When I listened last night to the very interesting figures the Minister gave us, all tending to prove that white unskilled labour is probably economically worth double that of coloured or native labour, I could not help wishing that he was able to prove that he was right to the various bodies he has to subsidize. He has to give very large sums every year in the shape of subsidies, to provincial councils and local authorities for them to employ European labour. If the Minister were only able to prove to them that, in point of fact, European unskilled labour is not uneconomic, this need for subsidies would disappear. I hope the day will come when they will disappear. The Minister said that in the country districts he was now employing the church in the task of the grading of relief workers and unemployed. I wish to say straight away that that sort of thing makes me uneasy. We have always, in this country, drawn a very sharp line between politics and administration on one side, and the church on the other. At any rate, we have tried to do so. If the Minister now invokes the aid of any particular church, however large and representative it may be, and even if the great majority of the unemployed in the country districts belong to one race and go to one church, then the Minister is establishing a very dangerous precedent. This places enormous local power in the hands of the ministers of that particular church, for at their nod one man can be given work and another man refused it. I have no objection to these ministers being consulted, but to put power into their hands to classify all the unemployed in a particular country district, and—presumably because it must be so—to help one man and not to help another man, is to place power in the hands of a particular minister which should not be entrusted to him. It is not fair to him, it is not fair to his church, and it is not fair to the unemployed. I do not see why this work could not be done by the magistrates or officials in the district concerned. When the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) spoke yesterday afternoon, he held up his hands in horror at the thought that at a particular piece of subsidized work 50 miles north of Pretoria, men were receiving only 4s. 6d. per day plus quarters. What would he say if I told him the contents of a letter I have had from one of the unemployed in the Oudtshoorn district. T know the writer personally; he came to Cape Town two years ago and told me something of his plight; that he could not labour on Government work because he had a rupture. That disability was cured by an operation, and then he was able to work on a Government dam at Buchuberg. His letter is rather a long one, and is in Afrikaans. He says that if they tried to get work from a European farmer, at the end of their time they were offered payment in sweet potatoes. The only other work they can get is at Meiringspoort, 35 miles from Oudtshoorn, and here the payment offered is 3s. 6d. per day for a married man and 3s. 3d. per day for an unmarried man. In opening my “Cape Times” this morning, I saw that they have now decided to make a magnificent gesture, and to increase the pay to married men to 3s. 9d. per day. The work offered is 25 miles away from Meiringspoort, and a married man must leave his wife and children behind him. The writer of the letter points out that they work five days a week and at the end of the month they get £3 17s. The writer says [translation]—

Apparently, he is very much annoyed at the action of some job seekers, jobs for pals. That is the position in the Oudtshoorn district. I believe that this is subsidized work, but he does not make that plain in his letter. I want to ask the Minister what is done in the case of relief workers who are married, and who must leave their families behind. What happens to their families when these men go to this work? Assuming that 3s. 6d. a day is enough for a single man, what happens in the case of a married man who is forced to leave his family behind? What responsibility does the State assume in a case like this? The Minister said yesterday that this is only temporary work, to carry a man over a period of stress and unemployment. Every member of this House knows, especially hon. members from country districts, that there are men who for years and years have been glad to do this class of work because it is the only class of work available, and, as far as we can see, it is the only work that will be available for some time to come. This man came here from Prince Albert 18 months ago, and was taken to the hospital here and cured. Then he went to Buchuberg, but his family was left behind. Now he is at Oudtshoorn on the work I have mentioned, and the only other work he can get is at Meiringspoort, and the work is difficult and dangerous, and the pay amounts to £3 17s. per month. I ask the Minister how can a married man maintain his family under such circumstances?

I would like to say a few words in connection with the Vote of Labour to bring a few matters to the attention of the Minister. There are various departments supplying work, but everything is provided for by the Department of Labour. The first point I wish to mention is that there are a number of persons who are now being employed for five days a week at 5s. per day. They work during five days for nine hours a day, and Saturdays they do not work. Their earnings amount to £1 5s. per week, or £5 per month at the utmost. With this amount they must sustain themselves and their families of four or five. They have to rent a house, and must eat and clothe themselves. It is quite impossible for those persons to do this. This work is relief work intended to enable these people to make a living. Much is being done for other sections of the population. I appreciate this. I think it will be applauded if more would be done, but let the unemployed in the towns also obtain their share of the advantages given to others. Let those people work for nine hours a day, but let them work on Saturdays for half a day only and receive payment for a full day. The majority of labourers work less hours a day, and they receive holidays at full pay. Why can those relief workers not receive a half day’s holiday at full pay? Then there is another point which I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister. These people fall ill, and must first go to the magistrate to obtain permission to call in a doctor. Before this is done they cannot obtain a doctor. It often happens that someone suddenly falls ill and seriously ill in the night; they cannot call in a doctor unless they are prepared to pay. Otherwise, they will have to wait until the next morning to obtain a permit. Why can the Minister not give the foreman the right to call in a doctor in such cases? If he is reliable enough to supervise the work, then he should also be reliable enough to call in a doctor in the case of serious illness. There is another question I wish to mention, namely, that in some cases skilled persons are being employed in gangs to do a certain amount of skilled work, but they nevertheless receive the ordinary unskilled rate of 5s. a day. This is very unfair and unreasonable. I know, for instance, of a man, a certain Stapelberg, who has skill to sharpen shovels and other tools. In the past he received 10s. a day for this skilled labour, but to-day he receives only 5s. 6d. a day for the same work from the Department of Labour. Why cannot in cases where a man performs a kind of skilled labour receive a little higher wage than what is fixed for unskilled labour? Then there is another point I wish to mention. There are labour bureaus especially in the larger towns which surely are meant principally to look for work for the unemployed. Is this being done? Every day they receive numbers of people looking for work, but they wait until the employers come to them to look for labourers for certain kinds of work. I think this is wrong. The labour bureau must go from office to office, from business to business, from industry to industry to see whether they cannot place people. They should also try and urge employers employing natives to replace these by Europeans. If this is done the labour bureau will serve a better purpose. It is extremely discouraging for a man to go to the office day after day, month after month, and quarter after quarter, only to be told that as yet there is nothing for him. I consider that the Minister, specially in the larger centres, should appoint an extra staff. For instance, he can divide Johannesburg into four districts, and appoint a person in each district to try to find work for these people. He can use unemployed for this purpose. They will be able to do the work thoroughly at a reasonable wage. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to this, because it is very important for these thousands of people who at present are trying to find work. Then there is another class of person which is being eliminated in every direction. This is the man between the age of 55 and 65. When they are 65 years of age there is the pension, but not in all cases. If they have any child or relation who can look after them, they do not receive any pension, but, in any case, the man between 55 and 65 years of age and even those who are younger, are in a very difficult position indeed. They are told that they are too old to work, but are too young to receive a pension. What is to become of these people? I would ask the Minister to give special attention to a system whereby some relief can be given to those men of between the age of 55 and 65. If no work can be given to them, they should receive an ex gratia allowance for food and clothing. I further wish to say that we welcome the assistance which the Government gives to the farmers, but the Government must not forget that a man in a town must rent a house to live in; on the countryside, he usually is able to obtain at least a roof over his head, or he can put up a tent, but in the towns money is necessary to get a roof over one’s head. But nothing is being done for those people who are driven on to the streets, with the result that the boys are being forced to steal, or indulge in illicit liquor selling, and the daughters are being forced to surrender themselves to the world to make money. I consider it highly necessary to save those thousands of people who are now in danger.

I just wish to say a few words with regard to what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) has said. He has referred to the church, but I wish to point out that when we did nothing for the unemployed, the church had already taken steps to assist them. We have here the work colony at Kakamas, and everyone who sees it will agree that it is an excellent institution. I wish to advise the Minister of Labour to remain in the closest co-operation with the church. Co-operation between church and State is extremely desirable, because the church is also very necessary in a spiritual direction. The command of Christ; “The poor will always be with you,” must be taken into consideration by the church, and the State must assist to establish this work. The majority of the people who live under these conditions in the country are being looked after by the church. I know that the hon. member for Kensington feels for our people, but I would also like him to understand that the church feels that it must do this work, and we must assist the church in doing it. The position of the unemployed is to us a very important question. We must tackle this work. We cannot evade it. If we look into the number of unemployed we feel that it is alarming. We are shocked at it. Everyone who has a heart for his people feels these things very strongly. There is a small number of people who, while asking for work, thank God that they are not able to obtain it. They are only a few, as the majority of people are willing to work and cannot obtain it. The only solution for those who will not work is a labour colony. We have a Labour Colonies Act, but it is not enforced. The Act is on the statute book, but nothing is being done, and we must see to it that the colony is established to which these people can be sent. We do not wish to punish people, but it must be done for the sake of their children. We cannot allow that the children of these people go under. I hope that the Minister will seriously consider to send these people to labour colonies. We then come to the hundreds of real unemployed, people who are willing to work, but who cannot obtain work. We have already had interviews with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour. We have received every support from them, and they feel with us. The Prime Minister has said that no man may go hungry, but to-day there are people who are hungry. We come into contact with them. A plan has been evolved to assist those people, not only to look after them, but also after their children. I give you the assurance there are children who are hungry when they go to school. In some of the schools in my constituency of Wonderboom, soup kitchens have been established. The teachers are trying to help the children, because they come to the schools without having had a meal. The teachers tell me that the children faint because they have had not enough food in the morning. We are trying to help these children, and we appeal to other schools to assist us in obtaining clothing for these children. What is the cause that the wages of these people are so low? The question is whether the Government can pay higher wages. We must go into this question to see what possibly can be done. Unskilled workers do not receive more than 4s., 4s. 6d. or 5s. a day. We also have the artizan and his wage is £1 5s. a day. South Africa stands on the top of the list as regards wages of artizans, but is the difference between the wages of skilled and unskilled labourers not too great? Must we not work in the direction to reduce the wages of the skilled man, if only a little, in order that the unskilled man can receive a little bit more? We cannot proceed on the lines we are proceeding on to-day. Here is a man who says that he has had no opportunity to learn a trade, and he receives a hunger wage. I call this a hunger wage, while the other worker receives such a high wage. I wish to bring this matter to the serious attention of the Minister. We meet here to-day as an assembly to discuss these things, but I wish to ask hon. members what we from our side do to assist these people. It is easy to say what the Government is doing, but what are we doing? The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) asked what the farmers are doing. Many of these farmers and their families are suffering, but what are we doing? How many of us employ poor whites? I would like to put this question. We employ natives, but we do not employ the sons and daughters of the poor. My own household employs a native and also a white girl, and I pay her well. We must employ more of these children and treat them as one of us, in order that these people can see that we are trying to uplift them. It is the duty of every one of us to do this. There is another question as to what should be done. In America they are busy with something about which I would like to read you something. In an article on “Do we need minimum wage laws?” in the “Forum,” the writer says—

There must come an increase in the wages of these people. We must try to find the solution of the question. The first condition for this solution must be the hearty co-operation between the church and the State. This is number one. Then there must be co-operation between the Union Government and the provincial administration. To-day this exists to a degree, but what is the difficulty? One comes to the Union department, where one receives every sympathy from the officials, but they send you to the provincial departments. One comes there and they also say that they regret that nothing can be done, and they send you to the town councils. The question that arises in my mind is whether everything cannot be brought into one department, either the Union Government, or the provincial departments. We must try to obtain uniformity in this method. The old motto of “Unity is Strength” also applies here. There must be co-operation, for now we are being sent from pillar to post. For instance, I went to the magistrate, Mr. Fleck, and told him that there was a man of 50 years, who was a semi-skilled labourer, requiring work. He sent the man to the Labour Department. This department stated that they could do nothing for the man. The man comes to me and tells me that he is hungry, and nothing can be done for him. We must have one person of whom we know that he will help us if we go to him. Then we come to the charitable institutions. There are the church and others, but the one overlaps the other. There must be one body in order to prevent overlapping. What is the solution? Our relief works is a solution? No, this is only temporary work. A man obtains work for a month, and a week later he forgets that he had work. Another works for three months on the railways, then he must go to make room for another one. The only solution is that we obtain uniformity. [Time limit.]

There is no doubt about it that the question of unemployment is very serious in the Union to-day. I am also convinced that what is being done to-day in respect of this matter is very unsatisfactory, and is on a very loose basis. I do not propose so much commenting on the amount which the Government is setting down for the fighting of unemployment, because I am afraid that we are not all thoroughly conversant with what is really spent in the country in coping with unemployment. We really don’t know what is actually going on. The matter is on a loose basis. The Union Government spends money; the provincial administration spends money; the local authorities spend money; but that is not all. The churches spend money, and the congregations spend money. And even that is not all. Large amounts are spent by the women’s federations, by the women’s missionary societies, and we really do not really know what is going on. It would appear as if the matter is, in fact, not being tackled in all earnestness, and as if it is not being done on a business-like basis. It is not being dealt with from the root. What the hon. member for Wonderboom (Dr. van Broekhuizen) said is quite true. There should be more co-operation, or as we call it in the learned manner, there should be better co-ordination between the different bodies and those individuals who are dealing with unemployment. What is happening now? A man comes to my constituency and complains bitterly that he has not been able to get work, and that he has been sent about his business. We help that man and then find out later that he is a person who has left his work on the afforestation schemes, in order to go and look for something easier. We only find it out later. A person receives help from the church; then he runs to the magistrate; the magistrate is not aware of the fact that the church has already done something for him, and the church does not know what the magistrate is doing for him. There is a tremendous amount of overlapping. That is terrible. Some people are helped twice over, and others are not helped at all. People are also helped who do not deserve to be helped, while others who deserve assistance get nothing at all. That undoubtedly is a very loose way of carrying out charitable work, because in effect all the work that we are talking about is charitable work. What the Government is doing really only amounts to giving support to charitable work. I wish to make a practical suggestion now. It is essential that there should be a better registration of unemployed. In the rural villages that legislation is very unsatisfactory. The unemployed have to go to the post office, and the postmaster records their names. Hundreds of names appear on the list, and the postmaster does not know how many of those have already been employed by the town council or by private individuals. He registers the man’s name, and that is the end of it. If one of those unemployed should return to ask whether there is work for him, he is told off by the postmaster, who is heartily tired of this sort of thing. It is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. In every village there should be a local commission, such as we have in connection with old age pensions, and relief of distress. There should be a commission for every village, and that commission should attend to the registration of those unfortunate people, and it should look after the distribution of the work. In those villages we have a great many cases such as have been mentioned here, cases of people who are on the border line. They are too young to get an old age pension, but they are too weak for ordinary labour. The commission should deal with every individual case and should supply work to the man according to his adaptability. Now the question is whether this commission should work for nothing. I say “no.” There should be groups of commissions. The magisterial areas of a province should be divided into groups, and there could be a commission for every group. The groups should have a paid secretary. I am now referring to the rural districts. In the large towns they have labour offices, and yet conditions there are still very unsatisfactory. For the areas of such commissions we should have paid secretaries. The department of labour should pay two-thirds of the salary of such an official, and the people living in the area can pay the other third. The secretary should get £300. There are hundreds of young men who have finished their studies at the universities, and who are engaged in social work. There are a great many teachers who cannot find work. We should be able to get a decent young man as secretary, and he would be able to organize matters, to look after the local commission’s work, and he could see to it that money was collected. He would be able to see to it that there should be co-operation between all the persons and all the bodies concerned in the matter. If necessary it might come so far that all the funds might be placed in one pool, and that the whole matter could then be administered by the organizing secretary of the circle or group. In the Transvaal it would not be necessary to have more than ten such circles. In the Cape Province there might be 15, and in the Transvaal and the Free State there could be fewer. The Minister could make a start at once with this scheme. It will not be an experiment. He can make a start at once by creating such a circle even if he does not create all those circles straight away. It will not be an experiment, and it will be an immediate success. I guarantee that it will be a success, and the Minister will see to it that the work is properly organized. There will be an organization to attend to the revenue [ from the side of the public, and to see to it that every person is given work in accordance with his abilities. The Carnegie Commission has already made a suggestion in the same direction, but it does not go so far as I do in the way of recommending the formation of groups, and the appointment of an organizing secretary for such a group. The secretary will be the soul of the work. He can be appointed by the Minister on the recommendation of the local commission. The commission can include representatives of the public and of the church, and I am convinced that this will be a much better scheme. [Time limit.]

I am afraid I shall have to impose upon the goodwill of the committee for a period of 30 minutes. The figures that were announced by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and the attitude of mind given vent to by the hon. member for Wonderboom (Dr. van Broekhuizen), the hon. member for Krugersdorp (the Rev. Mr. Hattingh) and the last speaker go to show how hopeless the position is when we continue to proceed along the present lines. It is idle, and not only idle but positively harmful, for representatives of the town to thrash verbally the representatives of the platteland, and in turn for the farmer to hurl his accusations of not playing the game at those who are living in the towns. We get nowhere by doing that, we are only exacerbating feeling and we are only losing sight of the main issue in a welter of conflicting verbiage and that must be avoided. We must not be setting ourselves at one another’s throats. All sections of the community say: “You are a failure in this regard, you are net doing your duty, you are not playing the game.” Saying all this to one another does not help one single unemployed man, and does not help us to progress towards a solution of this problem, which is, I suppose, the most outstanding problem not only confronting South Africa, but the whole world. I appeal to hon. members to cease clashing language with one another, and to come together with the idea of making a co-ordinated effort to arrive at a national policy. That is what is wanted, a national policy. It is quite right to say that the policy which we lay down, forsooth, cannot possibly begin to touch the fringe of the problem. I daresay every member of this House can bring from his own constituency dozens of what one might call hard cases of suffering, hard cases of separation of families, hard cases of worry and no future hope. We can all do that, and the only value of that, to my mind, is that members are creating for the House itself as a result of their individual experiences, the necessary atmosphere for us to get together and consider this question as it should be considered from the national point of view. I know that on the labour vote and on an occasion like this, with very little time at our disposal, it is impossible for us to thoroughly thrash out all the pros and cons of this great problem, and I am not going to try. But I am going to take this opportunity to support the appeal of the hon. member for Potchefstrooin (the Rev. Mr. Fick), not so much for the co-ordination of the efforts of various bodies, such as provincial councils, the church, the municipalities, and so forth, but rather to call for co-ordinated effort on the part of the Cabinet in the direction of evolving a policy. I know, Mr. Chairman, you would call me to order at once if I were to ask for legislation. I am not asking for that. I am only asking for the Cabinet to get together and to consult with those people who may have been traditionally opposed to them in the past, to meet them, realizing that the problem is so important that it is well to consult all points of view and all expressions of opinion, and to try to thrash the matter out to fruition. I said that we did not get any nearer to a solution of the problem by thrashing one another, and neither do we get to a solution of the problem by clashing white labour against coloured labour. It is no solution of the problem to turn out natives who have been engaged in industry in order to take on whites. True, in the artificial circumstances that we find ourselves in, we do, on occasion, advocate here and there discharging natives and taking on whites, and I am pleased, incidentally, to hear the Minister himself state at long last the result of his experience. I congratulate him upon the apparent industry that he is bringing to bear upon this problem. He is taking his department seriously, and in the short time in which he has been controlling that department, I am astounded at the mass of information he has been able to assimilate and at the deductions he has been able to make from the assimilation of that information. I am glad to hear him say that white labour, as such, is not inefficient, that it is efficient, and that it can take its place in the ordinary rough and tumble work of this country, and he has proved most abundantly from his figures what I have been preaching all through the years, that we can have a white state in South Africa, divorced from a native one, in which the whites can do all their own work whatever character or whatever quality it may be. I approve of that. What the Minister is now suggesting I proved in the department over which I had the honour to preside with a rather higher rate of pay, higher, at any rate, than what is recognized to-day, as a national mini mum by this national Government. It was proved that the white man as the result of the experience of many generations and as the result of his traditions, was able to do work which has hitherto been known as “kaffir” work, much more efficiently and cheaper, though I do not want the House to build its application of thought as to whether this is or is not a desirable method of doing our work, on the basis of cheapness. That is one of the appeals I want to make, that we should get away from the outlook we have hitherto most generally and unfortunately held, that the guiding principle of our examination of this problem has got to be whether it pays or not, forgetting that there is an item that should always go on to the credit side of the ledger, and that is the consideration of common humanity. That we must never forget. I want this committee and the Government to approach this question which is the greatest problem the world has to face, from the point of view of the welfare of our humanity, and not from the point of view of whether it pays in actual pounds, shillings and pence, or not. As an inducement to thought in that direction, we are reinforced by the questions and examples that have been advanced by several of our thoughtful members this morning. The method of dealing with the question has been so haphazard as to create the position, the gloomy picture, that the Minister had to paint last night. He said we started off with something like 1,000 of these unfortunates; that was increased to 2,000 or 3,000, and then to 5,000, until they were swollen to the enormous figure of 32,000 in May last. That in itself must be to the ordinary intelligent man or woman a proof of the fact that under no circumstances is this policy of drift going to either solve the problem, ameliorate the conditions, or do anything at all more than make the position infinitely worse. And I want to say this, these figures prove that not only have we not been dealing with the problem, but we have been accentuating it, by the very methods which we have been adopting to the ultimate degradation of the whole nation. My friends all around me have been asking: “What is going to become of the children?” My question is, what has become of the children already? The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), pointed out that owing to the extraordinary economic circumstances a man is to-day being divorced from his family and in that very divorce he finds himself in a position of having to keep another house and his family on an amount of £3 odd per month. We can bring examples of sums infinitely less than the one which the hon. member quoted here, but out of that arises the question to us, having the national welfare in our hands, what is becoming of those children that are left like that in the circumstances which have been given as an example. On another occasion I inflicted upon this House a little story of one of my experiences as recent as the last election when a certain district surgeon in a semi-rural part told me that he had a very large number, a disproportionately large number, of the children in the schools of that district, to attend to, and his experience was that what they were invariably suffering from was mal-nutrition. It was mealie pap for breakfast, mealie pap at midday and mealie pap at night and black coffee as the only drink, without milk or sugar. That example can be multiplied hundreds of times throughout this country. What are we doing for our children from the physical point of view? What of our nation? Let us view the vista of the future of South Africa with a nation physically completely under-developed and of no use to anyone. And what about their minds, what about every other characteristic which we have hitherto regarded as part and parcel of our home and national life? No opportunity of development, rather the reverse, a deliberate stunting as a result of the policy which we are pursuing. Let us reverse that. I am talking on behalf of my party, on behalf of men and women who are concerned about the position, who have made this one of their studies in their political life.

They have not got a monopoly of that.

I am not suggesting that.

You are suggesting that.

I am not appealing to unthinking men and women, I am not appealing to the hustings, I am appealing to the House and I am giving the ground work upon which I am making my appeal and the right which I have to make that claim. What I say is, that I have not sat down and in a few moments arrived at a policy, but it is the concerted thought of a large number of men and women throughout the world who have applied themselves particularly to it and not as an incident, and we have come to this conclusion, and I give it to the Minister for submission to the Cabinet—our conclusion is fundamentally that there must be a recognition of men and women as counting more than anything else. Everything else is only incidental. You must not ask them to live to work, you must make it possible for them to work to live. Whether it pays this employer or that employer, whether the State is the employer, does not enter into the question at all. What does matter to us as the National Assembly is the maintenance of human life on a high standard and the gradual improvement of it in every possible direction. The hon. member for Wonderboom (Dr. van Broekhuizen) took over one item of our policy when he was advocating apparently that the problem might be faced by the establishment of a definitely high minimum rate of pay. We have preached that, but not as a solution of the unemployment problem; that is merely incidental to it. What we are preaching in order to face unemployment, and South Africa is peculiarly adapted to be the spearhead of this attack on the present system, is the constantly progressive reduction of working time in all industries including the farming industry. I appeal to my hon. friends here representing farming constituencies and also representing industrial constituencies to take a broad view of this. It is to be an all-round national effort to reduce progressively the working time in all industry until all are satisfactorily employed. I know that there are no short cuts to happiness in any direction whatever, but if there is a short cut to a solution of the problem, it lies in this. It is economically sound, because the whole object of our life is to maintain life and the whole object of production is to have the products of production consumed, and you cannot have those products consumed if you have a large proportion of your population walking about doing nothing. You only produce for someone to consume and the manufacturer only produces for someone to use or consume his products. And if a large proportion of your population through being out of employment is unable to consume, what on earth is the use of the position then? Walk down Adderley Street or walk down any street in any town, in any dorp, and you find the shops full of goods, you find them advertising them and trying to get them sold and you find people walking up and down, especially little kids, gazing hungrily into the windows wishing to God that they could only buy one of these items exposed for sale. Does this not show the hopelessness of the position? Does this not show the necessity for a national effort? Let us agree to sink our two-pence halfpenny differences, let us forget these little clashes we have on matters of detail, let us sink them and get to grips with this national problem, and I place at the disposal of the Minister, to be placed before the Cabinet, that policy to be seriously considered by them, not as an item of clashing on the hustings, not as an argument for turning you out and us in, but as something which we have seriously considered and which has been agreed upon by us all, and if we bring that about, then I do not care which party is in power. We want to bring about the best results, in the interest and for the benefit for the whole of the population.

