I move—

That Order of the Day No. XXIII, for to-day—House to resume in Committee on South African Society of Accountants (Private) Bill—be discharged and set down for Friday, the 24th instant.

seconded.

I may perhaps just say a few words in regard to the Rehoboth question. With reference to the statement I made in the House on Friday last relative to the Rehoboth position, I am very pleased to be able to state that the trouble has been terminated without bloodshed. The Administrator telegraphs that the forces called up by the administration concentrated at Rehoboth village before daybreak yesterday and 289 Bastards, 218 Hereros, 75 Hottentots and 50 Klip Kaffirs, all of whom were apparently assembled at a block of buildings constituting the headquarters of the so-called “New Raad,” surrendered. One hundred and sixty-two rifles, the majority of which were loaded, and a large number of clubs and sticks were taken from them. The collection of rifles had not been completed when the telegram was sent. Those surrendering included the so-called “Kapitein.” “New Raad” and “Parlements Raad.” The Administrator reports that they were well organized, and that their intention undoubtedly was to resist with force, but they were prevented from doing so by the unexpectedly rapid concentration of the administration’s forces yesterday morning which completely surprised them. The rank and file are being released immediately, but the ringleaders will be detained and prosecuted. I may here add that the Government intends instituting a judicial inquiry into the Rehoboth affairs at the earliest opportunity. I just want to express my hearty appreciation—I had not the opportunity the other day—of the words that fell from my hon. friend the member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt).

I understand that the hon. member who was to have resumed the debate is not here. I would therefore like to take advantage of the opportunity of saying a few words about the matter. I take it because I think that it will assist in shortening the discussion, and that it will not only expedite the passing of the second reading of the Bill, but will also assist in making us more inspired with the desire to really do something that is in the interest of South Africa, of the natives and everybody. I wish to say a few words with reference to the speech of the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), who unhappily is not here. I think I express the views of most hon. members when I say that we appreciate the attitude that the hon. member for Standerton has adopted, one cannot help feeling that the moral standpoint which he has taken up is sound and one that should always guide us in the discussion of Bills. It is a fact I immediately felt that there was much in what he said. Although it cannot always be given effect to it ought to at least be the aim that we should have in the solution of this problem, even if it should happen that we have to depart from the high ethical standpoint. I felt, and we have often felt it in this House, that the work should be influenced by the moral standpoint that, when all is said and done, in the end our work should always be so influenced, if not exclusively, then at any rate to a large extent. But at the same time we feel that where we have to deal with one of these problems we cannot, however much we may desire, always keep to the moral requirements of what we want in practice. I also felt that if we cannot in these problems always stop at what is required in practice, and it is unavoidable from time to time to follow less moral principles in order to attain something useful in practice, that we must then put the higher side little on one side. But then I agree that where we do this we should try to encroach as little as possible on the higher. Now as to this Bill the principle was acknowledged as far back as 1895, and it has remained necessary, at any rate as far as the Transvaal is concerned, to find a way by which the colour line will serve as a deciding factor to settle what work shall be exclusively done by whites. This was subsequently done by the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) himself in 1911, when he agreed to the Act in connection with this matter. It is clear to us that at any rate up to that time it was necessary in respect of the white man to make a difference between white and coloured. Now I find that we have not yet to-day got so far as to entirely disregard the difference, and that we have possibly from time to time still to compromise and act in accordance with that distinction between black and white. But I feel to-day that while we cannot avoid the colour bar, we can avoid administering it in conflict with the self respect of the native, and we act more in the interests of the country if we need give no offence to the native. The hon. member for Standerton also said in connection with the interview he had with Gandhi with reference to the Asiatic question that Gandhi insisted that while he acknowledged that there was a difference between Asiatics and Europeans, and he was prepared to ultimately acknowledge the difference in practice, yet it was felt as a kind of insult when the word Asiatic was used, and that thereby the people suffered a kind of branding. As regards the natives, there existed in the past a distinction, and a distinction will also have to be made in practice in the near future. But the question is whether we, if there must be a distinction, cannot and should not insist on the point of view that it will not be necessary to use it in a manner that is insulting to the native. I say that I will gladly admit that a way can be found, and will also gladly admit that it will be more satisfactory to the native. The hon. member for Standerton asked us to stand together on this point “to pool our intellects, and I want to say that I appreciate this. I would like to see this Bill go to a Select Committee, and we shall deal with it quite apart from parties, simply to try to do what is the best for the country for white as well as for black, neither I nor any of my colleagues are bound to any principles or fixed line in this matter, all that we want is that we shall come together and discuss the matter and see how we can solve it.

You mean that we should discuss the matter in Select Committee after the second reading?

I am speaking about after the second reading. I should like to see the second reading passed as soon as possible, and that after the second reading the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. The question of safety and sufficient care, e.g., is of great importance on the mines. The man who is occupied in dangerous work on the mines, e.g., the man who drives the skip-hauling engine, must, I think, be someone who feels his responsibility. However much some of our natives, by the education and upbringing they have had, may also be capable of taking the necessary care, that is something which is actually a matter of instinct with the European, i.e., that he takes a certain amount of care of his fellowman in what he does or leaves undone. I think we cannot expect that this innate feeling should be sufficiently developed in the native. We must see that we take the necessary measures to secure that the people who are engaged in certain duties requiring a great amount of care, because the lives of people are in their hands, possess this feeling. Now I think that if we come together in Select Committee we can consider how far this must be regulated by certificates which, e.g., shall be issued by a board to the people who do certain work in industries and especially on the mines. If we do this I think that we shall practically meet the whole difficulty that has been raised, not only by the hon. member for Standerton, but also by others, and which has not only been felt in the past in the existing laws but will also be felt by the natives in the future. For this reason I rose just now to ask hon. members to discuss the Bill as if it were something upon which we necessarily should adopt principles necessarily conflicting with each other. It is not necessary, because I feel it is precisely one of the Bills where we should rather try to see how we can agree and to come to a settlement in the ordinary way without fighting each other with opposing viewpoints. Because I feel that we must try in this way to come to a solution, I hope the second reading will be accepted, and that we can then refer the Bill to a Select Committee. I have thoroughly discussed the matter from all sides with the members of the Native Affairs Commission. As representatives of the natives they are much interested in the matter, and I think that we can have the commission before us in Select Committee so that the members can assist us in coming to a conclusion. The solution, as I have said, will be in the interests of the country generally and in the interests of the future of both whites and natives. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say any more about it.

I have followed the Prime Minister with a good deal of interest, and in the early part of his speech I was under the impression that, recognizing as he no doubt now does, the extreme importance of this matter, he was going to accept the suggestion of the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) and discharge the second reading and refer the Bill to a select committee before the House had committed itself to the definite principles embodied in this Bill. The Prime Minister has stated that he had had many discussions with the Native Affairs Commission on this important question. That is an advantage which the right hon. gentleman has had over those outside the Government, and I would have been inclined to think, knowing the enormous unrest which this Bill has raised in the minds of the natives, that the recommendation of the Native Affairs Commission would have been that the Bill should have gone to a select committee for the fullest investigation, and in order that the fullest possible evidence might be taken before the Bill was read a second time. I recognize everything the Prime Minister has said with regard to the non-party spirit in which the leader of the Opposition has dealt with this measure, and that this really is a question, especially the question of the native races in this country, which should, as far as possible, be kept out of party political considerations. The Bill, if it is read a second time, affirms one of, the principles which the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) found was one of the objections in this Bill, and that was that you should lay down in a statute a colour bar with regard to industrial occupations, which, has never been done in any legislation of any sort that has ever been attempted in this House. That, I think, is the most serious thing. I can inform the Prime Minister, and I also have some association with the native districts of this country, and large numbers of natives—I can inform the Prime Minister in the sincerest possible manner that the speech of the Minister of Mines has filled the mind of the natives in this country with the greatest possible apprehension, and that if you read this Bill a second time without sending it to a select committee, it will be the means of increasing that apprehension. The Prime Minister, as Minister for Native Affairs, knows how in the past the natives, though very often misunderstanding, know now the reasons which actuated the legislature, and have always considered that the European section—the governing races—were prepared to treat the natives, with all possible justice and consideration, and they have now got in the back of their minds —and I think there is a certain amount of justification for it—that it is the intention of the white population in this country to take away from the native all possibility of desire to rise in the scale of civilization. In this country, in the past, especially in the Cape of Good Hope, the policy adopted, and which has met with the greatest possible success, was to impress on the native, by every possible means that we, as a superior race, were desirous of assisting and encouraging him to advance in the scale of civilization, and the one thing I feel, and I am sure the native feels in regard to this Bill, and with regard to the speech of the Minister of Mines, is that the intention is to write up so far as this Bill is concerned, the future advancement of natives. There can be no possible hope. Their lot must be that of hewers of wood and drawers of water. I recognize that there are large numbers of natives who have not advanced very far in the scale of civilization, but in my wanderings about this country, and I think the Prime Minister will agree with me, I have found that there are certain numbers of natives who have advanced very high in the scale of civilization, and under those circumstances it would be most unwise in dealing with five millions of people—because the House must remember that you are dealing with five millions of people—and that this House and this country cannot keep for all time five million people in subjection without doing grave damage, not only to these people, but to the. European population as well, and it is on that account that I was so extremely anxious, and I still hope that my hon. friend will reconsider the statement he has made, and agree to this Bill going to a select committee, to be fully enquired into before the second reading. I can assure him, as the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) did the other day, that he will get every possible assistance from this side of the House in trying to, work out a solution of our problems. The Prime Minister, himself has stated that he realizes that the wording of a clause in that Bill in, connection with Asiatics is of a rather unfortunate character, because I gather from what the Prime Minister stated that though in the, interests of the protection of western civilization it is necessary to do all we can to see that eastern civilization and methods are not introduced, that that can be done without deliberately going out of our way to wound the racial sentiments of any other section of people whatsoever. I make bold to say that I imagine a great power like Japan will resent the reference to Asiatics in the manner in which they are introduced into this Bill, and I would not be surprised to hear— perhaps the Prime Minister will tell us—that representations have already been made to the Government of this country from the Government of Japan on account of the wording of that clause. An hon. gentleman smiles, but this is a matter of very serious importance, and if this were an independent country, as certain people in this country are desirous it should be, Japan would deal with it in a manner they would not be prepared to do now.

What about China?

I am talking about Japan. The hon. member may remember a few years ago a most unfortunate incident took place in a place of amusement in this country, with regard to a Japanese officer. The hon. gentleman will know that Japan, one of the five great powers of the world, could not allow an indignity of that sort to pass unchallenged. Under these circumstances is it right, is it advisable, is it in the interests of the natives of the Union of South Africa, that while protecting our own interests in every way we should do anything that could be looked upon by Asiatics as an insult to their nationality? The Prime Minister, in his responsible position, I am sure has viewed with a good deal of satisfaction the communications that have taken place between the Imperial Government and the Indian Government in which every effort is being made to try to bring about a more peaceful state of affairs than exists at present. I maintain that no more serious step could be taken to make the difficulties which confront the Imperial Government greater than they are at present than that particular clause in the Bill. I know my hon. friend with his majority, can pass the Bill, but I would say to the Prime Minister with the responsibility which rests upon him in his present position it is advisable to do nothing that may lead to grave and serious misunderstanding. I am glad •the Prime Minister accepts the assurances of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) in the spirit in which they were given, and is prepared to see whether we cannot arrive, by mutual understanding, at some means of solving this problem. I would ask the Prime Minister not to try and solve this problem by using his majority to pass this Bill through its second reading before sending it to Select Committee, but to listen to the voice of those people whom he has been good enough to say are sincerely desirous of assisting him with a Bill of, this character. In view of the possibility of a settlement I do not want to introduce any unnecessary and controversial matter into this debate; but if the Government insist on passing the second reading of this Bill they are going to do a great injustice, not only to the native races but to the future well-being of this country. I know from communications I have received, that the natives are enormously alarmed about the character of this Bill. I might remind the hon. Prime Minister that the natives are very much disturbed by the statement made by the hon. Minister of Railways. The natives feel that though they have been in the service of the State for many years they are being dismissed from employment without any possibility of any territory being added, to which they can go, or of getting employment of any character. I think the Native Affairs Commission will agree with me—and as the hon. Prime Minister knows, I have never discussed the matter with any member of the commission—that if you are going to pass this measure you are going to have a most serious disturbance in the native mind. There is no body of people in the Union which approach in any way the natives of this country as regards their being easily governed.

Especially on the Witwatersrand?

I shall not answer an irresponsible individual like the hon. member. I say without fear of contradiction that there is no body of people in this country that are so easily governed, with so few police and so little force, as the natives, and the reason is that at the bottom of their mind there has always been the feeling that, although they may have misunderstood the actions of the white men they have understood that those actions have been tempered with justice. If you cause the natives to realize that they are not going to get absolute justice you are going to lay up for yourselves a heritage of woe which will not be for the advantage of the European population of this Union. The natives are very distressed, and are filled with the gravest suspicion, and the hon. gentleman as Minister of Native Affairs has always said they will never introduce legislation affecting natives without giving the natives the opportunity of giving their opinions. Why should they not have been given the opportunity of expressing their opinions on this Bill? I daresay words of mine will not appeal to the hon. Minister of Mines, but I hope they will appeal to the hon. Prime Minister, whom we are prepared to assist in every possible way if he is prepared to discuss this matter in the cool atmosphere of a committee room, which the hon. gentleman has acknowledged, is a matter of extreme importance. I believe that by doing so he will be increasing his own influence very materially as Prime Minister and Minister of Native Affairs amongst the vast quantity of natives, who are also subjects of this country. I would therefore move as a further amendment—

I do so in no party sense of any sort whatsoever. It would be a grievous thing if in a matter of this kind party should be brought into consideration. I do so with an earnest desire to see if some solution cannot be found of this very difficult problem without, as I believe, disgracing our Statute Book by placing upon it a colour bar which would mean practically that, so far as the ranks of industry are concerned and the development and advance in this industry of the natives, who count over 5,000,000 of people, they would have to give up all hope of advancing and rising in the scale of civilization which we have through our schools and missonaries and Native Affairs Department given them every encouragement to embark on.

seconded the amendment.

I hope as sincerely as the hon. member who has just spoken that the hon. Prime Minister and the Minister of Mines will not accept this motion to refer the Bill to a Select Committee before second reading. Of course, the attitude adopted by the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is entirely in keeping with the memorable speech of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), because the line that both of them have taken is that the Prime Minister has no mandate for any legislation of this kind. Let me say before I proceed with the Bill, that we have in this measure a principle entirely in agreement with the viewpoint of the average South African.

Of the whole of the Union?

Yes. Let us see what, we have in this Bill before we drag in Japan and India. Para. (n) of sub-section (1) of section 4 of the Act of 1911 says that—

1. (1) mine managers,
2. (2) mine overseers,
3. (3) mine surveyors,
4. (4) mechanical engineers,
5. (5) engine-drivers,
6. (6) miners entitled to blast,
7. (7) certain other vocations that may from time to time be specified.

Does the right hon. member desire to place these responsible positions, some of which affect the safety of human life, in the hands of Asiatics: The section also refers to such other classes of persons employed in or at the mines as the Governor-General may require to be in possession of certificates of competency. Thus the Governor-General may introduce a colour bar into that section without any statutory authority. The late Government framed regulations under which they excluded the native and the coloured man as well. In the Transvaal the term coloured man included Asiatics, but the late Government did not “disgrace” its statute book by putting it in simply as a colour bar, although the effect is the same. They simply did it and kicked the coloured people out. In the Bill now before the House it is clearly stated that the regulations under paragraph (n) may provide that in such provinces or areas as may be specified in the regulations, certificates of competency in occupations referred to in that paragraph shall not be granted to natives or Asiatics. Because the Government is taking power to do openly what the late Government did without authority, we are told that we are declaring war on yellow Asia and insulting black Africa. This is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the Class Areas Bill of last year, which, although aimed at the Asiatic, did not mention him. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), who was the then Minister of the Interior, said: “Let us be candid—this is legislation against the Asiatic—don’t let us put it on the statute book.” The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), in opening the debate, told us we had no mandate to introduce legislation of this nature. Is that true? The statute book teems with anti-Asiatic legislation, and even in the Union statutes we have anti-Asiatic legislation of which the Class Areas Bill is a recent example. What induced the late Government to introduce that Bill? Two years ago we had a petition signed by thousands of people asking the late Government to take steps with regard to Asiatics; subsequently we had deputations on the same subject, and the agitation still continues. In the recent general election the Nationalist party put on its programme the question of dealing with Asiatics.

You have not done so.

