as chairman, brought up the third report of the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours.

Report and evidence to be printed and considered on 26th May.

The amendment is to delete the old sub-section (d) and to insert a new one, to delete in sub-section(3) “The particular area mentioned in the certificate,” and to substitute “such particular area, or areas, as he may from time to time determine.” The hon. member (Mr. Madeley) need not be alarmed.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Amendments in Clauses 7, 11 and 13 put and agreed to.

I want to draw the attention of the hon. member in charge of the Bill to the installation of stunning pens, and in what an expense this may involve local authorities. It is proposed that these pens shall be devised, and that the animals shall be driven one at a time along a race into a pen, and there stunned. I suggest as an amendment—

I move the amendment standing in my name, that—

I think the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Coulter) need not be concerned with regard to the race and pen. If the hon. member will look at the proposed amendment, he will find that both the race and pen shall be of the type approved by the local authority concerned. There is no restriction. It is left to the discretion of the local authority. They can make such arrangements as they like as long as they carry out the terms of this amendment. There is no desire to involve the local authority in unnecessary expense. The matter is left entirely to them, but in the interests of humane killing, it is felt that some such arrangement should be enforced.

Maj. G. B. VAN ZYL seconded.

Amendment proposed by Brig.-Gen. Byron put and agreed to.

New sub-section (3), as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining amendments in Clause 1 and amendments in Clauses 3 and 5 put and agreed to.

I move—

seconded.

Agreed to.

New clause to follow Clause 5.

I move—

1. 6.
   1. (1) The Governor-General may from time to time, on the authority of a resolution of both Houses of Parliament, by proclamation in the Gazette amend—
   2. (a) paragraph (b) of sub-section (1) of section 1 by altering the number of animals therein mentioned; and
   3. (b) the definition of “animal” in section 7.
2. (2) Any regulations made and in force under this Act at the time when any such amendment is made shall be deemed to have been made under this Act as so amended.

The word “verminder” is wrong, and must be replaced by the word “verander.” It is a mistake in the Afrikaans text.

seconded.

Agreed to.

On amendments in Clause 6 in definition of “animal”.

I move—

seconded.

Agreed to; amendments proposed in committee of the whole House dropped.

Remaining amendments in Clause 6 and the amendment in Clause 7 put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted and read a third time.

In connection with the amendment I wish to state that I have given careful consideration as to whether it is in order. Standing Order No. 189 in dealing with Bills returned from the Senate with amendments provides that “No amendment shall be moved to an amendment of the Senate that is not strictly relevant thereto; nor can an amendment be moved to the Bill unless the same be relevant to, or consequent upon, either the acceptance or the rejection of an amendment by the Senate.” I find however that, while the new clause proposed by the Senate seeks to validate regulations made by an urban local authority under sub-section (3) of section 23 of the principal Act, the amendment proposed by Mr. Coulter seeks to validate regulations made by the Governor-General under sub-section (1) of section 23. In my opinion the amendment is therefore not relevant to, or consequent upon, the new clause inserted by the Senate and consequently cannot be moved at this stage.

New Clause 6 and amendments in old Clauses 6, 18 and 19 put and agreed to.

I move—

It is not a pleasant task to object to the recommendation of the select committee when it concerns the death of a person and his dependants. But we have, unfortunately, to do with a case here where I have no option. This case of Mr. B. Pruis of Greylingstad is one where the owner, or driver, of the motor-car stopped on the railway crossing. The train whistled three times, and the bell rang as usual. The driver of the motor car did not, however, take the car off the line, there was an accident, and Mr. E. Pruis was injured. The postmortem was to the effect that the accident was due to the negligence of the chauffeur. Now I ask the House with what right the railways can be asked to pay a gratuity of £50 to the survivors? We sympathise very much with them, but if we once adopt the principle that the railways must pay a gratuity even when people are negligent then we shall be creating a precedent which it will be impossible to carry out in future.

Motion put and agreed to.

Recommendations Nos. (35) to (54) of paragraph II-l put and agreed to.

On paragraph II-2 No. (1)

I should like to discuss this recommendation. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to this recommendation—

We have here a case of a gentleman who served the State for nearly half-a-century. He devoted his whole life, practically, in the interests of the development of science in South Africa. He has left a record in our present museum in tape Town, which is valued, not only in this country, but right through the scientific world. Unfortunately, during the time that he served, there was no provision made under the Act whereby a pension fund was established. Shortly after his death, Mr. Jagger, then the member for Cape Town (Central), brought in a Bill regulating, in future, the matter of pensions to the directors of museums in Cape Town. All future directors are protected in the way of pensions. This gentleman, Dr. Peringuey, with his distinguished record of service, died and left his widow and daughter practically in poor circumstances. To-day, I think it is common knowledge that Mrs. Peringuey has a very hard struggle for existence. In the first instance, when she appealed to Parliament some years ago, unfortunately the magistrate who reported upon the case, gave a very rosy opinion as to her financial position, which subsequently was proved to be long. I need not go fully into this case. I only want to quote that a tablet was unveiled in the Cape Town museum two years ago by the present Minister of the Interior, and the Minister then made very cogent and correct remarks in regard to the services Dr. Peringuey had rendered to South Africa. The hon. Minister, on that occasion, said—

Then he went on to say—

I wish to submit to the Minister that this matter has now been referred to the Government for consideration. I hope the Minister will give his favourable consideration to this petition. If ever there was a worthy case of a man who had devoted his whole life to the service of the country, and whose widow is now practically without means of support, I think this is a case. It is a case to which the Government should give its most favourable consideration.

Recommendation put and agreed to.

On paragraph II-4,

I should like to refer to Item No. 296, Isabella M. Rasmussen. I want to suggest to the chairman of the Pensions Committee that he might take this back and reconsider it. I move—

The lady is the widow of a soldier who served in German East. Before going there he was a strong, able-bodied man, but when he returned he was suffering from the effects of active service. He was employed in the railway workshops at Pretoria, but continually suffered from the effects of the war, and frequently had to leave work. Eventually he died in 1928, at a date beyond which the widow could have applied for a pension. She has six or seven children. It is a hard case, and I am surprised that the select committee turned it down.

I am not prepared to allow this to be referred back again, because it has appeared from the information received that the man’s incapacity was not the result of the war. We went fully into the matter, and it would be a state of affairs if we had to do all the hard work of the Pensions Committee over again.

Motion put and negatived.

I understand that the reason why this petition was rejected is because Mr. Vermaas did not make an application when the van Niekerk committee went round, but the state ought to be thankful to him for not doing so, because if he had done so he would have got a good pension. The other reason is because he is a well-to-do farmer. I admit that he is well-to-do, but this does not prevent him being just as entitled to a pension, if his health was injured in the war, as a poor man is. I do not exactly want to say that the state should give a pension to Mr. Vermaas, but to show that his services are recognized, I think that a small gratuity of, say, £150, should be given to him, then Mr. Vermaas will be satisfied. I therefore move—

Unless the Minister of Finance is willing to grant a gratuity of £150.

I understand that this is a case of a burger who is asking for a pension in respect of wounds received during the second war of independence. A definite date was fixed when all claims in that connection had to be sent in. That date was extended from time to time until 1927, and then it was laid down that no further cases would be considered. There must surely be an end some time to these things in connection with the war. It is entirely the fault of the person himself that he has no pension or gratuity, inasmuch as he did not make application.

I must say that I am really surprised at the speech of the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. A. S. Naudé). Those who were entitled to a grant had every opportunity of filing their claims, and that at the last a special committee was appointed that went about the country investigating the claims. How is this committee, who sits here within four walls, to know if all the information supplied is correct, and, even if it is true, we have no opportunity of investigating it. Those people had every opportunity, and now they expect the pensions committee, which is not acquainted with the facts, to give judgment. I am surprised at the hon. member.

I cannot understand why the hon. member is surprised at my speech, because the information the committee received was very reliable. It was given by the officer under whom Mr. Vermaas served during the war. It is, therefore, information which we can take as being correct. I move—

He was a railway official, and, merely because he failed to pay an amount into the superannuation fund before he left the service, he cannot claim a pension, although immediately after he retired he was willing to pay up the amount of about £40. This is the third or fourth petition, and the railway board and the Minister of Railways and Harbours told me that I should hand it in again, and that it would then be favourably considered, because they realized that it was not fair to exclude the man as he was ready to pay in the amount.

If there are one of these cases, then there are hundreds. The people are given notice, they are asked, and then they refuse to pay. After they have left the service they realize their mistake. If we were to comply in this one case we should have to do it in hundreds of cases.

I see a number of recommendations here to overlook breaches of service. Mr. Vermooten did not actually break his service, but he merely neglected to pay in the amount before he left the service.

Each case is treated on its own merits, and the same circumstances as apply to this case, apply to a large number of others.

I move—

It is too late to do that,

Cannot I refer to that item?

That item cannot be referred to again.

You, Mr. Chairman, saw the hon. member before you saw me. How was I to intercept him?

There was one decided before that. I cannot deviate from the rule.

With all respect to you, sir, we are suffering, I will not say under very sharp practice, but a practice that has got the better of us. When a whole lot are discussed you put them (the whole lot) at the finish. May I submit this, on a point of order? If your ruling is correct, you should treat this exactly in the same way as you treated the recommendations. You went through, from Nos. 1, 2 and so on, right up. Here you should start also with No. 1, I submit.

If there are only Nos. 395 and 396, and they are not put, the hon. member cannot go back. The further one was put and decided on by the committee, and the committee cannot go back.

Might I draw your attention, sir, to this: that the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. A. S. Naudé) drew attention to one item, and when he went on to another, you suggested that we should first vote on the first item. This at once led members to believe that they could therefore refer to previous items.

He referred to an item later than the one decided.

When hon. members get up to speak, it is your duty, sir, to select an hon. member to speak without your knowing on which number these hon. members are going to speak; and by a misfortune my hon. friend lost his place.

There ought to be no difficulty at all. When I put a number for the committee to vote on any hon. member can get up and put his word in, but when I put that vote, not a single hon. member got up. I have ruled, and I will not allow any further discussion.

On a point of order—

I have ruled, and will not allow further discussion.

I want to put a further consideration to you—

I have ruled.

You are making things exceedingly difficult. I want to report progress and ask leave to sit again. Here is a mass of entirely disconnected persons; it is not like clauses in a Bill.

It is Section 4; subsection—

There are no recommendations at all. This is a statement.

Order, I ruled.

made a gesture.

I think this is an impertinence; I am getting a little tired of the way in which the Minister of Finance interferes in the House.

The hon. member has no business to make the insinuation he has made.

What has it to do with you? You do not run me. I move—

I want to draw attention to the almost impossible position this committee has reached in discussing its business. I move, in order to get Mr. Speaker’s ruling on the point on which you have given your ruling.

On which point?

On your ruling that we are quite unable to go back on this list, when one happens to be passed.

I am in the same position. I also wanted to rise.

Will the hon. member bring up his motion?

My reason for wanting that does not mean any disrespect for you at all, sir, but I fear there is a tremendous misapprehension in this committee as to what ought to be the procedure. Here we are faced with certain recommendations, which you put seriatim —quite correctly; then there comes a mass number of rejections under the head, in this case, of No. 4. The committee does not consider any of those rejections; in fact, hon. members have the privilege and right to move that any one of those be referred back to the select committee concerned. You have ruled that because one, whatever number it may be, has been passed, rejected or voted upon, it is impossible for any hon. member to go to another person whose number happens to be precedent to that. This is the point I want to submit to Mr. Speaker, that this is a mass of independent units, and it is only the accident of circumstances, because of their alphabetical order, that they are down in successive numbers. The fact of voting upon one of them affects in no degree whatsoever the merits of the case of any of the others. There is an additional reason why I want. Mr. Speaker’s ruling, and that is that you were calling upon one member and did not see another. The member you called upon felt that he had to have his say. This kind of procedure takes place in the ordinary course of business, but this is extraordinary business, and has nothing to do with ordinary business. My hon. friend sat there and felt he was doing the right thing, in accepting the position that you had called upon another member, and, in consequence, he now, according to you, loses his turn. I move that we report progress, in order to get Mr. Speaker’s ruling as to whether a member may deal with an item in the Pensions Committee’s report on rejections preceding an item already voted upon.

Motion put and agreed to.

stated the point which had arisen in committee, that the committee desired to obtain Mr. Speaker’s ruling thereon, and that he had accordingly been ordered to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

May I address you, sir, on this point? The position that I take up with regard to this matter is that a column of rejections by the Pensions Committee is one that is not considered seriatim. There are, I am informed, 422 of these rejections altogether. In the ordinary course they are not put to the House, and, unless any member of the committee has a particular interest in or special knowledge of any one or other of these rejections, no reference is made to them, and the only way he can deal with one of them is by moving that the matter be referred back to the committee. These are alphabetically placed, simply as a matter of convenience. No. 422 has nothing to do with No. 1, and No. 7 has nothing to do with No. 27. They are all individual petitioners, and each case deserves to be considered on its merits. The fact that No. 256 happens to have been decided upon does not affect, to my mind—and I submit it for your consideration—the claim of No. 21 also to be considered, although No. 256 has been rejected. One can understand a rule that lays it down that an amendment in a clause passed later than the preceding one will in itself prevent any consideration of an amendment preceding, because one depends on the other. It often happens if you pass a later portion of a clause, if you amend the former portion, you will affect the latter portion, but here, where there is no inter-relationship whatever, the passage or rejection of one later or earlier has no effect whatever on the others. It is imperative that hon. members should have an opportunity to deal with any one of these as they like. There is another point for your consideration in relation to this particular request for your ruling. The ordinary method of calling upon a member alternately is adopted here, as in other matters before the House, and Mr. Chairman adopted the usual practice of seeing a member on this side and the other side of the House alternately, and perhaps now and then an hon. member from these cross benches. I am not finding fault, but merely stating the fact. The hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) expected a member on that side of the House to be called on, feeling that the matter had to be debated upon its definite conclusion, and that then it would be his turn to bring up the case in which he was interested. That being so, on the second ground I urge upon you to lay it down that an hon. member should have the right, at any time, to bring up a previous case and have it accepted or rejected on its merits. I suggest that in order to facilitate the progress of the House, and that justice may be done to every member of the House in regard to the business in which he may be interested.

In the ordinary way, the practice with regard to amendments is very definite. When the House is in committee the chairman must call the business before the committee item by item. In Committee of Supply also, that procedure is followed. You yourself, this afternoon, in the discussion on the Humane Slaughter Bill, pointed out to the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Coulter) and the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) that they should deal with the amendments as they came, in their order. I think the hon. member for East London (North) wanted to speak on a later amendment than that dealt with by the hon. member for Gardens, and you suggested we should first settle the one before taking the other. If the unusual course adopted by the chairman is sanctioned by you, where are we? It is open to any member to get up and proceed to discuss Item No. 422 and move that that item be rejected with the effect of shutting out all discussion on the preceding items. If the chairman’s ruling is that every item before that is ruled out of the discussion, then our only course is to ask the Standing Rules and Orders Committee to lay down that each rejection should be put in turn. If you uphold the chairman’s ruling this afternoon, how can members do justice to these petitions? I go further. I am informed there was a misunderstanding. I understand that when the item was put members were told they could refer to an earlier item and the chairman’s ruling was based on a misunderstanding between him and the members of the House.

