I also said with regard to the English-speaking person that I do not in the least blame them. I should be surprised if he were otherwise. But the position is quite different when we find Dutchspeaking Afrikaners who have no connection with England, yet will not see the virtues of the Nationalist party, but continue to agitate a policy which is nothing but a denial of everything that is South African, and that in order to get into the books of their party on the other side of the House, although they know that what they are doing is directly in conflict to the general interests of the country. If it was more with a view to that that I took part in that debate. It has been said that those people and the English-speaking people were on the way to become Nationalists. There are some of their papers who would come over “holus bolus” and become Nationalists. I had to learn this afternoon, however, how far they still are from the Nationalist party, and how they are still sheltering under the wings of the “empire.” I want to end with these few words merely with this additional remark to my hon. friends. They made a blunder and they ought to have taken the gruelling and not have come here this afternoon to try and obliterate the traces. All they have really done is to ask for more blows, and I assure them that they will receive them. I hope they will not go on in this way. Firstly, in their own interests, and secondly, because time is valuable. Let us therefore get on with the work.

I do not think it will lead us far to pursue the subject in the spirit of this afternoon’s debate. The Prime Minister knows, and we all know, that there was justifiable resentment because of certain expressions he used; expressions which, though he may not have intended them, wounded the feelings of this side and wounded them very severely. Now when the Prime Minister has had an opportunity to pour oil on the troubled waters and engender a more peaceful and settled atmosphere, he reiterates these wild and unfounded charges. I regret this very much, because I do not think we are serving our parties or the cause of this country in any way by this tone of speech and this type of charge which we have listened to last Tuesday and to-day. I do not know what advantage it can be to this House or to any section of it to make an exhibition of ourselves before the country.

What about the speech of the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz)?

Whatever the hon. member for Barberton may have said, it did not justify the Prime Minister in launching such an attack on the Opposition; to call them renegades, flunkeys, agterryers.

I never called anybody a flunkey; that was your side.

No, I think the Prime Minister himself used the expression, but I do not propose to argue that point.

Nor did I call anybody over there an agterryer or a renegade.

“Oorloper” I take to be a renegade. I do not propose to debate it; if it were clean debating—clean hitting—it might be justified to a certain extent. It is not even clean debating to use terms like that in a House like this. It is not worthy of either party, and I do not think that such language from the leader of this House is justified in any circumstances.

You called us satellites.

My hon. friend apparently does not know the English language in all its subtleties. There is no stigma attached to the word “satellites.” It is not a term of opprobrium. I have been a satellite. I know satellites; that is the solar system. There is no stigma in being a satellite. But “renegades” and such words are terms which should not be used here, and I think the Prime Minister was wrong. He was wrong in applying these terms to the party sitting on this side of the House. They create bad feelings and they wound feelings. It does not help our parliamentary work, and it does not produce a better spirit in the country. It creates a spirit of opposition, of hatred and of discord in the country. It is entirely against the interests of South Africa. But the Prime Minister is not satisfied with these expressions. He has a much more opprobrious expression still. That is the term “Unionist.” I have been studying the mentality of my hon. friends, and when he has exhausted his vocabulary of abuse, we find that he comes back to that monster of his own creation. I have watched the Prime Minister for years now. [Interruption.] Does the Minister of Finance learn nothing? Here is a party which ceased to exist in this country 10 years ago. But it does not cease to exist in the imagination of the Prime Minister. To him this party, with all the history of South Africa, in all that bitter history that was made in our day and generation, a history which is only now history, and no longer part of South Africa, all that persists in his mind and works as a potent force. We have this spectacle. He sees in South Africa half Unionists, the Jameson raid, the Boer war, and all that. Well, I think we shall never make progress in this country so long as we view the history of the past in that light, so long as we conjure up these spooks of the past, and judge the political parties of to-day and political personages of to-day in the light of those events. Surely, we have moved on in South Africa. I think it is most reprehensible—it is worse, it is absurd—on the part of the Prime Minister at this time of day, to come forward and use as his principal terms of abuse in this House the word “Unionist.” If I were an Englishman in this country, I should be proud of it.

It is your guilty conscience.

I do not think it would ever affect my conscience one way or another, either as regards the past or the present. But it does throw a flood of light upon the attitude of the Prime Minister and those behind him, who support him, that this spook of the past, this ghost that we thought we had laid in the history of South Africa, should be conjured up all the time and trotted out and held up as the principal bogey and the principal spook in the history of South Africa, I do not think it is helpful. I am not going to pursue the subject this afternoon, because I do not think that it is for the good of the country. We are face to face with difficult times in this country. There is no doubt about it. We are here as the high court of the nation. People have sent us here, suffering people, behind us. Those people are feeling the difficulty of the time and are looking to the high court of Parliament for justice and fair play, for generous feeling and sympathy. I do not see how we are going to respond to those feelings in the country and discharge our task properly if, instead of trying to pull together and create better feeling, we are stoking the fires of bitterness. We are trying to raise up a feeling of bitterness and antagonism against each other. We are using language against each other now that we would not use in private to each other. The Prime Minister is not so bad as he looks, judging from the speeches he makes here. He would not call hon. members sitting here those names in private. I know he would not. It is against his nature to do so. I do not understand why, what he would loath to do in private, and hate ourselves for doing in private, should be a public practice. When we indulge in language of that sort, it can only have one effect: to wound feelings and to create bitterness and strife in this country, when we should be pulling together. There is another thing which, if the Prime Minister will allow me to say so, I think is also reprehensible in his conduct. I am not here to teach him a lesson. Far be it from me to do so. At the same time he knows the people of South Africa as well as I do, and he knows that we never submit to this sort of treatment. We do not like the schoolmaster and least of all, when the schoolmaster is a politician. We do not like to be taught lessons, to be brow beaten or dragooned. We do not submit to these things.

You did a good deal of it yourself.

Even the Minister of Finance has learned that lesson. It does not pay to be a martinet. The Prime Minister of this country, in the highest authority of this country, least of all, can afford to adopt this tone. It does not become us. We are a democratic people, and we are all alike; we are all as bad or as good as each other.

No, I am not a Unionist.

That is the position. We do not stand this sort of treatment. I hope the Prime Minister will, in dealing with this House, simply for the sake of good order and of good work in this House and for the expedition of business, not resort to that tone, which puts him on a pedagogical pedestal, and which makes people on this side of the House squirm just as the followers behind him would if we were so indiscreet as to address him in that way. I hope we shall never do it. I hope he will drop this superior tone of beating and browbeating and dragooning. It does not help to create a good feeling in this House. I think we should study the interests of this country much better and expedite the business of this House much better, if we studied good feeling, used moderate language, and avoided these forms of temper and invective and almost vituperation that we have seen in these last few days. Perhaps the heat is responsible for it. Perhaps it is the inordinate heat wave that has caused feelings to run high. I have not risen to go into the merits of the points that have been raised. I tell the Prime Minister, as the leader of this House, that we do not want to submit to it, and we shall not submit to it, and that it is not conduct which is worthy of him or which will further the business of this country.

I must say that we on this side of the House are obliged to the hon. member. I think that if my leader has played the schoolmaster the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has excelled him by putting himself on a pedestal and telling us how to behave ourselves. I only want to say that it can be left for us to decide in which way we will carry on the business. The hon. member and his followers are highly indignant at the hiding, as they call it, that they have received to-day. Who is responsible for it? Is it justifiable nearly merely to throw mud and then to run away, and to expect that we will take no notice of it? It was not even an irresponsible member, but an ex-Minister who took up an attitude which insulted us here. But we hear it from him daily. So much objection has been taken to the use of the word “flunkey.” Who used it? The Prime Minister spoke in Afrikaans.

He used the word.

No, it came from that side. It was used by the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz) and the Prime Minister was replying to the speech of that responsible member. The hon. member must not think that they can throw mud and insult people, friends of ours who occupy high positions, and that we are merely to remain silent. I hope hon. members will see that it cannot be expected, that one side should use such tactics and that we should sit still. I do not want to go further into it. I think enough has been said about it, but I just want to say that we have again had a speech this afternoon from the hon. member for Durban (Stamford Hill) (Mr. Robinson) wherein he blames me for what I said yesterday on the language question. I was, at any rate, speaking the hon. member’s language. We daily find that when we speak Afrikaans it is quite lost on some hon. members. Yesterday, however, I spoke the hon. member’s language, and I cannot understand how he can infer from what I said what he has made of it. When did I speak here of compulsory bilingualism? When? I thought that I made my attitude very clear. In the first place, as far as we are concerned, we have adopted the principle of bilingualism. We insist that bilingualism shall be maintained in our public service, and I have gone further and very clearly said that, as far as I am concerned, I do not consider it right that any official, who was in the service before 1910, before it was adopted, should be punished with respect to promotion. But I further mentioned the attitude of our English-speaking friends at that time, when the Prime Minister laid down his education policy in the Free State, and said that it would be in the interests of both sections of the population, if both languages were learned, and that the English-speaking friends then said that they would not allow the Afrikaans language to be pushed down their throats. I pointed out that in my opinion that was a foolish attitude at the time, but that the Prime Minister did not go on with the policy, but said that if the English-speaking people would not agree that it was in their interest and in that of the country, we would abandon it. I then once more, alone, referred to the fact that if they at that time had not attributed motives, if that had not occurred at that time, young English-speaking people would not now be suffering from the attitude they took up at that time. I pointed this out to the hon. members from Natal. I then used the argument that I was not going to compel the English-speaking people to become bilingual, but that, as far as appointments in the public service were concerned, I would insist on it. That is in accordance with the laws of the land, the laws which my hon. friends opposite passed at that time. There are still many of our English-speaking friends who have never yet adopted the principle, and will not do so even to-day. It is also the old Unionist principle, and it is that spirit—I do not know why my hon. friends opposite consider it an insult when we use the word “Unionist”—which still inspires many people in the country, although I think that many hon. members opposite have abandoned the policy. It is the source of many troubles in our country, that many people have still not yet abandoned that policy. It is the source of many troubles in our country, that many people have still not yet abandoned that policy. I think that if we are reasonable in dealing with this question, and these basic principles, there ought to be no difficulty.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

I had not intended to intervene in this debate, nor do I desire to waste the time of the House as it is a matter of urgency, I understand, that these Bills should be sent on to another place as soon as possible, and so I do not propose to follow the example set us by the Prime Minister this afternoon. My only reason for rising is to reply to the very direct challenge thrown across the floor of the House last night by the Minister of Railways and Harbours in his reply on the debate. I have no doubt he expected me to take it up, but still I do not propose to take more than five minutes to reply. He referred to the speeches which had fallen from this side of the House as the irresponsible utterances of a number of back-benchers.