The moment we do so your leader says that we have no mandate, but here is a beginning. Did the late Prime Minister have a mandate to segregate the Asiatics, when he introduced the Class Areas Bill, although he ran away from it? Exactly the same position is repeated to-day. I prefer with all these questions to look at them purely from a white man’s point of view, and there is no question of being against any coloured race, but we have to consider the white man in this country. I am certain our present Prime Minister will tolerate no injustice to any section of the community, unless he is absolutely satisfied that it is for the good of the white man. No legislation will be tolerated under his Premiership unless it is done entirely and sincerely for the benefit of the white community. It is not a case of its being anti-native, anti-Asiatic, or anti anything else, but because legislation of this nature is necessary for the protection of the white man. Have we no mandate to solve the white unemployment problem? Have we not been told that we have about 110,000 white unemployed? And when we limit certain industries to white men as against the Asiatic and unskilled native, are we not creating that very atmosphere in which a white man can find a market for his labour? Is that not a policy which hon. members opposite have advocated for years? The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) now says, “Please do nothing,” although he says that we should see that this remains a white man’s country. If we had not a mandate for the segregation of Asiatics, why are we sending them out of the country? But there is one point the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) forgets, and that is that this piece of legislation is a departure from previous legislation, which amounts to a Magna Charta for the coloured man. They have come to look upon it as a Magna Charta because the coloured man is deliberately included. In the Transvaal they were not included. We recognize that they are civilized men and apparently that is the policy expected by this side of the House.

Has it been accepted by the Labour party?

Before this legislation was introduced we had an illegal colour bar in the Transvaal. Section N was taken by the late Government as authorizing them to introduce the colour bar and exclude the coloured man in all the works mentioned under section N. The present Government prefers to give the coloured man an equal chance with the white man, to the exclusion of the native and the Asiatic. The Minister of Justice has adopted exactly the same policy. The native and Asiatic is excluded from licensed premises but the coloured man is not. If I were a representative of the coloured man to-day—I am not, I represent the white man—I would say, “See, here is your freedom in Africa. Here is your charter.” How could you expect any Government in the face of a charter like that to exclude the coloured man? My hon. friend for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) knows the sentiments of the North and the concession that is allowed the coloured man here from the north amounts to nothing less than a Magna Charta to them. Now for another point. If one followed the speeches during the last election we found that the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) went from platform to platform declaring that our hon. Leader was going to segregate the native territorially, industrially, politically and socially.

Yes, your leader.

I am glad to have that confirmation. The members of his party followed him in this, and he (Gen. Smuts) said that we Nationalists intended to segregate natives industrially, territorially, socially and politically, and having done that, the electorate returned my hon. Leader to power. Is that not a mandate from the country?

Why does he not now stick to that policy?

Now consider the policy underlying this. Territorially there may be difficulties in segregating the native, but industrially, where the safety and welfare of the white community is concerned, as far as possible segregation will be carried out. So far as the statute is concerned, that is the policy that underlies our programme. Where we allow the unskilled native and Asiatic to compete in the unskilled vocations with white men, white men go under. He cannot possibly compete in unskilled labour, and therefore, for that reason, and that reason only, we have a very large percentage of people to-day who, because they are unskilled, cannot make a living. Are we then going to allow them in the most important callings to compete with the white man in skilled labour where the safety of hundreds of people may be involved? The member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) the other evening referred to my reference to the standard of intelligence of the native, and I can now inform him that a writer of a particular book dealing with the intelligence standard of the negroes, a professor of the Colombo university, said that in spite of every facility where 25 per cent, of Europeans will attain to a certain standard of intelligence, only two in 10,000 of the negroes will attain the same standard.

Why penalise the two?

Are you going to allow people of such large difference in the standard of intelligence and civilization and standard of living to control the safety of thousands of white employees, as would be the case if they were accepted as managers in the mines?

They would not get the chance if they had not the intelligence.

We take the line of safety. Would my hon. friend like to see them judges or managers of their business? They know perfectly well it would be impossible, and that we should be misleading the native if we let him think that was the position. We had an example in Cape Town some time back. The Transvaal advocates put in a colour bar in regard to the profession.

And the Cape refused to do so.

But a native did join the bar here. As far as I remember, no attorney here ever briefed that particular native barrister. Of course, he was misled into believing that he was perfectly equal with the others, that he could be one of themselves and, having got him there, they left him there to die, professionally. It is far better to put it on the statute book; don’t say it disgraces your statute book to put it there; let them see that is our law. We are told by the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) that legislation of this nature is declaring war on yellow Asia. Let us analyse the mental attitude, if we can, of the right hon. gentleman. If there is a name of one particular leader who has been associated with anti-Asiatic legislation in this country, it is the name of the right hon. gentleman. Throughout the whole of the anti-Asiatic agitation in the Transvaal, the name that is associated mostly with that agitation in his name. Don’t we remember the agitation called the Smuts-Gandhi agitation? Only last year the right hon. gentleman’s government introduced a Class Areas Bill, in which we said that the Asiatic cannot live in the street where I live, he cannot carry on business where I carry on business, and he cannot have a licence where I have a licence. That was not war on Asia; it was good legislation. By another measure we declared “We are going to get rid of the Asiatic as soon as we can, we are going to subsidize Him to go.” That was not war on Asia, but when we by statute say he shall not be a mine manager, a mine surveyor, or a mine overseer, that is war on Yellow Asia. When the same right hon. gentleman, as a member of the Government, authorized the introduction of an illegal Colour bar, because he had not the courage to put it on the statute book, when he introduced it under sub-section (n), excluding the Asiatic the native and the coloured man from certain occupations, it was not war on yellow Asia. The whole world feels insecure, because of our attitude on a matter like this. The hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) tried to make the world believe that we are really a country which they cannot trust. Now let us take Australia. They have got the same anti-Asiatic legislation there, much stronger than ours, but they have not declared war on yellow Asia, and they are very much nearer to Asia than we are. I think we are inclined to believe that this Bill goes very much further than it really does. The great objection, as I understood when I heard the speech of the right hon. gentleman, was that this Bill was dealing with all sorts of works and mines. He drew everything within its provisions. The hon. member drew China and Japan and Russia and India and black South Africa, and every possible industry in the Union into it. As a matter of fact, this Bill refers to seven different paragraphs of sub-section (n). It is obviously a Bill dealing simply with the mines only; in other words, it is exactly what the right hon. gentleman had done by regulation before. We are now doing that by statute. It is going further. Whereas the previous colour bar had excluded the coloured man by keeping him out of these particular occupations, this Bill which is now introduced does not exclude the coloured man. The coloured man, for the first time, gets his position equally with the white man in all our mines and works.

By direct statement or by inference?

I do not see what is not excluded, is included anything here about Jews, or Englishmen or Dutchmen—so they are included.

It is your Bill.

I do not see it in the Bill. They are all included by implication. You are not going to mention in your Bill all the Europeans in the world. We now come to another point in the speech of the right hon. gentleman. He said: “Fancy a party who have only recently actually desired secession declaring a war on yellow Asia. Fancy a people desiring independence, desiring to govern themselves as an autonomous state in the world, declaring war on Asia by excluding an Indian from being a mine manager.” It is all clap-trap and flap-doodle. I am sure it will not go down; it does not go down in the countryside any more. The right hon. gentleman made a tremendous speech to let us see what was at the bottom of the whole thing. He started off by telling us that this particular legislation deals with a root problem. I agree with him that it is a root problem. Having given us a very long tirade as to how it is going to affect Asia, and affect this country and black Africa, he said: “Please do nothing at all; leave things exactly as they are; let us go on the policy of drift; let problems increase; let us have more strikes; let us have the problem of the poor whites, but please do nothing.” Last year, if I have the figures correctly, no fewer than 18,000 boys became 17 years of age and work was found for 6,000. This year 22,000 boys become 17, and I do not think there is work for 6,000. If we are going to increase at this rate the unemployment problem, when our boys come to the age for work, and we have no employment for them, then heaven help us in the near future. There is no doubt that in the policy underlying this legislation the coloured man is included in the term “European.” We are dealing with the coloured man as a European. The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) only recognizes this when it suits his book to do so. During the recent election he went through the Transvaal declaring the levelling of the coloured man with the European. It was said for the purpose of turning the white vote in his favour. Here we are told the opposite. A large number, of late members mostly, of the South African party made the point that we were going to give the coloured man a vote as well. In the Transvaal it was used against the National party by the South African party that they were using the coloured man as a European. We have not heard of a single man at that side of the House having the straightforwardness to say that they see in this legislation the inclusion of the coloured man. Today the coloured man stands on a level with the white man or any European, but credit will not be given for that. Last year members ran away from their own legislation.

When did they do that?

Last year, on the very first excuse Parliament was dissolved. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) laughs, but does he remember the words of the speech of the right hon. member for Standerton in proposing the dissolution of Parliament? What he said was this—

What was the most intricate problem, before the House at that time? It was the Class Areas Bill, embodying the same principle as we are dealing with to-day.

In regard to Asiatics, the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) gives a very grave warning about this matter, and I am certain Ministers must know what is the position. I do not want to raise things up more than necessary. The last speaker said that the white could not compete with the native.

Not in unskilled work.

I have got evidence from the railway engineer before the White Labour Commission which proves my statements up to the hilt. We have employed white men on railway construction, on estimates made up on the basis of kaffir labour.

Can a white man live on £4 10s. or £5 a month?

The European, with his superior intelligence and harder and steadier work, should be in the position, and can earn, far more than natives. The member for Delarey says the Australians go further in the matter of the Asiatics. They do nothing of the kind. I defy him to find a single Australian Bill where they are excluded from work in this manner. This Bill goes further than the regulation in the Bill of 1912. This Bill follows very much the same principle as the Wages Bill. There is the same object in this Bill of keeping the native and the Asiatic at the same standard of labour. In the 1912 Bill certificates of competency can be issued in regard to certain trades. There is nothing said that they should only apply to Europeans, and if a native is perfectly competent he has the right to receive a certificate. Any Asiatic, or coloured man, is entitled to a certificate so long as he is competent. Consequently there is no interference with a mail’s rights. This Bill goes much further. In the first place it lays down specifically that certificates of competency may not be issued to natives and Asiatics. But then it goes further. This authorizes the restriction of classes of persons to certain work. This Bill authorizes the Minister to keep certain work from natives and Asiatics specifically. I have no doubt that is what he intends to do. In fact the Minister of Justice at Klerksdorp the other day bragged about it and held it up as an incentive to vote for the Nationalist party, that certain classes of work are going to be reserved for Europeans. And he specifically mentions drill sharpening. There is nothing like this in the regulations now. I understand natives have been drill sharpeners on occasion. I should like to ask the hon. member for Roodepoort (the Rev. Mr. Mullineux) what he thinks about absolutely restricting natives from doing certain work which they are able to do.

That is not the question. They have a quarter of the pay.

This is intended to exclude them.

What do you propose?

Let the best man get the job.

At what pay?

This won’t help the white man. Further, they intend to apportion the work as between Asitatics and natives on the one side and Europeans on the other. And all this in connection with not only mining, but other works. And there the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) is wrong, because if he had looked at the definition of “works” he would have found that it means chemical works, brick-making, lime-works, sugar mills, etc., etc., and any place where machinery is erected and used, other than railways; also all dams, reservoirs and other appliances for preserving water. In connection with these works, the Minister can differentiate as to what work should be given to the native and Asiatic and what to the European.

It is exactly the same position as existed under the Act of 1911.

I defy my hon. friend to find any place in that Act where any restriction is laid down that certain work must not be given to natives, but only to Europeans.

Look at N (7).

We know the regulations dealt with the colour bar to a certain extent, but not to the extent of this Bill.

There was the same principle.

Now the hon. member talks about the principle. We say this Bill goes very much further than the regulation. The regulation dealt with what was a certificate of competency; this authorizes the Minister to restrict certain classes of work in connection with flour mills, brick-making work, etc., to certain classes of people.

You had the same position in the Act of 1911.

No; the Minister and the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) want to convey the impression that all this is simply done for the mines. I want to point out to the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Bergh) that this does not apply solely to the mines; it applies to flour mills, sugar mills, saw mills, salt works, and so forth. I should say that, as far as I can understand it, it applies even to lifts in this city. The Minister can issue a regulation that only white men shall be employed on lifts, no matter how competent a coloured man may be. It is going just about as far as possible in interfering with private enterprise. We have to be told whom we shall employ and whom we shall not employ. Is not that interfering with private enterprise. On what basis is this apportioning to be done? Not on the basis of civilized labour, but practically on the basis of the colour of the man’s skin. In that connection I would like to ask how my hon. friend the Minister of Labour reconciles this thing. He said when he addressed a native conference in October last year, at Pretoria, that he had been asked to come and explain the Government policy with regard to labour, and particularly in regard to what was known as the civilized labour policy. He said it was simple. It was the desire of the Government to open up every avenue of employment in which a man might earn a wage which a European could live on, and this, so far from being against the native people, was in the best interest of the natives. Does my hon. friend hold that policy now? Supposing a native is a drill-sharpener, is he going to get the job?

He is not going to get it at civilized wages.

No, nor at any other wages. He may be just as efficient as any other man, but may not get the pay. That applies to every avenue of employment. Of course, as my hon. friend must know, there are natives who are highly civilized in this country. In my opinion, and I think the native would understand it so this is not carrying out the Minister’s idea of keeping the avenue of employment open to men of a certain stage of civilization. There is one object in all this. You want to keep the native and Asiatic out of certain classes of work, and those classes of work have practically been left to the discretion of the Minister. A lot of stress is laid by the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) on the fact that the coloured man is not mentioned. It is very curious that in the Transvaal and Free State there is no differentiation between the coloured man and the native. Does my hon. friend really think they are going to issue certificates of competency to coloured men? They have been refused it before in the Transvaal.

It will be the same now. Ask the Minister of Labour. No certificate will be issued to a coloured man.

I do not know anything of the kind. There is a world of difference between the coloured man and the compound native.

The policy of the Labour party in the Transvaal is that there should be no differentiation between the native and the coloured man.

Where do you get that from? Is that in the Labour party programme—no differentiation between the native and the coloured man?

That is according to the Prime Minister in a speech at Ladismith. In the census of 1911 there is no differentiation in the Transvaal between coloured men and Indians. I can give a better explanation of this camouflage. The Nationalist party are angling for the vote of the coloured man in the Cape Province, and they must not offend him. But there is not the slightest doubt that the coloured man on the mines will not get a certificate. The coloured people, however, see through this camouflage very much better in the Cape. It is a retrograde step of the first order, and they know that, so far as the law is concerned, there is nothing to prevent hon. members in the corner, if they had the power, from bringing in a colour bar in the Cape. The attitude of the Prime Minister is shown by a speech he made at Ladismith on May 18th of last year, when he said, as regards the employment of coloured men on the mines, that the Labour party did not differentiate between the coloured man and the native. This was a statement made by Gen. Hertzog, and I think it is absolutely true.

That is why I say this is a change in their policy.

We must see about that. This Bill is a retrograde step of the first importance, and it is the first time that it has been laid down, so far as the Cape Province is concerned, that we are going to keep the native down.

Why did you lay it down in the Transvaal?

We never laid it down. It was never laid down in the law.

Oh, what hair-splitting!

It is no hair-splitting. I should say it is the hon. Minister who wants to split hairs. You are not going to allow the native to rise in certain classes, and that means that you are going to deprive the native of the inherent right of every man to do the work for which he is qualified.

You issued those illegal regulations.

It is no use my hon. friend talking. I will admit, and I have said, that certain regulations were issued, but those did not go more than one-third of the way that this Bill does.

Did you agree to them?

No, I did not.

Why did not you oppose them?

This Bill is intended to keep down the natives; and yet the white races profess to have as one of their objects to lift the native race. We spent in education last year in the Cape Province £287,000, in the Transvaal £48,000, and in Natal £46,000 and, out of Union funds, to the Native College £5,000, and, as everybody knows, we spent thousands of pounds, collected from the white people, for missionary work. But while we are making all these efforts to raise and lift them, we pass a law to keep them down. We propose a law which will set a bar against the natives of this country taking up certain work. It is not because he cannot do the work; it is simply and solely to protect the inefficient white man. This will never be successful. The policy is an unjust one, and will give to every native a sense of injustice individually. What the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort said as regards native unrest was absolutely correct, and is in accordance with my own information. They are being excluded from railway work and so forth, and you are bound to have unrest. We are often apt to overlook the fact that the native is not a decaying race, but a virile race which is increasing rapidly. The last census of 1921 showed that there were in the Union 1,519,000 Europeans and 4,700,000 natives, leaving out the Asiatics and coloured. The natives had increased in the last decennial period by 678,000. Taking a time, 50 years from now, and allowing for the same amount of immigration as in the previous ten years, the census officer anticipates that there will be 6,500,000 Europeans, and taking the most unfavourable view of native increase 16,500,000 natives.