I submit this ruling comes under Standing Rule and Order No. 76 if there is any rule which applies. This standing rule No. 76 reads—

As to paragraph 4 of the report there is no question before the House because the paragraph which contains the rejections made by the committee is not put and nothing is done on it unless members themselves raise a question on any item. Not one of the items is “part of a question” being put in terms of the rule. Indeed each item on being raised becomes a separate question and the Standing Rule and Order 76 does not apply. Otherwise if an hon. member wants to raise discussion on a particular item, it will become impossible for him in many cases to do so. Here are 400 items in this paragraph 4—all quite independent; and if the rule applies it just depends on the luck of the hon. who happens to catch the Speaker’s eye (and at what stage) as to whether everybody else may be cut out from the discussion. If the member who wishes to discuss item 296 is called on then all before them are cut out I suggest if the rule does apply that the chairman should not put any of the items to the House, until he has ascertained from the committee that all members who have any items to refer to, have had their opportunity. The rule does not apply; but if it does then there it was not understood. Through a pure misunderstanding, members waited until the committee had decided upon one item, only to find that all the other cases before it were entirely shut out from discussion.

It seems to me that in connection with this matter you might give your decision under the ordinary procedure which is followed in the case of Bills. There is a great deal in what the hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close) has just said. There was no question before the committee. The only point was a series of names drawn up in alphabetical order, but each name is separate from the rest. I think our rights may be very much curtailed if an hon. member should be so unreasonable after catching the eye of the Chairman to start talking about the last item on the list. Then the committee’s rights are curtailed in respect of all the other items. I do not think that this matter falls under Clause 76 of the Standing Rules and Orders. I think one must here express your own view on the question whether it is in the interests of hon. members and of the work of the committee, whether this procedure should be followed or not. I think the decision will be that it is in the interests of the committee to allow hon. members to speak on any item in such a list.

I do not think you can uphold the ruling of the Chairman. If every member of the House had a case to bring to the notice of the House, how can it possibly be done if that ruling is upheld? Neither you nor the Chairman can possibly maintain order when members rise to bring up their various cases. The only way of maintaining order is that every member must rise to bring up his own case, after which the next person follows who catches the eye of the Chairman. It is, therefore, impossible to uphold the decision.

I just want to refer to one point which, in my opinion, ought not to be forgotten, viz., that the Chairman puts a definite motion. A definite motion is moved that so and so shall also be referred back. I should say that the whole recommendation, number IV, is the question that is being put, and here there is a special amendment in connection with one item of the clause. The special motions in connection with items are amendments, and if a question is put in connection with a subsequent point no point which is before the item in respect of which the amendment has already been moved can any longer be raised. I think that there is much to be said for the ruling of the Chairman that when the question has been put, and after the committee has decided the matter, it is not possible to go back to an item which comes before the item put.

I think the hon. Minister has forgotten something. This matter has never been put to the committee. The only way to get these items under discussion is for an hon. member to get up and specifically challenge them. In this case it has not been put. Therefore Rule No. 76 does not apply. It says—

Each item here is a separate question.

The whole report is the question.

That is where the hon. Minister is wrong. No item is put. It remains for any hon. member to get up and challenge any item. If he does not challenge it, this item never comes up for discussion. I cannot add to what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) has said about this. I put this to you, sir, that the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. A. S. Naudé) was discussing one item, and he went on to discuss another, and the chairman then specifically said, “Let us first vote on this.” Another member at the time also got up, thinking that that was a ruling of the chair he sat down again without speaking. This action stopped other members from bringing up any other item until the voting on this one had taken place. I feel that the Chairman’s action has unwittingly misled the committee. I therefore think that we should have the opportunity of going back upon it.

It is not correct. No vote has as yet been taken on any motion of the hon. member for Wakkerstroom.

Obviously the point put by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) must be correct for this reason, that the motion we are debating is that the House go into committee on the report of the Pensions Committee. We are not dealing with the petitions in numerical order. You will find that the report of the Pensions Committee is sub divided into paragraphs, and in paragraph (2) we dealt with petitions 1, 2, 3 and 4, subsequent to the higher numbers being dealt with. The Chairman’s ruling held that it was impossible to take a petition with a number less than the one already disposed of. If that is so, one would not have been able to go back previous to 1, 2, 3 or 4, if other later petitions had been disposed of In dealing with the fourth recommendation of the Pensions Committee, the Chairman was left in this position, that the committee at once felt themselves interested, from various parts of the House, in various petitions which had formed the subject matter of the Pensions Committee’s recommendations. The hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Borlase) rose and suggested that a petition of a certain number appearing in that particular paragraph, be referred back to the committee. The Chairman did not know, and no individual member of the committee knew, what particular petition number was agitating the mind of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo). But as he was the first individual on the floor of the House to catch the eye of the Chairman of the Committee, it would have been singularly unfortunate for the rest of the committee had that hon. member asked that petition 432 be referred back to the committee, for under the Chairman’s present ruling it would have precluded any member in the committee, subsequently, discussing any other petition which might be affecting him. I think that hon. members have made the point perfectly clear, that if the ruling of the Chairman be upheld on this particular point, then it would be absolutely impossible for the committee ever again to consider a pensions report dealing with any sections such as this report contains, without considering the individual rejections seriatim. That is not what is intended. There are probably but a very few of these rejections which individual members may ask to be referred back to the committee or wish to comment upon while in committee. I respectfully submit that your ruling will never be to approve of a principle or of a rulling where the Chairman of the committee by some fortuitous circumstance chooses an individual member to address him on a number of a petition which he at the time, when he calls upon him, does not know. He does not know what that number is. I submit that in dealing with this block of recommendations under paragraph (4), any individual member may be called upon to address the committee by the Chairman of committees upon that recommendation irrespective as to whether or not, he happens to be called upon in committee to speak on a particular number.

I am sure the Chairman is anxious to do the right thing, and we all give him credit for that, and also that he is anxious to give hon. members every opportunity to speak, but if his ruling on this point is upheld then hon. members will be deprived of the full opportunity of doing their work, because the effect of this ruling will be that if an hon. member, sitting perhaps on the Government side, desires to block the consideration of any item in a report of this nature he might secure the Chairman’s eye, raise some trumpery question on the last item on the report with the result that other hon. members would be precluded from discussing any of the preceding ones.

I cannot, of course, deal with the misunderstanding, alleged by Mr. Blackwell to have arisen in committee, and shall therefore confine myself strictly to the point which has been raised, although it is unusual for Mr. Speaker to interfere in questions of procedure arising when the Chairman is in the chair. I appreciate the arguments which have been advanced by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) and other hon. members who have supported his point of view, but I think I ought to say that the principle embodied in our Standing Order No. 76, namely, that no amendment may be moved to any part of a question after a later part has been voted upon, is generally applied to all questions which come before this House. It has always been the practice to put different items in the order in which they are printed, and when I was Chairman of Committees I never would have allowed the committee to go back to a point previous to one decided upon, whether in a Bill, the estimates or any other question before the committee. What the hon. member should have done when the Chairman was putting an item after the item the hon. member wished to discuss, was to draw the attention of the chair to the fact and the Chairman would then have been bound to allow the matter to be discussed. But the hon. member apparently allowed that opportunity to pass and under the circumstances I feel I must rule that the decision of the Chairman was correct.

Mr. Speaker, is it competent for me to ask you to give this matter your attention as chairman of the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders, with the object of seeing whether the rules can be amended, because the inconvenience of the present procedure must be apparent to you. In the second place, would it be competent for me to ask you whether, in view of the uncertainty which existed in committee, would it be in order for a hon. member to move as an unopposed motion that leave be given for the committee to revert to items anterior to those the committee has already decided upon.

There is no objection whatever to any hon. member moving an unopposed motion in the House. As far as the other point is concerned it is not for Mr. Speaker to decide, but I certainly think the matter should be considered by the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders.

stated Mr. Speaker’s ruling to the committee.

Motion proposed by Mr. A. S. Naudé put and negatived.

I move, as an unopposed motion—

That cannot be moved in committee. The committee has no power to override the rules of the House.

May I move—

I certainly oppose that. Are we to delay the progress of the committee by discussing every one of these 421 different items?

If the committee desire it. Don’t be a spoilt kid.

The hon. member is only impertinent now. What the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) proposes is not a desirable practice.

I ask the Minister not to take up that attitude. Did he hear me put the question to Mr. Speaker while he was in the chair? I understood from Mr. Speaker that the proper stage at which to propose the motion was when we got back into committee, and Mr. Speaker distinctly gave me to understand that this was the proper stage now we are in committee. We get back into committee, and you rule—no doubt rightly, I am not cavilling at that—that once we are in committee you cannot accept a motion of that sort, and the Minister of Finance, instead of trying to help the committee in the difficulty into which it has got, takes up the attitude he does. We are not accustomed to that sort of thing from him.

This is wasting the time of the committee—by this discussion—that is my opinion.

The Minister could not have followed the discussion when Mr. Speaker was in the chair. Mr. Speaker said “Yes,” but when we get back into committee, you, sir, say “No.” Where are we now? We want to assist the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) to discuss the item he wishes to discuss. We are trying to extricate hon. members from the difficulty into which they have been unwittingly involved. If the Minister of Finance has any sense of fair play, he will understand and not persist in his attitude. At any rate, it is a motion to report progress, to get Mr. Speaker’s ruling.

I am very sorry about the misadventure to the debate. We all know that nothing like it has happened in the past. Several of these eases have been debated, and we try to explain matters as well as possible. The Select Committee on Pensions sits for four months three times a week. The members of that committee have one free day a week, viz., Thursday. They sit on all the other days to go into the petitions as carefully as possible. Last year a few matters were referred back, and they had to stand over until this year. Even if all these cases are referred back again they will, anyhow, not come before the committee now. In any case I filed the final report of the committee the other day. There are petitions which have been before the committee six or seven times. Such individuals can always file a new petition, and the committee has once more to go into the petition when it gets it. The matter therefore is carried no further by referring these cases back to the committee. I would not have set one of these petitions under this headnig, because I have already gone into them and know the circumstances. But if such a petition is handed in as a new petition then the committee has to go into it again.

Motion put and a division called.

I withdraw. In view of the fact that it requires only one person to object.

Motion negatived.

I would like to move as an unopposed motion to refer to Item no. 2, and to ask the Minister—

That is out of order.

I am not allowed to move as an unopposed motion?

That cannot be permitted; it is out of order.

Remaining recommendations in the first report put and agreed to.

On the second report,

On recommendation II 1 (1),

I wish to mention the case of Dr. G. H. W. de Labat, in Pretoria. The circumstances of this case are very sad and painful. In the course of this professional officer’s duty—an officer who is recognized by the Government as having been a most able and attentive one—in this branch of the work he carried out in this leper asylum, he performed an operation, but, unfortunately, he had an accident and infection took place. He has now contracted this dread disease. The amount which it is sought here to award to him has already been offered to him, and he has found it will be most inadequate for his future comfort. I thought the committee would, at any rate, have given this gentleman a larger pension. The whole life of this unfortunate medical man has now become most distressful, and he is, I understand, isolated and has still, I believe, one child under his care. If you give him £2,000, he can buy a comfortable residence, I admit. He could go to some country town, buy a place there and be isolated. It would not be an elaborate residence. I doubt whether this man can live in comfort on £360 a year. We know that he only had his salary. He was not in private practice for any number of years. I am sorry that the Minister of the Interior is not here. I know that the Minister of the Interior told me that he had a high opinion of the qualifications of Dr. de Labat. I do wish to suggest to the Minister that, of his own accord, he give this gentleman more consideration.

In the petition the petitioner asks for a sum of £1,000, and for a pension of £450. The position practically is that he is receiving what he asked for. He has been granted a sum of £2,000, but there is a further £700, of which the hon. member does not know, but which the petitioner is to get as well. That brings the sum up to £2,700, and if we look at the petition, he gets more than what he asks for. He only gets £360 pension, but he would only have been entitled to £350.

Recommendation put and agreed to.

On recommendation No. (29),

This also is a very unfortunate case of some one who was discharged from the railway service owing to bad health. Subsequently, he re-entered the service, and he did not then take the necessary steps to join the pension fund. He was entitled to do so, but failed to do so. He then left the service with a gratuity of £30 6s. 8d., and he also had sick leave payment, and he was given two further payments of £25 each. I must say that I can hardly understand why the state should be asked to make provision for a pension of £24 a year for his son until he becomes 16 years old. I therefore move—

Motion put and agreed to.

On recommendation No. (36),

This is a case where a man who was not in the railway service unfortunately lost his life at a railway crossing. The facts are perfectly clear. The gatekeeper had closed the gate, the bells were ringing, the engine had a light, the motor whistle was sounded, but as the engine crossed the crossing the man was seen to make a dart towards the line, and he was killed. It seems to me that if we were to pay gratuities in such cases an impossible position would be created. I move—

I regret the Minister’s decision, because I think important principles are involved. The Minister has taken up precisely the same attitude as in No. 34 of the first report. Both cases are those of applications from dependents of persons killed at level crossings. There are two principles involved here I would like the committee to give attention to. In the first place with regard to this practice that is established now of the Government rejecting decisions come to by a select committee, when the Select Committee on Pensions commenced its sittings this session, the chairman impressed upon the new members of that committee that the committee was essentially different from any other select committee appointed by this House, for the reason that it had the power to spend money. The members of that committee are responsible men, and are acting in a responsible manner. From time to time they have considered the cases that have come before them, viewed them from all points of view, sifted the evidence and come to certain decisions. I submit that for the Government to reverse those decisions, is inaugurating a dangerous principle. I would remind the committee that this is a practice initiated by this Government. It was never done before. What is the effect of this going to be on that select committee? It is turning that select committee into a rubber stamp. I protest that this is not a right and proper way to treat the result of the deliberations of that committee. That is the first aspect of it, the question of the rejection by the Government of decisions come to after careful thought and deliberation by that committee, and I protest that that is wrong. The next aspect of it is that in both these cases the accidents took place at level crossings. Somebody must be responsible. What would the position be if the railways were owned by a private concern?

Then they would not pay in this case.

I submit that these two cases are on all fours. If the railways were owned by a private concern, would the Government agree to allow citizens of this country, for an indefinite period, to be sacrificed on the altar of inefficiency of that concern? That is what is happening to-day. Citizens are being sacrificed on the altar of inefficiency of the railway service.

Here the negligence is on the part of the individual.

The individual may have been deaf. There is no evidence to prove he was not deaf, in which case all the auditory signals would have been of no value to him. I think responsibility should be accepted by somebody for all these accidents at level crossings, and that somebody is the Railway Administration. I appeal to the hon. the Minister and to the Government to re-consider their decision in this case.

The hon. member cannot deal with previous Acts.

Then I will confine myself to this one. I suggest that responsibility can only fall on the shoulders of the Railway Administration. I have no doubt that if the railways were not owned by the Government they would be told they must take steps to prevent any loss of life at these level crossings. They would be penalized, and they would have to shoulder responsibility. I appeal to the Government and to the Minister to reconsider their decision in this particular case.

I think the remarks of the hon. member ought to have some weight with the committee. If this is what is to take place in connection with petitions—

I can allow the hon. member to deal with recommendation No. 36 only.