I wish to express my great satisfaction at what was said here by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley). The country is undoubtedly waiting for a national effort to tackle this matter. Let us immediately get away from all ideas that we are doing enough. As the hon. member said, and standing where I do I welcome his words in the hope that we shall not only get the Minister of Labour with us, because the state of affairs requires a great deal more than mere re action from the Minister of Labour or the department of labour. This problem can only be solved by national action. The Minister of Labour represents a department of State which, in the nature of things, has had to act of late in connection with a problem which has grown far too big in a short space of time. He has to act in connection with a problem which should really be the care of the Government as a whole. This is an entirely new problem which has resulted through thousands and thousands of people having been driven away from their work, or from their farms, and who in our towns and villages have become unemployed. While, in the past, there may have been only ten or twelve unemployed in a small village, we find to-day that there are as many as 200 in a town like Graaff-Reinet, 100 in a village like Aberdeen and between 70 and 80 in a small village like Jansenville. When we go through the country we realize how many thousands of men and women there are unable to obtain work. Let us look at what has been said so often. Let us consider the terrible charge which has been made against our people that they do not want work. I was astounded to find that everyone of those people to whom work was offered was willing to work. They are willing to undertake any kind of hard work, they are willing to work from eight to ten hours a day with pick and shovel for a wage of 3s. per day. On the 31st March of this year—a time which was very well suited to our opponents, but which did not suit the man who had to stand for Parliament—500 labourers were dismissed from the relief works in my constituency. This was due to the very nature of things, because the money which had been put up by the local bodies had become exhausted, and those people who had been working were thrown on the streets. I imagine that a position was created there the seriousness of which is not appreciated by a great many of us. In the small villages people in their hundreds are standing about at the post office—which is the right place for them to stand at, as the post office, in the rural areas, is the labour office—they stand there hungry, without food, hoping that they will get work at 3s. per day. April has gone, May has gone, but we are now in the middle of June, and they are still there. I am sorry that I have to mention this, but at Graaff-Reinet hundreds of people are hanging about the post office, and they are beginning to get desperate for work. And what applies to Graaff-Reinet also applies to the rest of the country. When I go there they find out where I am staying and they come in their hundreds and wait to see me. The same thing applies to Aberdeen, and I can assure the House that the position is becoming alarming. Those are poor people who stand there, but they are people who have loved their country in the past, and they are people who want to observe the laws of the country. But they stand there now and they feel that they cannot wait any longer. They feel that they will have to steal food, because they cannot get any more work. One cannot blame the Government, and it is not the fault of the department of labour. It is the fault of circumstances. And the fault lies there, that we did not realize that we had to devise a comprehensive and broader scheme in order to provide for those people. When I say that the Minister of Labour cannot do this, then I want to say why I regard this as the task of the whole Government. Over 300 families are out of work in the neighbourhood of Graaff-Reinet; there are 4,000 morgen of land under the dam which was recently constructed. Those 4,000 morgen are ready for cultivation, and not one of those families can obtain five or ten morgen of that land. That land is in the hands of the speculating company, which is not prepared to hand over that land to them on a reasonable basis, but which none the less asks that the State shall write off half of the debt resting on that dam. That is the reason why those people are unable to find anything to do. Why is the Government afraid of that large land-owning company, why is the Government prepared to meet that company and write off half of the debt? That was our failing in the past, but to-day we have some other Ministers, and we are looking to them to say that we are not going to tolerate hundreds of unemployed walking about without food to eat, while those 4,000 morgen of land lie there under the dam and can be worked, land which is in the hands of a land company which is not prepared to sell it at a reasonable price. Matters have a habit of developing fast in this country. There are people who have said to me that they will have to steal, and that they will have to steal land in order to make a living. I deeply regret that those conditions have continued during the past eight years. An enquiry has been made by the Government to ascertain whether they could not purchase that land, but no agreement was come to, and subsequently a select committee recommended that practically the whole of that debt should be written off in favour of the speculating company possessing the land. There is a way out for the country, which we could take at once. Years ago I said to the Minister of Labour that if he were to give 500 people work on the roads at 3s. per day, it would mean that those 500 would one day not have anymore work to do, and that we should have them on our hands again. I begged of him to try and find some other plan for the solution of unemployment. I pleaded with him that we should let the unemployed families work on farms so as to give the farmer an opportunity of getting one or two families there, not for ordinary work, but to make improvements, so that the farmer would be able to retain his ordinary workers. We know the extent to which improvements made on farms have of late been allowed to deteriorate. Soil erosion has increased, and the spread of the cactus has also increased. The farmer could not undertake any development work, and it would be a very good thing if he could get two or three families to help him there. One farmer said to me that he would be able to engage thirty of them to build a dam. The Government can secure those people and can pay them 30s. a month. I know that my hon. friend, the member for Benoni, would say at once that that is too little. But those people would get a free house, which means £2 per month. They get wood, which means 10s. per month, and they get food, which means £5 a month. On top of that the man would get 30s. to buy a few small things with. His children will be within reach of a farm school, and then there are the boarding houses. In that manner we would have been able to have solved unemployment in the rural areas if we had followed the natural course, and not the artificial course of placing people on the roads in bunches of 50 or 60 together. Somebody who opposed me during the elections said, “Dr. Bremer declares that you must become slaves, that you have to go back to the farms to work there.” I replied that if it was slavery to work on a farm, we might as well have slavery. This is a class of work which is more honourable than working on the road. The work on a farm leads in the direction of the development of a man’s spirit, and of his working abilities. He learns something new when the farmer shows him new work, he learns something that he did not know before. There is work for 20,000 to 30,000 people on the farms. I hope that the department will tackle this matter, that it will give help to those people, that the scope of its assistance will be extended, and will not be confined to the supply of work on roads and any other class of work which it can lay its hands on. Let the work be done according to a national scheme, which will have some object in view.

I want to take advantage of the half-hour rule. Having waited for three-and-a-half hours to take part in this debate, in the course of which a host of members representing platteland constituencies have spoken, I have at last realized how farmers can “get away with it” so often. In other words, if they want a thing, they shout for it. Obviously we, as townsmen, must also do a certain amount of shouting. In the course of this session great stress has, very justifiably, been laid on the needs of the farmers and the necessity for helping them. Platteland members have very rightly stood up and stressed these points. There is, I admit, an urgent necessity for tackling rural problems. But I would remind the House, which is rather apt to forget the point, that we in the towns are also faced with a very vital problem, and it is not altogether of our own origin—the problem of unemployment. The problem is due, in a very large measure indeed, to the drift from the country to the towns in the last few years. It is perfectly true that the drift has now stopped, but we who are attempting to tackle this problem in the towns find ourselves left with this legacy from the country districts. I was rather astounded last night at the reflection which the Minister of Labour cast on those in the towns, who are trying to solve the problem of unemployment. After a series of farming members have talked and talked about the needs of the country districts, I, as a representative of the towns, feel compelled to say that I am getting sick and tired of the suggestion of the Minister of Labour, when we wish to ventilate the needs of the towns, that we have lamentably failed in our duty. The Minister suggested—

You are not fighting an election now.

I know that, but I refuse to be placed by implication in the category of those mealie-headed rustics who will swallow anything. The time has come for members of town constituencies to speak their minds.

Press, please note.

That cheap gibe may be typical of what the Minister thinks funny.

It is not funny, it is practical.

I am speaking seriously, as I feel strongly on this subject. If this tendency which has been so marked of late to pit towns against the country—

Who is doing it now?

You are to blame.

My hon. friend says, “You are to blame.” Because we have been prepared to suffer under these suggestions, and to say nothing until now, objection is taken because we take up a correct attitude. If all members had taken up the attitude that the hon. member for Wonderboom (Dr. van Broekhuizen) took up, there would have been no necessity for me to say what I have said this morning. If we are going to have this constant pitting of one section against the other, it is going to be detrimental to South Africa. I deprecate very strongly representatives of the country districts saying that the towns are not doing their duty, just as much as I appreciate that if the towns point the finger of scorn at the country districts, it is not going to help to deal with this problem. Having said that, I shall come down to the merits of this problem. As a member of a town constituency, I felt it my duty to say that we shall never arrive at a solution of this problem if we are going to tackle it on sectional lines. I hope that my hon. friends who represent rural constituencies will remember that in future. I also want to confirm what the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) Has said in regard to the Minister. I do not intend to make any attack upon the Minister personally, or upon his department. One feels that the department of labour has done everything possible with the resources at its disposal. The Minister, in the short time he has been in office, has obviously made an earnest and sincere attempt to get to work on the problem, and we are grateful for what he has done; but I do hope that the Minister, who enters office unimpeded and unhampered by the ideas of the past, is not going to be content with following upon the lines of policy that have been followed in the past, but that he will adopt a wider policy—a national policy. The methods of the last few years have been palliative. The very figures the Minister has given substantiate my argument, that we must get away from the policy of the past. The Minister has told us that a year ago there were 5,000 persons employed on relief works subsidized by the Government. That figure has since risen to 31,000, which shows the necessity for this matter being dealt with on national lines. I would ask the Minister to appreciate the historical facts in regard to unemployment in South Africa, and to realize that we cannot wait until unemployment is upon us. We must take measures for dealing with it in advance. The Minister knows that last year the Government appointed a commission to investigate the position with regard to unemployment. The commission have reported, but the Minister has failed to inform the House whether he is prepared to follow up any of their recommendations. May I first deal briefly with the historical cycles of unemployment in South Africa? The House knows very well that shortly after the Boer war there was a boom period. There was a great deal of employment available, and there was no trouble in the land. That boom was followed by a severe depression, which reached its height in 1906-’08. During all this period the urban centres were placed in a very serious position, and in 1907, the demand for diamonds in the United States was considerably reduced, which affected the diamond industry. We went through a severe depression in 1907-’08, when there was an acute lack of employment. In 1912 ’14, there was another period of depression, and in 1920-’23, there was a further period. Commencing in 1923 the country returned gradually to prosperity, and the figures for unemployment fell progressively. Then in 1929, the present depression started, and, as the Minister knows, since then the position with regard to unemployment has become progressively more and more acute. What do those historical facts show? Surely they show that we have to appreciate that every period of prosperity is followed by a period of depression. Just as the nations in the past have been accustomed to prepare in advance for times of war, so we, in times of prosperity, should take heed of possible future cycles of unemployment. It has been the failure of successive Governments to look to the future which has led to the very grave difficulties we have at the present time. Surely the present is a most opportune moment for carrying out the recommendations which were put forward in this recent commission’s report. The Minister recently gave me some figures with regard to persons who have registered themselves as unemployed. Every member knows that those figures do not in any manner whatsoever reflect the real number of the unemployed in South Africa. You have in Cape Town something like 2,000 registered as unemployed, but everyone knows that the real number is at least double that figure; and when one takes into consideration the fact that most unemployed men have wives and children to support, one begins to appreciate the true significance of the unemployment problem. The commission state that the time has come for the creation of a national unemployment fund. In page 47-’8 of their report, they say that a special permanent fund should be created for preventing and relieving acute unemployment. They go on to say that the amount of the fund should be not less than £5,000,000. The object of such a fund, as I understand, would be that when periods of acute unemployment return, the Government should make available sums out of that fund, at low rates of interest, to local bodies to carry out works, and the Department of Labour would, out of the sum allowed, give to various departments such as the Railway Department, the Forestry Department, the Irrigation Department, and other similar departments, sums for carrying tout works; in other words, it would be a large and permanent fund which would not be diminishing, because the moneys which are used would be repayable and would be available in times of emergency. It is quite obvious that that fund in itself would be insufficient to deal with all aspects of the unemployment problem, for the class of work with which it would deal would be chiefly work of an unskilled nature, and men like clerks, commercial travellers and so forth, would not be catered for by these relief works. There would be a period between men being thrown out of employment and the works being started. A man must provide for his family and keep a roof over their heads, and, as the fund would not be available to pay for relief of that sort, there must be a necessary corollary to that fund. That necessary corollary seems to be the institution of a system of national unemployment insurance. As far back in 1929, the commission on old age pensions recommended a system of voluntary insurance against unemployment as not being likely to succeed, and they felt a system was necessary, if it was possible, of compulsory insurance and limiting it to certain areas. Surely the time has come for the Minister of Labour to try to embark on a policy on those lines? It would be of benefit to urban workers if they are thrown out of employment. One great advantage of unemployment insurance is that when a man is thrown out of employment he can go to those controlling that insurance fund, and ask them, not for charity, but for something to which he has a right— the right of one who has contributed towards the fund, and is now claiming his dividend. That in itself is an excellent thing, because it encourages the spirit of self-help. I do hope that the Minister is going to follow up some investigation on those lines, and that when the House meets next session he will be able to come forward with constructive legislation. One appreciates that, with the time at his disposal, it would be impossible for him to bring forward Bills along these lines now, But he will have an opportunity, during the recess, now that South Africa is off the gold standard, and millions are flowing into the country and are available to the Treasury, of instituting such a fund. It may be said there are difficulties of finance. But where there is a will there is a way. The Government has, very rightly, taken measures to assist the Turai population. Just as there is a rural problem, so there is an urban problem, and if the Government can take these extraordinary measures to deal with the rural problem, they should exercise that same humanity on behalf of the unfortunate people who are the victims of unemployment in the towns. There was a cheap jeer on the part of the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) that I was talking to my constituents. The matter extends far beyond my constituents. I have seen people come from rural areas and live in the towns, five or six in one room, and in another house 14 to 16 people living. I know of a case where 21 people are in a house of three rooms. One realizes that this is sapping the moral fibre of our people, and I know one can appeal to the Minister and to the Government not in vain. The Minister gave us some figures last night in regard to the question of native labour, which went to show that two natives did the work of one white man, but as the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) pointed out, those sort of statistics are not going to help us to solve the problem and to carry us any further, because the natural corollary of this is that natives will be thrown out of employment, and provision will have to be made for them. Natives are only human, and you cannot throw them out of a job and on the streets without making some provision for their employment. Where the Minister is on the right lines is that we in the towns must be protected against an influx of natives ousting European and coloured workers in the towns, and provision should be made to give natives work in their own areas. If the problem is tackled on those lines, I agree with the Minister as to the necessity of white and coloured labour being given preference in the towns. After all, in the towns, in the Cape Peninsula for instance, European and coloured persons have a right to say that they are indigenous to these parts and that they have the right to ask that they shall not be ousted by natives from other areas. But it is obvious that to look after the interests of Europeans and coloured in towns one must also look after the interests of natives in urban areas. What I would ask the Minister is whether he could not through his department take steps to see that more Union natives are employed on our mines. From the figures which the Minister of Mines recently gave me in reply to a question, the total number of natives employed by the gold-mining industry on the Witwatersrand, during the month of April, 1933, was 223,120. Of this number, 133,259 were Union natives. Well, surely there is the opportunity for the absorption of Union natives by giving them a chance of doing this work and thus stopping the drift of natives into the towns. I would ask the Minister to follow up this matter along these lines, because, if he does so, he will be doing justice to the Europeans and coloured without doing any injustice to the native.

And I shall have your assistance?

I am perfectly prepared to assist in anything of that kind, but any such, assistance must be subject to the qualification that it does not lead to injustice to any particular class of the community. I am perfectly certain that we can so adjust matters in this country as to allow natives without encroaching on the needs of the Europeans and coloured, to work in their proper sphere and at the same time to have the fullest opportunity of development along their own particular lines. I started off on a note of indignation. I finish up on a note of hope for the future. I want to repeat that we who are anxious about this problem in the towns, look with optimism towards the present Minister. He has a tremendous task, the matter is not merely in his own hands, but I ask him to use all the energy he has at his disposal to obtain the support of his Cabinet colleagues. He mentioned last night that the question of unemployment insurance might be considered. Surely, that matter ought to he a very simple one for him, because six of his Cabinet colleagues are pledged to it. Let me remind him that at the December congress of the South African party at Bloemfontein last year, the present Minister of Justice then laid down as a policy of the South African party, the principle of insurance against unemployment. All the Minister need do is to go to his six colleagues in the Cabinet and remind them of that pledge, and I am quite certain that this House would be able next session to pass legislation along those lines. If the Minister does that he will earn the gratitude of those of the working classes who have suffered through this severe depression. He will earn the gratitude of future generations. If the Minister really makes this forward movement on national lines I am prepared to take him down to my constituency, have a social in his honour, and myself lead the chorus of that stirring tune “Fourie’s a jolly good fellow!”

Anyone who listened to the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Lawrence) when he spoke, must have come to the conclusion that the hon. member is living a long time too late. The hon. member is very anxious to carry on along the old road in order to make untimely attacks. To-day he again made an attack in spite of the fact that the hon. the Minister of Labour gave him no cause for such an attack. It is clear that the hon. member for Salt River is out to create dissention, and to create a division between the rural districts and the towns. Possibly the hon. member is too young to realize that it is a hopeless task for him to try this. I do not desire to enter into his arguments. He stated here that he, as a representative of the towns, would not allow the representatives of the farmers to talk sneeringly about the towns. Who has done so? Nobody. The Minister of Labour did not do so. He said that the rural areas were doing their duties in regard to white labour, and he expressed the hope that the towns would also do so, as he was sorry that not all the employers in the towns were doing their duty. I now come to the problem of unemployment. Every member who has taken part in this debate has shown himself to be inspired by the seriousness of the cause. I wish to associate myself with those who urged the Minister to try to solve the problem of unemployment, and who have urged that there should be a definite policy, and that patchwork should not be indulged in by way of supplying temporary work to people. Unemployment is most acute. It became acute in the past two years, and it can hardly be expected of the Minister to give work to all those people. One thing which we in the rural areas must keep in mind is that the largest portion of our unemployed people are people who have fallen out as a result of circumstances created by nature, and as a result of economic circumstances over which they have no control. Those are people to whom we must not give temporary work, they are people who are most anxious to get the opportunity of getting on to their feet again. If the Government should use the money that is being spent on roads, to carry out the national irrigation scheme, I say that the Government will then be in a position of returning at least 60 per cent. or 70 per cent. of the unemployed to the rural areas, and to areas where they will have a future and where they will again be self-supporting. Complaints have been raised here in respect of wages of 4s. 6d. per day, such as are paid to relief workers. Let me tell the Minister that the unemployed in the rural villages will be more than grateful if they are given the chance to earn 4s. 6d. per day. There are hundreds, yes, thousands of people who have been used to a good living, and who are now out of work and who are sitting with their hands in their hair, because they do not know how to supply their families with the necessaries of life. Take small villages like Koppies, Viljoenkraal, Vredefort, Parys and others in my district. They are small places, and months ago I approached the department with the request to secure work for the unemployed people there. Although the department did everything in its power to meet us, I only succeeded a short while ago to get work for 20 of those people, and in spite of this unemployment is continually on the increase. I want to tell those people who regard the pay as being too low, that our people are grateful to get it. It appears to me that too much attention is being paid to the large towns, because we hear from time to time that the one town has secured work for 1,000 people, the other for 600, and the other one again for 800 people. We, in the small villages get very little. If the people in the large towns are dissatisfied with the wage of 4s. 6d. I want to ask the Minister to give our people a chance, as they would be only too pleased to take it. Relief work, however, is not a solution. We have a Cabinet now in which all parties are represented, it is a Cabinet which is prepared to assume responsibility, and I consider that this Government should use those people for permanent work. For instance, the man who is used on an irrigation scheme may later on, when the dam is completed, be settled on the land, so that he will no longer be a burden on the State. We must come to the conclusion that it is no use to spend thousands of pounds on temporary relief work. We must give the unemployed such work that they will be self-supporting in future, and it is only in that way that we can hope eventually to solve unemployment.

I am sure the Minister must be gratified at the approval with which his remarks and the attitude which he adopted in the House last night, have been met. The assurance which the Minister gave, at any rate indicated that he was making a definite effort to deal with this problem which, judging from the tone of the debate, is beginning to be recognized not as a party, but as a national, matter. There can be no advantage in hon. members discussing the question from the point of view of town or country, because the position of the town and the country is interdependent. If we have unemployment in the town, the spending power of the town is immediately reduced with the direct result that the country must be hit. If the position of the agricultural population is such that people from the country areas are drifting into the towns, it means that unemployment in the towns is made more acute. And therefore I think that it should be recognized that the conditions of town and country are inter dependent and must foe dealt with on a purely national basis. The Minister gave us some very interesting figures as to the capacity of European labourers to compete successfully from the point of view of efficiency and expense with native labour, and he showed that in many cases it was cheaper to employ European labour than to employ native labour. The difficulty I wish to put to the Minister is this, that whilst we are endeavouring to make people moral by legislation, we are trying to deal with the question of European unemployment merely by moral suasion. We are in this unfortunate position that we have a legacy of a black labour policy in this country, although as far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century, Captain de Chavonnes endeavoured to substitute European for native labour. Ever since then, our industries have been built up on a basis of cheap native labour. The argument that white labour is economically as cheap as native labour is not sufficient to induce employers to follow it, because they are imbued with the idea that native labour is cheaper than European labour. As a matter of fact, even urban employers prefer to have cheap, or even expensive, native labour, in preference to white labour. On the Rand we have wage determination for the baking industry in which no differentiation is made between the pay of white and native labour. In spite of that, however, I have had repeated and well-founded complaints that white labour is being pushed out of the baking industry by native labour which receives the same pay as European labour. We shall reach a situation when we shall have to consider the adoption of one of two alternatives. Either we must lay down by legislation the reservation of certain occupations for white labour only, or we must establish a minimum wage—a wage not based on that on which an European can live according to native standard, but a wage on which a native can live on European standards. In that way the native will become not merely a producer, but also a consumer. Thus we shall raise his standard of life and by increasing the demand for commodities, help to bring about a revival in trade.

What is the basic wage in Johannesburg?

Certain wages are too low to enable a white man to live adequately on the European standard; but the point I am making is that hundreds of white men are prepared to work at that wage, but in spite of that they are being ousted by native labour, which is given the same rate of pay. That is our difficulty, and I think that is an issue the Government will have to decide at an early date—whether we are to go in for a policy of reserving certain occupations for white labour, or whether we are to go in for a policy of a minimum rate of pay on a white standard of life, which will raise the whole standard of the natives, and make them very important members of the community from a consuming point of view. In order to arrive at that decision— I do feel that it is not possible for the Minister himself, or the Government, to arrive at it—I believe that, the issue being of such vital importance, it is necessary and desirable for the Minister and the Government to definitely consider the setting up of an economic advisory council, consisting not only of members from both sides of the House, but also of representatives of the trade union movement, and of farmers’ and industrial organizations, to work out a national policy which can be carried out by a national Government on a non-party basis. I put the matter to the Acting Minister of Finance the other day, and I hope that he and the Minister of Labour and the Government will consider carefully the formation of such a council, to co-operate with the Minister and his department in the working out of a national policy.

The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Lawrence) in every speech he is making here,) tries as tar as I can see, to put the towns up against the rural areas. If that is the spirit with which he sits in this House, I can give him the assurance that he will not render any service to the people. It is, however, not only the member for Salt River, there are quite a few other members as well, who are continually emphasizing that the Government is only helping the farmers and is neglecting the other portion of the people. Let me say at once that if the Government were only to help the farmers, and if it were to neglect the other sections I, as a representative of the farmers, would be the first to protest because the Government is there not only for the farmers, but it is there as a representative of all the sections of the people, and consequently it has to attend to their interests as well. I consider that it is the duty of the national Government not to attend to the farmers only, but also to look after our poorer fellow citizens. And if the Government neglects the interests of those people, then I am afraid that we shall have very many difficulties in future. But knowing the Minister as I do, I am convinced, and I am sure that the people are convinced, that the Government thoroughly realizes its duty in that respect. For that reason T say that speeches like those made by the hon. member for Salt River are very detrimental. The hon. member is a young man still, and I would suggest to him that that kind of speeches are doing more harm to his constituents than good. The Minister of Labour has a great task placed on his shoulders. In difficult times like the present everybody looks to his department. The majority of the unemployed who are to-day in the towns and villages hail from the rural areas. They have been driven away from there, but they always long to return to the rural areas. One of the things that I wish to suggest, therefore, is that we should send back to the rural areas those people who come from the rural areas. That is where they belong, and that is the part of the country where they long to be.

You will never get them back there again.

I don’t know whether the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst) is in earnest.

I often come in contact with these people.