Is not that a result of our present arrangements and policy?

Not at all. How can it be? There is the solid fact. Taking the more favourable view as regards the increase of native population, there will be about 19 millions, but taking the other view, are you going to keep down 16 millions of people? You cannot do it and it is futile. You cannot protect the white man against the natives in this fashion. The only way a white man can protect himself is by his own efficiency and hard work. That would save him, but to protect him by these artificial methods would absolutely lead to disaster and failure.

We are told that the Government should agree to the discharge of the order for the second reading and refer the Bill to a Select Committee in order that we should have the advantage of the advice of the leaders of the Opposition. I hope the Government will not accept that, and also that it will not send the Bill to a Select Committee after the second reading, for, after all, the measure consists of only two clauses, and I fail to see what advantage would ensue from any discussion in a Select Committee. The appeal made by the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) and the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) is rather an invidious one as far as they are concerned, as for 15 years they allowed the country to drift and have been afraid to tackle the question, until it has gone from bad to worse, and now they have the audacity to say to the new Government, “We have made conditions worse than ever. Please take us into your counsels, for we are going to give you some wonderful advice.” Then we have the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) with his very dreary philosophy, under which individuals must be placed in the position of competing for a job, which the hon. member will give to the person who can live at the lowest possible rate. The hon. member says that if the policy outlined in the Bill is followed, the white man will not be helped in the long run. But if the policy enunciated by the South African party is pursued, in my opinion there will be no white man for whom to legislate in the long run. The hon. member should take these factors into consideration. Assuming that industries were run on the basis of supplying the needs of the community, then I could understand a position under which people would welcome the distribution of work among all the workers, whether white, coloured or Asiatic, for then it could be argued, “The more men employed, the better for us, as the more goods will be produced for our requirements, and if the demand were overtaken, then the workers would benefit by a reduction in the hours of labour.” But under the policy of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), the object is to produce goods in order to make profit, not because somebody requires them, or, as in the case, for instance, of boot manufacturers because there are thousands of children walking about Johannesburg without boots, but because they see in the satisfying of the needs of the people the chance of making profits. If the hon. member were to follow his argument to its logical conclusion he would simply look at things from the point of view of securing the cheapest labourer, that is the worker who needs the least to restore his expended energy, and he would say that employment should be open to the cheapest possible labour, whether it comes from China or tropical Africa, or he would even give the employment to baboons if they could do the work.

I wish to point out that no quorum is present.

House counted, and Mr. Speaker declared that a quorum was present.

proceeded: As long as you have the basis advocated by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), obviously the right thing for the Government to do is to utilize its machinery to protect society against exploitation. When a State finds that someone from overseas is likely to compete unfairly with the commodities its citizens produce, the State introduces either dumping duties or protection, while Mr. Stanley Baldwin has gone to the length of advocating the absolute prohibition into Great Britain of goods manufactured by sweated labour. Surely if it is right to protect yourself against sweated labour in other parts of the world, it is equally right to protect yourself against sweated labour in your own country. It is on that ground that the acceptance of the Bill is justified. It would remind hon. members that section 21 of the minority report of the Low Grades Mining Commission, signed by Messrs. A. Crawford. F. Forrester Brown and B. Pohl, gentlemen whose views have, for many years, been regarded with favour by the big employers of labour, pointed out that—

We are still unfortunately far from the ideal when moustry can be organized so as to absorb everyone seeking work at an adequate remuneration. In the meantime they must have recourse to safeguards. There is another factor. That is this. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) tells us that we should put the two sections, the white man on one side and the native on the other, pay them the same wages, and let the best man win. But there is no such thing as equitable competition in this connection. The white man is handicapped because, unfortunately, he requires more food, better clothing, and better housing, and therefore cannot possibly hire himself out unless he gets sufficient necessary for these requirements. The native requires less, and is therefore in a position to compete unfairly. It is not because the native wants to compete but because, under the present conditions in this fight for jobs, the man who is able to spend the least amount to keep up his energy can come along and do the work for less. The hon. member will probably acknowledge that even in this House legislation has been framed which handicaps the white man. I refer to section 14 of the Native Labour Regulation Act, where, if the native breaks his contract he is made a criminal, thus creating an incentive to the employer to prefer native labour. I have gone through the whole of the discussion on that Act and I do not find a single word from the hon. member or his friends about the injustice of making criminals of the natives under these conditions. It is no good saying that you must stand still until you can repeal these provisions and introduce a comprehensive measure. We have to go step by step, and until we are in a position to create an equitable basis to safeguard the white man it is necessary something should be done as a temporary measure. The attitude taken up by the South African party and the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts)—I am sorry he is wasting his time in the Transvaal—is unfair to the House and the country, because the Act, which it is sought to amend, was signed by the hon. member for Standerton, and the regulations framed and promulgated under section N of clause 4 of that Act the word “competent” was to be substituted for “white” in the Cape and Natal only, which meant that all occupations under those regulations were reserved for white people in the Transyaal and the Orange Free State Provinces. In page 2 of the regulations it says— The manager shall be a white person, and, in fact, all the provisions of that paragraph—paragraph 9—definitely lay down that these occupations are restricted to white people only. Now then, either the right hon. member for Standerton and the South African party were dealing honestly in the matter or they were politically dishonest. If they were honest why do they object to us coming along and saying, in a Bill, what they said in the regulations? In this Bill we introduce much more liberal legislation because we realize that the onus rests upon the white people of continually raising the coloured population to our standard. Instead of having a colour bar restricting certain occupations to whites, we have definitely excluded only two sections, namely, the natives and Asiatics, and thereby we assist the coloured people to raise themselves. The coloured man is already raising himself in the social scale, and his conditions of life are becoming nearer to that of the white man. In spite of anything that is said by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), I wonder what the coloured men of the Cape Province will say to the opposition of the members of the South African party. As far back as 1921 the Low-Grades Mines Commission reported that these regulations were ultra vires, and the members of the South African party were dishonest with the white people in allowing them to continue under the impression that these regulations were effective. It is our duty as honourable men to come to the House and introduce legislation to give effect to those regulations, and that would have been their honourable course to adopt. Instead they allowed the coloured people to think that they were against the colour bar, because they did not re-enact these regulations which wert found to be ultra vires, and they told the white men not to worry because they believed in the colour bar and were not going to enforce the decision which had been given. In either case they were politically dishonest to one section of the country or the other. The present Government want to be honest. The most honest method of enforcing the regulations is to bring them into this Bill and make them legislative enactments. If it is wrong, don’t have it even in the regulations. If it is right, put it in a Bill, and not in the regulations. I want to deal with two other aspects of this matter not dealt with by members on this side of the House. The first is the question from the point of view of how it affects the safety and security of the people engaged particularly in the mining industry. I know I am told by members of the South African party who have spoken that there is a provision under which you have to have a certificate of competency. They overlooked this fact, that you may give a certificate of competency to two persons, of whom one person is able to carry out his duties properly and efficiently, and the other, owing to his being of a lower stage of civilization, is not able to carry out those duties. The report to which I referred just now states that—

Surely this House is entitled to take a finding of this kind into its very serious consideration. Only a few days ago the Government mining engineer, in giving evidence in Cape Town before the Mining Regulations Commission, inferentially admitted that the more you have native labour engaged on this work, the greater is going to be the danger of accidents. We know perfectly well that, firstly, on account of its, generally, being a dangerous occupation, but largely on account of the tremendous number of natives not only from all over the Union, but from Portuguese territory also, who have not raised themselves in the scale of civilization, being employed in the mining industry, the insurance companies place a miner who wants to insure in class 7 of their insurance risks. The statement laid before the De Villiers Conciliation Board by the Gold Producers’ Committee shows that the underground accident death-rate of the mines has increased from 2.59 per 1,000 in 1921 to 3.27 per 1,000 in 1923. The evidence given before the Conciliation Board and the Mining Regulations Commission indicated clearly that in 1924 the position was, if anything, worse than in 1923. If we take this statement showing the increase in the accident death-rate from 1921-1923, and compare it with the position in the coal mines of Great Britain, what do we find? In the coal mines of Great Britain the accident death-rate per 1,000 was 0.95, whereas in our mines on the Rand it was 2.59, taking the surface as well as the underground workers. Surely those two figures in themselves show conclusively that there must be a very considerably accentuated danger by reason of the employment of these thousands of natives who have not yet attained to the civilization of the white man. The same story is told if you take the death-rate per million tons of coal raised in Great Britain, which was in 1923 4.6, while the death-rate per million tons of ore raised on the W.W. Rand was 15.08. There you have, by their own figures, such a Startling discrepancy between the accident rate in this country and the accident rate in Great Britain, as to justify anyone in drawing the direct inference that it is very largely due to the employment of so many natives who have not yet reached the intelligence of the whites. I will turn to another feature of that statement which, I think, will be of great interest to this House. It deals with the number of natives and Europeans employed on the mines in 1921, and the number of natives and Europeans employed on the mines in 1923. Three sets of mines are referred to, The first set shows that with the increase in the number of natives to Europeans from 15.9 natives to one European, in 1921 to 21.5 natives to one European in 1923, the accident death-rate increased from 2.88 to 3.24. They give another figure for another group of mines which shows that, while the increase in the number of natives to one European was from 11.6 in 1921 to 13.5 in 1923, the accident rate rose from 3.03 to 3.52. Only in the case of a few mines, indeed, do they show any decrease, and for that group the average decrease is infinitesimal, namely, from 3.05 in 1921 to 2.95 in 1923. I submit that taking these figures in connection with the accident death-rate, this House is not only entitled, but it is its bounden duty, when we consider the safety of the people who work in this industry, to pass the Bill as it stands. Over and above that, there is the point I have already made, and that is that under present economic arrangements it is absolutely imperative that this protection should be given to the white men in this country. The majority report of the Low Grade Mines Commission signed, not by supporters of the Labour point of view, but by Sir Robert Kotze, Sir Evelyn Wallers, Messrs. Gemmill, Welsh and Roberts, all save Sir Robert Kotze connected with the Chamber of Mines, in discussing the colour bar states in paragraph 170—

Again I ask hon. members on the South African party side of the House do they stand for a policy of driving the white man to the wall? I would like to emphasize the views in the paragraph quoted of the representatives of the Chamber of Mines. They themselves admit that unless you give him protection the white man will be driven to the wall. There is another claim that those who are supporting this Bill are entitled to put forward. Hon. members may recollect the discussion that took place between representatives of the workers and the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) on the 4th November, 1921. On page 27 of the notes I find the right hon. member for Standerton kept on referring to the industry as “your industry.” He said: “It is your industry, just as much as it is the industry of the mine owners.” The mine-workers did not find this to be the case in 1922. Then the right hon. member went on to deal with the question of the colour bar. On page 25, when that question was raised, he said—

(Presumably with the Chamber’s representatives)

He went on to say, on page 36, the right hon. gentleman who now tells us we should not pass this Bill, that they (the Chamber of Mines) wanted “the removal of the colour bar and the importation of more natives, but those two things,” he said, “we cannot do.” Towards the end of the discussion he waxed very eloquent. He said to the men’s representatives: “There will be an increase, and not a decrease, of white labour. If my assurance is not carried out, if what I tell you to-day is not carried out, then you have the right to come to me and say, ‘ That is the position, what you have told us on the 4th November, that more white men will be appointed, instead of white men coming down in numbers, has not happened.’ You can come and represent that to me.” What happened? He forgot about it until the last election, when he remembered certain promises which, he said, had been made He then said that those promises had not been kept by the chamber, and he was going to fight, and we had the sham fight between him and Sir Evelyn Wallers. Of course he must have something more effective than bombs and aeroplanes with which to fight the Chamber of Mines; these instruments are only suitable for the workers. And what do you think did the first shot in the battle with the Chamber consist of? A permit to import more natives from Portuguese territory ! But when the men with whom he had been negotiating met him, and asked him to carry out the promises which he had given them, what was his reply? He allowed them to become exasperated. He said, in effect,, I am very sorry. We of the South African party are the Government, but you know perfectly well that the real government is the Chamber of Mines. What can I do? I advise you to go back and; accept whatever is offered you. He said they had got to accept whatever conditions were offered to them.

It is absolutely incorrect.

I say it is not untrue, but a correct inference from what took place. If anybody dared not to take part in the great war he was called a traitor, and yet we have the hon. member for Standerton preaching to the men to be disloyal to their fellow-workers, who were being thrown out of employment to starve. I submit, in the light of that position, and in the light of the assurances given by the right hon. member, it is nothing short of a scandal for him and his party to suggest that the motion for the second reading of this Bill should be discharged.

We have been listening to a long dissertation on the hon. member’s favourite theories, but I do not know what his remarks ranging from sweated labour to statistics of death rate in this and other countries have to do with the Bill. He spent much of the time of the House in condemning the point of view of the leader of the Opposition in regard to this Bill. I take exception to that because, if I am right in saying that the hon. member is under the leadership of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister not only complimented the leader of the Opposition on his statesmanlike and fair speech, but also accepted his suggestions. In view of that, I do not think we need worry much about what the hon. member, who has just spoken, has to say. But I particularly object to the hon. member accusing anybody of dishonesty. I think, after the speech which he has just made, he is the last person who should make such an accusation against anybody, for what is worse than misquoting and deliberately distorting the true position?

Order.

I repeat that, and I say the hon. gentleman admitted distorting the facts. I want to say, in regard to the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees), that we will remember what he said when on this side of the House a few years ago about the natives and coloured men. Of course, it was late at night, and remembering this, and appreciating the more temperate way in which he started speaking “to-day, I thought he was going to modify his views.

It was at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

My memory serves me well, but let me recall what the hon. member said. He said—

What do you say?

Justice to everybody. He went on—

That was undobutedly still his view. When we know that to be his view we can attach very little importance to his claim now that the native will be treated fairly. But the hon. member quoted from the Act of 1911, and asked everybody on this side, going one by one through the six clauses of sub-section (n), “are you in favour of making natives mine managers”; “are you in favour of making natives overseers?” and so on. He went through the whole list up to 6, but was very careful not to refer to 7, which says: “Such other classes of persons employed in, at, or about mines, works and machinery, as the Governor-General may from time to time deem it expedient to be in possession of a certificate of competence.”

This Bill only refers to 6.

This Bill says: “Regulations under paragraph (n).” No. 7 comes under paragraph (n) also.

Further discretion is allowed under 7 to include those under 6.

In the section of the regulations under paragraph (n) No. 7 is included. The present Bill adds to paragraph (n), and says the regulations—

and goes on to say—

How the hon. member can say that this Bill goes no further than the Act of 1911 I cannot understand. Of course, the hon. member left out No. 7.

The hon. member did quote No. 7.

The hon. member may have quoted it, but not in this connection.

On a point of order I wish to say that I read out every section up to 7, and put six questions, because No. 7 was of too polyglot a character to put any question on it.

That exactly agrees with my argument. He was careful to be silent on No. 7. I want to remind the House that the leader of the Opposition made a very statesman-line utterance, one which was far beyond the narrow field of party politics, and which will long be remembered. He went very far in offering to give every possible help to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said he accepted this offer. He has told us that he recognizes that it was a very fair and honest statement, and he was very pleased to accept any help he could from this side of the House. But how does he accept it? Not by sending the principle to a select committee as everyone here thought would be done; not by arranging that the principle of this Bill should be decided in consultation, as was suggested, but that the principle should be forced through the House by a subservient majority after which consultations can take place. Of what value are such consultations on a Bill of such far-reaching principles? The offer by our leader has in no way been accepted, yet the Prime Minister desires his assistance after the second reading. If the Bill had been sent to a select committee before the second reading I am certain that many members on this side who are dead against any colour bar being introduced into our legislation, would as a result have given every assistance possible in devising some less doubtful means of meeting the case and would, perhaps, as a result of compromises arrived at, have refrained from saying anything further on the matter. We would have accepted an honourable understanding and would have felt that as our suggestion had been accepted, and an honest attempt had been made to meet the views of all sections, we could have stretched a point and met the Minister as far as possible. But if the principle is to be accepted before the Bill goes to a select committee, I see no use in meeting the Minister further. We will be bound to fight this Bill step by step. No doubt the Government with their majority can force the measure through the House, but what good is that going to do to the country? It is going to show the country that the white people are divided on the question and the natives will never settle down as they would have done if an honourable arrangement had been arrived at. According to what the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) and the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn) stated the other day, the principle laid down in this Bill is bad. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) pleaded for far-sightedness, while the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn) wanted to know whether the natives or the Native Affairs Commission had been consulted, and he reminded us that the principal grievance of the natives in the Natal Rebellion of 1907 was that they were not in any way consulted in regard to the making of laws. Of course the hon. member for Barberton (Mr. Rood) did not agree with them, and told them that they spoke with one voice one day and another voice the next day; also that they wanted the colour bar in industries but not in agriculture. Knowing the coloured people as I do, I, without hesitation and with absolute conviction, agree with the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) when he told us that the coloured people are opposed to the present exemption in their favour. They feel that they have in the immediate past suffered very severely. They are determined that no other section of the community is going to suffer so far as they are concerned, and they are going to stand up for their fellow-men. They know that this exemption is not going to act in their favour, for they are certain that the economic conditions on the Rand will always be against them.