No. 36 was presented to the House, and referred to select committee. From the committee it was sent to the various departments to gather the evidence. The evidence came back to the committee, and they agreed to make a recommendation. I suggest that as the case was put before the committee, and a recommendation was made, the hon. Minister should abide by that recommendation.

I am surprised at the Minister objecting to every case which comes before the Railway Administration. After the committee has taken a decision, the Minister makes an ex-party statement about the case, and moves to refer it back to the committee. I maintain it is wrong procedure on the part of the Minister to refer the case back to the committee, which has already thoroughly considered the matter. The Minister of Finance can do it, but he seems to be satisfied with the decision of the committee. I maintain this is wrong procedure on the part of the Minister.

Motion put and agreed to.

On paragraph II—3.

I move—

This lady is the widow of a constable who died a few days before he was due to retire and receive a fairly large gratuity, and also a pension. I understand the widow has now lost everything. Can I ask the committee why this was turned down

May I just say that there are many cases of people dying in the service before they draw pensions, which are not then paid out to their wives. But, unfortunately, this man could have elected to assure a pension to his wife, but he did not do so. She only got a certain amount for the period of leave her husband was still entitled to. It is impossible for the committee to grant a pension to the survivors of everybody who dies in the service. What would then become of our funds?

Motion put and negatived.

Remaining recommendations in the second report having been agreed to,

I move—

This Bill is introduced in accordance with the decision of the House with regard to the estimates. The tariff is the same as that which is at present in operation, except that the 20 per cent, rebate does not again appear.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into committee now.

I move—

This Bill is brought up in order to give effect to the resolutions passed by the Committee of Ways and Means in regard to the customs tariff. Hon. members will see also that in these amendments in the schedule we have incorporated certain reductions which appear on the printed paper and which were circulated. The existing schedule has been revised.

What is the sacrifice in revenue involved by these reductions?

In my budget statement it was difficult to calculate the effect of the increases or reductions, but I may say that, on the whole, they will have practically no effect on the revenue. We have increases of duties on a number of articles with the avowed object of prohibiting the importation into this country of a number of articles such, for instance, as sugar. There were heavy importations of sugar into the country, from which a large amount of revenue was derived. Now that we have raised the duty, we hope there will be no importations into the country. There is the item of clothing. Until such time as these duties take effect, some clothing will come into the country, and we shall get some revenue in that way. Ultimately, more clothing will be kept out, and we shall get less revenue than we are getting now.

Is that the object, to keep it out altogether?

That is the object. Every one of them is designed to give protection.

What is the average increase right through?

The only alterations that are made are in respect of those items that we discussed in Committee of Ways and Means. Then there are reductions on the printed paper, and we have also added to them two further items that do not appear on the printed paper. They are sections for steel windows and trade publications from overseas firms. On the latter this is 6d. per lb., but in future it will be free.

Are these reductions incorporated in the new schedule?

The reductions and the increases are incorporated in the schedule. Instead of merely adding to the Bill a schedule containing these alterations, we have worked them into the other items of the schedules which are not altered at all. But every change, so far as increase of duty is concerned, has been adopted by the Committee of Ways and Means. The other alterations are those reductions which were not discussed in the Committee of Ways and Means. For the rest, the whole tariff remains unamended. For convenience sake, and in order to enable merchants to have the full tariff before them, we have introduced this form into the Bill now before the House. All the reductions are in corporated. I hope we shall be able to adopt this course for four or five years. Necessarily, from time to time, this schedule will have to be amended, and, ultimately, we shall get into a fairly difficult position. As far as the second schedule itself is concerned, the preferences are not altered in any way. Any alterations made are consequential upon the amendments we have had to make in the tariff. As far as the Bill itself is concerned, the alterations are of a minor character. One deals with a rebate of duty in connection with the chassis of motortrucks and trailers.

I have been looking through Section 12 of the Act, and I cannot find paragraph (n).

The draughtsman has been very careful with his drafting, and I am sure it must be in order.

I will raise the matter later.

The other section deals with an amendment to the period. It is in order to allow tourists to take back such articles as cameras, etc., with them. This period has been extended from six to twelve months in order to encourage tourist traffic. Then the other paragraph deals with the position of the operation of the suspended duties. As the law stands at present, if we decide to impose the suspended duty it must be imposed as a whole duty.

The Minister of Finance will have seen from the fact that the second reading of the Income Tax Bill and the committee stage of that Bill passed without discussion, that there is no disposition on the part of hon. members on this side to delay the business, particularly the financial portion of the business, longer than is necessary. At the same time, I feel called upon to say a word or two in regard to this Bill now before us. In regard to the increased duties, we had a full discussion in Committee of Ways and Means, and these proposals were accepted. Therefore, it would not be proper for me to initiate a further discussion on them. But I want to comment upon one particular phrase that the hon. Minister used in regard to these duties. He has now come out and has let the cat out of the bag. He has made the frank statement that the intention and purpose of these duties which he got the House to agree to a few days ago are not so much merely to protect a local industry in competition with imports from abroad, as actually to shut out importation into this country of those particular lines.

That is as regards sugar.

It is contended that if you build up a tariff wall to a certain height, you give the local industries a shelter behind that wall, to enable them to carry on with a certain amount of protection, but always in competition with imports from overseas. In other words, you tell the industry concerned that it will have a certain amount of protection and that, unless it can carry on its business efficiently, it will have to face competition from abroad. One can understand that form of protection, although one might not agree with it, but it is extremely arguable because an industry has every incentive to run itself efficiently and to turn out a good product at a reasonable price. But we now hear from the Minister that that is not the Government’s policy, but that the form of protection it is now committed to consists of building a tariff wall so high that it shuts cut the imported article altogether, and leaves the consumer entirely at the mercy of South African industry, and you would simplify the whole procedure by passing an Act prohibiting the importation into this country of articles mentioned in the schedule. The Minister of Finance tells us that he did this intentionally in regard to the importation of sugar, matches, clothing and, presumably, every item in the schedule which we debated the other day. He has put up the price of all these articles—or the majority of them—against the consumer. What does he give the consumer in return? What are included in the schedule of articles upon which it is proposed to reduce the duty? It consists of a number of items, not one of which is of the remotest interest to the average consumer. The first is the Braille typewriter, the duty on which is to be lowered from 20 per cent, to nil; cod-liver oil is to be reduced from 25 per cent, to 20 per cent.; cottom ham wrappers, which used to pay 20 per cent., are to be placed on the free list, and so on. On the other hand, you have an amazing schedule of increases on practically everything you buy in a grocer’s or a clothier’s shop. The fiscal policy of the Government is not protection, but exclusion. In other words, the industrial life of South Africa is to be helped, not by giving it moderate and reasonable protection to act as a stimulus for the turning out of articles that will appeal to the local consumer, and will create a South African market, but to build a tariff wall so high that the imported article cannot come in at all, and all incentive will be gone for local industries to improve their products, while the consumer will be delivered, bound hand and foot, to the very small industrial population of South Africa.

I do not think the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) need worry very much about the bad effect of these duties, for I do not think they will have a prohibitive effect on importation. Sugar may be affected to some extent, but, as the probability is that presently there will be a gigantic sugar ring, the South African industry will not be affected very much by the increased duty on sugar. But these increases will have the effect of putting up prices against the consumer. If they were to be prohibited, surely the Minister would not be able to count on receiving £8,000,000 in customs duties, as he is counting, but I am alarmed at the effect these duties are likely to have on the cost of living. Even at the risk of being accused of tedious repetition, I wish to emphasize the desirability of protecting our industries in some other way than through the customs. You do not adequately protect industries by a tariff, as an import duty is tentative, and changeable, and in the process the consumer is bled all the time. Take wheat as a case in point. The Minister will agree that I have consistently advocated that the wheat producers must be protected, but under the present proposals, despite the fact that South Africa does not produce sufficient wheat to feed its population, the net gain to the farmer will be absolutely nil, while the consumer will have to pay a very much increased price, not only for bread, but for articles made from flour—puddings and so on. The Minister himself admits this, although he rather belies his argument in the same breath. He says he must have power to control, and, if need be, to entirely prohibit the importation of wheat. He modifies that attitude by imposing a duty on flour, and one can foresee that the inevitable result is that you do not protect the farmer, you withdraw any protection there may be as the result of competition, and only succeed in increasing the revenue. No good is done anywhere. It has been recommended from these benches that to cope with this position you have to control the import of both articles, but at the same time take steps to fix the prices of the resulting commodities. I hope the Minister is going to do that. What benefit has the South African wheat farmer got from it; what does this House and the wheat farmer suppose he is going to get from it, while there is only one buyer of wheat— either a ring or a loosely-knit alliance—and it determines what the farmer is going to get and what the consumer has to pay, because the milling companies are the only buyers of wheat. The state itself must be the market for the wheat farmer, and the ultimate distributor of the resulting products of the wheat. I want to come to another point. We are protecting matches. The Minister has now decided to ask the House to agree to increase the import duty on these, and I understand the taxation will be 3s. 6d. per gross. I am informed that these matches sell at 4s. 4½d. per gross on the Rand, wholesale price. That seems to be out of all proportion indeed. I know it is not the intention of the Minister, or it was not of former Ministers of Finance, but the result has been to help a little section of match manufacturers. It is done in such a dangerous way. Apparently everything is all right, for the manufacturer will be protected, but what happens is that anybody in South Africa desiring to manufacture matches, finds, when he goes to buy the necessary machinery, that he is up against a brick wall, because there is a huge international combine, and the machinery will not be supplied. That is decided by that combine. The Minister has to turn his attention in that direction—from the sentimental one, if he is preventing the good old Soviet from importing matches. Those matches are infinitely better than those we manufacture in South Africa.

Have you used them?

Yes, I have, and burnt my fingers. Some of the South African matches do not strike; some do, and at the same time strike you. I am a pretty heavy smoker, and smoke a good number of matches. I have good experience of these matches. But joking aside, the Soviet matches are very good, and I join issue with the Minister, if they are excluded because they are said to be of bad quality. We have aided in a world-wide monopoly on the machinery side. Generally, on the score of protection, I disagree with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell). I think this is an expensive and unscientific method of protecting our industries, but even that method is better than no protection at all. I would much rather have a bounty system in protecting our industries, because then we know exactly where we are, and that the money goes into the right pockets. Now, you have to pay at least three-quarters more, and the consumers have to pay.

I am very glad indeed, and I think the commercial community will be, that the Minister has brought the tariff right up to date. It is very convenient, and will save a great deal of trouble, to have it placed in a form so compact and easily to understand. Could not the Minister consider having the various rulings of the customs department published?

they are published—in the “Industrial and Social Review ",

Some are, but not all. If the publication were made through the industrial or commercial organs, it would greatly facilitate business. I know of several instances when a duty is to be paid, it is not known what the new rule is. I would also like to ask the Minister whether he is prepared to make a statement as to the effect of this system of suspended duties. When I asked him the other day, he told me that out of 35 he had seen fit to impose only four. We would like if he could state whether the purpose he has in mind has been achieved, and whether they do really serve any useful purpose. They are disturbing to the bulk of business interests. I would like to refer to the question of the Advisory Board. I know the Minister recently stated that he abolished that board, because, unless they had extended jurisdiction, they would not serve a very useful purpose. I am not too sure whether the bulk of commercial opinion agrees with the letter sent by this board, and felt there was a certain justification for asking for extended powers, but even more justification for asking for a little more sympathy and sympathetic treatment by the customs officials. I think it was generally understood that more sympathetic treatment will probably be afforded. I venture to say that the bulk of commercial men would be glad to see those advisory boards re-established, because I do think they were fulfilling to a certain extent a useful purpose, and a great many of us felt that in time the Minister would realize that it would be wise to give them further powers. I would like to stress the point made by the hon. member for Roodepoort (Col. Stallard) that the Minister should consider whether the time has come to investigate the full effect of this tariff. There are extraordinary anomalies in the tariff. Take the second item. That reduction has been made at the request of the chemists, and there is no doubt that it is going to be of great benefit to the people who use this oil. Cod-liver oil is now rated at 20 per cent., but ordinary lubricating oils only pay a duty of from 5 per cent, to 15 per cent. There are many other anomalies here which I think the Minister should consider, and see whether more uniformity cannot be effected with regard to these items.

I welcome the statement made by the Minister in moving the second reading of the Bill, because I have always been opposed to protective duties being used for revenual purposes. It means that the public are unduly taxed. If you have to raise revenue, raise it by more direct methods, and not by indirect means through the customs. I welcome the Minister’s statement that the object is to keep out the articles against which these increases are being imposed, because I believe that that is the only effective way of fostering our industries adequately in South Africa. Now that the Minister has accepted the principle of prohibiting importation, I think it would be more practical if he did it by means of an ordinary Bill to control imports rather than by a protective tariff. A protective duty brings in revenue, and to that extent his policy has failed, and to that extent the public is being unduly taxed. The cheaper and the more effective method as far as the manufacturer is concerned is by definitely controlling imports without any question of a duty at all. I hope that he will go the further length of considering adopting the method I have been urging upon this House, and accompanying that method by some provision for regulating prices. Unless you do that the public will be unduly taxed without the manufacturer getting the benefit. It is not beyond the wit of man to do this. I am satisfied that the Board of Trade, if it were asked to investigate that question and to report, would be able to recommend some adequate method of doing it. I want to touch in that connection also on the item referred to by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley). I do not entirely agree with the hon. member as regards the question of matches. I have no objection to these matches being kept out of the Union provided it will help the local manufacturer, and provided that the consumer will not be prejudiced. I understood from the Minister, when we were discussing these items on the motion to go into Committee of Ways and Means, that he had some method by which he was going to control the manufacturer in order to protect the consumer. He has not given us any indication how he is going to do that, and I hope the Minister will tell us what method he has in his mind of protecting the consumer. I am not in favour of a large number of little competing industries springing up by reason of protection. In reality you are putting up prices. The cost of production is higher, and in the long run you have inefficient industry, and expensive industry so far as the public is concerned. With regard to big corporations developing those industries, and going in for mass production, when that is done you must have some control over those industries. The hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) referred to the difficulty of obtaining machinery to establish competing industries. I am not concerned, because I do not want to see a lot of little match factories in the Union, but in return for the protection the combine is getting there should be adequate control. I have had complaints brought to me by retailers. One of these complaints was that of a retailer doing business in the ordinary way, buying matches from a factory, who found that the factory would not supply him unless he bought a particular quantity, It is undesirable to have a combine fixing prices against the public to enrich themselves. I hope the Minister will deal with that aspect, and say what he proposes to do to control these factories.

I would like to deal with a matter which affects my own constituency. I refer to the proposal to eliminate the 20 per cent, duty on milk cans of over five gallons capacity. I believe the House decided it would give this manufacturing industry the advantage of protection and as a result a branch of this industry was started in Johannesburg. I am assured that farmers and others using these cans are able to purchase them more reasonably now than before the duty was imposed owing to their being made locally. The industry started by making the smaller sizes of cans and it was so successful that it was decided to extend its scope. In view of this protection it was decided to order machinery from overseas to make milk cans of a larger size. Within a couple of months of ordering the machinery the Board of Trade, without consulting these people or giving them any opportunity of makiing representations, decided that the 20 per cent, duty they were counting on should be done away with. I think that on the whole it is rather unfair treatment to this industry, and I think that the Board of Trade when it is considering the question of adjusting duties up or down should take a survey of the whole field of the industry cencerned before such a step is taken. These people were committed to buy the machinery and they had to instal it and they have now to start in the larger line of business against world competition. I would ask the Minister to hold over his decision to do away with this duty in order to see whether these people are not able to carry on without it.