I never used the word “backbenchers.”

By inference he inconsequentially did, and he stated that I was the leader of the irresponsibles. Now that term “back-bencher” has been used as one of contempt by a front-bencher opposite for the last five years, and it is intended to depreciate the influence of hon. members on these benches. The back-bencher on this side is not to be judged by the length of his beard or the seat which he occupies, but he is to be judged entirely by his ability to express himself clearly and by the importance of the constituency which returns him to Parliament. In that connection we can stand comparison with any other member opposite. I do not know, however, whether the front bench opposite estimates the importance of the back-bencher on this side by the estimated value and importance of those behind them, but if they do so they are making a very great error. Now the Minister also accuses us of irresponsibility, and that is a more serious charge, because it was the intention of the Minister to convey to the world outside that the criticisms offered in connection with this debate, which should have been seriously considered, were irresponsible utterances. In other words furtive and without any sound foundation. That was the impression he intended to convey, and it is that to which I take grave exception. He also complained of my colleagues in bringing up individual cases of grievances existing on the railways, and he said that it was a very improper line on the part of members on this side of the House to take, a line which was not likely to enhance the importance of the debate, or to help the individuals whose cases were mentioned. If, however, we look back to the speeches made by the Minister we shall find that times without number when railwaymen’s grievances have been placed before him in a collective form he has said: “What is the good of indulging in vague generalities? Bring the grievances forward in a specific form and I can deal with them.” Yet immediately individual cases are quoted he objects, as he has done in this instance, that hon. members are adopting a wrong line. Now what does he mean by irresponsibility? Does he mean that erroneous and unsupported statements are being thrown across the floor of the House, that a childish action is being indulged in? Does he mean by irresponsibility the bandying of words and the calling of opponents impertinent names? If so, he must look to himself. There has certainly been nothing of an irresponsible nature in the manner in which grievances have been presented by my colleagues. After all, we are here to discharge our duty, and if we are discharging it in an irresponsible manner, it is up to us to learn where we are wrong, but if the Minister imagines he can adopt a line of action which is going to prevent us from speaking frankly and freely in respect of his conduct and that of the department he is making a mistake. We shall not be deterred from doing our duty because of charges of that sort from the Minister. It is a line of action on his part which indicates exactly what I contended in my speech on the second reading, and that is that the Minister has adopted an autocratic and despotic attitude, not only towards those under him, but towards Parliament. He could not have given a better illustration of the fact that he has the autocratic complex, and he now appears to think that he can act in this House in the autocratic manner in which he behaves towards the railway. I have only one more minute, and I am going to employ it to give the Minister a word of advice. The Minister is young, with a brief experience as a Minister, and I have not a word to say about his activity, his energy is unbounded and in many respects admirable, but he has one lesson to learn. He is not the master of Parliament, but the servant of Parliament, not the master of the state, but the servant of the state, and that is the attitude in which he should approach this House and his duties.

I do not intend to delay the House long. I should, however, neglect my duty if I did not refer to the remarkable procedure which is followed by the Railway Department. Perhaps I ought not to say the department but the general manager of railways. He is the man who stands over all, and who has all the powers on the railways in his hands. The House will remember that I criticized the general manager a little while ago and pointed out his change of front, how he had made a complete somersault in connection with the appointment of Afrikaans-speaking persons, and his sympathy for Afrikaners in the service. It may be that I was wrong because I see from the newspapers that the Minister defended the general manager, and I do not blame him, I must, however, point out to the House what the general manager did, because his policy is remarkable. He, of course, heard of my attack, at any rate, according to a letter which has reached me indirectly in connection with the matter. I do not know whether the Minister approves of the general manager giving information to an hon. member through another hon. member. I think it is a nauseating act which this House cannot tolerate. If that takes place, then there is at once a measure of suspicion, because it amounts to this: that the general manager is afraid that use will be made of the information which is given directly. If the general manager is of that opinion, let him be honest enough to come to me. It was his duty to come to the member who had made a certain statement to see if there was anything wrong, but not to take the course of writing a letter to one member to answer questions of another member, and if he did not wish to give any details, let him say so frankly in his reply. I do not know how far the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Swart) acts as the meditator for the general manager, in any case, I am thankful to him for showing me the letter.

I did not expect you to read it out in the House.

I am sorry the hon. member says that. Apparently to get information we have to get it through another member. Is it right of a general manager who has so much power, and the Minister knows what powers he has. That is just my complaint. It is an unsound course which should not be taken, and I hope the Minister will not allow it in future, but that when a member has made criticism the information shall be given direct to him, so that each one can judge for himself whether he is right or wrong. In my experience it is very difficult to get information in general, not particularly under this Government. Therefore, I am entitled to-day to comment on a letter like that. In the letter the general manager writes to the hon. member for Ladybrand that he makes no appointments, but that it is done by the heads of departments on the advice of welfare officers. Such a statement from a responsible person like the general manager seems very strange to me. But I see that the Minister still defends the general manager. The Minister said last night that he notices that I made an attack on the general manager, and he said that the general manager made no appointment; in other words, the Minister of Railways agrees with the general manager that he has practically nothing to do with it, and that if wrong appointments are made and Afrikaners, e.g., do not get their rights, that he is not responsible for it. It was very difficult for me to get hold of them, but I have the regulations here with reference to officials, which were recently published. I must say that there are many complaints about them because it is said that information must come through certain channels, otherwise the complainant will not get justice. I want to point out to the Minister that however sympathetic he may be many appointments are still made which never come before him. I just want to quote that part which relates to the responsibility to the House.

When the House adjourned, I was just pointing out that, according to the letter indirectly addressed to me, the general manager said that he was not responsible for the appointments of the railway staff; in other words, that he did not make them. If it is so, then I must take it that when there are complaints, the general manager cannot be held responsible for them. The inference I have drawn is that he must be entirely ignorant of the appointments, otherwise he would not have to write his letter in that form. He is, of course, too Mussolini-like to write to me direct. If it is not the case that he is responsible, then I want to point out to the House the regulations made under Act 23 of 1925. As I have said, there is much dissatisfaction about these regulations, and I think the Minister of Railways would do well to consider an alteration. Let me also say that I do not blame the Minister of Railways for the dissatisfaction created by these regulations, because he is not responsible for drafting them. I want to make it clear to the House that according to the regulations, notwithstanding the statement of the general manager, he was still responsible for the appointments which are made, or for the persons who make the appointments. The fault lies with the general manager, because the law places certain duties on him, and if he does not perform them, then he nevertheless remains responsible. Let me read clause 6 of the regulations, and then hon. members will see that it is quite clear on whom the responsibility rests—

and then followed the various provisions. It therefore shows that the general manager is ignorant of his duty, or that he wanted to mislead. I want at once to let it be understood that the Minister of Railways and Harbours and the advisory board are responsible for the appointment of persons with a salary of more than £1,000, but that the general manager appoints those with a lower salary. Now I come to clause 47 of the Regulations, which says—

Here again it is clearly stated that the general manager is responsible. We know that he is the Mussolini of his department. He has all the power, but that does not give him the right to say that he is not responsible for those appointments. I do not want to blame the Minister, because he is only acting according to law. But what do we find with reference to bilingualism? In section 9 of Act 23 of 1925, we see that bilingualism is not required for promotion in the railway service. It says—

I must say that I am surprised that no provision has been made for bilingualism. I always thought that bilingualism was required for promotion in the service. I agree that where all things are equal, the person who is bilingual will at least have the preference for appointment or promotion in the service. The Afrikaans-speaking people have waited long enough to see that requirement in force. I want to urge that with respect to promotion, bilingualism shall be made a settled requirement. I still want to say that I cannot help expressing my disapproval of the attitude of the general manager in this matter. Instead of giving information to a member, who had to give it to me second-hand, he ought to have given it direct to me, also he ought not to have evaded his responsibility according to law by saying that he makes no appointments. I hope we shall not hear of such a case again, and I know that the Minister of Railways, now that I have drawn his attention to it, will also express his disapproval. Before I sit down, I want to bring another point of great importance to the Minister’s notice with reference to the rates for carriage by motor lorries. The Minister says that it is impossible to reduce those rates in certain respects. I pointed out that it would be better to reduce the tariff in certain respects where the lorries run empty, or nearly empty, to and from the station. We now find in the report of the Departmental Enquiry Committee on Railways that the very thing that I recommended is also mentioned in the report as desirable. In the north-western districts, where the people are having such a bad time, but where this year they have had fairly good crops, they unfortunately get much lower prices for their wheat, but if the rates are reduced it would help them very much. Paragraph 14 of the report says—

I just want to point out to the Minister that this departmental committee recommends the reduction of the rates in places where the lorries run empty to and from the stations. It is better to take loads at a reduced tariff than to have the lorries empty, and so not only the railways, but also the farmers concerned will benefit. It is of the greatest importance for the people and for the whole country, and also to railways, if this is done, because the service will still be making something by it instead of losing. I want to point out to the Minister that 2s. 6d. for the carriage of a bag of wheat for 41 miles cannot be afforded by the people. The Minister would do well to start that reduced tariff, not permanently, but only under special circumstances. If the lorries are full there will, of course, be no obligation to carry the goods, but where they are running to and for empty it can be done. I know that the Minister’s heart beats warmly for those people, and I earnestly appeal to him to assist them.