What did your Government do with them up to last year?

I would remind the hon. Minister that the coloured people are not the unthinking or illiterate people the Government believes them to be. They believe in this promise of exemption just as much as they believe in the promise made during the last election that right throughout the country they will be enfranchised. Of course, even in that promise there was a reservation, namely, that they would be enfranchised as soon as the native was segregated. I am satisfied that it was known then, as it is known now, that segregation as suggested was quite impossible. The coloured people know that that promise was not meant to be kept. They also know what the present exemption is valueless. If there be anyone still in doubt as to the Government’s true intent let me quote what the Minister of Labour said in 1920 during the colour bar debate. He said: “If the colour bar were abrogated it was not the coloured man of the Cape who would benefit…. It would not do one particle of good to the civilized coloured man.” Has the hon. Minister changed his opinion, or is he deliberately misleading the coloured man now? More serious is the attitude of the Minister of Justice in the present by-election. He knew very well that the Prime Minister had promised to meet the leader of the Opposition in this matter, and yet he went out of his way to tell the good people of Klerksdorp, for party purposes, that in no way would the suggestion of the right hon. gentleman be met, and that the Government were going to restore the colour bar. Another leader—the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow)—speaking of the Mines Bill, at the same place, on the same day and with the same knowledge of the Prime Minister’s promise, said—

Hear, hear.

I hear hon. members say “Hear, hear.” I ask, are the hon. members who say there is an exemption in favour of the coloured man, and that he is now going to receive his Magna Chart a—are they honest or are they misleading the people? It is absolute nonsense to ask us to believe that the coloured man is going to benefit in any way. We know he is not. If there is any exemption, in his favour it is only put there to try and appease him in some way or other and for some purpose which we do not at present fathom. This is one of the greatest and most important matters which has ever come before South Africa. We gave the coloured and native people a solemn promise that we would look after their interests. The delegation which went to England to see the South Africa Act through—a delegation of which the hon. Minister was a member—gave a similar promise to the people of Britain that the coloured and native peoples would be fully protected. Is the hon. Minister fully protecting the native races in this Bill? It is said that these disabilities existed before, but they were not in a legal enactment.

But you thought they were.

Are you asking my opinion?

Your party thought so. Why don’t you meet arguments?

I am prepared to meet argument but am not going to meet such interjections. The Supreme Court in November, 1923, decided once for all that the regulations were ultra vires, and Judge Krause, after a very careful summing-up, said that the regulation was—

Those are very strong words, and the judgment was undoubtedly just and equitable. It expressed a fundamental principle of South African jurisprudence. This is the first statute, both before or since Union, in which there is a racial discrimination with the object of depriving one class of the community of equal economic rights.

Your Government broke the law.

Whatever the practice has been, Parliament has never before stooped to make the colour of a man’s skin debar him from reaching any particular rung in the economic ladder. The principle of economic equality is to be expunged by this Bill from the law of the land, and it is now proposed that we should deny rights purely because of a mere accident of birth. What is to be introduced, is held by our Supreme Court to be unreasonable, capricious and arbitrary. We are refusing the rights we solemnly promised, merely because of a prejudice of a pertain section of Europeans, but not of the whole, because the Europeans in this part of the Union, and to some degree in Natal, have recognized that a human being is a human being, no matter what the colour of his skin. We are in the position of guardians of these people, and must therefore never use our powers to trample on any spark of ambition which might come from the inferior races. We ask these men to labour, and we know that without them the mines would have to close down, yet we propose legislating that every advantage should be with the privileged class. Surely that is a much more intense form of snobbery than that which hon. members on the other side so vehemently condemned in a previous debate. We shut the door on the ambitions and hopes of advancement of these people, we drive them down and treat them as brute animals, yet expect them to behave as responsible men. It is wrong to institute or to have a colour bar.

Why didn’t you tell the other Government it is wrong?

I have told every Government that we know it is wrong. It is contrary to every principle we profess, and we do it knowing it to be wrong. The hon. member who spoke last quoted at very great length from the report of the Low Grade Mines Commission, but he very carefully omitted to quote their finding about the colour bar, which was that “From the point of view of abstract justice as between man and man, there is nothing to be said in favour of it,” and the commission recommended that it should be abolished. The congress of the Cape Labour Union in 1921 declared the colour bar in trade unions was wrong in principle and unjust in practice, and demanded that no differentiation should be tolerated on account of nationality, colour, creed or sex. The Minister of Labour, in a letter to the “Star” a little more than a year ago, agreed that it would be absurd and immoral to attempt to exclude the natives of the Union from participating in the development of our resources. This is not what he said on other occasions, but we are thankful when these political purists occasionally find proper sentiments simply bubbling forth. It seems to me that the policy of the Government is absolutely to crush the native, and this is proved by their actions of the immediate past in connection with other legislation to which I may not now refer. The native is beginning to feel that no justice is to be expected from the white man, and unless that dissatisfaction is removed at a very early date, we are going to have trouble in this country such as everyone will regret. The only way to avoid that is by showing the natives that we are not going to force through legislation before the whole matter has been fully considered by all sections of the community and by every shade of political opinion, and before the natives have been consulted and come to an agreement with us. The native is a very reasonable being; why not consult with him and meet him before making such a revolutionary change? Why not say to him, “This is the position, and it is felt that you must give way to the white man under certain conditions?” Why not ask the native to agree to give way, and tell him that we will assist him in some other direction? The native is reasonable and will meet us, I am sure. Does not the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) agree with me?

Did your Government consult the natives?

Does the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) not agree with me? With a large number of other hon. members, I have always opposed the introduction of any form of colour bar in industrial work. On broad and equitable principles, I oppose, and trust I shall always oppose, the introduction of any form of a political or industrial colour bar. We have never approved of this principle in the Cape, and we never had reason to regret the wise and statesmanlike policy of our legislators of the past. We are proud of them. We honour them, for they always held country and principles first.

The last speaker has referred to abstract justice between man and man, but it is extraordinary that with such high-flown sentiments from members on the Opposition side, not one of them has put in a word for the white man. I will support the second reading of the Bill because it will go a long way to solve the problem of unemployment. One of the effects of the Rand strike of 1922 was the number of natives put on to do work formerly carried on by whites, and when the strike terminated they were retained in their employment. One instance is that of drill-sharpeners. Before the strike, practically all the drill-sharpening was done by white men. After the strike, on one mine on the East Rand the manager took back six white drill-sharpeners. But a few days later the consulting engineer of the group told him that the principle of the group was to have the work done by kaffirs, and consequently the mine manager got rid of the white drill-sharpeners. These white drill-sharpeners were paid 20s. each a shift, but after their dismissal the work was done, indifferently, no doubt, by the same number of kaffirs at 5s. each a shift. In those days everyone supposed there was a legal colour bar, but owing to the black-listing and victimization which followed the strike, workers were afraid to complain, and quite a lot of the work formerly done by white men was executed by kaffirs. In 1923, the Transvaal Supreme Court found that the law was ultra vires, and since then jobs, formerly regarded as belonging to white men, have been increasingly given to natives and Asiatics. We had the spectacle on the Rand of natives driving locomotives and Asiatics driving hauling engines. This continued up to the time of the election, when owing to unemployment becoming rife, practically all the members returned from the Reef received the mandate, that as soon as Parliament assembled, they had to agitate for a real colour bar. People who talk about justice to the natives should be the last to say anything which will weaken the law with regard to working conditions. We are told that since 1922 the number of accidents on the mines on the Witwatersrand has increased, and seeing that ten times as many natives are employed as whites, they must suffer more through accidents than the Europeans. Therefore, friends of the natives should be anxious to see that the mining regulations to prevent accidents are properly carried out. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) said that as far as he was able to ascertain there is very little interference with the practice which had prevailed on the Rand for a good many years past. I can tell him that the practice on the Rand has changed considerably since he was there. In his time it was assumed there was a colour bar and this prevented many evils now complained of. We are also told by the hon. member that many people are content with the present state of affairs, but I suppose they must be milling managers and directors. It is absolute nonsense to say that a man who has lost his job and has no food for his family is content to let the present circumstances continue. The hon. member had said that the Bill compelled him and others to declare their sympathy with the natives’ aspirations. If in these circumstances, with white men unemployed and looking for work and food, people spoke of their sympathy for the natives, what became of the much wanted white civilization? The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is one of those who consider that natives should be used for all they are worth, so long as they work cheaply, and that white men should be the supervisors. The same view is held by many others of the employing class, who want to wax rich on the work of the natives or anyone else they can exploit. I would like to quote to the House a couple of extracts from a pamphlet issued by Mr. O. K. Webber, who for three years was vice-president of the Chamber of Mines, for one year president of the Chamber, and for twenty years director of the National Bank. Mr. Webber, who no doubt shares the same views as many gentlemen opposite, but unlike them, has the pluck to state his views, says in his pamphlet—

I would add that the white population of South Africa would also disappear, for such a policy only provided for a handful of white supervisors. But at any rate Mr. Webber had the merit of propounding a policy although I do not agree with it. The present system of pretending to uphold the white man while, at the same time undermining him, can only lead to disaster. With regard to this, Mr. Webber had said—

When a statement like that was made from these benches the other day it was received with derision, but when it comes from the altitude of the Chamber of Mines it is regarded as all right. But we, on these benches, want to stop people reaching the point of having to ask for food or finding it necessary to think of revolution, and that is the reason why I think this Bill must do good. It is all very well talking about being fair to the natives, but the preservation of the white race is the first duty. The natives in the mines are very happy, and the conditions under which they are housed and fed is envied by many whites. The white men have to fight against a white colour bar for the reason that the natives are unlimited in number, they work cheaply, compensation for phthisis in their case is small, they come under indenture and if they break their contracts can be prosecuted as criminals. The members opposite who talk glibly about the rights of the native should be asked why they still allow a deserting native to be treated as a criminal for breaking what is really a civil contract. The natives, in increasing numbers, continue to usurp the jobs of the European, and it is therefore very necessary that this Bill should be brought in so that the real position should be defined. It has been objected that this measure was not confined to the mines and an appeal is made to the farmers that it might be made to apply to the farms. My reply is that, if it is a good measure to prevent coloured men working the machinery in the mines, then it ought to be good anywhere else. I don’t think farmers will be taken in by an idea of that sort because I think they will realize it is their duty to uphold the white standard. If they regard the subject from no higher level they know that high wages and white employment in the mines creates a better demand for their products, and that if their sons should go into the towns for employment there would be something for them to do. This measure is not only to be effective to-day, and when in the future the farmers cannot keep on cutting up their farms to provide for their sons they will want other occupations for them, and it is necessary that those other occupations should be available. It is therefore necessary in the interests of farmers that a colour bar should be made law. The leader of the Opposition has spoken to the House with reference to the inclusion of Asiaties in this Bill His statement that this will bring upon us the hatred of Asia seems to me to be as nonsensical as are some of the hysterical things said by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) this afternoon. In different parts of the Union there are trading restrictions against Asiatics, and if the hatred of Asia cannot be stirred up in the interests of traders it cannot be stirred up because a few of their mechanics are kept out of employment in the mines of the Witwatersrand. I am glad the Bill will apply to the Asiatics because they are by no means a desirable competitor of the European. It is all right to talk about the rights of the natives, but we must have some restrictions to counteract their low standard of living. Any restrictions brought in, it has been argued, will be artificial. That may be the case, but nevertheless I contend that anyone who tampers with these restrictions, and anyone who brings closer the era of the native in this country, is no friend of the white people and should be strongly discouraged. I am very pleased to support the second reading of this Bill.

I rise to voice my protest against the second reading. I had fully expected that the hon. the Prime Minister would have accepted the suggestion of the right hon. member for Standerton and have submitted this measure to a Select Committee before the second reading is taken. We all recognize the importance of the Bill, and I would have been delighted if the Prime Minister had accepted the suggestion. I object to the principle laid down in this innocent-looking Bill of one section, which is creating a colour bar by Act of Parliament. It is true there has been a form of colour bar by regulation applicable to the mines, but those who live in the native area know the feeling which is engendered amongst the natives at the colour bar being introduced even by proclamation. How much more will they resent a Bill of this kind being introduced and intended to become an Act of Parliament. Meetings of protest have been held all over the country and strong feelings have been expressed. I have several telegrams dealing with the matter. I have one here from the Principal of Lovedale and also from the Principal of Fort Hare jointly. This wire to me has been sent to the Prime Minister, and it reads as follows—

I have another one here from the Cis-Kei Chiefs’ Convention—

Another one from the All African Convention reads—

A telegram from the Vigilance Association says—

Then at a convention at Kingwilliamstown held a week ago by the Bantu Union, the following, among other resolutions, were passed—

These telegrams speak for themselves, and represent the feelings of the natives, generally, throughout the country. There is a Bill on our desks which, if passed, will make these people South African nationals. By the Bill now before the House their rights and privileges are being curtailed. Then we have a measure before us which will place additional taxation on the natives. By this present measure it is proposed to prevent them from earning the wherewithal to pay this tax. This Bill may, and doubtless will, be applied to the Cape Province. It is not laid down that it is to be restricted, and we should be exceedingly sorry to see it extended to this province, but there is nothing whatever to prevent that from being done. Then, again, it seems to me extraordinary that a certificate of competency may be granted to coloured people, while it is definitely denied and refused to the native, however efficient he may be. We have given these people education, and we see that they are fast rising in the scale of civilization, and yet we introduce a measure such as this. Treat the native justly, and you will have in him one of the finest assets to this country. Treat him unjustly, as this Bill proposes to do, and you will find that the native will not take it lying down. The natives will organize and cause stagnation in the industries of this country. The natives have not been consulted about this Bill, which, to my mind, is a breach of faith to these people, because they were promised that, when any measures were brought forward dealing with native affairs, they would be consulted. By actions such as this, Parliament, and the Government are sowing the wind, and those who come after us will undoubtedly reap the whirlwind. I trust that this Bill will never become law, and I support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt).

I did not intend taking part in this debate, but after listening to the protestations coming from the other side of the House regarding the great concern which they show for the welfare of the natives and coloured men, I cannot resist the temptation of referring to a little incident in the past of their own party, more especially after listening to the speech which has just been delivered by the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Mai G. B. van Zyl). We heard him telling us how they were out to guard the interests of the coloured man and the native. We were told of the solemn promise which was made at the time of Union to look after the interests of the natives. We were informed, fairly great length, of the past policy of the South African party in regard to protecting the interests of the native and the coloured man. I cannot, therefore, resist the temptation to refer to a little incident in their own party which goes back to 1903. At that time the present party, which goes under the name of the South African party, and which is to-day virtually the Unionist party of old, went under the old name of the Progressive party. The statement to which I refer was made by the then leader of the Progressive party, the late Dr. Jameson, a great friend of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, who is the present virtual leader of the party on the other side of this House.

You must have been in swaddling clothes in 1903.

The incident to which I refer is a letter written by the late Sir Starr Jameson to his brother, and published in the “Life of Jameson,” by Ian Colvin, at page 230. I think hon. members will admit that that letter written by the late Dr. Jameson to his brother Sam exposed the inmost feelings of his heart. It was a private letter, and not a public statement. There was at that time a similar question before the country to the one raised by this present Bill. It was also a question of the native competing against another class of worker, in that case the Chinaman. Dr. Jameson and his party found themselves in a difficult position, and this is shown in the letter written by Dr. Jameson to his brother on December 16, 1903—

I hope that our coloured voters and the native voters of South Africa will make note of the words—

It was the same old game that we are having to-day, and the same motives. That is what is behind all this opposition to the present Bill— the motive of vote-catching on the one hand, and the motive of the exploitation of native labour on the other. As in the days of Chinese labour, so to-day also they prefer native labour to white or coloured labour, because the latter is going to cost more. At the same time they have to be careful to retain the natives’ political support. I hope that our coloured and native people will take careful note of these words. I note that the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) has ceased with his interruptions. It is because he is one of the successors to the Progressive party of whom the leader was Dr. Jameson, the writer of this letter.

It sounds like the house that Jack built.