It is a general complaint amongst farmers that implements, etc., are mounting ever higher in price. If this duty is maintained, it simply means an increase of 20 per cent, on the milk cans. It is a business that is developing rapidly. Beef is at a very poor price and export prospects are also poor and farmers are developing their herds on dairy lines. If relief is given, it should be maintained. I cannot quite agree that milk cans are cheaper. We have been paying more for them than we used to. I would ask the Minister, when he can give assistance of this kind, not to be diverted from his intention.

I look on this question of reduction in regard to milk cans from a different point of view. I am glad to see the reduction but if you cannot make milk cans to compete with imported milk cans, it would be better to leave the business alone.

What about boots?

You encourage an industry and then protect other industries, and we do not seem to have a policy for a period of years. The other point I wanted to raise is that medicines should be free. Is it not departing from ordinary procedure to allow the Minister to decide—

From time to time they come along and want something new.

I only mentioned it because it seems rather unusual. I want to refer to the question of matches. All I can say in reply to the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) is that when a big factory is turning out stuff, you cannot expect them to act as manufacturers and distributors. The price to the consumer is not enhanced in any way by the distributors’ profits. Matches to-day are not worth handling. The Minister surely does not expect a small retailer to order a case or two of matches direct from the factory. I am a distributor but I shall not be a distributor long. I am going out of it, because the work is too hard, and the pay is too little. The trouble is that the tendency is to put up prices, and the point is that if the prices do not go up, they do not come down. They will react upon the Government within the next five years, and they will have to answer for the second phase that we are now going into. We have nothing fixed before us. We are now on the second phase of this business. Ministers do not worry. It is an unpopular cry to go against this tariff when everybody is for it. It does not matter what you do, we are told it is to help our industries, to employ our South African youths and girls and that is the popular cry. Take the case of cheese. These high duties are no use when we produce items like cheese. The 4d. per lb. duty is of no use because the cheese farmer is selling below the cost of Holland cheese. Chicory is the same again, 4d. per lb., which is the cost in Belgium of good chicory. Despite this duty, the chicory farmers say they cannot sell all their chicory and they imagine that compulsory cooperation will save them. These high duties prove that those goods which we can produce naturally need no help. The reason of the low prices is the law of supply and demand in operation. High duties on goods that we must import only put up the price to the poor. The people you think that you are benefiting are really not being benefited at all, and the most serious factor of all our legislation is that we have no thought for the morrow. We have the example of Australia before us. I suggest that we should take a leaf out of her book, and see where we are going along. The more we work under a protective tariff, the less able are the export farmers to compete in the world’s markets. I again say, and I trust the Minister of Finance will remember this in five or ten years’ time, when our export farmers come running round shouting for further assistance.

I always thought that the policy of this Government was a protective one with the object of encouraging local industries; with that I largely agree. That, apparently, however, is only so in theory for when you look to the practical side of it, you find that the policy of the Government is in some cases exactly in the opposite direction. One hon. member has pointed out, in regard to milk cans, that a five-gallon tin had a duty of 20 per cent., and it is now proposed to allow it in free. Some people have been thinking of starting a factory ta Johannesburg to make these cans. They now learn that this 20 per cent, duty is to be taken away, thus they will not be able to compete with the overseas article. Do let us have a stable policy. We should encourage people so that they can import material to manufacture goods. When they want to do that, they find that they are faced with this competition from overseas. 1s that fair? Is it in accordance with the policy of the Government? Surely the country ought to know where it stands. The Government boast that they represent the larger number of voters in the country. But I cannot understand their vascillating policy. I should like to draw the attention of the Minister with regard to the taxation of boots. I will quote briefly an article that appeared in the Cape Times on the 26th April last, a statement by Mr. S. Maclure, the vice-president of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce—

The Minister proposes a duty or the abolition of one and his blind-folded friends on that side of the House say, “Ja, baas, what you say must be right.” That is why I am placing this on record on Hansard to show, in a year or two, or within the next five years, what the effect of this duty will be on the industry. Here is an expert gentleman who knows what he is talking about. Has he ever been asked to give, evidence or to tell his experience? If we cannot be guided by gentlemen of such experience, where are we getting to? On financial matters, I ask what does the Minister of Finance or myself know? We are both lawyers. What do we know about finance? We must get the experts in this matter, and I consider that the Minister of Finance has been misguided in not doing so.

If the hon. the Minister refers to the second schedule, part 2, the Canadian portion, he will find there is nothing in the “amount of rebate column.” Under the old schedule, there was a rebate of from 2d. to 4d.

The Minister of Finance has somewhat alarmed us, for this is the first occasion on which the definite statement has been made that the object of these increased duties is not to foster our own South African manufactures, and thus to build up a large, prosperous and useful industrial population, but to exclude imported articles which might compete with our own industries. This is such an advance and such a change as compared with any previous announcement upon this vitally important subject, that we have every reason to regard this change of front most seriously. The country is very much exercised over our recent protectionist legislation. This policy which has just been enunicated by the Minister of Finance is an entirely new one, and if it were carried to its logical conclusion it would be impossible for people with ordinary incomes to live in South Africa. I have just had a letter from a fruitgrower who has been struggling for years, and he tells me that in 1916-’17 he raised fruit to the weight of 16,000 lbs., for which he received only £143 15s. In 1923 his fruit crop was 39,000 lbs., but fetched only £128 17s., and in 1929 for 26,000 lbs. worth of fruit he received only £79 8s. He asked me what he can do if the present high duties on the necessaries of life are continued. If the Minister’s policy of exclusion is carried out, South African industries will no longer have to compete with the products of any other country. That raises a very serious question as to what is going to happen in the future. It means that our industries, instead of having an incentive to improve their methods of manufacture, to lower their working costs, to raise the quality of their products, will be under no compulsion to bring themselves up to the level of overseas manufacturers. That will be a very serious thing for this country once it becomes known that our fiscal policy is not one of protection, but of prohibition. This is the first time such a policy is announced, and I think the people of the country will take it very badly. The country cannot carry the burden being raised in the House this session. I would like to know if the Minister is justified in the statement he made, and whether the position has been put to the country. It cannot stand much more taxation; it has got to the limit.

I would like to support very strongly what has just been said by the hon. member for Hospital.

Do not when there are distortions—it is the gravest distortion to which I have listened.

It seems to me the Minister does not realize the condition into which the country is drifting, when farmers and everybody else are talking of depression. The prices of the primary products we are selling oversea will remain low for years to come, and what will become of our farmers if we continue to raise the cost of living here. Farmers have exhausted the small markets in South Africa, where consumers are not numerous, as we have a population of only one and three-quarter million Europeans. The farmers are producing more than can be consumed in South Africa, and have to look abroad for their markets. This tariff increase goes on from year to year, and protection is getting higher and higher. It seems to me that it is protection running mad. A few days ago I indicated there was another method of protection, but it was clear from the interjections and the remarks of the Minister that he did not understand what I said. I do not blame him, because it is rather an intricate matter; and I probably did not explain it sufficiently, but the position wants examination by experts. Very few of us in the House are experts in this, and the suggestion of the hon. member for Roodepoort (Col. Stallard) for a commission is a sound one, which I support very strongly, as well as what the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) has said.

As far as we here are concerned, we are protectionists, but we do realize the time has arrived when the method of applying it is very seriously at fault. I cannot agree with the hon. member who has just spoken. The first essential of any country, in going in for a policy of protection of its industries, is to secure a good home market. That has been the policy in other countries. In this country we have looked at it from the point of view that our home market is a secondary consideration; and if you develop your home markets, industries can consume more of the raw products of the country. We have got a Government which is quite frankly protectionist, but side by side with that we have a Government which looks at the revenue side of the matter. The Government to be logical, should go to the length of prohibiting importation for the purpose of protecting industry. If manufacturers in South Africa still find that the imported article is being sold to their detriment, and notwithstanding the tariff, then, to be logical, the Government should keep out such articles altogether. The system of bounties is the only system that will be effective. Then you can have your tariff for revenual purposes, and you can take from the revenue derived monies to subsidize industries which deserve to be subsidized. By that method you would also secure contributions from the whole of the people towards the building up of industries. The Minister should also see that prices are controlled, and that the consumer is protected. I want to mention the case of a firm which began manufacturing various things in Johannesburg. It employs a large number of unskilled whites. They have undertaken to set up a factory to manufacture five and ten-gallon milk cans. I am sorry the Minister proposes to remove that protective duty of 20 per cent. I do not say the Minister is not justified in removing it, because they have already had time to get going. The machinery is ordered, and on arrival they will be in a position to extend their operations. Would the Minister’s objection be met by making this a suspended duty instead of withdrawing the 20 per cent. If during the recess the Minister thinks the promises made have not been carried out, he can then put the duties on. The question of price has been raised. If you are going to have protection, you know you will have to pay a higher price, but there will be more employment, and the money will be there to pay the higher price. Our position is, we suggest there is a better method of achieving the object the Government has in view, by which prices will not be raised, and your home market will be improved. I want to emphasize the item of milk-cans. I appreciate the position the Minister takes up, but, instead of putting this duty on immediately, be might put it on as a suspended duty, and it would be a great improvement. If, on the other hand, these people are playing with the thing, then you can put the duty on. I hope the hon. Minister, realizing the position, will give consideration to that.

I should like to thank the Minister of Finance for the relief he has given on Braille typewriters. That is an act which one appreciates. It probably amounts to a relief in his revenue of something between £5 and £10 per annum. When one has been talking about the protection of manufactures in South Africa, we are arriving at a stage and time when the blind will become the manufacturers of various articles, which we hope will find a ready market. The great difficulty with the handicrafts of the blind is that they cannot get their raw materials at a price which enables them to compete with the article made by machinery or made by people who work under more normal conditions. It is expected, and it is hoped, that a national institution will, in the very near future, be called upon to provide trained blind persons with their raw materials, and one hopes that they will be able to get them at the lowest possible minimum rates. I expect, at an early date, representations will be made to the hon. Minister in connection with string work, which forms quite an item in the raw material in the manufacture of certain handicrafts which they make, to be imported into this country at concessionary rates. We know that there is a rope and string-making factory here, protected for the purpose of enabling that industry to produce its manufactures at competitive prices. We are protecting them and charging the ordinary users of string a higher price than normally they would be called upon to pay. It is acting, however, to the detriment of the blind, who want that raw material for their handicrafts. I hope the hon. Minister will be prepared, when representations are made to him, to permit the importation of raw materials specially designed and intended for the handicrafts of blind workers, to come into this country duty free. I will make another point. Wool, in a large measure, forms the raw material for the handicrafts of the blind. If the blind worker is forced to pay, to the direct importer, a higher price which the imposition of the duty makes necessary, then he is prejudiced to that extent in the manufacture of his articles.

When the House adjourned I was saying that the blind find it difficult to make any occupation pay owing to very high protective duties on the raw material with which he works. It is possible for people to import wool and give it to blind workers at practically 50 per cent, below the price at which it can be purchased at a retail store in South Africa. Representations will probably be made to the Minister of Finance asking him to permit some representative institutions in South Africa to import raw material for the handicrafts of the blind at a sympathetic rate of duty. The Minister may take my reference to the fact that he is waving 15 per cent, of the duty on Braille typewriters, meaning a remission of not more than £5 or £10 a year in duty, as a rather ungracious acceptance of a very generous expression of practical sympathy. We thank the Minister for this tangible expression of sympathy, and the fact that it does not amount to more than £5 or £10 a year is because we do not import more than 20 or 30 of these typewriters annually, as they cost only £3 each, the remission of import duty does not exceed 3s. in each case. It means a very great deal to the blind man. Possibly it is possible to interpret as a Braille typewriter anything that is a mechanical aid to the writing of embossed literature. There are aids other than typewriters which make it possible to write like that. For any aid in this connection we will thank the Minister. I am hoping that the concession asked for by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. McIlwraith) will be extended to allow all Braille literature in free of duty. It cannot possibly compete with any Braille literature produced in this country. In England Braille embossed literature is very heavily subsidized by the Government—to the extent of 3s. 6d. per Braille volume. This makes it possible for blind persons to get Braille embossed literature of current novels and other works at practically the same post as the published letterpress. The Minister is recognizing the subsidizing of Braille literature, and he might consider allowing it in free. In the Afrikaans language this Braille literature is not subject to competition from overseas. It is hoped that in the near future one will be able to induce the Government and the public generally in South Africa to subsidize Braille literature through the medium of the Afrikaans language. I have here a brown paper wrapping of a parcel which came by the last mail into South Africa. The value of the articles, two parks of Braille playing cards, is 1s. 6d. per pack, and a game of word-making for the blind is of the declared value of 7s. On this wrapping there is a customs duty, paid through the medium of the post office, amounting to no less than 3s. 6d. The Minister of Finance does not desire to penalize the blind section of the community to that extent. We do know he is subsidizing the manufacture of South African playing cards to the extent of 1s. per pack. It is a good thing, and I do not doubt that the Cape Times, or any institution which is manufacturing these cards, is entitled to that, but they are not making Braille playing cards. I do not think the Minister wants to accept 1s. per pack from the blind section, who have little enough recreation as it is. He has only to have these matters brought to his attention; and my only reason for doing so is that he has shown sympathy with that section of the community for whom I am speaking, with regard to Braille typewriters. I want him to go the whole hog and remit all the customs revenues he derives from the raw materials for blind workers. He has shown he is prepared to go further on behalf of manufacturers than I am prepared to do. These customs duties are levied for revenue purposes. These duties on the raw materials for blind workers can be remitted if the importation is made through some responsible institution which the Minister is able to recognize. I am prepared to state quite definitely there is such an institution already in existence which will be prepared to import these raw materials. We have a wonderful institution at Worcester which must be importing quite a large amount of raw materials for the purpose of training the blind children there. I feel they are paying quite a Lot through the ordinary customs duties, levied by the Minister for ordinary revenue purposes. With regard to the Minister’s protection tariff generally, I would now like to speak as a representative of one of the constituencies of the poorer section of the community. I feel we are going rather to lengths which are making it much harder for them to come out on the wages they are earning to-day. I feel we are going protection mad. We are protecting all these essential articles, not only of the table, but also of wearing apparel. We have set up clothing factories in this country, and when the protection afforded to these industries is insufficient to exclude articles which are coming in, and compete with them, it seems so easy for the Minister to increase the protection by imposing a higher customs duty. The hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) pointed out that they are tiny organizations spread over the whole of the community, competing with each other, and their overhead expenses must be high. That can have only one effect, and that is to raise the cost of living to the poor man. His wages are not raised commensurately with the cost of articles that are absolutely necessary to him. Before the Minister of Finance embarks on this policy of high protection for South African industries, he ought to see that the compensation is commensurate with the imposition he places on all consumers. There must be some sort of protection for the consumer. It is very easy to say that the protection of industry means emplayment for our people. But what price are we to pay? I am a protectionist, if you like, but I am also a free trader, if you like. I am not a mad protectionist. We are told that the wages paid in the boot industry to-day amount to something like half a million per annum. That is a very good thing. I am very pleased that it is so. But if we were to allow free competition at the ports, we could get the boots which are being made by the Port Elizabeth factories something like £750,000 cheaper. If you imposed this taxation directly upon the public generally in South Africa, and paid it to the workers in the boot industry, you could give them their wages at a less cost than protection is costing us. My friend, the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley), has suggested the bonus system. I must say that this is one of the few instances in which I agree with the hon. member. It is possible by the imposition of direct taxation to estimate the cost which the community is paying for a particular protection. So long as you impose protection by way of customs, it is a sword with a double edge. It has the effect, first of all, of raising a protective barrier which shelters the industry you are protecting, and, at the same time makes it possible for that protection to be a revenue-earning Department. When 20,000 tons of sugar were imported into South Africa last year, it had the effect of giving the Minister of Finance £160,000 in customs duty. The sugar industry made a fuss about it, and insisted upon additional protection. So long as we are going to build a wall of protection by customs duties, we are never going to know, with any measure of certainty, what it is costing the community generally, and we are never going to be certain that the community generally is getting the benefit of the protection which the Government is affording these industries. I want to make sure that the people who really are paying are getting the benefit. Now is it possible to insure that the people who pay will derive the benefit? If the Minister of Finance is satisfied that his policy of high protection at the ports means that the community generally are deriving the benefit, then I am prepared to be open to conviction, but if the Minister of Finance finds that, as a result of the high protection, there is an increase of his own revenue at the expense of the consumer in South Africa, who has to pay through the ports, and who also has to pay an increased charge for the commodity protected, I say that is unfair protection which does not give the community the benefit of the protection which South Africa is prepared to concede to those industries which are established in South Africa. I am whole-heartedly in favour of secondary industries being established, but I am under no illusion whatever as to who is to pay for it. The person who has eventually to pay is the producer of primary products. It always reacts upon the farmer. My friend, the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) has told the House for many years that everything comes from the land. And your primary producer has to pay in the end for every penny you put on in protective tariffs. I think the primary producer is prepared to pay, provided he can see that he is getting some measure of benefit, and the measure of benefit he wants to see is the increased earning capacity which the hon. member for Benoni is always talking about, so that the wage earner can be induced to take a greater measure of his products. I feel that we are wandering around in a vicious circle. I feel that the Minister of Finance has been sufficiently referred to the incidence of the high protective duties in Australia. I am not going to suggest that he should take the experience of Australia to heart, because I feel that he is watching that with the attention he usually gives to these matters. Speaking on behalf of one of the poorer constituencies in South Africa, I would earnestly ask the Minister of Finance not to run the risk of making it impossible for us to get as much of the good things of life as we have been getting in the past, by increasing the cost of living.

