When the House adjourned last night I was just answering a question put to me by the hon. member for Ermelo (Col.-Cdt. Collins) in with the position of bubonic plague in the country and the combating of it. Perhaps I had better shortly repeat that when parliament was sitting in August and September last year I told the House that the whole position with regard to plague was very serious, that as far as we could see the position would get worse in the future. I said then that plague was imported into South Africa during the second war of independence and that it had never since been exterminated. Sporadic instances of plague occurred after the serious outbreak during the second war of independence in the forts, and these sporadic outbreaks were in various portions, especially in the eastern districts of the Cape Province. The reason was that the plague spread from human beings to the rodents in the country, and the outbreak of plague was sporadic in the eastern portion of that province because the number of rodents is not large there and these portions are not grain-producing, and further, because the nature of the ground is hard and stony. For these reasons the plague only occurred here and there, but some time ago the plague spread itself among the rodents and also reached the Free State; there the ground is softer, and as we have to do there with one of the chief grain-producing areas of the country, the rat population was also large there. The consequence was a serious outbreak in the Free State, especially last year in February and March at Kroonstad. Altogether last year about 300 people died of plague, and in the district of Kroonstad alone in the short period of two or three months the number was not less than 250. This showed the country how serious the position was and how serious it could become if the plague spread to the thickly populated centres of the land. It became clear that certain measures were necessary for fighting it in the future. The first measure that is necessary is that we must apply ourselves more to enquiring about the nature of plague, the manner of its spreading from the rodents to the people, and the method of prevention, and for this reason the Government took into consideration shortly after the former sitting of Parliament the granting of larger subsidies to the Institute of Medical Research at Johannesburg. That institute has already won its spurs in the department of scientific research and has done an enormous amount, especially in the matter of phthisis of workmen on the mines, under Sir Spencer Lister, to such an extent that this disease is being stopped entirely. An additional sum of £2,500 will be contributed by the Government from year to year with the approval of Parliament, and the institute will then, with additional contributions under other heads, have at its disposal an extra sum of £5,000, and the total income per annum will be about £15,000. The decision was taken to obtain a first-class expert in the person of Dr. Graham, who is a first-class entomologist, and he is already engaged in making enquiry in those districts where the plague is raging to-day to see Whether by entomological enquiry it was not possible to break the chain of infection between rodent and human being. The institute will further obtain a first-class bacteriologist, but up to the present it has not yet succeeded in getting such an expert. We hope, however, to make the appointment shortly. Then the institute will be in a position to continue its investigations better. The second thing that was Plain to me was that in combating this plague must have the cooperation of all persons and all other bodies who are more directly responsible for the taking of measures to prevent the plague. The necessity therefor we fixed in the Public Health Act of 1922 that local bodies are responsible for the taking of precautionary measures to fight infectious and epidemic diseases. Municipalities and other local bodies have the responsibility, and it goes without saying that where they are responsible the Union Government is powerless unless we can get the full co-operation of these bodies. For these reasons I called a conference at Bloemfontein for fighting plague, consisting of representatives of all municipalities and town councils and other local authorities, magistrates and police, also delegates from the farmers’ associations, to get the co-operation of the backveld to pull together. I believe, notwithstanding that a certain amount of criticism was made, the conference did very good work. The criticism was to a certain degree prejudiced and was to the effect that the conference did not lead to immediate practical results. But this criticism is based on an expectation which was not justified and the expectation of the municipalities was that the Minister on behalf of the Government would state that the extermination of rodents would be taken out of the hands of municipalities and that the full responsibility would rest on the Union Government. I think that if I had acted upon that idea I should certainly not have rendered good service to the Treasury and that I would have rendered a very bad service to the matter itself. It is impossible for the Government to take on its shoulders the responsibility of exterminating rodents in the town and in the country throughout the whole land. It is a matter which must be taken in hand by co-operation between the Government—in so far as it can render assistance—and the local authorities, and by each householder himself. If the Government should bear the whole responsibility, what would then happen? Then everyone would be busy criticizing the Government and no hand would be stretched out to do the work that should be done by local authorities. The better way was to make clear to the municipalities and other local bodies what their responsibility was under the existing law and to heighten their sense of responsibility. That was the object of the conference, and I believe that in that respect the conference succeeded very well. It was very clear to me that co-operation would not be obtained unless we at the same time enlightened the public as much as possible by publication of pamphlets and propaganda in other ways. The public must realize the danger and see its responsibility and it must be made clear to the public what they can do. If this is fully realized, then we will get the proper co-operation of all. For this reason we came to the House for expenditure for the training of half a dozen rodent inspectors. The few inspectors that we have had up to the present have done good work. The rodent inspector’s duty is to fix where the contagion exists amongst the rodents in the whole land so that the public can be warned and the department can know where the points of danger are, where we can expect an outbreak of plague. So also the rodent inspectors must serve to furnish information to municipalities and other local bodies how to take precautionary measures to prevent plague, and in the backveld too the inspectors can do outstanding work. I expect a great deal from their operations. In addition we spent money to inform the public as much as possible about their duties, and a publicity campaign was Commenced by the affixing of posters and the distribution of dodgers, and a few weeks ago an experiment commenced in the form of a demonstration motor car with the cinema. With it there is a person who gives lectures to enlighten the public. The motor commenced its journey in Kimberley and has now already been in several other places. We are trying to obtain the co-operation of the public bodies and other persons to make the presence of the motor car known throughout the whole district where it is for the time being so that as far as possible people can come to the demonstration and will listen to the lecture. I must say that the reports that I received about the first places that have been visited are very encouraging and that the journey of the motor and the lectures at any rate, to commence with, are a great success. Another measure which has been taken, and this has been taken by the department itself, is that the department itself should be in readiness to be present everywhere that an outbreak of plague occurs immediately and to go to work there at once in the most effective way to immediately kill the plague as far as possible in its earliest commencement. For this reason the department maintains there appliances, requirements for the suppression of plague if it breaks out anywhere, and also isolation tents, e.g., and a number of nurses who can be sent to danger spots to see that the danger of spreading is prevented when an outbreak takes place. In these and other ways we have tried to prevent plague. I must say that since the House sat in September sporadic outbreaks of plague have occurred in many places, but only in two places was the outbreak a serious one. One of them was at De Aar, where the plague took the form of a lung disease. This is the most acute and serious form that it can take. Out of 20 cases that occurred 16 proved fatal, but the department succeeded in immediately stopping the plague in its inception and to so isolate De Aar that it did not spread to other places. But in general the position is much more serious than what it was in consequence of the contagion spreading amongst the rodents of the countryside over a larger area than previously. Actually the position to-day is that the whole Free State from one end to the other is infected and plague might break out at any place in the Free State at any moment. The area of infection has unhappily also spread pretty far in the western Transvaal and there have been various outbreaks in those districts. Unhappily the plague has also been observed in the western portion of the Cape Province and instances have occurred on the boundaries of Kimberley, which naturally made the position particularly dangerous, because the infection might have spread to Kimberley itself which might have had the most unfortunate results. The rodent inspectors say that the infection has spread itself in those parts in the direction of Kenhardt to Rondberg. Moreover, there is a danger that the plague will spread over the eastern Transvaal where up to the present it has not yet been notified, but where much grain is produced and there are many rats. I am sorry that I must inform the House that the contagion amongst the rodents has actually been observed within the municipality, or just on the borders of Standerton. This makes the whole position very serious, but all that can be done is to keep one’s weather eye open, and be ready for any possible outbreak that may occur. I only want in conclusion to inform the House that the problem of exterminating the plague of rats has not yet been successfully solved. We shall not be rid of the plague until we are first of all released from the field rodents, and up to the present a means has not yet been found by which we can entirely exterminate the rat population of the country. But I may say that the inspectors think that by the taking of measures and by continual carefulness we shall be able to keep the plague in hand. One of the measures is to prevent as far as possible the increase of rats especially in the thickly populated areas. And in this respect we require the co-operation of the local authorities which is not quite as satisfactory as we should like it to be. That is all I can tell the House. I want, however, to add that the vote of £10,000 placed upon the estimates is only to cover eventualities and to be prepared for any possibility, and that is why the amount has been made so high, but the measures which have hitherto been taken, if nothing unexpected or extraordinary occurs, will not cost more than £1,500 so that at the end of the financial year £8,500 can be again repaid.

The Minister of Public Health has made an important statement. He has given very interesting information in connection with the position and the means of prevention which have been taken to fight the plague. But I think that there are three weak points in his statement. To these three weak points I want to direct the attention of the House and of the country. When the Minister says that he feared that the position was more serious than was originally thought, that it has spread from the coast and that 250 people have died at Kroonstad; that it has spread to the eastern and western Transvaal and that a large portion of the Cape Province is also threatened, there having already been sporadic instances of which more might be expected, then the matter is much more serious than the House imagines. The weak point in the argument of the Minister is that he expects so much from local authorities, such as town councils. He said that they principally should fight the plague. No, the duty lies mainly on the Minister; he must in the first place see that the plague is fought. It is in vain to expect that town councils will give serious attention to the matter and to lay responsibility on them if the Minister and the Government do not in the first instance indicate how serious the matter is. To show how milk-and-watery the position of the Minister is, I would just like to indicate that it will cost large sums of money. There must be more zeal. A tremendous campaign should be organized against the rats. If we remember that in Kroonstad alone 250 people have died of plague and if we also remember that there have been sporadic outbreaks in the eastern and western Transvaal, the rest of the Free State and the Cape Province then we Can get an idea of the importance of the matter. Another weak point in the speech of the Minister is that he has become afraid that tremendous expenditure may be caused. We have heard here the Government approving that over £300,000 has been spent on exterminating locusts, but when we have to do with the saving of human life only £10,000 is provided. He thinks that £10,000 is a large amount, and he hopes that £8,500 thereof will come back into the treasury. This means that the Minister expects to only use £1,500, and we may hereafter regret this when tears will flow about the devastation that has been done by the plague. If the Government does not act in a manly way and attack the matter with more zeal then South Africa is face to face with a great and awful catastrophe. There is another thing that struck me and that is that the Minister has not yet been able to obtain a bacteriologist, and he is still looking for one. He must do his best to get such a person and more than one if it is necessary. He wants, through his department, to ascertain how a stop can be put to the work of the parasites. It may be that he will succeed. But perhaps there are other links in the spreading. Our knowledge of the matter is still very vague. We do not yet possess any fixed basis and more study of the matter is necessary. The Minister must not delay, but he must search for a bacteriologist from outside if necessary. He must even get more than one to give their attention to this matter of finding a solution. This is not a matter of small consequence, it is not a matter that concerns the lives of animals, but of human beings. If the plague is not stopped, people will continue to die until the mortality figures exceed those following the influenza epidemic. However thankful I am to the Minister for what he has done I am still convinced that he is not sufficiently zealous, and that he does not comprehend the seriousness of the matter.

Without doubt we have here to do with a problem which is of great import both from the point of view of public health and of economics. We have all listened with exceptional attention and interest to the statement of the hon. Minister. If there is one matter upon which we must not allow ourselves to be moved by party considerations, then it is a matter of this sort. But there are people who cannot treat any matter on its merits without taking into consideration the party point of view. When we wish to do the best for our people and to take the best preventive measures for the future health of the people then we should at least try to rid ourselves of suspicion. I am sorry that in answer to what the Minister has said an hon. member rose as the first speaker and allowed himself to go too far against the Minister probably from other considerations. We surely can expect that hon. members of this House should understand the seriousness of the position and will not joke about a question of public health, and that on a debate of this kind party interests will be put oil one side. In the first place then, it must be clear to all hon. members of the House, and especially to the older members who helped to frame the laws, that local bodies primarily are responsible for the precautions to fight plague. And if we consider and do not think about the matter on party lines, then I think we should congratulate the Government and the Department of Public Health. The department deserves praise for its action on the outbreak of plague at De Aar when it immediately sent two or three officials from Pretoria to De Aar to investigate the matter on the spot, and the result of this expeditious acting was that the piague did not spread further. I view with interest the intelligence and zeal of the department, and I congratulate him on the high sense of duty to the people from the start. If we just for a moment compare the state of our country with that of India, where they also have plague and where it has already happened that hundreds of thousands and millions of human lives have been lost through plague, then the hon. member opposite will understand why I congratulate the department. It is impossible in a moment to exterminate the plague of rats. It is altogether impossible, and it is also not possible to immediately end the plague in whatever form it appears. We must reckon with actual facts. We do not know when the plague will end, and I want to point out one thing, viz., that there exists to-day in Johannesburg the Institute of Medical Research, and if we know what is done there it will not be necessary for hon. members opposite, and certainly not for hon. members in the profession, to say that we in this matter are behind other nations. I urge that hon. members will become acquainted with that institute. I would further like to point out the desirability of the Government at the right time taking steps to investigate more matters concerning the public health. But I will say this, that there is so much confidence in the Institute of Research in Johannesburg that the Portuguese Government of West Africa from time to time order their serums from our institution. If hon. members still doubt whether we are acting in the best way then I cannot understand them, because another Government has faith in our serums, and if we want to criticize then we must do it fairly, and in this instance compare the position in South Africa to-day with that in India.

I understood the hon. Minister to say that nothing or practically nothing was done in regard to the destruction of rodents on the countryside. May I make a suggestion for his serious consideration? The predatory wild birds known as raptores—to which belong the owls and hawks—are great destroyers of rats and mice, but they have no protection under the law. A certain amount of harm may be done by these birds, but the good they do far exceeds such harm. This is the case in regard to most birds. In one of the American states, I think it was Pennsylvania, the protection accorded to predatory birds was withdrawn for some time and the result was an enormous increase of rats and mice, a plague which caused incalculable damage to agriculture. After damage amounting to millions of dollars had been caused, the state was compelled to repeal the law which withdrew the protection. If you take away this balance of nature then you have this menace of rats and field mice in the countryside, as there is nothing to destroy them. These birds are great consumers of rats and mice, and I would recommend to the serious consideration of the Minister their rigid protection. If necessary an investigation could be made and particulars could be furnished as to the great good they do. He could get information from experts such as Mr. Fitzsimmons, of Port Elizabeth, and I think he will come to the conclusion that these birds well deserve protection.

They are protected.

No. They are not. There are a large number of hawks that are not or only partially protected. There may be protection in the Cape, but there is none in the Transvaal. I am a member of the Game Protection Association in the Transvaal and I know they are not protected. I am told that they are not protected here either, but there seems to be a difference of opinion on the matter. If they are protected we should see that the law is enforced. If they are not protected, in view of the great good they do and that they are nature’s balance to keep down the rats and field mice, I hope the Minister will see that they get this protection. There is very little doubt that the multiplication of rodents is somewhat staggering; as, for instance, we know, that a rat is a grandfather in six weeks. It is a department of economic study to which the experts of the country might well give some of their time. It is perhaps as well that humans do not multiply at the same rapid rate. But these birds well deserve protection. In America the loss in husbandry due to the withdrawal of protection from these predatory birds was very great. I hope the Minister will take a note of this and see that this balance of nature against rodents is not interfered with.

The words of the hon. member for Paarl (Dr. de Jager) fortunately sound much worse than their real meaning, but it is foolishly perverse of him to make an accusation against the Minister when it does not concern the present Minister but the previous Government.

Talk decently.

Yes, I will, but the hon. member need not get angry. I suppose he is doing that because he apprehends what he has just told us. He forgets that the plague brought about the damage in February and March last year. Then his Government was in power, and then they did not carry on the “manly” campaign of which he speaks.

I did not blame the Government.

Yes, you did; but he then forgot the shortcomings of his own Government. He made an attack upon the Minister, and I am here to defend the Minister. He said that much money had been spent on the extermination of locusts and only a small amount in the fighting of plague. The report of the Auditor-General shows that the former Government only provided £396 beyond the ordinary amount quoted for the fighting of plague. But this Government has made available thousands besides the usual amount on the estimates, and then the member from Paarl comes here with a “manly” attack. It is not correct that the Minister has said that he has shuffled off the responsibility for the eradication of rodents on the town councils. I will give the Minister the assurance that we in the northern Free State who are close to the areas infected with plague are satisfied with the action of the Government. The experts do not go only to the big cities. They go to all the small villages and farmers, and each farmer knows what he must do. The Provincial Council of the Orange Free State has already taken steps on the lines suggested by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Papenfus). The hon. member for Paarl must be careful in future when he comes to the House with another attack.

The hon. Minister told us he was spending £15,000 on research work and that the Government was paying £7,500 of this sum. He omitted to tell us where the balance of £7,500 was coming from. I would ask him to inform us on the matter.

In reply to the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl), I may say that I gave that information to the House when I spoke on the subject last night. £7,500 is contributed by the Government and £7,500 by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association.

Is that the Chamber of Mines?

Then the Chamber of Mines is doing one good thing in the world.