I want to take exception to a personal remark the Minister made during his speech when he suggested that I should apologize either to him or to the general manager of railways for having criticized the giving of £60 to that official for removing his furniture from Durban. I get my information from page 94 of the Auditor-General’s report. If he suggests that I should apologize, what does he suggest that the Auditor-General should do? That remark is petty. I made reference to this because the general manager has called upon the rank and file of the railways to exercise economy, and yet when an official is only allowed £40 for the removal of furniture, you have this highly-paid official claiming a much larger amount, and the Minister giving way. This is the highly-paid official who points out to his subordinates that by the saving of a lead pencil you can carry a bag of oats so many miles. He should practise what he preaches. This House and the country does not want that sort of thing. They don’t want suggestions from Ministers that members should apologize for legitimate criticism. They want to hear from the Minister of the things that matter. The Minister did not say one word with regard to what the country is anxiously waiting to hear from him. We are passing through difficult times, particularly for the farmers, and we have a lot of maize for export, about one and a half million tons, and the country wants to know whether that maize can be transported by the railways from July to October, because in October the wool traffic comes in, and we don’t want it to overlap with this traffic. The country wants to know whether the railways have the necessary engine power and the truckage to transport the maize in these four months, because it is in these four months that maize fetches its highest price. The country also wants to know what the Minister is going to do with respect to the terrific competition which is going on between our railways and private buses. We have instances of railways which are not paying on account of this traffic. What is the policy of the Minister in regard to this difficulty? Instead of abusing his critics, let the Minister tell the country those things which the country is waiting to hear.

I would like to say a few words to the Minister of Railways which, I am sure, he will welcome, even if I find it in my heart to contradict what he has said on a good many occasions. One thing is very noticeable with the Minister of Railways, and one or two other Ministers are rather falling into the habit. That is, that when anyone criticizes the administration, at once comes the expression from the Minister concerned, “You don’t know what you are talking about.” That is always the cry when they have no answer to the criticism. I submit, as a friend to the Minister, that it conveys no conviction whatsoever when criticism is levelled against the administration’s policy for Ministers to say “You don’t know what you are talking about.” That is the way the children play. The Minister made a particular reference to myself, in which he said that I claimed to know more about his department than he does himself. And I do. That is the extraordinary part about it. I get my information from the mass of his railwaymen. He shapes his course and gives his instructions from the information that he gets from officials. Two diametrically opposed points of view; two diametrically opposed forces.

And the staff organizations.

We know the hon. the Minister consults the staff organizations when it suits him. If they become the pet lambs of the Minister he consults them, but if they kick, then it is a different story. I do know more about his department than he does. From the point of view of those people to whom he and his confréres deliberately appealed during the last election to return them to power in order that they might redress grievances, I know what those men want. I know the conditions under which the Minister is forcing them to labour. I know what are the effects of the sort of instruction which he gave to Mr. Watson. Let me say to the hon. member for Greyville (Maj. Richards) that he is to be congratulated when the Minister, following that line of argument, namely, “You don’t know what you are talking about,” caps it by calling the hon. gentleman and others “irresponsibles.” Let me assure the hon. member that that is a tribute to him, and when the Minister was pleased to honour me by coupling me with the famous body of irresponsibles, I also regarded it as a tribute to me. Any man who criticizes the hon. the Minister or his colleagues on the Treasury bench is either irresponsible, or he does not know what he is talking about. That is not the way to meet criticism. So far from the hon. member or myself, or others of a similar kidney in this House, being irresponsible, the Minister himself is irresponsible, because, despite what the Minister says, I do know what I am talking about. I am going to convict the Minister out of his own mouth. He himself confessed that not having the knowledge to deal with technical matters, and the whole mass of matters in connection with the railways are technical—

I was referring to the workshops.

I know. What does he know about the running arrangements of the railways? Nothing at all. He confessed to one phase of it, and I think he will be man enough to confess to all the phases of it, namely, that he knows nothing at all about it, and that he places himself in the hands of his officials. His officials guide him as they like; that determined man who is running the railways.

What did you know of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs?

I knew enough to make a mess of things. Again a tribute to myself out of the mouth of the euphonious Minister of Railways and Harbours. Of course, the Minister says, “I take responsibility.” He throws out his chest, draws himself to his full height—but only on paper—but what is significant is that all the directions and instructions, all the factors of instruction given by the mechanical engineer, Mr. Watson, were the direct result of the Minister’s policy when he directed that gentleman to get what he was pleased to call “efficiency, and more work,” in other words, harry the men, rush them, get all you can out of them. He devised this iniquitous system of bonus inspectors particularly. Then the Minister says, “I take responsibility, but I have a mechanical engineer in whom I have the utmost confidence, and he has instituted this system.” But he was giving effect to the directions of the Minister himself. I give credit to the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Brown) for sincerity. I know something of what I talk about from the thick end of the stick. It is an interesting commentary upon the Minister of Labour; upon their claim that they can do so much good by being associated in the counsels of the Nationalist party. What good have you done ?

What good did you do?

It is the same parrot cry, “What good did I do?” It was because I was trying to do good that I had to get out. There was one extraordinary thing the Minister said. We have got to get this so-called efficiency. For what? Why all this speeding up, all this tearing and soul-searing work, so far as the men are concerned? Why? Because we have to compete with workshops overseas. It would have been as well if the Minister had explained that. All this work is assembling, repairing, replacing, and that kind of thing.

And manufacturing coaches and trucks.

Oh, that is cheap. We have to compete with workshops elsewhere. Is it German workshops? Then, if that is the case, I have to enter the strongest protest against harrying our men in South Africa in order to compete with the rotten and wretched conditions of the German workshops. I want to protest against that, and I call upon the Minister of Labour to help me in that protest. I call upon scintillating Shaw. You talk about South Africa first, and then make South Africans work their soul-cases out to compete with the German workshops. Is it English? Given a reasonable day’s work and no bonus inspectors, these workshops could compete with any English workshops. Most of the work done is repair work, not manufacturing work. It seems a pity that we are not doing more manufacturing. If we did that, we should have a much greater increase and circulation of wages in the country, and more general prosperity. They prefer to send money overseas, to cheaper producing countries, where it is lost to South African circulation, and doing more harm than good to South Africa. Then the Minister appealed to me with almost tears in his voice —it was all tremulous—to support him in his claim that he had always been a friend to the railways. Well, we have various opinions of what friendship is, and how it is shown. The railwaymen might well use the little couplet: “We know that you had to dissemble your love, but why did you kick us downstairs.” I will show you how he treats these unfortunate men. All through his tirade yesterday he never dealt with the 3s. a day man to whom I made reference. An instance of his friendliness, paying young men of 18 to 21 3s. a day to live on. They could not get enough mealie pap for 3s. a day. They get 3s., 4s., 5s. 6d. and some get the princely sum of 6s. 6d. That is how he demonstrates his friendship to his kith and kin, to the railwaymen of this country. I said that under this régime a first-class driver has to be 15 years in the service before he can enter the driving class. Formerly it was only three years. The hon. member for Germiston said he could bring one case where a man had waited only 11 years, but it was the only individual case and the member knows it. Now it is fifteen years. He did not answer my challenge with regard to the porters and a week’s work of 63 hours, nine hours a day, seven days a week, with one Sunday a month all the year round, at the princely salary of £13. How can a man face the future with a wife and family on £13? What is the Minister of Labour doing in this regard? But the Minister of Railways did not answer that charge. He is very careful about that. It is another instance of the extreme friendship, the affection and almost love of the Minister of Railways for the railwaymen.

What were they getting when you were in office?

I think about the same. The Prime Minister had better not smile. I know the Minister of Railways is honest enough to give merit where merit is due, although he laughs at the foolish sally of the Minister. I do urge when he had that surplus he has referred to of over £1,250,000—

How can you prove it?

It is only my word against the word of the Minister of Railways, and I know perfectly well he will support me.

He cannot if it is not true.

If he challenges me or any member on the other side of the House challenges the accuracy of my claim, it then becomes a question of the credibility of witnesses, and I safely leave myself not only in the hands of this House but in the hands of the whole country as to the question of the credibility of evidence. Then there are the checkers with whom I did not deal. When the Minister talks about me not knowing what I am talking about I say that I have the document here, a typical one. I had one in regard to the porters, but unfortunately I did not get it back again. I am not going to give this to the Minister, but I will show it to a mutual friend. After a month’s full work, this checker—here is his pay-sheet—gets £13 9s. True, there were certain deductions, and of course you cannot lay that to the charge of the Minister or the Administration. There was a deduction of £1 7s. 6d. for insurance. But when we had the Cost of Living Commission—

What about pensions?