It does not matter what it sounds like, it is the truth. It is a matter of vote-catching and exploitation of native labour, and it reveals the same position as existed in 1903.

I would like to say that the manner and tone of the last speaker in referring to the late Sir Starr Jameson was not befitting to the memory of the man. I can say with absolute conviction that I am not in favour of class legislation, and my position to-day is the same as it has always been. When I contested the Kimberley constituency, I made it perfectly clear to coloured and Indian and native deputations, even in the presence of our leader, that I was by conviction opposed to all class legislation. It has been suggested that the gold mining industry deliberately brought the case by which the old colour bar regulation was declared ultra vires in order to replace Europeans by natives. And again, it has been said that accidents have increased on the mines through poorer supervision. I would like to deal with these two points. It was the Government authority, the mining inspector, who thought it wise to prosecute Mr. Hildick Smith under this colour bar regulation; and, as was admitted in evidence before a recent commission, the inspector thought he would prove the regulation intra vires. The Crown Mines defence in the case was primarily that the native was competent to do the work and was under the effective control of a white shiftsman. This being so there was no intended challenge to the colour bar provision of Regulation 179. The question of the regulation being ultra vires, the colour bar was the legal point taken by the attorney in defending his client. There never was any intention on the part of the industry to challenge the validity of the colour bar which is fully proved by the fact that the Chamber has in no way taken advantage of the judgment. It might have been wiser if the Crown Mines had watched the points their solicitor was going to raise, and so let sleeping dogs lie, but it cannot be argued that the Chamber of Mines deliberately raised this point to get the colour bar declared ultra vires and, therefore, be able to employ natives instead of Europeans. The Chamber of Mines has not taken advantage, and do not intend to take advantage of the judgment, and the number of Europeans employed in the industry has steadily increased during 1924. In the beginning of the year there were about 18,000 Europeans and 181,000 natives employed on the Witwatersrand. By December this number had increased by 1,000 and Sir Evelyn Wallers, in his recent speech, pointed out that a further increase has taken place since. The native force remained practically stationary. The Chamber did not specifically tell the Government that it would take on more Europeans to relieve unemployment, but the actual fact is by improving efficiency in the mines, the industry has done more than any other industry to assist in solving the unemployment problem, and the men taken on are in permanent employment. It is, therefore, clearly wrong to say that this Bill is necessary to protect the European worker against the machinations of the Chamber of Mines. With regard to the increase in accidents on the mines, I was surprised when the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) quoted some accident figures, because he used the self-same figures which I have before me now, but he arrived at different conclusions. The hon. Minister has also stated that he had been informed by his officials that owing to the decrease in supervision the accident death-rate had gone up. It is true that the accident rate was 3.27 in 1923 against 2.96 in 1921, but this increase, I think, the Minister knows is due to exceptional accidents caused by rock bursts. In the present knowledge of rock bursts, the accidents, while unfortunate, are unavoidable concomitants of deep mining. A special Government enquiry into their occurrence is now sitting. If you exclude rock bursts, the comparative accident death-rate was 2.9 for 1923 and 2.83 in 1921. Strange to say, the statistics for 1923 show that the highest accident death-rate was on the mines, which employed underground the largest number of Europeans to natives. I do not mention this to justify or to advocate increased native employment, but to refute the implied charge of callousness to human life brought against us. On the contrary, I say definitely that it would be wrong for the Chamber to disturb the present custom and as all employees are of the same mind, it is not necessary to protect the European worker in Johannesburg. The extent to which skilled work is reserved to Europeans is not governed by any law, and will not be secured to Europeans by any law. It is secured by custom, and custom is far more powerful than any law. I do not believe in class legislation, but I am not so foolish as to suggest that we could take coloured people with experience from Kimberley, say, to take the place of European miners on the Rand. That is not feasible. I know that the coloured people are much too sensible to think that that will take place. They know that an industry like that in Johannesburg has been built up by the skilled work of Europeans, and that it cannot be altered by law to permit of its being done by others. Custom will protect the European better than any law. We have also heard it said that this particular judgment has proved a shock to the European employees; that it came absolutely as news to them that the colour bar was ultra vires; and that it, therefore, greatly contributed to the unsettled position in Johannesburg. In this connection it is rather interesting to note that in the report of the Low Grade Mines Commission (May 5th, 1920) there is a memorandum on the colour bar, being the views of the three trade union representatives on the question. Section 4 reads—

This report is signed by the late Mr. A. Crawford, the late Mr. J. Forrester Brown and Mr. B. Pohl. This law is misleading in that it may induce the coloured worker to think that he will be allowed to take away the work from the European worker in Johannesburg. The coloured man will be absolutely wrong if he expects that. Naturally, we think that representing a European civilization we are the teachers of the coloured and native people, but the coloured people could not expect us—once a custom has been established—to discharge our own flesh and blood in order to make room for the coloured people. I am strongly opposed to class legislation of any kind. It is an evil to impose class legislation, and the curse of an evil deed is that one must continue to do evil. Once we have passed a measure of this kind we would be forced into more and more class legislation. This is not the means to protect the European worker. It is only by efficiency and application to work that the Europeans can maintain the position which we now occupy in South Africa.

I am surprised at the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) expressing approval of the speech to which we have just listened. I always regarded him as one of the most honest members on the other side of the House. I always thought when he made a statement that we could at least be satisfied that that was his candid conviction. After listening to the speeches delivered by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt), and the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) suggesting and continuing to suggest that we are the guardians of the native and that the native must be treated with absolute justice, I wondered to myself whether in actual practice these hon. members saw to it that the native is treated on a footing of absolute equality with the white man.

We never suggested that.

The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) said again and again that you cannot keep the black races down. Does he admit them into his business as managers, accountants and so forth? This is not a laughing matter. If he does not do it, does he keep them down, does he keep them out? If he is so anxious about the equal treatment, the just treatment of the natives; those people whom we educate and upon whom we spend large sums of money, why does he exclude them?

Because they are not suited for the work.

The hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) quoted a comparison given by an American University of two in one hundred thousand. He said “Well, what about the two.” What does he do with the two in South Africa? We must be sincere. If we mean to convey to the native that we are his guardians; that we are jealous of his position and that we intend to see him treated on a footing of absolute equality with the white man in this country, let us say so. The hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) says he agrees with that.

Yes; industrially.

Then I wonder what has become of the arguments of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) that you cannot keep the races down, and that you will have to admit them industrially. Why not politically? Why not in commercial business? Are you agreeable they should be allowed there.

Yes.

If this same argument applies in regard to the industrial question, why will you not admit them to the same political privileges?

They have them in the Cape.

Is the hon. member in favour of admitting them to this House?

Yes.

Is the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) prepared to allow them to take their place in this House?

I am not going to be cross-examined.

I leave the cross-examination to the barrister on the other side. Here we have a frank admission of those hon. members that they are prepared to allow the native to take a seat next to them in this House. I wonder how many hon. members on the other side agree with that. Does the hon. member for Bethal (Lt.-Col. H. S. Grobler) agree?

He does not agree.

We naturally take it that the hon. members here speak on behalf of the party.

Nonsense.

I am sorry indeed that I was wrong, and I think my friends on this side of the House always took it that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl), when they spoke, were speaking for that side of the House. Now the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) tells me that that was nonsense. When hon. members opposite speak must I take it that they speak for themselves and not on behalf of their party? Is that the position? I want to get very clear on this issue.

We want also to be clear.

My hon. friend need not get excited. If I was wrong, I wish to apologize to the hon. member. Let me repeat again that we must be honest and we must be sincere. If we are prepared to treat the native with absolute equality with the European races let us say so, and let that party say so, and if the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has not the right to speak for his party, let the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) say so. We intend to treat the native absolutely fairly, but we certainly do not propose to allow him the same privileges that we claim for the whites—certainly not in the industrial or the political sphere.

And the coloured man?

We are going to treat the coloured man industrially exactly as we treat the white man. We have said so, and that, by the way, is what the hon. members on that side—(Disorder)—object to.

Will hon. members kindly allow the hon. member for Somerset East to proceed?

We say to the native—

We do not propose to allow you to have the right to take office as a magistrate or as a postmaster, or to enter the civil service or judiciary.

And the coloured man?

What do hon. members on the other side want?

We want to know about the coloured man.

Do they want the natives to have the same position as the white man? I think the natives would much sooner believe what we say when we tell them that we draw a line of division between them and us than they would believe the insincere statements of the other side, claiming equality. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) expressed his approval when the hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer) said they did not intend to take any advantage of the decision of the courts. Why did he say “Hear, hear?” The hon. member for Kimberley said they would not allow the native to take up positions of this kind, and the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) approved.

Very illogical!

Very illogical if he claims that absolute equality on the ground that we cannot possibly keep the natives down. He should certainly not have approved of what the hon. member for Kimberley said. I only rose to point out the insincerity of hon. members on the other side, especially the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt). Let us decide what the position of the native is to be and demarcate his sphere of activity, and let us demarcate ours. We certainly do not propose to mix up the two races.

And the coloured people?

I do not know on what grounds the hon. member for Somerset (Mr. Fourie) should presume to say, with the support of members behind him, that if you oppose this Bill you must be in favour of absolute equality between whites and natives. The hon. member may expect that argument to pass in a magistrate’s court, but I do not think it will pass here. I should like to ask him another question. He says he is in favour of absolute equality between white and coloured. Is he speaking for his party in the Free State and Transvaal? I should be very glad to hear that he does.

Yes.

He is speaking for his party? It is one of the most remarkable and sudden conversions I have ever heard of in modern times. What I feel about this Bill is not so much the harm it is going to do to the native, as the harm it is going to do the white man. I regard this Bill as a nail in the coffin of the white man in South Africa. It is a suicidal policy for the white man in the future, because this Bill is going to lead the white man to believe that Parliament can build up a ring fence and protect his position as against the uncivilized and semi-civilized native. No greater fallacy was ever put forward by reasonable man than that the position of the white man can be protected by Acts of Parliament. It has never been done anywhere in the world, and it never will be done. No statute will be able to keep the natives down below a certain level.

Why did you issue your regulations then?

Let the hon. Minister have patience. I say that white people are deceiving themselves into a belief that they can do what no race has been able to do in the history of the world. I consider that, in so far as the old mining regulations tried to do that, they were open to the same objections. I have never defended that Act on the platforms on the Rand and elsewhere, and I told them they were leaning on a broken reed.

That is why you took part in it.

I took no part in it. I was not a member of the Government when this Act was introduced. The old colour bar is a survival of the old conditions of the South African Republic. It was taken over by the Crown Colony Government and continued by the responsible Government, and by the present Act when Union came about. There was nothing new after the Act of 1911. It was a survival which no one wanted to remove because it lent a certain security.

Its authority was the Act of 1911.

Yes, but its existence was years before 1911, and the right hon. member for Standerton said in this House on the Bill, seeing that this regulation set a standard which was relied on by large numbers of workers, if the Government would confine their efforts to getting the matter left where it was, he was prepared to leave matters in statu quo.

When the sitting was suspended I was trying to explain to the House that the old colour bar regulation in the Transvaal was nothing new. It was not promulgated under the Act of 1911. It existed for years before that. It is true the Act of 1911 was the only legal basis for it, and when tested in the courts it was found to be ultra vires as it was known it would be found. I make no secret that it was well known, years before the court’s decision, that it was ultra vires. It was known it would be illegal.

And you didn’t take a single step to remove the illegal regulation?

No. We regarded it as a regulation which had grown up by custom and as such had the sanction of custom. It is all very well to talk about leaving it on the statute book, but in questions of this kind custom goes a long way. There was nothing to be gained—and that was admitted by Europeans as well as by natives and coloured people—by doing away with it. As the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) said, if the Bill went no further than to keep alive the old colour bar of the Transvaal we should not oppose it. We were not prepared to interfere with an arrangement which had grown up, a customary arrangement in the ordinary practice of working. What we say is this House should not be asked now to go very much further than that, and introduce an entirely new colour bar sanctioned by the authority of this House. That is what the Minister is doing. It is no use saying that it is not going further than the colour bar of the Transvaal. This Bill allows him to go much further. It is one thing to acquiesce in an old custom sanctioned by usage, but it_ is another thing to go beyond it and ask the House to sanction a statute that will give the Minister power far beyond what we ever had in the Transvaal. If you exclude the Asiatics the Bill goes much further than the old colour bar regulation of the Transvaal. I am surprised to hear members constantly say it may not be just, but it is a question of self-preservation. I was surprised to hear the Prime Minister say that this question of justice and principle was all very well from the ideal and moral point of view but we must waive this aside and come to practical consideration. What a pathetic fallacy! To think that the life of a nation can be built up on principles that will not stand examination from the point of view of justice. We have one or two members on the other side of the. House who preach on Sundays that it is only on righteousness and justice that a nation can stand, but on weekdays they don’t accept that any further, but say you must adopt something more practical. History teaches us that whatever may be the case in regard to an individual the principles of justice and the principles of self-preservation for a nation are exactly the same, and the nation which tries to preserve its own existence by shoving aside principles of justice is heading for a fall, is living in a fool’s paradise. The plain teaching of history should lead us to that conclusion. The individual, the community and the race that tries to preserve its own existence by committing injustice against another must assuredly fall, and that is why I regret the Bill from a white man’s point of view. We are committing race suicide by trying to protect ourselves by artificial means. It is artificial to say to a man who has the same right to live in a country as we have that “because you are black you shall not rise beyond a certain point in industry no matter what your skill may be.” If the hon. member says it is not so, he is welcome to his own opinions. The foundation of the custom is artificial.

Then why urge the strength Of the custom?

I don’t urge it. In matters of this kind, where feelings are likely to be excited, I can only say it is better to let sleeping dogs lie. The Bill goes far beyond any custom that has existed. I say that, in the first place, legislation of this kind, encourages the white man, under a false sense of security, to think that he will survive in the struggle, not by his own efficiency, or his own skill and powers, but by passing an Act of Parliament. It encourages him to live in a fool’s paradise. In the second place, if you think that by an Act of Parliament you are going to compel millions of people to accept the situation, no matter what their competence may be, no matter what Wage they may get, they are not allowed to engage in certain occupations—

Not allowed to engage as members of Parliament?

That is not within range yet; it does not touch their bread and butter. It is the same principle, of course, but there is no need to ride a principle to death. The point to-day is how men are going to live. I say this, that an Act of this kind engrossed upon the statute books of this country is going to set forces in motion that we have little idea of. It is going to create a sense of injustice. Let us think what a volcano of discontent and indignation and bitterness we are going to create within the next few years for the white man in South Africa. This is not a measure of self-preservation. It is a measure adopted by the narrowest spirit of selfishness, which is going to lead, not to preservation, in my opinion, but to extinction.

Why didn’t you say that when the colour bar was up two years ago?

Order. Hon. members should not endeavour to carry on the debate by question and answer.

That just reminds me that the Minister when he introduced this Bill, referred to a speech of mine in 1914.

1911.

I thought it was in 1914. There was a motion introduced into this House in 1914 for the abolition of the colour bar and I opposed it at that time because I said that so long as uncivilized labour is imported into this country from outside, I was in favour of maintaining a colour bar and I still hold that view. I mean on the mines, of course. Hon. members may say, what is the remedy? We have heard it said—and I admit it is true— that uncivilized natives are being used to compete with the white man on an unfair basis. The white man is expected to live as a civilized man. The native, in certain trades and industries, is undoubtedly being used to compete with the white man at a wage on which he cannot live as a civilized person. What is the remedy? Not this Bill, but the Minimum Wage Bill.

You are opposing that.

I am not opposing it; I spoke in favour of it.

Did you vote for the second reading?