No, the man who comes from the rural areas longs to return there, ho longs to return to that part where he has his own home, his own water, and his own hearth, and where he is free. I understand that the Government wishes to help the farmers to build dams by giving £250 to a farmer. I want to ask the Government if it cannot possibly render available more money to enable a farmer who has large fine stretches on his farm to construct a big dam there. Let the farmer do this under contract, so that everybody who has’ worked there will be able to get a plot of land, even if it is only for a number of years, a plot of land where they can make an existence. In my own constituency I can mention 10 or 15 areas where large dams can be built, and we know that if the farmer does the work himself, he does it a great deal more cheaply than if the Government does it. Thousands of pounds are spent on the roads, but rather let us put the man on a dam instead of putting him to work on roads. If people can get a bit of land there, so that they can make a living, it will pay a great deal better than to put them on roads. I think a great many farmers would applaud a scheme like that. If the farmer can get water, for a certain number of morgen, he will certainly be willing to give up a quantity of land for the people who work there. In that way, the people will come together again, and schools can be established for their children, and there will be no need for them any longer to do this heavy labour on the roads. Whenever I pass those people working on the roads, I take off my hat to the white man there. I realize that that is not the right place for that man to be, but I respect him for working there. We must teach our people that there is no disgrace in working, but none the less it would be wrong for us to place the whole of our people on the roads. As conditions are to-day it appears to me that later on we shall only have a fewrich people in the country who, with their motor cars will drive along the roads, while the majority of us will be working on those roads. I want to ask the Minister whether it would not be possible to arrange the construction of schemes in the direction which I have indicated. I do not wish to advocate that all people who are in the towns or villages to-day should be returned to the rural areas, because naturally there is a certain section which is not keen on farming. There is, therefore, a section which as I see things must be taken up in the factories. I know that the Government is already doing a great deal for the farmer in regard to factories, but I fancy that the time is approaching fast when the Government will have to consider the question of making the surplus quantity of mealies which the farmer has into fuel, in factories. Experiments have been made in that direction, and it appears to me that it would pay us a great deal better to do this than to send our mealies overseas. We are very grateful for the £750,000 which the Government has set aside for the unemployed, but we cannot continue year after year to do this. We must look out to see whether it is not possible to go in a new direction for the purpose of providing work for our people. There is another matter which worries me a great deal. We have reduced the interest on bonds on farms, and people are immediately getting the impression that it is only the farmers who are being looked after, and that nothing is being done for any other section. For that reason I consider that the time has come when interest in general should be reduced.

The hon. member cannot discuss that question at this stage.

I merely wish to refer to it in passing. I do not propose discussing it. Another thing to which the Government must give its attention is that of the people who in the villages and the towns live in small houses for which they have to pay a rent of from £2 10s. to £3 per month. Those houses may have cost only about £150. The people living in the houses consequently pay £30 per year in rent, and if the Government can lend them the money to build their own houses, there will be no need for them to pay such a high rent. If a man can get £150 to build his own house, then he will be able, by paying in instalments what he is now paying in rent, to discharge his liability within a few years and then the house becomes his property. The Minister and the Government should take this matter iute consideration, because as matters are proceeding nowadays in South Africa, there is a certain privileged class which is getting hold of everything, while the other class has nothing at all. It should be the object of the Government to see to it that as many of the citizens of the country as possible when they lay down their heads in the evening can say: “This is my bit of land, and this is my own house in which T live.” If the Government can give effect to the hints which I have thrown out, it would do a great deal to assist in that direction. Before sitting down, I wish to say again that I stand here not as the representative of a farming constituency, only to look after the interests of the farmers. I stand here as a representative of the whole of the people, and I am just as much a representative of my less privileged friends who live in the towns. Hon. members who speak here as though we are only pleading for the farmers misunderstand us. Possibly they misunderstand us on purpose, so that they may be able to create discord, because there are people who create discord so that they may reap the benefit once they have created such discord.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Lawrence) considers it necessary to make a sharp attack on the representatives of rural constituencies. It is wrong on the part of an hon. member to rise here and try to put the towns up against the rural districts. Rather should we co-operate. The hon. member admits that there is a tremendous drift from the rural areas to the towns, and that this causes unemployment in the towns. If I plead here then that the unemployed from my constituency should be kept in the rural areas, he should help me. We should not try and cause an outcry here across the floor of the committee, to play the platteland up against the towns. I want to admit that I am not an expert on the question of unemployment, but I am glad to see that the Minister has so many experts at his disposal, because to-day he has received advice from a tremendous number of members. I am not unemployed. I have my hands full, but in my constituency there are a great many unemployed, not men who are unemployed by custom, but in consequence of circumstances such as drought, etc. I have the fullest justification for pleading on behalf of those people.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting.

When business was suspended I was busy explaining to the Minister what the position was in the rural; areas, especially in the Cape Province, where divisional councils and municipalities have to assist in contributing towards the solution of unemployment. The small divisional councils and the small municipalities find it impossible to contribute their share to the administrative expenses. I know that, so far as the divisional councils are concerned, the Minister pays the full amount of the wages, but the divisional councils are still responsible for the material and other expenses. The consequence is that the divisional councils have to incur considerable liabilities, as for instance in Kuruman, where the divisional council has already incurred a debt of £2,000, which they cannot possibly pay. The consequence is that those bodies cannot possibly contribute their share towards the solution of the problem. If the divisional councils should now decide to stop their work, or if they should inform the Minister or his department that they are not able any longer to contribute their share, a most serious position would be created. I imagine that the Minister knows just as well as I do what the position is in the north-west. There we are not faced with ordinary unemployed, but it is the farmers of the country, and they are the same people from whom the divisional councils have to get their revenue. If the work should be stopped, the divisional councils will still be obliged to feed the people. To my mind it is better to give work to those men even if it is only work to keep body and soul together. I am one of those who feels greatly concerned when he sees employed on those relief works old, grey-headed men who have to labour there with pick and shovel. Those are people who have devoted the best part of their lives to the interests of the country, and now, in their old age they have to try and earn a few shillings on relief works. You will be surprised to see how many of those people in the districts of Kuruman, Mafeking, Vryburg and Barkly West, approach the department with the request to be allowed to do that work. Consequently if the divisional councils or the municipalities should stop their work, the Government will be obliged to feed those people. I also wish to make a plea on behalf of the small municipalities which only get an allowance of 60 per cent. of the wages. Those small municipalities as a rule are very poor, and find it impossible to bear the expenses of that class of work. I want to ask the Minister whether it would not be possible to increase the allowances to them, so that the opportunities of providing work in the rural areas may be extended. There was a time when we had inspectors of the department on the platteland, who inquired into commissions. To-day we do not see them any more, and the department has to rely on the information which it gets from the magistrate or the postmaster. With the best will in the world a new magistrate such as we recently got, does not know what the conditions in the district are, and, so far as the postmaster is concerned, a man who very rarely comes outside the four walls of his office, what does he know about unemployment? I should like to ask the Minister if he will send out his inspectors again, so that the inquiries may be made by the department itself, and so that he will be able to get his report from his own department. If that is done, it will not be necessary for hon. members representing the towns to take it amiss if I tell the House what the condition in my constituency is. What is that condition today? If a man from the rural areas comes to the large towns to look for work, the door is shut to him. He has to live in the town for two years before he can get relief work. I am not opposed to that, I also greatly prefer the people to be retained in the rural areas, but the Minister has to act sympathetically because the distress in the rural areas is very severe.

The discussion has been very interesting, and the criticism has been very helpful. It is clear that hon. members all realize the seriousness of the position with which the Government, and in particular my department, is faced. I am glad that recommendations have come from various sides of the House, and I welcome them. Some of the matters I already dealt with last night, but owing to the lateness of the hour many of the hon. members were not here, and the press has not yet brought it to their notice. I would therefore repeat that we are not dealing here with ordinary unemployment, but with an epidemic of unemployment, because owing to drought and depression we have thousands of people on our hands who have nowhere to go. I quoted figures to show how unemployment has increased. I am glad that hon. members realize that the Government has done its utmost, and is still doing everything in its power. The great difficulties with which we are faced, especially with regard to unemployment on the countryside, is due to the lack of the link between the individual and the department. If a man is unemployed on the countryside, he can only register himself at the post office. But we cannot prevent him from going to the towns instead of him being provided with work in the country. We specially find this to be the case with young people who leave the schools and find that they can obtain no work on the countryside. I have therefore now come to an arrangement with the church to provide for this service between the individual and the department. I may here add that I do not intend to use the church exclusively. Such a committee certainly will consist mainly of members of the church, but we can also add others to it, for instance, the magistrate. It will therefore be a committee controlled mainly by the church, but on which the State also will have its influence. The proposal of the church is that it will work in accordance with their circles, and that those circles will be supervised by a responsible person. I expect a great deal of this co-operation between church and State. The church will be able to do much more than merely register these unemployed and hand their names to the department. I hope that hon. members will give me the opportunity to make this experiment together with the church. I expect much of it. I will further say that I do not believe that the House ever intended the department of labour to be a kind of labour bureau, as we usually understand it. No, the functions of the department of labour are only to create opportunities for a group, and not for the individual. The State can never undertake to look for work for each man. No one can suggest to-day that our officials must go from street to street to ascertain where there is an opening for an individual. If a man has no work, he cannot say, “I have no work because the Government does not see to it.” If people are healthy and willing to work, and there is a state of unemployment, the State has to ascertain to what extent it can contribute to provide work. All measures taken by us are to see where we can create work, where there is no work owing to the depression or drought. We try to create avenues of employment, and ask local authorities and private employers whether they cannot continue at work in order to absorb those who have no employment. The State tries to create avenues of employment, but it cannot provide work for each man, because the State would then have to keep an army of officials to look for work for each individual. This duty rests, in the first place, with the people themselves, and also with the local communities. It has been said that this is a national matter. Surely it is a national matter, and if it is a national matter every individual in the community ought to contribute its share. I stated last night that one of the directions in which we are looking for work is that there should be greater opportunities for skilled labourers as against native labourers. Let us take the position in Cape Town. My hon. friend, the member for Salt River (Mr. Lawrence) this morning spoke very strongly on this point. It was quite unnecessary. I regret that he used such language. If there is one thing which we must prevent, it is to set up the town against the countryside, and the countryside against the towns. If the farmers are being assisted to-day, and they surely are, we must not forget that the towns and the industrialists are also helped through this assistance. If the farmer of the countryside tells me, “But look how you assist the industrialist in the towns,” I always say that our assistance is to the benefit of the whole community. We do not assist industrialists merely to assist townsmen, but we assist them in order to stand by the whole community. The assistance which is to-day granted to the farmers will be just as much to the benefit of the industrialist and the townsman as to the farmers. We are looking for work in order to provide greater opportunities for civilized labour in our industries. Take a city like Cape Town. When I knew Cape Town 25 years ago, everyone looked at the strange sight of the native in the streets. To-day there are plenty of natives. Why? Because the people of Cape Town import natives sometimes to the extent of 300 to do the work as soon as a new industry is started. But what is more, when the work is finished they do not send these natives away, but allow them to remain here to work in competition with the Europeans. I ask that all industries will contribute their share in order to provide greater opportunities for civilized labour. The example of the Government should be followed. To-day the Government has no less than 25,000 Europeans, or civilized labourers, in its service. Because it is a national cause we ask local authorities and private employers to follow this example. I said last night that they can follow this example without any more expenditure on their side. This is as the position is today. I will not say that the civilized labourer will not receive more, but I say this, even if you pay the civilized labourer double the wage paid to a native, it pays you to do so. Last night I quoted figures to prove this. As all hon. members were not present, I will quote still another case. I hope that this will convince the hon. member for Salt River. I have the papers; if he comes to my office he may refer to them. Here is a case taken from the report of the town engineer of Durban. The report deals with macadamized roads which were constructed in Durban. He states—

This is taken from the report of the Durban engineer who came out in February, 1922. In Durban a white man gets 8s. per day, while the wage of the native generally is 2s. Calculated on a piece-work basis the wages therefore amount to the same, viz., 4s. 2d. per square yard. Our difficulty lies in the fact that there is not a proper division of labour. The white man finds that he is forced out in every sphere by the native, in addition to which we must not lose sight of the fact that we import natives from beyond the borders of the Union to come and work here. What I should like our employers to do is this, Our factories must do this, our local bodies in the towns and in the rural areas must conduct experiments to satisfy themselves whether it will cost more to engage white labour than natives. If it does not cost more, my department is entitled to ask that greater help shall be rendered by employers generally, and more particularly by industries in order to assist the Government in its policy of white labour.

Has the subsidy been taken into account, so far as white labour is concerned, in connection with the report from Durban which you have quoted, there, where natives are paid 2s. per day and whites 8s. per day?

I have not got the details here. I can find it out, but nothing is said in the report about subsidies. I also wish hon. members to read the report of the Electricity Supply Commission in connection with the experiments at the Colenso power station. It has proved such a great success that the commission is also going to put into operation the same scheme in the power station at Durban, and the Town Council of Durban, which is greatly interested in the Durban power station, is so convinced of the fact that white labour can be used in the place of native labour that it has asked for this change to be introduced. I am not urging any injustice towards the natives. The native is a citizen of the country, and he has the right to expect that he will be given his chance. But it is an injustice towards white and black to bring them into conflict with each other. Let there be an opportunity for the native, in his own territory, but let there also be an opportunity for the white man in his own territory, and do not let the two clash with each other. A great portion of our difficulties is connected with this question, and I hope that our employers will wake up, I hope that our engineers will wake up, and that we shall be able to induce our local bodies to conduct experiments in a sympathetic manner, and if that is done I am satisfied that a tremendous stimulus will be given to the cause of white labour in South Africa. I should like to quote what the manager of the power station writes in his report about the experiments. [Quotation read.] What is the result? Absolute satisfaction. That is what we find in the report.

Was the work identical?

Yes, the work was identical. The whites took the work of the natives, and the latter were replaced. The report is somewhat on the long side, otherwise I would read the whole of it. I am prepared, however, to hand the report to hon. mebers who want to read it. These matters, however are connected with cases of normal unemployment. What we have to deal with in the rural areas, however, at the moment is an abnormal condition of unemployment, which is due to the drought and the depression. We have a large number of people in the rural areas looking for an existence, and large numbers of them are not able to return to their farms. We have to make a distinction between the unemployed, between those who are able to return to their farms after the rains, and those who are unable to return. The Government provides work in different directions. It is not the department of labour which provides work. We subsidize work in different directions. The provincial administration is subsidized, but its functions are confined to the making of roads. It is only in that respect that the provincial administration can give work. As I have said, I do not wish to put thousands of people on the roads. I fully realize the evils connected with that. Yet I am convinced that this is not work which a white man should not do. Who makes the roads in Europe and America? If decent conditions are created on the roads the work can be just as well done by whites as it is done on the railways, where the ganger has his labourers under him. But for that purpose it is essential that decent conditions shall be established which will make such a system possible. I have some objections to the conditions which prevail on the roads to-day, but matters developed so suddenly that we were unexpectedly face to face with a position of having to find some class of work for those people. Yet I am not satisfied with the prevailing state of affairs, and I shall see what can be done. As regards wages, I want to point out that the wages are not fixed by the Government and the department of labour. Wages are fixed by local authorities, which have the work in their hands. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) referred to the wages paid to labourers near Oudtshoorn. Well, we did not lay down those wages. It was the divisional council of Oudtshoorn which did so. Local authorities are also in a position that they cannot pay wages which are so high that the work will lose the character of relief work, as this would mean that people would leave their farms in order to earn those wages, in spite of the fact that they would still, to a certain extent, be able to make an existence on their farms. We cannot make the wages so high as to cause a new drift to those relief works. We must bear in mind that conditions are abnormal. Once the rains have fallen we shall be able to reorganize the position, and it is the intention of the Government to do so. But as unemployment is increasing by thousands more being added to the numbers of unemployed, we are obliged to see to it that our people are not entirely left to their own devices. Wherever possible we must give a helping hand. Several other points have been mentioned, none of them of a serious nature, and even though I do not reply to those questions, all those suggestions which are aimed at improving our system will be taken into consideration when I get back to my office. I only hope that hon. members will realize that the Government is not indifferent in regard to those people who have not got work, but whom we cannot employ on those works. The committee must not imagine that all the Government’s efforts in regard to dealing with unemployment are represented by the money that is voted on the estimates under the heading of “Labour.” We have deliberately placed large amounts on the loan estimates, and we have tackled all those classes of work which will give the largest proportion of wages. On the loan estimates every vote shows that work can be given to relieve the position of unemployment. Let us analyze this. Let us take the first vote. An amount of £515,000 is voted for public works. More than 50 per cent. of this will go into wages, and this will especially benefit the skilled workers. We have a large number of skilled workers here who are earning nothing. On the loan vote £470,000 is provided for irrigation. I hope that we shall be able to employ a large number of people who have left their farms on these irrigation works. Then there is an amount of £2,000,000 for housing. We shall see to what extent that amount can be used to provide better housing accommodation, and to cope with the condition which was described here this morning. Then there is an amount of £200,000 available for local works. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Raubenheimer) and other members have complained that local bodies like municipalities, and divisional councils cannot contribute their share to relief works. But if we are all going to say that we cannot do anything, where are we going to finish then? The Government is also finding it difficult to render the money available but where local bodies are not able to afford this, an amount has been placed on the estimates to render available small loans to such bodies for this class of work. Here is an amount of £2,000,000 of which more than 60 per cent. is to be spent on labour. We are again going to place an amount of £3,500,000 on the railway estimates, and a large proportion of that will be spent on labour. This money will be spent throughout the country, but especially where the pressure is most severe. That money is spent on works which we would not have started on in normal circumstances. One hon. member has asked what the relation is between the towns and the rural areas in regard to unemployment. I should not like to make a comparison of that nature, because with us the question is where the need is the greatest. I have the figures here for March, but since that time conditions in the rural areas have become steadily worse, and we do our utmost to place the man from the rural areas on some relief work or other. On the 31st March there were in the rural areas, 9,959 white men and coloured men on the relief works, of whom about 8,800 were whites, and a little over 1,000 coloured. In the urban areas, in which thousands of people from the platteland who have drifted to the towns, are included, there were 11,600 people on relief works; of those 9,800 were whites, and 1,700 were coloured. Since that time the figures have gone up, particularly in the rural areas, and I can assure hon. members that we are trying to balance matters as between the platteland and the towns. For that reason I greatly regret the allegations that have been made from both sides, the one against the other. I do not believe that there are any more points which I have to reply to, and I now hope that we shall pass this vote as soon as possible.

†I said last night that in respect of the question of reduction of hours, we are not going to deal with that until we have the result of this conference which is now taking place; I am referring to the labour conference at Geneva.

Why should we not take the lead?

We have our representatives there and the matter is being discussed there.

Still, we have to consume our own smoke.

I think that I have replied, more or less, to all points that have been raised. If there are any hon. members who are of opinion that we have not given a sufficiently large subsidy to local bodies, I want to repeat that I am doing everything in my power, but that it is not my duty to give relief to such bodies. I cannot give relief to local bodies. I have only made provision for work.

In view of the great amount of unemployment in the villages in the rural areas in my constituency, I feel somewhat nervous when I realize that we have to return home in a few days’ time without having made provision for all sections of the community that are in distress and that are in fear of starvation and nakedness. Thousands will receive assistance as a result of the measure that has been passed during this session, but there are thousands of others who are still in a state of poverty, and who are not being helped and must be deeply disappointed. I clearly remember the message of our two great leaders conveyed to the people on the eve of the elections, viz., that they realized the great expectations that existed, and that those expectations and that trust will not be disappointed. On the 28th April last, the right hon. member for Standerton, who is now Minister of Justice, was at Kroonstad, where he addressed thousands of people. He stated there that the Government was thoroughly conversant with the distress that prevailed in the country, and with the conditions of the people, but he said at the same time that the Government had discovered the germs which had made the people so weak, and that the Government was busy preparing pills to cure the people. He stated that they would not only make pills to get the people healthy again, but that they would also give ointments and medicines, and even injections if necessary, to raise the people out of their misery. It is sad to think that in this country, the wealthiest mineral country on earth, which is the mineral treasure trove of the world, we have among our small white population some of the poorest of the poor, and that the sons and daughters of those who have discovered those treasures are to-day on the verge of ruin—are actually starving and are the hewers of wood and drawers of water. I make an appeal to the Minister to show the greatness of his heart, and to help the people further, and to insist on getting a little more than the £750,000 with which he is expected to relieve the situation. Last year we got about £600,000 and I had expected that in view of the fact that we are able to do so this year, an amount of at least £1,250,000 would have been made available, not merely to render help, but to go further because we learnt from the Minister of Justice at Kroonstad, that the Government was going to take drastic measures, such as had yet never been taken in the history of the country. I had expected that large permanent schemes would have been undertaken where thousands of people could have been employed. The Government itself was tired of the patchwork which was done some time ago, and it wishes to tackle matters in a manner so that whatever assistance is given shall be of a permanent nature. We appreciate what the Government has already done in very difficult circumstances, but I wish to remind the House that we are only on the fringe of a great problem, which will have to be tackled in the future. When a few years ago we made those great profits on Namaqualand diamonds, I said that the Government should give £1,000,000 to the provinces in order to combat unemployment. The condition of affairs is much more serious to-day, yet only £750,000 has been given, an amount which can never be sufficient to cure that position. I hope that the Government will remember, in future, that it is necessary to start schemes of a permanent nature, even if they should not always be payable, because they may pay in days to come, and posterity will be grateful to us for having done so.

I think about 99-100ths of my work as member of Parliament during the past twelve months has been to look for work for the unemployed, not only as far as my own constituency is concerned, but also of others. This is because I reside in the Cape. During the past year I have written more than 600 letters in connection with this matter. The reason is because the people of the country-side who were looking for work are no longer in a position to come into contact with the Department of Labour, as was possible before, and because it was more difficult for the unemployed in the country districts than for those in the towns to be provided with work by the Government. Dozens of cases have come to my knowledge of persons who have been driven from the countryside to Cape Town because they were hungry, only to be refused employment by the labour bureau because they could not be regarded as townspeople. People of the countryside who have been vainly looking for work for six or even twelve months, have been i rejected. They are advised to apply to the; post office, or the magistrate’s office of the districts from where they came. Now what on earth does it help these people to send their names to such offices? It is also very unreasonable of the Government to expect that officials who are already overwhelmed with work will also have to enquire into individual cases of unemployment. They are not in a position to take on the work of the labour bureau in addition to their ordinary activities. It is also impossible for members of Parliament to take this work properly to heart, especially if they are confronted with such restricting Government regulations to which I have referred. In the years of Mr. Boydell, as Minister of Labour, inspectors of labour were sent to the various districts to ascertain the conditions prevailing, and to report to the Minister. In those days the unemployed of the countryside had a good opportunity of being reasonably treated. This system, however, was abolished and these people can no longer be assisted so easily.

Church committees will now assist.

But these committees will have to be paid for their work. Otherwise it would be unreasonable to expect too much from them. In any case, I am glad that the Minister has promised to go out of his way to meet the unhappy people who are looking for work on the countryside. I hope, however, that those of the countryside who are looking for work in the towns will be given the same facilities as others and that the Minister will also return to the old policy of having labour inspectors to ascertain what the real conditions are.

The question of unemployment has been discussed over and over again, and I will not waste the Minister’s time on this question.

Hear, hear.

Yes, hon. members who say “hear, hear” are those who just now had a great deal to say about unemployment. I do not wish to discuss unemployment. I merely wish to ask for information about something which has not been put to the Minister before. Last year I put this question to the provincial councils: “Who pays the unemployed in the countryside, and who pays those people in the urban areas?” The reply was that the labourers on the countryside were paid by the provincial administration, while the Minister of Labour paid for those in the urban areas. This is a duplication of work. One finds that in the countryside, and I am speaking from experience, divisional councils are being paid up to 100 per cent., while not so much is paid to town councils. In my own constituency there is a divisional council which has no debts, and which received 100 per cent. The present Minister is not responsible for this state of affairs. The system was established by the previous Minister of Labour, but I hope that he will rectify it. As a member of the provincial council, I have applied for moneys to divisional councils in my own constituency, and there are cases where I have obtained up to 100 per cent. Then we have the urban population—the municipalities also fall under the provincial councils. Why then must I go directly to the Minister? I always had to go with my member of Parliament to Pretoria. Our member was Dr. Stals. Certainly one of the best representatives a constituency could have, but I had to go to Pretoria to meet the Minister there. From the provincial administration I obtained 100 per cent. for the divisional council, possibly because I was a member of the provincial council, and they did not wish to refuse it to me. But at present one finds that the municipality in the same place cannot obtain more than 50 per cent. This municipality has a debt of £20,000, and it is not able to do the work because 50 per cent. is too low. The divisional council does not want to employ the people, because it holds that the municipality should do so. I have here a letter from a municipality refusing to accept 60 per cent. The municipality states that this is no use to it. The divisional council, although having no debt, have received 100 per cent. I will be glad if the Minister will go into this matter.