I would like to answer the criticism of the hon. member for Paarl. The hon. member made a touching speech over the seriousness of the position, but I will say that I am pleased that he has again drawn the attention of the House and the country to the seriousness of the position, and that the position is not yet sufficiently grasped. This is what I have already said, and I am sorry that the hon. member was not at the conference which we had in Bloemfontein. He could have helped much to bring the seriousness of the position under the notice of the meeting. The hon. member says further that it is wrong of me to allow the responsibility to rest upon the municipalities.

In the main.

I said that the taking of precautions lay with the municipalities. That is their responsibility. In 1920 when the Public Health Law was passed, the hon. member for the Paarl (Dr. de Jager) was already a member of the House, and if it is the duty of the Government to take entire responsibility upon itself, why did he not then take up the same attitude? It was fixed in the Act of 1920. It would moreover be entirely wrong to place the responsibility upon the Government. It would have been illegal in me as Minister to tell the conference at Bloemfontein that we were taking the responsibility on ourselves and releasing the municipalities therefrom. Therefore, I again ask the hon. member if it is wrong of me to leave the responsibility upon the municipalities, why then was it not wrong on the part of the previous Government? The plague has already been more than 20 years in the country and the outbreak last year at Kroonstad was more serious than ever before or since. Then the hon. member for Paarl had a splendid chance to indicate their duty to his own Government to take the responsibility upon themselves. He did not do it, but now he comes and accuses this Government of not doing its work. There are only a few more small matters that I must put right in the speech of the hon. member. He accuses me of being afraid of expenditure in connection with the eradication of rats generally in the country. I am not afraid of expenditure if I think that millions of pounds have been well spent, and that thereby many human lives may be spared, but my point was that so far as we know to-day, we shall not even by spending thousands of pounds, be able to exterminate the rats or rodents generally in the towns as well as in the country, and the money would be needlessly wasted. Another hon. member opposite has said that when a rat is a few weeks old it is a grandfather. That is true, and a pair of rats increase in a very short time to a million rats and in the circumstances with our vast distances it is impossible to exterminate all rats, and the expenditure of millions of pounds would be useless. Are we in the circumstances justified in spending so much money? Now just another point with reference to the appointment of a bacteriologist. I can give the hon. member the assurance that for a considerable time we have made all possible attempts to secure the services of a bacteriologist. Here in South Africa we cannot unfortunately get such a man. We have had recourse to America. England and other countries and asked the highest authorities to recommend us a suitable person for the work. Several persons have been recommended, but up to the present we have not been able to appoint anyone. If we cannot get a first-class man for the work who is on an equality with people in that department in Europe, then it is best to take people from here, because we have good people, but the Government think that as all this money is being spent it should be somebody better than what we have in this country. If the hon. member will exercise a little patience he will soon hear who has been appointed.

I can assure the Minister that in any steps he takes in dealing with this serious menace to the country he can look for support from all sides of the House. I remember when we had an out-break of plague in the Cape in 1901, the Public Health administration fell into the hands of the present judge-president of the Eastern Districts Court (Sir Thomas Graham), who was then Colonial Secretary, and myself. We realized the enormous difficulties we had to contend with. In dealing with a question of this sort you are faced with very heavy expenditure indeed, and you are going to be paralyzed if you cannot make up your mind who is going to be responsible for the expenditure. The trouble we had in 1901 was that we had to deal with a disease which might have landed the country in a great calamity. We brought out Dr. Simpson, who was then the greatest living authority on plague, and we placed the administration of anti-plague efforts in his hands. Thousands and thousands of pounds were spent in this city alone. The result was that we stamped the disease out. I remember when it was necessary to call out the troops, and when Sir Thomas Graham and myself went through District Six, and turned the people out of the crowded warrens in which they lived, so that we could deal with the rat evil. Thousands of pounds had to be spent on the old Supreme Court building, because it was undermined with rat warrens. The present position is too serious for criticism. I believe we are faced with the exceedingly serious menace of plague becoming epidemic in South Africa. My hon. friend should get the best scientific advice possible, and should act on it, and he should not hesitate to expend money when necessary to cope with the evil. If existing legislation does not give the hon. gentleman power to deal with local authorities so far as their share of expenditure is concerned, legislation should be introduced at once, for your efforts must not be paralyzed by discussion as to who is, or who is not, to bear the expense. I believe that in Dr. Mitchell the Minister has an extremely able officer who has given a great deal of attention to this matter. Wherever you have rats, mice and meerkats there is danger of an outbreak of plague. Is it not possible to clear a strip of country even by the expenditure of a large amount of money of rodent carriers of disease? If we did that we would have one of the greatest possible barriers to the extension of plague.

That has been tried in the Free State.

Whatever the expenditure the Minister will have the cordial support of all sections, for this is not a matter which can be dealt with from a party point of view, and we are faced with a greater menace than many people imagine. I have not risen with any desire to criticize what the Minister has done, but knowing how serious the outbreak was in 1901, and the result which then followed on the taking of vigorous steps, I can assure the Minister that he will have the cordial support of this House in his efforts to stamp out a grave national evil.

I think that I understood the Minister to say that the plague is confined to the Free State.

Oh, no.

I thought that he said that. I fear that it is also in the Cape Province. It occurs with us in Colesberg that we find hares and mice dead in the veld and no one knows the reason. I am glad about what the Minister has said, viz., that it is difficult and practically impossible to kill the rodents. The idea has been expressed here that a great campaign should be organized against the rodents, but those who know the conditions in the backveld know that this is impossible. It will be difficult to eradicate rats in the towns, but in the country, where a man’s farm consists of three or four thousand morgen, you can find mice and rats on every portion of the farm, and to attempt to eradicate them, I can tell the Minister, is impossible. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Papenfus) mentions something of which we should take note, and that was to protect certain birds and animals. In sending people round to give addresses on the eradication of regents the Minister should give them instructions to tell the people that the birds and animals just referred to are their best friends, and that they are destroying their best friends by killing those animals. I think, e.g., of the owl. If we go to the owl’s nest we find a heap of rodents’ bones. Children and even adults shoot the owl without thinking. We must tell such people, and teach the children, that the owl is our friend and that it is a bird that does an enormous amount of good and little or no harm, so that people and children shall not kill the owl but wall protect him.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote 25, “Mines and Industries,” £4,000.

I would like to ask the Minister what is the meaning of this item— Bounty on superphosphates manufactured and consumed within the Union, £4,000. Was there not a dumping duty on the importation on superphosphates? Has that been taken off and this £4,000 put in its place? Why was the duty taken off? I suppose on account of the agitation raised by the people of Malmesbury, Caledon, Bredasdorp, etc. So that the £4,000 is taken off the people who ought to bear the burden and put on the taxpayer of the country. Why is not the dumping duty, at the same time that it is taken off superphosphates, which are not food by any manner of means except in the sense of being used for grain, fruit, etc., taken off wheat and flour? The dumping duties on wheat and flour were at one time reduced, but the hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal) and the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh), took a trip to Pretoria and these duties were promptly raised to the full amount.

I am afraid the hon. member cannot now discuss the taking off of the dumping duties on wheat and flour.

Reverting to the dumping duty on superphosphates, that duty is taken off and these people are given a bounty. I would call the attention of the Minister of Labour to this, because he used to remind us very often of the money power in this country. Does he know where this £4,000 goes? It goes to Nobel’s. I should have thought there was a fair amount of money power behind that concern. If the late Government had proposed to give a premium or bonus to a firm like Nobel’s, the rafters would have rung. It is monstrous to take this burden off the shoulders of the people who should bear it and put it on the shoulders of the taxpayer generally, plus the further burden he has got to bear of the dumping duty on wheat and flour.

I gladly accept that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) knows a lot about business, but clearly he knows little about farming in our land, very little of the biggest industry on which our people are actually entirely dependent.

He is a much bigger former than the hon. member there.

Yes, a cheque-book farmer probably. We were talking here to-day about two industries which had conflicted with each other. The one industry which has good prospects in the country is that of corn, but there are quite a number of farmers who cannot voluntarily change their crop unless they get fertilizer. The position with us is that we can import phosphates from other countries at fairly low prices, and this has enabled many farmers who cannot otherwise produce grain to do so. Then the previous Government says that there is a new industry, the phosphates industry and that this must be protected. We said that we should first protect local industries, but the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and others said that the phosphates industry, the young industry, would die, that the two factories, at Somerset West and in Natal, would disappear if we did not protect them. We replied that if this happened then the prices of phosphates would naturally be put up here. Now the hon. Minister of Finance has found a way out, and I think we must all congratulate him. He protects the whole bread-consuming population of South Africa, of whom the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is one, and he protects the new industry in so far that if that industry has the capacity for success here then it will have good chances. But by taking off the dumping duty he protected in the first place the most important industry in the land, the corn industry, and so I wish to congratulate him.

I would like a little more information upon this matter, in addition to what the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. dagger) has asked for. The Minister in his opening remarks told us that the industry here had a dumping duty put upon imported superphosphates in order to help their manufacture in this part of the country, but that the farmers had made so much trouble and had pointed out so clearly that these dumping duties had raised the cost of fertilizers in the country that he had taken off the duty and, in order to compensate the manufacturers of super-phosphates in this country, he had given them this bounty of 5s. per ton. He did not, however, tell us on what ground he has given this duty. He did not tell us of any investigation which had been made into the necessity of giving a bounty at all to the manufacturers of this product; he did not say who made the inquiry, if there was an inquiry, nor whether any report had been prepared. Then again he did not tell us to whom this bounty is being paid. I inferred from his remarks that it was being paid to some company in this district. If so, it may be De Beer’s, or, as the company is now, Nobel’s. Why should the bounty be paid to only one company? There are many manufacturers of fertilizers in this country. If they do not get a share, why not? Then again how long is this bounty to be continued? I hope the hon. Minister will give us some information on these points when he replies. I am not going to raise a discussion on the question of bounties or non-bounties, Free Trade or Protection; I only wish to get some information about this item.

Really, the memory of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is very short. We remember the time when the hon. member sat on the ministerial benches and gave a bounty to the Messina Copper Company. Now when a bounty is to be paid which is for the assistance of the farmers he takes up quite a different stand. His mind always travels towards encouraging the mining industry. The late Government undertook to pay £10,000 to the Messina Copper Company to make copper wire for the electrification of the railways. This Government had to pay out that money, although not an inch of copper wire for the railways was produced by the Messina Company. The bounty went to that company simply because they produced copper in this country. When the hon. member (Mr. Jagger) sat on this side of the House he was quite content to pay out that bounty. That bounty was paid out, although all the copper wire came from Europe.

I wish before the hon. member expressed his opinions he would make himself better acquainted with the facts it was very clearly laid down that the wire would be made on the other side; the bounty was given to enable the mine to carry on. But what I want to know is why this bounty is brought up in this form, and not in the form of a Bill? In the case of the beef bounty and the iron bounty, Bills were introduced. I think the Minister should very clearly explain why a bounty is given for superphosphates, and the dumping duties on wheat is left to continue. We know the cost of living is going up and up —we do not want statistics; every housewife will tell you that—but the Government has not moved in any way, notwithstanding that there are two Labour members in the Cabinet. I have not seen that they have done anything to protect the consumer.

I am sorry that the hon. member cannot go into a discussion on the wheat duties.

I wish to submit that this is an entirely new vote. I submit, therefore, we have the right to discuss the policy of the Government in connection with it, and in discussing this bounty the wheat question is relevant.

I do not agree with the hon. member. The hon. member is not allowed to go beyond the item on the estimates.

I wish to put it to you that this is a matter of principle. The Government have instituted a system of giving bounties here. It is an entirely new vote, and surely we have the right to discuss the principle.

May I submit my opinion to you? Perhaps you do not realize that this vote introduces a new principle, a new matter of policy. The Government is now fixing the matter of a bounty to the phosphates company. I submit, this being a new principle, this committee is entitled to discuss that new policy as applicable to any other industry whether it is wheat, flour or whatever it may be. You know I am very much against taking off these duties but, as a matter of Parliamentary practice, I hope you will consider before you debar the hon. member from discussing the principle as applied to other industries.

I think if any hon. member wishes to refer just incidentally to the taking off of duties on wheat, then I cannot stop that. But if the hon. member intends to discuss deeply the question of duties on wheat, then I say it is not relevant to this point. The discussion must be distinctly relevant to the matter on the estimates.

I must confine myself then in discussing this question of dumping duties on wheat to a criticism on the action of the Government in giving a bounty on phosphates. I do not think anyone is against assisting the farmer as much as possible, but we hold that before deciding to continue a duty on wheat you should consider the consumer. Rather than give a bounty on phosphates, the Government should consider doing away with the dumping duty on wheat, and of necessary to protect the farmer also by way of a bounty so as to cheapen the cost of living. I suggest that every member of this House should read the report of the Board of Trade on the dumping duty on wheat. It is perfectly clear that with the dumping duty every man who wishes to charge high prices on his foodstuffs can say that he is forced to do so because of the duty. I want to impress on the Government the necessity of reconsidering the matter now, and treating wheat and flour in the same way as they have treated superphosphates. I am sorry I am not permitted to go further into this matter.

This vote, apart from the merits of the bounty, itself raises two very important questions of principle. The first is the point touched upon by the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van. Zyl) as to whether it is right, in creating a new bounty, to do so by simply putting a sum down on supplementary estimates without asking the House to pass a special Bill? The second point is whether it is right for the Minister to say: I personally have enquired into this, and I have come to the conclusion that there is a case for a bounty. Only last year the House passed a Bill dealing with the functions of the Board of Trade and Industries. One of the principal functions of the board is to advise the Government in all matters affecting the payment of bounties. If I understood the Minister rightly, he told me the other day that there had been no report from the Board of Trade and Industries with reference to this particular bounty. If that is so, we are faced with this position that, while only twelve months ago we passed a Bill saying that the granting of bounties should be within the province of the board, the Minister now comes to this House and tells us: I have usurped the functions of the board, I have made enquiries and I am in a position to say there is a good case for the bounty. I am not in a position to say whether there is a good case for this bounty or not; some members think there is; others do not. But we are faced with this position, that we are asked to grant this bounty simply on the statement of the Minister, who says he has satisfied himself that the solution of the difficulties which exist is by the grant of this bounty. Surely the Minister must see that he is placing the House in an impossible position. Are we simply to sit here and write blank cheques for the Government? Is Parliament to become a mere machine to register the decrees of the Government? That seems to be a considered policy of the Government, but I hoped that the Minister of Finance was an honourable exception to that rule. I fear the company he is keeping on the Government benches has inclined him to follow the same rule, because he is simply asking us to accept his statement that he thinks a certain duty should be imposed. Let me ask him when it was he came to the decision that this bounty should be imposed; at what rate—

Five shillings per ton.

Is this to continue indefinitely, and what will be its annual cost, because I take it that this £4,000 is for the unexpired period of this financial year? We have nothing before us to show what the considerations are for giving this bounty, or why it should be fixed at 5s. a ton. If we do not get a satisfactory reply from the Minister on this point, and are satisfied that there has not been proper enquiry, I think deletion of this bounty should be moved, and then if the Minister shows next year that this bounty is justified, that a proper enquiry has been made, and that the constitutional position has been set right, he may do so. I move the deletion of this vote.

The hon. member cannot move the deletion of this vote. He may vote against it.

What I wish to make sure of is whether the farmer is getting the benefit of this bounty. The bounty is given to the producer. I should like to have some information as to whether this bounty is to remain at the fixed amount of 5s. per ton, irrespective of the price at which other superphosphates can he imported, since he is substituting this bounty for the dumping duty. I was always against a dumping duty, because I thought it did more harm than good. I should like to know also whether the company receiving a bounty—I mean the manufacturer—can charge any price it likes for its superphosphates.

Of course, he may charge what he likes, but he will not get the trade.

That is all right as far as it goes, but by giving the bounty you are knocking out the imported article, and as soon as you Have done that the manufacturers here can ask what price they like, because they are the only people with the goods—goods which the farmer must have. If the receivers of the bounty may charge any price they like it is very questionable whether the farmer is going to get the benefit of superphosphates at a lower price, and for him it is of the utmost importance that he should get superphosphates at as low a price as possible.

Members opposite are frightfully concerned over the bonuses that are being paid on superphosphates. In the past they were much concerned over the protection of the superphosphate factories. How are we to understand their attitude to-day, because the bonuses are surely intended to protect the factory. The hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie does not understand this question. He will find that the import duty on fertilizer comes to considerably more than 5s. per ton, because if he remembers he will know that a dumping duty used to exist, freight dumping, and then, too, a minimum price was fixed so that the farmer could not get the superphosphates cheaper than at a certain price. If the dumping duty is taken away then the farmer can get his superphosphates at the world price. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is also concerned about the matter. It looks as if he is concerned that the farmer will also save something and that it will not all go into the pockets of the middleman, and therefore he does not want that the dumping duty on fertilizer should be abolished but that it should be taken off corn and flour. We are busy seeking a solution of the problem of the people who migrate from the countryside. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), does not wish that the dumping duty should be abolished. Phosphates that are imported are not a completed article. They are only a means of producing the necessaries of life. Experts have told us that in the future our country will require enormous quantities of fertilizer. They have told us that our ground is of such a nature that we shall require large quantities of phosphates, and it will not be confined to the corn farmer only but this will also apply to the mealie producing districts. It is not a matter of small importance. If we do not want to help the farmer then we must now say once for all that South Africa is a country for merchants and not a country where produce could be cultivated.