I cannot congratulate the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) on the manner in which he this afternoon distorted and misrepresented what I said, in reply to an interjection from him in discussing the effect of these duties. I challenged him and the hon. member for Hospital Hill (Mr. Henderson) to point to a single sentence uttered by me which would, in the smallest measure, justify the arguments they used. The discovery he made of a wonderful high protection policy—a policy of protecting the industries regardless of the interest of the consumer—

That is precisely what you said.

No, it is not. The hon. member has no right to say that. I informed the hon. member that, as I stated to the House during the budget debate, although the duties would be increased on the whole, they would have no effect on the revenue. In the case of sugar, there would be prohibition.

They were intended to exclude.

Precisely. In the case of sugar, it is controlled and the duty was made sufficiently large to control importation. I said that, in the case of clothing, for some time to come until our industries were in a better position to compete, there would remain a certain amount of importation which would bring into the Treasury a certain amount of revenue, but eventually importations would be excluded. What right has the hon. member to say that, because we have as our object when we give protection to keep the market for our own producers, that we do not care how high the tariff wall is. If your local manufacturing concerns are not efficient, the imported article will come in, but if they are efficient the imported article will be excluded. The hon. member says we do not care how high the tariff wall is. The hon. member can talk about protection gone mad, but there is only one test. What attitude did the hon. member and his friends adopt? They mustered 33 members opposite who were prepared to vote, but every one of these other high protection duties were swallowed by them. If the Government’s policy does not take into account the interest of the consumer, the hon. member is quite right in challenging our position, and there we are prepared to take issue with members opposite and defend our policy before the country. A great deal of discussion this evening was about whether we should reduce duties. We did not hear about the consumer then. The hon. member seemed to take a great interest in that proposal when it was contested. What is the position here? Originally, when these duties were imposed, it was intended to establish an industry at East London, and they gave us the assurance that these milk cans would be manufactured without injuring the interests of the dairy farmer. This is a case where the industry did not carry out the undertakings they gave us at the time, and last year they were warned that these duties would be renewed. They were warned by the Board of Trade, and now, seeing that the industry did not carry out its promise, we are making these reductions, and they have no cause for complaint. At the present time, these milk cans are not brought into this country to any extent, and they will still have an opportunity to sell their five and ten gallon cans. I think the interests of the dairy farmers should come before the interests of these concerns.

Dairy farmers wear ready-made clothing.

They are prepared to do that because, by doing so, they are enabled to provide food for their children. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) asked me several questions, the first in regard to the suspended duties. Up to the present, we have had to suspend duties on sugar, bentwood chairs and glass bottles and the Board of Trade has now under consideration suspended duties on coal tar derivatives. These suspended duties serve a useful purpose. In order to deal effectively with the wheat position we have to make use of the suspended duty system. We put on certain suspended duties so that, if necessary later we can take them off. In regard to interpretations by the Commercial Commissioner, the practice is to give notice to the Chambers of Commerce of every interpretation of the commissioner, and it is also published in the commercial gazette. That is the practice. So far as the Customs Advisory Board is concerned I gave the board a trial, and I was quite prepared to retain it, but the merchants themselves wrote to me from the north to the effect that they thought the board was serving no good purpose. They thought that its powers were too limited. I replied that if that was their deliberate opinion, I was prepared to dissolve the board forthwith. I waited until they had interviewed people down here. It was found that they were of the same opinion, and then I took action. If the mercantile community are now sorry that they have lost the Advisory Board they have themselves to blame. I was not prepared to give the extended powers that they asked for. I told them from the start that the board would function in an advisory capacity, and that they would not be allowed to administer the customs laws of this country. So far as customs anomalies are concerned we are continually removing them. Every year anomalies arise from time to time as trade develops, and we are continually revising the tariffs and removing the anomalies. If people bring these anomalies to the notice of the Board of Trade they are given consideration. The hon. members for Benoni (Mr. Madeley), for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) and also for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) would like an altogether different policy. They would like to deal with the question of protective policy by way of bounties instead of customs duties. They also want to see the control of prices. I am afraid that my hon. friends will not get sufficient support for these policies in this country at the present time. I think that if this House has to protect the industries by way of bounties to be voted every year, there will be precious few industries receiving protection. So far as the control of prices is concerned, here again I do not think my hon. friend will find support for that policy.

We control the prices of sugar and matches.

In some cases it may be necessary and possible to do so. I can assure my hon. friend that if he has to create the machinery to deal with the general control of prices, he will find that it is practically impossible to do so. You cannot apply that to all the industries in the country. Then the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Bowen) discussed the question of the remission of duties in connection with raw materials for the handicrafts of the blind. He has already told the House that our proposals here give evidence of the sympathy that we have for these unfortunate people. I have remitted the duty in the case of typewriters. If he, or his friends will let the commissioner know, or the Board of Trade know, what they want us to do further, the matter will receive consideration. I can only inform him that so far as Braille literature is concerned, this is admitted free at present, as all printed books are. If he lets us know what their further requirements are we shall see what we can do. In regard to the complaint which the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) had about the methods adopted by the match factories so far as the distribution of their product is concerned, I may say that I have received no complaints. I do not think that they have refused to sell to retailers. That is also a matter which might be brought to the notice of the Board of Trade.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee now.

May I refer to a personal matter? This afternoon when I contested your ruling on a certain occasion I fear that I used language which may be regarded by yourself as somewhat offensive. I want to take this, the earliest opportunity, of expressing my regret. I do that the more readily because your conduct in the chair goes to show me that you have always treated me personally, and the rest of the hon. members, with the utmost courtesy and consideration. Might, I at the same time, take the occasion of saying that I also used language to the hon. the Minister of Finance which probably hurt him, and on thinking it over afterwards, it hurt me too. I want to express the same regret in regard to him. I want the close of the session to be one that brings the best of good feelings.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

On Section 4, whatever the Minister of Finance may say in reference to the general policy of the Government in regard to protection, the fact is that the general trend of this legislation, of these schedules and of these duties is in order to give protection.

The hon. member cannot discuss that question under this clause. I will put the schedule separately.

I do not want to deal with any particular item in the schedule. I want to deal with the schedule itself. Section 4 says—

Is it the mechanical act of substitution that this clause deals with, or with the principle of the substitution?

The hon. member may proceed.

I am deeply anxious that the protection which is to be accorded under this schedule should be as general as possible, and I wish to bring to the notice of the Cabinet as a whole, a class which requires considerable protection. I have received the following telegram from Johannesburg—

Even the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) says “shame.” No eloquence of mine could possibly improve on that little interjection; it is a complete condemnation; but, joking aside, I ask the Minister of Labour to give this his serious attention.

The hon. member cannot discuss that.

For heaven’s sake, don’t let this Government get mixed up with railway warrants and scabs.

Clause put and agreed to.

Remaining clauses, schedules and title having been agreed to,

In examining this particular loan vote, I am not very much impressed by the figure put down for capital expenditure which this year is £359,000, but by the fact that in passing it, we are commiting ourselves to a total estimated expenditure on irrigation schemes of two-and-a-quarter million pounds. This expenditure is to be incurred in respect of new schemes, that is schemes in regard to which no money has been spent and only £43,000 is allowed for the betterment of existing works. The significance of these schemes is this—that we are starting off on a new and extensive programme of irrigation, one scheme alone of which involves an expenditure of nearly three-quarters of a million pounds. I trust it is not one of those periods of great expansion to be followed by a period of restriction such as we have witnessed in the past. In subjecting some of these individual schemes to criticism, I have no object to serve other than the progress of irrigation. I take more or less at random five schemes which appear on the votes: Somerset East £233,000, Pongola £250,000, Prieska £700,000, Gorge-Impala £220,000, Rust-der-Winter £140,000, on which we are committing ourselves to spend £1,500,000. The Pongola and Prieska schemes appear to be very much in the air, because it is proposed to spend only £50 apiece on them this year. There in none of these schemes in which I have a warmer interest than the one at Somerset East, for I know the scheme, the river and the people as I happened to have been resident engineer of the existing works, which were estimated to cost £30,000, but were completed for £4,000 or £5,000 below that figure. The report of the Irrigation Commission for 1929 states, inter alia—

The relief referred to is the remission of rates. Will the Minister please inform me whether the estimate of £233,000 as the cost of the Somerset East conservation scheme is a calculated estimate by the Director of Irrigation based on a quantitative analysis made of the job, and whether the reservoir has been recommended from an economic point of view by the Irrigation Commission, or whether this amount is more or less a guess at the cost of a job, the site of which has not yet been decided upon. The report states in connection with the George-Impala scheme—

That is the only information on which we propose to spend roughly £250,000. What the report lacks in information it makes up in brevity, and if brevity is the soul of wit, this must be a very funny job. The next scheme is Rust-der-Winter. There is no report from the Irrigation Commission at all on this scheme with regard to the Pongola scheme, it is reported that the results obtained at the experimental station are not yet far enough advanced to generalize or dogmatize, but the commission is satisfied that very useful information has already been obtained. With regard to the Confluence-Prieska scheme, the commission recommends that further survey work be carried out. Irrigation expenditure is the one form of expenditure, I am safe in saying, on which this House is most inclined to be generous, and because of that, it should have the fullest information possible before it commits itself to loans for work of this magnitude. Last session I urged that these proposals should be referred to a select committee, not with a view to calling evidence, or traversing the evidence already collected by the Irrigation Commissison, but that the House, through the select committee, could have a knowledgeable idea of what these schemes cost. I have sat practically during the whole of the session on a committee, the bulk of whose time has been devoted to trying to find out what caused the failure of these irrigation schemes, and trying to make good the losses. If a select committee is competent to deal with millions of past expenditure, surely it is equally competent and equally to be trusted with regard to millions of future expenditure. [Time limit.]

With reference to what the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) has said in connection with one of the schemes, Rust-der-Winter scheme, I would like to have a little more information. I believe that the hon. member, himself, may also be acquainted with the fact because I understand he is an engineer. In connection with this scheme, if I understood him aright, he said that, as far as he knew, there was no reliable information available. If the hon. member were to make a study of it he would find that as far back as 1906 the famous engineer Hurley said in his report that this was the second best scheme that he had discovered in South Africa.

That does not say much.

Yes, it does because Mr. Hurley was not an ordinary engineer, but a man who, in the history of our hydraulics, is known as an outstanding expert.

What scheme are we debating?

The Rust-der-Winter scheme.

In what constituency is it situated?

It happens to be in the constituency for Pretoria (District). I hope the hon. member will not blame me for pleading in favour of something in the interests of my district. I can assure the hon. member with regard to this scheme the survey of Mr. Hurley and various other subsequent surveys have proved that this scheme is one of the best that could have been found in the country. During recent times, thanks to the zeal of the Irrigation Department, another survey has been made which confirms what was said by Mr. Hurley 25 years ago. The hon. member for Kingwilliamstown is, himself, an engineer, and will, on investigation, arrive at the same conclusion. The catchment area is about 434 square miles, so that thousands of morgen of fruitful land can be put under water. The hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) will be able to tell the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown how good the ground is there, because one of his best farms is situated there. The area where the water flows down is poor country, but the rich ground lies along the rivers. There are some cases where the people are very poor because they have pieces of ground that are too small, and of them there are often only a few morgen under water. I hope the Government will also, in the interests of those people, see that the scheme is put through, so that the people who are on bad ground will be able to make a better living on land under this scheme. I am certain that if the hon. member investigates the scheme he will agree with the hon. member for Standerton and with me that this is one of the best schemes in the country.