As a representative of an urban area I wish to say a word or two on this subject. We have heard to-day a great deal about the position in the platteland. I do not wish to criticize hon. members representing country districts. I am glad the Minister of Education is in his place, because I wish to put forward a phase of this unemployment question which has not yet been touched upon during this debate. Some time ago, I raised the matter of matriculated boys who left school and who could not find employment. That is an unfortunate position which many parents living in towns are confronted with. I was visiting a relief gang work just before I left East London and I found three or four boys working in that gang, who had to do so, because, as they could not find work elsewhere they had to do something because their parents could not afford to keep them any longer in idleness. One of these boys had matriculated, and two had passed the school higher examination, but they could get nothing to do. In towns, many boys who have left school are disappointed and distressed because despite every effort, they are unsuccessful in their quest for employment, and as the result of long periods of enforced idleness they stand the chance of developing into first-class loafers. That is a position the Minister should consider. I made the suggestion two years ago that the workshops of our technical colleges should be thrown open to these boys, who should be trained in the trade they wish to adopt, but so far, nothing has been done in this direction. It is absolutely essential to face the position. If the Minister of Education would just listen to me, after he has finished his conversation with his hon. friends, he might take this into account, and do the best he can, in collaboration with the Minister of Labour, to see that these boys learn the trades they want to make their life’s avocation. They can do this in the technical colleges, and the time they spend in those institutions should be reckoned as part of their subsequent apprenticeship period. I was struck by the appeal of the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) when he said he would like the people who had left the platteland and were now unemployed in the towns to return to the countryside. I have got into touch with many of these people, only to find, however, that now they do not desire to leave the towns. They are afraid that they will miss the bioscopes and the amenities of town life. It is going to be a hard job to get those people back on to the farms. The hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Lawrence) elaborated a scheme this morning which is very excellent in its way, but it is going to take a long time to carry out, about a year or 18 months, and, in the meantime, people are out of work and starving. We have got to face the position as it is to-day. I am sorry to hear that the Minister of Labour has stated that the towns are not doing their duty.

I did not say that.

The hon. the Minister did not say that. Well, I have been misinformed. I would like to point out, however, that the towns are doing their duty, and that the people of the constituency and the municipality I represent are doing their best to help the Minister and the Government in the efforts that are being made to deal with unemployment. I thank the Minister of Labour and the Railway Department for what lias been done in my part of the country, and I am glad to know that there is a fair prospect of most of the unemployed we have at the present time being absorbed. I want to get the impression removed that the townspeople are not doing their best. It will be our endeavour to do our best while there is unemployment. I hope the country dis tricts will do their best to relieve their own people and do, as the urban areas are doing, to give practical help.

I was astounded to hear the Minister say in the course of his remarks that he had no time to go into this matter. What does the Minister draw his salary for? What is he paid for, what are we paid for, but to come here and discuss these matters? We have unemployment existing at the present time on a scale unprecedented, and for the Minister to suggest that he has no time to deal with this question is astounding. I have been accused of trying to set town against country. I am not going to retract one single remark that I made this morning, but I may not have made it quite clear what I was objecting to in the remarks which fell from certain hon. members last night. The last object I had in view was the setting of town against country. I was doing my best to ask the House to guard against the dangerous possibilities of setting town against country. I will take two examples of statements made by hon. members. In the first place, I will quote from what the Minister said last night. He said—

The hon. member for Carolina (Mr. W. H. Rood) said—

We in the towns have never suggested that hunger can be geographical. I considered it my duty to make the protest that I did this morning, because there is a tendency on the part of certain hon. members who represent the country districts to imagine that when we mention the difficulties of the towns we are wasting the time of the House. I was delighted to hear many of the speeches which fell from representatives of the country districts to-day, because, as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) has pointed out, town and country are inter-dependent. If you are not going to help your farmers, they will be driven off their farms into the towns.

A very welcome conversion.

It is not a conversion. It is what I have felt all the time. I have always taken up the attitude in the case of the railways, for instance, that it is in the interests of the railways that the farmer should be helped because, if he is not reasonably assisted, the railway revenue will decline. The hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) has suggested that I am young. That may be true, but my argument is equally true; and my argument is that I resent the attitude of certain hon. members who suggest that when town representatives put forward their views, respecting the difficulties experienced in the towns in dealing with unemployment, they are wasting the time of the House. When hon. members made these attacks, they reminded me of the Frenchman who said that the elephant, or whatever animal it was, is an extraordinary animal, because it defends itself when attacked. However, I am not defending myself I am defending the towns. I want to welcome very sincerely what the Minister has said with regard to the collaboration of the churches in this matter. He has referred to the work of the churches in the platteland. I may say, as far as the churches of the Cape Peninsula are concerned, that the various [ churches have combined in one association, and have done very good work indeed. They are responsible, for instance, for the establishment of night shelters. As a result of the organization of various members of the churches, a night shelter was recently opened at Woodstock, and the work of looking after the unemployed has been extended. A man can go there, and if it is shown after investigation of his case that he has nowhere else to go, then he is given a roof over his head, and other help. I welcome the attempts of the Minister to secure the collaboration of the churches in this matter: but, in order to deal adequately with the question, we have to obtain the collaboration, not only of the churches, but also of all sections of the community. I must confess that I am disappointed in some of the remarks which the Minister has recently made in replying to the debate. The Minister’s theme song, as it were, is this: Employ more white labour. If that, sir, is his sole contribution, the full measure of his contribution to the solution of this problem of unemployment, then his theme song will prove to be his swan song. I welcome the line of policy, subject to the qualifications I made this morning, that no injustice is done to the natives, that we should employ more Europeans and coloured persons in the towns. I wholeheartedly support the plea for more European or civilized labour, provided you are not doing an injustice to any other person. But surely that is not sufficient. The Minister must go forward. After all, the Government must set a lead, and what I envisage is that we must go forward in a national campaign, a national crusade to obtain the collaboration of all sections of the community. There must be co-operation between the Government and local bodies, such as divisional and municipal councils, provincial councils, and private employers. I have appealed to the Minister, and I want to appeal also to our business community, which has recently taken steps to be more adequately represented in Parliament, to do its part in alleviating this problem. [Time limit.]

In the first place, I want to sympathize with one of the greatest problems of the day which the department has to tackle, but I must say I was disappointed in the reply of the Minister. He asked employers to employ more white labour. I crave the indulgence of the Minister to say what the Johannesburg City Council is doing to employ white labour. Most of the departments are white. Take the tramways. In the cleaning of the cars, the municipality has employed nothing but white youths, and any wastage has been filled with them. Take the abattoir department, with a turnover of millions a year; it is exclusively white, and, as far as my knowledge goes, not a single coloured or native labourer is employed in that big department. In the parks department not a single coloured or native is employed. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the construction of the public library in Johannesburg is carried on entirely with white labour at a much increased cost. After taking the subsidies into consideration, it must be said that the ratepayers and city council of Johannesburg are carrying on big works such as construction of road and sewage works by means of white labour at the expense of the ratepayers of that city. It has not only set an example to the Government, but to the whole country in employing white labour. I want to endorse the remarks made by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley), and it is hardly the time to adopt a bickering attitude, to set town against country and country against town, and we should endeavour to do all we possibly can do to solve one of the greatest problems of the day, that is, the white labour policy.

When I was interrupted just now, I was making an appeal to the business community; and I hope the privileges accorded to that community in its representation in Parliament will mean that it will have an appropriate recognition of its obligations. I do hope our business men and our industrialists, our business houses, business firms and interests will insist in South Africa on the use of South African manufactured materials.

What about the Japanese treaty?

My hon. friend says, “What about the Japanese treaty?” but he has been silent. If he has any objection to it, why does he not get up? It will help unemployment, as I say, if our business men insist on the use of South African materials. I hope that the Minister will agree that the suggestion I make is a correct one. I would like to ask the Minister one or two questions, and the first is, whether his department has formed any estimate as to what number of unemployed is likely to be absorbed as a result of the future development of the low-grade mines. Here we entrench on a fundamental question of the day. We hear there is a storm in the north, and the Minister of Mines is heavily attacked. As one who represents a large working class constituency, I very much deprecate the way in which the friends of the Minister of Mines are intending to stab him in the back at the present time. He does not need my support. But what I was leading up to was that if the Government is going so to tax the mines that it prevents them from developing, then it would be going too far; but I feel sure that the Government has gone into this question very carefully, and so arranged its scale of taxation that it will allow the mines to develop, while, at the same time, it takes a fair proportion of the excess profits. I want to know whether these enquiries have been made, and whether, if so, the Minister will give us the figures. Then I would like to ask the Minister of Labour what progress he has made with that scheme of “Happy Homes for Miners” he adumbrated last year. Speaking at Germiston, I think, he adumbrated a scheme for miners to acquire their own plots, and to assist them in that way. Has his department gone into that scheme?

The hon. member should keep to the vote of the Minister of Labour.

I should also like to ask the Minister whether his department has fixed the rate of interest on loans to local bodies which will be used for the purpose of relief works. What I am particularly anxious to know is whether, if the Minister’s department is prepared to recommend a loan to a local body, that loan comes out of the £75,000 on the estimates, or from an additional amount from the Treasury. I am not quite clear on that point. So far as the Cape Peninsula is concerned, I should like to pay my tribute to the Minister, who has been most generous in regard to the question of subsidies. He has met the deputations which have gone to him in a very fair way and he has increased the amount of subsidy to the City Council of Cape Town. We are very grateful to him, but we are anxious to know where this money comes from. I want to support what the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Rev. Mr. Hattingh) said in regard to the functions of the labour bureau. I think the Minister has not appreciated that criticism in its fullest import. The position is this, that the labour bureaux throughout the country at present fulfil purely the functions of registering offices. The unemployed go there, their names are taken down and filed for reference. If work is available, the men are provided with it. It is perfectly true that it is not the function of the Government to go round looking for work for everyone, but to provide the means for work; but I do feel that a step forward might be taken by providing an additional officer at each bureau whose work would be in the nature of welfare work, and who would get in touch with business houses and attempt generally to find fresh avenues of employment. I do feel that the Minister should not dismiss this suggestion lightly. One can appreciate the utter hopelessness of men who go to the bureau day after day only to be told “nothing doin today, come again next week.” If the Minister would appoint such officers they would be of the greatest help. In conclusion, may I give these figures to show what the Cape Town Municipality has been doing for the relief of unemployment, from 1921 onwards in the shape of relief work schemes. I will give the amounts spent by the city council, the amounts recovered by way of subsidy and the nett cost to the council. For the year 1920 the total amount spent was £8,343, amount recovered in subsidy, £3,729; nett cost to the council, £4,613. Then in 1931, the gross expenditure jumps to £35,567, the amount recovered by way of subsidy, £6,000 and the net cost £29,500. In 1932 the amount spent was £57,385, amount contributed by the Government, £5,600, and nett cost to the council, £51,691. So that if it is suggested that the bulk of the money for these works comes from the Government, these figures emphatically repudiate that. Less than 10 per cent. of the total amount spent in the last two years came from the Government. The amount provided for 1933 is £84,000 but, as a result of the recent deputation to the Minister, we hope to bring it up to close on £151,000. Not only has the city council been spending this money on actual relief work, but there are also the contributions which it has been making to the Board of Aid for the relief very largely of the unemployed, including many of those who have drifted in from the country districts. These amounts have been: 1929, £11,000; 1930, £13,545; 1931, £15,187; 1932. £15,596. The 1933 estimate is £14,000, but that is in addition to the sums which have been raised privately. Last year the city council gave £15,590 and the citizens voluntarily contributed £20,000. These figures, sir, show that we do realize our duty, and these figures are my answer to the Minister’s allegation last night.

After listening to the Minister replying to hon. members, it is perfectly clear to me that he would like to be known as Minister for Commerce and Industries. With however much zeal he may pursue his duties, I do not think he has a great deal of enthusiasm for his portfolio as Minister of Labour. He has discoursed on white labour versus black labour and he has given us a very painstaking analysis of the ratio, but when he came to the point, he dismissed the real question before this committee, the question of unemployment, by saying simply that there would be no actual starvation. Magistrates throughout the land were to be instructed that there should be no starvation. So far as I can gather, that is the policy of this Government of all the talents. That is the policy of this coalition Government which went to the country a few weeks ago and promised the people heaven and earth. Possibly I am doing the Minister an injustice, possibly he has a definite policy; but I do not think so, and if I am correct, as I think I am, unfortunately, I would like to tell the Minister that there are two classes of destitute and unemployed persons who require relief. The first class is the class below the bread line and the second is the class just above. These classes require entirely different treatment. The first class require to be assisted with food, clothing and shelter. This assistance should not be given by the magistrate as merely an item of his multifarious duties, but the work should be done by an organization provided by the Minister from his department. The Minister has made a good suggestion in this regard, that he would avail himself of the assistance which the Dutch Reformed Church desires to provide. That is excellent as far as it goes, but I fear that, especially in urban centres, where we have large populations, it will not go far enough. I say quite definitely that this is an obligation of the State. In assisting these unfortunate people, we are not doing them an act of charity, I say it is an act of humanity and an obligation which the State should see is carried out. So far as the second class is concerned, just above the bread line, these people also require to be assisted with food, clothing and shelter, but what they require more than that is to be reimbued with hope for the future. What they really want is to feel that there is still some chance for them to be re-assimilated in the ordinary life of the country. I fear that the Minister has only two ideas of relief for destitute and unemployed persons. The first idea is the one I have just dealt with, the idea of the prevention of actual starvation, and the second idea seems to be some sort of pick-and-shovel policy where the white labourer will displace a still more unfortunate native. This pick-and-shovel policy seems to mean that we are going back to the days of old. I cannot see any use in one gang digging a hole, merely for another gang to come to fill it up again, and I fear very much that that is the type of relief work which the Minister has in mind. That policy is degrading to the worker, and it is useless to the community. I think that the country may expect that the Government should deal with destitution and unemployment in a statesmanlike manner and not in the fashion of a country village board providing relief for some of its relatives and friends. The country expects that the Government should undertake a definite policy to rehabilitate our destitutes and provide productive and permanent employment for our unemployed people. If the Minister would accept a suggestion from a humble private member, I would like to suggest that we should undertake immediately the building of a system of national roads. It has been argued here before that road work is derogatory, that it is uninspiring, and that it is not a white man’s work. I think the Minister has answered that very well by saying that road work is done in other countries by Europeans, and that there is no reason why it should not be done here. But what I am pleading for is not patchwork. I am not pleading for building a road for 10, 20 or 30 miles, or for patching up a road like that. I am pleading for the immediate institution of a scheme to build national highways.

Without speed limits.

Yes, without speed limits. I am pleading for a road from the coast ports to inland centres. I think that the building of such a national highway would give productive and permanent employment to a large section of our unemployed, and at the same time such roads would assist in the development of the country—they would even rival the railways in assisting this country to develop.

They would have to be tarred roads.

Yes, they would have to be tarred roads.

What proportion of the cost will be for labour if they are tarred?

Probably a small percentage, but nevertheless, it should be done. I am pleading for a national road and not merely for relief work. We would be giving our unemployed work, which would not detract from their pride in being citizens of the country.

Would that not be pick-and-shovel work?

No, pick-and-shovel work, as such, is merely useless work, but I am pleading for a definite scheme to build roads, and not merely with the idea of giving work to our unemployed. The main thing is to build the roads. Incidental to that is the fact that a large number of our unemployed would be taken up. I think I can speak with a certain amount of authority on this, and I ask the Government to give very serious consideration to the suggestion. I would like to tell the Minister that the Government, of which he is a member, was placed into power by the people of this country, to tackle national problems in a national way, and I would also like to tell the Minister that the Government has shown very little ability, or inclination at all events, to tackle these national problems in the manner that we were led to expect. I think the people are bitterly disappointed with the provision that is made for unemployment, and I think they are very bitterly disappointed with the way in which this money is to be spent, and although the Government may have its 126 followers in this House, who may criticize and bark freely but probably will not bite, I say that the country will one day call them to account.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote 28, “Commerce and Industries”, £83,243,

I would like to make a few remarks with regard to the industrial policy of the Government. It appears to me that, ever since the depression started, there has been a decline in the industrial developments in South Africa, and that it is the duty of the Government of the day to amend to a certain extent its policy with regard to industries. The Minister knows that, in the years 1924 to 1929 we experienced a considerable development in the industries of South Africa, as a direct consequence of the new protective policy which was then followed by the National Govenrment. We are grateful for this protective policy which had such excellent results and which gave such an impetus to industries during those years. The figures are not unknown, but I want to emphasize them again, because of the point I wish to make. The number of workers in the industries in this time increased by about 20,000. Wages increased by about £6,000,000 during this period, raw materials used in factories increased by about £10,000,000, and the total production rose by no less than £29,000,000. I am now sepaking of the years 1924 to 1929, when the industries received such a considerable impetus as a result of the protective policy of the Government. But in 1930-’31, when the depression came, the industries of the country felt the effect which also reacted on the number of people employed, as compared with previous years. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible somewhat to amend the protective policy in regard to our industries. We want to give credit to the factories, especially the young factories which withstood the depression so well. The Nationalist Government adopted the policy of protecting industries, which showed initiative, industries that were created by a private spirit of enterprise. It was the Government’s policy to wait until factories had been started by private enterprise, and then protect them. The Government wait, for instance, until a boot factory had been established, in order then to set up a tariff wall for boots, or in the case where the manufacture of motors was undertaken, the Government would set up a tariff wall in order to protect those motors or motor parts. In some respects the Government deviated from this policy. For instance, where private enterprise was not able to establish such an industry, or where public interest demanded that the Government should interfere, the late Government made a distinction. The Government did this, for instance, in regard to the iron and steel industry; in that instance the Government put its hand deeply into its pocket for the development of the iron and steel industry, as private enterprise would not or could not tackle it. The Government furthermore did the same thing in regard to the diamond cutting industry. The Government saw that private enterprise could not do it, and for that reason it gave its support to the industry and encouraged it, as this was regarded as being desirable in the interests of our country. As regards the electricity scheme, the Government did not even wait—

The hon. member is now discussing matters which require legislation.

I suggest that what I am asking for can be done without legislation. The Government can change its policy without legislation.

Everything referred to by the hon. member requires legislation.

I only want to say then that I hope the Government will alter its policy. I should like to see the Government help industries which are waiting for private enterprise that is not coming forth, or which is insufficient, or whether the Government considers it to be in the interests of the country that certain industries should be established, it should depart from its old policy and it should say that if it is in the interests of the State tariff walls shall be set up for the encouragement of industries, even before those industries have been started. During past years we have been talking here for hour upon hour as to what the Government can do to create a livelihood for people. We cannot always make people work on the roads. We are a young country, and as was done between 1924 and 1929, we have to give effect to a protective policy with a view to expanding our industries as fast as possible, I hope that the Minister will tell us that it will be the Coalition Government’s policy to encourage industries which are not being developed by private enterprise, by the setting up of tariff walls. I am not pleading for legislation; all this can be done under the existing laws. I only wish to refer to one industry which requires such help. I have referred to this before—the fishing industry. We have invaluable riches along our coasts, and now I am asking why the Government should wait for private enterprise, and why it should stand still and say: “Private, enterprise cannot develop any further, and now we are sitting with folded hands, doing nothing.” The Government can, by means of proclamation extend its protection policy by setting up tariff walls. If the Government would only take somewhat more drastic action to urge on private initiative, which is there at the moment but which refuses to carry on because they have a sufficiently large market, it would do a great deal of good. We must follow the example of other countries. Look at Canada. Canada has not been sitting still of late years. Canada said: “We are pursuing a protection policy, but we are not merely following a protection policy in the direction of assisting factories that have been created by private enterprise, but we also protect those factories which still have to be developed.” I wish to mention another instance. We are to-day importing annually into South Africa tinned meats to an amount of £300,000 to £400,000. If the Minister will only raise his tariff walls slightly we should be able to produce our own tinned meats, and in the future we should be able to have great fish factories along our coasts. People all say: “Produce tinned meats; the world requires it.” [Time limit.]

While we have had a long discussion on unemployment, I should like to point out one or two directions in which employment could be increased as the result of investigation to be made by the Board of Trade on lines which I intend to suggest. I have been going into the question of the adverse balance of our trade overseas. Altogether, excluding our gold exports, we have an adverse trade balance of £11,000,000, although if we include gold, we might pride ourselves on having a favourable balance of £36,000,000. However, if we analyse the position correctly, we must take into account only the exchange of goods and services, and we must exclude gold from our reckoning. Obviously an adverse trade balance of £11,000,000 is not in the interests of this country. Therefore I would like the Board of Trade to enquire into that matter. We have 114,000 people employed in our industrial concerns of a manufacturing character. Against that, we have 15,000 men and women unemployed. That is a formidable number to deal with under present circumstances, but it seems to me that having regard to our adverse balance of trade that number of unemployed might very well find work in our secondary industries. Therefore I would like an investigation to be made with a view to opening up fresh avenues of employment. On the other hand, I would also be glad to see an investigation into those changes of a rather disquieting nature which are taking place in our trade and commerce. In Durban nine big commercial houses have closed down definitely. I am told that ten wholesale firms have gone out of business at Port Elizabeth, and in all our other large towns, wholesale places of business have been putting up their shutters. It must have a tremendous repercussion on trade, but mainly its effect will be felt by increased unemployment. I should like an investigation to be made into that aspect of the question. We know that our commercial concerns employ 17 per cent. of the effective labour force of this country, and from the point of view of affording employment, commerce cannot be disregarded. I should like an investigation to be made as to the future of commerce, from that point of view, in order that we may be able to prevent our children from going into blind alley occupations. I think it is important that there should be an investigation from every point of view. I should like an investigation to be made into the changes and developments in the building industry. In 1929 building produced £14,000,000 worth of increased value in this country. This has now diminished to £6,000,000 worth per annum, and it is not only stagnation in trade that has caused this diminution in the results of the building industry over a period of twelve months. A tremendous amount of that diminution in building trade activity as far as employment is concerned arises through changes in construction, and in methods of building. An investigation in this direction would not be a waste of time. Concrete construction has done away with a tremendous amount of labour in the building trade. We also have steel windows and doors which have done away with a tremendous amount of labour. An investigation into that aspect of the question will be useful for the reason that in every industry to-day changes have taken place and better methods have been adopted. An investigation will enable the country to know the facts, and will put us in a position to anticipate how the labour market will be affected in the future. I maintain, too, that we should investigate the question of our low national income per capita. I find that this country produces £96 of income per head, Australia producing £178 per head, and Canada £260 per head. Does not that indicate just where, our weakness lies? We often talk about this country being a rich country, and our farmer friends, and our Labour friends, talk about new developments and new expenditure in every direction, but not once have they shown this House where the money is to come from. I want this matter investigated, as to why this country demonstrates its poverty in this way, because our income per capita is the lowest of the incomes per capita of the British commonwealth.

That is based on wages.

It is indicative of our low powers of wealth production, and when we compare it with Australia and Canada, I think it indicates to us what a poor country this is. [Time limit.]

I have told you that the way to raise the national income is to raise wages.

I entirely agree with the hon. member who has just sat down as to the importance of this vote. I hope there will be a very thorough examination by this committee and I am glad to see this vote before the House, commerce and industries, because it is difficult to over-estimate its importance. If there were no commerce and no industries, there would be no need for the Minister, or the members of this House. I should like to draw attention this afternoon to the question of the position of South Africa’s export trade, the position of its trade commissioners, and to review generally the question of the value of these trade commissioners to South Africa’s trade. With regard to Kenya especially, this House will remember a glowing report we had from a commission that went to Kenya to investigate the possibilities of South Africa’s trade there, and it is fair to say to-day, after the experience we have had, that the trade that was expected to be done with this colony when the trade commission was established there, has not been done. The expectation of the commission has not been fulfilled. I notice that there has been a very large reduction in the volume of South African trade with this colony of Kenya. In the year 1931, we exported—mostly South African products—the percentage of imported articles we re-exported is very small, something about 7 per cent. or 8 per cent.—a total of £96,958, whereas in 1932 the amount of South African products was reduced to £32,072, and the imported goods we re-exported amounted to £9,984 making a total of £42,056, a drop of more than 50 per cent. It does seem rather remarkable, notwithstanding the fall in trade and the fall in values that there should be such an enormous reduction as that which has taken place. We exported in 1932 less than half the export of 1931. I see 1 there is a reduction in the cost of the trade commissioner’s office there, and I would like to know from the hon. the Minister if this reduction has any bearing upon the reduction of trade that has taken place. Is the trade representation there, is our trade commissioner’s office, quite satisfactory, or is it considered that the general drop in the world’s trade and in the prices of commodities account for our trade with Kenya being less than half it was in 1931? The inferences to be drawn are more disturbing still when we examine our exports to some of the other colonies. I find that there are some other colonies and dependencies where we have no trade commissioner, where the fall is not so great as it has been in the case of Kenya, though in other cases I notice it is very much larger. The next matter I want to refer to is this vote for the trade commissioner of the east. “The east” is a very wide term, and I want to know from the Minister what it means. Many people may take it to mean East Africa. Presumably this is the far east. I see the cost of the trade commissioner’s office there is estimated at £3,350, and travelling and subsistence expenses come to the rather large amount of £1,000, which suggests that it is for the far east. If this is the case, the House will want to know a great deal more about it. In which of these countries in the far east are we to place our goods? I can picture South China which has an undoubted market for our goods, and there is Hong Kong, one of the few large free-trade ports left in the world, and I find that Hong Kong has taken more from South Africa during 1932 than ever before. It is one of those features that is worth recording, because in the east we have many countries which, personal observations would convince most of us, have a big market for South African produce. To whichever part of China you go or the dependencies of Japan, you will find America has penetrated with her goods. I am one of those who believe that our tobacco is an article which can be placed almost anywhere, with persistence. I find that in none of these countries has this article been placed or attempted to have been placed, but I find the American article going to every country in the east. It is well to look at the position of some of these eastern countries. For instance, there is no possibility in the Philippine Islands for South African trade, or at any rate an opening for South African manufactures, but there is free trade between that colony and America, its mother country, so to speak, free trade in every particular. There is no possibility of South African, or of British, stuff being landed there. That is the difference between what the commonwealth of nations holds out and what America carries out. We find in our own dependencies that American stuff has been able to beat the British manufactured, or South African manufactured goods all the time, and our goods are never found there. It is due to the persistence of Americans and the way in which Americans are represented. They have, what they call in America, “drummer-boys”, who are persistent representatives representing a particular article in a country, and they persist until the article captures the market. I think that is what we should aim at in the far east. A trade representative cannot cover it. [Time limit.]