I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether he is giving the bounty in the proper way. In Natal large quantities of superphosphates and bone-meal have been used in recent years. It has been found advantageous to mix them, and the mixing at first was done by rule of thumb, but of late years it has been proved scientifically that superphosphates alone, even though they may contain seventeen per cent. water-soluble phosphates and nineteen per cent, citric-soluble, are a mistake, because owing to the large quantity of iron and alumina, the soluble phosphates are neutralized and the crop does not get the benefit. Recently it has been discovered that ground rock phosphate mixed with superphosphate has the same benefit as superphosphate mixed with bone-meal, and bone-meal is getting so valuable, owing to its value as a cattle food, that it will become economically impossible to use it as a soil food. If the duty is placed on rock phosphate to be ground and Used in this country,

I would agree, but if the bounty is to be placed on superphosphates I would say: No. I would ask the Minister of Finance to take this matter into account.

There seems to be a good deal of confusion about this matter, and I think it is necessary that I should say something to shorten the discussion. I wish to remind hon. members that the previous Government gave protection to this industry— which consists of two factories, at Somerset West and Durban—and to give that protection they imposed a very heavy dumping duty on imported fertilizers. The farmers complained and said they were finding it difficult to grow wheat and other cereals, and that the dumping duty was a great handicap. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) wants to know whether the matter was investigated by the Board of Trade and Industries. Let me tell him that so far as giving protection to the farmer to enable him to produce as cheaply as possible, the matter was considered by the Government of such importance that it took the full responsibility without going to the Board of Trade and Industries or any other body. The Government has deliberately decided that it is in the interests of the country that the farmer should obtain his fertilizer as cheaply as possible. As regards protection, I wish to point out that imported fertilizers were subjected to very heavy duties. These varied in different cases, but they amounted to very much more than 5s. a ton.

What fertilizers paid duty beyond the dumping duty?

Superphosphates.

What is the difference between dumping and freight duties?

You had better go back to the Board of Trade.

I am alluding to the duties which I took over, and I say they amounted to very much more than 5s. a ton, though they varied. This industry received its protection from the previous Government, and we were in this difficulty, that to allow superphosphates to be admitted free would have meant that these factories would have gone out of work.

No.

I can assure hon. members that we were collecting from this particular industry more than 5s. a ton.

But as a matter of fact De Beers did give up manufacturing, and took to importing.

Yes, for a certain time, but they have again taken to manufacturing, and unless they manufacture and sell in this country, not a penny goes to them. That is my answer to the hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie), who asked me whether the consumer will get the benefit. If the manufacturers put their prices too high and do not get the trade, no bounty will be paid to them. We took off the duty which penalized the farming industry. And to retain the protection given by the previous Government we gave a promise that we would ask Parliament to pay this duty at 5s. a ton. Members ask whether it will be continued. The matter will be investigated, and as soon as we are convinced the duty is unnecessary the bounty will cease. That is why I am not bringing in a Bill. But this year we thought it necessary to retain the protection, and all we undertook was to ask Parliament to pay this bounty for the year ended March 31.

By whom will the investigation be made?

Of course by the body set up to advise the Government on these matters.

You do not take their advice.

Certainly it is an advisory body, and the Government is not bound to take their advice. I do not think the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) contends that every report should be accepted. It is not for them to lay down a policy.

No.

I thought he agreed that it should be an advisory board. This is an advisory board to whose opinion full weight will be given, but it is for the Government to decide upon the policy to be adopted. I know hon. members have tried to drag into the debate the different question of dumping duties on wheat. I feel that the hon. member should not be impatient. He will get plenty of opportunity to discuss that matter. But since it has been mentioned and an endeavour has been made to make party capital out of it, I will say that it has been reported, and it is a fact that if these dumping duties were taken off to-morrow it would not make so much (snap of the fingers) difference to the price of bread, and that would be the only justification for the Government to Act in this way. If we were convinced that it would bring down the price of bread and were to suspend the dumping duties and give a present of some thousands of pounds to a few importers, and the price did not come down—

To whom are you paying this money?

We have already stated that this premium will be paid to the fertilizer industries who had this protection—practically the only industries at the time who had this protection, one at Durban and the other here, that formerly supplied large quantities of fertilizer.

What is the name of the one in Durban?

Kynochs.

There are other large manufacturers.

We have only had representations from these two firms who supplied this particular fertilizer formerly, and of course we dealt with them. I am not informed that there are other industries making the same article.

Am I to understand the Minister of Finance wants us to vote a certain amount of money to give a bonus to particular people for the manufacture of a particular article and not to other people in this country who manufacture a similar article, as, if so, with all respect to him, it would be advisable for him to consult the Board of Trade and Industries, who perhaps know more than he does on the subject. The Minister of Finance has changed the personnel of the Board of Trade and Industries, and we understood that now we had a perfect body upon whose reports the Government could act upon any point that every member of this House had a right to be informed upon. I do not for a moment say that the responsible member sitting in his responsible position as a responsible Minister is obliged to adopt the report.

It looks like it.

No; when my hon. friend as treasurer asks for money in this way it is his duty to see that the Board of Trade should have an opportunity of reporting on the question in order that the House may have the benefit of their representations. I know it does not suit an autocratic Government to do this. My hon. friend says he is only giving a bounty to two people.

You are wrong again.

You say you are only giving it to two firms.

I did not say that.

What did you say?

If the right hon. member will look at his Estimates he will see “Bounty on superphosphates manufactured and consumed within the Union.” I have told him that only two firms have communicated with us in regard to this bounty. If there are other firms they would naturally be entitled to get it if they comply with the conditions. I am asking for £4,000 to be paid out under certain conditions, and I have told the House that only these two people have communicated with us, and so far as I know are the only ones who will claim.

May I say to the hon. the Minister that if he had not thrown aside the Board of Trade and Industries they might have informed him that these two firms are only one—Nobels, and control the Somerset West factory, and what originally was Kynochs, and are not a South African company but a world-wide company—world manufacturers of explosives and chemicals and everything of that sort. It is not De Beers, therefore it is safe for the Government to do this. If the late Government had come forward and asked for a subsidy—which might have been a very fair thing—to support a legitimate factory at Somerset West, the welkin would have rung with the denunciations of my right hon. friend.

Or in connection with the cold storage of South-West.

Yes, but great changes have taken place, and the Minister has blessed the cold storage at South-West. But I also went into the question as Minister of Agriculture of a subsidy for the purpose of trying to get a factory started here, and I will say that when a subsidy of that sort is given the Government must have full access to the books of the corporation and should see that they do not make more than 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. on the capital expended. The hon. gentleman must see the serious position into which he has led himself. These two firms are only one. You must also realize that these people are manufacturers of the same article, and as they have now, to a large extent, world control, the price may be so manipulated that your subsidy will not give that reduction on a very important article which I recognize the farmers of this country require, and which it is the intention of the Government to see that they get it. My hon. friend says he has only come forward with a vote, and not with a Bill, because the Government are going further into the matter. Are we to understand that after they have gone further into the matter they are going to come forward with another vote on the Estimates next year, for I maintain, as Mr. Blackwell has stated, that you have no right to ask the House to adopt the principle of a subsidy without a Bill. My hon. friend says there is no necessity to consult the Board of Trade.

I did not say that.

Why the Government have not introduced a Bill I do not know. When you vote money of this sort you ought to have some control over the profits the corporation is making on that article, for your only justification is that you wish to secure to the farmers in this country a certain amount of competition as against imported articles, and keep the price as low as possible.

You have no competition at present.

I am very sorry the factory at Somerset West has fallen into these hands, as I should have liked it as a small South African industry. I do think that the Treasury shall take action to see that you get full value for the money you spend. There is such a thing as combination of manufacturers when there is no opposition, and that was the great thing in getting the South-West factory going.

I rise to congratulate the Minister upon the moral courage which he has shown in this matter to acknowledge frankly to the House that this is an industry which deserves to be supported notwithstanding all the shouting of some of his colleagues and many friends behind him—that this is not an industry which ought to be supported, that we have had in the past a dumping duty on phosphates, and that this got back into the pocket of De Beers —he acknowledged that this was an industry which should be supported. We know what happened in the districts of Piquetberg and Malmesbury during the last election, but now the hon. Minister comes and acknowledges that the previous Government is right and that this is an industry which deserves support. I say this, I agree with the hon. Minister. I am a protectionist, and I say that during the last election it was the general cry in the Western Province—and many votes were caught by that cry—that we filled the De Beers’ pockets with money. I ask to-day what was the accusation? We were for protection of our industry. Hon. members may say that were wrong in our method of protection, but no one can say that we did not protect our industries, for here we come to-day and we are asked to vote a sum for practically the same company which was protected by the dumping duty, but in place of dumping duty it comes in the form of a bonus, but the principle that rules the matter is in the case of the dumping duty the same as in the case of the bonus. I congratulate the hon. Minister that he was able, that he had the moral courage to acknowledge, that, notwithstanding all the screaming, it was necessary in all fairness to protect South African industries— which are true South African industries—in the form of a bonus. Then I want to say this, that I think that the hon. Minister will do well if he will introduce the bonus in the form of a Bill so that we can have an opportunity of seeing how the hon. Minister will make the division as far as the bonus is concerned. I think that it is much better and safer to fix the bonus system in the form of a draft Bill after the money has been voted so that we can discuss the way in which the bonus shall be applied and to which industry. I hope the hon. Minister will give effect to this suggestion.

I must say something more about this matter because the hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal) has been attacked, and he is not in a position to defend himself as he is in the chair. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) says that there was shouting that the superphosphate factory did not form an industry that should be supported. It is not the whole truth, as I have already said. The position of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal), the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh) and of myself is that this superphosphate industry is not an industry that should be protected at the expense of the grain farmer and the consumer of grain. We have always said to the South African party Government, protect industries as much as you like but not a foreign company at the expense of a grain farmer. That was the great mistake; we want to protect them, but not at the expense of the farmer.

How can that happen? The farmers surely pay the premium.

Yes, but also the general consumer of grain. If we see that superphosphates can be imported cheaper we can perhaps triple our corn production, and that will mean that the large quantity of corn that we produce will so influence the world market that the world price of the produce will become cheaper, and this will be for the benefit of the consumer. The Minister came to the conclusion that he could not protect one industry at the cost of another. But as the industry did enjoy protection in the past he does not wish to take it away, and while it is clear that the consumers of grain had an interest therein he is going to protect the industry. I would also like to say to the Minister that he must not pay any attention to the criticism and advice of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt). That hon. member came on to the Government benches in 1904 after the vote of a large number of voters had been taken away. But he ruled in such a way that in the following election of 1907 he was kicked out. Thereafter the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) decided to take him into his Cabinet but he kept his decision secret until after the elections of 1921.

The hon. member must confine himself to the vote under discussion.

I just want to point out to the Minister of Finance that the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is a man that talks much, but every time that he has an opportunity for deeds then he falls short.

One thing has surprised me in connection with this debate, and that is the silence of the whole of the members of the Labour party. Not one of those members have stood up and said anything about this although it affects the food of the people. It shows how completely they are in the pockets of the Nationalists. Here is an important matter which directly affects the food of the people, it affects the cost of the living and they have not said a single word. Here the Government are giving a bonus in connection with fertilizers; food for land. This bonus goes to one of the biggest combinations of capitalists in the world, and to show that it is not necessary, I would point out that the Minister of Finance has now found out for the first time that there are fertilizer factories in the Union to-day that he did not know of. I can quite believe that there are other factories who have never asked for a bonus, but were able to carry on their business without. The dumping duty has been taken off at the request of the wheat growers, and in place of that a bonus has been put on. Then we ask the Minister why he cannot apply the same principle to bread and flour in this country. Has his own Board of Trade not gone carefully into it? What has he to say? This has increased the price of bread, at any rate, it has, so far as Durban is concerned. If hon. members will look at the report that has been laid on the Table of the House they will see that they state that it has added a certain amount although not very much to the price of bread. The Government takes it off the fertilizers and they put on the food of the people. What has come out of the discussion this afternoon, is that this bonus is not necessary, because other manufacturers of fertilizers in South Africa can carry on without it. There is a place outside Durban which carries on without a bonus to-day. When the dumping duty on wheat was taken off, two of the hon. members opposite took the first train to Pretoria and the duty came on again. It has been said that there was no benefit to the consumers. How could there be any benefit in such a short time? If it did not go to the benefit of the consumers, how can one explain what the report of the Board of Trade contains? It states that combinations and monopolies tend to affect the trading interests injuriously. What I want to point out is this: If this taken off dumping duty did not go to the benefit of the consumers, why not ask the Board of Trade to give the reason?

What would you have done?

Got an inquiry in any case. What is the good of this clause in the Act?

Enquiry was made.

This statement is always being made that they did not get the benefit. I believe the consumers would get the benefit. Making an assurance is worth nothing at all.

I proved it.

It was taken off for two weeks and then it was said that they did not get the benefit. I am forced to the conclusion that my hon. friend does not understand of working of trade. That is the position. The great complaint that I have is that they took off one duty and did not take off the other.

What is the difference between the dumping duty you put on and the bounty?

For one thing, the price of wheat has gone up enormously.

World prices have gone up.

It does not matter what the cause is, but I think the price of wheat is 5s. more than it was when the dumping duty was put on. I would like to ask the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh) what the price of wheat is in Malmesbury.

I should say 32s.

And the normal price is about 20s. or 21s.

Why?

Because of the shortness, and with this dumping duty they get the benefit of the increase. I can point the hon. member for Malmesbury to another thing: Wheat growers get the benefit of cheap guano which is sold to-day below the market price. The big market price is 30s., and the dumping duty on wheat and flour. Why this cannot be taken off beats me altogether.

The hon. member who has just sat down said that these factories could carry on without this particular bonus. If that is so how is it that the hon. member voted for the dumping duties, which amounted to more than 5s. per ton; and does the hon. gentleman mean to say that this factory could carry on then, but not now, without a little aid. I hope the hon. the Minister of Finance is going to stick to the principle of bounties instead of the principle of dumping duties, then the people will know what they have to pay. I wonder what the consumers have had to pay through the action of the South African Party with regard to the protection in the sugar industry. This industry under discussion is not one which employs Indian labour, but mainly, almost exclusively, white men. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) made an alleged discovery that this was only one firm. Has there never been a case before where bounties have been given to a single firm? Has the hon. member ever heard of the Imperial Cold Storage? The Labour party is in favour of a protectionist system by means of bounties and has been for years. The hon. member seems to be a white crow in a black nest. His free trade principles did not prevent him from voting with the Government when he was on the Government side of the House. Most of the big interests in this country are in the hands of one or other ring, but now two particular firms are singled out. But even though this is only one firm it does not make any difference to the principle. The sugar industry itself is in the hands of two firms. I know a little bit about this firm of Kynochs. They started an explosive factory, but on account of the increase of rates they were unable to carry on. Instead of closing down their industry and throwing out of employment hundreds of white men they converted their factory into one for the manufacture of fertilizers. They have to-day more than 145 white men, 700 natives, and 60 Indians in their employ. In 1908, when they started, this firm were told that the previous history of Natal showed that the only way to carry on an industry was to employ Indian labour. In order to keep the Indians, they were told the same old story by the Natal representatives that they have to give them lands on lease and thus maintain a reservoir of Indian labour. Since that date they have got rid of these Indians and have put white men in their places. Not only that but also they are paying the white men in their factory eight times the wages which they paid to the Indians. A factory like that is an asset to this country. In 1922 all the leases which had been granted to Indians fell in and were cancelled and no new leases have been granted by the company. Indeed, it is the company’s fixed determination not to grant any more leases to Indians. On the other hand, Indians have bought from a chairman of the South African party in Durban land in divisions, which are so ably represented in this House by the hon. member for Natal Coast (Brig.-Gen. Arnott) and the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). This firm has been spending over £2,000 a year in experiments in regard to the manufacture of fertilizer, but up to the present it has not had much encouragement from the Government—none from the late Government and very little from the present Government. The firm wished to manufacture a chemical fly killer for which it required a certain raw material; the customs duty was 30 per cent. and it took months to get delivery of the stuff.

Did you say the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) is selling land to Indians?