Oh, yes, pensions. When there was the Cost of Living Commission, it was laid down years ago before the increase in the cost of living that we are experiencing today before the war, that no family could live in decency and comfort in South Africa under £27 10s. or at the very least £25. To those figures I subscribe. No man can live under that. The hon. Minister charged me—and this was the knock-down blow—when I was in the Cabinet that I made a mess of the job. Well, I expected to make a mess of it when I went in. But you cannot call me a “smouse” can you? I am informed by no less an authority than by the hon. member for Stamford Hill (Mr. Robinson)—

“Smouse.”

Well, “Smoose” or “Smouse,” the meaning is the same, and I do not think the Minister will accuse me of being that. Nor am I a sturdy trade unionist who found ft incompatible with my job as Minister of the Crown. If I made a mess of it, I suppose the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs have not made a mess of it. No more need be said. They are in the Cabinet and I am out of it. Thank the Lord I made a mess of it.

You are sorry for it now.

Oh, no. Another unfair observation made by the Minister of Railways was in regard to the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). Unfortunately, the hon. member is not here. He is perhaps better engaged elsewhere demonstrating to the world that they need have no longer confidence in the Nationalists, and certainly that the Creswellites are dead eggs. He charged the member quite unfairly with preaching Imperialism in this House. Was that right? It was a cheap gibe, a cheap debating point. Because he thought he was the last man to speak and he could say anything he liked. That was not fair. What the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) stressed was this, that there was no comparison as to quality between German and English engines. The main point he made, and a powerful one too, was that the conditions of labour in Germany and the wages obtained there, are such as not only to be not comparable with but certainly are in decided contrast with the wages and conditions in England for constructing the same thing. One thing emerged from the remarks of the Minister, and he can correct me if I am wrong, that he himself is perfectly satisfied and I suppose inferentially his colleagues, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and the Minister for Labour and their immediate supporters are equally satisfied, to get railway material from any part of the world, however cheap it may be, however cheap and miserable the conditions, of employment are under which the articles are to be produced. That is to be the first consideration and no consideration is to be given, except as a last resort, to a country where conditions are better. He took me to task, but quite wrongly. I hope he accepted my interjection in regard to the point brought up by the hon. member for Dundee (Mr. Friend). I do not for a moment support the accuracy of it. The hon. member had merely heard about it and so he brought it up. I seized upon it as an opportunity of drawing to the attention of the House something which 90 per cent. of the House know nothing about, which shows that I know something about the railway administration. That is that our railway administration owns its own coalfields. The Minister has coal-bearing lands bought especially for the purpose of running our trains under circumstances of stress. The time has now arrived when the Minister might work his own coalfields in the interests of the railways and of the public. He will get this coal as cheap as he likes, and he can put it where he likes. With regard to the bilingualism of the committee of railwaymen proceeding overseas, it is all very well to insist on bilingualism, especially for the generation that is coming on but not for the older generation that is dying. Bilingualism will come about naturally, for efforts are being made by all parents—English speaking and Dutch-speaking—to have their children taught the other language. They are insisting on it. So if you leave the question alone it will settle itself in the course of time, but I am afraid it is not bilingualism—it is bi-Nationalism. Surely the first consideration in the selection of the workmen to go on the overseas committee should have been the ability to absorb information, much of it very highly technical, and a capacity to understand what they are told, and side by side with that a faculty for explaining what they have learned to other people. This is a much more important qualification than the ability to “say it in Dutch” because you could always have had interpreters. No, it is not so much a question of bilingualism as bi-Nationalism, otherwise why was Mr. Robert Waterston recently appointed on the Railway Board? Membership of that board should require a knowledge of both official languages—that is if the board is something more than an ornament. One of the things it should do is to get into personal contact with the men to see how things are going on. It is necessary for the members of the board to understand these poor unfortunate lads the Minister is bringing in at 3s. a day, and to go down into their huts—not houses— and find out the conditions from the men themselves. Then there is Mr. Strachan. I do not know whether he is bilingual, but I suppose he is as he speaks English and Scotch. I have the highest regard for Mr. Strachan. In giving jobs to pals the Government have not insisted on the persons appointed being brother nationalists but brother thinkers, bi-Nationalism in fact, and proselytes are always a little keener than the orthodox. The Railway Board is a useless body. The members try to do their work, but they always have the Minister sitting over them and in the end the Minister’s decision counts. The board is the fifth wheel to the coach, and a very expensive wheel; it is being used only as a place of refuge for those who have fallen by the way.

A dumping ground.

The sooner the Railway Board is abolished the better for the Minister’s own sake, for then it could not be used as a little home for the lame dogs. I have dealt fully with the alleged refutations by the Minister of my charges. I regard the Minister as the most irresponsible railway Minister who has ever held office.

As my name was referred to in the debate I should like to make a personal explanation. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) has thought fit to read a letter that I gave him. In my capacity as chairman of the select committee of railways and harbours this letter was written to me by the general manager and he asked me to give certain information to the hon. member. The letter stated that it was confidential and the contents were not intended for publication.

Where is that stated?

It is not a point of order.

I thought it right to hand over the letter to the hon. member. He never consulted me or got my consent to read out the letter or to use it any way. Without warning, without consultation, and without my consent he has read the letter out here, although I gave it to him as a friend. I thought it no more than right towards the general manager to give this explanation. I do not wish to make any further commentary on the matter because I think comment is superfluous.

Will the Minister be good enough to reply to my question in regard to the Widows’ Pension Fund. Might I suggest that the Minister investigates this new scheme in the workshops, because an old hand and a respected worker tells me the dissatisfaction is very genuine.

I hope the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) will allow me to give him a little advice. He is a young member in this House and if I may advise him it will be to show a little more responsibility in his actions. When the motion for the second reading of the Bill was before the House he attacked the general manager with reference to appointments to the staff of the railways. To my regret he was absent when I replied to the debate, but yet I replied to the hon. member that the general manager was not responsible for the appointments. The hon. member has now quoted regulations here, but he must surely understand that thousands are appointed to the railway service, and that in practice the general manager knows nothing of many appointments although theoretically of course he is responsible for every appointment. As a practical man, with experience of administrative matters, the hon. member surely knows that the general manager delegates some of his powers to other officials, and that it is therefore quite right for the general manager not to have knowledge of all cases. To come here then and complain that such a highly placed official is acting like an autocrat is not seemly. In the first place the hon. member spoke without knowledge, and I did not blame him. But after my reply he was aware of the fact, and his action in repeating the charges is a little too bad, and rather closely approaches to gross irresponsibility. I shall not comment on his action in quoting a private letter entrusted to him by the chairman of the select committee. I do not think it was an action befitting a colleague and I think he will appreciate that.

The information was sent to me.

But the hon. member knew that the letter was sent to the chairman of the select committee.

Why not to me?

That is quite another matter. What has that to do with the hon. member’s action in using the letter without permission? I can only say that I deplore it. He also spoke about bi-lingualism, and pointed out that the Act only mentioned competency and seniority. I have a friendly feeling towards the hon. member, and if he had come to ask me then I could have told him immediately that bilingualism is an important requisite when capacity is being considered.

What does the Act say?

It is not a question of the Act, but of policy. Does not the hon. member know that criticism which we made of our predecessors because they followed a wrong policy? I assure him that for the last six years due account has been taken of the necessity for bi-lingualism

I thought that you had already forgotten it.

No, I have not forgotten it, because I have had experience of it, and I had proofs of the previous policy when I took over the department, viz., that bi-lingualism was a dead letter in the Railway Department. I am sorry to have to say it. There are very many officials like welfare officers, ticket examiners, and such like who must be absolutely bi-lingual, and let me say that we are not satisfied with the “working knowledge” of the past. The test we follow is that a person who is bi-lingual must be able to deal with a minute and to answer letters in the language in which they are submitted to him. We are not satisfied with the working knowledge which permits anyone to say that he is bi-lingual. Bi-lingualism is practically enforced in the railways to-day, and we do not do it to injure our English-speaking officials but because we realize that the railways are a business undertaking.

Is it applied to both sections ?

Yes. As a business undertaking we take the precaution because the railways exist to serve both sections of the public, and we want to do so in their own language, while we do no injustice to the officials who are protected under the Act of 1912. The hon. member also spoke of rates for carriage by motor lorries. I went into this fully on a former occasion.

Are you going to adopt the commission’s report ?

The report has only just been laid on the table and I cannot make a statement yet.

† The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. McIlwraith) asked me about the position of the Widows’ Pensions Fund. He will appreciate, of course, that in this regard we are bound by the terms of the Act. Members of the fund will be consulted with regard to any change. Valuations have been made from time to time, and if these are favourable, the benefits are increased. The hon. member has again referred to the working of our workshops. I dealt fully with that yesterday, and I do not propose to take up the time of the House now on this. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Deane) has made certain statements to which I want to refer. He said the general manager had broken a regulation. I believe that not a single hon. member on the opposite side agrees with the tactics of the hon. member as far as the general manager is concerned. When he accused the general manager of breaking a regulation, he is stating what is not strictly correct. The general manager sought the authority of the Minister, and authority was given; the responsibility therefore rests upon me. For the hon. member to talk of breaking a regulation is stating what he knows is not correct.

Why did the auditor-general criticize it ?