I want to follow up the remarks made by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson), and ask the Minister some questions about these trade commissioners. I want to ask what was the reason for the transfer of the office from New York to Montreal, and whether the reason is to improve trade conditions with Canada. With regard to thia office in the east, I must say mat, from the trade figures given by the hon. member who has just spoken, it seems rather difficult to justify commencing a new office there. I see that South Africa exports to Hong Kong £1,163 and £74.000 of coal, to the Straits Settlement, £69,000 and coal—£51,000. There must no doubt be good reasons for this appointment, and I wish the Minister would give them to the committee. I want to refer to the appointment of the new Ministry of Commerce. I think commerce as a whole has not been disappointed with the creation of that portfolio if it is going to be started with the idea of protecting commerce from some of the inroads which have been made on it by some of the Government authorities. One realizes there is a need for the closest co-operation between commerce and the Government, and I am very glad to be able this afternoon to testify to the very improved feeling which has been created during the last year or two in the relations eixsting between the Government and commerce. We have seen on many occasions that the Government has invited the co-operation of commerce, and one feels that it can be only for the mutual benefit of all if the Government will further co-operate and take commerce more into its confidence in connection with the various schemes which have to be considered from time to time. One has always felt that many proposals which are put forward from time to time would probably have been brought to this House in another shape or another form if the representatives of commerce had been considered and they had advised the Government on the various aspects of the situation. This afternoon the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) urged the Government still further to build tariff walls in this country, and he wants them raised even higher; and at the same time, we have our representatives in London who are doing their level best to see in what way the tariff walls of various countries can be lowered for the mutual benefit of all. It is one of the most dangerous things in the world to raise tariff walls, because they immediately bring about retaliatory measures. South Africa, so far, has been particularly fortunate, and has been careful in imposing tariffs which will not unfairly discriminate against other countries. But you must visualize the position that if you arc going to raise your tariff walls to such a height as to keep out the goods of other countries, you will probably have those countries at once raising their own tariffs to keep out the goods you wish to send to them. We have already had an indication of that in a small degree over the whisky tax introduced this year, and we know the reason for that tax. One way by which industries can succeed in South Africa is by maintaining the high standard of their production. It was stated that merchants can do a great deal to relieve unemployment by selling South African goods. It is the people of this country who determine what goods they will buy. Before they will buy they have to be perfectly satisfied that the quality is satisfactory. There is no question at all that during the last few years South African manufactures of all kinds have very materially improved in their standard of quality, and in the vast majority of cases they have held their own with goods of a similar kind imported from overseas, and as these factories more and more establish their hold on the people of this country by the quality of the goods they produce, there will be less need to raise the tariff wall. It is a very healthy thing for an industry to have a certain measure of competition, to force it to keep up its standard. I hope it will be understood, in regard to this new ministry of commerce, that it has not been created with the idea of unduly interfering with the ordinary course of commerce and trade. I think most business people in this country feel that the less the Government interferes with trade the better it will be for the country on the whole. They are, for the most part, quite well able to look after themselves. I would rather take the point of view that the Government are seeking for closer co-operation between all sections of commerce and industry. If the creation of this new portfolio is a means of promoting that co-operation, then it is all to the good. I think very often remarks are made which tend, perhaps, to unduly discredit commerce in the eyes of the country. For example, the Minister, the other day, made a statement indicating that the taxable income of commerce was £16,000,000. So many of the returns that are quoted are very misleading, and this is a case in point. The taxable income of commerce in this country is nothing like £16,000,000. The taxable income shown in this return includes all the industries in South Africa, the engineering trade, the building trade and every other section which you could possibly bring under the head of industry, whereas the real income of commerce itself is a very small proportion. What I do want to emphasize is that there must be the very closest co-operation between commerce and industry, and it is the people who determine what goods they shall buy, and what industries they shall support.

I wish to say a few words on the fishing industry, as I am anxious to see this important industry developed. The potentialities of this industry are very considerable, and if properly tackled it can he of great benefit to the country. There are opportunities for thousands in the country to make a decent existence out of this industry. Unfortunately the fishing industry to-day is in the hands of a ring, and smaller companies or private individuals find it difficult to compete with that ring. Assistance must also be given to private individuals to buy motor boats. Motor boats are too expensive for private people, and if they are able to buy them on instalments it will help them considerably. Such motor boats can be insured against loss. The committee enquiring into the fishing industry is doing research work, and is certainly rendering great service. They are finding new fishing grounds, and we are finding that along our west coast there are great opportunities for expansion. We have many kinds of fish for which there is a great demand. Mossel Bay is entitled to claim the support of the Government in order to develop the industry. We have a large hinterland, which can be served by this industry. We require greater protection for our fishing smacks, and such protection will not cost a great deal of money. I wish to quote some figures to indicate the quantity of fish that is being imported. I am quoting the figures for 1928. According to reports, in the “Market of Empire,” a large quantity of fish was imported into South Africa, altogether to an amount of £63,243, of which fish to an amount of £49,286 came from England. This is only dried and other fish. Tinned fish was imported to an amount of £348,119, and the major portion of that comes from Norway and Canada. Fish in bottles and tins was imported to an amount of £32,172, and the major portion of that comes from France and America. Let us rather encourage our own industries, and let us support them. The by-products of fish can be used to great advantage, as for instance for fertilizers, etc. Other countries give considerable financial support to this industry, and I hope that this Government will also support this matter. In order to further support and to foster the industry, cold storages must be established, and Mossel Bay claims that cold storages should be erected there. There is a large stretch of country which can be helped and fed. I trust that this matter will receive the attention of the Minister as soon as possible.

From the time that I had the honour to be a member of this House, I was often warned that we are making a big mistake by neglecting our markets in the East, because we are not taking the opportunity to enter into trade relations there. Therefore, I am very glad to-day that we are now going to appoint our own trade representative in the East. It has not yet been said where he will be appointed, but I hope that he will be stationed in West India, for I consider there is at present great opportunity for extension of our markets in West India. As a result of the political developments in India, whereby this country has obtained a more and more independent Government, and has, therefore, been looking more to its own industries, there has arisen a very large demand for raw materials which the people in India wish to use in their factories. There are several products which we have in South Africa and which have a good opportunity in India. One of the principal products for which there is a great chance in India is wool. It may sound strange that India, where it is very warm, should wish to buy wool, but it must be remembered that India manufactures in those parts of Thibet and Afghanistan where it is very cold, and where they require strong wool. This strong wool we can produce in South Africa. Another article which lately has been bought more and more from South Africa is wattle bark. Luckily for South Africa efforts made in India to cultivate wattle bark have failed. Then there is the question of diamonds. Prior to the depression India bought between £1,500,000 and £2,000,000 of our cut diamonds. It seems unnecessary to me that India should buy our diamonds in Europe and not buy them from us. Then there is our fish. For our fish there is a suitable market in India. There is also a market for our fruit, but it is impossible to create a market in India for fruit if there is no representative there, because there are certain problems attached to the export of fruit. This can only be made possible if there are the necessary facilities from the point where the fruit is sent from and where it arrives. It is necessary that we should have cold storages and also refrigerators for the transport of our fruit over the Indian railways. Furthermore, there is a new product of South Africa, namely fruit juices. These are non-alcoholic drinks, made from grapes and other products, and we are looking for markets for this product. It will be difficult to capture the markets in America and Europe, but in India they have not been explored, and I see a great possibility if we have a representative there. I must, however, sound a note of warning, namely, that Australia in India is years in advance of us. It has for years had a representative there to enquire into the markets. South Africa, however, is geographically nearer to India than Australia, and perhaps this will assist to recompense us for the advance which Australia has obtained. I hope that the person who is to be sent to India will be selected by the Minister with the greatest care. I do not know whom the Minister has in mind. I have a person in mind who is suitable for this work, and I hope that the Minister will know of him, because I feel that it is absolutely necessary that the person who is being sent to India must act with the greatest care. The market there requires careful nursing. There are large possibilities for us. Europe can no longer absorb much more, but in India there are markets which only require to be created. We must not so much look to the old country, but we must pay attention to new markets.

I would like to speak to the Minister for a moment about the petrol position and I should like him to make a statement to the House and to the country about it. Hon. members will remember that two or three years ago we passed a Bill to deal with the price of petrol and other commodities and the hon. Minister will remember that I helped him to put that Bill on the statute book. One must admit and must take credit to oneself for the fact that a great deal of good has been done by that law. It did succeed in bringing down the price of petrol to the consumer in a large measure, but I have been wondering whether the pendulum has not swung too much in the other direction, whether the motor trade and the handling of petrol have not been put by that measure in an almost impossible position. The Minister knows what the facts of the case are. I want to ask him to make a statement as to what he intends doing in the future. I understand that the Board of Trade and Industries has been asked to report on this question, and that the report is either ready or will shortly be ready. Does the Minister expect to lay that report on the Table this session, and does he intend taking any action this session? Now I want to ask a question in connection with the commissioner of trade in Kenya. The trade commissioner in Kenya, Col. Turner, is a personal friend of mine, but in spite of that I have been asking myself recently whether our trade in Kenya, both present and prospective, really does justify our spending £2,500 per year on keeping an office there, and whether we would not do better to abolish that office altogether or to transfer it to the Congo or to the east. The disappointing nature of our trade with Kenya and with Tanganyika is such that I doubt whether we are justified in keeping the office there, especially as the prospect of extending our trade is so infinitesimal that one wonders whether it is good business to keep that office in Nairobi any longer. The next point which I wish to raise is that of the enormous cost of the office which we now have in Montreal. It is an office which used to be in New York, but which was transferred to Montreal. Our trade commissioner in Montreal is graded at a salary of £1,050 to £1,200, but we pay a personal salary to him of £1,400. In addition, we pay him £500 as cost of living allowance, £271 as foreign allowance, and £350 per year as representation allowance, whatever that may be. So that the emoluments and allowances of our trade commissioner in Montreal are £2,521 per year. Compare that with what we pay our extremely efficient and invaluable officer in London. We pay that officer a maximum salary—he is at the top of his grade—of £1,200 per year plus an allowance of £115, making just over £l,300 in all. I want to ask the Minister if it is necessary to pay our trade commissioner in Montreal on that lavish scale. When we were on gold, we used to pay our overseas representatives in gold, but now that we are off gold, and Canada is still on gold, how do we pay our officers in Montreal? There is no difficulty in London, because we are on parity with London. Will the Minister please also give us some information about the new trade commissioner in the east?

Can the Minister at least tell us how far the Government has gone in regard to the fishing industry? I would like a statement of policy on that point. I believe that during the last recess the Board of Trade and Industries held an enquiry into the possibilities of the fishing industry, and I would like to know whether the report of the board will be available to hon. members. While we have been talking about unemployment, perhaps we do not realize that we have neglected a vast field for the utilization of the services of a large number of able-bodied men. I refer to the expansion of our fishing industry. How important that industry is to other countries is demonstrated by the fact that in Japan alone there are over half a million people who are actually dependent on fishing for their livelihood, and the catches are valued at very nearly £35,000,000 annually. Canada gives employment to 78,000 people in its fishing industry, which is worth £11,000.000 annually to our sister dominion. Our own fishing industry is worth but, £400,000 a year, and gives employment unfortunately to only 5,000 people. With our large coast line, and given sufficient encouragement by the Government, we could develop our fishing industry into a much more important source of employment than we have done in the past.

When I addressed the House earlier in the afternoon, I was busy pleading to the Government for a small change of policy towards our young industries which have not yet developed. Now I am astonished to hear from the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) that he is of opinion that the Government more or less has gone far enough in the upbuilding of tariff walls to protect our industries. I hope that I misunderstood the hon. member, but if I understood him rightly, it is his opinion that the Government should terminate this policy of building a tariff wall around our industries. I hope that the Government will not think of following the policy advocated by the hon. member. The policy of the old Nationalist Government definitely was to assist in the development in South Africa of our younger industries by building a tariff wall around them. In some instances, the Government even went further, and where private initiative was not strong enough to awaken a dormant industry, the State stepped in to make a start. I will hope that the Government will continue its policy to build tariff walls around our budding industries, in order that they may grow in strength, and in the second place that the Government will also step in in the interest of the development of the country in cases where private initiative is not strong enough to develop such industries. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) has asked what will happen if we increase our tariff walls, and other countries refuse to take our products by building tariff walls against us. Let us take the industry which has been discussed here to-day, namely, the fishing industry. We import fish in tins from Norway, to an amount of £100,000 per year, and what does Norway buy from us? Practically nothing. I consider that in a case like this, it would be stupidity not to build our tariff walls high against a country which buys nothing from us. I hope that the Government will continue in its policy. I wish to direct the Minister’s attention to another item on this vote. I would ask him whether it is not possible to introduce a little more uniformity with regard to fisheries. I do not wish to advocate legislation, and I don’t wish to say that he must bring this up for consideration by the commission which has been appointed with regard to the provincial councils, because I will probably not be allowed to say this, but perhaps it is possible to do more for this most important industry. We only give here £8,600 for research work. Other countries which have developed this industry and which are acquainted with the opportunities along our coast will laugh when they hear that we have the small amount of £8,600 for this object on the estimates. We have an old vessel which has to perform the survey work. We do not only require uniformity with regard to this; it is also imperative that an extension survey be instituted and a quick and extensive enquiry in the natural currents round our coast. We are only on the eve of this enquiry compared to other countries. I wish South Africa to institute a better and more efficient enquiry into the chemical and natural conditions of the water inhabited by our fishes, etc. The Minister knows what this industry may mean. Anyone with a sense of position will come to the conclusion that we must develop this industry as soon as possible, because it will give work to thousands of people.

I rise to disagree to some extent with what has fallen from the hon. member for Kensington in regard to our trade commissioners in Kenya and Montreal. Although we may not get an adequate return for our outlay on these commissioners, we should endeavour to cultivate the closest commercial relations possible with the north and with other members of the British commonwealth of nations. Everyone who has any regard for our future commercial development, must approve of the action of the Government in transferring the trade commissioner from New York to Montreal, for not only are there more opportunities of doing trade with Canada than with the United States, but it is desirable that we should cultivate as close relations as possible with Canada. I notice that there appears to be no provision for advertising in the estimates. I have raised the matter on several previous occasions, for I believe we would get very considerable benefit if we spent a good deal more in advertising South African products overseas, but I would not go so far as to say that it would be better to spend money on advertising that we now expend in the payment of the salaries and expenses of our overseas trades commissioners. We provide a very inadequate sum for advertising our products in Great Britain. It is very desirable that we should develop that market, and that we should give our trade commissioner every facility for advertising our products. I notice that under A.4, Grants-in-Aid, a sum of £1,200 is set down for the Imperial Institute and an amount of £200 for the International Bureau of Customs Tariffs. I would very much like to see provision made for a grant to the committee which was set up at Ottawa as a result of the Ottawa conference, consisting of representatives of the various Dominions, in order to further investigate and facilitate trade between members of the commonwealth. The Minister of Finance made certain reservations when the committee was set up. In the first place, he said that, whilst not objecting to the setting up of that committee, he did not want us to be committed to it, and he made a second reservation that he did not want to commit South Africa to any expenditure in respect of that committee. I can quite understand that at that time he might have thought it undesirable to commit South Africa in any way in regard to that inter-commonwealth committee, but I do think that the position is quite clear now and that the majority of the people of this country recognize that the future of South Africa mainly depends upon inter-commonwealth trade. From that point of view I feel that the time has arrived when we should not allow a committee to be set up and do work from which we benefit, without our being parties to it. I think we should assist in seeing that the work of that committee is effectively done, and that we should also be prepared to bear our share of the expenses of that committee.

I should like to ask the Minister a question with regard to E. 3 Research ship “Africana.” I understand that that ship has been lent by this department for a certain time to carry out a hydrographic survey. I am interested in both phases of the activity of this ship, and I should like to know whether the Minister is satisfied that by lending this ship the very valuable work it does in regard to fisheries will not suffer.

When I was speaking previously I was dealing with the adverse balance of trade. I notice that Greece has passed a law, the basis of which is that that country will only deal with countries which deal with her. If we go on that basis we must cut out Czechoslovakia, from which we import goods to to the value of £362,000, while our exports to that country are nill. Then it is totally wrong for us to have an adverse balance with Japan of £1,020,000, and the question arises whether we can afford to trade unless there is a reciprocity tending to a greater measure of balance. I think we should take note of these adverse balances. There are many industries that could be fostered advantageously, if it were not for the fact that some nations are dumping goods into this country. I think that where there is an adverse balance overwhelmingly against us in regard to any nation we should find some means of protecting ourselves. This is a question that should be investigated by the Board of Trade, with the idea of South Africa being enabled to foster its industries, especially in the case of those countries who are not reciprocating in the matter of trade.

The few members of this House who have been advocating the development of fishing harbours welcome the statements made by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Mr. Scholtz) and the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). I do not, however, agree with the hon. member for Moorreesburg that we should have a higher protective duty on fish; our difficulty is not that we cannot sell our fish but that we have no fish to sell. By increasing our harbour facilities and assisting our inshore fishermen with the purchase of motor boats at least 3,000 extra men will find permanent employment and more fish caught. Last year I congratulated the Minister on having put £15,000 on the estimates, but I am sorry that I cannot congratulate him again this year, because only £2,000 of that amount was spent and this year’s amount of £16,000 is practically a revote. I hope a far larger sum will be placed on the estimates next year to open up our fishing harbours, and that all the money will be expended.

I would like to know what is cost of administration of the Rent Act. Has it not become a dead-letter? Has the Minister considered the advisability of doing away with rent boards? Has he considered the recommendations in the report of the Board of Trade that shop rents should also come under this? It seems to me that in the present state of affairs in the country the time has come to abolish the rent boards, as their work is practically finished.

No.

I weclome the recommendations and remarks which have been made in connection with this vote. This is the first time that it is dealt with separately, and put under its own heading. I think the country will agree with us that it was high time a separate department should be created for commerce and industries. The extent of the two great industries justifies it, and I think that under the lead of the new secretary, we shall undoubtedly take a great leap forward. Let me say that I welcome the co-operation of the Chambers of Commerce and the Chambers of Industries, and I expect that the two bodies will remain in close touch with this department. I would like to answer a few questions which have been put here. The first was put by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). As I said the other day, I am particularly glad that he is showing interest in our fishing industry; that it ought to be much bigger than it is today I do not doubt. We have all kinds of fish here, warm and cold water fish, and all kinds of fish which do not exist in any other part of the world. But notwithstanding the fact that during the past few years we have voted £10,000 to £12,000 for the enquiry, and that there have been very valuable results obtained, we have not yet made much progress. I think, therefore, that we may expect that there would first have to be a greater disposition on the part of the general public to tackle the business on a large scale in South Africa, before the Government can go further. Then he spoke of our industry having to be protected in order by that means to extend it. I want to say that I think that we already have a fairly high protection for our fish industry. On tinned fish we already have a customs duty of 2d. a pound. That ought to be sufficient to give the industry here a very big push. I hope that with all the interest that is being shown here the industry will be advanced. I hope that with the large sum of money which there is in the country, we shall find that people with capital will be prepared to put it into the fish industry, and I want to give them the assurance that the Government will treat them extremely sympathetically, and would do everything on its part to establish the industry on an extended basis. It has not only a large inland market in South Africa, but there is a tremendous market in the Central African territories, and in the east, in Netherlands-India and other countries. The Government is doing everything it can to encourage the industry. We are pushing it, and I want to make an appeal to the people who have much money, with which the banks are now overflowing. They will get good interest if they use that money for the development of a sound fishing industry. The Government will assist if an attempt is really made on a large scale, which will make the present industry lose its monpolistic character. I do not say it is a monopoly, but there are many people who say so, and it is their opinion. Competition will have a healthy result. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Mr. Scholtz) referred to the report of the Board of Trade and Industries. He wants to know when it will be printed. It will be ready in August, and, if there are reasonable recommendations in the report, which we, of course, expect, then I hope that we shall be able to do something. The Government are not pessimistic about the extension of our trade in Central Africa, and the Chambers of Commerce could really lend a hand in extending our trade there. We can get into a large part of that country without unfavourable tariffs against us. Possibly sufficient attention has not been devoted in the past to this part of Africa. It will be given now. In the past trade and industry did not always assist in supporting the efforts of the Government. There must be co-operation, because those parts use the very things that we are producing. The extension of our representation to those parts is being considered. We must also try to develop markets in the east. There are openings for us, and the Union is going to send a representative there. It has not yet been decided where he will live nor who will be appointed.

†The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) mentioned the possibilities of extending our trade in Kenya, and asked me whether the reduction in the Vote has anything to do with the rather unsatisfactory progress of our trade in Kenya. My reply is “No.” There has been the transfer of an officer from that office to the Industries division in Pretoria. The fact is, that his services could be spared, but by that I do not in the least wish the country to understand that we are pessimistic about the extension of our trade in these mid-African territories. I think that the chambers of commerce and industries, together with the department, could very well devote special attention to the extension of our trade up there. There is no doubt about it that these territories over there offer a very extensive opening to the goods which we produce. I have a list of them; but I will not weary the House with them. I have studied them extensively. There is an undoubtedly big market up there, and the beauty of it is that as to the territory covering the Congo basin we can enter on the same footing as any other country, so that we cannot be kept out of that market by any duties operating against us.

Is there an office there?

I am considering an office for the whole of that area. I think that we—and I am not speaking of anybody in particular have not devoted sufficient attention to the extension of our trade up there; and I will tell you why. I cannot forget, when two years ago the Government was prepared, and as a matter of fact, put an amount of £1,500 on the estimates to pay the expenses in connection with the exhibition to be held up there, commerce and industry were not active in doing their share. We had no representative on the spot, but that also could have been got over. It was then that commerce and industries came to me, and asked if the Government would pay for the transport of the goods they sent up, on top of the £1,500 we were providing. I am not blaming anyone in particular, but I want us now to put our heads together to see where the cause lies. There is our natural market; we are helped by our geographical position and yet we do not take it. They take the kind of goods which we produce and export and yet we do not get into that market. I would like the co-operation and I ask for the co-operation of commerce and industry, and of anyone else who takes an interest in the extension of our markets in the northern territories. So far from abolishing the office, I am considering extending our representation. I am also asked what the position is in connection with the appointment of a trade commissioner in the East. We cannot continue with the present position. We should endeavour to balance our trade with Eastern countries as soon as possible. That is the foundation of all trade. Either we should have to tell these people not to send their goods here— and that we cannot do—or we must get into their markets, and we have a perfect right to enter those markets. I have gone into the figures to see what they import of the goods we export, and there is no doubt that there is an opening there.

What do we supply to Japan?

What can we supply, that is the question. The question is to get into the market. You cannot say “I cannot get in” until you have made an effort. Two years ago we sent an officer to the East, and he made investigations in Japan, China, India and the East Indies. His report was favourable. As a matter of fact, he was insistent that we should open up there and should be represented in the East. Canada has sent two trades commissioners to China within the last two years. We propose sending one man. That is not sufficient and we hope it will not be sufficient for a long time. I hope it will be necessary for us to extend our representation in the East. We can hope to compete in certain respects with the older European countries simply because of our geographical position if for nothing else. We have not yet decided where this officer will be stationed. I have purposely left that over until after the session when I shall have the opportunity of studying further reports that I have asked for. Neither person nor place has yet been decided upon. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) asked what was the reason for the transfer of our trade commissioner from New York to Montreal. I need hardly say it is in view of the treaty with Canada which, we feel, must result in a big increase in our trade with Canada. All who went with the delegation last year felt it was essential that we should have representation in Canada and we felt in view of the fact that our office in Washington is not too far away from New York, the trade commissioner there should be transferred to Montreal. I have no doubt that good results will emanate from that transfer. I do not think I need go into the question of allowances.

Why?