No, I did not. The hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heat-lie) shows a deep solicitude for the consumers of fertilizers. Will he show the same solicitude for the consumers of bread when it comes to the question of a dumping duty on wheat? Personally I would like to see the Government take off the dumping duty on wheat and flour, and in its place, if necessary, give á bounty to the wheat farmer.

The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn) spoke about blowing hot and cold. If there is one member who is an authority on that subject, judging from the experience of last year, it is the hon. member for Umbilo. He blew hot last year, but very soon he had to blow cold. The hon. member seems to understand this question just as much as does the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh). My question was to ascertain if, when Government gave a bounty, the benefit of that would be extended to the users of fertilizers. Why is a bounty proposed?

To keep the factory going.

That is not the only reason for the giving of a bounty—it is given to counter-balance the dumping duty. As soon as you stop the importation of fertilizers you may have the price put up. The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux), who knows very little about the matter—

We know you have a monopoly of knowledge.

I am not surprised he thinks that because he has so little himself; again he is wrong because I do not think that. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) impressed on the Minister that every precaution should be taken so that the benefit of the bounty should reach the farmer. In that view the hon. member for Fort Beaufore was perfectly correct.

I do not know if the hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie) knows about the importation of fertilizer. If he, however, had to do with one thousandth part of the importation that I have to do with he would know something about it. As chairman of the co-operative society in Malmesbury I have to do with the importation of over 10,000 tons of superphosphates per annum, and I hope therefore that the hon. member will no longer have such a great opinion of his own knowledge. The farmers did not object to the existence of a factory for superphosphates, but rather opposed such factories being protected at the cost of the countryside. I therefore do not see why hon. members should go on so against the Minister of Finance. Last year the dispute with reference to freight dumping, ordinary dumping and minimum price was settled at an amount that was far more than 5s. per ton. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) comes here and makes a great show of congratulating the Minister of Finance on what he has done in connection with the granting of bonuses, and this after all the assaults of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who is out for nothing else but to make political capital and to try to drive a wedge between us and the Labour party. The member for Caledon (Mr. Krige), after having accused the hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal) and myself of political paralysis because we looked after the interests of the country people, says that it is the best thing that he could have done, but he asks why the farmer should get the benefit. He, who is the representative of one of the greatest grain producing districts in the Union, asks why the alteration has been made to take the burden from the shoulders of the farmer and to put it on the consumer generally. He is also terribly concerned if the hon. member for Piquetberg (Mr. de Waal) and I go to see the Minister of Finance. We have here to do with a great problem, and I think that it is my duty and also that of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) to put the position clearly before the House. There are many members in the House who do not thoroughly understand this question, and the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) ought to assist us in making it clear to the House. We are not against the protection of factories, but this factory imported superphosphates and made a great profit out of it. My experience is that a farmer’s co-operative society in Holland exports fertilizer and that actually only 8 per cent. of our export comes from there. The House can therefore not say that a monopoly exists in the countryside.

The remarks of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn) boil down to this, that in all matters where the principle of protection is concerned, when the farmer is a consumer he howls. That remark bears exactly the same relation to the facts as the hon. member’s knowledge bears to the subject he has been discussing. I was however, rather surprised that the Minister said that one of the reasons why he removed these dumping duties was that there had been such an outcry from the farmers owing to the very high price of the article, due to the imposition of the duty. I cannot say whether that applies to the farmers of the Transvaal or Free State, but it certainly does not square with the facts in so far as Natal is concerned. When it was first suggested by the late Government that a dumping duty should be placed on imported superphosphates in the interests of the local manufacturers, the matter was very fully and very thoroughly discussed by every farmers’ association in Natal, and representatives from those associations met in conference in Maritzburg. The line which they took was that although a dumping duty of 5s. per ton on superphosphates might possibly increase the price slightly, as they were out for protection as farmers, and were demanding that they should have protection for everything which they produced and sold, on the principle of live and let live, the farmer must be prepared to pay a slightly higher price to those who were supplying him with his necessities and who also have to make a living in this country, and they resolved that these dumping duties should be supported. I have only one word to add, and it is this, that strange though it may appear that when that duty was imposed the immediate result was not a rise but a fall in prices on the local markets, and superphosphates were sold to the farmer at a slightly lower price than had been demanded prior to their imposition.

I really cannot understand what is the reason for this discussion. On the one hand, we have the late Government putting on dumping duties to the extent of approximately 5s. 6d. per ton in order to assist certain industries; then this Government comes forward with a different method, a more honest method, by way of paying bounties to the extent of 4s. 6d. per ton—roughly speaking, 1s. per ton less than the late Government put on to assist these industries. Then hon. members opposite come to this House and rave about the Government assisting these industries which they themselves, while they were in power, were assisting to an even greater extent.

The matter is not quite so simple as the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) seems to think. Whatever one’s views may be as to the propriety of this particular duty, the quarrel that a great many of us have is as to the manner in which it is being imposed. Let me ask the hon. member (Mr. Pearce whether he, as a democrat, favours the principle of the Government of the day, having set up a board to enquire into these matters, creating a bounty which, confessedly, they have never put to that board for enquiry.

The board which we set up did not exist then.

The Board of Trade and Industries has been in existence in this country for many years past. It is true that when the present Government came into power they dismissed the existing board and constituted a new board. Is that the Minister’s excuse, that he was so busy dismissing the old board and constituting the new board that he could not have this matter enquired into? Does the hon. member for Liesbeek, as a democrat, contend that when a board has been constituted by Act of Parliament and under that Act it is expressly stated that it is the special function of that board to enquire into the question of bounties, the Minister of Finance can come and say that they had ignored the board and had come to the decision that a bounty should be given in place of the dumping duty. Though I do not use this point as an objection to the principle of this bounty, I may say that this particular bounty is being given to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world.

But you gave it by way of a dumping duty.

No, and, even if we did, we gave it after a report from the Board of Trade and Industries. That is my whole point.

But that board existed.

These dumping duties on superphosphates were imposed after enquiry by the Board of Trade and Industries.

Did not that enquiry also cover this question?

No, it did not cover the question of a bounty. You have set up between the Government of the day and these industrial corporations an independent board of enquiry. It has unusual powers of investigation given to it, it may look into the business, books of the firm concerned, it may enquire into the way in which the firm runs its business and, after it has enquired, it may advise the Government. What has the Government done? It has made no use of any of that machinery. As the Minister has told us quite candidly, it has disregarded the board in this instance. Let me ask my hon. friend if our Government twelve months ago had done that, would we not have been denounced as the tools of capitalism ? Is it that the present Government is so free from any alliance with the big forces of capitalism that it is not necessary for them to consult the board? Does the hon. member think that it is perfectly satisfactory that without consulting the board the hon. Minister should come to this House and say: I, the Minister of Finance, have made that enquiry myself, and I think it is a right thing to grant this bounty? At any rate, we have brought the Minister of Finance to this stage. He has assured us that this vote is only to the end of this year and that before any further vote is placed on the estimates, there will be a full enquiry by the board and, if a further bounty is necessary, a Bill will be brought in. Now I would like to wager that when we get the main estimates in a few days’ time we shall find a vote to continue this bounty. I wonder if I am right; I wonder if I have hit the mark? If I have, what substance is there in the Minister’s assurance that we shall have a full enquiry by the board and a special Bill? I think we should say: No, we will definitely affirm the principle not to support any industry until there has been proper enquiry by the board which this Parliament has set up to stand between the Ministry of the day and the industries which come to it for protection. It is not right to leave these questions to the decision of an individual Minister. Interposed between him and the petitioning body is an absolutely impartial board of enquiry and before you give protection to an industry you must have a report from that board and see that the report is laid on the Table of the House. Now the Minister is departing from that principle. I beg him to consider in his own interests whether that is right—whether he is setting up a decent precedent in this matter. The purity of public life in South Africa is very dear to us all, and, while I want to guard myself against the slightest suggestion of inferring that there is anything wrong in the Minister’s action—while I wish to guard absolutely against throwing any suspicion on him—

Order. The hon. member’s time is up.

I do not think the hon. member who has just sat down has been quite fair in the way he has presented his arguments to this House, particularly after the statement of the position which I have given. What are the facts? One of his chief complaints is that the Government acted in this case without consulting the board which it set up to consider these matters. Is that so?

Yes.

Well, I have interjected and told my friend that when this decision was taken the board which the Government had set up was not in existence.

Why did not you wait?

Then the hon. member went on to say: Well, you had the old board, and they were not consulted.

That is another misstatement. The hon. member has told us himself that the old board had considered this matter and recommended protection, and the late Government had given it upon that recommendation. I repeat, this board which existed before the new machinery was created had investigated the whole question and had recommended that protection be given. Then what is the other stage? I have told the hon. member that as far as the question of removing the duties was concerned, it was an important question of policy which the Government itself had to consider. It was too important a matter to be decided by the board. The Government itself was quite prepared to take the responsibility of considering this question and of coming to its own conclusion. The next step was that when the Government decided to take away the protection from this industry, it had to decide whether it was fair to do so. There was a factory at Durban employing 150 white men and one at Somerset West employing about 100 men. We were faced with this position, that from the report we had as a result of the investigations we conducted ourselves, we thought it would be unfair to take away employment from all those men.

Conducted yourselves?

Yes, investigations the department had conducted and information we had in the department. We thought it would not be fair to remove this protection from this industry which said if they did not get this protection these white men would have to be discharged. Then the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) brings in arguments which have nothing to do with the position at all. He says: The Minister did not know this industry was not now being controlled by Nobel’s. The hon. member that is, makes this unworthy statement that I gave this protection because I knew that De Beers had nothing to do with the industry. As far as that statement, is concerned I think De Beers, as every company in this country, will be treated fairly by the present Government.

You did not say that at the election.

We have never said that De Beers or any other company will not get a fair deal from this Government. I am informed these two factories are owned by the South African Explosives Company, a company owned equally by Nobel’s and De Beers. So De Beers is still interested, and as far as the Government is concerned it never inquired—and it did not occur to us to inquire—as to who owned this industry. We only considered that this was an industry of value to the country, and whether we should withdraw the protection given to it, notwithstanding the remarks of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell). Now the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has another complaint. Although it was pointed out to him that according to the rules of the House we should not discuss the question of dumping duties of wheat and flour, he has seized the opportunity to do so. His chief complaint is that I refused to act on the report of the Board of Trade which recommended the abolition of those duties. I may remind the hon. member that the previous board reported to the Government that the duties on wheat and flour should be double, and that his recommendation was not accepted because the Government considered that it should lay down the policy; so why does the hon. member complain? This is an advisory board.

There is a very great difference. We increased the benefit to the people but you take it off.

I have replied to that and it has been shown that it does not make the least difference to the price. That experiment has been made. There was nothing in the report to show that if these duties were removed it would mean cheaper bread. The board says “Publish the report so that the argument can be removed from the bakers that the dumping duty increases the price of bread.” As I have said before, the reason I did not agree to publish the report at the time was because we saw what happened— how speculators went round the grain districts telling the farmers that the Government was going to reduce the dumping duties and that the price of wheat was going down. The result was they were buying wheat at their own price. I have now given consent to the publication of the report because Parliament is now in session, and the country will know the true facts. I do not think it would have been in the public interests to publish it before. The hon. gentleman’s other objection was, “If you decide to pay these bounties bring in a Bill” Well, I have explained that too. Why did not the hon. member object when exactly the same thing was done in regard to the purchase of copper?

It was a single contract.

I have already told the House that we are paying this bounty for this year. I see no difference between the two cases. The hon. member was responsible as Minister of Railways for the granting of those bounties, and dealt with them in exactly the same manner. No Bill was passed, and we heard nothing about violating constitutional practice and that sort of nonsense. I repeat that as far as this Government is concerned, we have not decided to make this bounty a permanent thing, and that is why legislation has not been introduced. The Board of Trade will be instructed to say whether this industry is entitled to these bounties, and the question of their continuance in future will depend on that investigation.

What is the hurry? Why pay them now?

I think there is nothing in these arguments, and I am sure the country will concur in the methods the Government has adopted of dealing with this admittedly difficult question of reconciling the interests of different industries.

The Minister has brought up the question of the Messina copper purchase, for which I took responsibility. The circumstances were entirely different. The position was that the company had closed down. We had to purchase about two thousand tons of copper for the electrification of the Natal line, and we were pressed to give the company the benefit of the extra price usually paid by the Government for the produce of South Africa by giving them 10 per cent. over and above the amount paid for the imported article.

What is the difference in principle?

That was the established practice, which the House knew all about.

I think the House knows what we intend doing.

This principle was agreed to by a resolution of the House, and applied to purchases by the Railway Department and the general Government, and it has certainly been established by committees upstairs.

Why did not you bring in a Bill?

We agreed to pay 5s. a ton extra for the copper and there were certain relaxations of the mining regulations, and the result was that the company recommenced operations. After the agreement was concluded it was found that the copper ore from the Messina Mine was sent to England and treated with the ores from other countries, so that it would be impossible to say that we were getting South African copper. It was then agreed that we should pay the company 5s. for every ton produced by the mine. As the result of the reopening of the mine the traffic on the branch railway from Pietersburg to Messina increased to such an extent that we found that every penny we paid for this copper came back to us. I therefore gave instructions that the £10,000 paid for this copper should be transferred from loan to revenue account.

Do you believe in bounties?

No, I do not believe in bounties; but it has been a policy to pay this extra price for the South African material. I do not agree with it myself, but singularly enough it had a very good effect in this case. That is the whole explanation. The £5 extra on the copper was paid out on the certificate of the Government Mining Engineer for every ton produced.

The House is obliged to the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) for his explanation. The member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) has been complaining because this bounty is being paid without the introduction of a Bill. Well, I retorted that I am following precedent because my hon. friend when Minister of Railways paid a bounty in connection with Messina copper, by putting it on the estimates and without introducing a Bill. He told us what precautions he took to see that the money would be properly expended. I may assure him that the department concerned in this case has also seen that proper conditions were fixed under which the bounty will be paid. But that is not the point at issue. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) is complaining that we do not proceed by means of a Bill. We have not had an explanation from the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) why exactly the same course was followed by him and no explanation given at the time.

I hope we may understand from the Minister’s statement that whatever may have been done in connection with the bounty on superphosphates, it is not the intention of the Government in the future to make any such change in the fiscal policy of the country as is indicated here, without consulting the Board of Trade and Industries in relation to the promotion of industries, and that there shall be no dumping duties or bounties adopted by the Government without reference to that body which by Act of Parliament was set up last session. I hope we may accept that point as conceded by the Minister this afternoon. In connection with this matter I wish to refer for a moment to the remarks of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn), who made a somewhat rambling statement from which it would almost appear—in connection with the interjection of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan)—that I was in some way connected with the sale of land to Indians.

I never said he was in any way connected with the sale of land to Indians.

Well, it is difficult to understand in what connection he referred to me at all.

You were not listening.

He referred to me as connected with the sale of land to Indians at Umbogintwini.

interjected a remark.

The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) in his own profession bears a nickname which stresses his resemblance to a homely and useful animal, not noted for its intelligence! But to deal with the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn). The hon. member evidently has some particular knowledge of dealing with Indians because if he will just cast his memory back for a moment to the time when he was connected with the Town Council in Durban, he will remember there was an instance in which an Indian named Ballim, who applied for a licence under false statements and impersonation, and who was on that account turned down by the licensing officer, appealed against that decision to the Town Council. The hon. member had met the Indian Congress the day before and he voted for the granting of this Indian’s licence—

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, what are we discussing?

I was wondering myself what the hon. member was driving at.

I am coming to superphosphates. I am discussing incidentally the somewhat irrelevant ramblings of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn), who referred to the sale of land to Indians and in that connection in some way connected me.

I must point out that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) asked whether he referred to the hon. member for Illovo, and the reply was “No.” I say that in order to prevent the hon. member from digressing.

interjected a further remark.

I thought I had sufficiently dealt with the hon. member for Ceres; but evidently he still persists in showing that he is ridiculously like that animal which is generally useful for nothing but food.

That is very clever, but it does not go down. It amuses the idiots on your side.

I must ask the hon. member please to spare me his senseless interruptions. We were talking about superphosphates at the moment—not bacon!

Unless we are debating the subjects under discussion it is no use hon. members sitting and listening to the trash we are having now.

I can only suggest that the hon. member’s appeal should be addressed to the hon. member for Ceres!

The hon. member says he is just coming to superphosphates.

Since in some vague manner I have been connected with the sale of land to Indians in the minds of some members of this House, through the speech of the hon. member for Umbilo, I would say that I have never employed an Indian nor had a transaction with an Indian, nor consorted with Indians, nor had refreshments with them as the hon. member can be proved, by published statements to have done, which he has not been able to disprove. I hope the hon. the Minister in dealing with this question of superphosphates will give us the assurance that there is to be no granting of bounties in the manner in which they have been granted in this instance without the considered opinion of the Board of Trade having been expressed upon the question, because it is inconceivable that the granting of bounties might be totally opposed to the progress of other industries which are of great benefit to the country, and we think in a case of this sort that the board which has been set apart for that work should be called upon to express its opinion, and if the Minister dissents from that opinion he should let us have an opportunity of considering the conflict of opinion and coming to a decision in this House upon the facts.