Perhaps it is advisable to say a few words in connection with the programmes of schemes that have been submitted to the House. I said, on a former occasion, that the department during the past year was principally engaged in investigating places where economic schemes could be built. The result of that enquiry is very disappointing. I think that more than ever before we realize that in very few cases economic schemes can be built in our country. The Irrigation Department has come to the conclusion that very few dams can be built that are economic, and in respect of which nothing will have to be written off subsequently. In the past it was the custom to build dams, the cost of which could be paid back in a series of years. Only last year I foreshadowed that the Government wanted to pay subsidies in connection with certain schemes that were not economic. The experience of the Government to-day is that we have a whole lot of data in connection with a number of schemes, but that we have no adequate information in connection with any scheme. I want, at once, to say that the only schemes in connection with which we have in any way sufficient information with regard to the costs and the irrigable area and the quality of the soil are the Nkwaleni scheme in Zululand, and the Overhex scheme. In connection with all the other schemes the data, which are considered necessary before starting the schemes, are not yet available to a sufficient extent. That is the position in which we are placed, and we must therefore either propose the schemes to the House in connection with which further enquiry is necessary, or make no proposals at all in connection with the schemes, which we hope possibly to start in the course of the years. We thought that as we had much unemployment in the country it was necessary to lay down what could possibly be undertaken, so that we should in any case have an opportunity to make a start in connection with such schemes which the commission recommends us to start building. Under the circumstances I asked the Irrigation Commision to draft a programme which they thought could be carried out in a series of years, and in connection with which they thought that we should probably start. The object then is to concentrate on the scheme, but I can assure hon. members that the mere fact that the schemes are mentioned here does not mean that it has been finally decided to build them. Further enquiry will be instituted, and the Irrigation Commission will have to go into matters again to get full information in connection with the schemes, and if they recommend us not to go on with one or other of the schemes we shall not go on with them. The whole object is to put an end to the system of the past, viz., spreading our energies all over by getting bits of information in connection with the various schemes, and we shall, therefore, concentrate on these schemes. Where the commission recommend us to build we will build, but if the commsision finds that one or more of the schemes on the programme ought not to be undertaken we do not intend going on with them. Hon. members, and persons interested in the schemes, must well understand that this does not mean that will necessarily be built. The commission drafting the programme which is intended for a series of years, took two things into consideration, the first is that the large schemes, which we may call national schemes, of more than £1,000,000, or possibly more than a few million pounds, must, in the opinion of the commission, for the present, remain in abeyance. The other point is that provisionally until the position in connection with the lucerne industry is better, it will be best not to go on with the Karroo scheme. They took all the schemes in connection with which we have had certain favourable information, and included them in a programme which we, in any case, may probably carry out in the immediate future.

Did the commission recomment this programme to be carried out?

The commission recommended all the schemes mentioned here, except Rust-der-Winter and Schweizer Reneke. With regard to Rust-der-Winter, the commission has not yet had an opportunity to visit and inspect it, but the opinion of the Director of Irrigation, after recent inspection, is very favourable, and so it has also been included, and as soon as it has an opportunity, it will go and examine it further. Then they will be able to say whether it should be built or not. The same applies to Schweizer Reneke.

Were they recommended by private individuals, and not by the commission?

The Director’s opinion was very favourable in that connection, and I accordingly asked the commission if they objected to including it, and they made no objection. The hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) referred to Somerset East. The position is that originally the estimate given in connection with that was a £130,000, but in connection with certain of the schemes of the same kind that appear on this programme, hon. members must take it that the higher figures which are mentioned here are closer to the truth. In connection with the Marico Bushveld, e.g., it is laid down that it will have to be done with white men, and not natives, and the same applies to various other schemes. I think it is necessary for hon. members to understand the circumstances under which the programme was drafted. If hon. members want information about any details of the scheme I will give the information I have, but I cannot give full information on a single one of the schemes. I am not able to do so, but the work will not be started before all the information is available and the Irrigation Commission has finally approved of them.

The Minister’s statement certainly relieves the position very much, but he has spoken of the expenditure of considerable sums on schemes which we know nothing about. The responsibility is ours—we vote this money, not the commission. Surely if we have to pass the vote full information should be laid on the Table, and the people involved in these schemes should be consulted. These are called major loans under the Government schemes. I hope the Minister will explain this discrepancy. Take the scheme down for my own constituency. The ground below is private ground. Assuming that the Irrigation Commission say at some future time, “We approve of the scheme,” have the landowners below been consulted? The Minister contradicted himself. He said that they had only information about two of these schemes, and yet he says the commission have approved of these schemes.

I did not say that.

The hon. Minister said the commission had approved of this as a provisional scheme for further investigation.

I do not think it is right that we should have to vote all this money in the dark. On irrigation will depend our future salvation, but at the present moment, we have spent £10,000,000 on irrigation in this country, and every scheme I know of is, in common parlance, in the soup. We have written down hundreds of thousands of pounds. Ten years hence the public will not hold the Irrigation Department responsible. Parliament will have to answer for these failures. The Minister indicates that the need is unemployed who want work. But that is dealt with under the labour vote, where you are spending £245,000 on relief works. Surely that amount for the coming year ought to meet the position, but to pass a vote of £2,250,000 in the dark, is surely unnecessary. Not one of these schemes can be started in the next twelve months, and from what I know of irigation schemes, it is not the difficulty of finding a place to build a dam. Not one of these major schemes can be commenced within twelve months without serious risk of failure. Surely it would be fairer to the House, and more sensible all round, not to slap a lot of names on paper, and ask us to vote blindly, not knowing what we are doing, when there is no real need. We have already spent millions upon unprofitable irrigation schemes. Some of those schemes will pull through, but I know of no major irrigation scheme in South Africa that has succeeded. The Minister told us that his experts have issued a somewhat depressing report, but are we in spite of that simply going to close our eyes and build dams for the sake of building them? I know there is a glamour about creating great sheets of water, but there is no purpose in making such large dams and not properly equipping your settlements down below. Are we going to multiply this waste tenfold in order to meet a temporary position? It is a curious procedure for the Minister. [Time limit.]

I would be neglecting my duty if I did not thank the Government for what it has done in connection with the irrigation scheme for Prieska. This scheme has been before the country some little time, and if there ever was a scheme that should have been tackled it was the one at Prieska. I think everyone in the House will admit that it would be a calamitous state of affairs if we allowed the great assets that our country has in the water of the Orange River to remain unused. The people in those parts are very grateful for what the Government is proposing to do there. It is very strange to me, however, that the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Beitz) now comes and objects to the irrigation scheme. His first objection, of course, is that the previous schemes and irrigation works were failures and that a great deal was lost on them, but who was responsible for that? It was his own Government, and because they made a failure of irrigation, and did not get the the best out of it, he is now objecting to the present Government proposing other irrigation schemes which are of great importance to the people in those districts and to the whole country.

The hon. member must not now make another budget speech.

Those proposed irrigation works are of great importance, not only to the people in that locality, but to the whole country, and the whole nation, and, therefore, I think that I am within my rights in thanking the Government for them. If any hon. member objected to them, then it is clear that he does not have the interests of the country and of the farming population at heart. I however, want to mention what the Minister said in connection with the Karroo scheme, which, of course, means the irrigation works for the conservage of flood water, and that he could not now go on with it. I can well understand that the Minister and his officials have a great deal of work in connection with all the irrigation schemes, and that they cannot go on at once with the schemes for flood water as well, but I would like to hope that the Minister and his department will soon be convinced that the flood water works must be tackled; not because they will pay, but because they are in the interests of the people concerned, and that a subsidy should be given for them, as suggested by me and other people. This subsidy system is adopted in other countries, and has proved a great success. Where there are rivers that are not perennial, but which have flood water, we must see that the flood water does not run away. I therefore hope that the Minister will not reject such schemes, and that it will be possible to tackle them in the future just as in the case of the other irrigation works which we now have before us here. I also hope that the Minsiter will take no notice of the statements which have been made here with regard to lack of information. [Time limit.]

I wish to thank the hon. Minister for the information he has given the House. An hon. member who spoke on this matter gave us some interesting information about a scheme, and I do not doubt that it is probably the best in the country. The hon. Minister has proved my case far better than I could prove it myself, that is in respect of this loan which appears under the words “to be accounted for by the Director of Irrigation. These consist largely of schemes not yet decided. The hon. Minister has told us that none of these schemes will be undertaken until the Irrigation Commission and the Director of Irrigation has definitely recommended them. What is the good of that information to the House? By the time we meet again next year the Government will have had these recommendations and will have been able to dig itself in on these schemes to the extent of spending thousands of pounds on each of these jobs. It is no good coming back in a year’s time and saying “Here is what we have done with this scheme.” You have already started it. I want to ask this question. Has the Minister any programme put up by his department of schemes which have been fully estimated and investigated? Was it necessary to go outside the recommendations of the department to pick up schemes not yet subject to these recommendations? I feel strongly if that is the case that we shall be called later on to form a select committee to remedy the errors that have been made. I say it is better to prevent mistakes than to cure them afterwards. The hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz) said that none of these matters could be enquired into during the next 12 months. The hon. Minister assured us that wherever possible at least these schemes will be submitted to a select committee as was done prior to 1919. In respect of each scheme it is laid down in the Act and the dictum has been laid down by the Minister of Finance, that no scheme can be undertaken without the approval of the Irrigation Commission. I will quote the Minister for Irrigation replying to my request put to him a year ago—

I want the House to be put in possesion of this information before we go on with these schemes, and I protest against voting any money blindly as we are called upon to do now, and I am convinced that in doing so I am rendering a service to irrigation in this country.

I appreciate the way in which the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz) and also the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) have come to the point. I wish to remind the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown that the very select committee which he has been sitting upon has been busy endeavouring to put right schemes which were approved by select committees in previous years, so that in the past the fact of schemes being submitted to a select committee has been no safeguard. We would have been better off if the Irrigation Commission had been functioning in those days, whose opinions are really followed largely by the select committee sitting at the present time. I think that is the greatest safeguard that we have. It is not a question that responsibility is going to rest with the Irrigation Commission. We take the responsibility.

We all take the responsibility.

I quite understand that. The hon. member for Barberton wished to infer that we sought to put the blame on the Irrigation Commission. We have taken the blame ourselves.

I said the public will blame us—the people who are voting this money.

I do not think there is much in that. I emphasise this, that the whole experience of the past has shown that notwithstanding the select committee appointed in connection with the Great Fish River, the Sundays River and other schemes, we are in a position that a select committee is now siting in order to put those schemes on a proper basis. If at that time we had had an Irrigation Commission, such as is constituted to-day, it is possible that these things might have been avoided. I do not for a moment wish to suggest that the select committee in those days did not do their work properly. I am persuaded that they went into the thing very thoroughly, and according to the information that they had, they decided that these schemes ought to be built. At the present time I am inclined to agree with the hon. member for Barberton (Col. D. Reitz) that there is no single scheme in the whole country which has proved to be a success, or has not required financial relief, and in some instances the whole of the capital cost has had to be written off, and in other instances 15 per cent, or more has had to be written off, notwithstanding that these schemes have been inquired into by a select committee.

I think the committee is very much indebted to the Minister for his candour. He has laid all his cards on the table, and has made a perfectly frank statement, telling the committee that, in regard not to a single one of these schemes is the Government in a position to lay a detailed statement of facts before the House. In fact, the Government is in the dark, very much as the committee is in the dark, on this matter; yet the Government ask us provisionally to empower them to embark on schemes involving an expenditure of £2,250,000. We are actually pledging ourselves to-night to a vote of £359,000, and the Minister says that neither the committee nor the Government is in possession of definite information. The ground upon which the Minister justifies his action is that in the past we have made such mistakes that we are justified now in going forward and making bigger mistakes. Surely we seem to be becoming thoroughly demoralized, so far as irrigation is concerned. We have made big mistakes, and incurred such losses that the Government seems to take up the position of saying, “Let us throw all precautions to the winds, and let us go forward blindly and throw the whole responsibility on the Irrigation Commission.” Is that fair? After all, there is a responsibility on us. This House is a responsible body; and the Government must guide us. But upon the state of affairs now disclosed, are we doing the right thing in going forward with a programme and throwing the responsibility on the Irrigation Commission? Is that right to the House and to the commission? Think of all the pressure that will be brought to bear on these few gentlemen, once we sign this blank cheque and the whole responsibility is thrust upon them. I don’t think that would be doing our duty. I understand the Government wants to do something. Our irrigation opportunities in the Union are limited by the circumstances of the country. We look to irrigation as one of our opportunities for expansion and development, but this is not the way to set about it, surely. We must shoulder our responsibility and we should insist—and the Government should support us in that—that no scheme should be started before we have before the House the technical approval of the Director of Irrigation and the general approval of the Irrigation Commission. If we do not do that, we are simply going to throw money away. We have had this unprecedented good fortune of collecting money from diamonds; we get all this money as a gift from the sea, and we are throwing it all back into the sea, so that we shall be exactly where we were before the State alluvial diggings were started. We should not proceed in this irresponsible manner. I do not doubt that the Government is proceeding with the best of intentions, and I make no charge against them, except that they are leaving us to embark on a course which cannot financially be justified in any way whatever. We dare not go on in this way. It looks like complete financial abdication. I am surprised at the Minister of Finance, whose whole financial reputation is at stake, and for us to act as we are asked to do here, is laying down precedents for the financial policy of this country which we should not follow for a moment. Some of these schemes may be good, but others may be utterly impossible. I was reading the report of the Director of Irrigation on the Confluence scheme, and he is very dubious about the whole scheme and points out that at some future time, if the Vaal River is properly surveyed and the Great Hartz River scheme is adopted, it may affect the Confluence scheme. Why then should we embark on spending £700,000 on the Confluence scheme, when subsequently we may find that we have made some mistake, and also prejudiced a much larger and much better scheme? I ask the Government to go slow over this; rather let us vote £50,000 or £60,000 for this year and have a thorough exploration, and let us next year have a report of the Director of Irrigation and the Irrigation Commission, and then, if the scheme is justified, let us go ahead with it. Even then it will be risky. In the past we have had surveys and reports, and yet we have got into difficulties, such as we are in to-day. But what is the state of affairs going to be, if we vote carte blanche to the Government now, and how shall we defend ourselves in the country, in many districts of which the farmers are in a terrible plight?

This scheme will help them.

Is this the way to help them? No, the hon. member is making a great mistake. There are better ways of helping the farmers than by going blindfold into these schemes. I admit that the whole question is very difficult, and I do not doubt the bona fides of the Government, but in view of the disclosures made to us to-night, we are in duty bound to go slow, and say we cannot devolve our responsibility on the Irrigation Commission, but must wait until we have full information before us next year. [Time limit.]

I think the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) is not quite correct in his argument. If there is anything in it, then it amounts to this that we will practically not adopt a single large irrigation works before the whole Union has been surveyed in terms of all the possible schemes, and before reports have been made in connection with them.

No.

Let me just prove it. The hon. member said, “How can we go on with the confluence schemes which will cost £700,000, although the report says that there are two other places, one on the Vaal River, and one on the Orange River, where larger schemes can be built, and in connection with which the necessary surveys have not yet been made?” The hon. member says that we ought to wait until the other surveys are completed, and reports have been sent in. If he wants that, then we may rest assured that at least another ten years will pass before we shall have built any schemes worth mentioning. Because what are the facts? I do not want to blame the Irrigation Department, but the fact is that hey say that the department cannot complete the necessary reports and data. Why not. Because they, as they assure us, have in the past always been employed exactly in the same way the hon. member for Standerton has suggested. They had always to spread their energies over the whole Union instead of concentrating on a definite number of schemes and finishing them. It is for the very reason of getting away from that bad system by which we cannot make any progress, because our energies are dissipated in that way, that we have decided that an end must be put to it, and that we should now concentrate, as indeed the Irrigation Commission suggests, on a definite number of schemes. The department will have to devote all its energies to it, and to nothing else. The hon. member says that we have no reports in connection with the schemes and that we are taking a leap in the dark. The Government say we now intend to concentrate on these schemes. Reports have already been made on this, and a certain amount of data is available. If the Irrigation Commission were now to make a report on one or all the schemes, and approve of one or all of them, then we intend to start building the approved schemes. Now the hon. member says that we are going to vote money here before the Irrigation Commission has made its report. Apparently it looks as if there was something in his argument, but the hon. member will see that, in the circumstances, there is not much in it, because everything is subject to the approval of the Irrigation Commission. To a certain extent, there are reports, and they are of opinion that in connection with these schemes preliminary steps can be taken, but none of the schemes will be started immediately, before further enquiry has taken place. Now my hon. friend says that we do not know to-day what the position in connection with the schemes is. The hon. member must, however, admit that even if they were to give all the facts to us, and recommend them as good schemes, that we should then be no further. Why not? Because they are all technical data in connection with which they have to make enquiry, and there is not one hon. member here who will quite be able to decide, if they after enquiry were to give us the technical facts, such as e.g., the analysis of the soil and other things. We, however, want to get into a different position to that which the previous Government was in, and we want to make progress. We want to be put into the position of concentrating on a number of schemes, and that we shall get all data in connection with them so that we can go on with one or other of them.