Because everyone who has been in Canada knows the position there, and what the high cost of living is there. The hon. member also asked me whether I would be prepared to make a statement with regard to the position of petrol. Several deputations from the Motor Traders’ Association came to see me and complained that this law had hit them very severely. They asked me whether nothing could be done to stabilize their business. I told them that in the fiirst instance the object of the Bill was to bring down the price of petrol which, at that time, we considered was far too high. From that point of view it must be admitted that it was eminently successful, and you cannot both have your cake and eat it. The country wanted a cheaper price for petrol. I said, however, I was satisfied that the Motor Traders’ Association had done their little bit towards meeting the position, but I was not satisfied that everything had been done that could possibly be done by the other parties to the oil business, and that I would ask for a conference with the Motor Traders’ Association and the oil companies in Pretoria to have a discussion. I certainly wanted to allow them to make a reasonable profit and to do a reasonable trade, and I was prepared, if it could be shown that we were absolutely safeguarded so far as the price to the consumer was concerned, to consider measures which might stabilize their position, provided we were safeguarded against abuse of the position in regard to the price of petrol. I still adhere to that. In the meantime the Board of Trade and Industries has investigated this particular question and understand that its report is ready, although I have not had the time or the opportunity to read it. I shall do my best to lay it on the Table of the House before the end of the session.

Are you thinking of fixing a minimum price?

No, probably they may be able to satisfy the Government and in that case i we might be prepared to bring about some amendment of this particular Act so as to safeguard the position.

It shows where you get with laws of this kind.

I do not regret what we have done, and as a matter of fact let me say that I have already considered whether this Act should not be applied to a good many more commodities.

Don’t ask your supporters to vote for it.

I would ask for the support of the House and I daresay that where results have been so very satisfactory with regard to petrol, we may have the support of the majority of this House with regard to other commodities. I am considering the question of the greatest good to the greatest number, and I do say that there is no doubt that there was serious overtrading in the petrol business.

If there had been overtrading the prices would have come down.

That does not always apply. Competition is good up to a point. After that they make rings, and agree about prices in order to keep going.

Have a look at the wholesalers.

Yes, I shall. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) asked a question in regard to advertising in London, and wanted to know what provision we have made. He will see in the votes that there is substantial provision made. We have also restored, if not entirely, then to a very large extent, the amount which was previously expended by the railways on publicity overseas. I have an amount of £10,000 down and a good portion of this will be used by our trade commissioners in the advertisement of our products. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Mr. Waterson) asked me how long the “Africana” will be engaged on hydrographical survey. As far as I am concerned, the arrangement is for one year. My department is agreeable to allow the “Africana” to be used for the next year on the basis of six months on the fisheries survey, and six months for hydrographical survey. I hope that with the experience which we shall get, it will be possible to come to a definite arrangement for the future. I am satisfied that by doing this hydrographical survey for six months, our research work will not greatly suffer, if at all.

I am very glad to hear that the Minister has taken some interest in the expansion of our trade in other parts of Africa. I have a recollection a few years ago after a visit I paid to the Congo of asking the Government to appoint a South African consul or trade commissioner at Elisabethville. There was a gentleman there who was perfectly willing to undertake the work. He was a South African, had done work of a similar nature before, and was quite suitable, but the Government refused to consider the matter. I do not quite agree that South African trade has had a fair deal in the Congo Basin under the treaty, despite the fact that is a free trade area. As a matter of fact, it is quite correct to say that all kinds of restrictions are placed in the way of our trade in Katanga, and one of the first things which the Government must do is to appoint someone to look after our trade at Elisabethville. It is a very expanding trade area, and there is a large industrial centre there. I think that the Government would be well advised to look into the position existing at Elisabethville. It need not cost much, and it is not necessary to send a full-time official there. Then I would like to say a few words about the expansion of our trade in Europe. I do not think that sufficient has been done to work hand in hand with the Empire Marketing Board, and while we have given a certain amount of favourable consideration to that board, we have not gone out of our way to make it as useful to us as we could have done. At Ottawa, when the matter was brought up, we refused to contribute towards it, and the conference seriously considered its dissolution altogether. I think that that institution has been of enormous benefit to our trade, and if it can be treated more favourably by our Government, it will be of very much more use to us than it has been.

I think we all welcomed the Minister’s statement this afternoon that he is going to look to the north for our markets, and I think we can all be glad that the new portfolio of commerce and industries has been created. South Africa is a white man’s country, as opposed to the north, which is mainly a native country. In the north and central Africa I do not think the climatic conditions will ever allow it to become a white man’s country. In our time there will never be great manufacturing centres there such as we have here. We can produce all they want— boots, cement, tinned food, blankets, etc., etc. We can produce all that for them here, and we have the coal, we have the iron, we have all the raw materials and facilities to produce what they require; and I feel that that is where we should look for one of our main markets. Yes, even wheat, particularly biscuits, etc., etc. We cannot hope to compete in foreign overseas markets with manufactured articles; could we sell boots and steel to England; cement to Belguim or cars to America? But we can sell our goods to central Africa. We can have our markets for all the manufactures in Africa. If we can develop to the north we can supply them with all they want, and that will be a great standby when, in years to come, the mines start producing less gold, and when our greatest industry ceases being as productive is it is today. Our secondary industries can never be one of our mainstays if our only market is to be the Union. Secondary industries, if they only have an internal market, are entirely dependent on the primary industries, and they will then decline when the gold industry declines. We must therefore look to markets outside our own borders. Here is the point that brought me to my feet: if we can find big outlets for manufactured articles to the north, then tremendous secondary development can be carried out here. This will supply a big internal market for farm produce, for a big manufacturing class will have to be clothed and fed. To-day Johannesburg is our biggest internal market, but as the mines dry up so will this market subside; a very serious position for the farmer, whose big market is the internal one. Years ago England took as her slogan: “England to be the workshop of the world.” Let our slogan be: “The Union to be the workshop of Africa.”

I would like to express my pleasure at the remarks the Minister has made showing that at last he has realized the importance of our markets in the north. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) and myself have repeatedly suggested the advisability of stationing a trade commissioner or consul at Elisabethville or in Northern Rhodesia. The extraordinary expansion of the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia now more than warrants our taking every step to expand our trade with those territories. I suggest that a trade commissioner should be stationed at Ndola, which has grown very rapidly of recent years, and which is destined to become a great distributing centre. I am sorry to have heard that when a trade exhibition was held at Elisabethville a few years ago the Minister did not receive the support he should have had from the commercial community of the Union who should have been adequately represented at that exhibition, for thus we missed a great opportunity of making our products better known in a centre which offers a valuable market for our products.

Hon. members will possibly not know that there is a great deal of torbanite in the eastern Transvaal, and that raw oil is obtained from that torbanite. There are at least 60 gallons of oil in a ton of torbanite. It has been proved that there are very great quantities of the torbanite. For the last few years, there have been several companies taking the raw oil out of the torbanite. There are, as I have said, at least 60 gallons of oil in a ton of torbanite, and there is also other oil in it. I think that everyone will understand what it will mean to the country if that oil can be manufactured into petrol, because it has been found that there is 62 per cent. of petrol in the oil. Various companies are engaged in the business, and probably the work in connection with the manufacture of petrol out of oil will shortly be brought to a head. I want to ask if the people could be protected against the foreign companies. We all know what power the oil companies have abroad, and it will be easy for them, by means of the introduction of petrol at very low prices, to kill the young industry. I am not asking a preference for the people, but only that they should be protected against foreign competition, so that if the industry develops in South Africa it shall not be smothered.

I would just like to know from the Minister whether he intends to introduce legislation in connection with the system of coupons and free gifts. I have for long felt that something should be done in this direction, and I should be glad to know when the Minister will give his attention to the matter.

I can assure the hon. the Minister that there is not one of the centres that he has named in the east which, from the volume of its trade and the possibilities of business, does not warrant the appointment of a trade commissioner. The Minister has got one trade commissioner for the whole of the Far East. Look at the situation with regard to Ceylon. Our trade there has disappeared because it has not been well fostered. The hon. the Minister mentioned Hong Kong. It is an enormous centre, very largely European, and a free trade port, and it is a remarkable fact that America has secured a hold in Hong Kong with products which should come from South Africa. This also applies to Singapore and Shanghai. I suggest that the development of our trade in the far east is worthy of consideration One trade commissioner cannot possibly cover satisfactorily all the places in which trade should be developed. The possibilities of trade for South Africa in the far east are very great, and I hope that the Minister will, during the recess, consider the advisability of appointing a trade commissioner at each of the places I have mentioned. A sum of about £2,000 a year is a small expenditure if there is a possibility of our extending our trade. I trust that the Minister will reconsider the position, and that he will give favourable consideration to the report of his own far eastern representative. Trade will never be secured in the far east by one trade commissioner for the whole of that part of the world.

A great deal has been said about trade commissioners for the east, but I would like to congratulate the Government on the appointment of a representative in Palestine, an appointment which is not going to cost the country anything. The Government has appointed an honorary commissioner in Palestine. He will be virtually our representative. One of his duties will be to open up better trade relations between South Africa and Palestine, and I am sure the fact of his going to Palestine will do a great deal of good. I mention this because it is recognised to-day that Palestine is a meeting place between east and west. I think the Government has made a very wise move indeed, and that it is to be congratulated on this first attempt to secure better trade relations between east and west. I would also like to ask the Minister why we have the items, which are set down in sub-Vote F, page 125, for the expenses of the Electricity Control Board. I thought the board was self-contained. Will the Minister explain the items?

Let me say at once that I welcome the remarks made by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) because they coincide largely with the reports we have from there, and that has really induced us to make a commencement by appointing one trade commissioner. We would welcome, as I said before, the necessity of more trades commissioners, and we will keep a very close watch on the course of events. Let me assure the committee that there are other things, too, that will have to be gone into. It is not only the case that these people buy goods which we export, but there is the important question of rates of transport, freight and so forth, and we are making a beginning now. We must test the position, and I hope it will be possible very soon to balance our unfavourable trade with the east. I am very glad that also it is his experience, and that proves that the step the Government is taking is correct. His only complaint is that we are not doing enough. Well, time can remedy that. The hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Wessels) asked me what the Government’s attitude is with regard to the coupon and free gifts system. The committee will know that representations have repeately been made against the practice of issuing these coupons and free gifts. I have had the matter investigated, and I am satisfied that the abolition of this system will tend to lower the cost of living. I have a definite assurance from three of the big tea companies that their prices would be lower to the consumer by at least twopence per lb. if it were not necessary for them to compete with this system. I intend to introduce legislation next session to abolish that, not only in respect of articles which are necessaries of life, but generally. If it applies to one thing, then it must apply to everything. I am glad that I am given the opportunity of answering the question here now because this should serve as a warning to those who have stocks on hand to get rid of those stocks.

Don’t you need an enquiry before you do that?

I am entirely satisfied that it will lower the cost of living. Now there is another question, put by the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. S. P. Bekker). I am very pleased that this question of oil refining has come to a head now. The propositions which were put before us in the past were not satisfactory, and the propositions now put forward are, I may say, quite satisfactory. As I have always said, the Government would give any company which would start in this business fair and reasonable protection, especially when they have to suffer unfair competition. They asked, of course, for many concessions at the beginning. Now there are companies which are prepared to start without concessions, and all they ask is what is a reasonable request, that there should be no unfair competition. That would be by other companies lowering their price and dumping their goods here. I asked the Board of Trade to look into the matter, and the Board has reported that in such cases the customs tariff should be amended, so as to allow of protection against dumping. Anybody wishing to start therefore will be covered if the Customs Act is altered accordingly. That recommendation of the board is receiving our consideration now, and I think that ought to be sufficient for companies wishing to start, that they will be protected against unfair competition. In reply to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) I wish to say that the chairman of the Electricity Supply Commission is appointed by the Government and paid by the Government.

I would like to endorse the remarks of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson). Having travelled extensively in the east, I can see the great necessity for establishing these markets. There are wonderful opportunities for South African fruits particularly in southern India, Ceylon and the Federated Malay States, and not only for fruit, but for South African wines as well. There is very little that we export to-day that we could not get rid of in the east. I would really like to see not one trade commissioner, but half a dozen, for the markets out there are colossal. The European population of the east really do not mind what they pay for an article so long as they get what they want, and can get it all the year round. I feel sure that the possibilities of the east are absolutely inexhaustible for South African goods, and particularly brandies, wines, fruit and coal. I should have liked the Minister to have dealt with the question of the rent boards. This is a burning question in regard to shop rents, particularly in Durban, and the time is long overdue when the rent board should apply its activities to shops. They are paying high shop rents by the foot, almost by the inch, and I would like the Minister to give us some’ information as to what are the activities of the rent boards.

The administration of the Rent Act places the rent boards under this department. There is still a necessity in many areas for the existence of these boards. Although they do not function yet, the fact that they are there makes it unnecessary for them to function. We do not propose to abolish the rent boards. There is no intention at present—I will give it my consideration afterwards—to extend their operations to shops.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote 29, “Lands”, £177,223.

I would like to discuss a point of great importance and, therefore, I want to make use of the 30 minutes rule. I find to my regret that there is not a penny made available for land under settlement schemes. Hon. members will, perhaps, refer me to the £126,000 on the loan estimates, but, according to my information, every penny of that amount has already been earmarked for previous applications, and there is, therefore, nothing available for new applications. It will be entirely useless to apply under section 11 this year. Hon. members who, like myself, receive a number of letters with requests for recommendations and testimonials, know what a shock it would be to the people who have already raised their hopes in connection with their applications. I only want to mention my own constituency, Senekal. It will be a great shuck to people in that district to learn that they cannot make any applications because there would be no hope in it. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the position of the bywoner and sowing-helper. I think everyone who knows that class of people will agree with me that they are a very useful section of society. In the old days, the view was expressed that the bywoner was a man too lazy to go ahead and become independent. Those of us who know our bywoners will not agree with that. They are a conservative element on which the Government can rely much better in times of difficulty than on many elements in the towns. They preserve their traditions and their religion, and communism will not make any headway with them. It is in the interests of our country to keep these people on the land and to prevent them going to the towns, but owing to the change of circumstances, there is a danger that the bywoner element will be completely eliminated, and that it will increase the stream of the proletariat to the towns. I would like to describe what I have seen on the countryside in my own neighbourhood.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

When the House adjourned at six o’clck, I was just saying that economic conditions and a combination of circumstances were, in my opinion, about to eliminate the bywoner and sower class. It is a subject to which I have given some attention in my own constituency, and the results of the study I have made leave me to think that there are three main reasons for the elimination of the class. The first reason is the sub-division of farms. Twenty years ago when farms were still large I found that there was plenty of room for bywoners on farms. The owner, however, dies and the farm is sub-divided between four or five children. Every child works his portion alone with the result that the bywoner is no longer required, and with the result that he has to go and look for another place. That is the first reason why this class is disappearing. The second is the use of modern farm implements. To give a small illustration. We used always in the old days, to plough with a double furrow plough. The farmer subsequently found out that when he ploughed with a double furrow plough, he had to put two additional oxen before the plough, and then he could plough with a triple furrow plough. Where formerly he required five ploughs to plough ten furrows a day, he now does nine furrows with three ploughs. This is an additional reason why the chances for this bywoner and sower class are diminishing. The first reason is due to the depression. Unfortunately, the position has been such of late that a landowner requires every little bit of benefit that he can get out of his farm and he has no profit to hand over to the bywoner or sower. If, then, we consider the bywoner, I am now talking of my district, he is a man who usually has 20 to 30 cattle and about 60 sheep. He ploughs on the halves or possibly on the third share. Compare him now with the native who lives on the farm who has a horse and possibly a few cows, and gets four acres of land. Then we can understand why a landowner who himself possibly is close to the edge of the abyss, who is in danger of losing his land and needs every piece of it, gets rid of his bywoner and employs the natives. He cannot help it. I have seen during the course of the past year, what a bad time these people have. Numbers of them came to my office and said: “Mr. Visser, cannot you find me a place, because I wander about from place to place with my stock to try and find a home, but nowhere do I succeed.”

To what extent does this concern the Lands Department?

Unfortunately you were not in the chair when I started. If you look at the Estimates you will see that money was not made available to the Minister of Lands to make provision for these bywoners. I am bringing up this matter to show that it is necessary that money should be made available so that the Minister of Lands can assist to find a place where these people can carry on their occupation again, where they can start a little farming again. In some places I was able to find a place for them, but in most cases I could not. In the end the person had to sell his stock. He possibly got £150 for it and went to live in the village where he lived on his capital until such time as he lapsed into poor whiteism, and this, while there was a chance of his being saved. In view of this I called meetings of the farmers’ associations and at public meetings pointed out to the landowners that it was unfair for us to ask the town councils to replace the natives by whites, when the landowners were replacing whites by natives. In many cases it did good, because many landowners employed these people. I pointed out that the landowner also had a duty towards the less-privileged Europeans, and that it should be his pride that he was an employer of white men. As I said, it did good in many cases, but on the other hand we must also remember that the landowner himself is struggling and having a hard time. He would like to do it very much, but he simply cannot keep on the white bywoner. The only hope the white bywoner has at the moment is in the office of the Minister of Lands. There will be great disappointment when I have to go back to my constituency and have to tell these people that unfortunately provision cannot be made for them, that this year they have been passed over. I have received a petition from a part of the former constituency of the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Swart), which was sent to the Minister of Lands. For the information of the Committee I want to read it out, as follows—

This petition was signed by 200 residents in that constituency. I know it is very easy for a member of Parliament to get up here and say that conditions are very sad in this or the other respect and that help must be given. He is expected to give hints as well. With all humility I want to give four hints, and I hope that the Minister of Lands will give them serious consideration. The first is this: provision is made on the Estimates for an amount of £2,000,000 for paying off old debts, namely, the accumulated deficit of previous years. I agree with that, and I am very glad about it, because since I have been in Parliament I have had to give an explanation in my constituency every year as to why there was a deficit. Particularly at this time when our finance and our Budget rests on the unsound paper basis, I think the Minister of Finance would be neglecting his duty if he did not pay off the accumulated deficit at this time. Next year, however, the deficit will be gone and then we shall have a surplus of this £2,000,000, which will not be necessary to pay the deficit and I want now to ask the Minister of Lands in good time to get a considerable part of that surplus put at his disposal for capital which will be available for people who apply under section 11 of the Act. The bywoner must either be on the land or on the roads. On the roads he is paid 4s. a day while the native is paid 1s. 6d. a day. When a native is used, 2s. 6d. is saved which is approximately £40 a year. That amount is sufficient to pay the interest on the piece of ground which such a person can get to make a living on as a bywoner or a settler. That £40 a year is in any case ultimately paid by the man who has the land, and this saving of £40 therefore eventually goes into the Treasury. Not only from an humanitarian or Afrikaner point of view, but also from a financial one it is much better to save that money and to keep the bywoner on the land instead of letting him work on the roads where the native can be used. Let us think of the position of a man who has farmed all his life and who now drops out and goes to work on the roads. What is his position? The large landowner has lost his land. He works on the road and what prospects has he of ever going ahead? His prospects are working at 4s. a day year in and year out as long as he remains strong and healthy. We hear that a person has been condemned to so many years hard labour. This man is condemned to hard labour for his whole life. Just think what that man has to do. He has to keep two households going. How can he save for his old age? Some of us who have to live economically know that if five or six people eat out of one pot, it does not make such a great difference if one more is added. This person, however, has to provide a pot of food in the village for his family and then he also has to cook a pot of food for himself on the road. This practically doubles the cost. What must the moral effect of this be? I want to bring it to the notice of the Minister of the Interior.

The hon. member can only discuss matters coming under the Department of Lands.

Then I bring this matter to the notice of the Minister of Lands, and I hope that he will bring it to the notice of the Minister of the Interior. What must be the moral effect on these people who live in one part while their wives and children live in another? As the Minister of Native Affairs is here, I want to put the question to him. If all the subordinate work is taken away from the natives in this way, what are they to live on?

The hon. member is now very far away from Lands. He can only discuss matters connected with the Lands Department.

With deep respect I want to say that natives also live on the land.

I can only allow the hon. member to discuss the policy of the Minister and Lands and matters that he can deal with.

If the Minister of Lands were to have money available to remove these people from the roads, it would assist in not putting the natives out of their work. That is merely the point I wanted to make. The second suggestion I want to make is this: I hope the Minister will take notice of it because it will cost nothing. A few days ago we heard from a reply to a question that the Land Bank had about 140 farms on its hands which it had to take over because people could not pay. I suggest that the Minister should take over from the Land Bank the farms that are suitable for land settlement, and cut up and use them under section 10 for the people who have only stock and implements, but no land. He can take over the farms on the same conditions on which they are now granted to farmers. I hope the Minister will bear this hint in mind. Hon. members will possibly ask why the people cannot go to the Land Bank themselves and take over the farms. The answer is that they are only poor people, and the farms that the Land Bank takes over are usually too large for one man of that class. But if the Minister can arrange it in the way I have suggested then they can be assisted to take over the farms. The third suggestion I want to make is that the landowners should be encouraged to retain the bywoners on the farms. We can do it. At present a man is encouraged to have many children because he can deduct £75 of his return for income tax in respect of every child. Why cannot we grant the same concession to the farmer if he has a bywoner on his farm?

The hon. member cannot discuss that as it requires legislation.

I am sorry that I cannot go on, but in any case I am glad that the Minister heard it. The fourth and last suggestion is that the Minister can consider whether the time has not come to protect the bywoner and sowinghelper, but especially the latter, particularly in relation to the harvest. There was recently a very sad occurrence in my constituency. A bywoner living on a farm sowed throughout the year and before the end of the year, just as he intended to reap his harvest, the mortgagee came and sold the farm together with the bywoner’s harvest. That is permissible under the existing law, and I cannot discuss it, but it was hard that the whole year’s work of that man was lost. I would like the Minister, because he is really the father of this Act, to give his attention to the matter.

I hope the Minister will consider the suggestions of the hon. member for Senekal (Mr. Visser) and carry them out as far as he can. I agreed with most of the points the hon. member raised, and I want particularly to stress his request that the Minister of Lands should negotiate with the Land Bank to grant the farms which the Land Bank has taken over to settlers. The farms often were over-capitalized and the Land Bank now want to sell them again at the value of the bond, although that is often too high. If the farms are sold at those prices, the people will only go bankrupt again. Therefore, it is better that the Land Bank should sell them at a reasonable price. But I really rose to ask what the policy of the Minister of Lands is, whether he has a policy, and what it is. In my opinion, the Department of Lands was chiefly established to administer the Lands Settlement Act of 1912. Three different ways were laid down for helping settlers. In the first place, by selling land to settlers, but the available land is becoming more and more limited, and the necessity to-day is not for extension, but for more intensive development of the land. In this way, much is not being done now for settlers. The second way is for the State to buy land and sell it again to settlers at reasonable conditions. Recently there has hardly been any more land sold, and the department itself was not able to put people on the land in that way. It is astonishing that the Government does not do more in this direction, because this is the right time to get hold of land reasonably and to sell it again at a fair price. I am, there fore, very sorry that the Government does not tackle the matter. The third way is to grant land under section 11. That is intended for persons who take an option over the land and who are assisted if they can pay one-tenth of the purchase price. The same objection applies here that the Government has not made anything available to assist the people. The amount on the estimates is only enough to fulfil existing obligations Accordingly, it is not possible to assist the people this year by the third method either. I therefore would like to know the policy of the Government. If there ever was a time to assist the people then it is now. I want with the utmost emphasis to strongly urge the Government to buy as many farms as possible now. Ground is cheap and the Government can now make it available cheaply under section 11. Unless the Government does so, we must assùme that it does not want to assist the settlers any more. The Government must not be discouraged because most of the settlers were not able to make a living of late. The reason is that all farmers are in difficulties, and the land was sold too dear for the settlers. Owing to that, the farmers are not able to pay interest on the dear land. We must also do it, because we are now living in times when land can be bought cheaply. It is more than ever the time now that money should be made available to buy land for the people. I quite agree with the hon. member for Senekal that you have the suitable man to put on your land to-day. It is the farmer who has failed, not because he is too bad to farm, but owing to circumstances and abnormally bad times. We must now make use of the opportunity to get hold of land and to encourage settlements for placing people on them. I, therefore, hope that the Government will shortly have money available for those people. Then I want to express my pleasure that there will be more co-ordination between the Department of Lands and the Department of Irrigation, because they both come under the same Minister. I want to make the suggestion to the Minister to make use of the Land Settlement Act and to apply it to the irrigation schemes. He has the very best opportunity now for putting the people on the settlements. I have always yet noticed that we do not put people on the irrigation schemes under that Act. I hope that the Minister will now do so. I hope that he will bear it in mind and will try to get hold of the proper people to make a success of those schemes. I know that the previous Minister commenced to make a start with that point. He had the opportunity of carrying it out, and I hope the present Minister will do it. Then I also want to suggest that when he is thinking of settlements, he should regard farming as a profession, not merely for old people with families, but also for young men and students leaving school. Let ns encourage them to go and live on the land. I hope the Minister will give his attention to the matter, and that he will give our country satisfaction by a statement that money will be made available for the purchase of land. We need settlements in this country. [Time limit.]