A Daniel has spoken!

I listened with anxious care to the explanation of the hon. gentleman and I do not want to misrepresent him. I understand the hon. the Minister to assent to my prophesy that this same vote will appear on the main Estimates. I should like to know if that is correct. If that is so I ask again: is he not committing this country to the payment of this bounty?

Yes.

What is the use of his telling us, if the country has been so committed, that he will refer the matter to the Board of Trade and Industries. He is putting the cart before the horse. He should first get the report and bring in the bounty afterwards, but as a fact what he is doing is bringing in the bounty first and proposing to get a report afterwards. That to my mind is entirely wrong.

The hon. member has now put a question. He has tried to prophesy and on that he has based his argument. Let me remind the hon. member that it is always dangerous to prophesy in this country. This vote in connection with the bounty will not appear on the Estimates, and therefore the rest of the hon. member’s argument falls away.

Why did you not say so before?

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote 26, “Higher Education,” £1,200,

I am very sorry indeed at this juncture to have to oppose this vote. I think that it is a scandal in this House that year after year we have further sums put on the estimates for higher education. I believe hon. members in this House are aware of the fact that the vote on higher education since 1910 has increased 380 per cent. On the other hand the vote for vocational training and technical education has only increased 185 per cent. and again, when we deal with primary education we find that the vote has only increased 153 per cent. I am not against the vote for higher education on principle, but I am bitterly opposed to the vote for higher education being increased unless at the same time satisfactory consideration is given to the needs of vocational and technical training in this country. I believe I am correct in stating that this country compares very unfavourably with other countries in that respect. This country has been about the same number of years in development as Australia. What do we find there, out of a total number of artisans employed in the Government workshops in Australia, there are approximately 87 per cent. who have been trained and have got their technical learning in Australia itself. What do we find in South Africa? The position here is that approximately 27 per cent. of the employees of this Government have got their technical training in the Union of South Africa. Another fact is this, in Australia the vote for higher education has not increased in anything like the same ratio to vocational and technical training as has been the case in this country. On the other hand in Australia since 1910 the percentage is higher in connection with increases on technical education than on higher education.

I am sorry the hon. member is not confining himself to the items under this head, that is to say grants to the University of Stellenbosch, interest and redemption charges, and contributions to provident scheme.

I oppose this sum being voted under the item specified unless we have a statement that the ratio of increase for higher education shall not be higher than that for technical and primary education. These should at least be on the same basis. I will give my reasons. In this country you have not only a higher percentage of increase for higher education, but you have got more B.A.’s and others with letters behind their names, people who have passed through the universities, in proportion to the population than there is in any other country on the face of God’s earth, and yet there is no country in the world that spends less on technical education in proportion to the vote for higher education than is the case in this country. We have in England, Germany, France and indeed every other country except South Africa, an endeavour on the part of the Government to create efficient artisans.

I am afraid the hon. member is just discussing the merits of technical education. He must confine himself to the items under this head.

I accept your ruling, and I will not deal with technical or vocational training, but confine myself to higher education. I do not want the vote for higher education to be increased one iota until we have the votes in respect of other branches of education increased at least at the same ratio. Another matter which I want to bring before this House is the system under which we pay for higher education. I believe we pay 75 per cent. of the total expenditure on students who go to our different colleges to undergo higher education. If that is so, I have the right to claim that we should go a step farther and increase it by the other 25 per cent. so that we can have free higher education. After all is said and done, this higher education vote would not be increased, According to the professors there are roughly 33 per cent. of the students who should not be at the colleges, but they are there owing to the fact that their parents are in sufficiently good financial positions that they are able to pay the 25 per cent. to enable them to enter. I advocate entry by examination.

The hon. member must confine himself to the item under this head.

I understood, Mr. Chairman, that the interest and redemption charges are sums which are paid and are closely connected with the teaching of students, and while I am dealing with the question of the students, I think I am in order.

The hon. member may advance reasons why the grant should not be increased, but he must confine himself to that.

I hold that we have no right to pay these interest and redemption charges for the benefit of one particular class. There should not be this large increase on the higher education vote. I do not want this vote to be increased in greater proportion than the other votes to which I have referred.

I must remind the hon. member that this has nothing to do with the professors of Stellenbosch.

Has not the question of interest and redemption charges paid on a building in which students are taught anything to do with it?

But that does not include the professors.

I am leaving out the professors.

The hon. member must not pursue that point.

With reference to the vote for building at Stellenbosch I want to bring something to the notice of the Minister of which he is possibly unaware. The university at Stellenbosch has 12 acres on the Caledon coast for a marine biological station. I spoke a few days ago of the fishing industry and the advancement thereof. The professors at Stellenbosch felt that there should be such a station in South Africa where students from all over South Africa can go during the vacation to learn something about the sea animals and life on our coast. I would ask if it will not be possible to help in the erection of a building there by granting money for this purpose from the loan funds. The university has a splendid site for a hostel and class-rooms, and they should be put up. The university of Stellenbosch is anxious that the building shall be erected there.

Although the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) was not quite in order, I am very glad to see the great interest he is showing in industrial and technical education. I only wish he would show the same interest in higher education. Perhaps the hon. gentleman will be satisfied with this vote if I explain the two items. The vote of £600 for interest and redemption charges in connection with the University of Stellenbosch is simply to rectify a mistake that has been made in connection with the allocation of money previously voted by Parliament. The Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Stellenbosch has been detached, as far as the financial arrangements are concerned, from the university and placed under the Agricultural Department, and in the allocation of money voted by Parliament the £600 that belonged to the university was placed under agriculture, and this vote is simply to rectify the mistake. With regard to the contribution to provident schemes, there has been an under-estimate of £600, and this is simply to rectify it. We are committed under the ordinary laws to our contributions to the provident funds. With reference to what the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) has said, I can just say this, that as he knows the universities have a very large, or let me rather say an almost complete, measure of autonomy, in the circumstances the Government cannot interfere with the arrangements of the university. If the University of Stellenbosch does not itself decide to erect an institution at Onrust River on the ground that it has received through the generosity of the hon: member, and if they do not come to me with a request, I can do nothing and shall have to wait upon representations from Stellenbosch. As the hon. member knows the grants to universities are not made for separate and different items on their estimates, but they get a lump sum and the universities can spend it as they wish.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote 28, “Agriculture,” £179,500,

I would be glad if the Minister could give some information with regard to the Item Advances to Ostrich Feather Committee, £2,500. I think the first advance was paid by the late Government on the understanding that legislation would be introduced whereby a levy could be made on the export of ostrich feathers. That legislation has not been introduced, so it is a matter of option whether exporters pay or do not pay the levy, the idea being when the necessary Act was passed the levy would be made retrospective.

I may at once state that £8,000 was already granted by the previous Government for advertising our ostrich feathers. The money was granted on the promise that it would be repaid. Now the committee which is charged with advertising ostrich feathers has asked for a further advance of £5,000, also to be repaid later. The £2,500 on the estimates is a portion. I have already given notice of a draft Bill about agricultural levies, and ostrich feathers also fall under it. I have made an appeal to the people to pay the levies, but some will not do so until the law is passed.

The vote for the destruction of locusts is rather a big one, and I would like some information regarding it from the Minister.

I proceed to put the vote.

I think the Minister of Agriculture should give some information with regard to the destruction of locusts.

Surely the Minister will recognize that a fairer proposal cannot be put to him than that of the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. van Heerden). He has referred to the fact that the Minister of Finance at the outset of the debate said that when we came to the particular votes of Ministers they would give an explanation. The Minister of Agriculture has given many public statements in regard to the question of locust destruction and it was even referred to, I think, in the Governor-General’s speech, so that I think the least the House can expect is that the Minister will tell us what the position is at the present moment and whether his ideas, which I hope will be correct, that the locust menace has been entirely removed from the country, is really the experience after the late rains, because many members here, who are very keenly interested in this question, have not got the information at their disposal which the Minister has. I think the Minister should tell us what has been the result after the rains of the past two weeks, so far as swarms both in the Union and outside the Union are concerned, and also whether the experiments in connection with the destruction of flying locusts are going to be continued and whether they have been of a satisfactory character. He might also give us information with regard to the tramping out of flying locusts and whether this has been as successful as at one time it was thought it would be, and also whether the poisoning of the flying locusts has been of a more satisfactory character. He might tell us what are the scientific investigations which are being carried out into the question of locust destruction. I saw from the press the other day that Mr. Mally, who has rendered eminent services as entomologist, has been sent to Pretoria in connection with investigations of this character. I know that a couple of years ago the question was strongly urged in this House as to whether there was any possibility of doing something in this matter in connection with the development that has taken place in flying, and especially in view of the experiments in the United States in regard to the powdering of wattle plantations, etc. I remember that, when I was in office the Secretary for Agriculture cabled to the United States in connection with that matter in order to ascertain in what direction their investigations had gone, and whether there was any possibility of doing anything in that respect. I can assure the Minister of Agriculture that in any steps which he takes in regard to the destruction of locusts and the protection of this country from locust invasion he will have the support of all sections of the House.

I can tell the hon. members opposite that the position as regards the extermination of locusts is very favourable in parts that are occupied. But in unoccupied areas it is not so favourable. In the Kalahari rain fell not so long ago and there was a large hatching out of locusts. We are working hard there, but it is impossible to reach all parts, and we may therefore expect swarms of fliers. I have made an appeal to the farming population not to expect the Government to also kill swarms of fliers unless the Government is able to reach the swarms by lorries. We send lorries out with poison to squirt swarms when they come to rest. Further, we expect that the people will themselves do something after the taxpayers have already done so much. To hire people to squirt locusts in the night is difficult. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) will know that it is actually an impossible thing because one has no control of the work when it is done in the night. The Transvaal and Free State are clean with the exception of a few small swarms here and there. A few have crept into the Cape, but my information is that where they have not been killed the birds are busy helping us in eradicating the pest. In South-West Africa the position is not so favourable. I have received a telegram and have ordered Commandant Wilkens to go there personally. The portions which are under the supervision of a Transvaal official are fairly clean according to my information, but in the portions under Col. de Jager the position is unfavourable, and therefore I said that Commandant Wilkens must go there. I can assure hon. members that everything that I can do will be done to fight this plague. The expenses are very great, but if we can so far attain our object that the farmers save their crops, then we have really attained something valuable. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort has asked what is being done with regard to scientific research. As hon. members know I specially deputed Dr. Mally and Dr. Potgieter to enquire into the means of existence and the development of the locusts, to see if they cannot find out any way of fighting the locust on scientific lines. This has only just commenced and it will probably last years before they can possibly know how to exterminate the plague. I can only give the assurance that I will do everything in my power to see how we can make an end of this plague. I believe that hon. members do not expect that I should go into the details of this vote. The amount required to the 31st March is £377,000. The Minister of Finance has made clear that this runs to £450,000 if we include the poison that had been brought forward from last year. I can intimate that this £70,000 has been replaced by other poisons in the depots which will be carried on to next year. The actual amount will thus only be £377,000.

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

When we talk about the extermination of locusts then we are trenching on Bechuanaland. I cannot understand the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). He says that money has been wasted in the extermination of locusts. If he makes an inquiry he will certainly be the first on that side of the House to acknowledge that the little amount of £377,000 has properly been spent and that he will shake hands with the hon. Minister and congratulate him upon the magnificent success that has been attained with this insignificant sum, especially if we take into account that the previous year the former Minister paid out twice £124,000 without result. Last year all the crops of the farmers in the western Transvaal and the northern provinces of the Cape were eaten up by locusts. Then locusts were killed on paper, but the present hon. Minister of Agriculture was not satisfied with that. He personally visited Bechuanaland. Also when things were at their worst, he drove right through Bechuanaland to see that the Government was getting value for its money. I believe the Government did get value for its money. I do not think that there is a single member in the House who thinks that this success is not worth the money. But that is far from saying that I, as an opponent of the poisoning method, entirely submit. I think with the farmers in the Transvaal, Free State and Bechuanaland that the eradication of locusts is a national matter and that the burden thereof must be borne by the whole people. I cannot help it when locusts come on to my farm, and yet I am responsible, and I and other farmers have to work ourselves to death. The hon. Minister will agree with me that there is not a single farmer who was able to look after his own farming operations during the two months of our campaign. Every farmer had to help for two months and he got nothing for it. The Government only provided us with sprays and the poison and we sacrificed ourselves just as well in the interests of the rest of the Union. We have done our best to eradicate the locust and we thereby protected the rest of the Union. Yet, I regard it as a national matter and think that every man in the Union should justly contribute to the extermination of locusts. Then the question of poison. From experience we know that much damage is done in this way. Only to-day I received a letter from Olifants Hoek, and the letter says that in the Kalahari where powder was sprayed much game is dying from eating poisoned locusts. This means that all the cattle of the farmers are brought into danger and that great damage may result. I think that if we want to be fair towards Bechuanaland then the hon. Minister ought to take another way of eradicating locusts, and further, I think that it is a national matter and that the whole country should contribute to the burden of the eradication of locusts.

I gladly avail myself as a member of the western Free State of the opportunity to congratulate the Minister of Lands with the progress that has been made in the extermination of locusts. I want to mention a little thing to indicate the difference between what was done by the previous Minister and what is now done, and why the campaign this year is such a success. Last year a large number of locust officials were appointed, and with a few exceptions they merely went from farm to farm, and the greatest unpleasantness was caused. They simply said to the farmers, “You must kill the locusts,” and rode away. We sustained a national calamity and the Government must help to bear the burden. This year we find that the officials immediately spent the money. They hired people and surrounded the locusts to kill them.

The hon. member is now discussing the general policy of the Government. He must confine himself to the reasons for or against the increase of the vote.

I only want to add that I support the increase. I am glad that the attempted extermination of swarms of fliers has been stopped. It is wasted money because it is wasting money to get people to work in the night. They do nothing.

I only wish the Minister of Agriculture would give us more information on this subject, especially as to the reasons why this expenditure is so enormous. He has given us a resume of the exact position to-day, from which it appears that in the Kalahari a big outbreak is expected; as regards the Transvaal and Free State the country is fairly clean; in the Cape Province there are some swarms, and in South-West the position is not satisfactory at all. I should like to know from the Minister exactly where he operated in his campaign, because this amount is, to my mind, most excessive, half a million is almost as much as you spend on a war. We know the Minister took the field in person—but half a million in six months’ time! I should like to know how much was spent in salaries, and how much in material, and exactly what the result was; because the locust does not seem to have been eradicated altogether, and to a large extent the Minister was assisted by natural conditions, owing to locusts dying from diseases. The campaign this year must have been confined entirely to the Transvaal and Free State from what the Minister says. I know that in the area I come from—the Eastern Province— hardly any hatchings took place. Secondly, the area in which the Minister operated was much smaller than his predecessor had to deal with. I believe the latter’s campaign cost £200,000. It was most effective in the Eastern Province because we have had very few hatchings. I do feel that when a campaign like this costs half a million, there must surely have been some leakage. One reads in the paper of instances where accounts have been paid twice and of a case where an instructor controlling ten farms spent £400 on spraying pumps. I hope the Minister will inform the House as to his methods of campaign.

You know nothing about it.

The Minister told us that the amount expended was £370,000 and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture have both told us that there was an addition of £100,000 which makes it £477,000—very little short of half a million. I think it is necessary that we should have some details.

If the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) had been in his place when I replied before the House adjourned at 6 o’clock to the questions put to me then I would also have answered his questions, but I do not see why I should give an answer to empty benches. I will only say to the hon. member that he is entirely wrong when he says that the area where locusts had to be killed was smaller this year than last. If the hon. member will investigate he will see that the position is the opposite, and he will find that the area this year was much larger than it has ever been any year previously. The hon. member says that there were no locusts in the Cape. What about Bechuanaland? Isn’t that in the Cape? I will only say that the area where we had to exterminate locusts in the Transvaal was much larger than the year before. In the Free State it was not so large, in the Cape Province it was much larger and there we are still busy exterminating locusts. The hon. member says that the amount is very large. I will acknowledge this. It is large, but if one spends money and you save the farmers’ crops, is that nothing? £324,000 was spent last year in comparison with £377,000 this year, and I will only say in what way the amount has been spent. I can give the hon. member the assurance that the double payment he mentions has not taken place. Proper account has been kept of the money that has been spent and a portion of the money spent on company farms not occupied will be repaid. It is not as the other year when a tremendous quantity of money was spent on companies of which hardly anything has come back. The hon. Minister of Finance will see that a portion of the money is got in this year. The following is the way the money was spent—

Now I only want to tell the hon. member something about the half million expenditure of which he has spoken. The hon. member says that it is nearly so much as what was spent in in the war. I do not know what was spent in the last war. This year £377,000 has been spent. Now the hon. member has mentioned that the hon. Minister of Finance stated distinctly that the £450,000 about which he spoke represents a supply of poison. This poison has been used, but it has been replaced by a new supply which came in its place during this year. The actual amount is £377,000. I believe that in so far as this amount is concerned I can take upon myself the entire responsibility for this expenditure of money, and I believe that the taxpayer will be pleased that the amount of £377,000 has been spent in the way we have done.