The auditor-general often criticizes a Minister. The hon. member will have every opportunity in the select committee of probing the matter, and should not have dragged in the general manager at this stage; every hon. member, irrespective of party, will agree with me. He has dealt with the export of maize. We have made every preparation for the months in which traffic is offering, but we are very largely in the hands of the farmers, who are again very largely in the hands of the markets overseas. Unless there is a regular flow from the farms to the country elevators, from these to the coastal elevators, and from these to the ships, the whole system will be blocked up. Whether you have 10 or 1,000 engines is of no use when the outlet is blocked. We are all hopeful that the farmers will be able to obtain good prices. We are prepared to deal with the position, but if we are going to export 15,000,000 bags, it must not be expected that this can be done in two or three months. Naturally, it would have to be spread over a period.

Is that estimate of 25,000,000 bags of production correct?

That is the estimate of the Department of Economics. Of course, it is an estimate only, but we are very hopeful that it will be realized. The hon. member knows that our normal consumption in the Union is between 10,000,000 and 12,000,000 bags. If our production is 25,000,000, we shall have about 13,000,000 or 15,000,000 bags for export. The hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) has again intervened. The House always listens to him with interest. The first reason is his tremendous self-assurance. He speaks on every possible subject, and with an enormous amount of self-assurance. His knowledge is phenomenal, but how hon. members must have been disappointed when the hon. gentleman, in dealing with our workshops, said he was under the impression that we were only doing repair work.

No.

He said: “Why compare our shops with overseas. We are only repairing.” Then, when I corrected my hon. friend, he appreciated that we do manufacture in our shops. Let me warn my hon. friend not to be so self-assured in future. I am quite prepared to give him the facts. The other reason is rather a negative one, and that is the hon. member can never get up in this House without making the most serious reflections against his old colleagues. I must advise my hon. friend to drop it. We get nowhere by these cheap jibes. The hon. member spoke about the wages paid in our workshops. I have given the House the average earnings of our artizans, and they compare very favourably with the wages paid elsewhere.

I did not deal with the wages in the workshops.

The hon. member dealt with the conditions. We are paying good wages to our artizans. Are we not entitled to have the maximum measure of efficiency?

We differ as to what that is.

My hon. friend must pardon me for saying that he has just as little right in that regard to criticize as I have. He has no technical knowledge.

Oh, yes, I have; I have worked under those conditions.

In any case, I have far greater confidence in the views of the chief mechanical engineer than I have in his.

Or those of the men.

I am not referring to the men, but to the hon. member. The men form a most important part of the system, and I have shown my appreciation by sending representatives of the men overseas. The hon. member must surely appreciate that these men when they come back if they are to address their fellow-workers, should then be able to speak the language of the men. I want to correct the hon. member on one point. If he thinks that the qualifications and skill of the nominated artizans were not the first consideration, he makes a great mistake. It was laid down as a condition that the men elected should be bilingual, but we have many artizans in our shops who are thoroughly bilingual. I have the assurance of the chief mechanical engineer that in making his choice he chose the five best men. I want to issue a word of protest against the allegation of my hon. friend that we have here a case of “bi-Nationalism.” I do not know what he meant by that. I do not know what the political views are of the men who have gone overseas. I have never enquired. I wanted the best men selected by the mechanical engineer.

The Minister of Agriculture will tell you.

My colleague, the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, is quite capable of looking after his own department. I want a word with my hon. friend, the member for Durban (Greyville) (Maj. Richards). The hon. member has evidently taken seriously the very important position as leader of the irresponsibles which he occupies on the other side of the House, and he now states that the Minister of Railways and Harbours desires to adopt the position of master of the House, and that I resent criticism. Let me tell the hon. member that I am endeavouring to serve the House and the country, and I ventured to point out to hon. members yesterday that if they continue in their conduct of raising matters which they know their leaders are not prepared to subscribe to, we are bound to describe them as irresponsible, and to say that that is criticism which we cannot take seriously. I cannot refer to what has happened in previous debates, but the whole House knows the criticism offered by the hon. members for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Deane) and Salt River (Mr. Lawrence). I am out to protect the interests of the State. It is my duty to put the facts before the House, and when hon. members raise individual cases, and frivolous matters, it is my duty to point out that this is subversive of discipline, and that they are making the task of our supervising officers impossible. I do not resent criticism; I welcome it. But it must be reasonable. Take the criticism by the hon. member for Sea Point (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) and the hon. member for Roodepoort (Col. Stallard) as cases in point. I replied fully and freely to their remarks. They raised matters of important policy, and I gave the House the fullest information. I will just test out the hon. member’s sincerity by a challenge. He criticized my administration severely because we are deducting from the daily-paid men 30 days’ pay for pension purposes while these men are only working 26 days per month. I challenge the hon. member for Greyville (Maj. Richards). Let him put a motion on the Order Paper, and we will give him precedence. If he does not do so, then I say that the hon. member stands convicted of criticism which is not fair and well-reasoned, and therefore irresponsible.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

When the original Bill was before the House some time ago, the views of the Opposition were presented by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), and he assured the Government that the Opposition were fully alive to the serious position that existed indirectly as a result of the case of Rex versus Bunting. He assured me that members on that side would be only too pleased to give assistance to pass some measure to cope with the present serious situation. I do not think I am putting the case unfairly. We must bear in mind, possibly, that the right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) was not here at the time, and I only hope that there will be no repetition of the Quota Bill incident; that is to say, I hope the Opposition will not depart from the attitude taken by the hon. member for Yeoville that they were prepared to pass some measure to meet the position. Both sides of the House were also in agreement that any measure to be passed would be of a drastic nature. That was not specifically stated, but one need only look at the Bill on the one hand and the amendment proposed by the South African party on the other hand to realize that we are in agreement that any measure to be passed will be a drastic one. Recent events have made it quite clear that the position has not improved since the time the original Bill was before the House for second reading. The position has now become aggravated, and without being an alarmist, I must state definitely that, unless steps are taken, as soon as possible, to put on the statute book some measure which will adequately cope with these agitations among natives, within six months we shall have to face the position that in many of our big centres we shall have a state of affairs which can only be compared to the position in Durban before law and order was established there among the natives; whilst in the countryside, in many areas, as at Potchefstroom and Carnarvon and latterly at Rawsonville, the white population will defy the law in an organized and armed manner with disastrous results. If the Government is entrusted with the necessary powers to deal with agitators, the white population will be satisfied, and the natives will be satisfied. But if we reach the position where the natives are sullen and restive, and the white population is arming itself, our present police force will be quite incapable of maintaining order. If that type of disturbance breaks out in various centres, the police force at our disposal will be inadequate to deal with the matter. The strain to which the police have been exposed in the Cape Peninsula—the House will remember the exemplary way with which the police dealt with minor disturbances—the strain on the police is not a strain they can stand indefinitely. If we have troubles all over the countryside the police already exposed to the strain will not be able to cope with the situation. At the second reading on the original Bill my contention was that the only measure which will cope with the present situation is a measure giving the Government administrative powers. Administrative powers of prohibition I shall call them. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), voicing the sentiments of the Opposition, emphasized that although they were prepared to assist, and although they realized how serious the position was, they wanted to see the courts of the country invoked. They wanted to see what is known in legal phraseology and has passed into every-day language, the rule of law. That is to say, that nobody should be dealt with either by removal from a certain area or otherwise interfered with until he had been duly convicted by one of our established courts of law. I emphasized then that nobody has a greater respect for the rule of law than I have. I am satisfied that the rule of law through the centuries it has been in existence in Europe and the years that it has been in South Africa, has not only assisted in building up what freedom we enjoy to-day, but has, undoubtedly, also accounted in a great measure for the existing prestige of the bar and ultimately of the bench. But here in South Africa we have a state of affairs which cannot be solved or dealt with simply by the cut and dried application of the rule of law. Even in England, the home of the rule of law, it has been found absolutely impossible to meet all emergencies, and every state of affairs by means of the application of the rule of law. It has gone to such an extent in Great Britain, this rule by means of regulation, by means of an act of the administration, that the present chief justice of Great Britain felt himself called upon to protest against that tendency in a new book which hon. members must all have read, known as “The New Despotism.” He shows in that learned volume how in many, many cases, in dozens and dozens of cases, the Parliament of Great Britain found that the rule of law was inapplicable and was prepared and content to give administrative powers to the executive. Great Britain, hon. members will realize, is a country with a homogeneous population, a country very different from South Africa, where, as somebody put it the other day, we have the fourth century and the twentieth century side by side. It is a most definite protest that the Parliament of Great Britain has seen fit to entrust the executive with those powers, and the protest of the lord chief justice has not been able to alter that state of affairs.

He calls it hard things.