I want to ask for the extension of settlements in the country. This is the best time for acquiring land. You always had to tell your constituents that there was no money available, and that they must wait another year. We realized later, however, that in the position we are now in, there will, nevertheless, be money available to buy that land. I now learn that there is no money, and the reason given for that statement is that settlements are a failure. Well, if settlements are a failure, then farming is a failure, and if we are going to say at this juncture that farming is a failure, then we may as well abandon farming altogether. There are surely many people who intend buying land and who want money from the Government. I handed in a petition to the Secretary for Lands signed by 15 people who are very keen on getting some land. Up there under the dam along the Fish River, there are only 360 taxpayers, and there are 24,000 morgen of land. There are many people who still want to go and live there. Farms are sold from time to time, and this is the time when we should buy some of them on the land below the catchment dam, so that the land can be irrigated. If we had the farms the people can be put on them. I hope that the Minister who now has charge of the Irrigation Department as well as the Department of Lands, will so tackle the position that the Department of Lands and the Department of Irrigation will work together, and that a job will be made of it to get hold of the land under the Irrigation Act. There is a vocational school where the boys are taught farming, and soon those boys will be finished and ready to go on to the farms as foremen. Those boys are already learning how to irrigate in farming work, and we must give them the opportunity. There is a further opportunity in connection with this matter, and it is that there are thousands and thousands of people who have already left their land and certain amounts have already been written off. There are certain companies which have the ground; they must not maintain a monopoly over the ground. We can select the people to-day to go and live on those farms if we have money available to buy the ground. There is another aspect of the matter which we must not lose sight of, namely, that if we get the people who can work these small pieces of land, a proper system of education would have to be established to train the children of these people.

That falls under the Education vote, and cannot be dealt with under the Lands vote.

If we want to keep the people on the land as good farmers, then we must provide education.

The Minister has already dealt with that.

The Minister will get the very best possible settlement if he can put educated people on the land, and if they have education provided there, they will get the best possible education which will make them fit for settlement. The Minister will then bring experienced settlers on to the land. I hope the Minister will accept the position and try to put the irrigation schemes on a sound footing, and that he will do all in his power to find land for these people. Many more people could live on the settlement because at present there are only 360 taxpayers on a piece of land in respect of which £1,200.000 has already been written off.

I must say that it was a great disappointment to me to see that there was hardly any money for the purchase of land under the Land Settlement Act. Our people have a splendid character and it is their urge and desire to become landowners. We are constantly talking here about having to keep the people on the land, and we expect the Government to help them to remain on the land. It may possibly be said to-day that the settlements have been a failure, but then I want to ask if there is one farmer in this House who can say that his farming has been successful during the last few years. There is not one. How then can it be expected that the settlers should make a success on a small piece of land? The present Minister of Lands knows Heilbron very well, because he lived there for many years, and he will know that despite everything, the people remained on the land and struggled through and tried to make good. Is that then a reason for being so very disappointed that the settlers during the last few years have not met their obligations, when practically not a single farmer has met his. I agree with the hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Wessels) who recently said that notwithstanding the tremendous drought and difficulties our people who have done their very utmost complain that they are still constantly receiving demands and threats from the department that if they do not pay in full, they will have to leave their ground. Is this a time to threaten people when they cannot possibly pay as the Department knows? Their harvests have failed, they have had bad prices, etc., and I want to plead with the Minister and the Department to be merciful. Give them a chance. I am certain of it, knowing, as I do, those settlers, that they will make a success of farming when times improve. There is another matter I want to touch upon. There are some of our settlers who have to quit their ground. I agree with the hon. member for Senekal (Mr. Visser) that if another man is put on the ground we cannot possibly expect him to pay the excessive price at which the ground was originally valued. Let the ground be re-valued, and the man come in on the revalued ground so that he still has an opportunity of making a success there. I want again to urge the Government kindly not to keep on worrying the people in these times. They know quite well what the circumstances are, and that people cannot pay the money. Why then threaten them all day that if they do not pay they will be put off their land? I also hope the Minister will make a further sum available for the purchase of land. When better times come, the settlements will succeed. To-day they have not been a success, but nothing succeeds at present. I think, however, that it would be quite a wrong step for the Government when we are considering means of keeping the people on the land, to say that no more people will be put on the land. I do not know whether that is the policy of the Government and I shall be glad if the Minister will say what the policy is, and whether they want to kill the development of settlements entirely. If that is done, it will, in my opinion, be a very great mistake, and it will certainly not be in the interest of the country.

Nearly half of my constituents are settlers and I feel that I should be neglecting my duty if I do not say a few words of thanks on behalf of the settlers to the previous Minister of Lands, and if I did not express the confidence that the new Minister of Lands will make himself worthy of the title which the previous Minister won for himself, “father of the settlers.’’ There has never been a time when the settlers needed the sympathy of their Minister and the Department more than now, but I want to confine myself mainly to the settlers under section 11. Usually if the settlers fail, the holdings revert to the Government. Then the Minister is justified in revaluing the holdings which are then re-issued as Crown land under section 16. The majority of the purchases under section 11 in my district were made when the price of land was amazingly dear because it was always based more or less on the interest that it paid, and there was land which paid good interest. The ground was purchased far too dearly and the greatest number of the settlers under section 11 cannot make a living there today. Now I want to ask the Minister in these circumstances when the land cannot pay the interest to-day— and the settlers are liable to four per cent. interest while the ordinary landowners are now to be on a basis of 3½ per cent.—to favourably consider their case. I want to ask the Minister to make enquiries and if he finds— and I believe he will find—that 50 per cent. of the land purchased under section 11 offers no prospect to the settlers of making a living, not to allow the people to go under, but simply to have the land re-valued. Do not first allow the people to go under and then allow another man to come on to the same ground who also will not be able to exist. I do not want to make any charges against the Lands Department but circumstances have brought about that even ground, which has subsequently been given out under section 15 and section 16, was valued too high by various land boards. In Kuruman, the previous Minister of Lands, had a re-valuation made during his time, and when one compares the price which the land first cost with the price at which the Land Board subsequently granted to the settlers, we find that the ground was granted subsequently at a much dearer figure than was originally the case. The reason simply was that the people could make a living there at the time, but to-day that is not the case, and I want to paint out to the Minister, apart from what hon. members said about writing-off, that the Department must not be unmerciful because the people, especially in my district which is under quarantine, include, so far as Kuruman is concerned, practically only his settlers. The people have been under quarantine since January last, and have no food to eat. How then can they fulfil the obligations to the Department? They are in extremely bad condition, and if the Minister and the Department are not merciful, I foresee that the settlers will simply have to leave their ground within 12 months. Another grievance in my constituency is the line which has been drawn behind which land is bought by the Department. The argument of the previous Minister always was that he could not put ground under section 11 alongside that under section 15, that he could not put land where a man paid one per cent. next to land where another man paid four per cent. Two-thirds of Kuruman fall across the line, and as the line is drawn there are also private owners behind the line and their ground has immediately become reduced 50 per cent. in value, owing to the drawing of the line.

Do you want us to cancel the one per cent.?

Oh, no. Many of my settlers cannot even pay the one per cent. But why should they not pay one per cent. without the line being drawn? It can be laid down that one per cent. interest must be paid on all the land under section 16. Why the line? I consider that the Department is not entitled to make a law to reduce in value the fixed property of a man by 50 per cent. in order to assist settlers. I consider that the regulation in that connection is not a good one, nor desirable, and that it ought not to apply there. The previous Minister of Lands said that I was consulted in the matter when the line was drawn. Even if I was consulted in the matter, then I would not have objected to it because I would not have known what the regulations would be that would apply to it.

What are you angry about?

No, I am not angry, but my constituents feel sore that the ground lying outside of that line is not bought under section 11 of the Act. I hope the Minister will go into the matter and that he will amend the regulations so that this grievance will be removed.

After all these generalities, I think it is high time that we got down to actualities. I wish to refer to “Head E1, Salaries, wages and allowances for the Karos, Buchuberg and Orange River Island Settlements, £2,904” on page 131 of the Estimates. I would like some information concerning the Buchuberg scheme, which was very seriously criticized at the time of its inception. We accepted that scheme on the understanding, and in the hope, that the settlers on the land to be irrigated would be men who had been engaged on the carrying out of the scheme. Can the Minister please tell us what is the position, and what proportion of the settlers were engaged on the construction work? The supervision charges seem rather exhorbitant for there are a superintendent at £900 a year, a senior clerk at £550 a year, an agricultural supervisor at £400 a year, as well as three clerical assistants and one storekeeper. Then there is a committee of control which is costing £300 a year. What exactly are the functions of this committee of control? Does the committee control the superintendent or does the superintendent control the committee? I note that the allowances to, and transport of, probationers will cost £16,000. That implies that you are taking young men from outside as probationers. Can the Minister tell us what proportion of these probationers have become settlers and what is the cost per probationer? I criticize these items because I would be very loath to see the Buchuberg settlement drift into the position of the Hartebeestpoort settlement, for it is estimated that it would be cheaper for the State to pay the Hartebeestpoort settlers a pension of £120 a year each rather than the country should have incurred the very heavy expenditure in carrying out that scheme.

I want to heartily associate myself with what the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Raubenheimer) has said in such an eloquent and convincing manner. I also have a large number of settlers in my constituency. I went to the Land Office several times with petitions from the settlers, and also in connection with the line which has been drawn for the payment of one per cent. The people ask that the whole district should come under the one per cent. provision, but as things now stand, a disqualification will be put on the whole area, and the value of ground will immediately depreciate. I may possibly be jointly responsible for the passing of the Act concerned, but why put this stigma or blot on the areas, where the one per cent. is being paid. We do not want that blot on the areas which are proclaimed as an area falling under the provisions regarding one per cent. If it is a dry area, so that one per cent. is paid there, the Minister will not allow land in that area to be bought under section 11 of the Act. Why make a distinction like that between farms in the same district? It is criminal to do such a thing. The line has been drawn in consultation with the Department of Lands in my district, but no angel out of heaven could have drawn that line well. We had a visit from the former Minister of Lands, the very best Minister we have ever had, and he said that we should draw the line in such a way that the people who could sow on their farms should come under the four per cent. and those who could only farm with cattle, under the one per cent. We acted to the best of our ability, but now there are more farms that fall under the one per cent. that should come under the four per cent., and vice versa, farms that should come under the four per cent. come under the one per cent. The people are now reproaching me and the Minister of Lands, why must one man pay four per cent. and his neighbour one per cent.

Do you now want to put the blot on the whole lot?

We want everyone under the one per cent. stipulation, but we do not want to have that blot on the division. The Minister now says some farms must pay four per cent. because those people have better farms. He must, however, remember that those people are paying higher prices for their farms and now they have in addition to pay a higher rate of interest. I am sorry that the present Minister of Lands sits so close to the previous Minister of Lands. The former Minister is influencing him, because this Act is his child, and he does not want to repudiate it. The settlements in my division throughout the whole of South Africa suffer from three evils. The first is that too much is paid for the ground and accordingly there is over-capitalization. I want to repeat that we were all swelled up in that period of inflation. We in the country and even the Land Board paid too much for land and valued it too high. The land was bought and now the settlers are left to nurse the baby. They cannot pay and the Department of Lands sends them letters that unless they pay they must leave. It is i very unfortunate because it is impossible for those people to pay. The former Minister of Lands met me in connection with a large part of the district and the interest was brought down to one per cent. I want it to be brought down right throughout the district, but I do not want that blot on the district. Now I come to the second point, namely, section 11 of the Lands Settlement Act. It will possibly be said that it is loan money and that the Government themselves have to pay a high rate of interest, and that it is not possible to write off the interest. It is, however, time that a new start was made. We must turn over a new leaf, or, as the English say, we must make a “grand stroke.” It must be written off because it is no use making poor whites of those people. It is a vicious circle, the way things are going now because one man after the other that comes to such a farm can make no living, and leaves as a poor white for the towns. The value of the ground has dropped 50 per cent. and the Government should also re-value that ground and write it off. The Government has done it before. As an example, I can mention the case of one of the best farms in my district, Rooiplaas. It cost £24,000, the farmer had a dam built and made a miscalculation about it and without consulting the man, the farm was sold by the Government in the open market for £4.500 and they took it. It is clear that we must write off that interest because otherwise we are only manufacturing poor whites. The solution of poor whiteism is: back to the land. Then we must give the people a livelihood on the farms. If we want to stop this stream to the towns, we must make it possible for them to exist on the land. I would like to associate myself with what the hon. member for Senekal (Mr. Visser) has said. When a man has no ground then he has nothing but his oxen and his equipment, then he can still work with a farmer on a farm, and earn a living. We can assist that man to become a bywoner, because if he gets no chance of working he will only increase the stream to the towns. Then I also want to ask the Minister about the petition which was sent in to abolish the line drawn in that district. We ask him to remove that stigma from the people who fall within the line, by treating the whole district alike and bringing down the interest for all to one per cent.

I just want to say a few words and associate myself with hon. members who complain that this year so little money is voted for the purchase of land and ask the Minister to show more mercy to the people who have bought land under section 11. This matter really deserves the serious consideration of the Minister. They bought the land when it was dear, and they paid big prices, but I think that a re-valuation and a reduction of the interest will help most of the people through. It may possibly be said that the interest is only four per cent. and that is little, but we have brought down the interest of the other man to 3½ per cent. and for this poorer man it is very desirable that the Minister should also bring down the interest to per cent. I would like to plead on behalf of the people who in certain respects are being treated unfairly. You have places now where a man has bought land, erected camps, built a house, made dams and has got into financial difficulties when he gets notice that if he does not pay the arrear monies within a certain time, he will have to leave the ground. I can mention cases where they have received notice to leave the ground and when they leave it, the man who takes it over gets the ground and the improvements for the original price which the first purchaser paid. He buys everything for the same price as the previous owner, who does not get a penny compensation for all the improvements he made on the ground. I think this is unfair to the first buyer who has a right to certain compensations even if it is only a part of the cost of the improvements made by him in whatsoever circumstances he may have quitted the ground. The applicant who wants to take over the ground ought at least to pay the previous owner a part of those improvements. There are various private persons who have been waiting patiently for their money because the farmers cannot pay, and why then should not the Government give the people an extension of time until things improve to see whether the farmers in better times cannot go ahead. I know of one case where a woman with four children had to leave a farm and was put out on the streets, while the man who took it over got the benefit of all the improvements. I would like the Minister in these circumstances to seriously consider not ejecting the people, but at least to wait until times improve.

Now that we are reviewing many matters, I think the time has arrived when we ought to have a stocktaking of out land settlement in this country. I think that among the commissions to be appointed to investigate our national affairs, there should be a commission to investigate the whole history of land settlement since Union. There is a good deal of information, of course, already available. Every settler placed on the land has to disclose the amount of capital which he possesses, and the Government has been able to trace by reports from year to year exactly how far he has succeeded, or how he has failed. The Government ought to be able to ascertain how many people have been put on to one particular farm, and how much each individual has lost. The Government knows the crops that have been grown, and the conditions of the soil which has been cultivated, the flocks that have been herded, and the cattle which have been grown. Generally you have a fund of information which ought to be available for the country at large. I think you can secure the services of capable men who could travel around the country and ascertain the position of all the settlers on the land, and we should be able to arrive at how much money has been spent on land settlement since Union. I think we ought to have information on the colossal losses sustained both by the settlers and the Government. While I am on that point I would like to refer to the two settlements in Zululand. The Hluhluwe Mkuzi area and Mtambanana. These settlements have failed owing to circumstances over which nobody has had any control. The condition of the settlers in these two places is really deplorable. When they were placed on the land they had a fair amount of capital each, some with £2,000 and others with £1,000. In one case they were on land which is probably the best grazing land in the Union, with every prospect of making good, but the tsetse fly appeared and spread nagana, and their cattle all died. They received no relief and this struggle has gone on for years. I think, since this is a disease over which they have no control and it was largely caused through public policy—the existence of the game reserve—this matter should be enquired into, and these people should be compensated for the loss. In one settlement nearly all the settlers had left, and only 14 to 15 are occupying the land to-day. In Zululand nagana is still spreading in spite of the measures taken to prevent its spread.

It is because of the measures we took.

That may be, but I think what we have done has been conducive to great good, not only for the Union, but for the whole of Africa, and the tsetse fly traps have gone a long way to destroy the tsetse fly; but it is a matter which will take some years. Those who have been able to keep their stock alive are able to do so only by injecting drugs into them two or three times a week, which is an impossible and expensive task. Since they cannot grow any other crops, the Government might reasonably consider the whole matter and compensate these people. I hope an investigation will be made and that this will be gone into. As the Minister has promised to come to Zululand I will not trouble him with i the matter to-night. The whole problem can be much better dealt with by him on the spot.

I would like to bring the whole position to the notice of the Minister as I can understand it in relation to our land settlement. Our settlers are all on Crown land. There are three ways in which people can get on to Crown land. The first is under section 11 of the Act. We have bought much land under section 11 of the Act and the whole thing appears to have been a failure. It is not the department’s fault, nor that of the people who are farming there, nor that of the Land Board. It is the fault of circumstances. The people have difficulties there which I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister, namely, that when you have to surrender land under section 11, the Land Board has no power to re-value it. If the ground is granted to another, it must be valued at the same amount as before. We want to alter the matter’ in this way that when the land is surrendered a re valuation can take place. I was myself a member of the Land Board and we possibly made a mistake in valuing the land too high. If then the man there goes away because he cannot hold out any longer, then a second has to go and live there at the same price and you ruin him as well, so that a third has to go there until he also is ruined. Then I want to say a few words about section 10 of the Act, I want to express my thanks to the Minister for trying to assist by way of re-valuations and writing-off, but the position has now so changed that the people can no longer stand it. The man who is farming on the ground has to cultivate it every year because the farms are small, and the ground cannot last out 40 years. At the end, he can no longer make a living there. Then we have other settlements—the dry settlements—about which I want to say a few words. Those settlements are good, but there is just one point that is wrong and that is the boring on the farms was too dear. It cost the farmers half of the farm and that is wrong. The man paid from £300 to £400 for a bore-hole and then he had to build his house in addition and incur other expenses on the farm so that eventually he could come out. I want to ask the Minister, whatever happens, to bite the bit firmly and to assist the people. We cannot go on in this way. If we do, we shall have to write off the settlements as failures. We cannot push the people off the farms; they must remain there and it is a large section of the people that we have to keep there. The position has developed to such an extent that they feel that they are slaves. In my constituency the people cannot pay anything this year. They have no food and come all day long to me with letters of demand from the department. I tell them just to submit their case frankly, to the department. The people have nothing to pay with and things have got to such a pass that we must intervene, and assist the people to give them fresh courage. They are becoming old and if they subsequently have to go away then we are saddled with them. We do not now know what to do with our unemployed. Those people possibly have a fairly large piece of ground but their children are growing up and when they reach the age of 21 they cannot remain there any longer. That is a mistake. If they can exist there, we must keep them there. If the Land, Board finds that they can exist there, they must be given the chance to remain there. I shall be very glad if the Minister will give his attention to this matter.

Seeing there are so many settlers in the country, I would like to know from the Minister of Lands if he does not think that the time has come that the settlers ought to be represented on the land boards of the various provinces?

That will require legislation. The hon. member can put a question about it, but he cannot debate the matter.

May I not discuss the constitution of the land boards? I think that it is no more than fair to those people that they should be represented on the land boards. The settlers would then feel that they are represented, and the representatives will be able to give their experience to their fellow members. I also think that they will be useful to the Minister, because they will be acquainted with the circumstances of the settlers. Then there is another matter which I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister, namely, that there is a certain section of the settlers in the bushveld of Zwartruggens who think that their ground ought to be re-valued. I may say that the people only pay 1% interest. We must, however, bear’ in mind the difficult circumstances of those people, and when I remember them it means that they ought to pay absolutely no interest. There is land which was bought for 2/6 a morgen, but other ground has been valued too high. I have gone into the data about 69 people in that area, and in every case that I examined I found that the person, after he had lived there, in some cases for 14 years, he was poorer than when he went there. That is due to the circumstances under which those people live. We must bear in mind that they are malaria districts. When people want lo go from one district to another they are obliged to use donkeys, because horses die there every year from horse sickness. You can, therefore, appreciate the difficult circumstances of those people. That is one of the reasons why the people do not prosper. There are too many difficulties with which they have to cope. I therefore think the Minister should go into the matter to see what further writing-off can be done. I have the names here of 11 farms, and I hope the Minister will go into these cases. I have been informed that since 1927 they have been valued at higher prices than those that were previously granted (names of farms quoted). I will give the names to the Minister, and I shall be glad if he will make enquiries. I certainly think that he will meet the settlers and write off something. Then with regard to the appointment of a representative of the settlers of the Land Board, I hope the Minister will give it serious attention. I think it would be fair for him to grant the people’s request. The Minister can appoint one representative on the Land Board in each province. I am here not only speaking on behalf of the settlers in my district, but for those of the Union as a whole, because there are settlers in every province.

I would like, in the first instance, to deal with the purchase of land under Section 11 of the Land Settlement Act. It is true that the money voted this year was all voted in respect of purchases which had already gone through. I did not do it on my own responsibility, but after consulting my predecessor, the present Minister of Native Affairs, and also after consulting the Minister of Agriculture, who also, for a time, had the Department of Lands under him. We did this intentionally, because the system was not working as it should. “The system is breaking down,” as has often been said, and hon. members who spoke on this subject put the finger on the weak place in the system. One member after the other rose and said that more money should be made available for purchasing land under Section 11 of the Act; but in the same breath those hon. members ask that there should be the writing-off in respect of the land that has already been bought—that there should be a revaluation of that land. The two requests are surely conflicting. In one breath they ask that more land should be bought, and then again that the land already bought should be written down. The fact is that we have already spent nearly £5,000,000 in purchasing land under Section 11, and the fact also is that there are proposals and requests for revaluation, and for writing-off, coming at present from nearly all corners of the country and every point of the compass.

There will be no writing-off if the land is bought at to-day’s prices.

Section 11 does not refer to land which the Government purchases. The man goes into the market himself. He selects the ground and buys it at the price.

Has the Land Board no say?

The Land Board only acts in an advisory capacity. The buyer, however, goes to the farmer who holds the farm in his private capacity. He asks the price and, if it is reasonable, then he comes for assistance to buy the land under Section 11. Now, however, we find that the state of affairs has arisen that in nearly every case where land is purchased on this basis the settler comes and requests that the cost of the land should be written off. We must remember that it is not Crown land which is being given to those people, but it is land which they have bought with the assistance of the taxpayers’ money. As I said, nearly £5,000,000 have been spent in purchasing land under Section 11, and not 10 per cent. of the settlers have paid up to-day. We are not proposing to abandon the system finally, but we have simply suspended it. As the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) said: “We are taking stock of the position.” Owing to the present drought and the hard times, we thought that it was time for us to go into the whole matter, and therefore hope that the suspension will only be temporary. I therefore hope that hon. members will give me the chance. There have been abuses in the system, and we have temporarily suspended it to review it as a whole. I therefore hope that the committee will not criticise me very severely on this point. Next session I hope to have the matter straightened out again, and that there will then once more be a larger amount on the Estimates. I do not want to go further into this matter now. I repeat that abuses have crept in, and I do not want hon. members to think that we are now completely abandoning the system. Nor is it that, like a new broom, I want to sweep clean. I have consulted my colleague and predecessor about the matter, and we are agreed that we ought to have such a pause—“a breathing space”—to go into the matter. I therefore hope that on that point the committee will be satisfied with the assurance that it is only a temporary stoppage. I think that I have now, on the whole, answered the points raised in connection with Section 11. I would now like to answer a string of questions put to me. I would start with the hon. member for Senekal (Mr. Visser). He possibly laid his finger unwittingly on the difficulties in connection with Section 11. On the one hand, more is being asked for purchases; and on the other, it is asked that we should write off.

I did not ask for a writing-off.

Yes, but other hon. members did. I think that I have fairly generally dealt with the questions and proposals of the hon. member for Senekal. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. le Roux) asked what our policy was. He said that there was practically no more good Crown land which we could issue. That is so. And then he asks whether we are going to buy land for issue. But as soon as the Government go into the market the prices rise.

Then there is no policy left.