When one considers that the Minister gave us these figures, salaries £213,000, and he still expects to spend £19,000, that makes about £234,000 in salaries. The expenditure on material was about £83,000. One begins to wonder if the “jobs for pals” did not take place here, and whether the Minister was finding jobs for his friends. I cannot understand how that huge amount of money can have been spent in salaries—almost three times as much as in materials. I think the country would be astounded to hear these figures. I should also like to ask the Minister whether the spraying pumps were made in South Africa or overseas.

I am not surprised at the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) that he is astonished at this large sum of money. It is an enormous amount of money, you must admit it. He asks why so much more is paid out than last year, but if he were acquainted with the circumstances he would understand. In the past, and especially in the Transvaal, the invasion was of such a kind that the previous Government left it to the farmers to kill the locusts, and there were only one or two head officials and others under them appointed in a district. This year the position was entirely different. My constituency is very large and the whole district was covered with locusts from Bechuanaland and elsewhere, so that a motor car could hardly proceed. The far distant farmers could not carry on the campaign, and the Government had to assist and help had also to be got from districts and portions where the farmers were free of the plague. Hundreds of people came into the district to carry on the campaign, also unemployed and others. They received 10s. per day. They were workers and not officials. The length of the district is 250 miles and the breadth 150 miles. Motor lorries had to be hired, the transport of poison is difficult, and that is the reason why the cost is so high. I can understand that members are restless, but that was the only way to do the work of extermination. But there is another matter to which I wish to refer. The Minister of Agriculture has said that he is going to collect the money from the farmers where the Government has killed locusts. It was very difficult in the past to collect the money. The magistrates will tell him that it is impossible to get in the arrear money. If the Minister is going to collect that money this year it will be an intolerable burden. I agree fully with the hon. member for Bechuanaland (Mr. Raubenheimer) that we must not allow the people in Bechuanaland and in my district who have to exterminate the locusts for the rest of the country, to bear the financial responsibility therefor. In my district there are people of both sections in the population who did nothing for two months but exterminate locusts.

Did you get paid?

No, but it cost a lot of money. It looks, however, as if the Minister intends to get in the arrear moneys, and I think that would be unfair.

If my hon. friend the member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) was not a practical farmer, then I could possibly have understood his views and arguments, but now I cannot follow them. He will surely acknowledge that last year the hatching was not so great as this year. If he has knowledge of the conditions, then he would agree with what I say. The old Government spent £324,726, and notwithstanding the expenditure of this large sum the crops in the Free State were destroyed, and this although the farmers were all busy in eradicating locusts on their farms. In spite of all the money that was then spent, all the crops were destroyed. The previous hon. Minister sat in his office and pulled the wires from there and spent the taxpayers’ money. With a view to the difference in the position this year and last year under the previous Minister of Agriculture, I expected the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) with the rest of the House which has the welfare of the country at heart to give thanks and homage to the hon. Minister of Agriculture for the admirable administration which has succeeded so effectively. Instead of this, the hon. member is apparently dissatisfied. He comes with the old little story, the old stalking horse, “jobs for pals,” and he forgets that under the old Government, in Cradock there were 28 locust officers who were all “Sappies,” although there were no locusts at all. This year £377,000 has been spent, but I give him the assurance that the entire Free State and Transvaal are thankful for what the hon. Minister of Agriculture has done, and they consider that the money has been usefully spent. We expect a splendid mealie crop and grain crop, and if it is necessary we will possibly also be able to supply with mealies the district where the hon. member comes from and where it is now so dry.

I only want to add a few words about the money spent in exterminating locusts. The hon. member over there says that I must not do it. If we were to-day in power then we should have heard how the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. A. I. E. de Villiers) would have gone on about the waste of money. I will not go so far as to say this. I do not say that the locusts must not be killed. The hon. Minister of Agriculture has, however, acted very royally. Over a thousand officials have been appointed, and I think that the Minister and the Government never had better luck than the visit of the locusts, because they then had something for the people who worked for them at the election. The Minister has again come here with the story that there were officials of the South African party who had to be dismissed. I leave that all there. The spraying of locusts has done much good, and the Minister has done much, but my hon. friends must look a little further. We saw in the past that locusts came and Providence took them away.

This is not a church council meeting.

Yes, it is not a meeting of the church council, but I will not be scared by that, and I shall say what I have to say. I know that if the hon. Minister of Agriculture would be honourable, that he would acknowledge to this House that although large swarms have been killed by spraying, millions have died of themselves. I know of cases where locusts got the better of the sprayers, and when a swarm flew up they fell dead like rain from the sky. They were destroyed by worms. Here Providence helped. The Minister knows this, and he must acknowledge it to the House. As I say, I willingly accept that many have been killed, but I wish to assure the Minister that I will not give him all the honour, because Providence has helped us. I am not sorry about it. I am pleased about it. But it is a great pity that we cannot all regard the matter in the right light. I know that locusts appeared in the Krugersdorp district. They were not large swarms, but not one was sprayed, and the swarms were destroyed by birds. It is perhaps as well that there were no sprayers because then the birds would perhaps have been killed so that they could not help us.

Why did the birds not then come and help you?

Yes, that is another thing hon. members wish to stuff the public with, because they are so good the country is assisted by Providence. This is why it rained and the locusts are eradicated. If the country is blest under their Government I am pleased and thankful. Hon. members on the other side can make as much noise as they like, I shall say what I want to. The people, however, are noting these things. Originally £200,000 was voted for the fighting of locusts, and the Minister has gone and spent another £177,000. I admit that the locusts had to be properly fought, but the Minister must also acknowledge that money has been wasted.

Prove where.

I will show where. There was the campaign to the desert. Persons who cannot manage their own business were sent there to spend the money of the Government and they drove about with camels. The poor people who worked as sprayers at 10s. per day earned their money well. But how many officials are not there still to-day whom the Minister appointed and who are still being paid.

Not one.

I want the answer of the Minister and not from the hon. member there. I think that the Minister should be very careful, and we are thankful that the plague has so lessened, but this has not been brought about by the Minister alone. He must acknowledge that Providence has helped us. But I am afraid of another thing, the “locust kings” as they are called, namely, the officials who will cost the country more than the locusts.

The hon. member must confine himself to the vote under discussion.

I submit to your ruling, but I want to warn the Minister against wasting money and the Minister must not just use £177,000 extra when £200,000 has been voted. The people will take notice of this. I know how things went in the Transvaal, and we cannot continue thus. I hope that the Minister will go carefully to work and that he will not think that he is the great man. Let us think of the people.

I am very much surprised at the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys).

I know, you are always surprised.

I am surprised that he takes the point that we do not believe in Providence. We proved this when this Government came into power.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

Everybody knows what the Government has done. It looked up to the Almighty and asked for help. I and the other members on this side believe in the control of the Almighty, and the hon. the Minister does not think that he has eradicated the locusts that were eaten by little worms. We all believe that this was a blessing. I think a curse rested on the country, and that it disappeared with the change of Government. Does the hon. member really think that the hon. Minister did no good with the eradication of the locusts? We expect in the Transvaal and in the Free State splendid harvests and we hope that the harvests will be reaped and they are worth more than £377,000. We believe sincerely in the Government of the Higher Hand and the hon. member has no right to accuse us of not doing so.

I only rise to deny the accusation of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys) and to prove how little ground there is for it. It is an accusation that is made by every member on that side, namely, that the locust campaign was used to give jobs to people. It is a distinct falsehood and I will prove it. In my own constituency I can name several cases, and there are other members in the Transvaal who can also do so. With me the district official is a member of the South African party.

Yes, I know you dismissed them.

No, he was appointed by the present Minister, and of the 19 in my constituency 11 belong to the South African party and eight to the Nationalist party. I am prepared to prove this statement, and I should like hon. members on the opposite side who make such statements not to leave it there but that they will also prove it. They only do it to mislead the people.

The exception proves the rule.

It is no exception. Other members can mention similar instances. I do not mention it because it is an exception but to show hon. members there that it is nonsense that they are talking and to prove to them that they base an attack on sand where no possible foundation exists.

I entirely approve that credit should be given to the hon. Minister. I only want to show that to a great extent it belongs also to the previous Government because the campaign was actually begun under the previous Government who passed the law of 1922 on agricultural pests and by virtue of that Act the present Minister of Agriculture has gone to work. It is there provided that every owner of ground must exterminate locusts on his ground and the obligation is not therein thrown upon a person who does not live himself on his ground to pay the expenditure of the extermination of locusts on his farm. It is all set out in the law of 1922 when the previous Government was in power as we know. But as regards the work that has recently been done by the present Minister of Agriculture no one can appreciate the full value and the full weight thereof if he has not himself been in those districts and personally seen the damage done by locusts. Take the district of Lydenburg. The wheat farmers in Lydenburg were full of hope in 1924 and it was calculated that at least 30,000 bags of wheat would be sold by the co-operative societies. And just when everything was ready to reap the harvest the locusts came with the consequence that we could only sell 10,000 bags, a loss of 20,000 bags at a price of about £2 per bag—a loss of about £40,000. If such a small district in an outside corner of the Transvaal suffers a loss of £40,000, then I find the sum spent in the campaign in comparison with the loss not at all too large. And we must not only look at the pest, but we must always keep account of locusts in the future, and it will be necessary to eradicate the locusts with a firm hand. It was all the feeling in Lydenburg that locusts did no damage to cotton which is much produced by us, and a splendid cotton harvest is expected in 1925; yet it has turned out that locusts can indeed do considerable damage to the cotton plant. So I think that the large expenditure is entirely justified, and that the. Minister can safely make a demand upon the taxpayer. For very justice, I cannot neglect to add that in my district I have not seen any distinction made between officials of various parties. It happened without favour of person, the best persons were appointed and I do not know of any money being wasted. But I want to say further that, according to my information, persons who had sent accounts for £20 or £30 or £40, received sums of £4 or £5 or £6, and this is about what they were entitled to. We also wondered if too much would not be paid, but we are satisfied that this did not occur. I would only ask the Minister to remember that the former Government has also done much in this respect, and that he will continue with the good work.

I will gladly reply to the criticism of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys). I am sorry that where such a serious matter as this is being dealt with, where a punishment has come upon the country by a visitation of locusts, members on the other side accuse me of finding “jobs for pals.” I just want to say to the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) that in the past there were 19 head locust officials in the Union, and of these 15 were South African party and 4 Nationalists. Twenty have been appointed by me of whom 11 are Nationalists and 9 South African party. Last year there was in Prieska only one Nationalist out of 19 officials. Notwithstanding all our efforts to bring this to their comprehension, hon. members opposite cannot understand that they are no longer in power. If locusts come again, and I hope they will not, then I shall appoint Nationalists to give members opposite some ground of complaint, because they will complain in any case. I have here a letter from a branch of the South African party in the north of the Transvaal which decides to appoint a South African party as a locust official to prevent a Nationalist from being chosen. This shows how the South African party drags politics into everything. If the hon. member for Cradock had the least comprehension of making war, then he would know that one must appoint officers for a campaign. I shall give him a list of the officers and officials who were appointed. There is one chief officer, 20 senior officers, 191 district officers, 1,689 local officers, 14,408 sprayers at 10s. per day, and over 4,000 water carriers. Does the hon. member know that water is scarce in the Kalahari, and must be transported in many places, and that the transport is very difficult? And then he says that money is wasted. If he will only be honourable and investigate the matter properly, then he should be thankful that too much money has not been spent. If it was not that the Minister of Defence lent me lorries and that the Governor-General gave assistance in the reserves, then I can give the hon. member the assurance that the cost would have been much greater. I am very sorry that the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Geldenhuys), who occupies that position in his party, has dragged in religion in such a way into the matter. I do not seek for honour, and I do not take the honour for it. I did my duty as an official of the state, and I am very glad for the help of Providence in blessing my work.

The Minister of Agriculture is so extremely “touchy” that he seems to resent every bit of criticism that comes from this side of the House. I think matters have come to a rather sorry pass when we find that before a man can be a locust inspector he has to state to what political party he belongs. When the Minister took the field a little while ago he went through a territory which he has described in two ways this evening. He said that Bechuanaland is a part of the Cape Colony and then he said that in the Bechuanaland Protectorate he had spent £12,000. I am somewhat hazy about the boundaries. If I understand correctly, in a country which does not belong to the Union, civil servants were instructed by the Minister as to what they should and should not do. The Minister himself was uncertain of the boundaries. Perhaps now he is more certain. Perhaps also he can enlighten us more clearly than he has done so far on what was spent upon this expedition in Bechuanaland or the Kalahari.

What expedition are you alluding to?

The one you described when you took the field.

There was no expedition there.

The Minister has put two reports on the Table already in regard to this expedition. The one we want is the report on the entomologist. I would like to know when we are to see that report.

When we get it.

I think this country is entitled to know what the entomologist has to say about this expedition.

The debate we have listened to in connection with this matter is, to my mind, a most deplorable one. It only shows how the South African party are allowing party politics to blind them to a sense of fairplay and a sense of justice.

A Daniel come to judgment!

If there is one man in South Africa who deserves well of this country it is the Minister of Agriculture. He has saved the farmers of this country thousands of pounds by the energetic, vigorous and successful way in which he tackled this locust invasion a few months ago. And yet, if we except the hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. Nieuwenhuize), how petty, how small, how futile have been the criticisms we have heard in face of the success which attended the Minister’s expedition a few months ago. How much better that this expedition should be successful, even though it required the employment of thousands of men upon the spraying operations, than that the farmers of South Africa should be ruined just at the time when their crops were beginning to come on.

It is the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) whom you have to thank.

The only difference is that the hon. member for Fort Beaufort spent over £300,000 and failed where my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture spent £370,000 and succeeded. The Minister has the gratitude of the farmers of South Africa for what he has done. How trifling are the criticisms which have been urged against the Minister in this matter. Even the Press which supports the South African party and is paid and run by the South African party had to take its hat off and pay a tribute of praise to the Minister of Agriculture for the way in which he tackled this business and succeeded where others had failed.

I presume we can make a great deal of allowance for my hon. friend the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. He has found his tongue so hampered during the debate for the last couple of days that he now seizes this opportunity of lecturing the House. I think he is about the last person who should attempt to lecture the House. I do not want to detract in any way from the credit that is due to the Minister of Agriculture. I can only congratulate him upon having succeeded in the most wonderful manner in having all his actions telegraphed throughout the length and breadth of the country through the instrumentality of the Press.

What a discovery!

The Minister of Agriculture in all these matters has taken to himself the credit and forgotten to give to that magnificent staff who have carried out all this work the credit which they deserve. The member for Hoopstad (Mr. M. L. Malan) has referred to the number of people appointed by me. I think it ill becomes the hon. member for Hoopstad to cast reflections on the men who have done such splendid service. When the locust invasion was at its height a couple of years ago a deputation came to see me from the Western Transvaal and represented that the farmers there were rather disturbed that men were not likely to turn out to kill locusts and there was a general demand for payment for the services that were to be performed. I was told that there was one gentleman who had the confidence of these people and that was Mr. Graham Cross. I went to the Department of Lands and got Mr. Graham Cross and when I put him in the field as senior locust officer I gave him full authority to dismiss any locust officer who, he considered, was not doing his duty. I challenge the hon. member for Hoopstad or any other member to show that Mr. Graham Cross appointed locust officers where they were not necessary. The Kalahari expedition was arranged before my hon. friend came into office. It was arranged on recommendations made by the senior locust officers. The Minister has told me for the first time that espionage is going on in his Department, because he has now, for the first time, brought to my notice the fact that the political opinions are known of the various locust officers appointed throughout the country. Hon. members may find it very difficult to believe but the locust officers I appointed were appointed on the recommendations of the magistrates and the farmers’ associations in the districts, which is not the attitude of the hon. Minister.

That is why you were not a success.

Do not get excited. Col. Wikens was appointed by me because I was informed he was a capable man. My choice was so good that I believe my hon. friend has made him head of the senior Locust Officers in the field. The senior Locust Officers were nominated by the agricultural associations. The Transvaal appointed Mr. Mansergh. Is he in his position now? If not, I would like the Minister to tell me why he was dismissed. I should like to thank those gentlemen who left their farms and came to the assistance of the State in a very difficult time to tackle this great question.