No, I voted for its going to a Select Committee but the bulk of the members on this side of the House are in favour of the minimum wage, but they are not in favour of the machinery laid down in that Bill. I am surprised at the Labour party departing from the principle that they have maintained for many years. They said that a legislative colour bar was the wrong Way to deal with this question and that the right way of dealing with it was the minimum wage. Why have the Labour party departed from that old and sound principle of theirs? I am afraid it is one of the little nick-nacks which have been exchanged between the two wings of the Pact. The Labour party have given up that old principle of theirs, in order to meet to a certain extent their brethren of the other standard. But that is not my business. I am sorry that the Prime Minister is not here, because I do want to ask him to reconsider this decision that he has taken, I am afraid at the instigation of some of his more militant colleagues, not to send this Bill to Select Committee before the second reading. It seems to me that everything tends in the direction of that being the wisest thing to do. We do not want to make any party capital out of these things, in spite of the efforts of some hon. members on the other side. It is a matter on which the minds of men in public life on both sides should be devoted to arriving at some solution which will benefit the interests of the country as a whole. Surely the Prime Minister ought not to allow a question to be dealt with piecemeal and in bits. He told us the other day that his Government was not prepared at the present time to say what their policy was going to be in regard to segregation. He said it was too big a thing for them to make up their minds about just at present. They were not ready—the country was not ready. We entirely agree with him, but why then come along with this measure of industrial segregation, when you have got the whole problem on the horizon?—There is no particular hurry about it. We have got another Bill on the Order Paper, which, it seems to me, is the best way, in any case, of dealing with this problem, that is the Bill which enables us to determine by law a minimum wage. I say there is no cast iron rule about it and we have been told by the Prime Minister himself that the whole question of segregation is at present in a fluid state. You are going to tell the native that you are going to shut him out of industries by a segregation policy but you are not ready to tell him what that policy is. Is it just or fair to tell him that he need not worry about giving up his prospects as an industrialist because you are going to provide for him elsewhere and yet say that what that provision will be we do not know. Is that fair? Should not the whole policy be treated as the one great question which it really is? We are not making this demand, this request, to the Prime Minister from party motives but because we feel the whole question is one. Take the Asiatic. The Minister of the Interior is going to introduce a Bill this session dealing with the whole Asiatic problem and yet in this Bill we are asked to say that the Asiatic is to be excluded from industries. I ask again why, if this comprehensive measure for dealing with Asiatics is going forward, why should we be forced in this Bill to deal with him as an industrialist? Cannot we wait for the Bill to deal, with it as a general policy? Surely it is justice that it should be treated as part of the comprehensive whole? I say on both these grounds, because we have been told that the native question is not ready for solution, because we have been told they are to bring in a Bill dealing with the Asiatic problem comprehensively, just for these reasons the Prime Minister ought to have suggested that this Bill should not be forced to the second reading, that the House should not be forced to the principle contained in the Bill, but that it should be referred to a Select Committee so that it could be considered not merely as an industrial measure but as a measure of relation of the Asiatic and the native to the European. If we are to deal with it now without knowing what the whole policy is to be we are going to do a great injustice not only to the native and the Asiatic but most of all to ourselves.

I feel somewhat like a fish out of water, I am considerably upset by the appeals which have been made. I am decidedly touched by the solicitude which has been shown by my hon. friend in the welfare of the South African Labour party. He prated a lot about justice. It is very amusing, sir, to hear the hon. gentleman talking about justice. He said the matter ought to be treated comprehensively in regard either to segregation or dealing with the natives and Asiatics on some other lines. Does he realize that owing to the policy which has been consistently pursued by his friends the promoters of the mining industry—in rather a dark and devious way in the past, but unblushingly of late years—that owing to that policy there are white men walking the streets to-day along the Reef and all over the country? Even white business people have gone to the wall as a result of it. Does he realize that the whole country has gone down to such a depth that it seems almost impossible to recover? And yet he says he does not think we should get to work on the matter now. I agree with him entirely that the real way to settle this section of the question is to institute a minimum rate of pay. Only a Kaffir minimum rate of pay would be acceptable on that side of the House, and no doubt such a Bill would be unanimously supported. The hon. gentleman finds himself in conflict with his friends on that point; because I give him credit for being honest on that matter. The minimum rate of pay that he and I and my fellows support is that standard of pay which would enable the white man living on a civilized scale and enable him to bring up his family in decency and comfort. After all, that is the fair thing, but he is in direct conflict on that point with the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and others who agree with him. The whole and sole object is to get their commodities produced and their business run on the cheapest possible scale with the cheapest possible labour in order to make the greatest possible profit. They have no concern with the welfare of the people of their country whether white or black. Let me say here and now I am touched by the asseverations of hon. members at this side of the House in regard to justice. How can they call it justice when the hon. member who used to be protagonist of white labour problems himself talks about the justice to the native? What justice can there be when you bring to compete with our own Union natives no fewer than 80.000 natives per annum from outside our borders Let us suggest that the Minister of Labour should introduce a Bill making further importations from outside quarters and what a row would arise from this side of the House. What about my friend the hon. member for Witwatersberg (Lt.-Col. N. J. Pretorius). He said, if you bring the native into the position of the white man I am prepared to take up the gun. We do not want him to take up the gun tonight. We only want him to lift up his voice.

On a point of order, what I said—

It is not a point of order, it is an explanation.

May I then explain the matter?

If the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) has no objection to it.

I said that if the vote was given to natives in general, I would be the first to take up arms. I still say so. If the native vote is extended over the whole Union I will protest against it.

I am sorry the hon. member did not make his explanation in English. Did I understand him to say that he would not use the gun?

Only on the question of extending the franchise.

My hon. friend has been so long associated with the Unionist party that he has learned how to square the circle. I want to know what is the difference in principle. What I am discussing is the false cry of hon. members on this side of the House that they are out for justice to the native, and my hon. friend backs up that expression of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), but we have a right to expect him to be logical and consistent, and say, “I will not take up the gun to prevent the native having the extension of the franchise.” Otherwise he stands self-condemned as being unjust. That is the first item of justice, as we have it expressed by the South African party. Introduce cheap labour from anywhere you like in the world, from China, Japan, Timbuctoo—anywhere as long as it is cheap, and as long as it competes with our own natives for their jobs—with the inevitable result that our own Union natives must be prepared to accept lower wages. Does the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) know, in the first place, that whether we import the natives from beyond our borders or get them within the Union, they are recruited? There is a world of meaning in that word “recruited.” It means this—and it is one of the arguments we have been putting forward constantly—that the natives are not attracted into industry by the wages and conditions offered in that industry. They are forced into it by many and devious methods—methods that will not bear the light of day. Since the first exposure that I was able to make as the result of reading certain voluminous reports from magistrates in our own native areas as to the methods employed in recruiting the natives, these reports have been completely cut away; but the fact remains, and I have no reason to doubt that these methods are being carried on to-day. The methods of recruiting are such that we, as a House of Assembly controlling the destinies of the Union, should blush to allow them to go on any longer. It is true that a certain proportion of the natives remain because they get used to the life and are divorced from their ordinary method of earning a living on the land, and hon. members must never forget that the natural vocation of the natives is the land —on top, not underneath—and a very large proportion indeed, as we shall find out later, when the Minister of Mines has gone into the matter, take up their abode permanently under the land and prematurely. Is there any justice in a system that brings the natives from their kraals and induces them to be herded together in compounds and used entirely as hewers of wood and drawers of water? The South African party accuses us of desiring to retain them permanently in that capacity. They are the people who are retaining them in that capacity. Why, the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) stated that by this measure we were indicating our policy and intention in that regard and refused to allow the native to improve his position either in the matter of his work or the wage he shall get. We have nothing whatever to do with it. The friends of the hon. gentleman did that. What they want, and are really doing, is to get their compounded natives, who have to sign a contract before they see the work they are going to do, at 1s. 6d. a day, and they are fed and housed, and put them in competition with the whites. It is immaterial whether it is skilled labour, partially skilled or unskilled. Is it justice that brings the native to the pit-head and tells him that he has got to go down, whether he likes or not? I wish to refer to one other point in the speech of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan). He asked why the Labour party had departed from their attitude on colour bar legislation. I want to confess that we are true idealists. We are a party of people who are out to Uplift humanity, whatever may be their colour. There may be some grounds for the reproach of the hon. member that we have departed from our principle, but I want to say, and I call in evidence any hon. member who has been in this House for any considerable time, that the Labour party has always stated in this House that it will agree to drop the colour bar to-morrow—that is assuming the colour bar is in operation—provided those hon. members and their friends will agree to a white standard minimum rate of pay for the work being performed—and no recruiting. That brings me to another point apropos this charge of injustice. Is it just to make a native a criminal because he breaks a civil contract? That has to be brought very clearly before this House; that the legislation that was brought into this House, not by a Nationalist, but by a South African party Government in 1911 or 1912, in the Mines and Works Regulation Act, made it a criminal offence on the part of a coloured man —

Why don’t you repeal that?

My hon. friend will get a rap over the knuckles from his friends on the mines presently. It will be a sorry day for the hon. gentleman. I think if the hon. members will tell us frankly and honestly—and will stand by their word—that they are prepared to vote for a white minimum standard rate of pay for the work performed, the Minister will withdraw the Bill forthwith. I do not like the legal colour bar, nor the colour bar that results from regulations or from custom, but I see my friends walking the streets of Johannesburg, looking for a job and for food for their children, and I ask myself if we wait until the altruistic ideas of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) have materialized, whether any white children will be left to enjoy the privileges. From the standpoint of civilization it is too dangerous for us to wait any longer. I think the hon. Minister will promise that when we have laid down a minimum standard rate of pay on a civilized basis, so that the white man can compete fairly and squarely with all others, he will withdraw this colour bar; otherwise we have got to put some sprag in the wheel of the mineowners. It is, therefore, essential that we should call a halt and introduce legislation which will put things on a sound footing of justice.

I think it must have been a great surprise to members to see this order on the Order Paper for to-day, because there is no doubt that when the hon. Prime Minister spoke the other day he gave this House to believe that he had definitely accepted the suggestion of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). Speaking on the Partial Appropriation Bill, the Prime Minister said—

That is the Prime Minister’s indication of what he was going to do. The attitude of the right hon. member for Standerton is also on record in “Hansard.” The position was that the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) had moved that “the Bill be read a second time this day six months.” The right hon. member for Standerton, speaking on the debate, said he was anxious to do what he could to co-operate, because of the fact that it was too serious a matter to make of it a party question. That is the offer of the right hon. member for Standerton, and its acceptance was made by the hon. Prime Minister.

No, no.

It is no use contradicting me; I have read from the official “Hansard,” and the Prime Minister accepted that offer.

No.

And that acceptance was undoubtedly made on the conditions offered.

Do you mean to suggest that the Prime Minister intended to accept, in the way you suggest?

I do, indeed.

He never intended anything of the kind; nor does he know. What is the good of wasting time?

He was on the point of doing so until the Minister prompted him audibly, and that is the sole reason why he did not carry out that promise.

It is not.

I must accept the hon. Minister’s statement, and express my regret that we understood something which is entirely to the contrary. The offer and the terms of the Prime Minister were perfectly clear, and it was therefore with amazement that we found this Bill on the Order Paper to-day. I daresay a number of other members were also amazed at the determination of the Government to push through the Wage Bill by an all-night sitting. It is a curious coincidence that there is an election at present, and I wonder if these two things have anything to do with the election at Klerksdorp? That is the only way in which I can account for what amounts perilously near to a broken promise on the part of the Prime Minister, and to a violation of the rights of the House in the bringing forward of this Bill in this sudden way.

The hon. member should not refer to the Wage Bill.

I was not going into the details, but simply illustrating what has been going on. Undoubtedly this Bill raises fundamental issues before the whole country, because it means a bar to development for four-fifths of the total population of this country. Now we, as the white population, in the midst of a black population, are endeavouring to throttle all their efforts of development by putting a bar against their rising in the scale of civilization. We have had the most extraordinarily irreconcilable arguments in this debate, sometimes in the speech of one member, and I think that was the case in the speech of the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. van Hees) which occupied a good deal of time this afternoon. Give him a little longer time. As far as I can make out the two points were that the Bill should be passed because the white man ought to be afraid of the inefficiency of the native and because the native is unable to rise to the higher level except in about two in 10,000 or 100,000 cases—I forget the figures. His argument was that we ought to be afraid of the inefficiency of the native. These two arguments are irreconcilable. A great point is made of twitting this side with inconsistency with regard to the Act of 1911. These criticisms have no appeal at all to many of us, because we had nothing to do with these regulations. The position, however, appears clear that when they were passed they applied to one specific industry, and one in which custom had been so long in force that it was impossible to effect a change. For that we have the authority in a report quoted so much to-day, the report of the Low Grades Mines Commission, section 165, and I take it the report was approved by both majority and minority members. The minority report was made by the Labour members of the commission. The report says—

This Bill proposed a great extension on that custom by introducing it in statute and not by regulation. The Minister of Mines knows very well the different effect between a regulation and a statute. The regulation can be made to be adapted to the different sections of the day, and if it recognizes the existence of a particular custom, when public opinion is changed or becomes better educated, then the regulation can be repealed by a stroke of the pen by the Government. There is a difference between that and placing on the statute book a Bill which creates a stigma and provides a bar not only in the limited sphere of the regulation, but in any avenue of employment that can be made to fall within the definition. The definition is so wide that, in the hands of a Minister, who desires to push the colour bar to its utmost, it can be made to apply to all the industries of the country.

Is it worse in the Act than in the regulations?

It is worse. You are putting the Parliamentary seal to it.

The regulations can only be promulgated under the Act.

To me, the regulation is as distasteful as the Act itself. The hon. member cannot twit me on this. The Minister of Mines and Industries knows as well as anybody the vast difference between the local effect and the national effect of having a matter of this sort, a degradation and stigma, put on the bulk of the population by Act of Parliament, and he knows the far greater difficulty there would be in getting a repeal of that Act. The Minister of Mines and Industries, in introducing the Bill, made a remark I would like to remind him of. He said—

I should like to know what that means. What is this Bill but an attempt by artificial means to oppose his progress? What latitude of action is to be allowed the native of this country? We have had a policy of civilized labour put before the House, over and over again, and it has been definitely explained by the hon. Minister of Railways and Harbours as a policy which excludes the native, whether civilized or not, whether he has reached a higher standard or not. What does that mean as far as the practical application is concerned? It means that the native, by one means or another, is to be excluded from great labour departments, from the post office, public works and railways. They are not to be sent out, that is the distinction drawn, but their places when they leave are to be filled with white men. The Minister of Railways and Harbours told me last session, and repeated it this session, that the native on a civilized standard does not get a chance of work under the civilized labour policy. We are shutting the native out of all the great Government labour departments. Now we are shutting him out from the greatest avenue of employment there is, and to this extent we are preventing him from rising to a level which he ought to rise, if he had a real latitude for development. When you exclude the native from the prospect of employment in the public departments, and then from the greatest avenue in the country, the mines, you exclude him from rising above a certain level. I ask the Minister what latitude of employment is being left to the native in the country? We say, give the native a real chance. Leave it to efficiency. Let the man who gets a certificate of efficiency be entitled to work under the certificate, whether his colour is black or white. Make the qualifications for these certificates as stringent as you like, but for heaven’s sake put no artificial barriers in the way of a man’s development. In the same speech the Minister of Mines said this measure is intimately connected with the national question of segregation. This was shortly before the speech of the Prime Minister, in which he announced that his policy had practically become a policy of territorial segregation only. If this measure is only a measure of segregation, what becomes of the Prime Minister’s announcement? I would like to take the point made by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) that this Bill is based upon injustice. There can be no doubt about that. One has only to refer to statements made by members of this House. The hon. member for Jeppes (Mr. Sampson) in his speech says that so far as the question of the rights of man were concerned, in which he used to believe, Europe was a different place entirely from South Africa, and self-preservation is the first law of nature. He is the first man to pour scorn on the rights of man in South Africa. Really this kind of argument must sound particularly tragic to people who try to realize what the future of South Africa means. The hon. member for Jeppes believes in the rights of man, but not in South Africa when it comes to the natives. The hon. member proceeded on another occasion to pour scorn on the lofty ideals of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). The country is the richer for this utterance of the right hon. member in giving expression to these lofty ideals which will serve as a beacon light to many. It is not by pouring scorn on lofty ideals, or on the earlier beliefs of members, that you are going to work a reformation.

Is the hon. member in order n quoting from member’s speeches made during this session?

I happen to be reading from “Hansard.”

Standing Order No. 62 reads—

It would be rather difficult to rule that a book does not include “Hansard,” but I think it would be right to allow members to refer to speeches made in the same debate, provided they do not make too great use of that. I am prepared to allow a certain amount of latitude, but hon. members must not go too far.

That is about the last extract I am going to make from “Hansard.” I can appreciate that hon. members opposite do not like it. My argument shows that members who support the Bill do so knowing that it is a measure of rank injustice. I will quote now from notes I made of a speech delivered this afternoon by the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Van Hees), who said that he was personally satisfied that “no injustice would be done to the natives unless it is done entirely and sincerely in the interests of the white man.” That is about as damaging and damning as any statement that could be made by an hon. member in support of the Bill. I am sure that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Mines must have quivered with unhappiness until the hon. member sat down. I will now quote from the report of the Low Grade Mines Commission which makes it perfectly clear that the colour bar is unjust. The report contains the minority report signed by Messrs. A. Crawford, J. Forrester Brown and D. Pohl. In paragraph 16 they state—

There is a recognition by members of the commission of the inequity of the colour bar. Tonight we had the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) also telling us that in principle he is entirely against the colour bar, but he wishes to prevent hardship to the white section of the population. We get to this point that almost every member who has spoken on the Government side of the House has admitted the injustice and inequity of the Bill. One argument which was used by the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Van Hees) was that this Bill is the Magna Charta of the coloured people. He must be very simple indeed to think that that sort of thing is going to be believed. While he has been telling us that here, what has the Minister of Justice been telling the electors of Klerksdorp? He says the Government was going to endorse the colour bar, which was won in 1922 in blood and tears.