I know he calls it many hard things. I agree with the hon. member, but hard things in any deviation from the rule of law will not assist us in our present difficulty. The position, when the original Bill went to select committee, was that we agreed on both sides of the House as to the seriousness of the position, and we agreed too, not in so many words, but as shown in the Bill on the one hand and in the amendment on the other, that the position was that some drastic remedy was, unfortunately, essential. We were not agreed on the form of the remedy. I told the House before I accepted the motion referring the Bill to select committee before the second reading, that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of others I have consulted, no amendment of Section 29 of the Native Administration Act, which is the offence creating condition in connection with the stirring up of feeling between black and white, no amendment of that section which covers the present position is legally possible. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) challenged that and he promised to bring forward an amendment which would meet that position. The select committee was accepted by me for the exclusive purpose of allowing the hon. member for Yeoville to put forward some amendment which would meet the position. The result of the efforts of the hon. member for Yeoville, supported by some of the best legal brains on the other side of the House, are shown in the report of the select committee. An amendment was put forward which takes the place of the second half of the Bill. The hon. member will note, with pleasure I hope, that we agreed in that select committee as regards the first ten clauses, the nine original clauses, and one additional clause. That is to say, both sides of the House as represented on that select committee, were agreed that the Minister should have the power to prohibit meetings, that the Minister should have the power to prohibit certain persons from addressing those meetings, and that the Minister should have the power to prohibit certain publications. We then added something which I foreshadowed in the second reading speech on the original Bill. We included a safeguard in connection with the prohibition of publications. We included the safeguard which is an appeal to the Supreme Court, an appeal which, in cases of documentary matter, is a very simple matter indeed. The whole of the evidence under which the Minister acts, the whole of the matter complained of, is contained in the four corners of the document, publication of which is prohibited, and it is a very simple matter to submit that to the Supreme Court and ask for its ruling whether that matter will or will not cause feelings of hostility between the various races in the Union. What was not agreed upon were the subsequent clauses in connection with eliminating persons from a certain area, deportation, and one or two succeeding clauses. Now the attitude of the South African party representatives, representing, I take it, their party in the House was to eliminate all the clauses after Clause 10, and to substitute an amendment which creates a new crime of sedition. I have been asked, not only with great emphasis by most of the Opposition papers in this country, but also by many members on that side of the House, why we did not accept the proposed definition of sedition, why we were not prepared to get as a second part of the Bill the offence created by the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville. My reply, and I want to be very clear about it, is that the amendment proposed is absolutely useless to prevent the mischief aimed at, and the results of that amendment, if brought before the court of law, and they are apparent to anybody who peruses the amendment very carefully, will be more futile than those of Section 29 of the Native Administration Act. The position will be not better, but worse, than it is to-day under Section 29 of the Native Administration Act in respect of which the judgments of Rex versus Bunting, and of Rex versus Ndobe, and others, open the doors to the fomenting of mischievous agitation between white and black. The amendment is utterly useless, but this is no reflection upon the hon. member for Yeoville. It is the inevitable result of the inherent difficulties of the position. It simply shows what I contended in the first instance, that it is impossible, legally, to draft a clause in such a way that it will meet the present position. The short effect of the proposed amendment I just want to give to the House in summarized form, and then I shall refer to the proceedings of the select committee, where the amendment is set out at length, and show you how I arrive at that result. The offence created is the new offence of sedition, differing from our common law as it exists to-day. It is a statutory form of sedition punishable with imprisonment for seven years, and various other additional sanctions. The amendment amounts to this: that it becomes an offence to speak words expressive of an intention to create feelings of hostility between different races. It becomes an offence to speak words not which have the result of creating feelings of hostility, but which are expressive of an intention to create such feelings of hostility. Hon. members will realize, assuming for a moment the interpretation I am giving is correct, what follows is this: Firstly, the intention must be proved. It must be proved in exactly the same way as in the case of Rex versus Bunting.

The deeming clause?

I shall show the hon. member that the deeming clause has no application whatever to what I am now referring. The intention has to be proved. In the case of Rex versus Bunting, the intention was held to be absent because Bunting was proclaiming simply a recognized political doctrine, namely, the doctrine of communism. The court held in effect that w here a man proclaimed something which was recognized as a political doctrine, no matter how odious the results might be, he would ordinarily not be found guilty of having an intention to promote hostility. Secondly, the words must be expressive of such intention. It is not sufficient if you put it in some other way, but the words themselves must be so formulated as to denote the intention. In that way the position is worse than appears under section 29, where you merely had to prove the existence of the intention. The “deeming” clause has no application whatever to section 15, sub-section 4, that is, to the promotion of feelings of hostility. It does, of course, apply to the incitement to commit various other offences. I will assume that in the course of the debate we may be faced with further amendments, and we may be told that wo may be able to formulate a clause so that it will have such an application.

It could easily be done.

It is a great pity we did not have these amendments in the select committee. Let me assume that the intention is deemed that, whenever you use words which result in feelings of hostility being created, you are held to be guilty of having intended the creation of those feelings. That would be the meaning of a properly applied “deeming” clause. What would be the result? Not one of us could go outside this House and open his mouth on anything affecting the relations of black and white without being held liable to have preached sedition, and thus rendered himself liable to seven years’ imprisonment. That would be making a farce of law, and reducing the rule of law to an absurdity. If an intention to create feeling is deemed on every occasion where the natural result is to cause such feelings, the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) cannot go to the Herschel location and tell the natives what the franchise means. If every expression which results in feelings of hostility between black and white is to be regarded as a contravention of this amendment, not one of us could open his mouth outside this House about anything affecting the relations between black and white. For instance, if we refer to the abolition of the franchise, we should be guilty of an offence. On the other hand, if Kadalie or someone else advocates double wages for natives, he at once causes feelings of hostility among the European section. That is not applying the rule of law, but is simply making the rule of law ridiculous. This was realized at the time when the select committee sat on the Prevention of Disorders Bill, and so as not to reduce the rule of law to a farce, certain provisoes were inserted. A person was deemed to have seditious intention in regard to any of the acts described—

The select committee on the Prevention of Disorders Bill realized that that provision by itself would reduce the rule of law to a farce, and make everybody who opens his mouth about certain matters guilty of a criminal offence. Accordingly they, inserted the following—

The select committee on the Prevention of Disorders Bill specifically included this provision because it realized that, without it, the “deeming” clause would be a farce. I contend that the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) and those who supported him in the select committee considered this proviso and left it out. The hon. member agrees. Without that proviso, nobody would be able to open his mouth outside this House in respect of two-thirds of what effects our daily life; if he did, he would be liable to seven years’ imprisonment. Coming back to the amendment as it stands to-day, it reads—

That embodies the salient parts of clauses 12 and 15. The only point on which the hon. member for Yeoville differs is in regard to bis “deeming” clause—

Is it not clear that sub-section 4 was inserted entirely at random, and has nothing whatever to do with the “deeming” clause? I do not know the exact history of the draughtsmanship of this amendment, but one thing is quite clear, sub-section (4) must have been inserted as an afterthought to meet some objections which were raised after the original Bill was drafted. With the amendment in its present form, I think legal members will agree that it is entirely useless. If it, is suggested it should be amended, why was this not done in the select committee, where we had every opportunity of doing it? It cannot be suggested it was an oversight. I suppose I shall be told—I see the press has already taken it up— it is all very well to say this amendment is useless, but no less a person than Mr. Roos drew it up. The matter is very simple. If you read the evidence of Mr. Lansdown, in cross-examination by the hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close), he makes it quite clear that his reason for bringing forward that amendment was so that the law of sedition may be put on the same footing as we administered it before the appellate division upset it, in the case of Rex v. Viljoen. We always accepted the English law of sedition until the court held it was not applicable. That is one reason why this amendment embraced by the South African party is wholly inadequate. The object Mr. Lansdown had in view was entirely different. But there is another and much more conclusive answer to the query raised, why do I refuse what Mr. Roos thought good enough? Not only Mr. Roos, but this House, in dealing with the Native Administration Act, in May, 1927, drafted clause 29 with the avowed object of getting at the agitator, and the Bunting and Ndobe cases show we failed in our object. I would like to refer to the amended Bill as it stands to-day. The first eleven clauses I have already emphasized are clauses upon which we agree—ten original clauses and one amendment. The South African party and the Government have agreed that it is necessary for the Minister to have power to prohibit meetings and to prevent certain persons addressing meetings; and it is necessary for the Minister to prevent the publication of certain documentary information. For the benefit of those who may not be quite convinced that the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) and those who support him did the right thing, I want to emphasize one or two points in clauses 1 to 10. Hon. members will see that the power of the Minister in regard to clause 4 is confined to public meetings, that is to say, private meetings or meetings of trades unions, which are private, are automatically excluded, and the law has no application to them. Further, anything done by the Minister under these sections must be reported to Parliament, where, of course, it can be fully debated. Clause 9, which I foreshadowed in my original second reading speech, provides for an appeal to the supreme court, which will be an absolute safe guard to newspapers, and anybody interested in the publication of documentary information. Both sides are agreed on that. Then we come to the other sections—sub-sections 12 to 18; some of them are unchanged, and some of them have been somewhat altered. Sub-section (12) is one which enables the Minister to remove from a certain area any person who is found by the Minister to be stirring up feelings between black and white, and a new sub-section (13) was inserted, which I foreshadowed in my second reading speech, to give a man so affected an opportunity, within certain limits, to test the matter in court. He is entitled by the new section to request the Minister to furnish him with his reasons for his exclusion, and the Minister is bound to furnish him with such reasons as can be disclosed without detriment to public policy. In section (18), which should be read in conjunction with sub-section (13), hon. members will find that if the Minister refuses to give such information, or the information is inadequate, the person can apply to the Supreme Court for an order forcing the Minister to give his reasons for issuing this prohibition notice; and not only his reasons, but so much of the information as the Minister can disclose without danger to public policy. The reservation is obvious. Information is obtained from all kinds of sources which in law cannot be divulged.

made an interjection.