But the Irrigation Commission was not intended to take the place of Parliament.

Of course not. But this commission, nevertheless, dictates to you and me, and does not take the work out of our hands on account of their knowledge of the matter. That is the fact I want to refer to. What is the report that my hon. friends want to have? Nothing else but the technical facts which the commission still have to enquire into in connection with these schemes. For these reasons we must not now regard the matter in the same light as was done during the administration of the previous Government when there was no such commission, and when we had, first of all, to refer such schemes to a select committee to obtain the necessary facts. This commission is now practically the select committee, and it is much more than a select committee, because the select committee would not be able to control the facts that were laid before them, it would simply have to accept the technical facts. It is in the interests of the country that we should make a start with some of these irrigation works. If we cannot go on with some of these works as soon as the commission’s report comes out, then we shall be in the position that we may have to start irrigation works blindfold when work has to be given to unemployed. It is therefore better to leave to the Government, which, in any case, will be responsible in the long run for the work it undertakes, to decide the works it should go on with, instead of compelling it to tackle work which may be quite uneconomical.

Every man on this side of the House is anxious to extend irrigation, and to ensure its future success, but we wish to avoid continuing on wrong lines. There is no doubt that in the past we embarked upon schemes on the best advice available in the country, but in spite of that we went wrong. The Minister asks why these matters should be referred to a select committee. In the past we referred them to a select committee, and in spite of the recommendations of that select committee the schemes have proved a failure. The plea is put forward that we have an irrigation commission which takes the place of that select committee, but the reason those schemes were a failure was that we had not the experience and the data we have now. I feel sure we can avoid many of the mistakes we have hitherto made. I do not wish to question the ability of the irrigation commission, because at the head of that commission you have a most able engineer, but I think the House is entitled to have the commission’s report before we commit ourselves to the expenditure of the enormous sums set down in the estimates. Irrigation is in a very critical position, and what we do to-night may make or mar irrigation in this country. If we vote this money and commit further mistakes, I am afraid that irrigation is not going to prove of any great benefit to us. The position is that people, knowing of the mistakes of the past, and how the persons who took up land in connection with these schemes are treated, are convinced that in the future such persons will escape all liability, and that the money spent in connection with these schemes will practically be made a present to them. That is the reason there is such a demand for fresh schems. I think the Prime Minister misrepresented what the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) said about the Prieska scheme. The director said in his report that this scheme would be a storage scheme. Before any storage can be considered for the Prieska scheme we must investigate two schemes higher up, and if they are approved of, and storage is provided there, then you can deal with the Prieska scheme. The hon. member for King Williamstown (Mr. Baines) dealt with the Somerset East scheme. He was entitled to do so, because he was on the scheme when it was carried out. I also have investigated those irrigation works. When that scheme was undertaken as a diversion scheme it had no hope of success. In spite of that, it was built, and now we are asked for authority to spend £230,000 on a storage site. We know that the river has a short course, and that the run-off in that river is so small that very often the irrigation canals cannot be filled from it. Nevertheless this is one of the schemes that is going to be recommended. The Irrigation Commission in their report said that one of the principal reasons past schemes were a failure was that they were built under great political pressure, and with no data to work upon. If that was true in those days I am afraid it is more true to-day. I think that the sooner we make that impossible the better for irrigation. These schems should not be considered only from the point of view of who they are going to benefit, but from the point of view of the general good of the country. I cannot agree with the Minister that we should vote this money, and that it should be left for the Irrigation Commission to decide whether these schemes should be proceeded with or not. [Time limit.]

I just want to say a few words in connection with what the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has just said regarding the financial control. Let me say at once with regard to irrigation works and settlements it is not, unfortunately, a question of what is financially sound or unsound. The recommendations for writing-off go to the commission, who investigate them, and there is no principle except that we have to write-off to-day until such time as we reach an economic basis. Although, unfortunately, this is the position in the case of settlement and irrigation, we shall, nevertheless, continue with the policy. I always though that we were in agreement that, notwithstanding that the schemes were economic, we should select the best and continue with the policy. As for these schemes, I understand the position to be that, in connection with some of them, it is assumed by the commission that in the commencing stage a subsidy will have to be paid to put them on an economic basis. With reference to the other schemes, the commission thinks that they can stand on their own feet, and will require no subsidy, but, in my own personal view, I must say that, after the experience of the past, I cannot attach much value to these expectations, because I believe that in the case of all the other schemes it was expected that no, subsidy would be required, and that the amount would be repaid with interest, but instead of that what do we find? The Hartebeestpoort scheme, e. g., does not even pay the cost of maintenance. The hon. member always wants to know what the Minister of Lands has to do with the Hartebeestpoort scheme. The Minister is not concerned with it, except that he must pay the money to the engineers who are working on the scheme. Although we have drastically reduced the cost of maintenance, they still exceed the amount that the scheme produces. If, nevertheless, we want to go on with the policy of irrigation works, then it is better to find out which of those works are the best.

It is a policy of despair.

Yes, but that is the position anyhow. If we are not prepared to look facts in the face then we must honestly say that we will not spend a penny more.

That is not the only alternative.

What then would you suggest?

Find out which is the best scheme, and first obtain full information about it.

Of course we first obtain full information. The commission states that they were here on a certain date and that surveys were made, and that, in their opinion, it is in every respect a good scheme. But because they cannot say yet how long the canals must be, and how many of them are required—that can only be done later —the position of the Treasury is very difficult, because if we act on economic lines then we are not entitled to approve any amounts.

I think the country will listen to what the Minister has said with some perturbation. We seem to be embarking on a policy of despair. I, too, am somewhat of a sceptic in regard to land settlement and irrigation, but I have never known a Minister to tell the House that these schemes are uneconomic and that they have all been failures. He takes a very despondent view of the whole position, and his attitude appears to be the same as that of the Prime Minister, The Prime Minister said: “What is the good of safeguards? They have proved unavailing in the past; let us do away with them.” The Minister for Native Affairs, to all intents and purposes, said the same. The Prime Minister went further. He said: “What is the use of blinding ourselves to the fact that we are in the hands of the Irrigation Commission?” The Irrigation Commission was established by law to advise Parliament, not to direct it. If the Prime Minister is right, he seems to have created a sort of Frankenstein monster; instead of being an advisory body they are a sort of minatory body. We have to take their advice anyway. The House must now accept their dictation. Surely that is an inverted way of looking at the matter. The Prime Minister said that the time has come to build irrigation schemes, but it can never be in the interests of any country to build schemes which will be failures. We are told it is in the interests of the farmers, but when every branch of farming is hard hit, I would like to know what farmers will say about spending this money on schemes which Ministers themselves admit to be foredoomed to financial failure. From the farmers’ point of view are we doing the right thing by them? The Prime Minister emphasised the point that these are going to be practical relief works. He wants the right to be able to build promptly. I must repeat myself that in this Labour vote there is provision for relief schemes, but if we are going to launch schemes which are economic failures, I too am sceptical about the results. But there is one direction in which I do see a ray of light. I believe if the country looked more to the question of afforestation on economic lines that would be a far sounder and more economic way than spending money in the manner proposed. There is another question I asked the Minister which he probably forgot to answer. In this Loan Vote the schemes are headed “major loans.” In every case the land below belongs to private owners. In no case does the Government own any considerable quantity of land below any of these schemes. Assuming that a year hence we are going to build a certain scheme, are we signing away the rights of owners down below? If so, a few of the irrigation farmers who own land below will be saddled with a debt of £700,000. I do not see how the Minister can get away from it. The ground below Confluence and the Gorge Impala is privately owned. Are we now to give the Government carte blanche to build these schemes and impose a colossal debt ranging from a couple of thousand pounds to several thousand pounds, on people who have not been consulted and know nothing about it? In several cases I know that they do not want them. They do not want to be saddled with these water rates. Where are we? We are not only being asked to vote £2,250,000 which we are told is already doomed, and it will be frittered away—

Don’t exaggerate.

I do not want to exaggerate. At any late, to a large extent it would be a dead loss. We shall not only be giving a blank cheque for £2,250,000 a great deal of which will be lost or submerged, but we are also giving this creature of our own creation, the Irrigation Commission, the legal right to build any of these schemes, or we are giving the Government the right to build any one of these schemes which involves the right to impose colossal burdens upon people who have not been consulted, upon land which does not belong to the Government. How is the Government going to build a single one of these schemes when it does not own a square foot of ground below any of them? All the ground, so far as I know, and I make that reservation, or the vast majority of the land below, is privately owned. How are you going to build this scheme without the owner’s consent, short of expropriation, and then debiting them with the cost? The Minister cannot get away from that. In my humble opinion, that is the legal position. Short of expropriation, or issuing arbitrary powers, you cannot build these schemes. You might build a weir, but you have no right to take canals over the farmers’ land. You are making votes of major loans to people who do not want them. I think on that very point, the Minister should give us some information.

The hon. member must know that it is impossible for the Government to expropriate any land or trespass on any land, or compulsorily build weirs and furrows without the authority of Parliament.

I am right then.

The hon. member should also know that in these matters, irrigation districts are formed, together with irrigation boards. If the board does not want the loan, we cannot force it upon them.

Then why vote it?

It is a question of a majority under the Act.

That makes this thing farcical.

The position is that it is the intention, as far as possible, where there is land available at a reasonable price, under a scheme of this kind, to purchase the land. That is also one of the conditions that will be attached to any of these schemes that may be embarked upon, so when we have the idea of building them, unless people are prepared to sell at a reasonable price for settlement purposes, the scheme will not be built. Hon. members will realize that if you are going to wait until you have all these things in shipshape order, it will take a tremendous time before any of the schemes can be built at all. The hon. member asks why this haste. The position is, we have schemes where a few months will suffice to put us in a position to start upon them. We want to be in a position as soon as we have this information, and know the position, to proceed and be able to build. I think it is very necessary, in the present circumstances of the country, that that should take place. The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has referred to the Confluence scheme, but I do not think we need have any apprehension about that. The only money the Government will be entitled to spend on that scheme this year will be £50.

Still we are committing ourselves to it.

The House will be fully entitled when any further amount is asked for to decline to vote it.

Shall we get all the information?

I hope so by that time, we shall have all the necessary information. As far as the Pongola is concerned, as far as I can judge, that of all the schemes seems to be the most promising, and the Government possesses some land under it, it having acquired some very valuable property from the Candover estates. If hon. members will consider all the preliminaries that have to be carried out before we actually come to the building stage, they will realize that, if we are to make a start which is necessary for the country so far as unemployment and irrigation are concerned, then it is essential that we should be in a position to start with any of these schemes as soon as the commission is satisfied that we should go on with them.

I am somewhat relieved by the Minister’s statement, although he says that the investigations have been disappointing and that further investigations are necessary. I do not understand why in view of the Minister’s remarks the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) is thanking the Minister profusely for the scheme as set down for his district, which the Minister himself says the schemes have not been fully investigated. Are we under a misapprehension or is the hon. member for Prieska under a misapprehension?

What do you know about it?

If the £500,000 on this year’s estimates for six or more new schemes are passed, I do not see how the Minister can refrain from spending the remainder in the following years to complete these schemes.

I will surrender it next year.

To prevent disaster would it not be better to make an investigation first than to spend the amount put down on the estimates without the necessary investigation. I am opposed to some of these schemes for I have contended that our best schemes are to be found on our parennial rivers, particularly since we have recently discovered that our big reservoirs are being silted up. I contend that not one of these schemes in the present estimates has been thoroughly investigated. There are half-a-dozen schemes costing altogether £2,250,000 apart from £250,000 for irrigation schemes under the Labour vote. The select committee on Irrigation knows nothing about these schemes, and this side of the House certainly knows nothing about these schemes. These have been under discussion and as the Minister knows the policy of the committee on Irrigation is to recommend to the Government the exchange in effect of one sovereign for 6s. 8d. We should prevent this state of affairs rather than continue with schemes which are doomed to failure. In regard to the Confluence-Prieska scheme, what are the riparian owners prepared to do? Will they sell their surplus land at a reasonable price, hold it or speculate with it? This is an important matter. And to a great extent the success of a scheme depends upon the reasonable price of the ground at the outset. I would like to know what precautions are being taken to prevent the disasters of the past; what are the results of the soil tests of these various schemes? We should like to see contour maps, and know what the levels are. There is no doubt good ground under these schemes, yet most of the good ground may be above the level of the river, and pumping may be necessary. We would like to know what the irrigable area is on every scheme, and whether the scheduled areas are likely to remain as scheduled. The Minister knows that on several of these schemes, the scheduled area has been reduced by half. We would also like to know the position of the barrages. With regard to the Confluence-Prieska scheme, the position of the barrage is most important; is it on the Orange River, on the Vaal River, or on both? The position is vital so far as we are concerned, because on the Vaal River there are very large proposed schemes further up, and the Minister should give his serious attention to the bigger schemes on the Vaal River, which have already been inspected and investigated. There is one on which £15,000 has been spent as far as surveys are concerned. Why not continue with this scheme? Who is the Minister going to put on these schemes? This is a very important point also. There is a dearth of irrigators to-day. I saw a report 18 months ago by an engineer who stated that this country could do with 12,000 irrigators. Furthermore a man must be a born irrigator, otherwise he is always making mistakes. The Minister cannot sweep up the unemployed of our cities and expect them to make a success on the land. The Minister’s policy is to exercise great caution he says, and immediately afterwards he is prepared to sanction all these schemes. I cannot understand the position. We are about to spend millions of pounds, and I contend that before the committee passes the vote, we should have very much fuller information.

The Minister said that the commission had been very busy seeing whether economic new schemes could be built, and there were very few, and that it was proposed to build the schemes on the estimate, but a little later on said the majority of these schemes need not necessarily be built! He and the Prime Minister said that “the Irrigation Commission was our greatest safeguard,” but the commission did not recommend these schemes. I would like the Minister please to remember what the terms of the Irrigation Commission’s constitution were. That is our main charge, that these schemes are embarked upon without, or against, the recommendation of the commission and before investigations have been made. If the Minister had not been so candid one might have thought there were other political reasons. As the Prime Minister said, they embarked on a scheme, and subsequently had an investigation made. The whole idea we had in mind some years back when we constituted the commission was at all costs to avoid a repetition of these mistakes of building schemes without full investigation of soil conditions and so on. Hartebeestpoort was one example.

There was a full investigation by a select committee.