Klerksdorp will back it up.

Inequity may triumph for a time, but it is not going to triumph in the end. Whom are they backing up—the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Van Hees) or the Minister of Justice, who are speaking again with two entirely different voices, and speaking again with a false tongue. That is the position we have to face on every debate—one member of the Ministry says one thing, and another inside and outside the House says something quite different. This Bill is a clear attempt to drive a wedge between the coloured and native people. The coloured people are quite aware of it, and I would be surprised if any of them are taken in by this. The Ministry may be taken in by the representations of a certain section of the coloured people. They may be following the will-o’-the-wisp when they follow that section. I come to the ground now on which the Minister and other members defend this Bill—that is the ground of self-preservation. We had the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) quoting to the House this afternoon a passage from the Low Grade Mines Commission’s report as if that passage represented the views of the majority, and as if those views of this majority came to this, that if the colour bar were repealed the white man would be driven to the wall. Section 170 of that report which he quoted deals entirely with the competition between the unskilled white man and the native who is trained by better skill and experience. It states that the labour of such a native is, therefore, of a greater value to an employer than that of the unskilled white man, and that if there were no artificial restrictions the latter would be driven to the wall. The hon. member knows perfectly well that this Bill does not deal specifically with the unskilled white man. We, as a white race, have a prestige to keep up, and that prestige, in my opinion, is not going to be maintained on what my hon. friend here recently called a policy of “funk,” a policy of fear. It has been stated that if certain steps were not taken we would not be able to maintain ourselves in this country. After these great white races have been in this country for 300 years and have spread civilization and forwarded development in this country, to argue that the members of these races are apprehensive that they will be driven out of this country, and their position here will be made impossible, it does seem to me incredible to think that people should advance that sort of argument at this time of day. We shall not maintain our prestige by using our power to secure ourselves at the expense of the great majority of the people of this country. We shall not maintain our prestige in that way; we shall go to the wall if that is the way alone in which we can maintain our existence in this country. The white man’s existence depends entirely upon his following out not the principles of expediency in this country when he is dealing with the black man, but the principles of fair play, just government and justice. When the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) made his speech the other day in this House, I believe there was not a single man here, friend or foe political or personal opponent, whose soul did not respond to the lofty chord which the right hon. gentleman struck on that occasion. I do not believe we need fear anything when we make efficiency the test.

What about the Asiatic trader?

I am talking about the means of employment, and the hon. member is trying to introduce another red herring, at which he is very expert. The point I am making is that we are not going to justify our existence in this country if by abusing our power we prevent the great majority of the people in this country from having their legitimate avenues of employment. We are providing food for the agitator, and we will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, and, if we don’t, the children for whom the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) pleaded so eloquently just now are going to pay a great, and a heavy and probably a bloody debt when the time comes. We are putting into the hands of the agitator the very weapons that he desires to have. We are giving these people legitimate grievances; we are giving them just grievances of a nature which hits them most vitally. We are getting people driven out of all sorts of employment, and we are getting their reserves overcrowded; we are doing nothing to give them the agricultural education which alone should take the place of the industrial education that they should get. I appeal to the Prime Minister to consider the suggestion made by the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) the other day. I appeal to him to try and let us get a national solution of this question and get something done which will avoid these evils. Unless we do that we are laying up for ourselves a terrible retribution in the day of judgment, which will inevitably come upon us.

I was very struck by the statement of the hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer). He stated that he spoke for the Chamber of Mines and the mining industry, accepted that responsibility, and went on to say that the Chamber of Mines was not in favour of the abolition of the colour bar; that its abolition had been an accident arising out of a legal matter in which the lawyer, representing a manager charged with breach of regulations, relied on a point of ultra vires which was sustained. The inference was that the Chamber of Mines were not pressing at all for abolition of this colour bar. Well, I will challenge that member. We are not rolling in wealth on these benches, but we will put up enough money to send a reply-paid telegram to the official representative of the Chamber of Mines and ask if he will back up the member for Kimberley in his statement that the Chamber does not want abolition of the colour bar. What was the huge strike about? What produced all that misery and suffering? It was because people who relied upon the protection given by the colour bar were afraid that that protection was going to be taken away. They said they would fight for it; for a protection which was essential to the welfare of their wives and children. It was that break which brought about the terrible disaster. I compliment members of the opposite side on fairly and squarely stating that the reason they were fighting this is because they regard the natives and removal of any colour bar from purely economic and industrial point of view. There is no question in their minds of any higher ideal. They simply say: we have never been in favour of a colour bar in industrial and economic life. I would like to ask the leader of the Opposition, and his supporters, why they do not go back to the fundamental principle of exclusion of persons of non-European descent laid down in the South Africa Act. They dare not do so, because they would come back such an attenuated party that they could be counted on the fingers of two hands. A promise was made by leaders of the Unionist, party that at the expiry of the ten years period of the South Africa Act that party would move for the removal of the colour disability which starts in this House. The coloured people at Kimberley have been perfectly frank. They said they were going to vote for the Unionist party, so as to give no excuse for breaking the promise to them. But I do not believe they are prepared to keep that promise now. In 1919 I advertised, in Kimberley, a challenge to the Unionists to deny that they had made the promise. I ask those people who made that promise to keep it. Why is it the hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer) would not be ready to send that telegram to the Chamber of Mines at Johannesburg, which we are willing to pay for? He knows perfectly well that what has been said on the opposite benches is correct. It is purely a financial interest in the native; it is a matter of obtaining the cheapest possible labour. The Chamber of Mines want by every possible means to substitute black labour for white. They are fearful of the amount which must be paid for miners’ phthisis. While black labour may be compensated for vocational disease, yet the fact remains that natives have not been compensated at a high rate. Is the native examined before he goes home to die? He is shipped back from the east Rand in such a way that there is no medical examination by the authorities. It is that fear of having to compensate at the higher rate that is at the back of this substitution of black for white. It is a Transvaal mining question, and another thing is the Workmens’ Compensation Act. They evade that by a mutual society hut their limitation is the year’s pay for death, and a sliding scale for other accidents. The more natives they can employ seeing compensation is based on wage payment, the less they have to pay from the society. What one does not like about the attitude of the South African party, in regard to this question, is that they will not recognize that all they are concerned with is the caste to which they belong, which is not threatened in any way. There is no director of a company, no superior man of any kind whatsoever, whose living is menaced. Therefore they can afford to look at this matter in an abstract way, and stand for “justice” and “right” and so on. But if these gentlemen went through the experience of finding themselves out of employment their few sticks being sold up, and seeing their wives and children homeless, because the wage earner could not get work, then we should find something vastly different in the views expressed on the other side. We cannot hope to get our friends opposite to see things from our point of view. When they say, as the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) said, that they know of no other country where there is a colour bar—

I never said anything of that kind.

I understood you did, but it was expressed from that side of the House that this is the only country which wished for a colour bar. But almost every country occupied by Europeans has its colour bar. You cannot ship natives to Australia or Canada. They won’t take them in the United States, New Zealand, Germany—not even in Scotland, where the hon. gentleman comes from. These people take very good care that their white workers are protected at the ports, and it is easier to enforce a colour bar at the ports than it is in certain specified occupations. Our legal friends have been putting all sorts of law points in regard to this question. So far as I am concerned, they might be all swept aside. “Necessity knows no law,” and the necessity of the people to have their occupations preserved and be able to live in this country is the very first principle of self-preservation. I have pointed out that fundamentally we start in this Union with the blot on the statute book from the native point of view that he shall not have equality, and if you go to the Transvaal you find a long list of what might be called deprivations of rights—rights which he never had. Every so-called right is one we, as the superior race, have conceded to the native. Native tribal conditions did not even guarantee rights of life and of property. If it is in the labour market, he had no labour market such as we brought to his door, and he enjoys the voluntary acceptance or rejection of that “right.” We are asked now to give him the rights of our children, as was quoted the other day in a native paper subsidized by the mines, they are to have black domination in this country ultimately. The leader of the Opposition, on 4th November, 1921, at a conference on the mining regulations with representatives of the South African Mine Workers’ Union, acknowledged that there was on other employment for these people. They must have mining or nothing. To tell these workers they can have nothing is to trifle with human feelings. The right hon. member went so far as to say that he was demanding no abolition of the colour bar. I wish he had stood to that resolve right through. If he had carried out the implication of his remarks at the meeting with the representatives of the working classes on the mines, we would have been spared a lot of the trouble we have gone through. I need not quote what he said at length, but more than once he gives this tacit assurance that he does not agree with the abolition of the colour bar. Had the acceptance of this in its broad spirit been agreed to, it would have been all for the benefit of peaceful progress, not only of this industry, but of the country generally.

As a layman in the Nationalist party members’ ranks, I venture to express my views on a few points raised during this debate. As I understand it, the Bill is not a new Bill. It is an amendment of an existing Act. Then it comes to me at once: Why, if the Bill of 1911 has not been answering its purpose, did the Opposition not alter this Bill? In the second place, from what I have heard of the speeches here to-day, it is out for vote-catching.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to draw your attention to the fact that there is no quorum in the House.

House counted, and Mr. Speaker declared that a quorum was present.

As I understand this Bill, it is decidedly an improvement on the Act of 1911 in so far as the coloured people are not precluded from working on the mines. The hon. members for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander), Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), and Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) should know a good deal about the coloured people, but I know something about them, too; and if they are not stirred up, and if the Bill is not explained to them in such a way that they think it is to their detriment, they will accept this Bill, and they are going to accept it. What I notice in this Bill, further, and also in other Government Bills, is that it is paving the way to segregation, and this Bill is undoubtedly for the good of the European, including the coloured, as also of the native. Of course this is not a good Bill as far as the gold magnates are concerned, because they are out for cheap labour and huge dividends. Then, as stated by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley), there are thousands of natives employed on the mines who come from outside the Union. There is another little point to which I wish to draw the attention of the House. If the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) is reported correctly, he said this afternoon that the Prime Minister had told them that they did not want coloured men on the mines because the Labour party did not differentiate between coloured and native. I am confident that that was not the statement of the Prime Minister, and I defy the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) to prove it.

You had better quote it correctly first.

I have taken this from the “Cape Argus.” I do not believe it, because I know the policy of the Prime Minister in regard to the European and the coloured man.

I very much regret that the Prime Minister is not here to-night, because I understood from him this afternoon that he is unwilling to accept the amendment of the leader of the Opposition to refer the Bill to a Select Committee before the second reading. I understand now that the Prime Minister is determined to have the second reading accepted before reference to a Select Committee. I clearly understood from a speech which the hon. the Prime Minister made on another subject that he would adopt the hint of the leader of the Opposition in connection with this big problem, namely, that the principle should not first be accepted and the matter thereafter sent to a Select Committee, but to discharge the order for the second reading and refer the contents of the Bill to a Select Committee. If we first of all accept the principle which is contained in the Bill and we send that to the Select Committee, the Select Committee is bound by the principle of the Bill. The Select Committee is only able to bring back the Bill in an amended form. The committee can make an alteration in the machinery of the Bill, but cannot go contrary to or oppose the principle accepted at the second reading. No, there is a serious difference between the Bill going to Select Committee before or after the second reading. If we refer the contents before the second reading to a Select Committee, then such a committee has the right to hear evidence to see if it is possible to draft a Bill there and submit it to the House. There is a great difference between the two points of view, and I am very sorry that in connection with a matter where such a great principle is involved the Prime Minister was apparently first prepared to co-operate with the Opposition and has now departed from his first resolution. He is determined that the House should first accept the principle before sending the Bill to a Select Committee. I want to say that when the leader of the Opposition comes forward in connection with such an important matter of such public policy, and he says to the Prime Minister that he as leader of the Opposition is willing to meet him in connection with this problem and to cooperate in order to see if we cannot go into the matter and draft a Bill which will be acceptable as national legislation and will be supported by the whole House. Here comes the Prime Minister now and says that he cannot accept that offer of the leader of the Opposition but that he is going to press the Bill through.

No, he did not say so.

Let us then clearly understand where we are. Has the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. Conroy) the right to get up and say that the amendment of the leader of the Opposition will be accepted?

No, he is willing to accept the co-operation.

Yes, after the second reading, and that is my whole point. The Prime Minister has on a matter of the most profound importance apparently refused the co-operation of the leader of the Opposition, and I wish to say this: We have heard in the speech of the Prime Minister about segregation—I will not go into the merits of the matter— that the Prime Minister clearly there let it be understood that he had not yet got any settled opinions about segregation. He had nothing definite yet to lay before Parliament, even the Cabinet has not yet taken any decision about this important matter. We, as Opposition, have not tried to make political capital out of the Prime Minister’s position because we know that it is a complicated and difficult matter. We have not tried to criticize the conduct of the Prime Minister because we know that with reference to this very important problem he went to the country with the promise that he was inclined towards a fixed policy in connection with it, and he won thousands of votes by that attitude. We did not take umbrage at it but we said that as it was such a big question and because it was not a political matter we should not take it amiss in him that he has not yet got a fixed policy, and that we were in favour of his having longer time for considering this important matter. But what has now happened? The Prime Minister is not prepared with his segregation policy, but he goes and lays down in this Bill a fixed policy of industrial segregation before he has allotted areas for the natives, before he can say to the natives: here is a territory which you can develop upon industrial and technical lines in your own way, and before he is ready with it he comes through the Minister of Mines and Industries and says to the natives that they will not have the right to develop in this country, but that they will always have to play the part of hewers of wood and drawers of water. He says to the native that he may not develop further, and this before the Government has finally decided upon its policy. There might possibly have been something to say for this matter if the other big matter had first been definitely settled. I do not wish to go deeply into the proposals contained in this Bill, but I want to say that they are in conflict with the sensible and God-fearing education that I had.

What about the race of Ham?

Yes, when one is engaged upon serious matters one has always to do with such ridiculous interjections. The hon. member clearly does not appreciate the seriousness of the matter. We are trying here, and it is our duty to regard the matter as little as possible from a political point of view. I am convinced of it that the principles contained in this Bill go beyond all party interests. Parties will have ceased to exist, and then the results of this measure will still exist in the country. I stand here as a South African who knows no other country and whose children also will know no other country. The question I ask myself is whether it will be for the good and the welfare of the country if I vote for the second reading. Let us take our religious education. From my mother’s knee I was taught to support missions so that the native could be uplifted. It is taught by the church, and was this mere hypocrisy? Were we in earnest, or were we not in earnest? Now we come here with this Bill and we act diametrically in opposition to the teaching of the church to which I belong. The church taught me to help the native along. The church said to me: lift him up and give him a chance of raising himself up in the scale of civilization, in religion, in education, and in other ways. I should like to know how many thousands the Hutch Reformed Church spends every year in raising up the native.

Do we prohibit that in i the Bill?

Just listen to such a question ! We are engaged in raising up the native. The practical question is how we are now treating the native. Are we conflicting with what we have done hitherto, or are we still in the same position? If the Bill is accepted we do not alone apply the colour bar to the Transvaal but to the whole Union and to every work where machinery is used and also in all other works. This is the first time in our history that the colour bar is mentioned in the law.

The former Government has already done so.

I ask the hon. member to point out where the former Government has mentioned the colour bar in a Statute.

Natives may not sit in Parliament.

We are now talking about economic principles. The time will come, give the native a chance, treat him as a human being and the future will take care of itself. But the question is whether we are now doing right under existing circumstances, whether we are doing a fair thing in trying to put such a Bill on the Statute Book. I feel that when a people, whether it be white or coloured is trying as a nation to raise itself, to keep itself going by high wages, by means of legislation then I say such a people have no future before it. Every nation must stand on its own feet. We have hundreds of years of civilization behind our backs and do we now still require legislation to keep our heads above water in opposition to the native? It is not in the interest of the whites in South Africa that such a Bill should be placed upon the Statute Book of the land. I say that the Bill contains a principle of such a far-reaching nature that there are many of us who feel very deeply about the principle although we may perhaps be ready as the Leader of the Opposition has said to take into consideration the enforcement of the provisions which existed in the Transvaal with reference to coloured people in mines. Let the Bill go to a Select Committee before the second reading. It may be possible and acceptable for the Prime Minister and the party behind him to preserve the old class legislation and if the committee comes back with a report on those lines then I am willing to favourably consider the report but as the Bill stands drawing a colour line throughout South Africa and applying the machinery I cannot vote for it. No one can appreciate to-day what the effects will be in the country side if the Minister has power to say possibly that we should not use any natives at all in the future. Take my district where we require hundreds of these people in harvest time and think what the consequences will be if the Minister can make a regulation at harvest time that we must employ no natives at the machinery.