If the man goes to court, the Minister is forced to state on affidavit that he has withheld certain information because its disclosure is against public policy. That is an absolute safeguard that this reservation will not be frivolously exercised. A Minister will have to be very careful before he swears an affidavit stating that some information cannot be disclosed because its disclosure is against public policy. I think hon. members can safely come to the conclusion that the Minister, if he errs at all, will err on the side of disclosing too much. Armed with this information on oath from the Minister, and armed with his own evidence, the accused person may for example show that he has never been near the place where he is supposed to have fomented hostility. Armed with a statement by the Minister himself, and armed with all his own evidence, he can go to the Supreme Court and show that the Minister’s action was frivolous, or was taken under such circumstances that the court should hold that the Minister was actuated by wrong motives. That will naturally be a valuable safeguard. If hon. members will realize that the Minister has to make a statement on oath, and that the man can go to the Supreme Court, and that eventually all the information must be laid on the Table of the House, not necessarily all the information on which the Minister acted, but all the information which goes to make up the case against the man must be laid on the Table of both Houses, then it must be clear to hon. members that there is such a safeguard against any abuse by the Minister; that although these powers are extraordinary—we are dealing with an extraordinary position—under these circumstances the House can safely entrust those powers to the Minister. Then there was a new subsection inserted which, as a matter of fact, I propose to withdraw. That is a sub-section which excludes from the operation of the various prohibitions any particular trade union registered under the Industrial Conciliation Act of which only Europeans are members. My reason for bringing in any exemption at all as far as the trade unions are concerned was because trades unions, and in the past rightly so, have always been very sensitive as regards freedom of speech, the holding of meetings, and so on. The case when a trades union might possibly be affected by any prohibition is one that I cannot imagine, because a trades union meeting is not a public meeting, and only public meetings will be affected. But, realizing how sensitive some trades unions are on this point, I wanted to exclude trades unions with European membership. I would like to have excluded others too, all the trades unions, even those with non-European members, but hon. members will quite easily realize that the moment the non-European element is introduced, one has no guarantee that an alleged trades union may not simply be a vehicle for conveying seditious propaganda to certain classes of the population. I may state very definitely, and I have stated it before in this House, that a congress of non-Europeans was, in fact, nothing else but a subordinate organization of the Third International, to which instructions are sent from the Third International. The cable I read out from Berlin showed that Weinbrenns coloured trades unions were organized for penetrating the Rand mines, and there creating an upheaval. That is why I did not see my way to include all trades unions, but I have gone into the matter since, and I have come to the conclusion, and it has been conveyed to me from responsible quarters entitled to speak with authority respecting trades unions, that there is as little necessity to mention a trades union as there is to mention a farmers’ association or an agricultural society. The obvious scope of their activities is such that they cannot possibly fall under this law, and since this particular sub-section has caused a certain amount of heart-burning and has been misunderstood, in committee I propose to withdraw it. I may say I have had sent to me a strongly worded protest emanating from the trades union congress, but a very casual perusal of that document would show anybody that the wording must be traced to Messrs. Andrews and Sachs, and these gentlemen, admittedly and openly, are Communists. So I am afraid I cannot attach that importance to this protest which I would do if Messrs. Andrews and Sachs had not been associated with the drawing up of that document. In conclusion, I want to make an appeal to the other side of the House. We are agreed on the point that the position is very serious, and that something must be done, and that something must be done as soon as possible. We are also agreed that the measure, whichever form it takes, must be a measure of a drastic nature. Although I have seen that associations of coloured men in the Cape Province, native voters, Abdurahman and others, have made a strong appeal to the South African party to oppose this Bill, I hope the Opposition in this matter is not going to be influenced by party considerations. Hon. members will realize the moral effect of anything like unanimity. It will be such as to make it necessary to exercise the powers granted in this Bill only in a few very extreme cases.

The Minister has told us that when the original Bill came before the House for second reading that I, speaking for members on this side, said we recognized the seriousness of the situation with which the Government has to deal, and the circumstances connected with it which required drastic treatment, and that we were prepared to help the Minister and the Government to legislate along lines which in our opinion would give the Government the necessary powers to deal with the situation as it should be dealt with. But I made it perfectly clear that we did not like and we were definitely opposed to these arbitrary powers which the Bill gives to the Minister; that we did not consider that the resources of what the Minister calls the ordinary rule of law were yet exhausted; that we did not consider that in a moment of panic under the stress of certain events that this House should go so far as to abolish the rule of law in the case of persons charged with certain offences without giving them an opportunity of justifying themselves of the charge made against them. I want to stress that we made that perfectly clear because the Minister said he hoped we would not have a repetition of the quota incident. In our speeches on the Quota Bill we said we were in favour of the principle of the Bill and would help the Government, but we made it perfectly clear, before my right hon. friend the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) came back, that we wanted an amendment, and because we were true to that pledge, we were accused of having gone back on the attitude we took up on the second reading of the Bill. We did help them in all respects.

What did your own press say about it?

We promised the Minister, if he would send the Bill to a select committee, we would co-operate and get it into the shape which we regard as sufficient to deal with the troubles with which the Government were faced without cutting away the foundations of the liberties of the people of this country. I think the Minister must admit that with regard to certain portions of the Bill we met his wishes, and agreed to them subject to certain amendments. In regard to provisions about public meetings, we agreed that we were prepared to give him the right to prohibit a meeting where he was of opinion that the effect of the meeting would be to create hostility between Europeans and natives; that he should be able to prohibit the meeting, and also be able to prohibit certain persons from attending such meetings, and that anyone disobeying an order not to attend a meeting should be liable to penalties. The next item was in connection with publications; we agreed that the Minister should have power to prohibit publications in certain circumstances. He agreed to an amendment which enabled us to accept that power of prohibition subject to the provision that persons should be allowed to come before a court and show why the Minister should not carry the provisions into effect. Perhaps we went too far. I can imagine there are many people in this country who considered we went too far in giving the Minister that power. We also agreed that he should have power to prohibit books and newspapers in certain circumstances subject to the right of the person concerned to come before the court. But we met him to that extent. Members of this side were prepared to give him that power subject to the right of the persons concerned to come before the courts. Now we come to the point where we were not prepared to go with the Minister; in the clause where he can serve a notice on any person who is thought to be creating hostility between Europeans and natives in a certain area, to leave that area. He may be a shopkeeper in Cape Town, and he may be ordered to keep out of Cape Town. He may be unable to provide for wife and children, but he has no redress. His right to appear before the court, I shall show, is futile. He is in the hands of the Minister. If the Minister thinks he is a person who is creating hostility between Europeans and natives, he may be made to leave his home. That is one point where this Bill went too far because it interfered too greatly with the liberty of the subjects, and we thought that before such a restraint was put on any man, before he was subjected to such an infraction of his liberty, he should have the right to appear before a court and be charged in a proper manner. It seemed to us—at any rate, it seemed to me—that in doing away with that right you are abolishing one of the principles of liberty. It is all very well for the Minister to talk about the rule of law as if it were something antiquated; as if it were something we could dispense with. That right is just as necessary now as ever it was. Do not let us suppose we are dealing with an emergency, with some state of affairs existing to-day which will not obtain to-morrow. This is going to be on our statute book for all time, and unless things change very much for the better, it is going to be more and more necessary, and to be more and more imposed. Do not let us throw away lightly this liberty of the rule of law. Men should not be condemned by a Minister without recourse to a court of law. Do not let us depart from that principle in a state of panic. The third point is the power which the Minister seeks to prohibit a meeting on the ground that it will promote feelings of hostility between Europeans and natives, and someone is found at that meeting and charged with having been at that meeting although prohibited. What happens to him? He would be brought before a magistrate and given three months’, or if a second offence six months’ imprisonment. The Minister may order his deportation, although he may have lived here all his life, even if he did not know that the meeting was prohibited.

It was very clearly stated.

Well, I do not agree. The mere fact of a man being convicted for attending a prohibited meeting, or being convicted for attending a meeting which he was forbidden to attend, is not sufficient ground for an order for his deportation. An order for deportation is very serious power to give to a Minister. I submit that it should not be given to the Minister and he should not be allowed to exercise it upon anyone not convicted before the Supreme Court of some serious offence. In the Native Administration Act of 1927, there is also this power of deportation. But that power of deportation can only be exercised after a conviction under an Act which makes the man liable to a penalty of £100 fine or to 12 months’ imprisonment on conviction before the Supreme Court. After that he may be deported. It is a serious crime, and that is drastic enough. I do say that it is going much too far to give a Minister the power to deport a man from this country no matter how long he has been here, if he was not born here, merely on one conviction for having been present at a meeting which the Minister had prohibited. That is a power which those who regard the virtues of liberty will not place in the hands of any Government. That is why we oppose it. The Minister has made great play of the amendment I moved in select committee. He has told us that he was unable to accept that amendment because it was futile. I will agree with the Minister that the amendment was roughly drafted, with all respect to whoever drafted it. I moved it for this reason that it was an amendment which had come from the previous select committee of this House dealing with a cognate matter in the Bill of 1926. They had brought in a Bill to this House, this select committee which sat before the second reading, which did not contain a clause of a new definition of sedition, and the proviso which gave the new definition of “intention” was introduced. That definition would have avoided the difficulty with which the court was faced in the appeal by Bunting against his conviction. His appeal was upheld because the court said that the Crown had to prove intention. Bunting had been propagating a copy of his doctrine, but not of his intention to create hostilities between Europeans and natives. This new definition presumes the intention if the natural and probable consequences of the acts or words would be to create the intention. The intention is presumed. I am not dealing with the point which the Minister argues so subtly as if before a court of law. I am dealing with the main principle that if the definition of “intention” had been contained in the Act of 1927, Bunting’s conviction would have been upheld. The Minister has exercised great forensic skill in tearing the draft to pieces, showing that it did not mean this, that and the other. That is not why it was rejected by the Minister. The reason it was rejected was that there was a difference in principle between the Minister and our members on the select committee. The reason why it was rejected was because he would not accept any amendment of the Bill which would not leave him the power and which gave the courts the power. He told us he was quite satisfied that no clause could be drafted to give extended powers to the courts to meet these difficulties. The Minister wanted arbitrary power and nothing else. If the Minister had been prepared to agree with us that we should set aside the rule of law for the Minister’s order, how many minutes would it have taken us to get the amendment into shape ?