That is an illegitimate gibe —it was after it was started.

No, that was before it was started.

With regard to Karroo schemes—and I was farming in that area for many years—the curse of those schemes was that they were based on the area of irrigable land “under the furrow” irrespective, to a great extent, of the suitability of the land. The curse of irrigation in this country is that phrase “under the furrow.” The functions and special powers of the commission are very clearly laid down. The first one is to the effect that the commission shall investigate existing schemes, and recommend putting them on a proper footing before any new schemes are undertaken. The Minister told us the other day that they would investigate and decide later, after this money is voted.

Oh no, I did not say the Irrigation Commission, but the Irrigation Department. The hon. member must have misunderstood me.

The functions of the commission also are to enquire into and report to the Minister on every proposal for the construction of any Government irrigation work, or any irrigation work which is to be constructed by means of an irrigation loan, and to make definite recommendations as to whether these proposals, or any alternative thereto should be carried out. The obvious meaning of that is that the Government of the day will be safeguarded from making the mistakes which have taken place in the past, and that you have a body responsible to Parliament who will recommend each and every scheme before it is undertaken by the Government. I want to ask the Minister how he is going to embark on schemes, and lay out the initial monies, £60,000, £30,000, £42,000 and so on, and then say that if they are found not to be advisable they will be stopped. The Minister has said that they are practically relief works.

I do not start on them until I have the information or the recommendation of the Irrigation Commission.

Then I do not see why those investigations are not made before you ask us to vote this money. You ask us to vote these large sums before you have any data whatever. I do not like the connection between some of these schemes and statements made some time back at Kimberley by the Prime Minister with regard to spending money from the diamond diggings on irrigation works. I am very much concerned with the fact that we want, at all costs, to avoid any more mistakes, and yet are going into these schemes without any data. Will the Minister give me the assurance that he will not embark on any one of these schemes unless it is recommended by the Irrigation Commission?

Yes.

Will he further assure me that he will not undertake any scheme unless the Director of Irrigation has made full investigation and reports favourably?

Yes.

Irrigation in this country has not a very good name, and it is not right to tell us that you know nothing about these schemes, and yet, you are prepared to spend these large sums in a few places without giving the House any information. I think it is an unhappy state of things, and I fear there will be trouble for the Minister and his department in regard to these works, and severe loss to the country.

I do not know if the hon. member was here when I made my first statement, I asked the Irrigation Commission in the circumstances to draw up a programme which is, really provisional. The Irrigation Commission considered all the schemes and recommended that certain schemes should be examined. The hon. member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Humphreys) and the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Struben) have taken it for granted that we should spend these moneys, and then decide whether to go on or not. That is not correct. We shall not begin to embark on this scheme until we have a recommendation from the Irrigation Commission.

The Minister quite inadvertently omitted to reply to a question I put as to whether the Director of Irrigation had any programme or scheme to submit.

The Director of Irrigation has no information. We have all the information really required. The hon. member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Humphreys) has mentioned a number of things, soil survey, the question of levels, etc. We have not full information in regard to any of them.

In regard to the Somerset East scheme, may I ask if that scheme has been decided on?

No, it has to be investigated.

In the meanwhile, will you allow me to take off my hat as one engineer to another, to one who can estimate the cost of a scheme which has not yet been decided upon, at the precise figure of £233,000.

I just want to ask the Minister a question in connection with the irrigation scheme along the Breede River, which appears on the estimates. I see that an additional £340,000 will be spent there. It is one of the best irrigation works in the Western Province, viz., the old irrigation works at Brandvlei. I just want to know whether our farmers—most of them are farmers in the Robertson district—are prepared to assume the further responsibility which is indicated here. This irrigation work was one of the cheapest that we have built hitherto, and also one of the most successful. I should just like to know from the Minister whether the farmers concerned are prepared to assume the additional burden.

The hon. member will understand that we have not yet got to the stage that the farmers must say whether they are prepared to assume the burden. We shall come to that later. When this irrigation work is tackled then there will probably have to be given a certain amount of subsidy.

That is one of my difficulties that the hon. Minister has mentioned. Not one of these schemes, except the Overhex, has actually been definitely decided upon. The others are in a state of flux. There is no definite information about them. Let me put one scheme, the Pongola scheme. The Government acquired the land two months ago. I take it there has been ho proper survey, and no Government engineer has been on the scheme.

Yes.

I did not understand that. I understood that the Government only acquired the land a couple of months ago. It is a malaria area, and I understand that £240,000 has already been lost in trying to develop that area. I think it is only fair that the House should be in possession of full information before we are asked to vote money for any scheme. Before we should take the responsibility of voting money for any scheme, we should be in possession of full information. The Minister has said that the select committee which sat upon the older schemes, notwithstanding having gone through with these schemes, and recommended them, they have not been a success. Surely, in the light of experience gained by the Irrigation Department during the last number of years, they could have given information which would have been of use to a select committee. They should give all the information they have to the select committee or to this House. On principle it is wrong to ask us to vote for any scheme which has not been fully enquired into. I cannot understand the Minister of Finance being a party to asking us to vote for schemes that have not been fully enquired into. Some of them may be entirely nebulous.

One of the schemes has been on the estimates for two years.

If full information is in possession of the Government and they come to this House and say, “On this scheme we have full information, and we are satisfied it is a fairly good scheme,” they could go on with it.

That information is there.

Only in respect of one scheme.

In regard to everyone of these schemes there is a definite report by the Irrigation Department that these schemes are likely to be a success.

But where is the report? We have not got a full report, except on the two schemes mentioned. I think the whole procedure is a wrong one. It is wrong to ask Parliament to vote for these matters when we have not got a full report. I say that before we proceed with any new scheme, every existing scheme should be put on a sound basis, and we should write off whatever is necessary. When that has been done, we can proceed with new schemes after we have had full information, but not to depend on reports still to be made by the Director of Irrigation or the Irrigation Commission. It will go very hard with me to vote for these schemes.

The hon. member does not seem to be aware that we are busy placing existing schemes on an economic basis, but are we because of that to delay proceeding with other schemes? I hope within the next few days that we shall have a report from the select committee on irrigation dealing with existing schemes. It is not that we have no information regarding proposed schemes, but we have not full information concerning them except in the ’Nkwaleni scheme.

I am surprised at the arguments of hon. members opposite. One after the other objects to the schemes the Government intends carrying out. It would not be of so much importance if the criticisms came from back benchers, but hon. members on the front benches, including the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), make objection. This shows how little hon. members opposite feel for the interests of the farmer. During the election, when the Prime Minister announced that he would spend an amount of not less than £10,000,000 on irrigation works, everyone welcomed it. Then hon. members of the South African party said that they quite agreed with it, and had long since advocated it. To-day, however, we find that their attitude is the exact opposite.

No, but it is a shame.

Yes, I agree. It is one of the few cases when I agree with the hon. member. I wish that hon. members opposite would take up a definite attitude, and if they really think that the policy of the Government is so unsound, let them then vote against it. I hope that hon. members will and maintain their attitude, but if that is really their policy, let them then say at once which schemes are bad. The hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) referred to the Congola scheme. That is situate in his province, and, although I do not know what he knows of irrigation, I want to suggest that if, in his opinion, the scheme is a bad one, that he should move that that amount be deleted, and I would vote with him. Do not let him take up a position in the House which is not serious. Hon. members opposite are only trying to postpone the matter indefinitely, and the whole reason for their attitude is they do not sympa thise with the interests of the farmers. I do not want to go into the schemes themselves, hut with regard to the Orange River scheme I think that the Government has never shown the people there, and the country generally, a better service than by this irrigation scheme. The hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) thinks that we should only proceed with schemes on perennial rivers. Well, the Orange River is one of the greatest assets we have in this respect, and the Government is going to develop it for the benefit of our country, instead of postponing it as the South African party always does. I challenge any hon. member opposite to oppose a definite scheme on the ground of its being against the interests of the country. Let them be courageous, and plainly say what they object to, then we shall know where we stand. The people will understand and it is a fact, according to their action, that the hon. members opposite do not look after or sympathise with the interests of the farming population, because they represent other interests, inter alia, the interests of the capitalists, and those of the natives, for whom they are always showing so much zeal and for whom they always plead so strongly.

I am glad the hon. member has silted up. I do not want to reply to all that hot air. His temporary elevation has upset his equilibrium. But, seriously, I do not feel that I can vote £3,500,000 without more information. We have been told by the Minister to-night with regard to one scheme that the engineers do not know where the site is. Irrigation has reached a new phase. We have had a very important select committee sitting on our schemes, and a great deal of money has to be written off. As to the Prieska scheme, I remember reading a little while ago the engineer’s statement that, no large scheme is possible on the Orange River. In view of that, although we are not opposed to irrigation, we are against voting £3,500,000 without proper information.

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote F “Local Works and Loans,” £2,555,000, put and agreed to.

Loan Vote G, “Land Agricultural Bank,” £750,000, put and agreed to.

On Loan Vote H, “Forestry,” £300,000.

Will the Minister tell us whether, in the amounts under this vote, the subsistence allowance, and all the other expenses connected with these forest settlements are included. I see there is a sub-head here, extension of afforestation, but I cannot understand how all the expenses incurred can come under that sub-head. Two or three hundred new families, for instance, have been put down in the Barberton district. I have been trying to find out how that is financed, from what vote. It is not an extension of afforestation, but merely an extension of what you might call social work, taking 300 families away from the south, and putting them in the Barberton district. What I want to know is, whether this relief work which is going on is included in the designation “extension of afforestation.” If so, will the Minister tell us how many more of these colonies are being established in Barberton, Ermelo and elsewhere.

The hon. member for Barberton (Col D. Reitz) will see that the allowances are paid to the officials from funds voted on the ordinary estimates. The planting of the trees, the building of the houses, etc., is covered by funds voted on the loan estimates. That was the rule followed by the previous Government as we are following it also. He asks me how many new settlements there will be.

No, how many souls there are on such settlements.

There are about a thousand workers in all, and if we take a family at four then there are about 4,000. He will find a list of the settlements on page 14, they are Fransch Hoek, Bergplaas, Jonkersberg, Berlin, Ceylon and Tweefontein. We shall get more of them in the future, because as soon as a place has been completely planted then we must have another settlement where the people can go and work. I do not know where those settlements will be. Perhaps there may be still more of them in Barberton. It looks as if the hon. member is very fond of settlements.

He is commencing to tremble.

No, I see, however, that there are a few Saps amongst them.

The hon. member further asks where we get those people. The are not recruited by my department, but by the Department of Labour, which has to find, work for them.

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote J, “Native Affairs,” £2,700, put and agreed to.

On Loan Vote K, “Agriculture,” £105,300,

I would like an explanation of the item, “Advances to tenant farmers, £99,900,” and we also have advances to tenant farmers under the Labour vote. This is the same thing I drew attention to before. It is very confusing. £200;000 of the nation’s money is being spent on relief works disguised as general afforestation and now we have advances to tenant farmers under agriculture and another advance under labour. My complaint is the public do not know their full commitments in regard to these projects. Every year we come on some unallocated item which is for relief. It is not that we are objecting to the principle, but we want to know exactly where the country stands. How much approximately is being spent on poor relief or unemployment? I must say that I am not objecting to help in the matter of poor relief. But I do not mean pauper relief. I mean helping the under dog. We want to know what exactly we are committed to. It is under all sort of different names and disguises. I do not mean that in any unpleasant sense, but it is difficult to know where we are.

The estimates are not prepared so that they are subdivided into certain subjects, but they are subdivided into ministerial departments. Now the hon. member wants to know what is going on at Hartebeestpoort. We, of course, have no vote “Hartebeestpoort,” but we have one for “irrigation,” another for “settlement,” and a third for “labour.” All of which have people at Hartebeestpoort. Now the hon. members can see quite nicely what the position is. This money will be spent on the scheme which has practically started when responsible government came in the Transvaal. It is intended to give farmers, landowners, advances to enable them to sow, to give them oxen for ploughing, breeding stock, etc., so that the people can live on the ground. They are people who are still on the ground, and we have found that in times of drought that is the best way of assisting the people. The money is not lost. Under the other votes, provision is also made for the people who came to the towns, and are unemployed. Some are suited for farming, and the department of labour assists in getting these people back to the land. There are payments at Hartebeestpoort in that connection. The people who are no longer on the land come under the department of Labour.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Loan Vote L, “Labour,” £328,000,

I am sorry that the Minister of Labour is not here in order to explain the vote. I think in the circumstances we should move to report progress.

The Minister of Labour will be here directly. Ask your questions; I will reply to them.

I want to know why we are asked to pay under loans to the Doornkop Sugar Estate, advance for payment of interest on a loan of £70,000, the sum of £3,500. I think the country ought to know something about the whole position before we vote this amount.

It has been explained to this House very often before. The main crop last year was about 2,600 tons of sugar, and it is an increasing quantity. Sugar commands about £20 per ton. We hope that the cane will come to maturity in increasing quantity, and planting is going on.

Apparently the Government is coming to the assistance of Mr. Rosenberg?

We are guaranteeing the interest on the loan of £70,000 which Mr. Rosenberg had from the British Trade Facilities Board.

This seems a terrible muddle— we are guaranteering interest on a loan to a gentleman who is suing us for £40,000.

A legal action is pending so I cannot say anything about that matter.

I wish to raise another question. Will the Minister please explain the item “Oukloof irrigation scheme, Prince Albert, £70,000?”

The original estimate was for £60,000, but later on it was increased to £93,000. It was then found that a rock-filled dam was not sufficient and that the dam should be made of cement so that subsequently increased the amount to £105,000, but I have recently been informed that the probable amount will be £115,000. I am going into the question whether this expenditure is really necessary. The expenditure at present is under £40,000.

How many settlers are there?

We have no settlers there. It was started entirely as a relief works for the unemployed in that district during the very heavy distress owing to drought which culminated last year. We were faced with a large number of people there and in order to meet the position this work was decided upon. The area to come under cultivation is under 300 morgen, but I am informed that a great deal more ground will be capable of irrigation. The land has not been purchased by the Government, so the question will have to be further considered, and it is quite impossible to say how many settlers we are going to have. There will be considerably more than 300 morgen irrigable.

So the country is spending £115,000 on ten men.

And on hundreds of men who have been employed and whom we have probably saved from absolute ruin by giving them work in connection with this scheme.

We have heard many rumours about Oukloof; it is stated that a farmer will sell his farm to the Government— hon. members opposite know. You have certain assisted families, and the question is could they not have been much better occupied than at this place? Why spend all that money on an impossible scheme, for a dam of that sort? Is it correct you can settle only from eight to ten families on that scheme? If so, it stands condemned. If the Minister can scotch the rumour, the best thing is he should do so.

It is not intended to put any settlement there, if the land is purchased by the Government, which is not a certainty, but it will be disposed of in some other way. No settlement will be established.

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote M, “Relief of Distress”, £20,000, put and agreed to.

“Defence Endowment Account”, £68,000, was put and agreed to.

Estimates of Expenditure from Revenue Funds to be reported with amendments.

Estimates of Expenditure from Railway and Harbours Funds to be reported without amendment.

Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works, South African Railways and Harbours to be reported without amendment.

Estimates of Expenditure from Loan Funds (including the Defence Endowment Account) to be reported without amendment.