What will you do?

I do not say what I will do. We are accused that we were not in earnest with reference to the colour bar in the Transvaal. Is the hon. Minister now serious? Will the Minister now carry out the provisions of this law?

Naturally.

The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Van Hees) says that the Minister will carry it out and that thus no more natives may be used at the threshing machines in the district of Caledon, I would like to ask how it will go with the mealie farmers in the Transvaal and the Free State. I therefore appeal to the hon. Minister of Mines to refer a matter with such a far-reaching principle first to a Select Committee before the second reading I hope he will agree to this. Perhaps the Select Committee will be able to accept a part of the Bill or one principle in the same form as it is now and then if the Committee comes back to the House with their report then we can see what we shall do but I feel that we have to do here with a much embracing principle and that it would be a violation of my conscience and a violation of the real interests of the people if I were to vote for the second reading.

My remarks on this amendment will be very brief, but there are one or two points which this House should be cognisant of before the matter is finally dealt with. The Government of this country have many and various duties to perform, and the most important one is the safeguarding of the civilization entrusted to them. They cannot do that in a carping or sectional spirit. They must do it without sacrificing the interests of any section of the community or of any body or individual. Who has the largest stake in the preservation of the white civilization of south Africa? Is it those who are reaping the profits from the country or those who are building homes for their families and who are striving to make secure the future for those who come after? Clearly it is the latter; and their views must have serious consideration in legislation of this kind. No member on the Labour benches is in favour of legislation which is going to press unjustly or hardly on any section of the people. It is only when face to face with an impasse or situation, which, if allowed to go on, will become disastrous to the future, not only of the European people of this country but of the natives also, and of civilization itself, that a halt must be called and measures taken by Government to set its feet again on the right way. There is abundant evidence that such circumstances govern the present situation, both economic and social. There is a marked drift towards the exclusion of workers who demand the European standard of living in favour of those who, by reason of their lower standard and lesser wants, can sell their labour more cheaply. If allowed to go on for any considerable further period the position will become irretrievable,” so that it is incumbent upon us to resist that tendency and bring ourselves back to security. This amendment deals almost entirely with one great industry, and a few figures which I have culled relating to that industry may be of interest. To take a comparison between 1911 and 1923, the former a pre-war and strike, the latter a post-war and strike normal year, the ratio of coloured to whites in the former year was 7.7. In 1923 the ratio was 10.1 coloured to one white. Over the same period the tonnage of ore treated increased by 11.6 per cent., indicating that the industry was expanding. Concurrently, the ratio of coloured to white employees increased by 31 per cent. One would naturally expect that this considerably increased output would be, inevitably, accompanied by employment for more workers, both European and coloured. But did it prove so in practice? De find the contrary is the case. We find a decrease in white employment as between 1911 and 1923 of 25.4 per cent. In 1911 the industry employed 23,272 whites, and in 1923 17,357, an actual decrease of 5,915. A startling decrease! A decrease in natives employed also marked this period, viz., of 2.7 per cent. It may be claimed that this is due to the attainment of greater efficiency in working, and we will admit that greater efficiency has been obtained, but that greater efficiency— following up the arguments of our friends on this side of the House (especially those of the hon. member for Zululand)—should have led to increased employment of whites. Here we have the whites using their brains, as well as their muscles, with excellent results, and we find that the increased efficiency is rewarded by a decrease of employment. Bigger profits and millions of tons of low grade ore are brought within the sphere of payability, yet no provision is made to so expand the field that those workers who are displaced by economics shall be absorbed. The decrease in whites was 25.4 per cent. whereas in natives it was only 2.7 per cent.—the latter negligible as compared with the decrease in white employment, the increase in efficiency thus reacting, almost exclusively, to the detriment of the white worker. I quote the following figures from the annual reports of the Secretary for Mines, Industries and the Government Mining Engineer. In 1911 the number of whites in service per 1,000 tons treated per year was .97. In 1923 this figure had fallen to .65—a reduction in ratio of employment in relation to output of 33 per cent. Over the same period and, calculated on the same basis, the reduction in coloured workers was almost 13 per cent. The price of efficiency in reduction of employees thus levied on whites and coloured was as 100 and 40 respectively. Let us quote from another table in the same report, on the basis of 1,000 tons hoisted per day, and the average number of persons at work, we get a reduction in whites of 36 per cent., and of coloured 6 per cent.—also taken over the same period of 1911-’23. To put it in plain words, improved efficiency threw six whites out of employment for every one coloured labourer dispensed with. It does not require any close analysis to demonstrate that there is something seriously wrong here; that the existence of the whites is being seriously threatened, and that some steps are necessary to rehabilitate the white man. We do want security. Anent the remark interjected when the hon. member for Delarey was speaking, apart from humanitarian claims, it would be bad business to involve 10,000 people in risk to their lives just to keep an opening for two in 10,000 who, if so accomplished as claimed for them, would easily find scope for their abilities elsewhere and thus suffer but little disability speaking comparatively. The other point I wish to make is that there is a huge field of industry open elsewhere for natives and Asiatics. In this sphere of employment a colour-bar also operates, but in a manner which does not seem to arouse sympathy or resentment from hon. members of the Opposition. The low standard colour-bar effectually excludes the white from being a competitor with the cheaper coloured worker, and he is, therefore, no menace to the latter, who enjoys an absolutely clear field for himself, whilst his more advanced fellows encroach on, and threaten the existence of, the field for white labour. Therefore we are not treating unjustly one section as against another, because if we are going to follow on the lines of civilized standards, we must take steps to deal with conditions whereby the whites are being absolutely barred out. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is much concerned about the highly-civilized natives, but it struck me he was indulging in special pleading and was not so much concerned with their position as he was with the retention of the much larger number of semi-civilized workers who are being driven down to the barbarism of slum conditions by unfair competition for the benefit of profit-mongers. The hon. member mentioned the 16,500,000 natives (referred to in the census report) with whom the whites of 50 years hence will have to compete. He stopped short, although one would have imagined that he would have suggested some way in which this could be guarded against or provided for. But he did nothing of the kind. I believe that hon. members on this side of the House subscribe to the idea of attracting to South Africa people with money, brains and muscle. If we are to depart from the old method of exploiting the native (“ the muscle of Black Africa ”) we want to raise and also import men with muscle as well as brain, and we are not going to get them in order to build up our industries if the only inducement we have to offer is the wages of natives and uncivilized people. I do not think that members on this side of the House are as much concerned as they ought to be with the future of this country, although they are in no way absolved from the responsibility, because they sit on the Opposition side. They are more responsible to-day, if possible, than the members on the other side, having been in power whilst present conditions were developing. The thought which occurs to me is that we should, if we followed their views, be building up a system in which the white man will be solely concerned with retaining for himself the work of administration and the evolving of a white military caste whose functions will be to rule the inferior workers and provide the defence of the country for the benefit of an oligarchy of financial interests. We expect something more far-seeing and patriotic from those hon. members who are concerned with maintaining the “links of empire.” We have been warned against drawing on our heads the “wrath of Asia.” I should like to make one quotation in regard to the public services in India, to illustrate that there is ample scope for Asia to vent its wrath somewhere nearer home than this country is. This is an announcement that the Secretary for India will make 23 appointments of assistant engineers in the Public Works Department of the Government of India—

That sounds to me like a colour-bar. The regulations go on—

The qualification referred to last is a B.Sc. degree (engineering) in an English university. The commencing salary is Rs. 4560 (£304) per annum. The decision of the Secretary, whether the candidate satisfies these conditions shall be final. Is that a colour bar? Those hon. members who are so much concerned about the ties of empire and wish that this country should make its future existence as a civilized nation subservient to greater interests outside may, perhaps, be able to justify their present attitude and square it with the attitude of Downing Street towards India, I don’t think it possible, but if they can I shall be very much relieved and shall admit that there is a great deal to be said for their arguments. We are not enamoured with the idea of an artificial restriction of any class of labour, but during the period of bridging over from the old system, grown-up haphazardly as a tempting profit-making expedient, to the new it is necessary.

I did not wish to speak, but I must say a few words after the speech of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige). One would have thought just now that he would soon come to the three calves. He makes a plea that we should elevate the natives. He says that his Christian education has taught him that. We have all been brought up as Christians, and we are anxious to do mission work amongst the natives. It is not the object here to prohibit the native from learning the bible, we are not against that, and the Nationalists will keep on helping to do mission work. He has, however, forgotten that there are thousands of white people in the country who have no work and whose places have been taken by the native. The other day a member of the South African Party asked me what was to become of the kafirs. I replied that I heard they were going behind the shop counters in his place, and that he would then have to walk the streets looking for work. I think this will be the case. I must draw this conclusion from the speeches made by the other side. White children are to-day gadding about and leave the farms because there is nothing for them to inherit. The farms are too small, the parents have no ground to give them, and they cannot make a living there. And the kafir comes and takes their places. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) has talked about the threshing machines and that no natives will be able to work them any longer. Now he says that they require natives at the threshing machines. I can only tell him that in the whole district, of Bredasdorp no kafirs work on the threshing machines but coloured persons. We must protect the coloured persons, together with the whites, and these are the very people that the hon. member has referred to, and he speaks of kafirs who are being pushed out. I think if the hon. member for Caledon goes any further in this way then he will get a long distance and he must not refer to religion. We have also read about the race of Ham. The kafirs must enjoy preference before the whites and the coloured people. I cannot understand the arguments of hon. members opposite, perhaps the native vote has something to do with it. If ever a useful law was introduced then it is this one. First hon. members came and said that they were so anxious to co-operate, but the hon. member for Witwatersberg (Lt.-Col. N. J. Pretorius) has said that he would shoot the kafirs. Now we have never yet shot, we treat them in a civilized and decent manner. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) has pleaded a great deal for the natives, but the hon. member for Witwatersberg (Lt.-Col. N. J. Pretorius) wants to shoot them. They do not speak consistently, no, the kafir vote is behind it. We hear them pleading so much for the kafir, but we know what the reason is. I will vote for the second reading, and if there is no other means then we must have another night sitting to dispose of the matter.

From the attitude of hon. members on the other side one would fancy that the capitalists are responsible for the poor white problem. If we consider the problem we find the poor whites have drifted in from the farms. The natives were the original workers on the mines. Whilst we had to import miners from Europe twenty-five years ago and those who are now poor whites were those who lived on the farm and earned their livelihood from agriculture. I don’t think anyone here will refute that statement. As the mines developed and wealth increased in the cities the farmers realized they could better make use of the farms, and therefore pushed off the whites, the bijwoner class.

It is an incorrect statement.

I had the experience in the very constituency of the hon. member who has spoken just now. A farmer had a number of poor whites and as a result of the drought there was no work, and they were forced to leave the farm and obtain employment in the cities. They have been gradually pushed off the land owing to its increased value and have gone into the towns. It is a fact that hon. members on the other side should recognize. Don’t try to verbally chastise us by saying we are the capital party on this side. I have no interest in capital; I live amongst the natives. But if these natives are going to get “civilized wages” of £10 or £15 a month, I soon shall be a capitalist, but that will never take place. The hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers) made a naive statement. He said that the Prime Minister—

I am sure the Prime Minister could not have confided in him to that extent. Why, he told this House a day or two ago that he had not yet definitely decided upon his native policy; his Cabinet had no policy yet. And yet members from the back benches get up and say they know the policy of the Prime Minister. He went a little further and said—

That is what, in essence, he said. I wish to say that I know very little or nothing about the coloured population, but I do know something about the native population. Throughout my constituency natives are already holding large meetings to discuss the policy of the present Government. I believe that the Prime Minister is very honest and sincere and wholehearted in his endeavours to deal with the native population in this country, but I feel that he has influences behind him, party influences as well as influences on the cross-benches, that are forcing him to take certain steps which he, in his heart, does not sympathize with. I agree with the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) when he stated that it was his impression a few days ago, from the statement made by the Prime Minister, that he intended to follow out the suggestion of the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) and take this matter outside the scope of a discussion on the floor of this House. I feel that he was right, because I believe that every time the native question is brought on to the floor of this House, and discussed from the point of view of party politics, it becomes more involved and more difficult, and eventually we will find it impossible to solve. There was the response of the hon. member for Delarey to the appeal of the Prime Minister this afternoon to keep this matter out of the arena of party politics in the very first member of that side who got up, and I believe that he said more in five minutes to antagonize the natives against the policy of the Prime Minister than has been said in this House throughout the debates that have taken place during the last three days. He said that the Nationalist Party are giving a Magna Charta to the coloured people, thus clearly dividing the coloured people from the natives. Does the Prime Minister think that statements of that kind are going to conduce towards the good feeling of the natives? Does the Prime Minister think that the natives are going to sit still while they are put on a plane with the Asiatics, men who are foreigners to this country? The hon. member for Somerset (Mr. Fourie) said—

Is the hon. member prepared, when a certain Bill comes before this House the Electoral Bill, to move that the words “European descent” be erased from the Act of Union, and allow coloured people to sit in this House? Will he support a measure of that kind? And is the coloured man going to remain satisfied? Is he going to take these rights and not ask for further political rights as well? Let me ask the hon. members of the Government Party another question. Are they prepared to bring legislation in the Free State to remove the embargo against the coloured man owning property? Of course they are not, and, therefore, I think the House will realize, and does realize,—if I use the word “hypocrisy” I may be ruled out of order—the whole country realizes that hon. members over there are not genuine in saying that they are trying to assist the coloured man in this country, and in doing so are prepared to push the native aside. Do hon. members really think that the coloured people of this country are so blind and ignorant that they do not realize what the exact position is? I wonder what the miners in the Transvaal will say when told that the coloured man in future has a right to work alongside them at the same rate of pay and at the same work? I wonder when the coloured men go up there what will be their reception? They will not be allowed to compete against the white man by the Labour organizations. To come back to the point, the Prime Minister in allowing this legislation to go through at this stage without in any way trying to get the views and sympathy of the natives, is not acting in the true interest of the country or of the natives. There is a feeling of suspicion in this country, a growing feeling on the part of the natives that they are not receiving fair treatment. On the 14th of this month they are having a meeting at Johannesburg at which hundreds of representative natives are going to attend. I do not say that there has been no cause for grievance in the past, but after measures like this have been passed you are going to unite them in grievances that really do exist. This feeling is stronger to-day and seems to have more cause for growth than ever before. I am approaching the matter more from the view of the Prime Minister. I believe he is honestly desirous of doing his duty by these natives. If, in the first instance, he approaches them, after fostering their antagonism as is done in this measure; if he does nothing to allay suspicion, if he allows legislation like this to be brought before the country, it is hopeless for him to expect to ever get the natives to sympathize with his policy, whether of territorial segregation or any other. I believe honestly that the Prime Minister is making one of the greatest possible mistakes in allowing this legislation to go through at this stage. Hon. members on the other side know that this case came before Mr. Justice Krause in 1923 and they admit that the Chamber of Mines have not attempted to make use of that decision; have not attempted to evade the colour bar, but have carried on as previously.

No.

I think we have evidence on that point, and that they do not intend to take advantage of it.

You do not agree with your leader?

I agree with my leader in every word he stated the other day, when he appealed to the Prime Minister to let us meet and discuss this matter, not on the floor of the House. The attitude of the leader of the Opposition, I believe to have been in the best interests of the country. May I put this attitude before the House? Do hon. members not think that the native in being bracketed with the Asiatic has a real cause for grievance? It has never been done before. In my particular constituency we have no Asiatics, and they are looked down on by the natives. I think the natives themselves are going to resent being bracketed with foreigners and told they have no greater rights in this country than the Asiatics. It is unwise to bring the two sections, native and Asiatic together, with common grievances. I have before me here—the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Van Hees) should take special notice of this—I have a record of examination successes at Fort Hare—the only native college in this country, and which is subsidized by the Union Government. There are thirty passes. I would like to read a few of the names of the students who have taken high degrees. They comprise Indians, Malays, coloured people and natives from Natal, Bechuanaland, Transvaal, Basutoland, and all parts of the Union. These people are going to the same institution, are being educated by the State, and will become the leaders of the natives and coloured people of this country. To-day, as we all know, the young politician is being educated at the South African College and at Stellenbosch, and in the same way the leaders of the coloured people are being educated at Lovedale and Fort Hare, and you are bringing them together. Is this Government going to do anything for the coloured man along educational lines to segregate him from the native? I think not. These facts, coming before the House should make us realize that we must be extremely careful in dealing with matters affecting both the coloured and the native peoples.