You have had plenty of time in which to thank them.

Jealousy.

I acknowledge that afterwards there was a certain amount of jealousy and difficulty. The injudicious speeches on the embargo on cattle made it very difficult for the Minister, as he knows quite well, to get the co-operation of the inhabitants of Bechuanaland.

No, rubbish.

I say it is ungracious to decline to give to the men who carried out the work the praise which is due to them, and the Minister has never given them any praise in public whatever. These people organized that expedition. I believe Col. Wilkens was a member of the Commission, and I, like the member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl), would like to see the report of that Commission laid upon the Table of the House. If you had put into account the stocks of poison that the late locust administration recommended should be got and all the other things, then this expenditure would not be £360,000, it would be over half-a-million. I do not object to that money being spent so long as it is well spent, but I say you must keep the closest eye upon expenditure because there is often a serious amount of wastage which it is very difficult to avoid.

The hon. member’s time has expired.

We appear to be coming to quite a strange pass in our party politics. Last year, the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) will admit, I think, that I got up and congratulated him, and I expected this year he would get up and congratulate the Minister. After all, are we going to bring this locust question into party politics? You have brought the scab question into party politics and now you want to do the same with the locust question. The fact is, the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is jealous. He is attacked by the green-eyed monster. One could understand a young member like the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) bringing the locust question into party politics, but for a man of the experience of the hon. member for Beaufort West (Sir Thomas Smartt) to do it is something one cannot understand. The hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) was sneering at the Kalahari Expedition until he discovered that his own leader was in favour of it. I would ask the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) does he consider Mr. Kolbe a good man?

An excellent man.

Well, I will tell the hon. member this, I went to see Mr. Kolbe. I said to him: this locust question is a very big question for the State. Has the Minister told you to appoint any Nationalists? Mr. Kolbe said: the Minister said to me do not take any notice of a man’s political views, but just take the best men.

What Minister was that?

The Minister of Agriculture. What happened in the Free State? A strong South African party man is the head man in my district. I might almost say that every man there is a man of English name and of South African party politics. Do let us be fair on this question. I want to kill the party spirit on this locust question, and I believe there are a number of members opposite who want to do the same. Let us be fair to this Minister of Agriculture. He has been eulogised by your South African Party Press for the work he has done and now you come here and sneer. You say he was sitting at the end of a telegraph machine and broadcasting the accounts of his own exploits throughout South Africa. The truth is this: it is not an attack on the Locust Expedition; it is the old story of an attack upon General Kemp personally. The hon. Minister has done good work and the farmers, no matter what their political party, recognize this. Of course, these locust campaigns cost money, and, of course, there is wastage; there always will be wastage. Why sneer at the fact that we have been helped by Providence?

I am not sneering.

The two parties have combined, and we have done something which has not been done for years; we have nearly got rid of the locusts; and hon. members opposite are making political capital out of it. I have always tried to help the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) both privately and publicly, because he was doing good work, and if he would only say he recognized that the Minister of Agriculture was doing good work it would help. There are men in my districts who do not want to fight locusts— they are remschoens, and we have to fight them. If you were to take members opposite and ask them, they would say, “this is only a party dodge. We mean always to do the right thing by agriculture.” I do not mind the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) making these remarks because he knows nothing about it, but I do take exception in the case of the ex-Minister of Agriculture, because the farmers think a lot of him, and he is popular in the Free State as a farmer. I am not talking as a politician. His remarks are doing the country a lot of harm, and it would do good if he will recognize the Minister’s good word. The “Argus” and “Cape Times” and other papers have eulogized the Minister, though they hate his politics as the Devil hates holy water; they recognize that they have a live man. I hope that this is the last time we shall make scab or locusts a party concern. It is all very well for lawyers to make a joke of it; but people in the Free State two years ago were nearly ruined by locusts. I thank the Minister and the Government for what they have carried out.

We have heard the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) in many roles, but never in a more interesting one, and the hon. member himself knows that he was speaking through his hat, and did not really mean what he said.

I did.

When I spoke before I at once said I recognized the good work of the Minister, and I thought he would have joined in giving public recognition to the splendid work of the staff under him, who for years have been dealing with this visitation. That was all I said. May I ask the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow), to use the great influence he possesses with the Minister to ask him not, when discussing a question of this sort, to get up and say that the Locust Department consists of so many supporters of the South African party and so many Nationalists? It was after he did so that I spoke. It seems that the hon. Minister has been devoting his attention to getting a synopsis prepared of the political views of hundreds of people who had been acting as locust officers. I never knew what were their political views. I never appointed any on my own ipse dixit, but on the recommendations that were brought up. The hon. member asked my opinion of Mr. Kolbe. I consider him one of the most representative persons in the farming population of this country. I have come into contact with him as representative of the Free State Agricultural Union and member of the Advisory Board, and I know him as one who never allows politics to enter into any agricultural matter; I am very pleased that I appointed him and I should be wanting in my duty if I did not give a need of praise to him and the others who have been instrumental in doing extremely good work in coping with this national danger. The hon. member knows I have not treated the locust question as a party one.

This is the second time the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) tried to make capital out of this matter. He states that I never dismissed the officials on account of the work that they did. I am sorry that I did not know that he made this observation, otherwise I would have brought a copy of the letter with me, which I wrote to all officials and the public of South Africa to thank everybody for their help. I am sorry that I have not got the letter here. Then the hon. member comes and accuses me that the dismissal of Mr. Manson was not justified. I dismissed him because he did not do good work. Ten days before I personally controlled the work he reported that everything was duly under control. When I was busy in the Kalahari I received advice that the position at Rustenburg was very serious, and when I got there I saw for myself what the condition was and I dismissed him with a perfect right. He did not do his duty and that is why Mr. Manson was dismissed. He occasioned more costs than was necessary. The hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) also asked me when the report of the Kalahari expedition will be laid upon the Table. I will do so as soon as possible. Other reports have already been laid on the Table for the information of hon. members in connection with the Kalahari expedition and the remaining one will follow as soon as possible. But what concerns the expenditure of Bechuanaland I would just like to tell the hon. member that besides that Bechuanaland, which is represented by the hon. member in this House, there is also British Bechuanaland. Perhaps the hon. member does not know this and perhaps he does not know that there also there are locusts. The officers in British Bechuanaland are under my department and therefore the vote of £12,000 appears for those expenses. It has thus nothing to do with the expedition to the Kalahari. I have already, in reply to a question about the costs of the expedition answered in writing.

Why did you get a list of their political views?

You have been charging us with the spoils system even before the Government was formed. You cannot put two and two together.

I ask the Minister again whether he will give us the actual cost of the Kalahari expedition. I ask whether he has the courtesy to give it. Do I understand he refuses?

That question was answered a week ago.

Well, I ask you again.

The hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs described this debate as being deplorable. It struck me very funnily that you dare not say a word against the Government or you are accused of being in arms against them. You dare not say anything about how they deliver the goods. The position we take up on this side of the House is that we are not against the Minister in endeavouring to eradicate the locusts, but we want to satisfy ourselves that we have received value and that the money has not been wasted. We cannot accept the position—and that seems to me to be what the hon. members on that side are trying to make out that we should do, and threatening us—that we dare not say anything because the farmers are satisfied. It is our duty to be satisfied that the money has not been spent wrongly—the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) showed that there had been leakages—because if we have to spend every year half a million of money on locusts— undoubtedly next year we will have to spend a similar amount—I do not know where this country will be landed, and it is time some action was taken to see that there is no leakage. And with such a big difference between salaries and material I, personally, am not satisfied. The Minister has not proved satisfactorily that money has not been wasted, and I would like to see some sort of enquiry, as the country should know how this money has been spent. That is the position we take up. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) said we discussed the simultaneous dipping in connection with scab to make capital out of it. We were not against it but against the method adopted by the Minister. The Minister has mentioned that we have dragged politics into it, but it is certainly from that side of the House that that has been done. When the Minister gave the number of S.A.P. and Nationalists who had been appointed I wondered how he found out before he appoints men to positions what their political views are. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) said we, on this side of the House, were sneering at the Minister of Agriculture. We appreciate what the Minister has done, but we feel a stop must be put to the leakage. He speaks of sneering, but if there is anyone in this House who has the monopoly of sneering it is the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow).

May I again ask for an answer to my question? The members of this House have always been treated with courtesy in the past, and I asked the Minister a perfectly courteous question, I think it is due to this House that he should reply. I think it is quite improper that a Minister should say that he answered the question three weeks ago and I think the House should insist on an answer this evening. The question was: “What did the expedition to the Kalahari cost?”

I think it is our duty to show that we do not intend to be ignored by the Minister of Agriculture. A perfectly courteous question has been asked by the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl). I have not been long in this House, but this is certainly the first instance where a courteous question has been completely ignored by a Minister in the contemptuous way in which the Minister has ignored the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour). During the afternoon a similar attitude was taken up in regard to the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden).

I hope the Minister will realize that this is a very necessary question to put. Surely it is the desire of the hon. the Prime Minister and his colleagues to get through the work before the House within as reasonable a time as possible. The right hon. the Prime Minister, from his experience in this House must know that if a Minister refuses—I hope he only refused in the heat of the moment—refuses to answer a simple question—it is open for him to say I have not the figures before me at the moment; I will look them up and let him know at a future date— but to sit there and refuse to answer I think is not supporting the dignity of this House and showing the courteousy that should be extended by a powerful Government to an Opposition, and we cannot allow them to pass without some strictures. I can assure the right hon. the Prime Minister that a policy of that kind is not going to expedite business. I am the last one to stifle discussion but the last few days we have been expressing views on matters upon which the people are greatly exercised, and I think we cannot be accused of obstructing in any way. I would say to the Prime Minister that the least we can expect is a simple answer from the Minister of Agriculture.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is not yet finished, he will go on for another hour. I give him the assurance that I intend and that the Government intends to go on with the work we have before us and what will still come before us. That is what I object so much to in him and his friends. It is a proof that they try to waste the time of the House. We saw this to-day and also yesterday. One of the members of the Opposition said, this is but the foretaste of our teeth. Yes, of our teeth which can do nothing else but worry. I have been here practically the whole day and I ask any impartial man how many words the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) has said to-day which very easily could have been left entirely unsaid. He has simply said the words to waste the time of the House. I will only say this that I am glad that there were so many people in the House to-day, and still are, to see the conduct of the member and his supporters and to observe how they play here with the time of the country, and how the money of the country is wasted by idle and frivolous chatter. Now the hon. member appeals to me an appeal on behalf of a member of the Opposition who is just as frivolous as the hon. member for Fort Beaufort. I say this intentionally. The hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) showed yesterday that his only object is to waste the time of the House. He keeps on putting a question which has already been answered by the Minister days before.

He himself asked the question.

Exactly. This showed still more levity on the part of the hon. member. He puts a question to which he has already had an answer. The answer is known to him, it is known to the whole House, and with what right does the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) ask me to ask the Minister to reply again? Is this not a clear proof of levity? The hon. member asks forsooth under a pretence of earnestness and tries to give utterance to more levity. With what right do you ask me that. I shall ask the Minister to answer the question to which the answer is well known to you and also to the House? With what right do you ask this of me? I hope that you will not get the answer, and I am prepared to take the good sense of the House to say whether you are right or not.

I am very glad the hon. the Prime Minister has declared his position. I think it is the first time in the history of this House that we have had the Prime Minister getting up in order to accuse members of deliberately wasting the time of the House.

It is you who are doing it.

I defy the hon. member to prove that we are not showing every consideration—

It is their own people who are wasting time.

The hon. the Minister knows the answer to this question. It is therefore easy for him to give it to me. Unlike as in other cases, I have not had the courtesy extended to me of being supplied with a typewritten copy of the reply. Even the Prime Minister has extended that courtesy to me, but this Minister not only refuses me that but refuses now to give me that information.

It is in Hansard.

I have not time to argue with you about Hansard. Supposing I had had a typewritten answer supplied to me, even then when I put a courteous question to the Minister he should at least give me a courteous reply. I put that view very strongly, but the Minister is as pigheaded as he possibly can be and in that way is wasting the time of the House. Unless he is going to give us that information, which we have the right to ask, we are going to hold up this House until he learns reason and he will have to stand the racket and the displeasure that his attitude will cause.

It is all very amusing. I myself have sat in Opposition a good deal, and for the hon. member to say that this is the first time he has heard the Prime Minister say that the Opposition is wasting the time of the House surprises me. I have heard it pretty often. It is, if he will allow me to say so, a very silly attitude that has been taken up by the hon. member over there. We never adopted such a method when we were in Opposition. To take up the attitude that because a Minister will not answer a question that he has already answered on the 20th February and which on the records of the House is, I think, very silly, and for the information of the hon. member I think I had better read it to him. Before the hon. member accuses the Minister of not giving him a courteous answer he should at all events have placed himself in the position of giving his attention to the business of the House. This particular question was answered orally, and if the hon. member had paid attention he would have noted it and would have been able to use it in debate. In this House records are kept for the convenience of hon. members, the Hansard is at their disposal, and if the hon. member will look up the Hansard under date 20th February he will find that the Minister of Agriculture in regard to the cost of the Kalahari expedition— in answer to exactly the same question by the same hon. member and which he is now asking again—gave the particulars asked for. Is it the business of Ministers to answer questions once a week?

It is a Minister’s business to be courteous.

We are courteous. Here in Hansard, in answer to the question, the Minister of Agriculture says: The expedition cost the country £800. Then the hon. member is accusing the Minister of want of courtesy because he declines to do the hon. member’s work for him. The information is there on the records of the House. I appeal to the House and to the right hon. gentleman the Leader of the Opposition to use his influence to stop that sort of thing. The time of the House is being wasted by the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl), backed up by his hon. friends, simply because the Minister of Agriculture declines to give information which is already on record, information which the hon. member already got from the same Minister on the 20th of February and is at his disposal in the official Hansard under that date. How many times a week are we to answer the same question in order to escape a charge of discourtesy I do not know. I think the hon. member (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) will agree that he is a trifle unreasonable.

It is very clever on the part of the Minister of Defence to avoid the dictum laid down by the Prime Minister “on no account will this question be answered” He has another minister behind him who told us this evening that £12,000 had been spent on this expedition. We now hear it was £800. Which is the correct figure? We are entitle to know and the country has the right to know.

No.

The Prime Minister claims that I am wasting the time of the House and that I acted likewise yesterday. Yesterday I was not even allowed to speak, for when I wanted to reply to what had been said I was stopped; but the Prime Minister is so seldom in the House that he cannot be expected to know. The Minister of Defence has read out the reply which the Minister of Agriculture could have drawn my attention to if he had wished to be courteous. It is a natural question for me to ask, when you say that £12,000 has been spent in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, what amount has been spent on the entire expedition.

I never said to-night that it cost £12,000.

The Prime Minister, I think, did not grace the House very much with his presence this afternoon, and he consequently is not in a position to say that the time of the House has been taken up by hon. members on this side. Hon. members on the other side have taken up as much time as hon. members on this side. I say in all seriousness to the Prime Minister that if he is to come down and say that under certain circumstances a Minister will not answer a courteous question and he will advise the Minister not to do so, and that he will use the power that is behind him for that purpose, then I can only inform him that, though Opposition may not be of the same strength as the Government, we shall take means to see that our rights are protected in every possible way. I say again to the Prime Minister that an attitude of that kind on his part is not going to expedite the business of this House, which we are as anxious to see expedited as he himself is.

There are at least three questions which are constantly arising in this House that I have never been able to approach in a party spirit. One is defence, another is the native question, and the third is agriculture. I hope it will be recognized by both sides of the House how undesirable it is that a discussion on agriculture, our basic industry, should be considered as an opportunity to make party capital for one side or the other. It was obvious from the beginning of this debate that the Government supporters were determined to make use of this particular Vote and this particular discussion for party purposes, and they did so by praising up the Minister of Agriculture for all he had done and taking the opportunity of decrying the work of his predecessors. It is no less than our duty as the official Opposition in this House to scrutinize carefully all expenditure, particularly extraordinary expenditure such as this, and see that we have got value for it. We are not to blame if our suspicions were aroused by the attitude taken up by the other side, when it was made clear that this expenditure was to be used as an advertisement for that particular party. The replies made to our questions did very little to dissipate that idea. Then we had the Prime Minister coming and accusing this side of wasting the time of the House, an absolutely futile and unjustified criticism. It is all part and parcel of the policy that has been announced by the Prime Minister more than once and by other members of his party, and that is that they have the power and they are going to use it and that they will not submit to but will resent any criticism of the way they use that power. I am surprised that the Prime Minister, who, after all, has been some time in public life, should take up that position. It is a position that cannot be maintained. It cannot be tolerated, and no self-respecting party or Opposition would submit to it for a moment. We will not make this question of agriculture a party question as far as we are concerned, and we are now making a protest against the Government side of the House making it a party question, in using this very Vote to advertise their own excellence and using this debate for the same purpose. After all, the public are not fools and they will judge.