Do you agree with the other results if you “deem the intention."

No, I agree that the clause is wrongly drafted.

Do you agree that each one of us may be guilty every day of sedition ?

If the clause were passed as it stands, I admit that is arguable. But I say that nothing would be easier than to avoid any extreme results like that. I do not hesitate for a moment to say, and I think I can appeal to my colleagues in the select committee to support me when I say, that if the Minister had been prepared to meet us on the principle of dealing with the matter on the extension of principle rather than to insist on the Minister’s arbitrary powers, we could have met all his objections in regard to the amendment.

Will you draft some other amendment before the second reading is voted upon? I should like to see it in form.

I do not know when we are coming to the second reading.

Not before Monday.

I will have a try. I understood both in this House and in the select committee that the Minister was not prepared to accept an amendment of the Bill which would leave the courts the power to deal with such persons, but he insisted upon dealing with them by administrative order.

Oh, no.

If he is prepared to abandon the principle of the administrative order and leave the matter with the court, I shall see what I can do.

I said it could not be done and I said that you cannot draft it.

I am afraid that my labours will be in vain.

The House can judge of it.

There is one other thing. That is that no act, however drastic, is going to stop agitation. It is a most interesting situation. Considering all that we in this House have heard about agitation, we find hon. members of the Labour party who are supporting the Government joining in the agitator hunt, and devising ways and means to quash the agitator. I thought the members of the Labour party regarded the agitator as a sacred term. He was supposed to save people, but now we are devising ways and means for his execution. I would point out that Bills of this sort will not stop agitation. I would earnestly put it to the Government that they will have to meet the troubles, the growing troubles, between the races in this country, not merely by repression.

How would you meet the communist ?

I do not say you must not have repressive means. In certain circumstances, you must have drastic measures.

Is not that what we are dealing with now?

Yes. We have not only to deal with communists and agitators, but also the soil in which they grow their plants.

Bunting, a man born here.

Repression is not enough to stop agitation. In the present situation and condition of feeling between the white and the coloured and native races—

Not only between white and coloured.

You want not only repression but conciliation. You want to give the coloured and native people some sign that the Government takes a friendly interest in them. Repression is not enough, and will not go nearly so far as some measure of conciliation between the races—something to show the natives that we have some other outlook for them apart from being confined merely to the lowest ranks of labour. I am afraid the Government is going to pin their faith to repression and repression alone.

Are you creating the impression that this is what the Government are intending ?

No. Large numbers of these people feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have grounds for grievances, and that Government could do more than it is doing, as far as we know, to show these people that the Government are taking a sympathetic interest in them, and do intend that they should have opportunities within the measure of their capacity; that would go a long way to remove the seed-bed which is now awaiting the agitator’s seed. There are people spreading doctrines of communism which are dangerous, and people are going to light a fire which will take a long time to extinguish. There is need for drastic revision and strengthening of the law, but we are not prepared to put into the hands of the Minister, as we are asked to do in this Bill by mere administrative order the liberty and freedom of the people of this country.

I am much surprised at the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) who tells us that he solely and exclusively tabled his amendment because it was recommended by a previous select committee. I have read through the Hansard report which showed that the notes I made were correct. On the introduction of the Bill the hon. member for Yeoville in answer to a question by the Minister of Justice clearly answered that he could find a formula to apply it to cases like that of Bunting. The Minister said that according to the legal advice he had got it was impossible to find such a formula, but the hon. member for Yeoville replied that the Minister ought in that case to consult other counsel. When the Minister thereafter asked him: “Have you such a formula” he answered affirmatively, that is why the Minister gave him a select committee. Instead of a new proposal he brought up the old proposal which was before the select committee in 1926. We are, therefore, entitled in the first place to criticize him for that so-called constructive contribution which in the select committee he suggested to us. I think that the Minister has already killed the largest part of the motion of the hon. member for Yeoville, yet to prove that his motion is not at all approved by bis own party, I just want to read what some of the hon. members said when this proposal was made in the House in 1926. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) was asked whether he was in favour of the motion which the members of his party have now proposed in the select committee. He said, “I am not.” The late Mr. D. M. Brown said about the same motion—

Mr. Jagger of course also expressed himself against the motion now proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville. The draft presumably had the support of the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nell who at that time said that he hoped the Minister of Justice would see to it that the Bill was put on the statute book, and that it ought to be done that year, and he expressed the hope that the Act would be made as comprehensive as possible so that it could also be applied to native organizations and trade unions. Other hon. members of the Opposition like Mr. Louw Geldenhuys felt that the proposal was not half strong enough, and it was asked that the Minister would make its operation as comprehensive as possible. This particularly appears from what the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz) said—

Hon. members opposite although for different reasons were therefore all under the impression that the motion which has now again been proposed by them mean nothing. We think the same, and therefore we move something in the select committee in its place which at least will he practical. The hon. member for Barberton at that time added—

The only important difference between the motion of the Minister and that of the hon. member for Yeoville is that the Minister’s motion only applies and has reference to Europeans and non-Europeans, while that of the hon. member for Yeoville applies to all the various races. If, e.g., the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge), as he is presumably already doing, goes to the law and talks from Dan to Beersheba about the oppression of Israel by the Iota Quota Act, as he will call it, then under the stipulation of the hon. member for Yeoville he will be punishable. Not only will he get seven years’ hard labour, but the Minister will even have the right to deport him because the motion of the hon. member for Yeoville refers to the provisions in the Act of 1913 which also states that any person can be deported if the Minister is of opinion that he is an undesirable inhabitant of the Union. The Act could in that way be applied to any of us. If I, as I am accustomed to do, make a strong attack on the opposite side, we shall make ourselves guilty of inciting had feeling between the two white races, and I shall be punishable under the provisions of the hon. member for Yeoville. If hon. members are born on the other side of the water they may also be deported.

I agree with what has been said as, to the need for tightening up the law, but I cannot agree that it should be tightened up in the direction indicated in the later sub-clauses of this Bill. I have no objection to the earlier paragraphs giving the Minister power to prohibit a person from holding or attending a particular public meeting, or to seize inflammatory literature, but I have the strongest objection to the power given the Minister to remove a person from any particular area. The Minister asks the House to tighten up the law by vesting uncontrolled power in himself. We consider that it should be tightened up by strengthening the power of the courts. The provision proposed is of the most drastic nature. If this Bill becomes law the Minister will have power to prohibit a person from being in any area. There will be no limit on his discretion as to the area which he may define, and there will be no right to appeal worth the name. This is practically a system of banishment without trial, and is unparalleled in modern times outside of Russia and Italy. The police may visit a man in the middle of the night and spirit him away from his family and his business, and incalculable damage may be done to him materially and in respect of domestic affairs by such an order. The present position has arisen, and the Minister asks for these powers, as a result of the Bunting case. Without wearying the House with a legal disquisition, I want to refer briefly to the recent history of our law on the subject of sedition. Up to 1915 it was generally considered that our Taw of sedition was practically the same as English law. Then in 1915 in the Transvaal it was held that it was a necessary ingredient of the crime of sedition that the accused’s conduct should have resulted in a gathering in defiance of the authorities or for unlawful purposes. But there was some uncertainty from that time until 1923, when the decision of the Transvaal court was upheld by the appellate division. Then in 1926 an attempt was made in the Prevention of Disorders Bill to tighten up the definition of sedition. That Bill would have made our definition of sedition approximate with that obtaining in English law. That Bill did not become law for reasons which it is unnecessary to go into now, but in 1927 a certain provision was inserted in the Native Administration Act. I want to refer to the provisions of that Act, because the wording of Section (29) of that Act was in issue in Bunting’s case. I want to show what, importance the court, which held that Bunting’s conviction should be set aside, attached to the wording of that section. [Section 29 read.] There is a contrast in the language in the first section and the expression used is—

In the 2nd section it is anything that “may be reasonably calculated” to promote feelings of hostility. The eastern districts court attached importance to that difference in the wording, and drew attention to it pointedly, remarking that Section (29), sub-section (1), did not prohibit the use of words which might be reasonably calculated to promote feelings of hostility. On that difference in the wording, they based, to a very great extent, the reasons upon which they arrived at their decision. They also found that Bunting was a communist, and they held that the preaching of communist doctrines by him, in view of the fact that he was a communist, was not evidence of intent to promote hostility. The reason of the judges does not warrant, so far as I can discover from the report I have, the Minister’s statement that the effect of the judgment was if you preach recognized doctrines such as those of communism, you cannot be held guilty of an intent to promote feelings of hostility between the races. They held that Bunting, being a communist, preached those doctrines not with intent to promote hostility.

It would apply to all communists.

It may apply to all communists, but not to everybody. I must say I do not want to criticize the reasons for judgment, but it was a great pity that the Minister did not take the case to the appellate division. If he had done that, it seems to me we might possibly have got from the appellate division a different decision or different reasons for judgment, and a very different complexion might Have been put upon the meaning of these provisions in the Act of 1927. Now the impression that the Minister has given to the House is that, as a result of Bunting’s case, the criminal law has broken down, and that the courts are powerless in face of the type of propaganda going about among the native races. I say that the criminal law has not broken down, and the courts are not powerless. The courts are powerless, naturally, when we give them a defective weapon with which to deal with agitation.

On the motion of Mr. Roper the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 24th March.