No, that is not correct. I think the hon. member for Oudtshoorn will be very glad to hear that we want to do a great deal for the settlers under irigation. The hon. member must not think that we are going to stop the work in other directions, but when we come to irrigation, and I think I shall be able to show how manysettlers will be put on the ground under irrigation schemes. I do not know if there is one country in the world which has done so much settlement as South Africa has in proportion to the white population. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn also said that we should give the young students from agricultural schools an opportunity. I am glad he mentioned that point. I have discussed it with my colleague, the late Minister of Lands, and I agree with him that those boys who have had proper training should be given a chance. I do not want to mention any names, but we hope to reserve two irrigation schemes for the young people he has referred to. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. J. F. van G. Bekker) asked if we were doing nothing more. I have explained the position generally, and that because this year no large amounts are being made available, must be regarded as only a temporary measure, while we are going on in other respects with our work. The hon. members for Heilbron (Mr. M. L. Malan) and for Kuruman (Mr. Raubenheimer) complained that the people were being pressed and they asked whether it was right in these bad times to put a man off the land. I do not believe that during the past year ten people have been ejected. There is a difference between letters of demand and ejectment, but there are black sheep everywhere, and if a man is ejected, it is not because he has not paid, but for i another reason, I do not know of a single case where a man during the last year has been ejected because he has not paid. There have been individual cases where people would not work, were neglecting a farm and did not pay. In such cases we must take action. If we can never eject a man from his holding, then we are nothing but a charitable institution and then we may as well shut down. It has indeed been said that we, as a department, are doing nothing because we leave the people on the farm, I therefore think that the complaint that we are taking too sharp action is not well founded. The hon. members for Kuruman and for Waterberg (Mr. Strydom) have surprised me somewhat by their arguments. They complain about the lines that have been drawn. Lines are being drawn in certain districts within which the people only pay one per cent. interest. The hon. member said that it was a stigma because it means that the ground is useless. His argument is, however, not logical because he says we had better put the whole district inside the line. But if we put Waterberg or Paulpotgietersrust inside the lines, then other districts will also come and say: “Just put the stigma on us as well, include us also.” I have not yet heard many people complaining that it is a blot on them when they only have to pay one per cent. interest.

†The hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) asked me some questions about the Buchuberg scheme. I have just been there myself and I must say that I look upon that as one of the soundest schemes in the Union, but I would like to say at the same time that irrigation is not in a very flourishing condition anywhere in the Union. I have more faith in irrigation along the Vaal and the Orange River however than anywhere else. I believe that we have better prospects of putting fertile soil under irrigation there than anywhere else and of putting the greatest possible number of people under living conditions along the Orange River and the Vaal River. The Buchuberg scheme is really a combination of other schemes. There are 600 settlers there with their wives and families and the relatively small expenditure to which the hon. member has referred is not at all exaggerated. We have to have a pretty big j staff because it is really an experimental settlement. The people who built the dam are now busy making the canals and levelling the ground, and I have very great faith in it. The scheme is still in its infancy and it naturally is somewhat difficult to say how it will progress. There are some other schemes along the Orange River that have succeeded well, and I hope that this scheme will show the same results. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) raised the question of a commission. He used a very expressive phrase when he said “the time has come for stock-taking.” That is exactly what we are doing and that is why we have temporarily held up certain sections of the Act. This is a time of depression and of drought when agricultural development is more or less at a standstill and it is a very good time for stocktaking. I do not know that there is any real necessity for a commission such as the hon. member spoke of. The time may come when we shall have to appoint one but we really have all the information and data and we are taking stock. I am, aware of the difficulties of the tsetse fly and nagana, but I hope that the hon. member will allow these matters to stand over until I have visited Zululand again.

†*The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. J. F. van G. Bekker) suggests that we should allow settlers to have representatives on the Land Board. That is a thing we shall have to consider, but I do not think it will be possible. The Land Board already has many difficulties and if settlers’ representatives are also to be put on to the Land Board, the boards’ work will be made still more difficult.

I learn from the Minister that he intends during the recess to go into the question whether relief cannot be given in respect of land bought under section 11 of the Act. I just want to say that I feel very strongly on that matter, and am therefore very glad to learn that he is going into it. As he is doing so, I just want to ask whether he cannot also give his attention to the quitrent land. I know that the matter is coupled with many difficulties, because there are a large number of old Colonial statutes in connection with the land. Commissions have been appointed, and laws passed from time to time with the object of giving relief to those people. There are two methods of payment: the one is by paying off the purchase price together with the quitrent annually over a period of 20 years, or it can just exclusively be paid by annual quitrent, which is sometimes very high. The Minister knows that during the time of the old Cape Colony various commissions were appointed and Acts passed on the matter. I have gone into them, and there are certain half-a-dozen old Acts passed with the purpose of giving relief. But after Union, in 1912, another commission was appointed to make enquiries; but unfortunately no relief could be given to the people at that time, because, as the Minister knows, the value of the land at that time was fairly high. Those were flourishing times, but now things are quite different. We are passing through a very trying time at present, and we are giving facilities to certain sections of the farming population, if I may call it so, and I do not see why that section, which has to pay so heavily in quitrent, should not also get something. I hope the Minister will give his attention to it, because I want to point out that something must be done immediately for the people, because many of the farmers have found that those quitrents are now valued so high that they amount to more than 4 per cent. They find that they cannot pay them. I do not say that the valuation is too high now, according to the old value; but according to the present value of ground, it is too high. The people cannot pay from month to month, but they are requested to pay those quitrents, otherwise the Department of Lands will have to see how it can get hold of the money. I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Wessels), and say that this is the time for us to do everything to assist the people.

I want heartily to thank the Minister for the assurance he has given us that he just wants to review the position; but as the Government is now doing a good deal to keep the people on the land, and in view of the Assignment of Estates Act that they want to pass, and the reduction of interest, I hope he will do everything to try and keep the people on the farms. I want to ask the Minister also to consider using the Land Settlement Act to keep the people on the farms. Suppose now that a man assigns his estate, and he is kept on the farm for a while, then it seems to me that that man who has spent his whole life on farmwork will anyhow lose his land if he is not assisted. I want the Land Settlement Act to be applied to the farms, so that the land can be bought under the Act. Let us assume that we have the position that a man’s work and capital is lost owing to the economic conditions, and that he is for a time kept on his farm as well. It may surely happen that that man, in consequence of the economic conditions and the state of the country, will eventually be pressed. I want to ask the Minister to intervene in that case, and also to buy the land under section 11 of the Act, which would make it possible to keep the man on his land. If we do not do so, the people will anyhow in the end lose their ground and not be able to stop there. I therefore hope the Minister will seriously consider this matter, even on the initiative of the farmer himself.

I would like to ask the Minister about the position at Slippers Bay along the west coast. I have already been in communication with his department about certrain Crown land which is let in the neighbourhood of St. Helena Bay. The Minister probably knows that there are little fishing communities who hire ground on Crown land. The position of the people has for years been very unfavourable. They live on a very slender income, and they have been maintaining themselves practically from generation to generation on that income. They are people who are accustomed to exist on a very small income. They do not go away from there, but they do their work in very unfavourable circumstances, and then there is the additional burden of having to hire Crown land. The strip of ground lies between high and low water mark, down along the coast. The Government lets Crown land to someone else, and this person in turn lets it to the fishermen. The Minister knows that there was a Fishing and Harbours Commission in 1926. The commission has already gone into the matter and suggested something as to how to let the Crown land. My constituents now ask me whether the position cannot be altered. They do not come with their hats in their hands to ask the Government for help. They are working people, and they want to go on working, making a living, by fishing. Their existence is not now a happy one, because fish are cheap. At Slippers Bay Crown land is let to the owner of the farm at £25 a year, and he in turn lets it to some fishermen at £12 a lot per year. I do not understand how the Government can permit such a thing. Just imagine, the owner hired the whole piece of land for £25, and now he lets some plots at £1 a month. I say that, instead of those people being made to pay, as is the case at present, the Government ought to give them the ground gratis, and to say that it is glad that these people are trying to maintain themselves and to help on the fishing industry. I want to ask the Government to give its serious attention to the matter. It is no use applying to the department, because we always get the formal answer that the matter is being considered by the Government. We always get it, and then eventually that the Government cannot grant the application. I ask the Minister at least to send someone there to make enquiries. It is now nearly seven years since the Commission handed in its report, and that the enquiry was made. Let the Government enquire again and see whether the dissatisfaction of the fishermen is well founded or not.

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the question of out spans. For many years our divisional councils of the Cape have been appealing to the Government to transfer these outspans to them. The Government, although sympathetic, have never done anything in the matter. These outspans are used very little to-day. Through the advent of the motor-car and motor-lorry outspans are being used less and less every day. If the divisional councils were given control of the outspans they could be put to better use. If an outspan is too big it can be reduced, and if it is of no use, it can be sold, or in several instances trees can be planted upon it which would become an asset to the district. Thousands of pounds are spent by the department every year on outspans. If a divisional council wants to sell an outspan they have to apply to the Government. The Government have to advertise it and call for tenders for auctioneers. When sold the divisional council asks for the money and after a few months’ correspondence, eventually the divisional council gets the money. Outspans are vested in the Government, but the Government cannot sell an outspan without the consent of the divisional council, and the divisional council cannot sell it without the consent of the Government. If any noxious weeds grow on an outspan it costs the Government a great deal of money to eradicate them. So I do not see of what use it is to the Government, I hope before very long the Minister will agree to these outspans being transferred to the divisional councils.

I would also like to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that although the settlements are now a financial failure, because the people cannot pay interest and redemption, we must also regard farming as a financial failure, because we are going to pass an Act here to reduce interest, and to pay 1½ per cent. of the farmer’s interest, while in some cases we are writing off some of his debts. I just want to point out to him that the position of the settlements is due to the ground having been bought too dearly. It is not the fault of the Land Board or of the Minister. The price of land was high, and if the farmer wanted it he had to pay the price. The price was high, and in consequence of the drop of the prices of produce, the people have got into the present position. I agree with the Minister that we must consider the position and must make a new start, but what troubles me is that there are so many people who have already taken options on land. What I am afraid of now is that the ground is once more going to become dearer. As, therefore, there are people now who want to take options and as they are able to get them cheap now, I want to ask the Minister whether we cannot allow them to do so. In some cases they can get the option for 12 months. The people would like to sell the land, and the options can be obtained at low prices. If the Minister allows it, and provision is then made in the new estimates for an amount for this purpose, then those options could be exercised. That will cover the cases of many people. If the people have to wait then possibly the land in the meantime might become dearer. I shall be very glad if the Minister will give his attention to this matter. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. J. F. van G. Bekker) mentioned a point I want to speak about. There are thousands of farmers who have bought ground too dearly. There is only one thing that can happen; a voluntary agreement must be entered into with the mortgagee, and if that is not done the farmer will have to go under owing to the Bill on Assignment of Farmers’ Estates, which has now been introduced. There is no other way out. It will assist very much if the Minister can aid us under section 11 of the Act, in order to put such people on their feet once more. The Minister has grown up on the countryside. The farmer who has lived on the countryside will be better able to make a success of farming than one who has already gone away to the town or village, and spent a few years there, and who in that way has lost touch with farming. He has dropped away from it. The Minister must think out a scheme of assisting the people who are forced to assign their estates in this way.

I think the suggestion brought forward by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) is the most valuable one we have had during the discussion. Although the Minister has said that his department is going to take stock, I think an independent commission is required to deal with this matter. It is not enough for the department to hold an enquiry. We want an independent enquiry, to see where the department has failed as well as to find out where the settler has failed. We would like to know what amount of success there has been in connection with these settlements. It would seem from discussions that every settler that has been put on the land has been a failure, but I feel sure that that has not been the case, but that there are certainly many who have been successful. If a commission were appointed to enquire into this matter I think we should get far more valuable information than if the department were to hold an enquiry on its own. Land settlement is of so much importance to the future of farming that the Government should go to the expense of holding this enquiry. I hope the suggestion that there should be an independent enquiry by a commission will be seriously considered by the Minister, and if possible be agreed to.

The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) brought up the question of quitrent. As the hon. member knows, it practically comes under the Minister of Finance, but I may nevertheless say that a few days ago a deputation including ten parliamentary representatives, came to the department, and I can assure the hon. member that we are dealing with the matter, and I think that we shall reach the compromise which will satisfy [everybody. The hon. members for Cradock (Mr. J. F. van G. Bekker) and Albert (Mr. Steytler) suggested, so far as I understood the motion, that in case of bankruptcy, or sequestration, or where a man assigned his estate, the Government could buy the ground and put the man back on it again.

If it can get the ground at a reasonable price.

I will go into the matter, but I see difficulties. How can a man buy land if he is bankrupt?

I know of a few cases under the Relief Board, where a compromise was practically arranged with the creditors, and the bankruptcy was practically withdrawn.

Do you merely refer to cases of estates being assigned?

Even in cases of bankruptcy, where it is cancelled.

I will go into the matter, although I see difficulties. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) spoke about Slippers Bay. There was a dispute about ownership of land. The former Minis ter of Lands, now Minister of Native Affairs, went there himself and made a kind of a compromise between the owner of the land and the fishermen. I thought the dispute was done with, and did not know that it had come up again. I will go into it.

Will you send someone there?

I will first go into it, and then possibly we may send a man there. If the hon. member will discuss the matter with me in my office, I shall be glad. The hon. members for Albert (Mr. Steytler) and Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) asked whether I had said that land settlement was entirely a failure. I did not say so. The whole position of the settlements, just like that of the farmers in general, is parlous, but I want to say that if we had not had settlements I would like to see where the country would be. One out of every seven farmers was put on them by the Department of Lands. I do not think that we can talk of failure, nor do I think that we ought to be disheartened. There are indeed many difficulties, but the farming population in general have these difficulties.

The hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) supports the suggestion of the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) for a commission of enquiry. I answered that I do not see that the necessity for this has arisen yet. The time may come when we have to do it, and if, at a later stage, the House thinks it should be done, I will not oppose it; but I do not think that it should be done at the present stage. If hon. members will give me a chance of taking stock, and give me six months’ time, we can place it in a sound position. I hope the hon. member will not press it at this stage.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote 30, “Deeds,” £48,292, put and agreed to.

Vote 31, “Surveys,” £69,666, put and agreed to.

On Vote 32, “Irrigation,” £198,846,

I just want to ask the Minister whether, in view of the terrible drought prevailing, and of the strong feeling existing in that connection, he will have a particularly careful enquiry instituted into the Kalahari scheme of Prof. Scharz. I want to ask whether he will have an independent enquiry made into the effectiveness and practicability of the scheme, and whether he will add a few practical farmers to the commission of enquiry. I can assure him that, rightly or wrongly, the matter is greatly exercising the people of our country. One thing is certain, that the sooner a practical scheme to get as much water as possible in the dry parts of the Union is tackled, the better. There is a particularly strong agitation in favour of the scheme mentioned, and I hope the Minister will have an inquiry made.

I would like to bring the position of water bores to the notice of the Minister. More bores are needed on the countryside, especially since the alteration of furrow system, because the number is very much restricted now. During this drought the lack of additional bores appears unusual. In the western Transvaal, e.g., there are various farmers who still have a considerable quantity of grass on their farm, and can still keep thousands of stock alive to-day if they only have water. Then thousands of the animals could still be saved to-day. Small dams which some landowners could always still reckon upon have dried up owing to the great drought, and notwithstanding the grass they still have, many of the farmers have to trek. The position is very serious. Water is practically the soul of a farm. It encourages the farmer, if he has water, but the lack of it causes just the opposite, namely, he becomes disheartened and then he leaves the farm. I want to ask the Minister to do more by way of supplying bores. A second point I want to bring to his notice is that the various parts where farmers have bores and were not fortunate enough to strike water there has been a financial burden of £200 or £300 pressing on them, in connection with the boring.

The Government does not charge for dry boreholes.

That may be soin other parts of the country where different regulations exist, as for instance in the north-west, but in the western Transvaal half of the expenses must be paid, and I feel that it is not fair to make a distinction between one part of the country and another. The position is that further provision will have to be made to bore more for water on the farms. I shall be glad if the Minister will consider the position satisfactorily, and try to place more bores at the disposal of the farmers.

I would like to support the hon. member who has just spoken. It is time we had an expansion of this side of the department’s activities. Any dam dependent on rainfall for its supply is not to be compared with the bore-hole as an insurance against drought. Will the Minister give us some information regarding boring? I see from the last report of the Director of Irrigation that there were 110 boring machines in the field and I now gather that this number will be decreased in the year budgeted for and it is proposed to put only 70 to 80 machines in the field. Will the Minister give us some information on that point?

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to a few matters. The Government agreed to tackle small irrigation schemes. That is an excellent scheme, but I must warn them against certain things. Probably many small schemes will be undertaken, and all the ground comes under private owners. It will be no use starting with irrigation schemes and allowing private owners to make a speculation of it. Then it may happen that we have once more to go and buy ground at 300 or 400 per cent. higher than that for which we could otherwise get it. I hope the Minister will give the matter attention. Many schemes will shortly be submitted to him, large schemes and small schemes, and I hope he will be very careful only to agree to the schemes where they are Crown lands, or where the owners will be willing to give up some of the ground. A little while ago we met the Minister and asked that a scheme might be undertaken there between the Orange River and the Vaal River. It is not karoo land, but a private owner brought forward a magnificent scheme, and he was prepared to give the Government two-thirds of the ground. That surely is a good proposal, and therefore I hope that the Government will tackle the scheme. I hope they will consider it, especially because it will not only provide work for the people on the dams and the furrows, but the owner gives up two-thirds of the ground which will be under water.

I just want to say a few words in connection with what the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. L. M. Wentzel) said about agriculture. I see that more provision is made on the estimates for bores this year than last year, but I want to ask the Minister if it is not possible to make still more provision. In my constituency there are many farmers who have always hitherto been in the fortunate position of managing without boring, but now their water is exhausted. The farmers have orange trees on their farms, and now that their water has stopped they will suffer much loss if they are not assisted by the supply of bores. If that is not done, the work of years and years will be destroyed. I have already applied to the Department of Lands, but they have informed me that there are unfortunately not enough bores, but I want to ask the Minister to assist the people. That is absolutely necessary, because if the people are not assisted they will be put back for years. There are farmers who have never yet applied to the Government for help, but it now appears that they cannot hold out any longer, and I therefore consider it my duty to ask the Government to assist them. Conditions there are very bad. I see a considerable amount of money has been put down for irrigation, but it is not enough. I think the Minister should have more money made available for irrigation. I say this because I feel that the Government should provide for the future as far as possible. We must provide for the children in the future. We must look after the children of the people who already have land, and of those who have no land as yet. The only way to assist those children is later on to put them on the land where they will have proper water. That can only be done if we put them on the irrigation scheme. I want to thank the Minister and the Government very heartily for giving their consent to the building of the dam at Marikana, near Buffelspoort. The people are very thankful there, and I can assure Ministers that if one of them will come there they will be very well received. The people there have never yet troubled the Government. This is the first time, and they have only done so because their water has stopped. It will be of the greatest importance to them to have the dam there, and therefore I must thank the Government very heartily. I hope that the department will expedite the work as much as possible, because the distress is great and immediate work is needed.

I just want to ask the Minister to first of all very thoroughly investigate the question regarding boreholes, before adopting a general policy in regard to them. I want to tell the Minister that I found out in the Transvaal that everywhere we sank boreholes where schools were built, a large number of applications came in for the boreholes to be made deeper after a few years. It struck me that the water was dropping lower. To make more boreholes means that the water supply under the surface becomes more and more exhausted. The position is that when you bore you first of all touch a vein, and then the water is brought above ground, but after a time the source gets empty, and then you have to go deeper again. The process of drying underground is going on in the same way as in the parts where ground is now starting to dry up. In the short time of 30 years that I have been living in those parts I found that where there were formerly strong spruits, through which you could not ride a horse, they are now as dry as a bone. Even through the Vaal River you can now ride throughout the year, and in some places you can jump over where formerly in the rainy season you could not cross the river, except with the aid of bridges. There is no question but that the ground is drying up, and this is not due principally to the lack of rainfall; we still have the same rainfall, but the capacity of the ground to retain the moisture is no longer as great. There are farms where I found that the farmer is trying for his dry land farming to keep the water under the ground for his maize. He maintains his ground very fine to keep the dampness under the ground. But on the one hand he tries to get water out of the ground for his animals by a borehole. You therefore have the position that the man, on the one side is trying to keep the water under the ground for his maize, and on the other side of the same koppie is trying to pump the same water up for his animals. The question of exhaustion of the water supply under the ground must he carefully investigated. I can assure the committee that nine out of the ten farms which twelve or fifteen years ago had sufficient water are dry to-day, and the water question on the Transvaal highveld is becoming an important matter. The Minister ought to go into the matter carefully, together with problems in connection with the retention of dampness in the earth, and the value of the rainfall. The manner of rainfall has also changed. Formerly we had soft rains for four or five days; now we get heavy showers. There is a flooding of water, and it simply runs to waste. In consequence of the overstocking of farms the grass is crop bare, and there is nothing which stops the water, so that it can force itself into the earth to increase the subterranean water supply and keep the fountains going. If enquiry is instituted, it will he found that there are thousands of fountains which, within the knowledge of people still living, had water to stock year after year, and to-day they are as dry as a bone. That kind of thing cannot last. If the overstocking of farms and the cropping of the grass bare is not stocked in some way or another those fountains will dry up, and it will produce a serious state of affairs. If we can put the water into dams, then it will have a very good effect, and I think that that is an indication of a policy which ought to be followed in consultation with the Department of Labour. If a subsidy is paid by this department in connection with the building of dams, we shall have more dams than what there are now, and this will not only keep the dampness in the soil by making the surface for evaporation larger, but in that way the subterranean water supply will also be increased. I feel convinced that thousands of farmers will be only too glad if the department assists them to use Europeans for this work. The farmer can give the plough draft cattle, and the sleds that are necessary. He can also supply the mealie meal, meat and vegetables, and the dams can be built under his supervision. In this way the unemployed can be assisted, and we will be rendering the country a great service. There are other matters, such as the question of contour lines. We are here talking of drought and such things, but any person who sees how the bushes are invading the grass veld will admit that a radical change must be made from what is to-day being practised by the farmers, if we want water in the future. It is easy to put down a borehole, but that is no use if you find that within five years it is dry. Some boreholes have regularly to be made deeper, because the water level sinks, and others dry up completely. For this reason I say that it is better to go in for something better than for a thing of which we do not know what the effect will be. The whole matter must be gone into by the Government from top to bottom. There are many schemes that have been suggested to solve the matter. There is, e.g., the great Schwartz scheme, which many people laughed about. But it should be our endeavour to get a bigger and more regular rainfall, rain which will fall softly over quite a number of days and not come in a few thunder showers. If that can be obtained, then it is the only way in which many parts of the country can be kept inhabitable for the farmers. [Time limit.]

I just want to make a request to the Minister of Irrigation and ask him to give his attention to a small irrigation scheme at Egemont, in the Wepener district, for which I have handed in a petition signed by 300 inhabitants of Zastron and Wepener. No proper survey has yet been made. Only the flying survey has been done. The scheme is recommended, and those parts in the southern Free State take specially great interest in it. All feel that that work should be constructed as soon as possible. The embankment will only be 300 feet by 80, and it will hold enough water to irrigate 4,000 morgen. Everybody takes an interest in the southern Free State, and I ask the Minister to give his attention to the matter and have this scheme properly surveyed.

I have had numerous letters from farmers asking for details of the irrigation loans which the Government proposes to make to encourage farmers to construct dams and conserve water. My correspondents wish to know on what terms and conditions the loans will be made by the Government; what, if any, is the limit of the amount that will be granted to any one farmer, and will the professional assistance of the department be available to any farmer, and on what terms. A public statement by the Minister on these points will be very much welcomed.

There are two matters to which I desire to draw the attention of the Minister. I notice that there has been a loss of £50,000 on boreholes. We all recognize that even if you enlist the services of geologists and other professional men, it seems to be impossible to locate water with any chance of success. What we want is some investigation on a more scientific basis of the possibilities of drilling for water, with some certainty of finding it. We want to get away from the human element in water finding, and to call in the aid of science. Would it not be possible for our professional men to invent something in the nature of a stethoscope by which, with the aid of electricity, you could hear if there was any water running below the ground through which it was desired to bore. If it were possible to have such an instrument, and it was of a practical nature, the tremendous sums of money which are now wasted every year in fruitless efforts to bore for water, would be saved and could be turned to much better advantage, both by the State and by the farmer. I have had personal experience of these matters, I had an expert from the Irrigation Department, and although we put down three boreholes, we got no water at all. This happened on a farm where it is very difficult to get water. May I now take the Minister for a moment outside the boundaries of Africa. Weather forecasts are of the utmost importance to all agriculturists. I was wondering whether we could not copy the example of the Argentine, which has a weather bureau in the Falkland Islands and, as a result of its observations, the weather in the Argentine is forecast three years ahead. I think if we were to collaborate with the countries in South America and with Australia in getting information collected and tabulated, it would help us a great deal. It will be of tremendous advantage to know whether we are going to have a good season or not, with plenty of rain. Ocean currents have a marked effect on the climate. At some time we must have had warm currents which brought good rains to the western section of the country. Those currents may have been deflected, and that is why in that part of the country we have very little rain. Some years back we had a very good spell of rains on the western coast, and it was then found that a warm current was flowing up the western coast. I hope the Minister will consider the suggestion I have made.

On the motion of the Minister of Lands, it was agreed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported; to resume in committee to-morrow.

May I, with leave, give notice of an amending resolution in place of Notice of Motion No. 3, substituting another formula, so to speak, of mining taxation for that which is now before the House. I do not think it is necessary to read it, and I am sure that to most hon. members, except to the hon. member for Springs (Sir Robert Kotzé), it will be as unintelligible as the former notice.

What is the effect of it.

The effect is to give a better allowance to the mines in respect of dropping their grade.