They have judged.

I never heard such an extraordinary performance as that of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs who came butting in with all the superlative adjectives he could command to praise the Minister of Agriculture. No doubt the Minister of Agriculture is entitled to praise, but it should not have come in that form from the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. We had then the speech of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) in a vain endeavour to paper up the cracks in the walls of the Cabinet. That sort of thing is becoming nauseating. We have only two replies from that side of the House to all our criticisms. The first is “racialism,” and the second is “party capital.” The Minister just now refused to answer a perfectly reasonable question because I suppose he was afraid his answer would furnish party capital. Well, silence when a reply is awkward will often do more harm to the person who refuses to answer than the reply itself. I hope we shall hear no more in future debates of this absurd charge of the Opposition wasting time. It will recoil on those making the charges because it is absolutely unjustifiable.

In the reply of the Minister in regard to the cost of the Kalahari Expedition he mentioned a figure of £800. This afternoon when the Minister of Agriculture was asked by the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) to give some details of the expenditure, distinguishing between salaries and material, he stated that £12,000 had been spent in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The reasonable inference from that was that this was a portion of what had been expended in the Kalahari Expedition, as it was upon that expedition that Union officials entered the Bechuanaland Protectorate. It was perfectly fair for the hon. member, in view of that reply, to ask for the repetition of an answer previously given, with regard to which some doubt was raised; but the hon. the Minister of Labour then proceeded to lecture us from the pinnacle of superiority that he occupies and that was rather more than most of us could stand with equanimity. I think we are entitled to some explanation as to the real significance of these figures. Is it correct that in regard to the Kalahari expedition a large part of that item of £12,000 was spent in connection with or was incidental to the Kalahari Expedition, or did that £12,000 fall to be paid out in some other way? The hon. member for Cradock this afternoon asked whether, in view of the importance of the subject, the Minister would give us a statement as to the progress of the work and the present state of affairs, and the expenditure which had been absorbed in this particular activity. Yet the Minister of Agriculture completely ignored that request until he was further pressed by the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt). I think we are entitled to full information and to courtesy from the Minister in view of our perfectly friendly and courteous attitude.

I must direct the hon. member’s attention to standing rule No. 90. In my opinion the hon. member is now repeating the same argument over and over again. If he continues doing this I must ask him to discontinue his speech.

My insistence upon asking the Prime Minister to give some attention to my request was due to the fact that he was engaged on another matter when I first addressed myself to him. It was not due to any tendency to repeat myself. I should be sorry to be such an infliction upon you, Mr. Chairman, of all people. The position resolves itself into a question of the rights of members in this House, and I think it is perfectly clear from all precedent in the House that we are entitled to a civil answer to a civil question.

That has been said over and over again.

Pardon me, I think your hearing is at fault.

I must ask the hon. member to discontinue his speech.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote 29, “Agriculture (Education),” £2,000, put and agreed to.

On Vote 31, “Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones,” £13,000.

I should like to ask the hon. Minister whether he is going to provide stations for the aerial post between here and Durban. The suggestion has been made that there ought to be a relief station. Perhaps the hon. member will make some statement on the matter.

I should like to ask in regard to the Automatic Telephone Exchange, questions on three matters about which there was some concern. There was some concern as to whether it would be efficient or not. I am glad to say it has proved very effective, simple, and no trouble in working. Secondly, we have been threatened with a very considerable increase in the charges and it was understood that the matter was under consideration. Can the Minister make a statement about that at the present time? The third point about which there was anxiety was as to whether the people who would be displaced in the working of the exchange would be absorbed into other departments of the service, or would lose their employment; or, if kept in employment would lose either in status or pay. I should be obliged for information on those two points.

I would like the hon. the Minister to state whether if the present experiment is successful so far as he can judge, he intends to extend it to the route from Durban to Johannesburg, and vice versa. I notice that in connection with this experiment he has put on the Estimates a sum of £6,000. Are we to understand that this is only to the end of the present financial year—in fact, whether this sum is only for one month? By the end of the financial year we shall only have had one month of the service, so I conclude that it will cost £6,000 up to that time. I would like to know from the hon. Minister if he anticipates that this service will cost £6,000 a month afterwards. I congratulate the Minister as the head of his Department on having instituted this experiment of carrying mails backwards and forwards between Cape Town and Durban, and I hope it will be a success, not only from the scientific point of view, but also from a financial point of view, but I am rather afraid it will result in financial loss. However, I suppose the hon. Minister is only feeling his way at the present time, and will no doubt give us a better idea by and by. Well, I congratulate the Minister, but I consider that those who most deserve our congratulations and compliments are our airmen, who are risking their lives and whose daring and skill have made this experiment possible.

Hear, hear.

I hope all credit will be given to them. I trust the hon. Minister will see that the dangers connected with this service will be minimized as much as possible, that the machines will be kept in the best of order, and everything possible done in that and other ways to prevent accidents. I trust that sooner or later the service will be extended to the route between Johannesburg and Durban.

I should like to associate myself with the remarks of the last speaker in giving hearty congratulations to the Minister for having inaugurated this service. This is a matter which I have mentioned several times during the past few years in this House, and I am glad to see that the hon. Minister has been able to see his way to bring these proposals to fruition. There are one or two points I should like him to deal with in his reply. First of all I would ask him if it is his intention to make prompt arrangements for securing a larger number of landing-places in connection with this service. No doubt the matter has received his attention, but he will pardon me for reminding him that landing is the most dangerous part of the service and it is sometimes inevitable that compulsory landings have to be made far away from the official aerodromes. No doubt alternative landing-places along the route could be arranged at little trouble and not very great expense. No doubt that is a point the airmen would appreciate very much and it would tend to make the service a success in the public estimation because if this service is accompanied by accidents, and the accidents happen to be bad ones when they do occur, it will rather shake the confidence of the business community and of the public whose support the Minister will no doubt endeavour to keep. I hope he will be able to tell us that if this experiment is a success, as it promises to be, and we all hope it will be, he will extend civil aviation in this country to a greater extent. The hon. Minister will recognize at once that perhaps no part of the Empire is better suited, or requires an aero service more, than South Africa. Flying conditions are good, and he knows that we have a large reserve of qualified airmen available for carrying out this service. In this connection I would suggest at this stage before the general estimates are finally framed that he should seriously consider divorcing the whole of the air service from the Defence Department and making it a separate department altogether. My view of the matter is that, even from the point of view of military purposes, the air service should be considered in the same light as the railways are. It should be used to the utmost for civil purposes in time of peace and in times of war it means that you have got a big organization, a big personnel, and the necessary material that can be adapted to war purposes. I think it is eminently desirable that this movement, which has just been inaugurated, should go on and be extended and, as we have not unlimited funds in this country for this purpose, a large portion of the Air Defence Vote might be diverted to civil aviation. I hope the Minister will see that on the Aviation Board there are at least one or two members who have practical experience of civil aviation.

The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) asked me whether we were going to establish relay stations between here and Durban, and the hon. member for East London North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) asked me whether we were going to try and look out for safer landing places on the route. In these matters I have to be guided almost entirely by those who are responsible for running the service, and if the Director of the Air Force (Colonel van Ryneveld) says that he requires relay stations or he wants safer landing places than we have already got, then, as far as I am concerned, he will have my hearty co-operation in the direction of trying to meet him in these matters. After the incident at Mossel Bay owing to the fog it was represented to me that there should be a relay station at Oudtshoorn. The Postal Service had made all arrangements for Mossel Bay and had been met in every possible way by the Town Council there. Then we had the fog and the men could not land and had to turn back. The Air people said they were afraid that Mossel Bay was not going to suit the purpose and asked whether I would approve of their transferring the station from Mossel Bay to Oudtshoorn. I at once said I could not take the responsibility of saying no and that if they told me that Oudtshoorn was a better place than Mossel Bay, then Oudtshoorn it should be. If the Director of the Air Service says they want more relay stations, I would be the last to stop them getting what is essential for the safety and success of the service. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Henderson) asked whether this £6,000 is for one month or more. This is for two months. We have only been flying one month, but it took at least another month to make the preparations. The hon. member also asked whether we contemplated the Johannesburg-Durban route. Before I took office, the Air Board had considered the whole question and rather recommended that route. But when I got the figures of the possible revenue from the various routes and the public convenience which would be met, I came to the conclusion, and the Air Board agreed with me, that the most convenient service and that which promised the larger amount of revenue, was the Durban-Cape Town route. I am pleased to hear the hon. member say the credit for the success of this inauguration of the service is due to Col. van Ryneveld and to the pilots and the men who have carried it out. I have had nothing to do with the success of that part of the work. I have been the driving force which got the thing going, but the credit is due to them. I was only too delighted to be able to send congratulatory telegrams to each of the pilots as they arrived at their destinations. While I am giving all credit to the Air Force—and may I say that my confidence in them was never shaken for one moment—I must also say that some measure of praise is due to the Postal Department for the excellent way they have carried out the postal arrangements. When you remember that they transfer these mails at very short notice and make all the necessary arrangements here and in London, there is a small portion of credit due to them. We are not at the moment contemplating a Durban-Johannesburg service. We are rather waiting to see the results of the service we have started, but I am pleased to inform the House that there are several aviation companies of world-wide reputation who have established lines in other parts of the world, who are watching our experiments in South Africa very closely. I have asked them to put up to me, before our experiment terminates, their proposals as to what they are prepared to do in regard to extending and maintaining civil aviation. We started this service to prove what could be done. I agree with the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) that this country is in every way suited for civil aviation, but it is going to be rather costly. It is not an economical proposition; but other countries have not only weighed the pounds, shillings and pence aspect; they have taken the larger view. In Australia, for instance, they are spending a quarter of a million on military aviation and £150,000 in subsidizing civil aviation, because they feel, as other countries feel, that the country which is best equipped in aviation, civil and military, will best be able to hold its own in time of emergency. South Africa, with its long distances and scattered population and good climatic conditions lends itself more than any other country to civil aviation. We are now trying to prove how practical it is in South Africa, and the world’s aviation companies are watching us. I have asked them to keep in close touch with us, and to give me definite propositions to put before the Cabinet in regard to extension of the present service. Whether we agree or not depends on how favourable it proves. They are rather keen on the Johannesburg-Durban line. Cape Town-Johannesburg would only be an extension of the present Cape Town-Durban route. The Government will bear all the proposals in mind and every centre may be assured that it will not be overlooked in our deliberations with a view to our laying down a definite policy. In the meantime we have just started. The air mail is on its way back from Durban, and alter it has been running a few weeks I believe public confidence will have been established. Already we have had applications to use the air service for passengers from people willing to pay handsomely, but for the time being I am cutting it out, though it means losing a little revenue. I want to get public confidence fully established and then, if possible to encourage others to come into the field, if we feel the proposition is justified. We are playing for safety We do not want to be rash. Another question put by the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) was whether I would not consider the inclusion in the Air Board of someone well up in civil aviation. As members know, the Air Board consists of the Director of Aviation (Col. van Ryneveld), the Postmaster-General (Col. Sturman), Secretary for Justice (Dr. Bok), Commissioner of Customs (Mr. Owen Smith), and other heads of departments. Personally, I think the Board would be strengthened by the inclusion of someone who has had extensive experience of civil aviation in other parts of the world. There are men in South Africa who have been on the British Civil Air Board and the Civil Air Board in Australia. Now in regard to the question put by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Sir W. Macintosh) who said he was very pleased to report that the automatic telephone exchange at Port Elizabeth is working satisfactorily, I also am very pleased to know it. The change over from manual to automatic took place one Saturday afternoon with very little trouble, and I am told that leading business firms are more than satisfied with the efficiency of service and the amount of time saved. They want to know about cost. They have been working on the flat rate and now they are coming on the measured rate—on the same rate as Cape Town and Johannesburg and of course they rather resent it. When I was at Port Elizabeth I said that I was going to go into the whole question of telephone rates. I have had extensive reports from my Department on this question. I have been giving a lot of attention to telephone development in South Africa, the reason being that satisfactory as our service is, our telephone development from all points of view, except efficiency, is far behind other countries. People from other parts pay tribute to our efficiency, but in development we are far behind other countries and have a lot of leeway to make up, and I have been going very seriously and closely into the question of telephone development and particularly in regard to the rates. In Port Elizabeth we are in a very favourable position to adjust the rates because we have just installed an automatic exchange which has a capacity for far more subscribers, at very little extra expense, except that of cables which will have to be laid, than at any other centre. At other centres there will be new switchboards required and the extending of existing switchboards, but at Port Elizabeth we have the last word in telephone systems and a capacity for development up to another thousand lines or subscribers. I felt that as an experiment we ought (to use a word which I have coined myself) to “telephonize” town by town right through the country. The money spent will not be expenditure, it will be an investment. I have been telling the Minister of Finance that when I come to him for money for telephone development, it is not to spend it but to invest it and that he will get interest on it and that it will develop the country as well. In order to make it attractive I feel you cannot tell a man he has got to pay £7 down for a residential ’phone or £9 for a business’ phone. For that he has 900 free calls, after which he pays l½d. a call or 600 calls in the case of a residential ’phone with l½d. for additional calls. What I propose to do in Port Elizabeth, and I think it will meet with their approval—and I hope to extend it to other towns as we have capacity, but if I try to do this at once we will not be able to cope with it—is, instead of charging £7 for a private ’phone in Port Elizabeth and l½d. a call after 600 free calls, I have notified them we will charge them £3 5s. a year (for residents). They will get a phone for £3 5s. a year, but they must pay for every call right from the first call, that is, the more they use it the more they pay and the less they use it the less they pay.

What rate for the calls?

At l½d. a call. We cannot possibly in the meantime come below that. They pay an amount of £3 5s., but they can pay that in two half-yearly instalments. The business man pays £3 7s, 6d. and from the word “go” he pays l½d. a call, he can also pay in two instalments if he chooses to do so. Then, with regard to business calls; between 200 and 400 a month we give a 5 per cent. discount and for over 400 calls a month a 10 per cent. discount. I am getting what they call “development studies” made, starting at Port Elizabeth. I am going to find out how many residents and business people will take ’phones in Port Elizabeth on these terms. When we find out exactly how many are prepared to go in for ’phones we are going to spend money in connecting them up. We are going to extend the telephones in the farming districts on the party line basis. We are going to have more than we have ever had before so that I am not sacrificing the country districts for the towns. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Sir William Macintosh) asked another question; he asked what they were going to do with the people who were displaced by the installation of automatics. I told the House last August before we rose that I had given instructions that all those who in the ordinary way would become redundant in consequence of automatic ’phones replacing the manual system would be absorbed in the Service, and I am pleased to say that all the employees who were working at Port Elizabeth at the manual exchange have been absorbed. No one has been retrenched. They have either been transferred to other centres or have been retained at Port Elizabeth on other work, and one with whom the hon. member is particularly concerned, has for the time being been placed on other work, which, however, does not carry the salary that he had as a telephone operator. We could have found this man another position at another centre as a telephone operator at the same salary, but he wanted to stay in Port Elizabeth and for very sound reasons, he had an aged widow mother. We kept him there, but we had not a billet for him at the salary he was receiving as a telephone operator; but we shall, however, give him the first opportunity at a higher salary; more than that we cannot do. With regard to the extension of the automatic system I am going to be very careful; it is a policy I am not going to rush into. In other countries, however, the automatic telephone is very largely installed. For instance, one company alone has installed 200 exchanges as big as Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. These exchanges have been installed in all parts of the world. There are about eight companies altogether. The whole of London is being put under automatic telephones, but, as I say, I am not going to be rushed in regard to this automatic telephone policy, although I am watching it very carefully. Other countries, I understand, are finding it extremely profitable and advantageous.

I would like to bring my hon. friend the Minister down from the airport to something more homely. I hope the air post is not going to interfere with the re-introduction of the penny post later on. There is no doubt that if there is one thing which the people of this country would appreciate more than another it is the reintroduction of the penny post. I am rather alarmed when the Minister says that the introduction of the air post is going to lead to a loss. Is that going to delay the reintroduction of the penny post into South Africa? I would also like to know when the Minister anticipates that we may be able to revert to the penny post.

I would like to know whether this Vote includes the salaries paid to the airmen, and would ask either the Minister of Defence or the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs if the Government have any policy with regard to the future. Suppose they carry on this air post for three months and find it a success, are they going to continue it on as a commercial proposition or as a proposition under the Defence Force? I feel, as I advocated three years ago in this House, that it is a very good thing to carry on this system. You are training men for defence, those who have been trained are kept in training, and you are doing good work as well for the Post Office. I do feel that if this work is to be carried on for any extended period these airmen must receive something more than the ordinary Defence Force pay.

I have rather an important question to put to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, but at this late hour I will move to report progress and ask leave to sit again.